Chapter 157

“Look, I already told you to stay away from me. There is no need to come over here and touch any of these fucking dresses at any time. Now go over there and deal with your own shit before I seriously snap and you meet a side to me I’ve been keeping under wraps this year. I will fuck you up and you won’t like it.” I snap at Melissa, the mousy brown-haired devil’s side kick to Olivia’s crew, as she once again makes a play at eating her greasy food beside my hanging rail of dresses.

We are backstage to where we’re having our show and setting up for tomorrow. Hours ticking down, prepping all this, and getting everything set out, with shoes, accessories and all the sketches of how the models are to be styled in hair and makeup is being pinned to each garment. I ran out of garment bags mid-way through my collection, even though I bought enough of them and know for a fact they have been stolen by some bitch or another.

“Keep your hair on… Like you could anyway.” Melissa sneers at me in that toffee-nosed English accent of hers and I glare harder, death stare at its finest.

“My boyfriend is a pro-martial arts fighter who has spent two years teaching me how to disable full grown men with only one swift move. Do you really want to test out if he has done a good job?” I raise my brows haughtily, inwardly smug as her face pales and she high tails it away from me at speed. I guess she saw the genuine intent in my threat and is finally taking a fucking hint. They have been driving me mad all day and I just want to get home and get ready for Arry coming in on his flight. I haven’t heard from him all day, not since last night and I’m slightly concerned that he hasn’t even told me what time he’s getting in. This is so unlike him.

“Sophie? … Make sure your order of outfits is left with the rail, so the stylists know who’s going out first and have your list of models and which outfits they are wearing to hand. I also need a copy for the commentator.” Sadie Brunee, our stand in tutor while Claude is absent is behind me, and I turn with a smile before handing her the papers from the little table beside me. I’m crazily uptight, everything building up all week until I’m at momentous levels of anxious and nervy as hell. I’m like a rubber band that is stretched so taut that a tiny breeze can be my undoing and snap my tension.

“There you go.” I smile back, tight lipped, and fake… I don’t really know her and from what I have known of her for the brief times she has run our class, is that she is cold, indifferent, and professionally aloof, always. She won’t care if I’m falling apart right now, she only cares that the show runs smoothly and makes her look good.

Tomorrow feels like it’s going to be the death of me. I am wrought and strung out with nerves and I need Arry to call or text or just be there when I get home before I self-implode. I’m finding it harder as this show looms up to get a grip on my emotions and this is making me crazy. I have no way to self-calm or release this anxiety and my mind is like a chaotic warzone with all I have going on inside it.

“Good, good. Well break a leg tomorrow. Cannot wait to see all the students hard work pay off. Good luck.” She wanders off without waiting on a response and I sag against my rail for a moment, resting my forehead against the cold bar of the end stand. I feel sick, terrified and it’s only exhausting me. I need to finish my prep and go home to sink into a bubble bath, hopefully beside my Carrero if he’s home, and assure myself that I have done all that I can to ensure this goes well.

***

Getting into the apartment I’m dead on my feet and later than normal. The walk home to clear my head only made me even more shattered even though it’s only a couple of streets away. I should have let my driver collect me. My full body is deflated and exhausted and practically unable to keep me upright.

I was on the go, nonstop all day, and finally have everything set to flow smoothly with my slot in the show. Music handed to the sound man, commentator has my notes and all the dresses lined up in order with pinned instructions, model names and sequence alongside all the extras, makeup looks and hair style images too. I’ve worked my ass off to pull this together on my own and proud that really, there is nothing else I can do now except show up and make my brief appearance on the cat walk at the end of my slot, to show the world who I am.

My work is done, and now I have to wait on the reaction of the attending audience. All notably important people in the fashion world; bloggers, fashion mag columnists, you name it. This show is being filmed, reported, and critiqued to death and that in itself is making me sick with nerves. I haven’t been able to shift the queasiness for days.

The apartment smells of food and my spirits rise as I hightail it to the kitchen in hopes of my sexy hobby chef making us dinner, but it’s Janetta standing by the stove and smiles a greeting as she spots me.

“Hey, no Arry?” I ask her, looking around in case he is here and maybe gone to bed for a nap. He can never sleep on a flight and it always makes him so tired coming back.

“Non, Mademoiselle, he has not arrived.” She smiles again, and I pat her this time, on her shoulder as I wander back through to the open lounge and stare out the huge bay windows onto the building’s opposite. It’s overcast and grey, raining like it has been for weeks and I hope to god the weather hasn’t delayed the flight. It happens sometimes, especially in this part of the world and its dreadful seasons.

I pull out my cell to check, but there’s still nothing at all, no texts and no calls. I try calling him, but it goes straight to his voicemail and I hang up dejectedly. It could mean he’s still on a plane and I should have my bath and forget about it until he comes home. My gut aches a little with the deep insecurity I’ve been feeling lately and push it down. I’m being dumb. Arry has been later than planned a million times due to flight hold ups. I should just leave him be.

***

Sitting drying my hair after an hour-long soak in the tub I check my cell again. it’s past seven pm and he promised he would be here long before bed. I still haven’t heard anything and now I really am starting to get antsy. Sure, he has come in through the night a million times, but he always calls, or texts and I’m starting to get real fear that something has happened to him. I find myself immediately googling news channels for any word of lost or crashed planes, even though I know I’m being dumb.

Fuck sakes.

Almost as if by will power alone, my cell begins vibrating in my hand as his name and face appears on screen, and I almost cry with relief. Agony abated with a genuine ‘oh my god’ moment of warmth as it washes over me instead.

