20: Fade To Black
It had been a month since that fateful day in Mexico when Zooey and Justin said their goodbyes to one another, but neither one of them saved for the fact that they would eventually have a movie premiere to attend and that they would see one another at least one more time, whether they liked it or not.
Zooey didn’t want to go, quite honestly. There was nothing there for her, nothing that she couldn’t get by watching Extra the next day. She wanted to stay home with a box of Uncrustables and Season Two of Breaking Bad, and act as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. But colleagues convinced her that she needed to be there, so she pulled herself out of her funk to get dressed up and go to the after party, at the very least.
She kept a close eye on the door, knowing that she would need to make a clean break if Justin showed up, and especially if he showed up with Scarlett. But somehow, she must have gotten distracted from the task at hand, because she looked away for what felt like just a moment, and suddenly, when she turned back around, there was the love of her life, followed closely by the love of his life. And she inwardly began to panic.
“Hold this for me,” she begged one of her coworkers, offering a shaky glass of wine while she searched her purse for her valet ticket.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she brushed her bangs from her face so that she could see into her purse better. “I have to go.”
“What?”
“I gotta go. I’ll see you soon, we’ll do lunch?” She pulled the colleague in for a quick hug and peck on the cheek, but managed to lock eyes with Scarlett at the exact wrong moment. A sinking feeling quickly washed over her.
Agitated by the mere sight of her, Scarlett stalked over to Zooey to confront her. “Why are you here?” she demanded.
“I was a part of the movie,” she returned confidently, a sharp contrast to the fast-paced beating of her heart. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Movie premieres are for movie stars. You need to leave.”
“I don’t think so,” she chuckled uneasily. “I’ll stay out of your way, though.”
“You thought you’d get Justin to yourself tonight, didn’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Please,” she almost scoffed at the woman in front of her. “I laugh at you, Zooey. I go home at night and I laugh at you.”
“Scarlett, I am sorry,” she offered earnestly. “I really am. But I don’t think this is the place to discuss anything.”
“How do you sleep with someone else’s husband,” she ignored her plea. “And then you talk to me on the phone as if it’s nothing? Who does that?”
“I really am sorry.”
“You’re sorry you got caught.”
“I’m sorry that we hurt you.”
“Oh wow, you just used ‘We’ in reference to my husband.” She smiled in disbelief at her choice of words. “Listen, if you’re that desperate for a man, there are plenty of single men for you to choose from,” she leaned in quietly to say. “You don’t take someone’s husband and make him your boyfriend.”
“Scarlett--.”
“You’re garbage. And you know it.”
Zooey stared at her intensely, knowing that she didn’t have a leg to stand on, but still wanting to defend herself. Would it matter what she said in reply? Scarlett was certainly not wrong, so there was no reason to respond. But in the end, Scarlett won. She got her husband back, and everything would eventually go back to normal. Zooey was the one who’d ended up alone here.
“Listen, I’m really happy for you, and I’m gonna let you finish, but… I need you to know, as much as it doesn’t actually matter, that… I never intended for this to turn into what it did. I was standing on the sidewalk, and I needed some change for a meter, and your awesome husband walked into my life. And at the time, he wasn’t your husband… he was just someone that made me smile, and… I liked him. I liked the way he made me feel. And I know that sucks to hear, and it’s a shitty thing to say to his wife, of all people, but it’s out there, so I might as well say it all.” She looked down for a moment, trying to gather the rest of the words for her little spiel. “I wish the situation had been different. I wish I’d just had fifty-five cents that day. But… this happened. And people make mistakes. And I’m glad you can stand on your pedestal and pretend you’re perfect and if it makes you feel better to call me garbage, then that’s fine. I’ll be that for you. But I can’t do anything but apologize and mean it. And I hope you’re never put in a situation where your strength and your morals are tested the way mine were. And I hope that if you are, you don’t fail the way I did. And if you do, I hope that no one’s there to make you feel worse than you already do, just when you thought that that wasn’t actually possible. But most of all, I just hope that you’re able to move on, and be happy, and that your marriage makes it. Because if I gave him up for no reason, I’m gonna be really, really pissed.”
“What in god’s name did he see in you?” Scarlett wondered out loud.
“Probably everything he didn’t see in you.”
“You are a stone cold bitch.”
“You came over here to call me garbage,” she reminded her. “Now, I don’t know who you thought I was, but I was certainly not about to just let you talk to me however you want.”
