Vicious Circles

Chapter 13

October 2009

For the seventh time, I stood in front of the mirror and admired my appearance. I was ten minutes late to my lunch date with Lynn but I just couldn’t make myself leave the apartment without one more look. Mason had made an offhand comment the night before about how thin I looked and I could tell by his facial expressions that he wasn’t happy about it.

Of course, I didn’t quite see it and I wasn’t caught up in my weight to begin with. I was eating less because I was busy all of a sudden. My minor supporting role ended and led to a larger role in another movie that I’d been working on for at least a week. The one thing I was supposed to leave behind refused to separate from me. I was still carrying around Percocet but it wasn’t in the rusty brown prescription bottle anymore. It was packed away neatly in a small change purse in my bag where I hoped Mason would never find the damn thing. He would have been pissed to know I’d lied about quitting.

“Sorry, sorry…” I apologized to Lynn as I took a seat at our usual table. “I was checking myself out in the mirror. Mason says I’m too thin.”

Lynn nodded in agreement with Mason’s thoughts. “You should have a huge lunch and dessert. You’re looking sick.”

“I’ve just been so busy. Again, sorry I’m late.”

“So,” Lynn started with a devious grin, “I saw the latest on Google last night.”

Apparently, Mason and I had been found out. The cameras didn’t follow us but occasionally we were in the wrong place at the wrong time; and so began my love/hate relationship with the media. For some reason, it didn’t dawn on me that millions of people had seen my face and would know me anyway. I still felt relatively unknown in La La Land. That was until the paparazzi.

“Why were you Googling me Lynn? That’s beside the point…Mason thought it was funny but really, who wants to see that stuff? It’s not like we were making out or something. We were holding hands for Christs sake.”

“Do you ever wonder if your mother will see you on television and want to reconcile?” Lynn had recently learned about my past. She was far more supportive than I thought she would be.

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t have shit to do with her. She had her chance. Hey…have you found a dress for the premiere yet?”

The waiter came and we placed our order. Lynn and I talked about the dress she’d chosen for the red carpet and I whined over my inability to find one. I ate an unreasonably large lunch for Mason’s piece of mind and I even sent him a photo of it on my phone. The Percocet seemed to be dulled by my full stomach but it still had that calming, relaxing effect.

“When does Mason leave for the tour?” Lynn asked as we walked to the valet.

I sighed. I wasn’t happy about living without him for months. “The end of December. Of course, I can’t go because I’ve got those back to back movies. I may be bald and violent when he gets back.”

“It will be good for you two to spend some time apart. You’re always together. I swear it’s like you two are living together.” Lynn would never hold back anything from me. She always told me the absolute truth as she saw it.

“First of all, we don’t live together. He sleeps at his place now and then. Besides, he’s been practicing with the other guys for weeks now. I barely see him.” So it wasn’t totally true but it felt like I barely saw him.

Lynn laughed as the valet brought her car around. “You two are cute, I can’t deny that. He also loves you Fallyn...” She hugged me.

“I know. Call me later.” I waved and hopped into my own car that had pulled up right after hers.

I drove through Hollywood to pick Mason up and we ran through the drive thru at In and Out because he claimed to be wasting away.

“The guys want to meet you,” he told me in between bites of his burger. “They think you hate them.” He laughed but I was less amused.

“What? Why would they think that? I hope you told them I don’t.” I was panicking a little but I seemed to do that whenever he brought up his close friends.

“Calm down, I told them you just needed some time. You know I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” He crumpled his burger wrapper and tossed it in the bag.

I still felt bad. “I’ll meet them, Mason. I’ve been stupid about the whole thing anyway.”

His hand found mine on the gear shift. “Whatever you want baby.”

There hadn’t been a moment since I’d first laid eyes on Mason Jennings that he didn’t give me exactly what I wanted and needed. Even months ago when Jill was in the picture and I was sure I hated the guy, he was intriguing to me. I just didn’t realize it. He was my first love.

“Can I tell you something?” I asked quietly while we sat at a traffic light in West Hollywood.

“You know you can.” He didn’t bother to look over at me. Instead he kept his gaze forward.

“Those scars, on my left side…some a*shole my mother brought into the house did that to me. I was almost eighteen and London hadn’t been gone long.”

That got his full attention. I felt his hand tighten its grip on mine, urging me silently to go on.

“She was always blasted and hardly ever knew what was going on around her. This guy was confident he was going to have his way with me but I would have rather died. He came at me one night while I was sleeping and my mother was high on whatever it was she was taking. I broke a beer bottle and tried to stab him.” The words sounded odd coming out of my mouth. I felt like I was reciting lines from one of the television shows I’d worked on.

“That bastard cut you, right?”

I nodded. Mason let his head fall back on the headrest. He always reacted the same way when we talked about my life before him. He didn’t offer much of his opinion because it wouldn’t change anything and we both knew it. Mason was more of a silent support system which was okay with me. The less I talked about my past, the less the rip in my soul ached. Oddly enough, instead of thinking of my sister like I usually did, I thought about the medication tucked away in my bag and how badly I wanted to take a couple.

“Let’s go meet your friends now,” I said in a hurried voice.

“What?” He snapped his head in my direction and looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Fallyn, they can wait another day, come on.”

