Remember When 3: The Finale (Remember Trilogy #3)

Thank God for best friends.

“Wow,” I said on an exhale. “I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I never understood that saying before, but I feel… lighter.”

“Screw you. I’m feeling heavier than ever.”

Lisa’s belly had bumped out considerably in the weeks since I’d been gone. She still had four more months to go, and I could only imagine she’d be bigger than a manatee by then.

“So, Miss Red Carpet,” she said, changing the subject. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you for more than a few minutes since The Key. How’s Trip? When are you heading back out there?”

I didn’t know if it was the mention of Trip’s name, the emotional trauma from having just seen my mother, or the half bottle of wine I’d polished off, but Lisa’s question immediately sent me into a fit of tears.

“What? Oh no! Trouble in paradise? I thought things were going so great!”

“They were,” I bawled out, not even trying to pull myself together. “But Lis, so much bad stuff happened between us this past week. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

Lisa and I hadn’t spoken as much over the past few days as we usually did. She didn’t know about the fights between Trip and me, didn’t know about the downward spiral we’d been on all week. Trip’s lifestyle in Hollywood was so isolating and I guess I got sucked into the vortex. But there I was, back home, sitting on my favorite stool in my best friend’s kitchen, finally able to talk some stuff out, tell her everything face to face.

“He puts ketchup on his steak and I’m his goddamned sled!” I sobbed. I literally, actually sobbed.

“Uh, Layla, honey, I think you’ve had too much wine.”

I sniveled out, “He doesn’t love me. He loves the fact that I’m the only woman who doesn’t think of him as a movie star. He even told me as much! I’m his Rosebud. Citizen Kane, remember? The one thing that brought him happiness before the fame, before the money. Rosebud was his special thing before all that.”

“Yeah, um, that sounds like a pretty good thing to be thought of as.”

Lisa is pretty smart, but I guessed she wasn’t able to understand what the problem was. Truth be told, I didn’t really understand it myself. “I thought so too, at first. But don’t you get it? He was always so paranoid about women wanting him just because he was Trip Wiley: Big Bad Movie Star. But now I’m the one who’s freaking out because he only wants Layla Warren: The Teenager Who Loved Him Before All That.”

“I still don’t see the problem.”

“The problem is that I’m not her anymore! I’m me! Get it? I don’t know if he’s really fallen in love with me.” I took a shaky breath and another swig of wine. “The sick thing is, that’s not even our biggest issue.”

I didn’t even wait for Lisa to ask before I proceeded to spew everything out in a rush, just completely brain-vomiting all over my best friend.

Sorry. That sounded a lot grosser than I meant it to.

I told her about Robert the Lizard Perv and the possible movie with Jenna. I told her about my nudie pics and Devin and the memoir and the fights leading up to it and the huge one after. I told her about Trip’s father and my mother and trying to force him to forgive. I told her about the real Patrick Van Keegan and the Bimbo Twins and all those blonde sluts and the autograph hounds and the paparazzi and that weird card in Trip’s mailbox at the fortress.

I talked and I talked until I was exhausted, my throat actually sore and raw, my breath catching on choppy inhales.

When I finally came up for air, I saw my best friend practically laying over the counter limp, her arms bent over her head, her mouth gaped open in pure shock.

I swiped the tears from my cheeks and commanded, “Well? Say something!”

She sat up slowly, letting out with a huge breath. “I don’t even… Layla, I’m speechless here. I got nothing.”

Holy shit. Lisa was speechless? Things must’ve been worse than I thought.

She got up from the table and returned with a bottle of cherry vodka and a shot glass. “I’ve got booze, though. Here. You wanna do a shot? You’re drinking for two now, don’t forget.”

I almost laughed at her comment. Just purging the entire story from my brain was enough to make me feel a little better. “No. I’m already buzzed enough from the wine.”

“C’mon. Drink it. You need it.”

“No, I’m alright.”

“What are you, chicken?”

That one did make me chuckle. “Peer pressure! Peer pressure! I need a grown-up!”

We were able to laugh for a minute, until Lisa got serious and said, “Hey Layla? We are the grown-ups, now.”

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