“I only gave you what you deserve.”
“Maybe so. But I’ve walked away, you got the guy in the end, so this was just really unnecessary. All it does is show how small and insecure you are. But if it makes you feel better, then by all means…”
“You’re so sophisticated, huh? How do you get to pretend you’re the bigger person when you took MY husband?”
“You need to calm down.”
“You’re a selfish piece of shit,” she was beginning to yell louder. “You’re a whore!”
Zooey’s eyes darted across the room, as she knew people were beginning to stare at the two of them. And then she looked at Scarlett, whose eyes were welling up with tears, and she knew there was nothing else she could say. So she walked away.
“YOU’RE A WHORE!” she cried out as others moved in to comfort her.
As Zooey stormed through the party, prepared to leave, she walked by Justin, who had only caught the tail end of their exchange, much like everyone else. “Zooey,” he tried to grab her arm to stop her.
“I’m not who you’re looking for,” she barely stopped to tell him.
“Are you okay?” he called after her.
She was halfway out the door before she had a reply. “No.”
____________________
It was a late Sunday evening in July when Zooey arrived at the SoHo Mews condo building, bearing her heart in her hands and prepared to grovel. Not something she was at all accustomed to, but she knew she had to if she wanted any chance at salvaging the most important relationship in her life. After checking in at the front desk to inform the unwitting tenant of their visitor, she was granted access to the elevator that led to the penthouse.
When she stepped off of the elevator and onto the top floor, the only visible door swung open, and there stood her sister.
“What are you doing here?” Emile asked curtly. She still wasn’t over their debacle at the hospital, clearly.
“I fucked up,” Zooey admitted, hesitant to move any closer. “I’m sorry.”
“You fucked way up,” she corrected her. “So you better have a speech prepared, because I’m not letting you in here without some scene-from-a-movie shit that breaks my heart and physically forces me to allow you inside.”
“I don’t. There are no words that accurately express how sorry I am for being so stupid. For being so selfish. I forgot what was important, and I am so fucking sorry that I dared to not be there for you when you’ve always been there for me.” Her entire body clenched at the thought of what she’d done to her sister and her nephew. Emile was her best friend, but she treated her like a common stranger because she fell in like with another man. She hated herself for that.
“Why did you do this?” she had to know. “Why would you abandon me for some dude in a boyband?”
“I don’t fucking know! I lost my mind, I lost myself for a bit, but I would do anything to make it up to you, I swear to god, Em.”
“And what if you can’t?”
“I can.”
“What if there’s no turning back, though, Zooey?” She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her so as not to disturb anything going on inside. “What if I said you ruined our relationship in one fell swoop and there’s nothing you can do to fix it?”
“I wouldn’t…” She began to tear up at the mere thought. “I wouldn’t believe you.”
“I told you if you walked out of that hospital, I wouldn’t forgive you.”
“I know. But you also said you would be the only one there for me when he went back to his wife.”
“So that’s why you here.” She scoffed at Zooey’s complete lack of self-awareness and turned to go back inside. “Go back to LA where you belong.”
“Emile, please!” she cried.
She opened the door to her condo and went inside, leaving Zooey to follow. “Get your dumb ass in here.”
She did as directed, timidly walking into the luxurious room while Em disappeared down a hallway. “I’ll just wait here then,” she said to herself, absolutely hating how distant she felt from the closest person to her.
It wasn’t long before Em returned, carrying her bundle of a baby boy. Smiling like she’d just discovered the secret to happiness, she approached her sister and handed him over. “This is Omari,” she was so proud to finally introduce him. “And we don’t know who he is or what he’s going to be… and that’s a fantastic thing.”
Carefully accepting her nephew into her arms, Zooey looked down at the light brown ball of beauty, studying his tiny eyes and nose and lips and fingers, and she smiled herself. “Hi, Omari. I’m your Aunt Zooey. And I’m so sorry that it took me so long to get here, but I’m honored to make your acquaintance.” She lifted his little blue hat to run her fingers through his curly black hair and she looked up to Emile. “He’s gorgeous.”
“He looks like me,” she agreed with a playful smug smile.
“You’re so modest!”
