Safe With Me, Part 8 (The End) Read online

  My downstairs keys were still right there in plain sight where Tyler dumped them out earlier. So much had changed since then. So much in a few short hours. Of course, this would happen to me on the day I finally admit my love for him, right? I tell him how I feel and then he suddenly decides it's over?

  Maybe it wasn't over. He said we'd talk later. If he was that angry, he wouldn't be downstairs cleaning up broken glass for me, would he?

  I took a deep breath. It was time to look at my phone and see what kind of hell awaited me. There were twenty-two missed calls, seven voicemails, and six text messages. One call and one text message were Michael. One call was from Jacinda, who didn't leave a message. The rest were a combination of Joan and Aunt Lydia; there were no two people I dreaded talking with more.

  Lydia's voice was too whiny. In no mood for one of her lectures, I deleted the message after the first few words and made a mental note to call her before the weekend was over.

  Michael's messages asked where the fuck I was. He also wanted me to know Joan was on her way over, and she was pissed.

  Once I got past all the screaming in Joan's messages I had a clearer picture of what made her go crazy. She, of course, found out I was a 'fat whore who strips online,' as she so eloquently put it, and she couldn't believe anyone would pay money to see a girl who looked like me. Furthermore, she believed if she ever went into that line of work, she could make a thousand times more money because she's just so much hotter.

  To that, I rolled my eyes.

  Joan blabbed on about how we were best friends and she couldn't understand me keeping this part of my life a secret. I had to laugh. My so-called best friend called me a 'fat whore' and hurled a rock through my window?

  Her third message was when she finally talked about Michael. I couldn't quite follow along. By then she was sobbing and rambling and telling me she was on her way over.

  Since I heard Tyler running a vacuum downstairs, I called Michael.

  He answered on the first ring, his voice quiet. "Hey. Let me go outside."

  "Is she there?" I heard him shut a door.

  "No. She's at home, I think. I came outside 'cause didn't want my roommate hearin' all this."

  "So, I guess everybody knows a whole lot about me now?"

  He sighed. "Let me explain. Jacinda and Caleb came over here real late last night after the bar closed—"

  "What about that guy Jacinda was flirting with before I left?"

  "Don't know. Didn't ask. We came back here, did some shots. I passed out. Woke up about two hours ago with Joan pounding on the door. Said she and Kate stayed the night at Troy's house."

  I groaned. "And there was a video, right?"

  He chuckled. "Yeah. She came right over here and just had to make sure we all knew what a filthy person our friend Susie is."

  "How'd she find out about me and you?"

  "Ooh." He paused. "Well, I was stupid. Me and Jacinda were in the kitchen reminiscing about you. You know, because we had to see your naked ass online this morning. Brought back some good memories. I'm not even sure what I said exactly. We thought she was in the living room on her cell phone but she heard everything. Came in all pissed off. Called Jacinda a slut. So what about Tyler? You finally take him back?"

  "Uh…well…I thought I did. She showed up at the worst possible time. Michael, seriously, it couldn't have been worse. You have no idea. Everything was great and then she started screaming and pounding on the front door."

  "Shit, ain't life a bitch sometimes?"

  "Yeah. And now Tyler won't even talk to me. She told him about me and you."

  He let out a loud sigh. "I know. She told me."

  "I guess he's mad at us? Or at least, at me? He didn't seem too mad at you when you showed up."

  "Well, it's different with men. He's probably mad at me too but we'll work it out."

  "Why's he mad at me though? I told him it stopped before I met him."

  "Well…I wouldn't worry about it that much. Just let him calm down. If he can handle your past as a porn star he can handle this."

  "My past?" There was something a little too familiar about the way he said it. "What are you talking about? Did Tyler already tell you before Joan did?"

  "Shit." He breathed into the phone for a while.

  "It's okay, I sorta figured he did."

  "No." He mumbled to himself then cleared his throat, loudly. "Susie, I gotta tell you something. I've been dreading this conversation for years."

  "Okay."

  "You see…I knew who you were the day I met you. I would've told you before but we got to be friends so fast and time went on and…" He sighed. "When's it ever the right time for that conversation?"

  "You knew me as Mia."

  "Yeah. Please don't be mad at me. I never told anyone. Well, except my cousins back home. But who're they gonna tell?"

  I don't know why, but a few tears came to my eyes and I began to chuckle. Maybe I should've been angry. And I probably was, for all of two seconds. But Michael was one of my most protective friends. Always there for me. After the amazingly shitty day I'd had, I just didn't have it in my heart to be upset about anything new. I needed a friend, and that's what he was: a true friend. He'd obviously gone this long without telling Joan, and I couldn't recall a time when he treated me with anything but respect.

  "Susie? You still there?"

  "Yeah."

  "You mad at me?"

