*He’s going to take the job.
He calls to tell me only a few hours after he drops me off at my apartment. I know what he’s going to say even before he speaks the words aloud. He tells me that Tim Renley wants him to start as soon as possible. He’s flying out this week.
I’m in a fog the next day at work. I keep replaying our last argument over and over again in my head. I try to live out different scenarios in my mind, but they all seem to end the same way.
Maybe this was the right decision for both of us. He needs to find himself, and I need to focus on the Center. Even before I knew about his job offer, things were rocky. What we had was like an insane sexual fantasy, but deep down we both must have known that we would never work in the real world—we just never wanted to admit it to ourselves.
But the truth comes out, one way or another.
And I can never seem to catch a break.
My dad storms into my office at exactly 8:32 AM, and he looks positively murderous.
“Have you seen this?” he demands, throwing a copy of Intown Voice down on my desk. “Our friend Asher Julian sent a whole stack of them over.”
I never even had a chance to look at the cover back at the diner, but there it is, my face staring back at me beneath the headline, “VICTIMS OF THE CUNNINGHAMS: A Story of Desperation and Dirty Deeds.”
“Mr. Julian seems to believe that you were having some sort of—of love affair with Calder Cunningham,” my dad sputters. “It’s rubbish. I can’t believe he’d make up such a scandal to push a few extra copies. I thought Intown Voice was a respectful publication.”
It would be easy for me to nod and play along with his outrage. After all, Asher Julian manipulated me. But I’m too emotionally exhausted to keep up the walls any longer. There’s no point in lying now.
“Actually, Dad, I need to tell you something.”
I keep it vague, of course. I tell him only what he needs to know: that I tried to convince Calder to give us the money his father had promised us, that I developed feelings for him, that he and I have been secretly dating these past few weeks. My dad’s eyes go wide when I begin my story, and by the end he’s practically purple.
But he doesn’t shout. No, that’s what makes it so horrible. He looks at me and asks in a strained voice, “So what the story says is true?”
“Yes,” I say. “I mean—no, not exactly as the article says it. He didn’t trick me into anything or take advantage of me. I’m not a victim.”
“You were in a very vulnerable position—”
“Dad. Do you seriously not trust me to take care of myself?”
“It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s him. That smarmy, worthless—”
“He’s not like that,” I insist, standing. “I know how the tabloids make him look, but he’s a good man. He’s strapped for money and still he sent me a friggin’ Ludlam for freak’s sake.”
I watch the truth about the Ludlam’s previous owner sink in.
“Men will buy you all sorts of things, honey,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean you have to give them whatever they want.”
“I never gave him anything I didn’t want to give.”
Ugh, this is not the conversation I want to be having with my dad right now.
“Not that it even matters,” I say quickly. “It’s over. He’s moving to New York, and I’ll probably never see him again.”
That calms my dad down a little. He turns a more natural shade of pink.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says stiffly. “But sometimes these things happen for a reason. Whatever went on between you and Calder Cunningham—did you really expect it to last? After how he treated us?”
He did the best he could, I think. You have no idea what he’s been dealing with. But I don’t say it out loud. There’s no point in arguing it now. Not when it hurts so much just to think of him.
“Mr. Julian seems to think that we’ll get some extra attention by playing on people’s sympathy,” I say, unable to keep the edge of bitterness from my voice. “He certainly did a good job of making me look sympathetic.” More like plain old pathetic, but I keep that thought to myself.
“But at what cost? I hate that he’s cast you in the middle of all this nonsense.”
“Well, I was in the middle. Or at least on the periphery.”
“Still.” He reaches out and places his hand over mine on the desk. Most of his anger has dissipated for the moment in the wake of Overprotective Dad Mode. “I don’t care how much something helps the Center if it comes at some great cost to you.”
“It’s a little late this time,” I say. “Asher got his cover story, and chances are this will be picked up by some larger outlets soon. We might as well make the best of the situation.” I sink back down in my chair and turn to my computer. “We should prepare some press packets. I imagine our phones are going to be ringing off the hook this week.”
“Are you sure, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” I say, giving him the best smile I can muster under the circumstances. “We need to make sure that we come out of this looking capable and resourceful. We need to prepare blanket responses for the big questions we’re likely to hear. Figure out a general game plan about how we’re going to shift the focus to our programs and all the things we’re doing for the community. Show them the success story, not the scandal.”
Dad nods, but he still looks at least moderately unconvinced.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he says. “If you need to take a half day—”
“I’m fine, I promise,” I say, “I need—I need to do something. I need to be productive.”