Her smile faded and she knew she needed to talk this out with her little sis. “Sit down,” she commanded, directing her towards the living room and its empty couch. Emile sat across from the two of them, watching her two best friends interact with one another. She had every intention of forgiving Zooey, even as much as it hurt to watch her walk away that day. But she knew that her sister was at a low, having fallen in love with someone who could never fully return the feelings. She knew it wouldn’t be easy once everything finally did break apart, and now, here they were. Hopefully, she thought, Omari could keep her spirits lifted. “So what happened?”
Zooey finally looked up from her nephew, oblivious. “What happened?”
“With Justin. What happened?”
“Oh… umm. I dunno, I guess we just figured it was for the best to go our separate ways.”
“You said he went back to Scarlett. What did he say to you? Was he an asshole about it?” Emile had specifically asked Justin to protect Zooey in all this, and if he didn’t, she was going to be pissed.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I let him go.”
“You did.”
“Yeah. We, umm… we went to Mexico for a couple of days, to kind of get away from shit. And I don’t know what happened, really, or where the tables turned, but I realized that I was losing him. And I couldn’t bear the thought of drawing it out or making it any harder than it had to be, so I just told him I was over it. And… he left.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” she recalled sadly.
“And how do you know he went back to Scarlett?”
“He told me. I saw them. She called me a whore,” she recounted from her disastrous night out in LA a few days prior. “And that was after revealing that she goes at home at night, to her husband, by the way, and she laughs at me. She also called me garbage.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Em replied in disbelief. “This happened in real life?”
“At a party for our movie, yeah.”
“That fucking bitch.”
“I deserved it,” she shrugged, sitting back into the couch to get comfortable. “And I called her out, don’t worry.”
“That doesn’t mean that my urge to knock her the fuck out will lessen.”
“Em, it’s fine. I’m just glad it’s all over.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am. It was getting too painful, too messy.”
“You were happy, though,” Emile could tell.
“Until I wasn’t.”
She sighed and stared at her younger sibling for a long time, realizing that this person she tried so hard to protect for their entire lives was growing up. And there was nothing she could do anymore. She had someone else to watch over now, and Zooey would have to live her life for herself, no matter what bruises and bumps she encountered along the way.
“I’m proud of you, kid.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you went for it. Knowing good and damn well you’d get your ass kicked, and you didn’t care. I respect the shit out of you for that.”
“Thanks, Em.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I regret that… I put myself in an avoidable situation. But I don’t regret a single moment of him and me,” she admitted as more tears came streaming down her face. “I can say I’ve been in love now.”
“It’s all it’s cracked up to be, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she sniffled.
“I heard he’s moving into this building.”
Zooey’s big sparkly green eyes almost popped out of her head. “WHO IS?”
“Justin. And Scarlett, I suppose. There have been rumblings that he was looking to sell his old place, he likes the security better here.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
Emile shook her head. “Something is drawing you two psychos together, apparently.”
“Oh my fucking god, no matter where I go, he always seems to follow!”
“Such is life, boo.”
“He had to know you and Kanye live here,” she concluded in her panic. “What a fucking stalker!”
Emile tried to keep the joke going for as long as possible, but she couldn’t contain her laughter anymore. “I’m fucking with you,” she finally inserted before Zooey could start to hyperventilate.
“You fucking trick ass whore!” she laughed with her, so relieved to have her sister back. “I missed you, Em.”
“I missed you too, bitch.”
Steadying her nephew in one hand, she wiped her face of any dampness she had left, smiling at the fact that her life had instantly returned to some form of normal with her sister back in it. And she knew she would eventually be okay with everything. “You’re the coolest chick I know, you know.”
“Yeah well… Yeezy taught me.”
____________________
“It’s so hard to look at you now,” Scarlett announced, walking into the bedroom behind her husband, who stood in his mirror, tying his tie. She wanted to gaze into his eyes, but just couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she stared at his moving fingers. “And now isn’t the time to have a fight, I’m aware, but I just need you to know. That I’m still hurting.”
He stopped what he was doing to look at her, stunned by what he saw. She was all dressed and ready to go, her glittery dark green dress making her eyes sparkle, makeup was simultaneously subtle and dramatic “ she was flawless as usual. “I know,” he nodded.
“I don’t want you to go tonight.”
“Scarlett.”
“I know I said I could handle it, but I was wrong. If you’re there, I’m gonna cry, and if I cry, people are gonna wonder what’s going on. And we already look suspicious enough as it is.”
“Won’t it look more suspicious if I’m not there? People already know I’ve been in the city the past few days.”
“Well I don’t care. It’s my night and I’d rather you not be there.”