  I sniffled. "No. I might change my mind later." I laughed. "Do you think Corbie knows?"

  "No. Not at all."

  "I'm surprised you never got drunk and told anybody."

  "What can I say? I'm good like that. Although, I've had to reign Tyler in a few times. Make sure he didn't say anything in front of the wrong people."

  I was about to ask him what exactly he meant by that when I heard Tyler walking upstairs. "Hey, he's coming. I gotta go."

  "Good luck."

  Immediately, I hung up and put my phone on the nightstand, then put my hands in my lap and waited nervously as I listened to his footsteps.

  He stopped at the door. "Found a tarp in the garage. Nailed it around the frame. You might wanna go over the carpet a few more times with a vacuum before you walk around barefoot down there."

  "That was really fast. Thanks."

  "Yeah."

  He seemed so detached. Distant. It made my stomach tie up in one giant, sick knot. He didn't look at me as he walked to the bed and sat down on the same side where I was, far enough away that someone else could have sat down between us.

  With his elbows against his knees and his fingers laced together, he stared down at the carpet. "So who else?"

  "What?"

  "Who else, Susie? You know exactly what I'm talking about."

  "I don't understand." I stared at him but his gaze was glued to the floor. "I told you about everyone I've been with since we met. It was just my friend Mitzi—"

  He finally turned to me, eyes wide with anger. "That's not why I asked. I see Michael every day and I had no idea. You should've told me."

  "I didn't know it mattered."

  "Of course it matters!"

  "But you told me to wait and tell you everything in January."

  "Not something like that." His eyebrows arched. "I need to know if I'm hanging out with guys every fucking day who know my woman like I do."

  My mouth fell open, words stuck in my throat. Was I losing him over this?

  "So who else?" he asked. "Come on. Corbie?"

  "If you think I'm such a slut then why do you want me?"

  He let out a seething breath through his clenched teeth. "That's not what I said." He spoke slowly, lips barely moving. "This is just something a man needs to know about his woman."

  "You wanna know about every guy I've ever slept with?"

  "No, I just wanna know about a few specific people. Now answer me this time. Corbie?"

  I shook my head. "No. We made out a few times but nothing else."

  He let o
ut a long, unhappy sigh. "Okay. Dan?"

  Oh shit. "Look, I don't understand why you didn't just ask the guys yourself."

  "I knew it." He balled up his fist and slammed it down on the bedspread. "You and Dan. I just knew it."

  "Why are you so mad at me about this? Today? After what happened?"

  "You know what? I remember you telling me a long time ago you thought Dan was a jackass. Were you lying to me?"

  Why the hell did he always have to remember everything? "No, I was upset with him. Right then I really did think he was a jackass. Look, don't take this out on him."

  Our argument went on for a while. At one point I asked him if it was better for me to go out to bars and sleep with random strangers, or to keep it among my friends. He didn't have an answer. I finally got angry enough to ask why he would do something like this on the day I finally told him I loved him. That's when he said he was finished arguing with me and he had to go home and think. He blurted out a quick and very unenthusiastic, "I love you," as he walked out of the room.

  The first person I called was Dan, to warn him. He tried to explain to me that this was a simple matter of hurting a man's pride and I may never understand it. His advice was to leave him alone and let him sulk for a while, and then things would probably be fine.

  Why does everyone always take up for Tyler?

  Joan

  Sunday, January 30, 2011

  11:28 PM

  "Here," Kate said. "Take another shot. It'll make you feel better." She tipped the bottle into the shot glass on the coffee table, then poured another one for herself. "And I'll join you." She picked hers up and pushed mine toward me. "To honesty."

  I reached for the glass and lifted it half-heartedly in the air before dumping the drink down my throat.

  I'd been at Kate's apartment for the past hour, drinking and crying on her couch. It was better than crying at home alone.

  As soon as I felt the rum hit my throat, I reached for my glass of Coke and took a drink.

  "Come on," she said. "Cheer up. You were only being honest with her. Quit worrying about it."

  I looked at my phone again. I'd sent Susie a ton of text messages. The last time I tried to call, her voicemail was full. I really didn't feel like typing another email. I was pretty sure she'd been ignoring mine for weeks anyway. "I wish she'd just call me back," I said. "She used to be my best friend."

  She smirked. "Yeah, I thought that whore was my friend, too, until that day…" Her voice trailed off, and I was glad. I'd heard the story a billion times. According to Kate, it was a story of betrayal. She knocked on Susie's door that morning and was shocked to find her and Troy answering the door together, both smiling and half-naked.

  According to Susie, Kate was invited inside to join them, like usual, but she stormed off. Susie said if she knew Kate liked Troy that much she never would've fooled around with him alone.

