Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding 2.5)

Of course, she knew about the cover spread, but that was what she had been in Milan for in the first place. Not that she was trying to hide it from Alexa. She had told her about Marco, but Alexa had assumed, as most people would, that it was a just a fling. Nothing more. She just hadn’t gone into the details.

Plus, Alexa was leaving for Atlanta today. Another harebrained idea to deal with her men. Why couldn’t either of them manage relationships?

Chyna figured that at least she had one person left whom she could always vent to. Pressing Frederick’s number, she waited for him to answer.

“Sugar, it’s been a while since I’ve heard your sweet voice,” Frederick crooned into the phone.

“Hey,” she said, her voice lacking her normal pep. “Can you talk?”

“I’m at work but sure,” he said, kind of taken aback by her somber tone.

She usually took her lows to Alexa, but she couldn’t right now. Maybe she just wanted him to call her a bitch and be done with it.

“I can’t sugarcoat it,” she said, swallowing. She had cried once before, and the crumbling of her dreams should have warranted the same emotional breakdown. But she would not cry over this. At least this time, she found her anger. “I really f**ked up.”

“What else is new? Tell me?” he said.

She could hear him adjusting the phone, likely holding it up against his shoulder while he reupholstered a couch or sewed a pillow or wherever his interior decorating skills took him.

“Where to start?” she grumbled. “I f**ked Marco Moretti.”

“Shut up!” he cried.

“He likes it kinky.”

“Shut up!”

“I let him chain me to the bed naked, photograph me, and make a sex tape.”

“Shut the f**k up, you dirty little slut!

Can I have your life, please?!”

“Please take it,” she told him, trying hard to keep breathing properly.

“What could possibly make you want to give that shit up?” he demanded.

“That’s the thing…I did give it up. I stole a million-dollar dress, the pictures, the sex tape, left him, and came back to New York,” she whispered the whole explanation. It sounded less and less believable every time. How had she actually gone through with that?

“You…what?”

he asked, nearly dropping the phone.

“He’s ruined it all. He’s blacklisted me across the entire design market. I’ve been termed unhirable. I had a job offer for modeling in the fall, and they retracted it! They actually retracted the f**king offer!” she cried, unable to believe what she was saying. How could he be so cruel?

“I hate to say this,” Frederick said, suddenly serious, “but…he didn’t ruin it all. You did, baby girl.”

“What?” she asked, standing straight up off of the park bench in astonishment.

“You walked out on him after all of that? Sweetheart, I’d do way worse!” he told her honestly. “If he’s going through the effort to f**k you over so thoroughly, he had it for you, and he had it bad. I’d go through hell and high water to make sure you were miserable without me.”

“Fuck!” she cried angrily. “Can’t you just f**king sympathize with me? Why do you have to be so logical?”

“Look, bitch, if you can’t take the heat, get out of the f**king kitchen!”

“Fine! I will!” she yelled through the phone.

“Whatever. You’ll come crawling back for more. I’m the only man you ever keep coming back to.”

She felt that like a slap to the face. She needed to remind herself never to fight with Frederick again. He fought dirty, and she was too sensitive right now. What he was saying hurt! And all she wanted to do was stop feeling.

“Just wait until you see what I do to my apartment,” she growled into the phone.

“Find another designer to clean up your mess!” he snapped, the double meaning clear in his words. He hung up before she could get the last word in.

Of all the things she had been expecting from Frederick, anger and judgment were not among them.

Without him, whom else could she talk to about this? How could she make them understand that she had lost something special to her…something that had really mattered to her? People didn’t think anything mattered to her besides drinking and random hook-ups. How could she prove them wrong now? The industry wouldn’t let her stick with modeling, and it would all look like just another thing that Chyna quickly got tired of.

She sat back on the bench, her anger seeping out of her like sand through a sieve. There was one person. One person who would understand what she had given up to get to where she was in modeling.

One person who would understand what she was losing by giving it up.

Her hands were trembling as suspense stole her stomach. This shouldn’t be so difficult. She used to talk to him every day.

She waited for the line to click over to voicemail. He wasn’t going to answer.

Just another disappointment . She heard him clearing his voice before anything else. It was so familiar that she nearly smiled.

“Hey,” he muttered into the phone.

“Now really isn’t a good time. Can I call you back?”

She sighed. “Can we talk?”

“I…uh, do you…think that’s a good idea? We kind of…” he trailed off.

“Please,” she begged. “I’m not asking for much, just some of your time.”

He paused, releasing a sigh that said he was going to give in. “When you didn’t call after you got back, I thought it was over,” he said softly.

“Isn’t that what you want?” she asked, her desperation palpable.

“How could you think I wanted that?”

“You ended it.”

“You were leaving.”

She sighed, thinking about everything that had happened since she left New York. A lot of it was pretty f**ked-up, but a lot of it wasn’t. She loved modeling.

Wasn’t it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all ? Even if it hurt like hell?

“I’m glad I did,” she finally responded softly, “but not that I lost you in the process.”

There . She had admitted it.

CHAPTER 12

PRESENT

Chyna watched Alexa walk away from her town car toward the airport. After her conversation with Adam earlier, she had felt a lot better about what had happened to her. She had wanted to tell Alexa about what had happened with Marco, Cassandra, Frederick—with all of them— but she had so much else to deal with right now.