Page 94 of Take 2
It’sbeenalmostthreedays without connection to the outside world. The tone of a MacBook booting up has never sounded so awful. My watch might call 911 due to my heart rate, and my story will end up in their commercials about the lives they’ve saved. I’ll be yelling in the background about them being the cause of my anxiety because all my notifications are convenientlysynced to everything.
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?”
