Page 28
Story: Time of Your Life
Nineteen
Ysolde
I did have this funny little panic whilst I was away that maybe something would happen whilst I was gone.
And perhaps maybe a little bit of that is because MB cheated on me, but also because I’m not an idiot. I know how these things work. And you shouldn’t be naive either…
On those magazines you read with those titles “Celebrities: they’re just like us!”—no, we aren’t.
Sorry, but we aren’t.
We couldn’t possibly be because our entire paradigm is different to yours.
There’re studies on how an increase in power correlates directly to increased risky or unethical behaviour.
There are a lot of theories as to why this happens—narcissism, increased opportunity, group norms, high stress, addictive personalities—a million reasons.
I personally think it’s more because of the necessity of want—how important desire and desiring for something is for humans…
When you’re a celebrity, you have most things that you want.
You don’t want for much. I think you have to start wanting extra things.
I, on and off, see a psychologist, can you tell?
I’m not seeing her much at the minute. Don’t read into that, though.
All of that was to say: I know for normal people, cheating is this big, horrific deal—and I can objectively see how it is—but I will say, in my circle, amongst my peers, many of you would be alarmed or at the very least aghast with how prevalent it is.
Does that make it right? No, of course not. Is it ideal? Never. Have I been the other woman on one or two occasions? Perhaps. Did I return from New York with a weird sense of dread in my stomach preempting the delivery of news I didn’t want to hear under any circumstance? Also perhaps.
I don’t know that there’s much Joah wants for, you know?
There’s a knock on my door before I hear the key and it opens.
In walks the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I’ve maybe ever seen—pink and orange tulips with chamomile flowers dotted throughout. My favourites. I don’t even think I told Joah that.
He peers over them, evidently pleased with himself.
“Trouble.” He grins at me as he offers me the bunch. I take them—I feel shy all of a sudden? Silly, I know, but he does that to me.
Then he opens his arms, wraps me all up in them, and I think he breathes out—like, sighs. Happy sighs.
“Fuck, I’m happy to see you.” He kisses the top of my head, then pulls back a bit. “How’d you go, were you amazin’?”
I shrug. “Hopefully.”
His eyes search over my face. “You look fuckin’ incredible, is somethin’ different—? Or have I just forgotten how fit you are?”
I bat my eyes at him. “The latter…”
He gives me this half-baked smile. “Shame on me, ey…”
I pull him into the living room, push him onto the couch and then sit on his lap.
“How was your week?”
“Yeah—” He nods. “Fine…”
“Get up to anything fun?”
He shrugs. “Had an interview with an Australian magazine? Bit boring.”
“How’s Richie?” I ask.
He gives me a look. “Very boring.”
I roll my eyes at him, and then he sits up a bit straighter, like he remembered something.
“Oi—I got a funny story. So I was at a bar with the boys—”
I nod, waiting for more. “Yeah?”
“And this girl had a crack, didn’t she?”
And my heart sinks. Fuck, he’s going to say it. Has it sunk on my face—? Can he tell it’s sunk?
I swallow, nervous—though I try my best to sound normal. “Well, fair play to her I suppose, one must shoot their shot—”
“You know her,” he says, smiling still.
“Oh.” I frown, a bit interested now in a non-masochistic way. “Who was it?”
“I dunno”—he shrugs—“Meghan somethin’.”
The frown deepens. “Miller?”
He snaps his fingers. “That’s there, yeah—”
I have a hard time keeping my face in check. I clear my throat, heart racing now. “Meghan Miller hit on you?”
“Yep.” He nods.
“Well—” I clear my throat. “What happened? Did you—”
He cuts me off, actually looks completely horrified. “No!”
“Oh, really!” My eyes go wide. I probably sound too surprised. That’s terrible of me, isn’t it?
“Of course I fuckin’ didn’t.”
My shoulders slump a little. “Sorry—”
He thinks to himself for a moment. “Think I made her cry, I reckon.”
