Page 102 of Revelry

The three weeks after that phone call are absolute hell. When I’m not expected to do a shift at the store, I lie in bed all day. I’d like to say I move to the couch, but since I only have a studio apartment and I can see the flat screen from my bed anyway, I only leave it to get coffee or make food. I live right above a convenience store, so it’s not as if I have to go far for food. In fact, Mr Wong took pity on me and handed over a whole container of those Chinese pork dumplings when I went down earlier today. I doubt he knew it was my birthday—it more than likely had something to do with the fact that I was still in my PJs and fluffy slippers, and that it was after two in the afternoon. I can’t even blame my dishevelled appearance on being hungover. Wong’s doesn’t sell liquor, and I ran out two days ago. Until this afternoon, I’d been living off a box of Peppermint Patties and a packet of seaweed rice crackers.

My phone rings. I fish for it under the covers, but it’s lost to the sea of sheets, and I am adrift here in my little fluffy blanket fort. I’d hidden under the duvet this morning, looking at Cooper’s picture for far too long on that wretched phone. I’d Google searched him again, and I wasn’t proud. I also wasn’t happy that anytime you put Cooper Ryan or Levi Quinn into a search engine, the number one result that was returned every time was another copy of our video. No matter how many times it’d been taken down, it was straight back up on another X-rated site again. I’d even found a listing on eBay selling a bootleg version. The seller had twenty copies available; he’d sold more than two hundred already. I’d considered buying them all, but what was the point? Once something is out there on the Internet, it’s there forever. You can never take it back, just like I couldn’t take back my relationship with Coop and Levi.

I’d searched Levi too, of course, but those pictures hurt me worse than Coop’s, because of my guilt. All of the recent ones were of him drunk or high with his arm draped around a woman, or sometimes three women. I couldn’t blame him. I’d told him I didn’t love him, and I’d left. He had a right to fuck whomever he wanted, but he’d broken my heart when he’d called me that night at Tim’s.

Coop had only texted messages that made me want to simultaneously punch him in the face and hop a flight to Europe. He must have found out about Levi’s late-night call to me, because he’d sent a message a few weeks later that read,He’s hurting. My responding text had been three simple words:Aren’t we all?

I finally locate my phone, tangled up in the sheet, as if the good-feeling fairies had come to strangle my smartphone and save my birthday from being a complete washout. The phone has stopped ringing but it dings, alerting me to a voicemail message. Before I can check who it’s from, it rings again.

I glare at Tim’s face on the screen.

“What?” I ask, picking up the last Mint Pattie in the box. Mr Wong knows how much I love them, and he ordered an entire box for me to buy. That was probably not the best move on my part, because now my arse is completely paying for it.I should join a gym. I frown, because the phone is still pressed to my ear and Tim is talking at me.

“What?” I say.

“I said buzz me up, I’m on your doorstep.”

I let out a huge sigh, and say, “Fine. Hold on.”

I get up from the bed, only my feet are tangled in the covers and I fall flat on my face. My phone goes sprawling across the floor, and I stare at it from the expanse of my disgusting carpet and wonder how I got to this point. For a moment, I just cry, because Peppermint Pattie is smeared on my cheek and smooshed into my carpet, and I’m lying face-down on my filthy floor on my birthday. Alone. I don’t even have that stupid cat to keep me company. God damn I hated that cat, but I’d take it all back—the tour, Coop, Levi and the job at Harbour Records for just one day with that cat. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t take Coop and Levi back for the cat, but I’d definitely give all of the other stuff for that feral feline.

Tim’s tinny voice echoes out from my speakers, and I glance at the phone. “Ali, open the door. Your neighbour let me in the building.”

I crawl across the floor and stand, unlocking the deadbolt and sliding the little chain free from its brass holder, then I sink to my knees and crawl across the floor again towards my Peppermint Pattie. I pick up the part that isn’t smooshed and I bite into it. Gooey peppermint oozes out the side, coating my cheek and fingers, but I don’t care.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what happened to you?” Tim says as he enters the room, and then peeks his head out through the open doorway, checking for my neighbours, or an escape hatch perhaps.

“Hey,” I mutter glumly.

“Oh, Jones, did he call again?”

“No. He’s dating a Victoria’s Secret model, whose name I can’t even pronounce, she’s that exotic. I’m sure they’ll have very beautiful babies together, and they can grow up and be these crazy talented rocker/model hybrids.”

He sighs. “You’ve been Googling again.”

“Yup.”

“So is there anything on Cooper?”

“Nope. Only a few new pictures with fans from their concert in Paris.”

“Well that’s good, right?” he asks, as if he’s trying to prompt a response from me other thanMe Jane. Rock star gone. Jane sad.

“I don’t know. I want him to move on,” I say, licking the gooey peppermint from between my fingers. “I want them both to move on.”

“But you want them both?”

I shrug.Did I want them both?No. Not anymore. I sure as hell missed them, but it had always been abundantly clear that my heart belonged to Cooper.What could I do about it though?I loved him. I missed him so much that some nights I felt like I was suffocating, gasping on the inside for a breath I couldn’t take. But I wasn’t willing to come between him and Levi anymore. I’d done enough damage.

“I want them both to be happy,” I say.

“I hate to tell you this, Jones, but we don’t always get what we want,” Tim says, with a life-is-hard-suck-it-the-fuck-up look.

“Yeah, I know.” I smile up at him, but I feel the deluge coming.

“Ali, how long since you showered?”

“I don’t know? A day maybe?” He glares at me, one eyebrow raised. “Okay, so more like three days. What? I haven’t had a shift in a while.”

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