The Lie

“Don’t make excuses for me.”

“Don’t find something else to feel bad over,” I tell him. “It’s not an excuse, it’s just the truth. I don’t blame you. I would have probably said the same, I would have gone mad with grief. I would have lashed out at anyone. It’s just that you…you fucking broke my heart, Brigs. You gave me guilt and you broke me in two. I was dying from both.”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows hard. “I’m so sorry,” he says thickly.

“We’re both sorry, Brigs,” I tell him. “That’s why I don’t want us to talk about it more than we have to. We’re fucked up. Sincerely, completely fucked up.”

He sighs and looks back at the sea. “Aye.”

“Anyway,” I tell him after a few beats, taking a quick puff of the cigar, feeling my lips buzz. “I dropped out of school and I went to France. My father seemed like the only person I could go to, you know? My mother wouldn’t have given a shit about me in LA. She still barely contacts me and I’ve kind of stopped trying. But my father, I knew he would help me. And you know what? He did. I went to Marseilles and lived with him and his girlfriend and tried to live again. I learned French. I got a job cleaning boats during the summer. I even went to a therapist, in French and all. There was medication and a lot of setbacks. I have bad panic attacks from time to time. But slowly I pulled myself out of the hole. And…I did everything I could not to think about you.”

He looks at me, frowning.

“You,” I explain, “were my downfall. Eventually I was able to get through the day without thinking about death, without blaming myself. But you…you were something I pushed out of my head. And it worked. I moved on.”

“Until you saw me,” he says softly.

“Until I saw you,” I tell him.

“Well,” he says with a heavy sigh. “This is the worst date ever, isn’t it?”

I can’t help but smile. “In a way. But I’m with you. You’re worth everything.”

“Even though I’m the man that ruined you?”

I wrap my hand around his. “I wouldn’t want to be ruined by anyone but you.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“I mean it. Brigs, you destroyed me. But you’re also piecing me back together. If I hadn’t found you again…I don’t know if I would ever feel the way that I’m feeling right now.”

“Reliving bad memories?”

“No,” I say softly. I clear my throat, feeling too many emotions swirling around. “I’m happy.” I pause, trying to explain. “It sounds so simple, I know but…”

“I’m happy too,” he says, giving me a quick smile. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s not simple at all, Natasha. It’s everything.”

He pours more wine in our cups and raises his in a toast. “To us. To everything.”

“To everything.”

We drink. We smoke. I lean against his shoulder and watch Winter play in the surf. We talk. I tell him my plans for graduation, that I’d like to start writing screenplays and probably not use my degree at all, he tells me ideas for future books. We discuss movies. We discuss actors. We discuss Europe and vacations and the French. We discuss Professor Irving and how much we both don’t like him and we discuss Max the bartender. We even discuss aliens, briefly, as we grapple for the best alien movie (his: Prometheus. Me: Aliens).

Eventually the sun sets and we take a walk along the beach in the lavender twilight. We weave between the white chalk monoliths and I drop to my knees, taking him in my mouth and making him come right there on the beach.

“Quite the date,” he says after, as we walk back to the car.

“Quite the date,” I agree.

We get in and speed back to the lights of London.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Natasha

London

Four Years Ago




“Still haven’t heard from him, huh?” Melissa asks as we sit at the bar, pints of beer in our hands. I’ve barely been eating all week, so a pint of Guinness is as close to a meal as I’m going to have. It’s just impossible to have an appetite when my stomach is churning with nerves, my heart fizzing like a freshly lit firecracker. Ever since Brigs told me that he loved me, my life has been turned upside down in the most gorgeous, unruly way.

But, naturally, Melissa doesn’t approve.

Why would anyone approve of Brigs and me?

I give her an innocent look as I delicately sip my beer. “What makes you say that?”

She rolls her eyes, brushing her hair out of her face. “Because your eyes keep drifting away and you’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”

“That’s not true,” I tell her, pointing the beer at her. “You were just saying how I ought to give Billy the Skid another chance.”