A Smile So Genuine

I should have seen it coming. I replay every single detail in my mind from the last couple months of our relationship. I tried to see where I went wrong, if I said something or did something that made him run to her. I could have made an effort to see him more while he was away filming. Maybe I could have talked about him more when I did interviews. We should have come out earlier as a couple. Why did I wait so long to show up at a public event with him? All he wanted was to show the world I was his. I’m so fucking selfish. It’s my fault he cheated on me. I could have been better. I was so wrapped up in how I felt around him that I forgot about his feelings too. I should have realized something was wrong. I mean, he never even said anything that hinted that he was unhappy. Or maybe I’m just that oblivious to everyone else. Maybe I am that self-centered. I never deserved him anyways. He was always too good for me.

“Charlie! Are you listening to me? Where do you want this box?”

I snapped my head up to Lisa’s voice, shaking me out of my thoughts. I realized I was just sitting on a coffee table in my new living room, staring outside the window into the gloomy sky of London.

Somehow, within a couple hours, Lisa managed to get an apartment on the top floor of a complex overlooking the busy city as well as two smaller apartments a floor down for herself and Henson, since Kelly would be staying with me. I was renting, she told me earlier that day. I never asked how much this all cost me, but she knew better than to inform me of money when I was in such a state. She did ask me, although, if Henson and her needed to take the renting costs out of their pay checks. I refused, of course. I was the one who selfishly dragged them out of the United States into a different country. No wonder I was cheated on.

“Charlie, can you please answer me? This box is heavy.”

I glanced around my new apartment and pointed to some random spot a few feet away from me. Lisa dropped the box to the floor and sighed, taking a seat next to me.

“The people I hired to move us in forgot this box in the hallway. I think it had a bunch of your shoes or something in it. I was thinking we could go shopping tomorrow and explore some of London? Kelly said she’s really excited to get some clothes from an England boutique. Although you do have a meeting with the record company tomorrow morning, we can go after.”

I could feel Lisa’s eyes staring into my face, practically boring a hole into my cheek. I was fixated on a small white band of skin on my ring finger. It seems that I’ve been marked by that ring I use to have. I can almost picture it wrapped around my finger, glinting in the sunlight. It used to mean something, that ring. Now it’s haunting me, forever reminding me of his presence; his musky smell, his loud laugh, the way he smiled when I babbled on about something unimportant, the way his fingers felt when he grazed my skin.

“I heard there’s a bunch of shops not too far from here, probably walking distance. We can wait a bit longer to allow you to get settled in, if you like.”

I had memorized his face one night while we were lying in my bed, his arms wrapped around my waist. He was explaining the time he went rock climbing to me, describing how the rocks made his hands bleed and his friend had almost fell from up high. I was concentrating on his face, trying to imprint that image in my mind forever. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still see the sparkle glimmering in his hazel eyes, his lips pulled up into that perfect crooked smile, his jaw curving back to meet the ends of his brown hair. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still feel the love imbedded in those late nights where we talked for hours, laughing and kissing until we grew tired.

I know what people said about me and him; that we were barely dating for a year, that it all happened so fast. One day we were strangers, and the next day we were falling madly in love for each other. I was unsure of a lot of things about my life; whether I would ever act again, whether that album would ever be written; whether I would ever find the confidence to look myself in the mirror and not burst into tears, but the one thing I was absolutely sure of was the fact that every moment me and him spent together was full of real love. Real, honest to goodness, breathe taking, heart breaking love. And no one would take that away from me.

“So will you go to the shops with us then?”

I took my eyes off the small, significant band of pale skin and glanced into Lisa’s eyes.

“No.”

I pushed myself off the table and walked silently into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.