“Scarlett, what if you win? Are you really saying you don’t want me to be there if you get your first Tony?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” she confirmed softly, turning to walk out of the door. “I will work on this with you, I promise, but it can’t be tonight.”
“Can I just be your friend then?” he called back before she could leave the room. “Just as part of your support system?”
“Justin…”
“I want to be there, Scar. I want to be there for you.”
“It’s not always about what you want.”
“Well I don’t believe that you really don’t want me there,” he maintained. “I know I’ve hurt you, I know that. I know that I fucked up, and I swear to god, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to take this back, Tess. But I’m not giving up on you, and I’m not gonna let you give up on me. Life is about making running changes. You can’t stop to fix things, you have to mend the sail while you’re still at sea. So here I am, running and fixing shit. We made vows to one another, and yes, maybe I broke a couple, but I’m trying to find my way back. I’m trying to fight for you, I’m trying to be there when it hurts, so you have to do the same for me. You don’t have to forgive me right now, I know it’s gonna take time. But you’ve gotta let me start trying to fix this.”
She pursed her lips for a long time, obviously trying to come up with a response that would satisfy both of them. Truthfully, she wanted to want him there, but she wasn’t lying or exaggerating when she said that it hurt to look at him.
“Scarlett, it’s time to go!” they could both hear the sound of her mother, Melanie, calling from the front of their apartment.
“I gotta go,” she shrugged. “I’ll call you.”
Without another word, she rounded the corner to the hallway and headed towards the front, where her mom and her beauty team were getting ready to exit.
“You are perfect,” Melanie beamed, staring at her beautiful baby. “Love the dress, love the hair, love everything.”
“Thanks, mom,” she tried to smile, taking her clutch from her stylist. “Thank you.”
“You nervous?”
“Not really,” she shook her head slightly. “A little anxious, I guess, but I’m fine.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.”
“Well all right. Where’s Justin?”
“He’s not--.”
“Right here,” Justin proclaimed, entering the room with his tie finally tied, a porkpie hat tilted over his curls, and stuffing his glasses into his pocket. “I’m ready.”
Scarlett’s expressionless face quickly turned to a frown as she watched him walk towards them. “Justin, I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I most certainly am coming,” he pretended as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. “What could I possibly have to do that’s more important than this?”
Melanie eyed them for just a moment, knowing they were in the midst of problems, but had made it very clear to Scarlett that she err on the side of saving her marriage. So anything she could do to help, she would. “Okay, kids, no time to discuss nonsense. Let’s go.”
“But”“
“No time,” she insisted, tapping her watch frantically. “Time to kiss and make up, all right?”
_______________
The night was going well, as far as anyone could tell. Scarlett felt a bit sullen, sure, but she could mask it with a strategically placed smile or glance in her husband’s direction. It wasn’t the first time she would have to fake something with him, most likely wouldn’t be the last, but she simply thought of it as an opportunity to hone her craft. She was an actor, after all, so as much as she hated it, she was able to find the wherewithal to put on a show for anyone watching.
But then, something happened. She wasn’t expecting it at all, and in fact, she hadn’t really been paying attention when it happened. Of course, she knew that her category was being announced, and she could see the camera in her face as her name was read along with the other nominees, but as Daniel Radcliffe and Katie Holmes stood at the front of the theater, opening the envelope, it took her more than a few seconds to realize that her name was written inside.
“And the Tony goes to… Scarlett Johansson, A View from the Bridge.”
And while she sat there, not really grasping that her name had been called, Justin watched her, not moving, and nudged her, trying to snap her out of her trance.
“Wow,” she said to herself, finally rising from her seat. Dazed, and somewhat confused, she didn’t stop to hug or kiss him, nor her mother, but headed straight for the stage to get her award.
“Is this real life?” she wondered with a sincerely stunned smile on her face. “My god. I… I honestly didn’t expect this. This is…” she paused for a bit, taking in the moment “ her moment “ and she began to cry. It had been an overwhelming half a year for her, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it, with all the world watching. She was happy, of course, but she couldn’t help but wonder how much better all of this would have been if the love of her life hadn’t broken her heart. And while he sat there, beaming in pride for her, she still couldn’t bear to look at him. The rest of the audience, the rest of the world, sat there, gawking at her as she took all of it in, and they began to applaud. Tears continued to rush down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I’m just really astounded right now,” she croaked out, clutching her award. “I ummm… it’s been a really turbulent year for me. It’s been a rollercoaster. And as I stand before you, completely humbled, I feel… I can’t really even tell you how much this means to me. Thank you, thank you to the Tony voters. Thank you to my fellow cast mates, to the crew, thank you for inspiring me everyday. Thank you for pushing me to be better than I was the day before.
