Do you think this is why she wanted the divorce? To move on with this bad boy billionaire, as they call him?
He exhales slowly. Drops his chin. The picture of a devastated man.
It's hard not to think that. It just makes me feel like I didn't try hard enough. Didn't love her enough. I'll regret that for my entire life.A pause, perfectly timed.I only hope he'll love her the way I have. I'll always love her.
I set my coffee mug down before I put it through the television.
The way he performed grief on that screen, the architecture of it — the pause, the exhale, theI'll always love her— is so precisely calibrated that someone who didn't know better would weep for him. Most of Houston apparently doesn't know better.
I know better.
I pick up my phone.
Bennet: Something tells me you’re watching. If you aren’t, I know you won’t be able to stop yourself. But listen to me, fuck him. Fuck him. He doesn’t deserve anything else from you.
I see the moment she reads it. The little check marks shift. I wait for the bubbles.
Nothing.
I picture her sitting in her apartment with her coffee going cold, watching him perform his grief for the city of Houston, and not being able to stop herself from absorbing it, anyway. I picture her crying, and I want to walk down sixteen floors and knock on her door and pull her into my arms and tell her that everything that man just said was a performance written by a coward.
I also want to sit back and let her feel every second of it.
She married the motherfucker. She knew exactly who Colt was, and she married him. They worked together to ruin my life. They stood in that poolhouse together, enjoying the laughter, the humiliation. So maybe this is exactly what she deserves. Maybe I should pour a little whiskey in my cup of coffee and enjoy the show.
I sit my phone down and drink my coffee.
I tap my fingers on the counter.
I look down at my phone and check for bubbles.
I tap my fingers on the counter while drinking my coffee.
“It’s karma. It’s whatever. It’s not my fucking problem.”
I walk to my bedroom to start getting ready, coffee in hand, fully committed to not being a person who cares about this.
“Fuck youuuuu. Fuck youuuuu” I yell at the top of my lungs, stomping back down the hallway to where I left my phone. I pick it up and type out another message.
Bennet: I’ll be your reason to smile today. I’m here if you need me.
I stare at it.
Send it.
The bubbles appear almost immediately.
Blaire: Thank you, Bennet.
I stand in my kitchen in my socks, holding my phone feeling like a teenager again, in the best and worst possible way.
Saturday
Today's public appearance is Santa Monica Pier and a hotel room that Blaire's schedule has been building toward all week — being seen having fun together, me showing her the sights, the whole performance.
When I agreed to the itinerary, I hadn't accounted for this past week. For the way things have shifted between us in the space of a few days and some text messages, I've been looking forward to more than I'd like to admit.
I spent most of last night staring at the ceiling, cycling through the same loop. Wanting to go knock on her door after the Colt interview yesterday. Then telling myself I was getting soft. Then getting angry at myself for getting soft. Then, wondering if maybe, at eighteen, it was just two teenagers making terrible decisions at the behest of someone who had more control over both of them than either of them knew.
