“Love you. I’m celebrating your sale anyway youweirdo.”
Iam goingto beat this Braddock-Anger-Obsession. I’m going to be the boss of my mind. I will control my own mind, and my body and heart will follow. I go to the kitchen, open the “mess” drawer, and find a rubber band, which I place around my left wrist. Every time I have a Scott Thought, I will snap it. Furthermore, I will pretend I’m playing a video game. Every time I have a Scott Thought, I will shoot at it and win points every time I make it explode and dissipate. Every time an image of Braddock’s mouth or penis enters my brain—POW! One hundred points! Levelup!
I expect to garner approximately fifty billion points by the end of theday.
By then, I will have called my parents, to give them the good news. By then, I will be excited and so grateful to be a paid screenwriter who can still afford to pay her rent. By then I will be able to kiss the tender pink skin around the inside of my wrist, and not feel sad that it’s my lips on my skin instead ofhis.
I wish I liked scotch, so I could hold a tumbler of it while staring out my window,thoughtfully.
I also wish I had aview.
Andtumblers.
AndScott.
Chapter 22
*Erin*
It’s July,and Joshua Tree is a hotdesert.
I’m pulling up to the rental house by myself, and I’m a hotmess.
I went to the two previous weddings with Scott Braddock. The first one I attended this season, I went to dreading the sight of him because I thought I hated him. This time, I’m dreading the sight of him because while I was driving here, by myself, I finally realized that I’m hopelessly in love withhim.
It’sterrifying.
Before Maya left our apartment to come here in her parents’ rental car, she said to me: “I think some people find it hard to fall in love with a person while they’re actually with them. I think you needed this space. Some time and space away from him. But you’ve had enough. You’ll see him today. Let him be the guy he wants to be for you, instead of the guy you’ve been so determined to see him as.” Then she playedA Thousand Yearsby Christina Perri on her phone, because she knows I can’t listen to that song without crying. She was playing hardball. I respectthat.
I ate pepperoni sticks and powdered donuts while driving (I don’t recommend this), and I thought about my first love Peter. I tried to remember what it felt like to be in love with him. The truth, when I actually allow myself to remember it, is that I adored him. I liked him ever so much. And we were young, sex was new, so it made everything feel special and important. But I always knew we wouldn’t last, because he didn’t challenge me. He didn’t force me to become more of who I could be. When I left for Boston though, we were just texting and talking on the phone, and I enjoyed him more because I didn’t have to put up with his mood swings and neediness. When he dumped me from Europe, I was hurt at first, but then I was free to rewrite my memory of our relationship. It was my first love and it was behind me. This cute little blue-eyed blonde from Idaho who had been cursed with nice parents and a pleasant upbringing had finally experienced something. I had something to write about. Yay forme.
Jake the camera operator barely even figures into the narrative of my so-called love life. He was my L.A. boyfriend, and a perfectly decent distraction from my writing when a distraction was warranted. Every other guy I went out with or made out with at a bar or party has been a very short term distraction for my brain and my mouth. For years, the most important things in my daily life, besides Maya, have been my writing and my hate-fueled obsession with Braddock. Now, of course, I can acknowledge that the hate was fueled bylust.
In the time and space away from Scott, I had indeed become aware of the enormous void that needed to be filled in his absence. I’m not even going to make a vagina-penis joke here. I have been cracked open. But he didn’t break my heart, I did. And I don’t want to put it back together again. Not the way it was before. It has become something new, something more. It is raw andvulnerable.
I realize what he’s been doing, since we got back from New York, since our fight at LAX. He’s letting me struggle with myself again. Waiting until I wear myself out, like an inexperiencedboxer.
Well, it has happened. I am tired of fighting him. But I’m still scared. And I’ve been crying while driving for nearly three hours, listening to Eighties love songs, having every feeling I’ve been repressing for years, and trying not to crash. I am mad at him for not calling or texting me and also relieved that he hasn’t, because I don’t know what to say to him rightnow.
I’ve written so many scenes where a person tells another person “I love you,” but I have no idea how or when to say it Scott. I want to be brave, and be the one who says it first. But I also want to be brave enough to let him lead the way. That’s so much harder forme.
It was so much easier just to despisehim.
The housewe’ve rented for Maya, myself and the three other bridesmaids is a four bedroom. Maya and her cousin Bridget and I get our own room, and Naz and Cleo are sharing because they are besties. I know Naz and Cleo, but this is my first time meeting Maya’s cousin from Vancouver, Canada. Bridget is a quarter Chinese and looks like Phoebe Cates fromFast Times at Ridgemont High.She is super sweet and cool, and I plan to put a bag over her head whenever Scott is around. I’m sure she’llunderstand.
Sam, Scott and the three groomsmen have rented a house a few blocks away. Maya and Sam’s relatives were all able to find vacation rentals in the general area around us. The dinner party will be at our rental house heretonight.
Maya, Naz, Cleo, and a few other design students plus one of their teachers, are heading to the wedding venue to set up for tomorrow. Since it’s a Moroccan theme, I imagine that means draping colorful exotic fabric everywhere and placing a lot of glass and metal candleholder lanterns around the covered outdoor space. It’s sort of ridiculous that Maya is decorating her own wedding venue, but also awesome and to beexpected.
I offered to help, but Maya knows that my decoration skills are limited to telling her if something that she’s hanging is crooked or not, and holding the step ladder while she places the star on top of our Christmastree.
So, two weeks ago, I had offered to help Heather the caterer with the cooking for tonight’s rehearsal dinner/party because she and her team also have to prep for the big event tomorrow. I was, of course, being super considerate, but I also wanted the excuse to hide in the kitchen—away fromScott.
Heather is tiny, has short red hair and freckles, and she looks like a very pretty, totally stressed-out elf. All the times I felt like I was losing my mind about a script, I’m certain that I never looked as crazed and frazzled as she does right now. It may not have been a good idea to hire her to cater for both nights, but Maya has been to a party that was catered by Heather and her new team before, and she insists that we are lucky to have her while she’s still available andaffordable.
After changing out of the pepperoni-scented powdered sugar-covered clothes I drove up here in, freshening up, and pulling my hair into a pony tail, I have come to the kitchen to make myself available to Heather and her minions and to find something to eat, because I’m starving. There’s still several hours before guests will start arriving for this party—which I remind her is low-key—but things in here are pretty frantic. It’s great, because I immediately go into crisis mode and forget that I’m going to have to see Scott and tell him that I love him at somepoint.
Apparently, there isn’t goat cheese for tonight, and apparently this is anemergency.
