“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He’s married. He belongs with his wife. Not you. I don’t care if you say they have a strained marriage, that he doesn’t love her. He’s scum and he’s playing you like some dumb young American.”
I shake my head. I look away, blinking fast. Fear leads to tears. “You don’t know him or his life or what he’s been through or what I’ve been through.”
She scoffs and takes a large gulp of her beer. “You can’t have everything, Natasha. That’s not how life works.”
I stare at her blankly. “I don’t have everything.”
“Yes you do,” she says with a bitter laugh. “You grew up in this fabulous house in LA, spent your youth modeling and acting.”
“My mother is insane! If you met her, you wouldn’t say that!”
She ignores me. “You have these guys fawning over you in your class, you’re smart, you have a father in France, a big deal cinematographer on top of it, you look like a fucking movie star, and now you have some handsome married guy wanting to leave his wife for you. No, sorry, but you can’t have that. It’s wrong. You need to let him go and just accept that some things are not meant to be. Chemistry is everything, but timing is the real bitch. This is not your time. For once in your life, it’s not your time.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It’s not so much about Brigs, it’s that Melissa has these preconceived notions about me, none of them being true. I mean, not in the light she’s painting me.
“Everyone’s lives look different from the outside,” I say quietly. “But the truth is there if you’re willing to believe it.”
“Whatever,” she says dismissively. “You know I’m right. As your friend, I have to tell you that going after a married man is pretty low, and the sooner you move on and think about guys your own age, the ones who are available, then you’ll have something to be genuinely happy about.”
Ouch. Fucking ouch. But I’m not surprised, not entirely. It’s just impossible to explain Brigs and me to anyone. If it wasn’t for Melissa seeing him that morning, I wouldn’t have said anything to her at all.
Am I ashamed? I don’t know. Not of how I feel for him. And not of how he feels for me. I just know it’s not the kind of thing to ever be proud of. Love is something I always thought of in terms of black and white—you loved someone or you didn’t. If you loved them, it was good. How could love be anything but?
But now I’m living in all the shades of grey. How love can lift you up and make you fall all at once. Brigs makes me feel both pure and dirty, carefree and guilty. I can tell myself too, over and over again, that we didn’t have a choice in this, at least I didn’t, but I couldn’t have shut off those feelings any easier than it is to stop breathing.
What we have is complicated. A ball of knots worth unfurling. And if I didn’t believe it would be worth it in the end, I wouldn’t pursue him. I wouldn’t be pining for him, waiting for his call.
I wouldn’t be a fucking girl at a bar, wondering when the man she loves is going to leave his wife.
I’m pathetic.
I’m in love.
I guess it’s all the same thing in the end.
“Look,” Melissa says, gentler now. “I know you’re in love with him. I can see it. But you could never be happy with a man who will leave his wife for you. You’ll spend your whole relationship wondering if he’ll do the same to you.”
But I know he wouldn’t. He isn’t an unfaithful predator. He’s just a fool as I’m a fool. A fool with bad timing.
I need us to get off this topic, so I ask her about her date the other night, and things eventually swing in that direction, leaving the complicated mess that is my love to the side.
When I go back to my flat that night though, tipsy from the beer, head swimming with too many thoughts, I wonder why Brigs hasn’t contacted me. It’s been days. I’ve been afraid to contact him, not wanting him to feel pressure or to rush something that is so extremely delicate. So I sit and wait and stew, wondering if everything I could have hoped for, ever wanted, will ever be.
It isn’t until later, when I’m winding down for bed, putting tea on in the kitchen and hoping a bit of chamomile and a hit of Scotch will put my raging mind to rest, that I get this horrible feeling of dread. It’s like a black, swampy shadow makes its way across the room, and I end up pulling my robe tight around me, even though the feeling also seems to come from inside my bones.
I shudder and try to ignore it. I bring the teapot into my room, grab my iPad, and begin mindless scrolling through all the usual sites. Just Jared, Perez Hilton, IMDB, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, TMZ, US Weekly. Anything to distract me.