He nods. “I’ll get to work on some press packets.” He turns to go but pauses at the door. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
I collapse against my chair as soon as he’s out of sight. It’s not even nine o’clock and already I feel completely drained. And there are a thousand things to do to prepare for the onslaught I suspect we’re about to encounter.
He’s left the copy of Intown Voice on my desk. I know I should throw it away, but I can’t help staring back down at my picture. The image they selected for the cover is even worse than the one accompanying the article inside. How many awkward candid shots did Asher capture of me? I look desperate, anxious, weak. Why couldn’t they have chosen the one he took of me standing proudly in front of the wall of our students’ art in the gallery?
A Story of Desperation and Dirty Deeds, it says. I flip open to the article. I only skimmed it back at the diner, but now I allow myself to read every single word.
At first, I assumed Asher just made some lucky guesses about my interaction with Calder, but now that I read more closely, I realize that he was quite busy behind the scenes. He’s the first one to identify me as the woman in the paparazzi photos from my date with Calder at the park. He mentions that he discovered the truth about the Ludlam painting by researching auction records. His knowledge of my secret trip out to the Cunningham estate a few months ago came from a “well-respected source” who “chose to remain anonymous” because of his acquaintance with me.
If that’s not Garrett, I’ll eat my own foot.
Maybe Asher reached out to my ex after his name came up during our interview. Or maybe Asher’s disgust with Garrett was all a ruse—maybe they knew each other all along. It doesn’t matter where the truth lies. Either way, the effects are the same. Asher got his cover story, Garrett got some revenge, and Calder is gone.
If I see any of them again, they’re dead.
A story of desperation and dirty deeds. It makes me sick to think that this is the legacy of my time with Calder. I spent the last few weeks trying to convince myself that what he and I had was something special, something meaningful. Something that comes along once in a lifetime, if that. But maybe I was right when I told myself our entire relationship was like a vivid dream. It was intoxicating, exhilarating, and more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced—but ultimately insubstantial. It’s time to wake up, and before long my time with Calder will fade into memory like every other creation of my desperate subconscious.
I don’t realize I’m crying until the teardrop hits the paper. I sniffle and wipe my cheek.
Look at me. I’m a wreck.
I need to pull myself together. I need to prepare for the media circus that is sure to show up at our doors. But I can’t bring myself to look back at my computer. I can’t tear my eyes from the paper lying on my desk.
I grab it. Rip off the cover. Flip to the article and pull out every page, one by one. And when I’m certain I’ve removed every mention of myself or Calder or the Center from the weekly, I begin to shred them, tearing them into tiny little pieces.
There are bits of paper everywhere. I sweep my hand across my desk, scattering the scraps across the office.
I get up and shut my office door, hoping Dad gets the hint and leaves me to myself for a while. And then I slide down against the wall until I’m sitting on the floor.
The tears come hard and fast.
This wasn’t supposed to end like this. I love him. God, I love him.
Part of me wants to call him, to tell him how I feel, to beg him to stay. But it’s precisely because I love him that I can’t do that. He needs to find his way in this world, and I won’t do anything to hold him back.
I just wish it had ended differently. I wish my last image of him wasn’t the stony-faced farewell he gave me when he dropped me off at my apartment yesterday. What we had deserves more than that.
He understood me—he saw things that even I didn’t know about myself. He brought out a wild, wicked side of me that I normally keep hidden away. He saw the fear and the pain inside of me and drew me up and away from it.
I thought I understood him, too. I still do, I think. He’s a proud man—but a good one. He hates to ask for help, even when he needs it. He’s essentially starting over in his life, and he needs to know that he can take care of himself, solve his own problems. I wanted—want—to be his support system, but he doesn’t realize that it’s not a weakness to allow others to share his burden.
Knowing that doesn’t make this situation any easier. If anything, it makes me feel worse.
There’s a stabbing pain in the side of my stomach, and I curse myself for being so melodramatic. I’m a grown woman with a thousand things to do, and I’m sitting here on the floor sobbing over a man I only officially dated for a few short weeks.
A few short, amazing weeks.
I force that thought from my mind and drag myself to my feet. Wallowing in self-pity won’t accomplish anything. I need to get my shit together before the reporters start showing up on our doorstep. Blubbering is not going to help the Center.
I dab at my eyes with my sleeve. One way or another, I need to get through this, and I have a feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that if I’m not careful, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
*
They come in droves.
