Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) (15 page)

And after a year of romantic texts, emails,
three hour-long calls and desperate waiting, their first time
together wound up in the backseat of the car that took them from
the airport to Levi’s new house. It was indicative of their
relationship to come – everything they did was for the pleasure of
the moment. There was no thinking ahead. They lived in the now.

They shared a four-bedroom home together in
Los Feliz, neither of them with any sort of job aside from going
out and having fun – or staying in and having fun. They spent every
waking moment together and often, Harper was convinced, their
sleeping moments together since they so often dreamt the same exact
thing. Every day, they tried something new – a restaurant, a movie,
a drink or a drug. They tried it as long as they could do it
together because nothing sounded, felt or tasted as good if they
weren’t with one another.

Levi was as much her drug as the alcohol or
coke. She needed to start and end her days with him. She became
dependent on smelling his scent. She told herself that benders were
okay because he still functioned at a higher level than most sober
people she knew. She introduced him to every boyfriend of Zoe’s,
desperate for them to become the best of friends.

And she found out way too late about his
tendency to go missing for a day or two at a time.

Standing at her glass
fridge, Harper gathered an armful of vegetables despite shaking
hands, hoping to prepare herself her favorite salad. That would
lift her mood – put her mind on something else while she waited for
Zoe or Gemma to respond. Plus, it would remind her. Remind her that
despite the fact that she’d gotten her interest in cooking from
Levi – from when he’d make her dinner at night in the outdoor
kitchen on their terrace – food was still
her
thing. What put her mind at
peace. She was successful now, a respected restaurateur, not the
tabloid princess, not the girl whose days bled into each other
because she began upping her usage to overlook the trouble Levi
began getting into. Not the girl who spent two years flirting with
death, all the while convinced that she was still in love with the
boy who grew darker as the months went by, whom she realized had
left out details of his childhood – namely the many fistfights he’d
lost to his father. They explained the blackout nights that
returned him to Harper in the back of a squad car, his face black,
blue and bleeding from a brawl that she pretended to believe he
didn’t start because she still loved him. She was still completely
addicted to him – up until the day he went to jail.

“
Shit!” Harper breathed
when her phone vibrated against the glass counter. Her heart
pounding, she peered over at it, overwhelmed with relief to see
Zoe’s name on her screen.

Harper. I’m on my way.
Stay at your apartment. Don’t text him back
.

Her mind scattered, Harper responded.

I’m just going to tell him that I’m not
going to see him. I don’t want to be rude.

Zoe’s reply came quickly.

Since when do you care about being rude or
not!??! Do NOT respond to him. You do not want to throw away four
years of hard work for one day with Levi. That’s all it’ll take for
him to suck you back into his toxic life. think about how hard you
had to work after rehab. you don’t want to go through that shit
again. I will not let you.

Harper stared at the text.
She could only vaguely recall life after rehab. Her mind was really
too scattered. She had been broken and lonely and she needed her
mother’s company at all times. She did know that. But it
wasn’t
that
bad.
Was it? She couldn’t really remember. To stay sane, she had kept a
diary the year after her release but on the day that Agno was
reviewed by the New York Times, she’d permanently deleted it from
her laptop, too proud to let proof of such weakness exist. She
wanted to believe that her transformation had reached the point of
being relapse-free, which meant no need for reminders of her old
self. She had been convinced that she no longer needed the hundred
thousand-word diary chronicling her every last struggle, doubt and
humiliation after rehab, all the reminders that would inspire her
to never regress and repeat the torturous first year after being
released.

But now it was gone and she had a draft of a
text that she felt obligated to send Levi. Though she knew that by
responding, she could be sending him the wrong message.

Luckily, before she could be any further
tempted, a sharp, high-pitched voice rang from the elevator door of
her apartment.

“
I’m here! Phone
down!”

Zoe. The sound of pounding
heels came from the front of the apartment and into the kitchen.
Harper actually cracked a smile when she saw her friend, no doubt
having come straight from the set of
Leadoff
, the new show she was
starring in. She wore a tight, pink dress that Harper knew she
wouldn’t wear if it weren’t for work purposes. Squinting at Zoe’s
outfit, Harper realized that it looked a whole lot like the dress
she had first met her in – on the set of
Outta This World.

“
I didn’t text him back,”
Harper muttered, handing her phone over to Zoe, who
exhaled.

“
Good.” She looked around
at the kitchen – at the mint and purple basil leaves littering the
counter. “Were… you in the middle of cooking?”

“
I think so.”

“
I think so, too,” Zoe
said with a little laugh. Her shoulders slumped as she looked at
Harper in her daze. Pulling a kitchen stool out for her to sit on,
Zoe sighed, standing behind Harper and using her fingers to brush
her tousled hair into a ponytail. “Sometimes,” she started, heaving
another sigh. “Sometimes, I think about the party and how I
could’ve just…
not
brought you. And then none of this would’ve ever happened. I
could’ve had you come hang out at my house after we wrapped that
day on set and we would’ve never gone to the Westin house and you
would’ve never met Levi. But we could’ve still been best
friends.”

Harper tried to protest, to alleviate Zoe’s
guilt, but her tired lips couldn’t seem to manage any words.

“
But then I realize that
things happen for a reason. Everything. Even things as painful as
what you went through with Levi and L.A. Because we don’t learn
from what’s easy, we learn from what’s hard. And look at
what
you
learned
out of rehab – you learned that you had the strength to be a
businesswoman. That you were meant to heal people with your food,”
Zoe said brightly, separating Harper’s blonde hair into three equal
parts and starting a braid. “And if you hadn’t introduced me to
Steven, who was totally sweet but obviously not meant for me, I
would’ve probably lost my virginity to Marco effin’ disgusting
Donovan, which would be a fact that I couldn’t live with,” Zoe
laughed, the grin audible in her voice when Harper laughed
back.

