Page 122 of Keep My Heart
‘Hey, before you go, I have something to show you.’ He gets out his phone.
‘I don’t want to see it. I need to go.’
He glances behind him. ‘They’re not even boarding yet.’ He turns back to me. ‘I wasn’t going to record this, but I knew if I didn’t you wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to see it.’
‘You sure?’ He holds his phone out to me and I see Nick on the screen, standing in front of the hotel, talking on his phone.
‘You recorded Nick?’ I huff. ‘You’re spying on him now?’
‘I went outside to look for Ted. I didn’t even know Nick was out there. I heard him talking to some woman and, well .?.?.’ He offers me his phone. ‘You might want to hear this.’
I reluctantly take his phone and walk over to the window,watching the airport workers load the luggage on the plane. I start the recording and put the phone to my ear.
‘Of course I care about you,’ Nick says to whoever he’s talking to, ‘but I can’t be with you right now. We’ll talk when I get back to New York.’ I look at the screen, making sure it’s really him. I hear his voice again and put the phone to my ear. ‘I’ll see if we can meet for dinner next week, but I might have someone coming into town. I’ll let you know if I can get away.’ He listens, then says, ‘Our relationship is not ending. I just had somewhere to be this weekend. But when I’m back, we’ll resume where we left off. Iris, I know you think I’m not giving you all that you expect from me, but I’m doing my best. And I can’t be with you all the time.’
It’s just like Diane said, almost word-for-word. I want to believe it doesn’t mean what I’m thinking, but it sure sounds like it.
‘I’m home, visiting my family,’ he says, then, ‘I’m not with a girl. I’m at my parents’ house. Iris, I really need to go. I promise we’ll talk when I get back.’
He lied to her. He didn’t want her knowing about me.
The video ends and I walk back to Chris and give him his phone. ‘I’m getting in line.’
‘What’d you think?’ he asks with a smug grin.
I shrug. ‘He was talking to a client. I don’t know why you recorded that.’
‘That was not a client,’ he says, following me to the boarding line. ‘Nick’s messing around on you.’
I ignore him and turn my back to him, praying he doesn’t have the seat next to me on the plane.
‘You know he wanted you in high school, right?’
I turn back to Chris. ‘Would you please just shut up? I don’t want to talk to you.’ I face forward again, noticing the line is finally moving.
‘He was using you,’ Chris says, ignoring my request for him tobe quiet. ‘Living out his teenage fantasies. A nerd like him never had a chance with you in high school, but now he’s got some fancy job and money to take you out. He was playing you, Lyndsay. Trying to get you to sleep with him. Make his fantasy come true. That’s all it was. You didn’t really think he was serious about you, did you?’
I don’t answer him. Tears sting my eyes and I feel a lump in my throat. I shouldn’t be listening to Chris, but what if he’s right? What if Nick was using me to live out some teenage fantasy? He kept telling me how much he liked me back then and how much he wanted to date me. Now he has, so is he done with me? Was this all just a fling and he never had any intention of us having a relationship? I can’t believe he’d do something like that. I don’t want to believe it.
‘Miss? Your ticket?’ the lady asks, waiting to check me in.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ I get out my phone and hurry to find my boarding pass. She scans it and I continue to the plane. I sigh in relief when I see two people already seated in my row. I take the aisle seat, then see Chris coming toward me. He smiles at me, then sits in the seat behind me.
‘I’m right here, babe,’ he says, leaning forward and rubbing my arm.
‘Would you and your husband like to sit together?’ the man next to me asks.
‘No.’ I grit my teeth. ‘And he’s not my husband.’
Chris laughs. I want to reach back and strangle him. But instead, I put my earbuds in and look through my phone. Nick hasn’t texted me. I thought he might send me one before I left, but if he’s done with me, it would make sense that he didn’t.
I still don’t think it’s true. Even after seeing that video, I don’t believe it, or maybe I just don’t want to. Either way, I’m calling him when I get back to LA and I’m going to ask him if he hassomeone else. Maybe he really was just living out his teenage fantasy. Maybe I’ve been doing it too, living out my fantasy of dating my math tutor, a guy I thought was too smart to be interested in someone like me.
The entire flight I think about that, wondering if this whole time Nick and I have just been reliving the past, playing out scenes we wished would’ve happened back in high school. But if that were true, I wouldn’t have all these feelings for him. The feelings never felt fake, like they were just part of some role I was playing. They felt real. I felt like I was falling in love with him.
When I get to LA, I go to my apartment and see Chris’ stuff is still there, not just the big stuff but all of it. He’s such an ass. He promised me it’d be gone. I should’ve known he was lying. His promises are worthless. At least he’s staying with a friend and not here.
