Suddenly, I’m filled with an anger so intense I can barely see straight, my vision going static at the edges and my hands gripping tight around the wheel. It’s a fury so displaced and projected and tangled that I’m not sure what I’m actually angry about or who I’m angry with. I’m angry with Devi for leaving and with myself for not realizing she’d be upset watching Bambi and me, and I’m pissed that she won’t answer her phone and I’m pissed that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Mostly, I’m angry because I’m scared.
The anger vanishes as quickly as it came and I loosen my grip on the wheel, feeling both empty and pointless. With a deep breath, I reluctantly pull out of her driveway and onto the street, looking in my rearview mirror as I slowly roll away. It’s like I’m leaving my heart in her driveway, and all the tendons and veins that attach it inside of my chest are stretching and snapping as I drive away and leave it there to bleed out and die.
Needless to say, it’s not a happy drive home. I walk in the door, knowing I need to go to my office, knowing I need to work, but instead I drop my keys on the counter and wander over to my window. Outside in the bright heat, the pool glimmers clear and cold, and I think about watching Devi swim there, moving so effortlessly, the contrast between her dark bronze skin and the bluish water beautiful and perfect and striking.
What if I was right last night? What if that first off-camera sex was the best it will ever be for us? What if it’s all downhill from here? What if that perfect moment of shimmering connection can’t last? We’ve defined it now, as love, and maybe love can’t bear this many complications, and maybe our baby relationship is already in its death throes.
I scrub at my face with my hands and step away from the window. I can’t right now—with any of this. I have too many feelings jumbled too close together, and I can’t even begin to sort them out without my Cass beside me.
So instead, I try to throw myself into work for the afternoon, writing and filming my monologue for Bambi’s scene and having a ninety-minute phone call with Marieke about Star-Crossed. She loves the footage so far, and since Devi and I are getting ready to schedule our last episode for the season, Marieke and I talk about what another season of it would look like. There are a lot of great, sexy ideas tossed around and we finally settle on one, and I should feel energized by all this but I don’t.
I feel like my heart is still pulsing in sad, bloody little beats on Devi’s driveway.
I feel like I want to drive back to her house and sit on her steps until she comes home.
I wander downstairs, past the wet bar by my kitchen, and I stop to pour myself a scotch because that is what I do when I’m upset—I process my feelings through my liver. But I don’t actually drink it. I just cradle the glass in my hands and watch the sky darken above my pool. And then my phone rings.
I practically drop the scotch answering it, my blood spiking with excitement and dread at the same time when I see Devi’s gorgeous face on the screen. I answer, trying to keep my voice from shaking with trepidation and relief.
“Hey, babe,” I say, setting the scotch down. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” she says. Her voice is measured, unreadable. “I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I had to leave. I went to my parents’, and then my phone died.”
It has the practiced pitch of a rehearsed excuse, and my stomach sinks. I’m pretty sure this means she’s upset about my scene with Bambi today, not that she’s actually sick.
“Cass, I want to see you.”
“Not now,” she says. “I’m still not feeling well.”
“Later tonight maybe? If you’re not feeling well, I can come take care of you.”
“I’m going to stay at my parents’ until tomorrow,” she says, and there’s a note of apology in her voice. “I think I really just need to sleep it off...whatever it is that I’ve caught.”
“Devi.” I swallow. “Please.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Logan. Remember we planned on shooting in the afternoon? I’ll be over at one.”
Come over now.
Or let me come to you.
Please, Cass, don’t do this.
I don’t say these things. I don’t say them because I know the right thing to do is to give her space. I don’t say them because a good guy would give her the benefit of the doubt and believe her when she says she’s not feeling well and needs to sleep.
Most of all, I don’t say them because my throat is too tight to speak. I clear it and manage to say, “Okay, babe. I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Love you too,” she echoes, and in those three words, I hear pain and confusion fathoms deep. “Goodnight, Logan.”
If I were filming a movie of my own life, I’d be disgusted with it right now. First of all, I’m not exhibiting any believable character growth in response to my obstacles. And second of all, there’s no coherence or unity of theme right now. I mean, what am I even feeling? I’m feeling way too much contradictory shit to express in film. No, if I were a director, I would tell my character to pick one thread and stick with it. Am I trying not to cry or am I swooning on my feet whenever I think of Devi? Am I checking my phone constantly or am I trying to resist throwing my phone across the room? If I were a director, I would tell myself that feelings are passive, and to choose actions instead—and then to choose those actions deliberately.