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Her legs uncross and she shimmies from her seat. She stands in front of him, their bodies so close her knees must be touching his. She leans forward and her hand reaches for him, clutching his thigh. I stop dead in my tracks and my breath hitches. My legs feel weak again and my heart plunges in my chest. She’s confident and aggressive and nothing like me. She’s looking at Parker like she wants to devour him. My Parker. I want to smack her and knock her classless body across the room.
Her other hand moves behind his neck in one quick motion and her lips are on his.
My vision blurs, the sick feeling in my belly creeping up my throat. I can’t take one more second of this. I whirl around, stumbling on weak legs, grabbing hold of the velvet couch in front of me to steady myself. My eyes burn, welling with tears. There’s a knot in my throat. It’s increasingly harder to breathe.
An older gentleman with concerned eyes is now at my side, his hand on my forearm, but I don’t hear a word he’s saying. I just know I need to get out of here. I race towards the door, leaving my heart in pieces on the floor of the lobby.
I drive away, sobs bursting from my lungs. There is an ache in my throat and my chest feels as though it’s trapped in a vice. I wipe the tears from my eyes and realize I have no clue where I am driving. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s far away from the one person I trusted the most. The one person who I thought would never betray me.
I need to catch my breath. I need to figure out where to go. I consider calling Kate or Ellie but the shame cuts too deep. I want to be alone. I need to go home to Reed Point. The tears continue falling down my cheeks. Pull yourself together.
I drive along the coast, tears blurring the lines on the road. I pull my Prius into a parking lot. There’s a pier and a handful of cars, the lot full of teenage kids tailgating and having a good time. The windows on the Mustang beside me are fogged. I don’t want to imagine what is happening in there.
I put my car in park and force myself out the door on two shaky legs towards the pier. The ocean is calling to me like it always does when I need to think. I fill my aching lungs with the cool air, the breeze covering my skin in goosebumps. They also could be blanketing my skin from the shock of what’s just happened. I pull my sweater tight around me, walking further towards the setting sun.
I stand at the head of the pier, tears stinging my eyes. I will my knees not to give out on me. The pain is almost too much to bear. I feel like such a fool, a complete and total idiot to think that Parker could have changed. I have no one to blame but myself. I put myself in this position. I let my guard down. A leopard never changes its spots, isn’t that what they say?
I hate myself for believing he could have been happy without all the other women. How could I be so stupid to think I could have ever been enough?
I stay at the pier for half an hour, feeling defeated and lonely, before making the decision to drive back home. If I leave now, I’ll be home before midnight. I can’t be in this town with Parker. I want my home and my bed. I want to hide away from the rest of the world.
I return to my car, my head heavy from crying. My phone rests in the cup holder, flashing with an incoming message. I pick it up and check the screen. I have several missed calls that all went to voicemail. I delete them all without listening, shift my car into drive and make the long drive home in silence.
By the time I arrive home, I am all out of tears. My heart is shattered, a gaping hole in its place. I drop my bag at the door. There are memories of Parker everywhere I look. The coffee table where we ate Thai food the night I decided to let him back into my life. The kitchen counter where we undressed each other. My bedroom where we made love over and over in my sheets, until the sun came up and we needed to finally rest. The pain in my chest tightens. It’s relentless and I wonder if it will ever go away.
I walk into my bathroom and strip my clothes to the floor. I turn the lever on the shower and wait for the temperature to rise. I step into the hot shower and let the nearly scalding water rain down over my skin. I tilt my face up to the spray hoping it will ease the strain in my eyes, and the throb in my head. I wash my body and my hand finds the diamond star around my neck. As much as I hate Parker right now, I can’t bring myself to take it off. I remember how I felt opening the small box. My eyes squeeze shut. I’m so confused. I could’ve sworn what we had was real. Who am I kidding? It took all of two weeks living in a different city for Parker to find someone new.
I wrap a towel around my body and run a brush through my wet hair. I throw on a tank and my sleep shorts and crawl into bed. The scent of Parker suffocates me. My sheets smell like his soap, like fresh rain and cedar. I pull my knees into my chest and I close my eyes. I pray for sleep.
Twenty-Two
Olivia
They are both naked, complete strangers and a storm is threatening the shitty shelter they have constructed to protect them from hypothermia, and bears that are apparently a predatory threat. What the effing of all effs is this show?
I shovel another mouthful of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Explosion in my mouth and wipe the drip that falls onto my tank top with my finger. I get back to my show because I’m invested, with a strange need to know if they can last the twenty-one days.
There’s a knock at my door and my heart sinks. I don’t move because I can’t. I feel frozen in place, and for a split second I wonder if it might be him.
“Olivia, it’s me. Open up, I’m worried about you,” Ellie hollers through my front door.
I’m not sure why she is worried about me. It’s Saturday night and as far as she knows I’m in total bliss in Cape May with Parker. Little does she know. I couldn’t bring myself to call anyone and explain why I’m home.
I answer the door and my best friend takes me in. Her eyes sweep my body from head to toe. I know I look bad. I haven’t changed out of the tank and sleep shorts I went to bed in last night and I’m pretty positive my eyes are still swollen and puffy after hours of crying. I have a pizza stain on one side of my sleep shirt from today’s lunch and a chocolate stain from the ice cream I’ve been binging on my left boob.
As strong as I try to be, I can’t stop myself from falling to pieces in the doorway. Tears roll down my cheeks. She pulls me in for a hug.
“Oh Olivia, what happened? I was so worried about you when I couldn’t get a hold of you.” Ellie closes the door behind us and takes my hand leading me to the couch. She flops down beside me, tucking her leg underneath her. Her focus moves to the television and the reality show I am watching.
“Is this Naked and Afraid? Oh, I love that show. Sorry, Olivia - squirrel! You know me.” She shrugs and it makes me laugh for the first time in hours. Focus is not one of Ellie’s best attributes.
“How did you know I was here? I didn’t tell anyone I came home.” Ellie hands me a tissue from one of the three boxes I have in rotation around my apartment.
“I didn’t. It’s just the first place I looked when you didn’t answer your cell or return my texts. Parker is really worried about you. He called me this morning and asked if I knew where you were. He said you haven’t returned any of his messages or calls since last night.” Ellie says carefully, “He asked me to check on you and have you call him. I don’t get it. What’s wrong, Olivia?”
I realize I haven’t looked at my phone since getting home last night. I’m not even sure where it is in this mess of an apartment.
My eyes are clouded with tears that are threatening once again to spill over. Embarrassment and shame, I’m sure, are written all over my face.