  I now understood why Susie found it so hard to give up Troy. I finally had my turn with him after we left the bar on Friday night. Kate could really be a bitch sometimes but she was a lot of fun in a three-way. The three of us stayed up all night, fucking and talking. Everything was great until the next morning when he took out his phone and showed us a video he did with someone I thought was my best friend.

  But wouldn't a best friend tell me about her secret life? It suddenly made so much sense why guys always wanted her when we went out dancing. It wasn't because she was prettier than me. It was probably because they recognized her from porn, like Troy did. All that time, I thought it was me. I wasn't good enough. I was the ugly one. It was never that at all.

  Maybe I wouldn't have been so upset if I wasn't so tired. It was such a slap in the face to see my best friend on camera. Did she think she couldn't trust me? After all the things I'd trusted her with? She knew everything about me and I knew nothing about her.

  Kate continued. "And let's not forget Michael. He should've told you he fucked that whore." She slapped her legs like she had an idea. "Another reason we have to get tested. God, Joan!" She gaped at me. "Do you know how many diseases she could've spread by now? All porn actors have herpes. It's a known fact."

  "I don't know if it's a fact."

  "Well, is it a risk you wanna take? Let's make appointments and go to Student Health next week."

  "Okay."

  "See? You did everyone a favor. She's fucked everyone at this University. You know she has."

  "I think I need another shot."

  Kate was referring to a message I blasted to everyone in my contact list after I left Susie's house on Saturday. It was Kate's idea. At the time, I felt so vindicated, but I was hopping mad (mostly over Michael if I had to be honest with myself). My sister Monica got the message and called me immediately to say that what I did was wrong, wrong, wrong. She was sitting on her couch beside her fiance, John, when she opened the message that linked straight to the nastiest picture of Susie I could find. Thank goodness she didn't know about that broken window…yet.

  Kate and I did two more shots in a row, then she stood up and walked out of the room. When she came back, she brought her laptop.

  "Okay." She opened a blank document. "You see, I think what you did was commendable." She started typing. "And I also think people need to know exactly who it is they're dealing with." She stopped and looked at me. "Do you think it's right for me and someone like her to be competing for the same jobs? Me, a decent human being? And Candy," she paused to gag at Susie's porn name, "a girl who fucks everything on two legs and is probably dripping with every sexually transmitted disease known to man? Shouldn't people be aware of such things?"

  I giggled, my head suddenly feeling very light. "I think I've had too much to drink."

  She laughed. "Pour us both another. I have some typing to do. Ooh! This is gonna be fun!"

  I rolled my eyes and prepared two more shots. My aim was so bad, the equivalent of at least one shot ended up in a pool on the coffee table.

  She stopped typing for a moment as we both downed another.

  I put the glasses back on the table and watched her type in the document.

  Attention Students and Faculty of Lumbrough University in Lockwood, Oregon:

  It is with both sadness and a sense of duty that I prepare this message. Sadness, because many of my beloved fellow students are most likely carriers of twenty different sexually transmitted diseases due to the immoral behavior of one of their own.

  I laughed out loud. "It sounds so official!"

  "Yes." Kate nodded.

  It is with a sense of duty because the behavior of said individual reflects poorly not only upon herself but upon the good reputation of this fine institution of higher learning.

  "Oh my God! You're so good at this!" It sounded brilliant. Maybe because I was drunk.

  The person in question is one Miss Susanna Lombardi, known also as Candy Melons: fat, unhealthy, unattractive porn star.

  She stopped typing and opened a browser. "I gotta find a really bad picture. Like, the worst picture."

  "Oh, geez."

  We spent a few minutes on various search terms, laughing hysterically at the pictures we found. Kate copied and pasted a few links, and then a link to a video.

  "Hmm. I wonder…" She stared thoughtfully at her computer and typed in 'Candy Melons' and 'Susanna Lombardi.' "Nope. Nothing. I gotta find some really damning evidence." She tried a few more search terms until finally a few links popped up for 'Candy Melons,' 'Lombardi,' and 'photo spread.'

  The combination took us to a forum where someone had posted a message in December 2009. 'Lombardi' was there because it was the name of one of the forum members, probably by coincidence. The forum had a 'Where are they now?' thread where someone had posted a message with some photos, asking if anyone knew whatever happened to an actress named Mia Jacobs, who disappeared from the porn scene sometime in 2006.

  "Well, fuck a duck." Kate's mouth dropped open. "They think that's her, too."

  "Wow."

  Kate s
coffed. "So, I guess she hasn't always been a fat whore, but she was still a whore."

  I watched as Kate did more searches. She copied and pasted a few more links into her document. And then she started looking for 'Mia Jacobs' and 'Susanna Lombardi.'

  "Ooh!" She elbowed me.

  "Huh?" I had probably passed out for a minute.

  "See this?" She turned her laptop screen for me to get a better look. "Did you say her brother's name is Matt?"