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Epilogue
Jesse
What a shitty fucking night.
I’d lain in bed, unable to sleep, for hours before I gave up ontrying.
Zane invited me up to the penthouse to meet some girls, but I ignored his texts. Dylan wanted me to come down to the bar. I didn’tgo.
Instead I tried to watch a movie. I tried to write some music. I played guitar for a while, just trying to clear the argument with Elle from myhead.
It had really pissed me off thistime.
I wasn’t fucking flirting with that chick. I was being friendly. Professional. I was pretty sure I’d know if I crossed a line, but lately, it seemed like everything I did went over some line withElle.
I couldn’t fucking take itanymore.
So I got up and went to the rooftop gym. I didn’t want to be recognized. I just wanted to be alone. But I couldn’t stand sitting in the hotel room anylonger.
Luckily, the gym was pretty muchempty.
I should’ve called Jude, probably. Talked it through. But I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I didn’t want to talk; maybe I was through fucking talking. I was definitely through arguing with Elle over the same fucking things, over andagain.
We just weren’t working as a couple. Why couldn’t she seethat?
I went over and over it in my head as I worked out. But any way I looked at it, it was the same old thing. Elle and I were just too fucking different, in the ways that really counted, to make this thingwork.
We could never work it out anyway, even when we tried. We couldn’t even talk about shit without fighting. She got confrontational. I withdrew. She was quick-tempered. I wasbrooding.
To other men she was “passionate.” To other women I was “mysterious.”
We both drove each othercrazy.
And she still loved me. I knew shedid.
She alwayshad.
That knowledge weighed like a rock in my gut. Because I knew she would do anything for me. Forus.
When I was done at the gym, I paced through the hotel with my hood thrown up. It was the dead of night, and while it was Friday night in Vegas, the hotel corridors were prettyquiet.
I walked a long time, but there was nowhere for me to go to get away from this problem, and the problem was, Elle wanted more from me than I could give. She thought I was holding something back from her. Holding myselfback.
Maybe Iwas.
I just didn’tknow.
But I wasn’t looking to mess around with anyone else. I was just being me. That had never been enough for her, though. She just kept pushing and pulling, and it was bleeding medry.
She wanted me to love her, unconditionally. I knew that. And it was a fair thing towant.
I just couldn’t getthere.
And I was tired of feeling shitty about it. Feelingguilty.
I just wanted to let itgo.
I wandered toward the lobby. It was lined with a bunch of giant columns, interspersed with massive plants. I was coming through the columns lining the walkway that led into it, and that’s when I sawthem.
