Instead, I caught Axel walking along the water, his arm around a girl. They were laughing and bumping shoulders, exactly like we had done weeks ago.
How could I have been so gullible!?
I wasn’t as much angry with Axel as I was angry with myself. I had seen all the signs, but I’d chosen to delude myself with fairy tales.
How could I have been so stupid!?
I walked after them, my hands balled into fists. I was going to confront him, yell at him, smack him. I didn’t know what, but I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
As I stormed my way down the beach toward Axel and the girl in his arms, my anger shifted to sadness then pity. My pace slowed while the pace of the happy couple walking away from me sped up.
I stopped and I stared at them. I watched them disappear from view. The cool breeze turned chilly. My hair whipped me in the eyes. The tide came in and wet my feet. I didn’t try to step out of the way.
Cold and wet and angry, I turned and walked back to my car. I pulled out my phone to send Travis a text. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes. I didn’t care. I typed furiously, ‘It’s over’ and hit send.
A few seconds later my phone vibrated in my hand. I looked at the new message. I shouldn’t have; I was in no mood or state to discuss the matter. But I looked at the message anyway. It wasn’t from Travis; it was from Michael.
In my fury, I’d sent the message to him and not Travis.
Why did it matter? It was over with Michael, too. I shouldn’t have replied, but I did.
I apologized for the confusion, said the text was meant for someone else.
How could I have been so stupid?
Not only was I apologizing to Michael, a man who deserved no such consideration, but I’d also inadvertently let him know that I wasn’t seeing anyone. Worse than that; I’d let him know that I was currently on the rebound.
Stupid!
I sat in my car for nearly an hour texting back and forth with Michael. He was trying to apologize for what had happened over a year ago, and, some time in our exchange I realized that I was lashing out at him for the hurt I was feeling from what I’d just seen: Axel walking along the beach with another girl. Then I started apologizing for that!
Michael told me that I should drive up to Los Angeles, that we should talk things over in person. I had the good sense to drive home instead. However, his invitation stirred in me. It mixed with the hurt and anger I was feeling. I wasn’t thinking straight, and Michael kept persisting.
Michael had always been good at telling me what I wanted to hear; and I had always been bad at spotting his manipulation.
A few days later, I drove out to Los Angeles.
I told myself I just needed a change of scenery. I didn’t even go to Tree Top—not at first. But eventually, and predictably, I did end up there.
Michael was charming—he hadn’t lost his touch. He said the right things, and he kept giving me delicious cocktails.
For a while, I was my old self again; LA Gwen was back: Carefree Gwen, Live For The Moment Gwen. And it felt great—for a while.
Somewhere and somehow over the course of the evening, things started to go south.
“I think you’re drunk,” said Michael
“Of course I’m drunk,” I said at, perhaps, an inappropriate volume. “That’s the fucking point.”
“I’m going to take you home.”
“You’re going to take me back to San Diego?”
But Michael had a very different idea of where my home was. He intended to take me to his home. And it wasn’t until we’d reached his street that his intentions became clear to me.
“This isn’t San Diego,” I said.
He laughed.
“Where’s my car?” I said.
He laughed again. “Don’t worry about your car.”
He pulled into the garage of his apartment complex and parked the car.
“Why’d we stop?”
“You’re home,” he said. He walked around the car and opened the passenger-side door.
“This isn’t my home,” I said. “Take me to a hotel or take me to my car.”
He unfastened my seat belt and tried to pull me out of the car. I kept repeating that I wasn’t going to stay there, that I wanted a hotel. I took my phone out and tried to phone for a taxi, but he kept pulling on me and my phone fell to the floor.
“Take me home,” I shouted.
“You are home. This is where you belong.”
I shouted again, but he covered my mouth.
I bit and punched; I scrapped and clawed. But a few minutes later, I was in his apartment being dragged down a corridor, pulled into his bedroom and thrown onto his bed.