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Me:Thanks for the upgrade. You’re the best.
Adalyn:You deserve it! Have a safe flight.
Me:Don’t have too much fun in Phoenix without me.
Adalyn:Trust me. I won’t.
I put my phone away when someone stopped in the aisle and pointed at me. “Oh my gosh.” Her eyes were bright. “You’re that hairstylist, right?”
I froze. “What?”
“The stylist! I saw it on Instagram this morning. You went out with Rhett Myers?”
Ice washed through my veins. She was blinking at me expectantly while people congested the aisle behind her. I needed to react quickly before she brought too much attention to me. I laughed loudly. “I wish that was me! But sorry, you’ve got the wrong girl.” I gave her a brief smile and looked back down at my phone, willing her to keep walking.
“Oh. You look so much like—”
“Ma’am, continue to your seat, please,” a flight attendant called to her.
Instagram? What Instagram post? What was she talking about?
When the woman had moved on to find her seat, I pulled up the app and went directly to Rhett’s page. There was nothing there.
I searched his name, and images popped up in neat little squares of me and Rhett together. On Instagram. For the entire world to see. I felt like I was floating, and not in a good way. Like I couldn’t ground myself in the seat, like I was adrift in a sea of secret moments someone had captured on photo.
I scrolled the images for far too long, my eyes leaping from picture to picture of me and Rhett on our various middle-of-the-night excursions. Us ordering pizza, walking on the beach in Miami, walking down the hallway together in the hotel, a soft smile on his lips while I was doing his hair, us heading up to the top of the Empire State Building, us talking at the gala, and me wiping lipstick off his cheek in Boston. There were so many pictures of us, so many where I was focused on my task and Rhett was looking at me fondly. Pictures of his hand on my back or our fingers linked together when we thought we were alone. I had never felt so vulnerable or exposed. Then one image caught my eye that made me suck in a breath.
A man was lowering himself in the seat beside me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I shot him a smile and looked back at my phone, clicking on the picture to enlarge it. It was from the charity gala in New York, a photo of Rhett and Karina, with a digital tear down the middle in between them. A smaller photo of me with Rhett at the ball was propped in the corner. The caption was even worse.
RHETT MYERS CHEATING ON KARINA BIER WHILE THEY ATTEND CHARITY BALL TOGETHER.
Who is this new woman? Just another in a string of cheats? Working as Myers’s hairstylist throughout the Date-a-Star campaign, did she find a way into his heart or just into his room?
I closed the app before I would be tempted to read the comments. So, according to the media, I wasn’t just his new girlfriend. Apparently, I was the mistress. Except we never actually cheated, because Rhett had never actually gotten back together with Karina.
My phone buzzed, and I looked down to find a text from Rhett. My heart leaped quickly before falling again.
Rhett:If you’ve been on social media, then don’t panic. We’re working on having as many of those images removed as possible. If you haven’t been on yet, I recommend staying off.
That was it? No asking how I was? No saying how he was? No emotionat all?
I put my phone on airplane mode so I wouldn’t be tempted to respond with a snarky comment and closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the seat. This was going to be a very long flight.
***
I didn’t bother taking my phone off airplane mode when I landed. No one knew I would be home yet. There was almost a week until the Momzilla wedding, and everyone in my life thought I would still be with Rhett. I didn’t want to see what names the Internet was calling me, and I didn’t want to face my life quite yet, to put on a smile for clients or explain to Charlie or my mom what I’d gone through. I hadn’t slept on the plane or the night before, and I was tired in more ways than just physical.
I was tired of not being worth fighting for.
I picked up my car from the long-term parking lot and drove home. My apartment was warm from having the air off and smelled stale. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. I clicked on the A/C, locked the door, and climbed into bed like the pathetic wallower I was. I had no responsibilities, and I needed no one right now. It was just me, my comforter, and feelings of abandonment.
Except, sleep didn’t come easily. I ended up turning onGilmore Girlsand starting with episode one. Anything to take my mind off Rhett and the temptation to check social media. Maybe it was the whole single-mom-with-one-daughter thing that made me love the show so much, but I’d always felt connected to it. Right now, seeing that even my ideal, perfect man was a deserting jerk had shaken me.
Over the following days, I worked my way through season after season with little breaks to eat and sleep. I had no idea where my phone went, and on my third day of my potentially unhealthyGilmore Girlsbinge, a knock came at my door. I paused the show, hoping the person waiting outside hadn’t heard it through the wall.
“Beth, it’s me!” a muffled voice shouted on the other side of the door.
