Method(106)

She rounds her desk, and I take a seat opposite her. “Food was enough incentive back then to take any job.” I exaggeratedly roll my eyes. “Everyone’s a critic.”

“At least it was ahead of its time with the zombie apocalypse.”

“What about you, ballbuster, you never told me you moved to LA? I don’t remember getting a phone call.”

“Well, that’s because I just so happened to fall in love with the biggest piece of shit to attend Harvard. I got two souvenirs,” she nods toward the picture at the edge of her desk, “and seventy-five percent of everything else.”

“You mean half, right?”

“No,” she grins deviously. “I mean seventy-five percent, that’s why I’m the best divorce lawyer in this state.”

I pick the picture up and study it. “Cute.”

“No, they aren’t,” she says with a laugh. “They’re in that weird, awkward stage where they’re losing teeth and making dumb ass fart jokes. But they were beautiful babies, so I have faith they’ll be decent-looking adults.”

I’m grinning from ear to ear. “It’s no wonder you were my first love.”

“I was your first everything.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Don’t pity me, not many women can claim they stole a movie star’s virginity.”

I raise a brow. “And how many people have you told?”

She rolls her eyes. “None.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m here. I trust you.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she says, giving me a wink. “But I have the feeling you aren’t here to reminisce or pick up where we left off. Unless…oh, hell, Lucas are you getting a divorce?”

Letting out all the breath in my body, I look over at her.

She reads my expression perfectly. “Oh, this isn’t good.”

“I need your help.”





It takes me an eternity on the 405 to get home, and as the early hours blur into afternoon, I find myself alone on our balcony. Scripts sit in piles next to my chair, and I can’t bring myself to open a single one. The ocean pours onto the shore, and I study the waves that no longer seem tranquil to me. What I once considered a sign of freedom now feels like a border. Sweat trickles down my back at the idea that this is the extent of the life I have left, trapped behind a wall of ocean, my only task to bury myself in someone else’s words.



I love you.



I send the text daily now. It’s all I have. It’s the truth. I’ve done everything I can to get her to talk to me. We’ve never gone this long without the other, for any reason. Six years of marriage is slipping through my hands, and she still refuses to give me permission to bridge the gap. I’m losing her, daily, every minute that ticks by is agony.

I deserve it, but the burn doesn’t give a shit. It’s eating me alive. I let it hurt and refuse to drink it away anymore. I have a son or daughter coming that needs a focused father. The problem is, I’ve lost all mine.

And maybe for Mila, there’s no coming back.

I twist the band on my finger, my only reassurance that we still exist. If she won’t let me try to heal us, I’m stunted. I can’t move forward without her, and I can’t go back.

But I can get the fuck out of LA.

My chair collides with the glass before I slide open the door and head into my closet. I grab a duffle and begin to fill it with all my shit. I can’t exist in this house anymore without her. I rip my clothes off the racks one by one and shove them into the bag. Tearing through the room with the sack in hand, I head to the bathroom ripping everything that belongs to me off the shelves. I make the decision that I’m never coming back to this house. Not without the life I had when I moved into it. Heading back into the closet, I pull shoes off the shelves filling another bag. In my haste, I knock down a Nike box. The contents come pouring out and hit my chin. Pissed off, I kick the box and see a tablet pop out with a card attached. Bending down I scan the note scribbled in Mila’s handwriting.



In case you forgot.





X


I fire the tablet up, and my breath catches in my throat.

Hundreds of pictures fill the screen in scattering pixels before coming together to form the words Happy 6th Anniversary, Hollywood!

Slumping down against the shoe rack my heart cracks when I hear the first song start to play, and a picture fades in, a candid of us on our wedding day leaving the reception. She’s laughing, her head thrown back just after I’ve scooped her up to get her into the limo, lavender roses hanging from the hand she has draped over my shoulder. It’s the perfect picture of us, and I’ve never seen it.

How much have I missed?

That’s when I realize they are mostly all candid shots, trickles in time where we merely existed as ourselves even while in the public eye. It’s the best fucking movie I’ve ever seen in my life.

Grunting at the ache, I rub the middle of my chest to try to subdue it. And then…it starts. And it’s us, our life in music and pictures. Some I don’t remember taking, parties I don’t remember attending. It’s then I know she’s the true storyteller, our memory keeper. Tracing her picture with my finger, recognition sets in and I rip at my hair.