Chapter Twenty-Four
BETHANY
I went straight home after Gavin dropped me off at his house. We didn’t say a word to each other before I left. I was too embarrassed to say anything to him, and I was afraid of to hear what he was thinking, so I didn’t even want to ask him. I just wanted to get away from him as soon as I could. I cried the whole car ride home, and when I got there, I called April to let her know what happened. She could barely understand me over the phone, so she told me that she would be at my place as soon as she could.
I climbed into my bed and buried my head into the pillow, crying out loud because I knew that I probably just screwed my chances with Gavin. Not only that, but now he knew what I used to do before I got to Roanoke, and I didn’t even get the chance to tell him myself. “Bethany?” April called out. Her voice echoed off the walls as she shut the door behind her. “Bethany? Where are you?”
I sniffled. “I’m in here, April. I’m in my room.”
She came inside as I had my face buried into the pillow. I felt her get onto the mattress, and seconds later, she put her arm around me for comfort. “Come on, Beth, it’s gonna be alright. What happened? I thought you were going to tell him tonight?”
I wiped my eyes clear. “I was. I was going to tell him tonight just like you said I should, but we got to the restaurant, and before I could say anything, this guy walks up to our table. I immediately knew who he was because he was one of my best customers. I tried to brush it off as if he had me confused, but it was no use. He knew, and I knew he did. He spent a lot of money with me, you know?” She handed me a Kleenex as I continued, “Anyways, he called me Mystique, and that was the name I went by back then. He called me that, and my heart sunk beneath the table. I just wanted to disappear. I looked at Gavin, and his eyes were wide, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. Tears continued flowing from my eyes like streams, and the Kleenex barely worked at keeping my face dry. “Anyway, after I failed at trying to convince him that I was not Mystique, I got up and ran out of the restaurant. As soon as Gavin came outside, I told him the truth. After that, he didn’t say a word. He didn’t say a word to me, April. We just got in his car, and he drove me back to his house so I could get my car, then I left. He didn’t say a word to me, April. Nothing. He fuckin’ hates me now, and I know it! He probably thinks I am some whore or something!”
I buried my head into her shoulder as she stroked my hair with her hand. “Ssssh, ssssh, don’t cry, Beth. Don’t cry. You don’t know what he is thinking because you didn’t ask him, and it is not fair to assume. Now, it probably caught him off guard, and he just didn’t know what to say, but that doesn’t mean–”
“It means everything, April! Gavin is not the type of person who never knows what to say. I should’ve known this shit would blow up in my face because it was all going too good. It was too fuckin’ perfect. His son loved me. Me and Gavin had chemistry from day one. It was great, but now I know it was all a fuckin’ set up because nothing in my life is ever supposed to go well. I always have shit the fuckin’ hard way! I may as well go back to my fuckin’ ex and let him abuse me because that is all it seems like I deserve!”
“Bethany, you stop that right now! Stop it!” She grabbed a hold of my shoulders and stared me in the eyes. “You will not have a damned pity party on my watch! Look, we all make mistakes! We all have things that we have done in the past that we are not happy about. Hell, I’ve had a threesome before. Actually,” she shook her head, “they don’t call it a threesome when you have sex with two men. I don’t know why, but they don’t. Anyways, I did it. I’ve had sex with two men at once. I’ve gotten drunk and took my top off at parties. I’ve done a lot of dumb shit when I was younger, but we all have, and I’m sure Gavin has, too. Nobody is immune from it, so stop talking down to yourself because of your mistakes.”
“No, April. This is different. I mean, this has probably fucked up the only relationship I could’ve ever had. I left Richmond to start over, but now, it just seems like my past won’t let me go. First, it’s my ex, and now, it’s this. How the fuck does this guy just have to be in the same restaurant, at the same time, in another fucking city? This shit is completely ridiculous, April, and it is all I need to convince me that love is not for me. Shit. I may as well be a fucking nun.”
“Well, I don’t think you could be a nun. I think you like sex too much for that, and from what I hear, the nuns don’t get none.”
I tried to hold my laughter in, but it didn’t work. I wiped tears from my eyes, “Shut up, April! Stop trying to make me laugh. I don’t want to laugh right now.”
She scooted closer to me, “Listen, if Gavin can’t understand that you used to be a stripper to make money to survive, if he can’t understand that we’ve all done stupid things when we were younger, then hell, maybe he is not for you. Maybe he is too much of a goodie-goodie to understand something like that, and trust me, you don’t want a man like him.”
“But, I do, April. I want a man exactly like him. He was fucking perfect for me. From the way he treated me to the way he made me feel. Like, damn, I don’t think I will be able to find anybody else like him.”
“Beth, you just have to live. You never know. Maybe he was just a set up for another man. Maybe he was there to get you warmed up for the man of your dreams. Who knows. Then again, maybe he is fine with the fact that you used to be a stripper. I mean, you aren’t one anymore, and that is the most important thing. You are making an honest living, and you are trying to do things the right way. Going to school to better yourself. You even moved to another city to get away from all that mess. It has to count for something.”
“Yeah. It should, but who knows, April? Who knows?”
She sat with me for a few more hours, talking and eating spoonfuls of ice cream to try and ease my pain. The cold did nothing to numb my feelings though, and no matter how much I ate, I couldn’t shake the thought that I had lost Gavin. After she left, I locked the door and went back to my room, burying my head into the pillow like an ostrich into the ground. I hoped that Gavin would call me because I was too afraid to call him. I didn’t want to reach out just for it to be an awkward silence on the phone, or even worse, I didn’t want to call him just so he could tell me that he no longer wanted to see me. I couldn’t take that heartbreak. Not right now. Not ever.
I curled up on the mattress with my dress on and my phone right by my head as tears cascaded down the sides of my face. I had everything in my hands, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, it all seemed like it was snatched away from me. No matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t escape my past, but now I realized that the only way I could deal with it was by confronting it. I should’ve told him everything earlier, and if I had, we would have never been in this position. He would’ve either broken it off then or showed me that it wasn’t a big deal to him. But now, with all my feelings attached, I didn’t know what I would do if he wanted to break it off. As I laid by the phone, it never rang, and the deafening silence was enough to send me into a state of depression.