“We’re not going to do anything but go back to my place and sit around the table. Maybe we should get out and spend some time with your friends.” My stomach was doing flips. I had seen the group of guys before in passing, but I’d never actually spoken to any of them. I didn’t know what had come over me but Mason seemed to like it.

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the top of it lightly. “We’ll go meet the guys then. You’re right.”

I stopped the car at a random gas station and switched seats with Mason. He drove us back to the place I’d just picked him up from and parked outside. We sat silently for a moment. Mason was excited I wanted to meet his friends and I was nervous. They didn’t know the Fallyn who was homeless and broken. They would only know the Fallyn who was an actor and was broken. The latter was far worse than the first.

“They’ll love you,” Mason reassured me as we left the safety of my car and climbed a flight of stairs.

I stood behind him when we reached the door. I could hear laughing and just plain noise coming from inside as Mason turned the handle and led me in slowly. A chorus of voices welcomed him back but all attention went to me. I waved slightly and mumbled a hello. Mason pointed out everyone, named them and I was greeted with a hug each time.

“It’s nice to meet you, finally.” The tall one named Dave was his best friend and the roommate I’d always avoided like the plague.

I smiled. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

Dave threw an arm around Mason. “I’m so proud of you man…an actual girlfriend. I can’t f*cking believe it.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. Meeting his friends wasn’t the big ordeal I’d made it out to be and they accepted me like I had been around for years. We stayed late in the day, just sitting around and talking. Dave had plenty of funny stories to tell me about Mason which was endearing and saddening all in one. I envied them mostly. I’d never had anything close to what Mason and Dave had until Lynn and still I felt like there was a part of myself that no one should ever know. The part that felt small and inconsiderate, the part that told me I couldn’t function without popping pills.

We left around dinner time after a round of hugs and goodbyes. Mason was in a state of euphoria the entire way back to my apartment.

“I told you they would love you,” he said smugly.

“Yes, you’re always right. Aren’t you special.”

He squeezed my thigh. “I detect a hint of sarcasm. Dave really likes you. He pulled me aside and told me so.” His eyes glittered in the street lights as we passed them.

“That’s good. That means you have to keep me around.”

“I wasn’t planning on letting you go anyway.” He smiled at me and it made me want to cry. He was beautiful, sitting in the driver’s seat of my car with his messy hair and faded t-shirt.

***

There were those moments when Mason scared me a little. He was a perfectionist and did everything to its fullest, on his terms of course. I rarely saw the side of him that worried me which was just a-OK with me. It was raining and it just never rained in LA. He’d been working on an independent movie for a few weeks and it was almost as if the character he was portraying had started to eat away at him a bit. He showed up at my place, far too intoxicated to walk straight.

He was sitting on the top step with his hands threaded through his hair when I opened the door. I realized we wouldn’t have a good night when I sat down next to him.

“I just want to sit here.” He didn’t bother to look at me.

“Then why were you just banging on my door like a maniac?”

“I’ll come in eventually. You can go in.”

I wanted to punch him in his face when he acted like an a*shole. “Mason, you are just obliterated. Why would you get so wasted when you know you have to work tomorrow?” I leaned down to try and see his face.

He turned suddenly and scared the shit out of me. His eyes were bloodshot and the look on his face was not pleasant. “Get off my f*cking back, Fallyn! I just said I would be in soon.”

His reaction didn’t shock me really. I’d seen him in that state once before. “Fine a*shole. Sit out here by yourself.” I stood and walked back into my apartment. He wouldn’t last long outside, alone. He didn’t like to be alone when he drank that much.

Mason was not an alcoholic and he didn’t drink all the time but sometimes, his mind got to him and he thought too much. The other guys weren’t much help because they all drank as a group and no one had the balls besides Dave to tell Mason he’d had enough. Then again, it didn’t matter. Mason didn’t listen to anyone.

“I did something,” he said, finally coming inside. “I don’t know why.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What are you talking about? Come on, I made you some coffee.” I took his hand and helped him to the kitchen table.

“I kissed another woman.”

I froze, one hand on the coffee pot, one hand gripping the counter for dear life. My chest started to rise and fall quickly as my breathing sped up. The chair scraped the floor and I heard the uneven thuds of his boots as he made his way to me. His hands gripped either hip too tightly. The smell of whiskey and whatever else he’d drank followed him.

“Don’t touch me,” I warned him softly.

“I’m sorry baby…so sorry. It just happened.”

The only thing I could do was cry. So many things crossed my mind, like hitting him, kicking him or throwing him out but I couldn’t do any of them. My head fell forward as I sobbed. I’d put so much hope and trust in the fact that Mason loved me completely. How could that be true if he’d kissed some other girl?

“Baby,” he pressed his forehead against the back of my neck, “I love you. Please say something.”

The terror and raw emotion in his voice killed me. He regretted it, I could tell. Still, it didn’t take away the hole he’d just punched in my chest. “Get out, Mason.”

“Please don’t,” he begged.

I found the courage to turn and face him. His eyes were full of regret and tears. “Get out.” I moved from his grip and ran to the bedroom locking myself in.

He did leave sometime after I’d left him in the kitchen. The front door had slammed, shaking the picture on the wall he’d bought for me. If I had ever understood the metaphor of the bleeding girl it was at that moment. I was her, curled on my bedroom floor, crying.