(Finn) Chapter 10: How to Cross a Crossroad for Dummies?
2 ½ Years Earlier
“Congratulations, Finny Boy!” Marco said, his brilliant white smile stretching from ear to ear. He clapped me on the back, grasping me by the shoulder with a friendly shake.
I’d gotten a couple big parts before, but this one happened to be one of the biggest signing deals yet. I would be signed for three movies total depending on how the first one does in the box office. That, and Marco and I had both wanted the lead role bad. In the end, I was the better actor. If Marco held a grudge he didn’t show it.
“Thanks, brother.” I replied, clinking my champagne glass with his. He guided me onto the main deck of one of his yachts, showing me the large group of people that had already started dancing, eating, and drinking. Most of them I had never met in my life, but I immediately spotted Keira’s blonde hair as pulled away from a group of ladies in bikinis and she walked toward us.
“Finnley, honey, you’re here!” Her arms stretched around my neck as she peered up at me with a smile and kissed me on the lips.
“Did you know about this all along?” I asked her, the tiniest bit annoyed that she hadn’t mentioned a giant gathering of people in my honor when we’d woken up together this morning. She knew that I didn’t like crowds, and even more so surprise parties.
She shrugged her slender shoulders and looked up at me with her crystal-colored eyes, batting her eyelashes. “Are you mad at me?” Sheesh. How could I be upset with something so beautiful?
I kissed her on her nose and smiled softly. “Never.”
With that she grabbed my glass, downed its contents, and dragged me to the bar on deck. “Good, then let’s celebrate.”
We drank, ate, danced, and laughed until the sun was swallowed by the sea and darkness spread across the sky. Something felt wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but as I stumbled around the boat, it seemed like people around me were talking in whispers. I ignored them, the urge to find a bathroom too strong to care about any gossip and found myself below deck in the main cabin. The yacht was huge. It felt like a mini hotel with door after door on one floor of the boat. I moved to the one that was partially open, a glow of light illuminating its crevice. I slowly pushed open the door to find a small group of people huddled around a glass table, startled, looking up at me like they were doing something wrong. I was surprised to find that Keira was one of those faces, completely sobering me.
“Keira, what the bloody hell are you doing?” I rushed over to her and grabbed her by the arm. She sniffed, wiping white powder from her nose with her free hand and yanked her arm away.
“What does it fucking look like I’m doing?” she said, waving a hand toward the glass table, covered in what I now could see was multiple lines of cocaine. She told me that she could never do hard drugs, that they were for people so miserable with their own lives, that they had to live in a fantasy world instead. And yet… here she was.
I stared her in the eyes, not recognizing the person looking back at me. Her cherry red lips, smeared. Her eyeliner smudged on the side of her face, as if she had smeared it while wiping the beads of sweat that were still forming on her forehead. I grabbed her chin gently and spoke, “Who are you?” She yanked her face out of my hands and bent back down toward the table to sniff another line when I bent my face close to the table to blow all the powder off its surface.
Just before I had the chance to blow, a flash of light sparked toward the door. And there was Marco, now shaking out a developing polaroid photo. He smiled at it, the picture fully in view now.
“Ah, a couple who blows together, stays together! So cute.” He laughed and flicked the photo toward us, where it landed in the pile of coke. I turned toward him and shoved him into the door frame by his shirt.
“That’s not fucking funny, Marco.” I growled in his face, before dropping his clothes and heading out the door. “Fuck this. Get me off this bloody boat.”
#
Two Weeks Later.
Fixing my dress shirt in the floor length mirror, I adjusted its collar and folded up the sleeves over my forearms, when my phone rang.
I held it between my ear and shoulder as I adjusted the button of my sleeve, “Quincy, Hello.”
“Finn, I’m sorry but Gillion Studios decided to go another direction…”
“What do you mean? –I don’t understand, I was just in the office speaking to Peter Hoffman yesterday…”
“Yes, well… There has been a development, regarding your behavior, Finn. Gillion can’t be associated publicly with a drug addict.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Quincy, I’m not a bloody drug addict! There must be some mistake, this part was huge for my career—” I began to pace in my large closet.
“You might want to check The Brighton Post, Finn... And maybe get some help too. There is no shame in needing a little help.”
With that, I hung up. I wanted to throw my phone across the room and smash it into a million pieces, but I needed it to look at the Brighton Post’s article. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Front cover, there it was. Keira and I bent over a glass table covered in lines of cocaine in some plushy looking room at the bottom of Marco’s yacht. Keira’s face was covered by her long blonde hair. Thank God. Not that I should give a shit what happens to her, since clearly, she or Marco gave this photo to the press. But there I was, bent over the table slightly looking in Marco’s direction. There was no mistaking that that was me. No wonder Gillion Studios dropped me from my role. Fuck.
I called Keira and Marco, but they both denied giving the photo away. They said that it was probably someone else who came across it after they left the room. Bullshit. Marco wanted that part, and that must have been his way of securing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Keira was in on it too. My brain was swirling, and my heart ached with hurt and loss over the people who I thought were happy for me, and a success that had slipped through my fingers.
I rang my father. No answer. Of course, I don’t know what I was thinking of calling that monster. He probably wouldn’t believe that I wasn’t doing drugs in that photo.
My shirt was suddenly too tight, too constricting. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch my breath— My fingers fumbled over the small white buttons, as I tried to undo them as fast as I could. It wasn’t fast enough. I tore the shirt from my body, popping buttons off and all. Now shirtless, I slumped to the floor of my closet, staring at the photo that just ruined my life with burning tears streaming down my face.
Someone called me then. “IN COMING CALL – UNKNOWN”
I answered, “hello?”
A sweet old Englishman’s voice spoke through the phone. Henry.
“Finnley. I saw the Post—”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “Henry, it’s not what you think…” The shame.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. We are all only human, and every last one of us makes mistakes… No one is perfect, my boy.” Silent tears streamed down my face as I listened to this sweet old man fill my ears with love. He had always been there for me. He’d always watched out for me and believed me. He always made me feel like things would be okay. “Well, except my granddaughter Lenny. But that’s neither here nor there.”
I chuckled through my tears. “Yes, except your Lenny.”
He chuckled lightly in response, before going quiet. “Are you alright, bud?”
Taking a deep breath, I replied, “I will be.”
“Yes, you will.” He chuckled again. “Now, come over for dinner when you aren’t busy, mmkay?” Things were so simple when it came to Henry. He brought me back down to Earth by just being real and kind. His gentleness reminded me that the world did, in fact, not revolve around me. And that no matter what happened, we still had to live life and do simple things like eat dinner. And in that, knowing that... I could move forward.
“Thank you, Henry. Thank you for calling me.”
The line was silent for a moment, before he said, “Thank you for being someone I want to call.”
A final tear fell from my cheek, and then he hung up.
TUNE IN NEXT SUNDAY TO READ WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
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