“Why?” I blink, then shake my head, trying to understand. “And how?”
Jo grimaces at his own private thought. “Turned her down a bit theatrical, like—you know?”
My eyes pinch.
“I…would like more information…”
He rolls his eyes and launches into the story, about how she was impossibly forthcoming with her intent to shag my boyfriend because she knew I was away (and on a campaign she’d never get in a million, trillion years, I’d like to say, thanks) and how he cannonballed through her confidence in a way where she’ll probably genuinely, truly need therapy, and I try not to laugh, but it’s an uphill battle.
“Oh my god—” I stare at him. “That’s…so much meaner than I thought you were going to say—wow.”
He shrugs, unbothered.
I settle in on his lap, pushing some hair behind his ear. His eyes go soft for me in a way I think he wouldn’t actually like if he knew his eyes were doing it.
“Do you know—” I give him a tiny smile, pretending like there’s not a little bit of sting attached to it still. “She’s who my ex-boyfriend cheated on me with?”
His face shifts.
“Didn’t know that—” Shakes his head. “Would’ve been fuckin’ meaner if I knew.”
I smile, amused. “How?”
“Dunno—” He shrugs. “I’ll have a think and get back to you. Oi—” He elbows me. “I wanna hear about New York.”
“Yeah—” I shrug my shoulders, breezily. “It was good, a really easy trip—”
Jo nods. I keep going.
“The shoot was so good, and it was so fun to be with Lala and the girls, and I mean, Jo—the campaign is iconic. Like, I actually think it will end up being quite culturally iconic—you’re going to love it.”
He gives me this restrained smile, like rock star him is trying to play it cool, but real him doesn’t want to.
“Course I fuckin’ will—” He nods his chin at me. “You girls have any big nights out?”
I shake my head. “Just a couple of dinners.”
“No dramas?” he asks, eyebrows up, and I wonder if he knows something. I wonder if Lala or Kekoa said something to him? He and I have never really talked about Mark Draper properly. I’m sure in passing we probably have, but not in great detail. I don’t like to recall it in great detail, that’s all.
I clear my throat delicately and flash him a quick smile.
“Well, there was that brief interlude where we momentarily thought that my stalker had found me, but—”
“Whoa, whoa—” Joah holds his hand up. “Your— what ? Your stalker?”
“Yeah.” I shrug like it’s nothing. “You know, the—”
His face has gone serious in a way I’ve never seen.
“You ain’t never told me about no stalker.”
“Oh,” I say quietly, then swallow. “Well, anyway—” I shake my head quickly, hoping we can just blow right past this. “It was just a weird series of events in the end. He’s still in prison.” I give him an encouraging smile but Joah doesn’t look all that encouraged.
“In prison?” His head’s pulled back now. “What the fuck is he in prison for, Ys?”
“Um—” I purse my lips. “Stalking me.”
“Christ—” Joah takes a steep breath. Everything about him has gone eerily quiet. “What the fuck happened?”
“He just like—” I shake my head dismissively. “You know, broke into my house, and…used some of my stuff, and made he and I dinner in my kitchen and—”
He blinks a lot—I haven’t seen him do that before—he’s struggling to process it. I get it.
“Did he touch you?” he cuts me off.
God, I hate that question. I hated it the first time the detective asked me, I hated it the second time when Lala asked me, I hated it the third and fourth time when Jilly and then my sisters (not my father) asked me, I hated it the fifth time when Fletch asked me, and I hated it the sixth time when I had to talk through that night with a trauma therapist and she asked me too.
I still hate it now. Maybe more so. I didn’t belong to anyone when it happened—I don’t know whether I’ve ever really belonged to anyone ever before this, not really—not how it feels to be Joah’s, and I think that makes this worse now.
Because before the violation was just my own to bear, but now also his.
“A bit,” I tell him quickly before I drop his eyes.
“But it could have been worse. And it’s—” I shake my head.
“I don’t know. I had to play along, you know—?
I-I didn’t want to upset him—” I swallow and Jo’s eyes look beyond devastated.
