| |
I spend most of the day in bed.
Thankfully, my parents don’t bother with my hysterics other than giving me a phone call during their lunch periods to have our daily check-in, making sure that we’re all safe and alive. By the time evening rolls around, I’ve taken a shower and put on enough makeup that I look like I haven’t cried my eyes out, copying one of my sister’s makeup tutorials off of her channel, and I magically make my look somewhat close to her finished look by the end.
It’s nothing really revolutionary since I don’t have the multi-chrome eyeshadows that my sister has (she won’t give me those unless I pry them from her cold, dead hands in her coffin), so my eyes don’t look as interesting or as multidimensional as hers. I heavily contour my face, cutting out my cheekbones so they’re sharp enough to kill a man, and there’s just something about the idea of hurting someone with my looks alone that makes me feel powerful.
I pair it all with a dark lipstick, topping it with a gloss so that once I get inside the club, my lips will shine against the lights.
I wear my usual workwear, dressed from head to toe in black, shirt cut low enough to hint at the goods, showing off the temp tattoo I add for flavor, and honestly, it gets me more tips, so why not? I pile my hair high up on my head and switch out my earrings so I’ve got dangling hoops. I add some necklaces that dip into my cleavage, and some heavy bracelets and rings, like I’m putting on armor, but instead of protecting vital organs, this set is enticing people to look at me, to pay attention to me.
The more people I serve by the end of the night, the more money I get, so it’s a win-win.
It doesn’t take me long to get to the club, and yeah, I chicken out and go to work a few minutes early, hoping I won’t run into Callum as I get inside.
I don’t see his car in the parking lot, and I don’t see him in the back room where I store my stuff and lock up my locker. I don’t see him when I get out on the floor and start getting my station ready, double checking my stock, taking a mental note of what I need as backups and how many as the night’s going to progress. I log onto my cash register and take note of the inventory, writing it out quickly while shift change has yet to fully switch over.
Once that’s done, there’s nothing left to do but work, and look around, and work, and wonder if Callum is watching the floor tonight, or he’s volunteered for duty outside because the weather’s getting warmer and it might be more pleasant for him all around.
I focus on my work, try to pay attention, and it’s a point of pride that I just try and turn my brain off and concentrate on the tasks at hand I even happen to convince myself that I could get through the entire night without seeing him even once.
I don’t allow myself to think about Callum and Luna, and I don’t allow myself to reminisce while I’m working.
All bets are off, though, when I take my fifteen-minute break, heading outside for a breath of fresh air, or however fresh I’m going to get in an alley.
I walk toward the mouth of the alley, toward the busy street, heart thumping all the harder, an odd mixture of nervous and elated to find out if Callum is standing outside or not. I turn the corner, expecting to find him there with Derek, one of the other guys that works security, but I don’t see Callum.
I don’t see Callum.
I slump. So it looks like he’s avoiding me, too.
Great.
It’s better then for the both of us to take a break, to try and figure ourselves out before we come back to teach other and actually talk. Hell, I hope he wants to talk to me, I have so many things to tell him, and three words that are the most important of all.
Is this what you want, Izzy, or do you want Callum?
Work goes by even more slowly after that, as if the fact that Callum isn’t here affects time and space, or at least my perception of it.
The drive home is just as lonely, and I wonder how I’m going to keep doing this the rest of the week, waiting to see Callum at work, maybe only to find that he’s not coming in.
Honestly, there’s no other chance to see him. School’s done, and I’ve been working on my take-home finals, so there’s no reason to make a trip down to class for any reason at all. So working at L’Arsenale was the only part of my day where I could be seeing him.
When I get home, I creep upstairs to my childhood bedroom so I don’t wake up my parents, I close myself off behind my bedroom door, only to find that I have a few messages on my phone that I didn’t notice when I get off work.
Yeah, right, you’ve been avoiding your phone like the plague.
There’s a message from Evie, and then a missed phone call. Her voicemail is just her telling me that she got home all right, and that she wanted to see how I’m doing. There’s a few messages in the group chat: Max, Amber, and Vick bickering over the text line about Vick’s upcoming nuptials at the tail-end of the summer, where all of us are going to melt and die, but at least we’ll all have stunning pictures.
There’s a private message from my sister outside of the Prewitt family chat where she asks me how my work shift went, and since the last message was sent no less than twenty minutes ago, I shoot her back an answer, letting her know that Callum didn’t show up.
And finally there’s a message from Callum that has my heart racing and thudding, my thumb hovering over the text block trying to decide if I want to read it right now before going to bed.
My eyes are gritty and sandy, like silt at the bottom of a lake, and I need to take off all of my makeup and put at least some moisturizer on my face or I’ll crack into a million pieces come tomorrow morning with my crocodile skin.
I decide not to look at the text; I decide to wait for early afternoon when I wake up normally to deal with what Callum has to say to me.
When I come back to bed after washing up and changing out of my work clothes, it’s to find that I’ve missed a call from my sister.
I call her back and get a sleepily whispered “Hello?”