To my agents at CAA, thank you for having the foresight to see me in this. To say, while in the middle of shooting Iron Man 2, ‘Hey, why don’t you go do this play for a little while,’” she chuckled to herself. “What a rare thing.
Umm, to my mom. Thank you. For every. single. thing you do. Thank you for beating the pavement with me, day after day, year after year, and making my dreams your priority. Thank you for keeping all the most important doors open for me.
And umm, most importantly, I know I’m taking a lot of time here, but I have to get this out, because if I don’t, I’m not sure that I’ll ever say it. To my Tennessean, my husband. Justin… I love you,” she cried. As much as she’d tried to avoid showing all this emotion, it poured out of her. “I don’t understand a lot about the world, about life, a-a-about relationships or marriage, but I understand that you… you love me. And I know it’s been tough, me in New York, you in LA, we’ve been doing our own things since we got married, but… some things are necessary. Some things make you stronger. And we’ve made me stronger, and… I thank you. I vowed that no matter what, I would be there when you looked to your left, and I meant it. Every breath you take, man.”
“I love you,” he mouthed back to her, teary-eyed, knowing she couldn’t hear him.
"Hopefully, we'll be okay,” she pleaded with the future quietly, closing her eyes one more time in order to memorize the moment. “Umm, you are all witness to a little girl’s dreams coming true. To everyone, to anyone that helped me get here “ thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.”
Removing his glasses to wipe his eyes, he stood to cheer for his wife. The love of his life. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated for himself.
____________________
A few months later…
After a long stint in New York City, escaping the confines of her shattered heart, Zooey returned to LA, hoping that her first night out in the City of Angels wouldn’t be as hellish as her last ordeal there.
She was dining with her new BFF and old colleague, Mindy, and for the first time in months, she felt a small dose of contentment that hadn’t been there before. And although they were supposed to head back to work the very next day, they made it a point to discuss anything but The Office.
“So,” Mindy began, once the conversation about wine with breakfast came to a standstill. “How many boys did you screw while you were in New York?”
Chuckling at her own answer before she said it out loud, Zooey revealed, “Honestly, not one.”
“For shame!”
“I know, right?” She took a big gulp from her glass of Merlot and nodded. “What a waste.”
“So much of a waste. Why was your hot ass not hooking up with sexies in the city?”
Zooey shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling hook-uppy, I suppose.” More of a deep depression, it was.
“Did you have a lot of sleepless nights, crying over Justin Timberlake?” she leaned in to whisper.
Yes. “Of course not! I was working.”
“That is not all you did, Zooey. Come on.”
“I spent time with my nephew,” she offered, not having much in the way of scandalous affairs anymore. “Who, by the way, is the cutest little person in the history of the world.”
“I’m about to start snoring!”
“Whataya want from me?” she shouted, in tune to the song of the same name. “It was a boring, self-discovery-existentialism-exploring-I’m-doing-me type of trip. It sucked.”
“So basically, you did Eat, Pray, Love in New York.”
“Pretty much. Although mine was more like Eat, Write, Cry.”
Mindy offered her warm smile, knowing that Zooey had certainly been through it over the past few months. “Do you regret it?”
“I don’t think I do,” she admitted after careful thought. “I regret that someone was hurt in the process, but… I feel like something was added to my life for a while. Something I never would have been able to get anywhere else.”
“Oh come on, like dudes aren’t knocking down your door.”
“That’s the thing, though. Sure, there are dudes that I can fuck with and have fun with for a while, but he felt… different. It felt like he ‘got’ me, from the minute we met,” she recalled wistfully. “And I am aware that I sound like a completely mindless teenager, but that’s what he did for me, Min. He made me say, ‘Fuck the world.’”
“And get a child out her.”
“Yeah, my life’s a bitch...”
“But you know nothin’ ‘bout her.”
Zooey smiled at the ease of their silly-slash-serious conversations but sighed woefully. “Where in god’s name am I gonna find another him?”
“You won’t,” Mindy prophesized bluntly. “But that doesn’t mean there’s not another somebody for you.”
