Page 119 of Lovestruck at Sundown
“I’m no stranger to these. Just breathe, okay? Slowly.” She started counting from one to five, inhaling with me, then from five to one as we exhaled. “It’ll pass. It always does,” she said, softly caressing my back. “Remember that.”
Serena’s words were comforting.
It’ll pass. It always does.
My breaths were stabilizing, finding a steadier rhythm, just as the bathroom attendant paid us another visit. She pounded the door and yelled, “Time’s up, ladies!”
Serena pulled out another ten from her purse and offered it to the attendant. “Five more minutes?” The woman pursed her thick lips and took the money.
“Feeling better?” Serena asked after locking the door again.
“I think so, yeah.” I inhaled, and my lungs filled up with little to no effort, reducing the feeling of imminent dread in my body, but it wasn’t gone entirely.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t do this to Lily.
“I’m feeling better now,” I lied. If I started talking about this with anyone, it would only make me feel worse. I knew I could pull myself together. I’d done it a thousand times before. I could do it again for Lily. “I just need a minute to check myself in the mirror.”
“You sure?”
“I promise. I’ll meet you at the table in five minutes,” I assured her. “If Lily asks, please don’t tell her anything. Just say I had an upset stomach and that I’m feeling better.”
“Don’t worry.” She smiled. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
The water from the faucet was cold, and my swollen eyes and face appreciated it. I wiped the runny mascara from under my eyes and applied lipstick so I wouldn’t look like a rotten zombie. It was convenient that no paparazzi were allowed inside this venue, but you never knew what awaited us once we stepped outside.
I hated that I cared about such things now. That my appearance and my actions were scrutinized on a daily basis because of who I was dating. The outfits I wore to school were subjected to constant evaluation and, at times, appeared in various fashion magazines, including those targeted at teens. Naomi worked closely with the media to ensure none of this coverage became damaging to my image or to the relationship, for that matter. William’s public image was easier to manage since the world already loved and adored him.
And I was the “bitch who stole him away,” as a celebrity blogger once said in one of her entries. There were over five thousand comments on that post. But I refused to read them.
But all in all, I was being “accepted” when it came to the media that “mattered,” according to Naomi. And again, I hated that ever since I started to learn about all these things, they began to matter to me, weigh on me, and somehow get in the way of my natural flow of being. Like stopping to check myself in the mirror one last time before leaving my apartment. Applying a bit more blush than I usually did. Or retouching my lips before leaving my last class of the day, knowing there might be a hidden photographer somewhere outside of school.
I didn’t know how to not care about how I was being perceived. I wanted people to find me worthy of being with William, and that wasn’t who I used to be. That’s not how I used to think. And it all tangled into my subconscious and generated a layer of undetectable pressure to be better. Do better. Appear better.
Perfect, if possible.
I walked out of the bathroom, and Aaron was still there. Still waiting. Still as patient as ever.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his mouth pressing into a line. He knew what was afflicting me, and I never stopped to think about how he might be feeling on this day. He lost Caleb, too, and there he was, standing outside the bathroom of a noisy and crowded club in Vegas while dealing with his grief, waiting for me to be done dealing with mine.
I really messed up.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling my face scrunching up again. “I don’t know what I was thinking coming here today of all days. I’m sorry.”
Aaron pulled me into his arms, and the warm embrace of someone who understood exactly how I was feeling because they were feeling it, too, brought me a sense of peace and warmth to my broken heart.
“We promised we’d be strong for him, didn’t we?” He rested his chin on the top of my head and held the embrace for a while longer.
We had. We’d both had bad days in the last year, some of which we shared by talking about it in our own way. Short conversations that were highly packed with emotion. And it was in one of those days where we agreed to that. To stay strong and carry on in his honor.
We broke off the embrace, but Aaron rested his hands on myshoulders when I spoke, “I’m ready to go back out there.”
“Okay.” He didn’t seem convinced that I was, but I didn’t have a choice. And I wanted to be able to celebrate with Lily without my feelings getting in the way.
“And are you done being weird with me about Naomi moving in with you?” I asked, as we started walking back to Lily’s table.
“I’m not being weird.” He frowned.
“Okay.”