“Shit, you just called me, I didn’t think you were going to be asleep,” I hiss, keeping my voice pitched low. Sound travels oddly in the middle of the night, and I don’t want to wake up my parents, even though my bedroom door is closed. I’m huddled underneath the covers, like a little kid trying to hide from the nightmares.
“Well, I don’t know, it just happened. It’s not like I did it on purpose, you little shit.”
I groan, too exhausted to move, too heart-sore that I didn’t get to see Callum tonight.
“Fine. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Max makes an aborted sound in her throat, then coughs a little. I wonder if she’s sleeping next to her boyfriend, if she’s disturbing his slumber too, all because I can’t get my head out of my ass. “No, no. Let’s talk now. I’m up, I’m up.”
I snort. “Yeah, yeah. We can talk tomorrow, don’t worry about it,” I say, stuffing my fist hard against my lips, trying to stifle the sound of my strangled words. My throat aches, and my nose stings, all while my eyes well and spill over with tears.
“Izzy, you sound upset. I’m here, you just have to talk to me.”
I sigh slowly, breath coming out all shaky. “I just...I’m sad about all this.”
“I know, I know you are. Why don’t we talk about it, hmm?”
“Aren’t you there with...uh, Logan? Aren’t you busy?”
“He slept over, but he doesn’t get to dictate my time when my little sister needs to talk. So talk, Izzy. Tell me what’s up. Did something bad happen at work? You said that Callum didn’t show up.”
“He...he didn’t. He didn’t even show up to work. What if he quit his job? I know he’s taking classes next semester, but our schedules didn’t sync up this time around, so who knows if I’ll ever see him again, Max? What the hell is this? He comes into my life, and I lose my shit over him, fall head over freaking heels, I’m pretty sure, and then he just ups and disappears, just like that?” I attempt to snap my fingers in the dark, but that doesn’t work out so well for me. “I don’t understand any of this. I really don’t.”
“Why don’t you talk to him, Iz? Why don’t you call him up and ask him what he wants? If he’s the kind of guy you think he is, he’s going to ask you what you want, too, and you go from there.”
“I just...I just can’t believe that it’s basically been almost forty-eight hours since I last saw him—don’t judge me, I’m not good at math—and I’m hurting this much. What does that say about me? Does that make me weak?”
Max snorts, and I can just see her laughing at me. “No, kiddo. No. It doesn’t make you weak, not at all. It makes you strong because you’re willing to put yourself out there. Look, I can’t tell you if you’ve fallen in love with Callum or not, I can’t do that for you. You know yourself, right? You have to make that decision for yourself, once and for all. Here, think about this: If Callum walks out of your life forever, if you never ever see him again after what happened yesterday, how would you feel?”
“Why are we even talking about this? He wouldn’t just up and leave like that, he wouldn’t. Shit, I don’t know, Max.” I sniff hard and use my sheet to wipe away the tears leaking out of my eyeballs. I’m going to have to get up soon to nab a roll of toilet paper to deal with the snotty mess that is my nose, but I just got comfortable, so sniffling hard it’s going to be until I can breathe out of both nostrils again.
“Max, I don’t know what I would do...I’d be really fucking sad and upset, okay? I’d wonder to myself if I missed my shot. I’d think about him a lot. I know I would. My life has been one big regret, and I don’t want to regret this, too.”
“Regret? What do you regret?” Max sounds alarmed, and honestly, how could she not know?
Maybe because you don’t talk to anybody really, besides Evie, who’s your best friend dealing with her own shit.
Do I tell her, do I lay it all out there? This is my sister we’re talking about, one of the world’s greatest overachievers and a workaholic to the point where I think she could get sick from all the stress.
“I regret my entire life, Max. I’m not like you. School was really hard for me, okay? Like, really hard. I didn’t get shit as fast as the other kids did, so I didn’t take any of it seriously. It’s a miracle I went to university at all, that I passed all my classes. I’m telling you, a miracle!” I sigh, my tightening throat flaring hot with pain.
“I regret not working harder or taking remedial classes. I regret not being serious about my studies, instead of going to parties and shit. I regret not wanting more for myself, and not seeing how the now would lead to a better future. I regret living here at home, even though I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head, but shit, it’s so hard not trying to compare myself to all those assholes I knew back in high school and all those milestones they’ve met that I just haven’t.”
“It’s hard, right?” Max says, and I sort of feel myself...deflate.
“You know what I’m talking about?”
“Of course, I do. Of course. I invented regret.”
It’s my turn to stifle a watery giggle, and I sniff hard again, finally getting my ass up and to my bathroom to get a roll of toilet paper and bring it with me back to bed. “You have everything so together, though.”
Max scoffs. “It’s all about faking it. I make these huge checklists, always overestimating what I’m capable of, so I basically set myself up for failure every single day. It’s something I’m working on and being better with my time management so I’m not working all of the time, but yeah, I understand regret, kiddo.”
“But you have your own condo, and your own life outside of here.”
“Izzy, it’s gonna be your condo soon, right?”
“No, it’s still going to be yours, but I’m going to pay you rent at the sisterly-wage and that’s the that on that.” I sigh. “I just...I just wish I was better. I wish I had my life together like you do.”
