“Sweet.”
“You’ll have to change the TV mode to composite two. It’s the Sony remote,” I said as I walked to the bedroom.
“Got it,” he yelled after me.
Even though my mind knew that Damien had closed the door on the possibility of anything romantic happening between us, my nerves certainly hadn’t gotten the message. Slipping out of my dress, I still felt like a giddy fool. My heart was beating just a bit faster than normal as I threw on some black leggings along with Elec’s old Bruins shirt that I often slept in. Feeling a slight rumbling in my stomach, I decided I should probably take this opportunity to use the bathroom.
Shitting yourself in more ways than one, eh, Chelsea?
My bathroom trip took longer than expected. It surprised me that Damien wasn’t giving me hell for it.
When I finally finished, I felt so much better. That is, until I reentered the living area.
My stomach sank at the sound of his voice. Blood started to rush to my head.
His voice.
A voice I hadn’t heard in so long. A voice I’d tried to block from my brain on a daily basis.
Elec.
It took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t really him. It was the DVD I’d left in the player a long time ago, one that I’d watched over and over when we’d first broken up. I hadn’t used the DVD player in months, but the disc was still in there.
Damien hadn’t realized that I was behind him. He was standing there frozen, intently watching the homemade video. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just stood there feeling ashamed.
When we’d recorded that video, Elec and I were supposed to have been filming a presentation for the youth center and ended up goofing around at the park instead with the loaned camera. At the time, I thought the little movie would make a cute private keepsake. I had no clue it would merely be used instead as a means of self-torture right after our breakup as part of my constant research into what went wrong.
Listening to it was like slowly getting stabbed in the heart with Damien as a witness to my being massacred. I cringed at the sound of my own voice in the video.
“Aren’t you supposed to be interviewing me, Elec?”
“I got distracted for a minute.”
“By what?”
“By how beautiful you look right now under the sun like this. I just love looking at you through this lens.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re so fucking adorable. I can’t believe you still blush when I compliment you.”
“Do I?”
“You do. And I’m just warning you, keep batting your eyelashes at me like that, and this will turn into an unintentional adult film in about two seconds.”
Giggles.
“Maybe we can try that later at home, Mr. Cameraman.”
“Seriously, though, the camera loves you. So do I, actually.”
“You do, huh?”
“I do, Chels. I really do.”
“How much?”
“Let me show you.”
Elec drops the camera.
Kissing sounds.
Laughing.
“It’s true, baby, you make me so happy. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
When Damien finally turned and noticed me standing beside him, he shut the video off and just looked at me.
Silence.
The expression on his face was a mix of sympathy, anger, and understanding. I think he finally realized why I was so fucked-up.
When a teardrop started to fall, he caught it halfway down my cheek and said, “He’s a fucking idiot. He’s not worthy of the way you were looking at him in that video, and he’s certainly not worthy of these tears.” He rubbed his thumb along my cheek. “No one is.”
“I can’t help it.”
“But you know…I get it now. Watching that. Listening to that. I get why it’s so hard for you. I know I joke about you being crazy and all that…but you have every right to be upset and confused. The things he said to you…the way he said them…I would have fucking believed it, too. And I’m a perceptive motherfucker. You just don’t do that to someone. More than that…you deserve so much better.”
“That was only three weeks before he went to Boston and reconnected with her, when everything changed. When he was away, I found a ring in his drawer. He was going to ask me to marry him.”
Damien shut his eyes momentarily and let out a series of profanities under his breath.
“He’d better not ever set foot in our building. I swear to God, if I ever see him, I’m gonna fuck him up.”
Our building.
A small laugh escaped me at the thought. “Thanks for wanting to do that for me.”
“You shouldn’t be watching that video.”
“I wasn’t watching it recently. I swear. I never use the DVD player now because I have Netflix. That disc has been in there for several months.”
He ejected the disc and held it in his hand in front of me. “You don’t need to hear this shit ever again. With your permission, I’m going to destroy it. Can I?”