‘Oh, and I suppose she told you to dump me, too?’
A pause.
‘Seriously?’I’m icy cold now. ‘I suggest you tell me exactly what happened, Josh. Because none of this is making any sense, and it’s definitely not selling your case to me. And if you tell me you finished it because your mum told you to, I’m going to lose thefucking plot.’
‘Okay.’ He sighs. ‘So we had a rough few days, Brandon and me. We partied hard, and one night, I threw up, like, everywhere. Mom was fucking disgusted. I mean, it was seriously uncool of us. She kicked Brandon out the next morning and sent him home. And then she dragged me outside and told me I couldn’t go on like this anymore, that I was ruining what was left of my career, and that the best thing I could do for myself was check into rehab for a while.
‘She told me I hadn’t gotten considered for an exciting project in a while, that no one wanted to touch me because I had a reputation for being so unpredictable. Pathetic, she called me. She said you were about to go stellar—she was really fucking obsessed with you—and you were in a different league from me. That the only decent thing was for me to cut you loose and let you focus on your career.
‘She said you’d probably come to your senses and dump me soon, anyways. I said there was no way, that I was in love with you and I was pretty sure you were falling in love with me too, and she said if I loved you, I should consider how damaging it would be to you, being linked with me as you got more successful and I got more sick. Well, she didn’t call it sick, obviously, because the woman has zero compassion, but that’s what I was. She said I’d drag you down, be an embarrassment.
‘And I knew she was right, about you, and about me. She’s a total bitch, but she’s a good manager. It wasn’t a hard sell—I was so fucking filled with self-loathing and disgust, and you were the one perfect thing in my life. I didn’t deserve you, so I asked her what she suggested.’
I’m crying hard, tears and snot rolling down my face as I scrabble up my sleeve for a tissue. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and I can’t believe how far Josh’s version of events is from the version I’ve held in my head for so long. He grabs meunder my knees and around my back, and lifts me up onto his lap so he can hold me.
‘I’m wearing an incontinence pad that’s basically a brick,’ I tell him, its bulk wedged between us.
‘Baby, I’d love you even if you were in a shit-filled adult diaper.’ He coaxes my head down into the crook of his neck.
‘That’s not beyond the realm of possibility,’ I mumble through my tears.
‘I’ll take my chances.’
‘So you’re telling me you and your mum cooked up this plan to dump me on Twitter? Afait accompli, basically? I still don’t get it, Josh. Why didn’t you just pick up the phone? You still would have been calling the shots, but you could have told me what you were thinking. Tweeting it and going silent was, like, the cruellest thing anyone’s ever done to me. I grievedso hardfor you. You have no idea.’
‘I have some idea, because I grieved for you, too. And I can’t even imagine how it felt for you, baby. I know how cruel it was, and how cowardly. But if I talked to you, there’s no way I would have been strong enough to go through with it. I know you would have been so sweet and supportive, and I couldn’t have said no to you. This was the only way. So Mom scrolled through our mentions and she found the Gordon Kay one, and it seemed like a good way to do it. I was hoping people would read the tweet as being ambivalent about who dumped who, but I know that didn’t happen, and I’m so sorry.’
‘It was so humiliating, on top of everything else. I’ve spent years undoing that one fucking tweet, and trying to persuade interviewers to ask me about my work and not about how it felt to be the girl Josh Lander dumped on Twitter. You really derailed my career, right when it was getting going.’
He clings to me, kissing the top of my head over and over again.
‘I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. I meant to do the opposite. But it shouldn’t have felt humiliating, to be free of a douche like me. I’m the one who should feel humiliated, showing TMZ and the whole fucking world how low my lows are. You’ve been nothing but dignified and classy as hell this whole time. You have nothing to be ashamed of. I have everything.’
My anger is mounting, and it’s not necessarily aimed at Josh.
‘I want to punch your mum in the face.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘How the hell does someone treat their son like that? Take away the person he loves? Tell him he’s not worthy of happiness? It’s so disgusting.’
‘Welcome to my family, baby. You know, I’ve learned these past few months not to blame others—I need to take responsibility for my actions. It’s the only way forward. But my family is so messed up, and their focus on money and profile and image and success is probably what got me rebelling in the first place, got me finding highs and coping mechanisms starting in high school. My mum has always seen me as an asset, and when that asset started going down in value? Well, she was gonna pull out all the stops to reverse that trend.’
‘She’s not your manager anymore, is she? Please tell me she’s not.’
‘I fired her ass after that first time in rehab. Problem was, the whole time I was in there, I had no intention of getting clean. Zero. Because I was withdrawing from the biggest fucking high of my life, and that was you. I needed every fucking pharmaceutical I could get my hands on to get me through losing you. Obsessing over you. Losing sleep over you. I wanted to stop feeling.
‘And it was only when Alyssa approached me aboutGrosvenorthat I had any motivation to sort my shit out. Ifinally had a reason to clean myself up. And this time around, I learnt it was okay to feel. Not okay, necessary. And it’s been really fucking hard. But feeling the good stuff with you makes all the bad feelings worth it.’
His fingers slide over my neck as he buries his face in my hair.
‘Fucking hell.’ I wipe my nose with the balled-up tissue. ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think. I’m still so incredibly angry that you and your mum thought you had the right to ruin my life without giving me any say in the matter.’
‘I know. And I’ll never forgive myself for that. All I can do is try to make it up to you. I’ve done some real bad things, baby. Things that make me sick to my stomach. But I understand now that I had a legit illness, even if I was high-functioning. Addiction is just as valid an illness as your Crohn’s, even if it’s a hell of a lot harder to understand and accept.
‘But I’m not the guy who did those things anymore. I’m in a much better place. I’m waking up every day and doing the work, because I know I’m worth it. And I plan on never being that guy again. I love you so much. None of the things that felt good in those days were actually healthy for me, but you are. My love for you is the one thing that feels great and makes me better. That, and the work we’re doing together on set. And I want to be that guy for you: the one who makes you feel great, too.’
I sit in the cocoon of his body and his embrace and I wonder if I’m allowed to enjoy this. If I’m allowed to feel reassured and hopeful for the future with him. If I have the strength to take the leap and entrust my whole heart to him for the second time.