The bolder ones walk right into the Center and ask for interviews and sound bites. The sneakier ones wait by my car. Or outside my apartment. I thought I was ready for the onslaught of photographers and reporters, but I’m not. Not even close.
They call at all hours. My carefully prepared answers are flimsy against the men and women who’ve built careers on their ability to wheedle secrets out of people. I thought that giving them basic information about the situation here at the Center would be the best course of action—that it would make us look friendly and cooperative, like we have nothing to hide. But engaging those leeches at all only seems to make them hungrier. It gets to the point where I’m afraid to answer the phones, and I’d happily ignore the constant ringing if it weren’t for our clients and students. Some of the sneakier journalists have even managed to get my cell number, and I have to start blocking every unknown call that shows up on my screen.
We’ve had to push our classes back a week. I hate to do it, but it’s just too much on top of all this insanity.
I get by by reminding myself that we’re getting tons of free publicity. We’ve already had a few people contact us about donating, and Morgan claims she saw a fundraising campaign online. I’ve been avoiding the internet completely. The pictures that were taken in the parking lot the day Calder and I made our escape to his estate have been making the rounds on all the major gossip sites. I never realized how much information I had on the web until people were suddenly eager to find it—now personal details of my life are being reposted everywhere. People are writing comments about my clothes, my weight, my hair. Strangers have started contacting me at all of my social media accounts—some offering sympathy, others calling me a slut.
Oddly enough, the only place I’ve found that seems to treat the entire Cunningham situation with any sort of sense is the site where Garrett contributes. Granted, they were never the sort of publication that posted gossip; they value facts over speculation and scandal. But I’m still a little shocked to see that they’ve posted several pieces on the situation, breaking down the likeliest financial scenarios point by point. They’re the first source I’ve seen to strongly suggest that there was no foul play or illegal activity involved in the family’s downfall.
Garrett is listed as a contributing writer on one of the pieces, which under different circumstances I’d find highly amusing. Instead, it just reminds me of the horrible decisions I’ve made concerning men.
Asher Julian calls on Wednesday. I hang up as soon as I hear his voice. Why do I seem to attract all the asshole journalists?
The entire week feels designed to keep me too preoccupied to think about Calder—while at the same time ensuring that I’m reminded of our brief, passionate affair at every turn. The only thing keeping me from going completely insane is Morgan, who shows up at my office every day with coffee and a giant cookie. She’s asked me more than once if I want to talk about how things ended between me and Calder, but I was never the sort of girl who cried about men to her girlfriends, even when I had more than just the one.
I much prefer to cry into a bottle of whiskey by myself every night.
I’m already thinking about that whiskey when I pull into my apartment’s parking lot Thursday evening. I’m exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and I’m considering treating myself to a bath as well.
I glance around for reporters as I get out of my car. A few of them have been coming by here, but most have realized that, outside of my fling with Calder, I live a pretty unremarkable life. Plus I’m significantly more likely to answer their questions over at the Center. Those that believe it’s okay to harass me at home don’t even get the time of day.
The coast looks clear tonight. I lock up my car and head over to the stairs. I’m halfway up the first flight when the man comes out of the shadows and shoves a digital recorder in my face.
“Ms. Frazer, just a few questions.”
“No,” I tell him, brushing past.
He follows me. “I’ll be quick, Ms. Frazer, I promise! Tell me, what is the current state of your relationship with Calder Cunningham?”
I ignore him. Usually they get the hint.
But the man continues his pursuit. “Did he take advantage of your desperation? Did he promise you anything in exchange for sex?”
This guy’s even worse than the usual bunch. He makes my stomach turn. Thank God I’m almost to my floor.
“Did he make you beg for it?” he asks my back. “Or did he just pay for it outright?”
That’s it. I spin around and face him. He’s a smallish man with a red beard and squinty eyes that make my skin crawl.
“I’m not going to answer any of your questions. Now leave me alone or I’ll call the cops.”
“Oh, come on, slut. I thought you wanted the attention.”
The next few moments are a blur.
Something inside of me snaps. My hand darts out, and I don’t know whether I’m trying to push him away or smack him upside the head, but I knock the digital recorder from his hand. It flies from his fingers, soaring over the side of the stairway and shattering against the concrete of the parking lot below.
“You bitch!” he screams. Before I even have the chance to throw up an arm in self-defense, his fist flies at my face.
I don’t remember the impact. But I remember white lights flaring across my vision, and after that the sensation of falling—down, down, down, until suddenly the white lights were gone and my entire world was darkness.