“Arry? Where are you?” I gush as soon as I answer, so relieved he’s finally called me, a hot liquid running through my body, making me lightheaded with euphoric relief.

“Sophs…look… Umm” The way he says my name, softly, a hint of trepidation and sounding very non-confident, unlike normal Arry, makes my heart drop into my stomach as a little niggling fear eats me up inside. I hear him swallow as he hesitates loudly.

“Where are you?” I repeat sternly, this time both anxiety and anger rising side by side as the realization that I can hear the usual hum drum of his office in the background and does not sound at all like an airport.

“Baby… I got held up, all day. I couldn’t make my flight but…”

“You fucking promised me, Arry.” I snap before he has time to finish answering, temper letting lose with the build-up of emotion and frustration from the past week and I sound exactly like a crazed psycho.

“I know, it’s just…” he tries again, but I explode. MY fraught emotions finally snapping my elastic band.

“Don’t you fucking dare…Go get on a flight, right NOW! … RIGHT NOW!” I let loose hysterically, all emotions spewing out like a volcano, tears stinging and flowing down my face, not caring if Janetta can hear me. My heart is being wrenched out of my chest by my dickhead boyfriend letting me down on the most important day of my year and I suddenly cannot breathe.

My ENTIRE fucking year!!

There are no words for the level of hysterics hitting me full force or the gut-wrenching betrayal I’m feeling. I gasp for air as the darkness of an impending panic attack starts and I shove my head down between my knees to stop it developing, ramming my cell against my ear.

“Sophs?”

“Don’t fucking, Sophs, me… I don’t want lame excuses or bullshit. I just want you to go get on a fucking plane and be here, like you promised me. You promised me, Arrick!” I break, my voice croaking and start full on sobbing, barely able to take in anything but the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears. If he gets a flight soon, he can still get here before my show, in the early hours of the morning. He has to come; he has to be here with me. He told me he would.

He has to.

“The next flight is tomorrow morning.” He states it somberly, almost inaudibly, like he too understands that this means he won’t get here in time at all. I completely break.

“I hate you.” I blurt out through a mass of tears, hang up on him and sob my heart out, crushed with the realization that the one person I’ve been clinging to all year, my one sanity in this shitty lonely French existence is not going to be there when I need him. I ignore my cell ringing again and throw it on the bed, unable to talk to him, unable to do anything but cry, sob and retch at how fast I’ve fallen apart. I roll onto my side and curl into the fetal position as wracking pain overtakes and I struggle to inflate my lungs.

He has no clue to how deep a pain this is, how far he’s cut. This show sums up two years of blood sweat and tears, enduring a year of nasty bitches trying to claw me down and destroy me. A lonely existence of being alone most of the time, while he flew back and forth. I need him at my show! I need his support, his presence. I need him to not let me down in this. I need his strength and presence to keep me sane.

I wait a long time, until I calm down the frantic sobbing and hysterics before I reach for my cell again; he just keeps re-calling every time it stops, repeatedly, frantically, and I stare at him on screen, another stab at my heart wounding me. Wiping my face on my sleeve to gain control, sniffing back the sobs before I pull myself upright slowly and finally answer it.

“What?” I answer brokenly, voice croaking through my quiet tears and hating on him with a passion. Desolate that my rock has abandoned me. It’s been a very long time since Arry made me feel this way about him and I hate that he still has this ability. That no matter how much I love him; he can screw me up with something so small.

“I’m sorry, baby. I fucked this up… I didn’t know the meeting was going to run like it did and I couldn’t get out. We were signing so many legal contracts today, we haven’t left that room in twelve hours, Sophs. I can be on the next flight in the morning.” His voice is strained, and I can tell by the huskiness that he’s emotional too, but I don’t care.

“So, getting on a flight tomorrow for what? The show is in the morning, I’m on before noon…You’ll still miss it anyway. What’s the point in rushing to get on a flight then?” I keep crying, keep disliking him with a passion. Wounded, betrayed, and let down. Spitting at him with so much anger bubbling inside of me and a body so heavy I can’t even hold my head up properly.

“Technically I can’t leave tomorrow either, we aren’t done here, but I was going to come home and see you before coming back again. I had a massive fight with my dad over this, Sophs… I don’t know what else to do. Amanda didn’t tell me the next flight wasn’t until tomorrow until I finally came out of the conference room. I just figured she would have gotten me a flight for tonight and I would still be there. She’s checked every airline. There’s not a single France bound flight tonight.” He’s trying to appease me, but his words are falling on deaf ears. All I can hear is blah blah, not coming back, blah blah, Amanda, blah blah. I hate him so much in this right now I can’t even begin to formulate anything but angry responses.

“What’s the point?” I blurt out numbly.

“Because I told you I would, and I want to see you.” He sounds remorseful, maybe he really is, but I’m beyond caring. I’m heartbroken.

“Forget it… Don’t come home. I don’t want you to… I don’t want to see you, especially not for some fly by dutiful half assed apology that fixes nothing… Go fuck yourself and leave me alone.” I hang up again, this time changing my cell to flight mode, so it can get zero calls or texts and throw it on the bed behind me, knowing fine well he won’t be able to reach me now. Raging, broken hearted and now facing a long emotional night of no sleep for my big day, alone. In one call everything feels destroyed and now instead of looking forward to my night with him, I’m hating his very soul and facing the longest night of anxiety, fear, and nerves all on my fucking own.

Thank you very fucking much, Arrick.

Could this city get any worse?