“So I don’t know whether it’d even be classifiable as nonconsensual touching. ”
He tilts his head and gives me a look. “It was fuckin’ nonconsensual touching, Ys, alright—”
“It wasn’t much—” I shake my head. “Just he kissed me and my neck and, I don’t know—like, touched my arm—put his arm around me on the couch—”
Joah looks like he’s going to throw up, but I’m just telling him the story now, it’s all tumbling out. “And then the postman came, and I told him I needed to answer the door, and he asked why, and I said because the postman would worry if I didn’t and there was nothing to worry about, right—”
Jo’s nodding along slowly.
“So I answered the door.” I shrug a little.
“And I don’t know, the postman—I think I must have whispered I needed help, but I don’t remember?
But he…knew. Somehow, he understood. He pretended it was fine, but he left and called the police and they got there just in time—” I nod to myself, crossing my arms over my chest. “It was certainly…headed…in a direction that I wasn’t mad on—” I force a smile.
He was getting violent by the time they arrived, and I won’t say how—I don’t think Joah could stomach knowing how—but do remember that earlier I said that I’ve heard before firsthand the sounds of someone running out of air.
“They found rope and duct tape and lighter fluid in his bag, and like fifty letters he hadn’t sent. I think that’s why he’s in prison.” I nod. “I used to get letters from him, that I didn’t think very much of initially because I was stupid—”
“—No.” Joah shakes his head. “Not stupid.”
“Yes,” I tell him, sure of it. “Stupid. And I thought I was untouchable. I’m very touchable, it would turn out.” I flash him a quick smile, trying to lighten the mood but to absolutely no avail.
Joah presses his hand into his mouth, eyes are fretful.
First time I’ve maybe seen it viscerally on his face, how much he actually loves me.
I knew he loved me, I could see that already, but this here on his face, I don’t know—it’s a quantifiable amount.
Strange that I can see it so easily now when something’s hurting him. What does that say about us? About him?
“How did he—” Jo starts, then stops himself. Shakes his head, tries again. “Where did he—?” He swallows, takes a measured breath. He’s trying so hard to stay calm, but his mind is completely swimming. “When, Ys? Like, where did it start?”
“We don’t know—” I tell him, shaking my head.
“Apparently I met him a few times at events or—I don’t know, I’m not sure—” I shrug.
“You know, we meet so many people, I could never place him—” I think back to those strange brown eyes he had, that have always since struck me as far too dark for his very light skin.
“He was strange though—one of those— I was sending him messages through the TV screen types…”
Joah’s staring at me, but I think technically it’d be more off into space. He looks like he’s going to be sick, actually.
He blinks a couple of times as he looks at me—properly looks. “I’m so sorry, Ys.”
“For what?”
He shakes his head. I think his eyes are teary, maybe? I’ve never seen him teary. “That I wasn’t there—”
I put my hand on his cheek. “We didn’t know each other, how would you—”
“It don’t matter—” He’s full of a remorse that isn’t his to carry. “I should have been there.”
“Jo—” I tilt my head at him. “You couldn’t have been there. And thank god you weren’t, he might have hurt you—”
“Nah—” he says, decidedly. “That fucker’d be dead.”
I say nothing, just nod once. He’s struggling with it, I can see it all over him.
I’ve never seen him frightened before. He keeps getting lost in thought, eyes somewhere else far away.
“Oi—” He looks at me suddenly, almost like he’s remembered I’m right here. “Let’s cancel dinner.”
“What?” I pull a face. “Why?”
“Dunno—” He shrugs. “I just—let’s order in, yeah? Can we?”
“Well, yeah, but—” I hold his face with both my hands. “I’m okay, you know?”
“No, no, yeah—” He shakes his head dismissively. “I know.”
“I promise, Jo.” I hold his eyes. “I’m good.”
“No, I know.” He nods, sure. “And now you’re mine, so you always fuckin’ will be.”
Table of Contents
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