Page 52 of Secrets in Love
I shut off the part of me that you consumed.
Nate was so scared to risk his everything that he sought out women that gave him nothing. Avoiding attachment became a personality trait.
Cynicism told me it was bullshit. An excuse he’d concocted in his room when alone and horny. He was just trying to lure me back. To get me in his bed.
But like the man said, I knew who he truly was in my heart.
So, if you know, why don’t you believe him?
“What are you studying so intensely over there?” Jocie was sitting on the sofa opposite me, eyes squinting, her face suspicious. Before I could think of a lie, my phone beeped, and the universe gave me one.
“Just a message from Polly.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad you’re still talking. You were always so close.”
Polly: Hi, stranger. How’s the Big Apple? Guess who I saw at the shops today…
A second later, another message popped up with a photo.
Polly: Luke Bailey! Doesn’t he look amazing? He’s back in town to visit his parents for a week and is as hot as ever. He asked me how you were, and I told him you were all living in NYC. I showed him that photo you had sent me of you and Finn in Times Square. He was so shocked and even made a joke that Little Frigid Evie had transformed into Hot Evie. I didn’t think it was very funny, but he and the other guys he was with had a good laugh. I still can’t believe he told everyone you freaked out on sex and ran. It was so wrong of him. People knowing you were a virgin who didn’t like to be touched must have been humiliating. I hope that’s still not an issue for you.
Anyway, hope you and Nate are having fun. I know we were before he left—wink, wink.
XXOO
Pol
I thought of my day with Nate, of how I reacted—or failed to react—when I saw his body in the pool and change room, and my epic meltdown at Rubirosa. Judging by that and how my body froze in his arms when he plucked me from the street, hence saving me from that cab, Frigid Evie was alive and kicking. Somehow, Polly knew it.
“Something wrong, darling?” I blinked a few hundred times, recovering from Polly’s virtual smackdown, and then glanced at my aunt.
“No, nothing’s wrong. Do you remember Luke Bailey?”
“Pam Bailey’s boy? The one who’s an investment banker in Singapore with two Audis, a yacht, and a house on the water? Thanks to his mother’s nauseating pride and oversharing, I may have a slight memory of him. Why? Did he buy the Sydney Opera House?”
I forced a laugh.
“Not quite. He’s home visiting his family. Polly saw him at the shops and showed him a photo of me at Times Square. He said I looked hot.”
“That’s because you do, darling. I wonder if he is still a douche.”
I dropped my phone and stared at my aunt as she flicked through her latest issue ofVogue.
“How do you know he was a douche?”
“Finn told me. I relayed Luke’s mother’s Singapore-takeover news to him, and he said, ‘Luke Bailey is a cockspank-douchebag, and if I ever see his face again, I’ll flatten him.’ He then told me that when you broke up in year twelve, he bad-mouthed you to the whole school. “
“Oh. Did he tell you what Luke told everyone?”
“Nope. He just said it was lucky Luke left town before he got a hold of him.” Jocelyn looked up from her magazine and gave me a sympathetic smile. “I can see it still hurts. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. It’s okay. I think some things are best left buried.”
“As long as those things aren’t rotting away inside you. Some things, though, reek and fester long after we think they’ve been disposed of, and those stinky buggers need to be dug up and tossed out into the compost. You need to ask yourself if this is one of these things, because by the look on your face, that trash is still on the nose.” She then stood, shuffled to me in her pink fluffy slippers, and kissed the top of my head. “I’m here if you need a spare shovel.”
Angry that this still hurt so much, I waited till Jocie had left before allowing my tears to trickle onto my cheeks, then pulled the cushion from behind my back and threw it across the room.
“Fucking Polly.” I cursed under my breath, picked up my phone, and, through blurred vision, typed the most mature response I could come up with.
