Page 85 of I Did Something Bad
“Everything we said last night. Everything we’ve done for each other this past month. Isn’t… isn’tthatenough reason?”
“What, that you pretended to like me so that I could be the next rung on your career ladder?” He shakes his head with a rueful snort. “Who would’ve thought that between the two of us, it’d turn outyouwere the better actor? By a fucking mile.”
I am painfully aware of how a person’s voice sounds when they’ve made up their mind about leaving you, that specific finality in their tone when they’ve decided that there isn’t anything left to salvage. Idrop my gaze to the floor as his footsteps recede. Several seconds later, the front door shuts.
As though his leaving has also sucked out all of the gravity in this apartment, I crumple down onto the floor, the waistband of my jeans digging into my flesh as I pull my knees to my face. Despite the sunlight warming my bare arms, a biting coldness settles in my bones.
With my marriage, we had been two tectonic plates gradually drifting apart until the gap became so wide that it was no longer unavoidable, no longer temporarily fixable by any amount of therapy or time apart or a succession of optimistic yet unfounded promises thatwe’ll be better tomorrow. This, however, feels like a sinkhole—like one moment I was taking a photo of the view, and the next, the ground gave in and I’m still grappling for purchase even though I know there’s no point. The ground is gone. My lungs scorch as I breathe in more sand.
Twenty
When I first met Tyler for that dinner in Chinatown, I thought he had been on his best behavior, a prime example of how to act and what to do and say, right out of the Universal Publicist’s Handbook. I thought I’d been getting the Tyler Tun that every interviewer got.
I had been wrong.
It’s been nineteen excruciating days since That Night, and now, every day that I show up on set,nowI get the Tyler Tun that the rest of the world gets. “Morning, Khin,” he says in the morning, mouth curving into a smile that, I swear, is the exact same length each time—wide enough to come across as convincingly genial, tame enough to be professional. He doesn’t come find me in between takes; I try not to take it too personally—now that all the red tape has been cleared, we’re shooting at rapid speed, everyone working even longer and harder than before, especially him. He’s so exhausted, he barely speaks toanyoneat the end of the day, I reason to myself. He still sitswith me at lunch, probably because it would look suspicious if we began eating separately and the last thing he wants is for more rumors to spread, but makes the precise amount of small talk that you’d make with a coworker whom you run into at the water cooler. May, on the other hand, hasn’t said a single word to me; I don’t think he’s told her about his retirement, but he’s certainly told her about the whiteboard.
Every night, I tell myself that it will hurt less in the morning, but every morning, it turns out I was wrong. Instead, for the rest of our time together, the pain is piercing and prolonged, easily the worst I’ve ever felt; ignoring it doesn’t work, but neither does giving in and letting the wave wash over me. By the last day of shooting, I’m so numb that I don’t feel an ounce of emotion as I say my goodbyes to everyone.
The wrap party for the Myanmar cast and crew takes place at a rooftop Thai restaurant the following night. By the time I arrive, everyone is already drinking, and most people are already drunk.
“Khin! Holy shit, you look gorgeous!” Jason engulfs me in a hug from behind. He makes a twirling motion with a finger, and I oblige, pulling off a 360-degree spin in my Alice + Olivia forest-green halter dress with a cream-colored bow on the back. “Absolutely stunning,” Jason says with a grin. His grin spills over when he notices something behind me. Eyebrows waggling, he tips his chin toward the room. “And clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
I spin, and like a polarized magnet, latch onto Tyler, who stands with May and two extras at one side of the bar. May is wearing a simple little black dress with two side cutouts, large gold hoops, strappy black heels. He’s wearing dark blue jeans with a black leather belt, a light pink linen shirt tucked in, navy suede sneakers. Theylooklike people who were born to be famous. I expect Tyler to look away, but he doesn’t, and in response, my body stills as his gaze slowly travels down to my feet until moving back up and fastening onto my eyes once more. Whatever our separate reasons may be, we can’t lookaway. May tiptoes to say something into his ear, and he shakes his head. She follows his gaze to me and says something else, something that makes half of his mouth quirk into a smile this time.
Self-consciousness floods my body, but before I can stop the nearest passing waiter for some liquid courage, Tyler motions to the left with his eyes, at a hallway that rounds the corner. Handing his drink to May, he walks over and disappears down the hall. I count to three, and, ignoring May’s scrutiny, follow.
At the end of the hall is a bright red fire escape door. When I near, Tyler pushes the horizontal metal bar and steps in, holding the door open until I cross over. I turn, he eases the door shut, the mutedthudrings through the empty staircase, and then there’s only the sound of us breathing.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says with a small smile. Then, “You look good.”
“Thanks. You too,” I say, hoping he knows I mean it.
He inhales the way I’ve watched him do on set right before the cameras roll for a big emotional scene: deep, measured, deliberate, like he knows this breath has to last him a while. “I’m not going to keep you for long,” he says, nodding around at the empty space.
“Well, we both know what happened the last time a guy tried to get me alone.”
And then it happens. He laughs. It’s small, throttled, a surprise. But he does it, and the grin that spreads on my face must look maniacal. Before I can add anything, he shakes his head as though scolding himself for making the mistake of sharing a laugh with me. “You know, May thinksthis,” he makes a wide circle in the air with one palm, “is a bad idea.”
“What is? Talking to me?”
His nod is a gut punch. “She said to look at how much trouble talking to you has already gotten me into.”
“Tyler,” I try again—and again, the words don’t come out, maybe because I’m scared I’ll say the wrong thing, or maybe because I already know that there’s no right thing to say here.
“I don’t want to be mad at you, Khin.” He looks up at me,reallylooks at me, in that way that makes me feel transparent in a matter of seconds. “I don’t want us to end on a bad note. I don’t want to go back to LA on Saturday and—”
“Saturday?” Somehow the silence around us has gotten louder, stiller.But that’s the day after tomorrow,I want to point out.Surely you’re mistaken.
“Yeah. I’m going to be here for a long time, so might as well get in as much of LA while I can. Plus it’ll be nice to have a longer break before we shoot the rest of the movie there.”
“Do you know when you’re moving yet? Back here.”
His forehead wrinkles with surprise at my question. Which, fair. Why does it matter to me? I’m about to let him off the hook when he answers, “After the movie comes out. Makes more sense for me to stay there until then. We’ll finish filming, rest, do the press tours. And I’ll need that extra time to ship all my stuff over.”
I feel my head bob like,Of course. That makes total sense. Of course it does. It’s not like I was counting on an extra two weeks to—
