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A cold chill runs up my spine. Who is she? How does she know us since high school?
Her words come back to me. “In high school, I was invisible, a pudgy thing.”
I scrub my memory for some version of her back in school. For all I know the blond hair is dyed and she could be wearing contact lenses. Who knows?
I think of all the times that we hung out when Eliza seemed a little too handsy with Rhence who’d politely extricate himself from her clutches. We all assumed she’d just had a little much to drink and had gotten a little clumsy. She and Parker were an item, they were in love. At no point, since getting to know her, did I think she had a thing for Rhence.
Oh, my god, what do I do? I start snapping photos of the images and the notepad. I snap away like crazy until I ask myself why I’m doing this. Buried under the photos, I find our yearbook from 2011. I flip through the senior photos anxiously, eager to learn her identity.
My initial search comes up empty. I remember that she had more weight on her back then, maybe her last name was different as well. I go through the yearbook more slowly this time.
And there she is. Elisabeth D. Crowley, not Crowner. So, she's been using a false name. Sure enough, her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes were still blue but she carried an extra thirty pounds on her. True to her word, I can’t conjure up a single memory of her. The sweet smile plastered on her face is so deceiving.
I snap the photo.
I shove all her shit back into the box, not bothering to organize it. I don’t care if she knows I know. This just confirms my initial instinct to get as far away from all this as possible.
I rise from the floor and shove the box back in place. And now I’m angry about the way she played me, pretending to be my friend. Constantly telling me that Rhence didn’t deserve my forgiveness that I was right to ghost his sorry ass.
Is this why she’s breaking up with Parker so she can make a play for Rhence?
Maybe they deserve each other. I sift through the photos I took. I select her yearbook picture, the ones of me with my eyeballs scratched out, and the notepad with the poison letter drafts.
I attach the photos in a text and send them to Rhence, Parker and Eliza. Boom!
I block every last one of them from ever contacting me again. With that, I turn on my heel and get the hell out of this psycho's place.
***
Nearly one year after Paris, I’m living in Houston, where I have a booming financial advisory business. My clientele list boasts some of the biggest names in the southwest, and the list grows longer every day. I’ve successfully recruited staff from Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JPM. I’m pleased to say that our revenues have exceeded those of my prior company and are projected to only go up from here.
Lena knocks on my door. “Rachel, your four p.m. is here. Shall I send him in?” I glance at my calendar. John Riverstone, a huge real estate broker, is my next client. It will be a real win for the firm if we can land this account.
I stand and smooth my suit jacket. “Yes, please send him in and bring coffee service please.”
“You got it.”
I come around my desk and prepare to greet him as he enters the door. I look up and my blood runs cold. The older, rotund man I was expecting doesn’t appear. Instead, it’s Rhence fucking Dalton.
“Lena, call security,” I call.
She pokes her head in the office, brow furrowed. “Rachel?”
“This isn’t our client. He’s an ex of mine.”
Her eyes go wide, likely wondering if this is some sort of crazy stalker boyfriend scenario, which I suppose it kind of is. I haven’t accepted any of the myriad of calls and texts from Rhence, and eventually changed my number hoping he’d get the message and kindly fuck off.
“Get security up here, now!” I snap.
“Rachel,” Rhence says evenly as if this was precisely the response he’d expected. “I have to say this, and then I’ll go and never darken your doorstep again.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “There is nothing I want to hear from you except ‘goodbye.’”
He goes ahead anyway. “The reason I believed you’d written that letter was because it echoed exactly how I felt about myself back then. It was as if someone had gone inside my head, went to my deepest and darkest insecurities, and spilled them onto paper. It held a mirror up to me and showed me who I really was and the way the world saw me… The wayIsaw me.”
He takes a step closer to me and I step back in unison as if we’re in some strange dance.
“In the deepest parts of my heart, I always believed in you, thought the best of you. I just didn’t believe in myself, and when I saw those words and the arguments so plainly stated, I couldn’t deny the clear indictment against me because every word of it was true. And I couldn’t run away from myself fast enough.” He shrugs helplessly. “You were so unbelievably good to me. But I was weak and insecure about facing life with you as I was, not becauseyouwere ashamed of me, it was becauseIwas ashamed of me.” He lowers his eyes to the floor and chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “I talked to my mom. She finally told me that you’d come to the trailer park several times asking about me. I should’ve known she’d lie to keep us apart. But it was just easier to believe that I wasn’t really worthy of your concern.” He suddenly looked up at me as if he’d forgotten something important. “Thank you for sending Eliza’s pics to us. Parker and Eliza broke up, and I fired her for lying on her resume. Parker was devastated but he’s managed to bounce back. And yes, she went to high school with us but lived over on the north side. Somehow, she became fixated with me and on breaking us up. The nutjob even used to visit my mom at the diner to gain more intel on me. She’s a complete psycho who I let ruin my life.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I had no idea who she was, Rache, even back in high school. But she’s gone from all of our lives for good.”