“I miss him,” she confessed quietly. “So much.”
“You seem like a new person, Z. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
And perhaps Mindy was right “ maybe she was a new person. And maybe her time in New York was exactly what she needed to recuperate from everything she’d put herself through. She needed to remove herself from the equation of Justin and Los Angeles for a bit, and just maybe she could find a way to get over him.
But then, as she headed for the front of the swanky restaurant, just wanting to take a quick cigarette break, there he was. Justin. He was just standing there, staring at the artwork adorning the lobby. He was holding a clutch, so she knew Scarlett must have been with him, and she found herself involuntarily gasping at the thought.
He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet with his same old safe bet
There was something that seemed utterly inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined sense “ just in the quiet stubborn way that unfinished business has of imposing its will on the unwilling.
Zooey wanted to be able to walk on by, as if she never saw him in the first place. But she did see him, and she wanted him to know that in spite of everything they’d been through, her thoughts of him didn’t waver. Planning to make a quick acknowledgement in passing, she proclaimed, “I wish you were waiting for me.”
Me and my head high, and my tears dry
Get on without my guy
Justin turned to the familiar voice, his eyes immediately brightening, as he was happily surprised to see Zooey standing there. “Wow, hey.”
“Hey. Good to see you.”
You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
He watched as she continued toward the door, but he wasn’t ready for her to leave yet. “How are you?”
“Umm. I’m good,” she offered a half-shrug. “How about you?”
“Not bad,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Not bad. I haven’t seen you around lately, where’ve you been hiding?”
And I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked
I go back to black
She smiled at the fact that he noticed. “Umm. I’ve been in New York for the past few months, actually.”
“Is that so? I never took you as the type to run away from anything.”
“No, I umm… I’ve been working on my first screenplay. It’s pretty awesome, to be honest. It’s a romcom about this woman with disastrously low self-confidence, but this unbelievably hot guy kind of pursues her and turns her life upside down. It’s gonna be called ‘The Low Self-Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie.’”
He eyed her for just a second too long, clearly wondering if this was some form of a biopic. Again, he asked, “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” she smirked. “But don’t worry, it’s not based on us.”
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her, and I go back to us
“I didn’t think it was!”
“You did. But that’s fine,” she nudged him. “But yeah. Not to mention, Em is in New York, so I got to see my nephew a lot, hang out with them for a bit. It’s been fun.”
“New York is great,” he agreed. “We just got a new place in SoHo, I can’t wait until I can spend some time there again.”
“New York is great,” she repeated, distracted by the fact that Emile’s joke probably wasn’t a joke after all.
“So what brings you back to LA?” he shook her from her thoughts.
“Oh, umm… back to the grind.”
“Oh yeah, it’s Steve’s last season on The Office, huh?”
She nodded slowly, still saddened by the notion. “But hey, that’s life.”
And life is like a pipe
And I’m a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside
“That’s life,” he repeated softly, not even caring that Scarlett would probably be coming out of the restroom at any second. He had missed the woman in front of him so very much.
“Well… I should go. I was just heading out for a quick smoke.”
“Oh. Yeah,” he was knocked back into reality. “I guess… I’ll see you around.”
“You probably will,” she grinned sadly. He didn’t want her to leave, and she could tell, but their time was up for now. “Take care, okay?”
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
“Will do.” He wasn’t sure whether to offer a handshake or a hug or anything at all. He opted for an awkward pat on the back. “And I look forward to the day my agent gives me your script and says, ‘You must do this.’”
And then her smile brightened a little. “I look forward to the day my agent says, ‘Justin Timberlake is doing your movie.’”
“Later, Levin.”
Turning from him quickly as her eyes began to water, again, she had to come to terms with the fact that their story “ this beautiful story of true affection, true weakness, and true self-destruction “ had come to an end. The sad conclusion to their short-lived affair was that she had to choose between being able to live with herself or… being happy. Zooey chose to live with herself.
You go back to her
And I go back to black
End
Lyrics: “Back to Black” “ Amy Winehouse (Back to Black) [Rest In Peace, Amy]
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you so, so much for reading. You all have been so generous in your feedback and bearing with me through my inexcusable hiatuses. I can't thank you enough. I mean... a-mazing. Hope to see you on the next one!
Completed
Ashley is the author of 8 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 28 members. Members who liked Yellow also liked 608 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 28 members. Members who liked Yellow also liked 608 other stories.
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