“Hello! Hayes and Brady!” A woman from the front desk practically bounces over. “Aisha left a message. She’d love to chat with you both about strategy. Shall I ring your suite when she arrives?”
“Thank you,” Brady manages. He puts his hand on my arm. I jerk away from his touch and go to drop my ice cream in the trash can. He follows me to the elevator. A couple gets in with us. The two women do a double take between us and what I assume is the us on the phone screen one of them is holding. I stare as the numbers above the elevator door illuminate with each passing floor. I can feel my teeth grinding trying to hold myself together.
We get to our floor and the second I close the door to our suite, I explode.
“Couple of the summer?” My voice is way too loud and I immediately modulate it to an intense whisper. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Hayes, please—” Brady holds out his hands, trying to calm me, but it’s too late.
“No, Brady. No ‘please.’ You called me a month ago talking about this brand ambassador gig you needed help with. You said—” A harsh laugh escapes. “You said it was just a job. You needed me to act as a production assistant. Not your boyfriend.” I spit out the last three words.
Brady sinks onto the couch, head in his hands. When he looks up, his eyes are watery. “All of that was true. Well, most of it.”
“Bullshit.” I can’t believe I’ve been manipulated. Again.
“It wasn’t bullshit! Not most of it.” He springs up. “Yes, For Us called me. Yes, they’d seen our road trip posts from senior year. And yes, they wanted both of us.”
“Then why lie? Why not, oh, I don’t know, start off with the truth?” My arms are stiff at my side and my hands tightly closed in fists to help me control my emotions. I always seem to have too much or not enough.
“Because you wouldn’t have come!” The words burst out of him. “If I’d led with ‘Hey, want to pretend we’re still a couple for social media,’ would you have even answered my call?”
“That’s not—” He’s right. I wouldn’t have, but that’s not the point. “You think that makes lying to me alright? Once again, Brady, you’re trying to manipulate me into doing what you want. When will you learn that doesn’t work?” The details from our breakup begin to enter my mind but my anger pushes them out. I don’t need any help in this moment.
“I was not trying to manipulate you. I wanted you to take advantage of the opportunity in front of us. That’s all.”
“Brady, are you even listening to yourself?” I cover my face with my hands in frustration. “That is the same thing. You knew they wanted us as a couple and you didn’t tell me.”
“I have no idea why they asked us. It’s not like I have a huge number of followers. It’s not like I’m the most strategic marketing guru Clarkson ever created. And what’s the big deal? You know it’s all fake and for the cameras. We’ve both made it clear that we’ve moved on. What we had doesn’t work anymore.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I snap back.
“And I needed this,” he says, which doesn’t make any sense to me.
“Since when does a Gibson need anything?” A sharp exhale punctuates my sarcasm. “The Gibsons have more money than anyone could ever need. It’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that.” The cruel words are out before I can stop them.
Brady flinches. “That’s always your weapon, isn’t it? My family’s money. Like it erases every problem, every feeling, every fucking struggle I have. Hard-working, ethical Hayes and the dumb party boy from the rich family.”
“Your family…” I start.
“My family is not me. They are not me.” Brady raises his voice and annunciates each word. “I’m trying to be my own person, but you think it’s so easy. You think I just tell everyone I want to be a kindergarten teacher and they smile and accept it. It all goes on as it was before.” He’s really crying now and he doesn’t bother to wipe away the tears. “You never could separate us, could you? I was always just another rich boy playing at being an adult. I thought you saw me differently, but you only saw what everyone else did.”
His words sting. I try to hold on to how pissed I am to stop myself from having to confront the reality that underneath the anger, he’s right. I did make assumptions about his life and how easy it must be. I couldn’t shake them. I made a lot of hypotheses about him that I shouldn’t have and I never gave him a chance to fully explain.
“I know I fucked up,” he says, voice raw. “I wanted this job and I kept putting off telling you. I know I should have been more honest. I was wrong.” This is a side of Brady I’ve never seen before. He’s not blowing off my concerns or changing the subject. He’s confronting what he did. “I thought I would do it in person at the airport. Which I know was too late. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. And then I thought I would do it when we landed, or on our first day. But we were having such a good time. I thought you would think I…” He stops, shakes his head. “I don’t know… I fucked up.”
The phone rings like an alarm, starling us both. Brady answers, listens, hangs up.
“Aisha’s here.” He won’t meet my eyes. “I’ll handle it. If you want to go back home, I understand. I wouldn’t blame you. I’ll book you a flight tonight if that’s what you want. No questions asked.”
He runs to the bathroom to splash water on his face and I try to take in how everything has changed over the past few minutes. I’m trying to reconcile the Brady I knew from last year and the one who just took accountability and apologized. He didn’t double down. He even gave me an out if I want it.
I’m having so many feelings at once I can’t understand them all. I can map a neural pathway and predict how a single impulse will move through the cerebral cortex. Electricity in the brain follows rules and patterns. But this? Brady? I can’t understand him. Why would he even want any of this? He’s at the door when I finally ask. “Brady, why does this matter so much? The real reason.”
Brady pauses, hand on the doorknob. When he turns back, he looks exhausted and stressed. “Because for once, I wanted to be good at something that wasn’t partying or spending money or disappointing people. They wanted us because they thought we had something special just by looking at the pictures of us together.” His smiles a crooked grin. “I guess they’re as stupid as I am, huh?”
He is out the door before I can respond.
I stand in the middle of the suite, processing, until the room begins to feel too small and the tension in my body makes me feel restless. I need to move, to run, to do something before I suffocate under the earthquake of feelings I’m trying to shut down. Part of me wants to pack up and leave on the next flight but part of me needs to slow down and think this through logically. Examine. Diagnose. Treat.
