Page 40 of Take 2
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Big girl pants, Mira. And a playlist that exudes empowerment and sadness and feminine rage. Starting music on my AirPods gives my brain a distraction.
Ugh. I hate the red bubbles even more than dealing with the problems they represent. One thing at a time. E-mail is the safest, mostly Ashleigh and Lisa, one from Rafael, and several from Preston Greene.
Highlight. Mark as read.
Messages features most of the same names. James has sent me several memes and TikToks. Ashleigh sent me cat pics. Lisa got an ‘anonymous’ tip that she should check on me. I roll my eyes as I reply that I’m fine and will be back by Monday. Probably.
The urge to clear the red bubble versus the desire to not read messages from Preston is a real conundrum.
Ultimately, the one I can’t help but open is the one from ‘Fuck I Lost Ryan.’ How is he texting me from his old number?
I scroll past the collection of messages from the past twenty-four hours to see that the last message had been me saying, I signed with an agent …
over six years ago. Why does he even have this number?
My confusion shadows my anxiety over the whole thing, so I respond to this one.
Me: How do you have this number still?
My music stops in favor of the ringing of an incoming call so fast I jump back.
‘Fuck I Lost Ryan: from your iPhone’ appears in the corner of my screen.
Those are words I never thought I’d see.
Accept or decline? My heart is racing as I idiotically get ready to answer this call.
Why am I more willing to answer this than the calls from ‘Who Even Is Preston Greene?’
I hit the green button before I can think better of it. “Hello?”
“My phone number is the first thing you care enough about to answer me?” Annoyed wasn’t exactly the first thing I thought I’d get from him.
“Well, I thought you got rid of it a long time ago. You never did answer my text that said I got agented.”
“Because, for one thing, I didn’t want us to reconnect yet. We needed more time, otherwise nothing was going to be different. Plus, as happy as I was for you, I also hated myself because, of course you’d blossom and thrive once I was out of the picture. I was holding you back.”
The revelation hits me harder than I’d expected. It’s been so long. Did I still care that much that he didn’t respond? His success has weighed on me because I’m a jealous asshole. My success was a source of guilt for him.
“I was going to do it before I met you, and I can do it now that you’re gone.”
“You don’t think I’m extremely fucking aware of that?”
“Does that bother you? That I’d do it without you?”
“Of course it does!”
Our fight after my first Oscar loss falls into a new light.
“Where have you been since you left Monaco?” His words snap me back into the conversation.
“Home.”
“How could you possibly have ignored me at your door that long? I thought one of your neighbors was going to have me arrested!”
“Why are you in LA?”
“Because you’re in LA!”
“No, I’m not. And you’re supposed to be working in Monaco.”
“Fuck work, Bella.”
The words trigger a defensiveness in me, but he’s not talking about my work.
“Wait, you’re not in LA?” he asks.
“Correct.”
“But you …” He groans. “Are you in Madison?”
“Yep.”
“For fuck’s sake.” The sound of keys tapping comes through the call.
“Do not book a flight.”
“Of course, I’m booking a damn flight. We need to talk.”
I drop my face into my hands. “I told Lisa I’ll be back by Monday. Just … I’ll try to see you next week.” Try because I don’t know if I can physically bring myself to do it, not because I’ll be too busy.
“Bella …”
A breath puffs out of me, then I sniffle. “You use your Wisconsin number, and now I’m Bella again?”
“Is that the problem? That I called you Mira when I told you—”
“No.” I can’t hear those three words from him again.
“I mean, yes, that was part of it. But …” I wipe a tear from my eye.
“I never stopped loving you. And falling for this new version of you is like accepting that my Ryan is gone. I …” I sniffle again.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s probably because of me. God, that sounds egotistical …”
“No, it’s not egotistical to think you’re my reason for everything. It’s the truth.”
Perfect. Confirmation that Preston erased Ryan for me. My throat constricts, and I try to clear it. “You’re amazing at what you do, it’s just hard for me to reconcile … I mean, you fell off the face of the earth and then reappeared as a different person, so …”
Silence strangles me. “I’m sorry, Bella. I don’t know how to bridge what we were to what we could be now. It has to be different, so I went about as different as I could.”
I roll onto my back and look at the ceiling through tears. “It was a different place, but the same situation as college.”
“What?”
A breath slides out of my lips. I didn’t mean to do this.
“I had an amazing time, both with you and getting to be on the set, meeting Rafael, but…” God, this sounds selfish.
“It was kind of like how we tacked on visiting CalArts when we went to the Rose Bowl. I always loved watching you play football, and I loved watching you make a movie even more, but sometimes I want it to be about me. And I really, really hate saying that, but we’re adults.
We’ve already divorced, so what can be gained by tiptoeing around it?
I’m not the center of attention type, but … ”
“I … no. Of course. Things should be, and are, about you. I … fuck.”
“I’m not trying to blame you.” I wipe my eyes. “You moved to California for me. That’s huge. It’s not like you never put me first.”
“Except it kind of fell apart when you needed to be first for an extended period of time.”
“Ryan, please don’t act like it was all your fault.” My own guilt has never held a candle to how awful it is to have him feel bad about something.
“Bella, can you do one thing for me?”
“Maybe.” At one time, I’d have blindly said yes. There’s so much I have to protect myself from, though.
“Would you please watch Missed Opportunities ?”
“Oh. Um, I guess so.” It seems a simple enough thing to promise, even though the things I know about it are that Lisa referred to it as “raw and emotional” before I knew who wrote it, and he said he wrote it as therapy in our roundtable.
It's not like I can avoid it my whole life. I’ve always wondered what I’d find in that movie.
“Thanks. Please call me when you get back in town?”
“Yeah.” It can’t be dumber than anything else I’ve done recently.
“All right. Have … a good time back home.”
Nice try, but at this point, an earthquake taking out his reception would be the only non-cringe way to end this call. “Thanks,” I say. “We’ll talk soon.” I tap the end button before we can make this any worse.