As bad as I felt, I couldn't help chuckling a little at her comparison.
“Wow, I didn’t think I was so transparent,” I said, setting my mug down and leaning against the cabinet, the hurt from leaving Owen and the jetlag catching up with me quickly after the mild amusement from the joke disappeared.
“Well, maybe not to everyone, but you are to me,” she replied gently. “So, tell me what happened out there?”
I sighed and shook my head as I replied. “I screwed up...big time.”
“Did you screw up, or did you screw him up?”
“I screwed up. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe both. I did exactly what you don’t do on the road with famous rock musicians.”
She reached across and placed a gentle, soothing hand on my forearm. There were tears beginning to threaten her eyes. The concern of a lifelong best friend who was really more like a sister began to show through. She ached for me, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness.
“You fell in love with him, didn't you, Nay?”
I nodded, unable to say a word through the sickening sensation welling up inside my chest as tears began to roll down my cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” Grace replied softly, pulling me into a comforting hug. “I’m so sorry. Did he tell you to leave? Is that what happened?”
Surprised at the tears
coursing rapidly down my cheeks, I shook my head. “No, I left because I couldn’t take being around him another day. He’s been sleeping with other women the whole time. We never said we were exclusive, but he led me to believe I was the only one. I should have known he was too good to be true! I should have known! I'm such an idiot! I can't believe I fell for him. I really can't believe it.”
“Shit, did you catch him in the act?” she asked, pulling back to look at me. I reached into my pocket of my pajama pants where my cell phone was and quickly found the picture that I had saved on my phone. I didn’t know why I had saved it, but it was there, serving as a constant reminder of what had happened, what Owen had done.
She took the phone and looked at it, glancing back up at me, confusion written plainly across her face. “This is why you left?”
I nodded. “Of course, she’s all over him,” I replied miserably. “She’s kissing him, Grace. And, that's just one girl out of how many? You should have seen them—women everywhere, just swarming over him, with their tits bared and their asses out, begging him to touch them. Those guys are just drowning in hot, available women, they really are. So how many other times has he done this? How many times did he do this without getting caught?” I motioned back to the picture on the phone again.
Grace looked at the photo a moment longer before handing back to me. “I don’t know, Nalia. Usually, I've got your back. But if this is all you have to go on, sweetie, I think you might be wrong on this one. He looks like he was caught off guard. See? His hands aren’t even touching her. It looks like she's the only one who's enjoying this kiss. It doesn't look like he's into it at all. In fact, it looks like he's trying to get himself away from her.”
I looked closely at the photo, but I was still unable to see what Grace seemed to be seeing. Instead, what I saw was betrayal. What I saw was a man that had let me believe he was different than most men in his position. What I saw was a man I couldn’t trust.
How could I live in his world with the constant worry that he was going to move onto something new, something different one day just because it was presented to him? After all, he wasn’t lacking for a constant supply of young, hot, eager women. How could I keep up with the rigors of being involved with a rock star? Just the thought scared the hell out of me.
“God, it’s almost time for lunch,” Grace announced with a sigh. “Want to go grab something to eat?”
I nodded. “I’ll go get ready,” I replied and walked back to the bedroom, turmoil churning in my gut. What if I had been wrong to leave Owen? What if I had thrown away what we had because I assumed something was going on? Ugh, I was so unbelievably confused.
Grace and I walked to our favorite place on the corner to grab some salads. As we sat and ate, I tried to catch her up on everything that had happened since the last time we’d talked. We hadn’t had much time to talk because she’d been busy working during the days, and I typically did most of my work at night. So, I gave her the entire, sordid story of Owen and me. Not the easiest thing to do since I found myself fighting surges of intense emotion from time to time as I talked about him. I had loved him, and I couldn't deny that no matter how much I wished it hadn’t been true.
“I hate to say this, Nay, but I still don’t really understand why you left,” Grace remarked as we walked out of the restaurant and toward a frozen yogurt place a few blocks down, the heat driving us to something cold. “Why didn’t you at least talk to him?”
I hesitated before answering. It was a question I’d asked myself at least a hundred times. The conclusion I had come to was, “I was scared,” I admitted with a sigh, thinking of the sheer terror that had been in my heart last night as I dialed the number to Owen’s hotel room. Leaving that voicemail had been the hardest thing I had ever done, and I knew Owen was probably pissed off. Not just about my leaving, but the way I had left. I just hadn't known what else to do at the time.
“Well, I just don’t know what to tell you, Nalia,” Grace said as my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I pulled it out and frowned, not recognizing the number. I hesitated to answer it, but I pressed the green button and held it up to my ear. “Hello?”
“Nalia? This is Beth from the agency.”
“Hi, Beth,” I said, hoping that Owen hadn’t called and raised hell or done anything to prevent me from getting another position through them. I still needed to support myself, and if I got a black mark against me, I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. “What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Mr. Young’s secretary called,” she said, causing my heart to slow in my chest. “She stated that he left you a bonus check at the studio to be picked up at your convenience. He appreciates all of your hard work.”
I stood there, mouth gaped open, confused. He had given me a bonus? I had ditched them and fled in the middle of the night, yet he had given me a bonus? “I, um, thanks for letting me know, Beth,” I mumbled.
She said something about letting them know when I was ready for another assignment and then said her goodbye. I hung up the phone, shaking my head.