I carefully slit one eye open and look to my left. It is Devon, and I’m at his place. Butler Cove. Shit. I close my eyes again and acknowledge the hollow ache in my chest. I can’t tell if my head or my chest hurts more. “What time is it?” I croak.
“After six in the evening. You’ve been asleep all day, and by the looks of it, could sleep another twelve. I was just making sure you weren’t actually in a coma. Everything all right?” He hands me a glass of ice water. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I close my eyes and take a sip, the iciness splashing in my empty insides. “Why did you call me William?”
“What?”
“I thought … never mind. I must have been dreaming.” I haven’t had that dream for years. “Where’ve you been?”
Devon takes a seat opposite me, a beer bottle dangling from his hand.
“Savannah. It’s all a go for Roberts. We got all the permits for the Riverfront and as long as SCAD still wants in, we should begin set design by next week and hopefully begin shooting by September.”
I wince and pinch the bridge of my nose. My whole push to set the movie in Savannah seems so fucking stupid now. “Great,” I muster.
Devon tips his beer back, taking a long sip. “Again, is everything all right?”
“No.” I let out a long breath and lie back down, flinging my arm over my forehead. “No. Nothing is all right. I fucked up. I went to see Keri Ann last night, and I fucked up.”
“How so?”
“I may have told her I was in love with her.”
“You’re a sick sadistic bastard, you know that?”
“To her or to myself?” I manage.
Devon lowers his beer. “I was going to say to her, actually, but this is an interesting turn of events for someone who didn’t seem to give a shit about her before.”
I look over to where he’s sitting, wearing ripped jeans and a black t-shirt, the tips of his hair bleached yellow.
His brow is furrowed as he looks at me. “You sure had me fooled. First I thought it was the real deal, then you disappeared off to England and we all got to see how you spent your time there. So forgive me if I’m not following.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is. You want to give it a shot?”
I eye Devon, one of my best friends in the plastic, ego-filled circus I live my life in. He deserves to know what was and is going on with me. And frankly, I need the help. I am tired of the isolation. Exhausted actually.
Sorting through the happenings of the last five months since Audrey showed me the depths of her emotional depravity, I decide to start at the beginning. Devon wants my story, and I need to give voice to it, if only to diminish whatever is devouring my insides.
Five Months Ago …
A skinny, red-faced and hyperventilating guy, who doesn’t look old enough to work, has just given me the keys to the Hertz rental I ordered delivered to the General Aviation Terminal on Hilton Head Island. He obviously had no idea he was going to be delivering a car to a celebrity when he woke up this morning. Now he keeps saying “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!” over and over again while I try to get around him to the car. I’ve already given him a personalized autograph “to give to his girlfriend.” It would be amusing if I were in a better mood.
I don’t remember being this nervous about anything for a long time. Not since those first couple of screen tests where it’s down to you and that other guy who’s been all over Variety and you’re wondering how you’re gonna pay your rent that’s two weeks late. Where everything, your whole future, is riding on the outcome of how you play the next few hours.
“Do you have a map of the area?” I ask him patiently. I’d flung my bag into the back seat of the rental with my good hand and tugged my cap down, sliding my shades back on. I pull my wallet out of the pocket of my worn jeans and balance it on my bandaged right hand to remove a twenty. “Here. Thanks. Do you have a map?” I repeat.
The guy, still blocking the driver’s side door, takes the money and looks at my hand. “Wow, like, thanks. Dude … what did you do to your hand?”
“I punched a wall. Map?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. There’s a complimentary map on the passenger seat. Why’dya punch a wall?”
“It was better than punching a person.”
The guy nods emphatically like he “like, totally, gets it.”
“Thanks for delivering the car.”
My hand was fucked from punching the wall so I went over to Nick’s. Being a tattoo artist, I knew he had bandages and antiseptic. Thank God he also persuaded me to get it x-rayed. He knew a guy who played for the Lakers who had his own doc on call, so I got it taken care of fast and more importantly, privately. Hairline fracture to the third metacarpal. Great. So I’m in a cast.
The kid still doesn’t move, so I reach out for the door with my left hand and open it, slowly nudging him backward until I can safely get in. He steps away finally, and I nod and close the door.