“Life’s all about hills and valleys, though, Iz. You’re coasting for a bit, and then you hit a valley. You keep pressing through a low point in your life until you read the summit of that hill. It’s a lesson I keep trying to tell myself, too.”
I think about her boyfriend, Logan, and all the grief he’s currently going through. And honestly, the guy’s freaking lucky that my sister decided to stay his girlfriend. Seriously.
Lucky.
I sigh. “I’m afraid of falling short of my goals. I don’t want to live with Mom and Dad forever, but it feels like it’s going to be that way. I know it won’t, but it still feels like a handout, Max.”
“We all need help, though, Izzy, no matter what that looks like. I promise you I need help, too.”
“We haven’t talked like this for a long time,” I say. “I’ve been the world’s most giant brat, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do with myself honestly. I cried over the phone to Evie the other day and interrupted her time with Noah.”
Max stifles a yawn, and I remember what time it is. “You’re not an interruption, not ever. I’m sorry I’m yawning all over the place. Look, here’s what I think, and it’s just what I think, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, okay. Tell me.”
“I think you need to make the decision to be better and stop wishing for it. In whatever way that ‘being better’ looks for you. Look, you decided to head back to school and maybe sooner than later, you’re actually going to manage L’Arsenale, right? You’re getting your own place, which is going to make you feel a little bit better about yourself all because you have your own space. I mean, I get that.
“I was fighting with Mom and Dad all the time before I moved out, remember? They didn’t want to hear about my plan for my channel or anything like that. And truth of the matter is, I was really lucky that a couple of my videos went viral. It doesn’t mean I don’t work hard every single day to put out good content, but I did, I hit the algorithm just right, and now I’ve got like a million and a bit subscribers and it’s off the wall. But it took a lot of sixty- to eighty-hour work weeks to get there. So I missed out on a lot of shit, too.”
“But now you have Logan to help you with that.”
“Well, no. I have Logan to remind me to take a break maybe, because he likes it when I pay attention to him when usually I would work ten- to fourteen-hour days and then crawl into bed only to do it all over again the next day. I regret wasting a lot of time, too. I could have built my channel slowly instead of pushing so hard all these years. I mean, Izzy, there were weeks where I didn’t know if I could afford groceries. Do you know how much peanut butter I have ingested? Do you know?”
“Why didn’t you tell me all of this?”
“You were young, and you were having fun, and I was a little bit jealous that you got to enjoy yourself so much while I had to bust my ass from dawn until practically the following dawn to make some money. I regret a lot, too, you know. Plus, social media is basically Satan’s spawn, and you don’t really need it unless you need to build a business that way. Let the people who actually love you and want to connect find a way to reach out to you by calling or texting, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper after blowing my nose.
“Are you feeling at least a little bit better?”
“Yeah, yeah I am, thanks.”
“Regrets are normal, but I don’t think you should be judging yourself by them all of the time. That’s not healthy, you know it’s not. And while it sucks that you lost out on other chances, Izzy, that doesn’t mean that your life is over. You have at least another seventy-five years ahead of you.”
“I’m bad at math,” I say. “But I think you’re worse at it than I am.”
“Nope, you’re living to over a hundred, I’m sure of it,” she says, and I can hear her grin over the phone.
“Most regrets anyway are because you never took a shot when you had the chance, not because you didn’t have the chance in the first place. I don’t know, it’s too early in the morning for this kind of conversation.”
“Actually, it’s the best time in the morning for this kind of conversation. You know it, and I know it.”
That’s how I got to find out about Callum, and what makes him tick, in the early morning while his dog was at the vet. A hulking mass of a guy worried over a tiny puppy and doing everything in his power to pay me back for my small act of kindness.
Max yawns loudly over the line, and I know it’s time to finish the call. “Look, go to sleep, feel better, and if you want, call me tomorrow. I’m here to talk.”
“Okay, okay. I think I’ll do that, yeah. Good night, Max.”
“Good night, kiddo. I love you a lot, even if I have really hard time showing it. I’m working on that, too. I promise I am.”
I clear my throat. “You’re gonna make me cry again, just when I blew my brains out of my nose. Come on, Max, you can’t be this nice to me.”
“Of course I can. Unfortunately, I know this is all hard, but like, you don’t ever really figure it all out, you kind of just get better at finding ways to make it better for yourself, you know? You don’t have to have your shit together all the time—that doesn’t exist. Not at all. We’re all just juggling balls up in the air, and yeah, we drop them some of the time, perhaps all of the time. That doesn’t mean we can’t pick them back up and try again, in every aspect of life.”
I sigh. “You’re tired, Max, go to sleep.”
“Look, I just laid out some golden truth right there, but yeah, it’s too early in the morning for this, and you need to get some sleep. Call me in the morning, or whenever you wake up. I could probably use the break.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll call you tomorrow. We have shit to plan, too. I’ve gotta start moving my shit out, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah. Good night.”
“Good night.”
I shut my eyes and dream about Callum, and Luna, and being in Max’s place that’s now my place.
It doesn’t matter if he shows up to work tomorrow or not, we’re going to talk.
As soon as I get some sleep, first thing in the afternoon tomorrow.
First thing.
