Refusing to believe it, I head to the Wikipedia page about her. Because, yes, she has a fucking page there. When I see that she grew up in Seattle, the taste of bile gathers in the back of my tongue. It’s her. It’s really her.
I keep reading because I can’t stop myself, no matter how much it hurts. She isn’t only beautiful, she’s also a fucking saint. There’s a whole section about her charity work, and I’m baffled by how utterly selfless and giving she is. She’s helped millions of people all over the world—from Brazilian favelas to right here in the US. She’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the causes she supports, which is insane.
A voice tells me I should stop but I can’t, so I seek out recent news about her and stumble upon an article about a Christmas gala she’s hosting right here in Seattle to raise money and awareness for special needs kids. She is fucking perfection, flawless in every way. Evora Campbell is a mix of Paris Hilton, Adriana Lima, and Mother Teresa, with all the good and none of the bad.
How am I supposed to compete with her? How can I ever be enough for Lex when a woman like her wasn’t?
For an entire hour, I stay in the bathroom, fueling my anxiousness and panic attack with more pictures, more articles, more information… Her ninety-four million followers on Instagram blow me away, and I scroll through every single post, reading their captions. How wasn’t she enough? And why would a woman like her accept that awful sexfriend deal? For four fucking years. It doesn’t make any sense.
I want to hate her, I try to, but the more I read, the more I want to be her. She’s led the perfect life, traveled the world, met the Obamas, Lady Gaga, the Dalai Lama… She also has an immense heart and helped open schools in Africa, fought for women’s rights in Iran, raised money for cancer research… There isn’t a single scandal, not one bad thing about her. She’s as flawless inside as she is outside.
I’m in the middle of a Chanel commercial she starred in when my battery dies. But I stay seated there, unable to move. Lex dated and married such a woman. And now I’m the one he wants? How long will I be enough ifshewasn’t enough? How long will he want me if he didn’t even wanther?
Breathing is getting harder and harder, and I can’t go back to bed with him. I need to be alone, away from him. I have to go home, where I can have my panic attack in peace, where I can hate myself in the silence of my room.
I can’t stay here.
I have to go.
Now.
Even though I’m barely conscious, the gnawing feeling in my gut immediately reminds me that something is wrong. Fuck, I messed up again, and Andrea is pissed at me. But at least she isn’t leaving, sleeping off all that pain and rancor right next to me in my bed.
I reach out for her, craving to bring her closer, but my hand meets nothing but cold sheets. Confused, I open my eyes and see it’s still the middle of the night. Where is she?
Groggy and half asleep, I force myself out of bed and walk through the dark to the bathroom, eager to find her. But the lights are off when I come in, and she isn’t anywhere to be seen when I flick them on. More and more perplexed, I turn back to my room and switch the lights on there as well. Is she sleeping on the couch or in one of the guest bedrooms? Is she that mad at me?
I’m about to go find her when my eyes land on the armchair where I put her things earlier. It’s empty. Twisting around, I see that her dress is also gone, and the clothes I gave her hang on the hook instead of it.
She left. In the middle of the night. The thought of staying here with me was so unbearable that she dressed in silence, picked up her things, and left.
The painful sensation in my chest intensifies at the realization.
Fuck, I’m really losing her. That mistake from my past, which I’ve always regretted, will ruin the best thing that ever happened to me. AndI’m a fucking idiot because I genuinely never considered it a lie or an omission. It was only another weird event at a complicated time of my life, not something I ever deemed worth sharing.
Andrea is fine with the rest of my past, with me being a criminal, with the illegal things I did that could get me imprisoned for the rest of my life. But an annulled marriage with someone who never held any romantic appeal to me is a deal-breaker.
And as much as I try to understand, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. Maybe if she realized how little I cared about Evora outside of our long-standing friendship, she’d see why I didn’t mention her.
But will Andrea even let me close enough to explain myself? Can she bring her walls down enough for my words to reach her?
I believed she would as I fell asleep with her in my arms, but now… Now that she fled in the middle of the night, I’m not so sure anymore.
This can’t be it. It can’t be the way everything ends.
I won’t let it.
Chapter 26
My sorrows need to be processed alone, far from Lex because I get wrapped up in him and can’t think rationally. That’s why I spend my entire Sunday in my room, trying to make sense of everything while ignoring everyone’s attempts at reaching out to me. I’m so exhausted that I drift in and out of sleep, waking up to new texts and missed calls.
I only picked up three of Lex’s eleven calls. I texted him as I was leaving, telling him I was sorry and needed to be alone, but he was understandably still worried. Tami must have ratted me out because Kate also has been trying to call me for the past hour. My abuela called for our weekly talk, but I let it go to voicemail and then told her I was busy, but I’d call her sometime this week.
Eventually, I’ll get over all of this and accept my fate, but at the moment, I can’t really see the end of the depression tunnel. I always knew Lex was out of my reach, but I forgot it along the way. It was just sex at first, so it didn’t matter. We were only having fun, which meant I wasn’t risking much. As a long-term relationship, though… We aren’t realistic. He’s from another world, another level, and I’m me. Literally everything about him is extraordinary, and I might be the most average woman I know. We can’t work out.
How can I be enough? Evora is so much more suited for him—ten times the woman I’ll ever be. She’s beautiful, adventurous, generous, confident… and still didn’t make the cut. It isn’t normal that Lex hasn’t grown tired of me already.
Soft knocks come from behind me at some point in the afternoon, and I roll around to face the door. I expect it to be Tami trying to bring me something to eat again, but she isn’t holding a plate this time.