“
You ended up sleeping
with him, anyway,” she snorted. Zoe gasped with feigned umbrage
though in reality, she was delighted, relieved by Harper’s
sass.

“
Honestly though – like I
told you back then – it
was
totally destiny for me to sleep with Marco
because he ended up being that one shitty guy in my romantic
history who made me realize that I deserved someone
better.”

“
Someone who didn’t wear
sunglasses indoors?”

“
Exactly! Someone who
didn’t take himself seriously at all. Like, say,” Zoe shrugged,
“your super silly, super gorgeous step-cousin?” Zoe giggled when
Harper snorted at the mere thought of Gavin. “
Whom
I met at your dad’s wedding to
Mira, so obviously, as I’ve been saying, things really do happen
for a reason. You introduced me to Steven, I introduced you to
Levi, you introduced me to Gavin, I… I’ll introduce you to your
next one. The final one. ‘Kay?”

Harper laughed. “’Kay.”

“
But in the meantime, I’m
going to make sure you remember what you were like when you first
came out of rehab because that was the worst time of
your
life
and
mine. I hated not
being there for you.”

“
I had my mom,” Harper
shrugged. “And my diary.”

“
You should read that
diary now,” Zoe said. “Remind yourself all the shit you overcame.
All the people who looked at you funny or didn’t take you
seriously. You forget that now because you’re so successful but if
you read back on what it was like for you right after you got out,
you’d be like ‘hell effin’ no, I’m never going back.’”

“
Yeah, I would but I may
or may not have totally deleted my diary in shame,” Harper laughed
quietly, sheepishly.

“
Goddamnit,
Harpie.”

“
I know.”

Finishing her braid, Zoe patted Harper’s
back. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. You go nap and I’ll
Google around. There’s gotta be some good stuff for people to read
when they’re at risk of like, relapsing and stuff, right? Right.”
Zoe nodded to herself as she ushered Harper into the living
room.

Exhausted, Harper laid out on the couch,
letting herself doze off as Zoe sat at the foot of the sectional,
quietly tapping around on her iPad and Googling away as
promised.

By the time Harper awoke, it was night.
Aside from the fact that she had taken the liberty of borrowing a
set of Harper’s nice, comfy pajamas, Zoe was exactly where Harper
had left her – on the end of the couch, tapping away on her
iPad.

“
I found something,” she
said excitedly upon noticing Harper stir. “Literally exactly what
you need right now.”

“
What is it?” Harper
asked, stretching as she sat up. She already felt a little
better.

“
It’s someone’s rehab
diaries. He published his journal from after he got out. It’s all
online. I’ve been reading it for like, the past two
hours.”

Harper blinked. “Cool, I guess. But who is
this guy?”

“
Some dude. It says he’s
an ‘amateur filmmaker,’ whatever that means. I’m guessing it’s not
important. All that matters is that you can read this and remember
why you’re still truckin’, boo.”

“
Okay,” Harper murmured,
taking the iPad from Zoe and looking down at the page that she had
opened for her. She raised her eyebrows, nodding, hopeful that the
words on the screen would further remind her of how much she needed
to stay good. To stay healthy and strong.

Running her finger along the glass screen,
she scrolled to the top of the minimalist blog.

DAY 2 OUT

July 10

I didn’t have a good reputation before going
to rehab – or any reputation at all.  Nobody knew me.  I
wasn’t “famous” yet (if you can call me famous now).  Anyone
who did know me just thought I was a stupid party boy.  No
responsibilities or goals, just someone who’d drink and dance till
he was too old to and then at some point, he’d leave the world and
no one would notice.  Because he didn’t really make a mark or
a difference while he was around.

So in some ways, I didn’t lose anything by
going into rehab.  But now that I’ve finished treatment, I
have everything to lose.  Which is why I’m keeping this diary
and putting it up for the world to see – so I can be held
accountable.

Because I did have a dream to do something
meaningful with my life.  I still do – more than ever
now.  So this entry is to remind myself of the things I want
and the reasons why I can’t go back to how I was before – drunk
more often than not with little memory of anything that happened
past 12AM.  The person who woke up and wondered what he did to
hurt someone last night.

I want to be healthy so I can be a respected
person.

I can’t wait to discover new hobbies,
talents and possibilities.  I have energy now (that’s a new
thing for me).  I want to seize the day rather than sleep as
late as possible so I can start drinking the second I get up.

I can’t wait to be taken seriously. 
I’m realizing that there’s one, maybe two people in my life who
talk to me like I’m on their level.  Like I don’t have the
mental capacity of an attention deficient six-year-old – which is
fair enough considering the public reputation I’ve made for myself
in the past few months, but I’ve since changed and I want to show
people that.

And I can’t wait to accomplish my
dream.  Everybody has a passion that gives them – plain and
simple – peace.  I underestimated the value of being at peace
with myself.  I’m almost there now.  It’s a work in
progress.  Things aren’t easy but I’ve worked too hard to have
to repeat this process all over again.  Especially when I have
plans to turn whatever so-called fame I have right now into
something legitimate.  Right now, all that’s attached to my
name is embarrassing headlines, a shot reputation and Google images
of my more humiliating nights of blackout drunkenness.

It’ll take time, but I’m going to reverse
all that.  I’ll earn a smidgen of your respect and I’ll grow
it from there.  And if I ever get tempted to go back to bad
habits, I’ll read this diary and remind myself that there is
something that I’m working toward – goals that I
will
accomplish, but only if I’m sober. 

And once I’ve accomplished them, I’ll have
more reason than ever to stay sober, to stay good and stay
healthy.

So this entry here is dedicated to anyone
who is the past, present or future me.