Hello! Heyo!
First off... 4k! *aggressive and multiple air horns* Thank you so much, you guys! This is just awesome and I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story so far. After this chapter, we have six left and one epilogue, so basically we'll be ending on July 11th. *sad emoji*
Second and probably more importantly, regarding the issue with a certain Smosh Games and NE6 member, if you wanna know my thoughts about it, I did post a statement yesterday on my Insta story and I also discussed it on my Message Board with @Claraandthedoctor and @littlebiggies, who are awesome people with awesome books so check them out! But the thing is, if you want to talk to someone about it to fully comprehend it or maybe just let your feelings out, I'm here for you and many of us are! The inbox is always open and the Message Board is also... always open. I ran out of adjectives. I guess the bottomline of it though is that we should stand with the victim. Let's wait for more information and possible statements from him and the other NE6 members as well.
Anyway, we should start! Courtney's POV and see ya!
-/-/-
I don't know how many days I've planned to tell my sister about the marriage and the divorce, but I knew that this was the best time to let her know.
"Hey, there you are!" Kari greets me with an embrace as we meet. "You ready to go looking for a new apartment?"
"Yup!" I exclaim as we get into my car. "So Damien recommended me some places in this area and some other areas. I took three from his suggestions, so we're going to three places and then wanna grab some dinner?"
"I'd love to," she replies before smiling at me. "Look at you, planning and organizing! Work and class has gotten you into such a good shape too."
"You think so?" I ask as I start the engine. "I feel like I've been stressed all the time, but good stress, you know."
"And that gives you a good glow, keep the grind going," she says, leaning back in her seat. "How are your friends doing? Ian?"
"Still sorta in love with you, maybe?"
"Damien?"
"He has a thing going on with the Channel 7 anchorwoman, who's pretty bomb by the way." [A/N: this is a reference to my other book by the way, *aggressive wink*]
"Olivia?"
"Still with Sam and her puppy's the sweetest baby in the universe, so I'm kinda starting to miss Jango."
"Shayne?"
I hesitate before answering, "Uh, he's doing well."
"Really?" she asks, taking a sip from her drink. "His film closed production after all, right? He's probably really bummed by that."
"Very much so, yeah," I answer awkwardly. "But he's doing better, I think. Like, back to normal and happy and cool."
"That's nice. It's not every day after all that you land the role of your dreams and then it's gone just like that," Kari says.
"You're right," I reply, starting my plan of telling my sister about the marriage thing. "Hey, so about Shayne..."
"Oh, listen to this," she suddenly says before reading aloud some piece of news about Trump on her phone and finishing. "Trump is a massive idiot yet again. Thank God he's finally out of the office." [A/N: hopefully, that is. This takes place by end of November.]
"Yeah," I remark, laughing awkwardly.
"I swear, he's the kind of man who'd get drunk in Vegas and place the entire national fund for gambling."
"Yep, he is... that kind... of man."
"How was your Vegas trip by the way last February? I've never asked you about it." Uh-oh, my plan was falling apart, so I just grin at her and hope that we were already close to our first stop.
We weren't. We were smack dab in the middle of the constantly frozen freeway.
"T'was cool, hahahaha," was the only thing that comes out of my mouth. This was gonna be harder than I thought. "Um, there were, uhhh, flying... stuff."
Kari raises her eyebrow at me and says, "You sure that isn't an amusement park?"
My phone rings. Thank God. Whoever this life-saver is, I'll have to buy them a meal. I pick it up without looking at the Caller ID, "Hello?"
"Hey, can you buy some cheese on your way back?" Shayne says. "Like some parmesan and some mozzarella? I kinda wanna make a lasagna tomorrow for Damien's birthday."
"You know how to make a lasagna? You gotta teach me, man," I reply, chuckling. "Yeah, sure. Any specifics?"
"Nah, just get the cheapest one. Or if there's a store-recommended one wherever you plan on buying," he answers as I continue grinning at Kari who's now busy tapping away on her phone. "How's the search going?"
"We haven't started yet," I tell him. "Still stuck in your usual LA traffic."
"Mmm, that happens," he mumbles. "Well anyway, call me when you've found the one, okay? I do have some obligations to see if that's a good apartment based on the nine months I've lived with you."
"Sure thing," I reply, smiling sadly at the LA horizon.
"You take care now." He hangs up afterwards. I wasn't able to say it back.
"Who was that?" Kari asks.
I do a bit of a lie. "Ian, he's asking me to get some cheese on the way," I answer and she laughs. "I know I cringe a whole lot whenever he addresses his crush on you, but does he stand a chance?"
"Oh, anyone stands a chance, Courtney," she explains to me. "I don't know, I think the real question you should be asking and asking him, not me, is if he plans on taking the chance. You seeing anyone right now? Think if they're actually willing to take the chance."
I think about Shayne as Kari watches a YouTube video. No shit, Shayne would take any chance he could get. I knew it from the moment he carried me to the bedroom on my first day at the apartment to the new ring and the birthday dinner. He doesn't even need multiple chances to know how important a single chance is. He knows that... I know him.
Does he know he stands every chance I can give the world though? Probably not.
We finally arrive at our first stop, and I read Damien's text to me about the apartment.
From: Deems
The first one is nice for one person, but I honestly think you should get a roommate. Shayne tells me it's kinda hard living alone anyway. I'd straight up recommend this one if you plan on living totally alone, rent's not so bad, and honestly it's pretty okay.
From: The Supreme Court
Shayne tells you that?
From: Deems
Yeah, so I'm kinda grateful you guys got married. Just kidding but still: uwu
The landlady guides us throughout the place. Not pretty bad for a building, pretty good security, not too many leaks, just the right number of cameras in the hallways. We enter their sample unit, and it's not that bad, but I do note how different it is from Shayne's apartment. A little too big for one person. I already know where to place the shelves, and I can see where Shayne would tell me to put some books in. I know where to put the picture frames on the wall, and I know where the dream catcher goes.
But I don't like this place. It's sad.
We take a brochure and tell the landlady we're still looking around. When we get back into my car, Kari tells me, "That one was pretty good. Let's see the others that Damien recommends."
"Yeah, it was," I mumble. "Just a little too spacey for one person."
"Don't you like that?" she asks me. "Your apartment's pretty huge too."
"Huh? Oh, yeah, but you know, just really spacey in my opinion. Maybe because that unit's filled with bland filler decoration."
"You okay today?" she says. "You wanna grab some food? Or a drink?"
I sigh. "Yeah, I kinda want something cold." So we get some iced coffee, one for me and a second one for her, as we spend another eternity in traffic.
"All of Damien's recommendations are far away from each other, but they're all at the same distance from Mythical," Kari says, looking at Google Maps. "The first one isn't too bad though, but you're right about the bland decor. You can spruce it up anyway."
We arrive a bit more faster at the second one, which was still kinda the same as the first one we went to. Even my sister mentioned how similar it was to the last one, but my mind just couldn't stop pointing out how probably each unit we look at was sad. This was sad. I was sad.
When we arrive at the last one, both of us gasp. Totally different from the last one, all bright with big glass panels for windows. Sleek, a bit modern compared to my old apartment with bright white walls complemented by black furniture. I'm not a big fan of the glass panels, but it kinda grows on you as soon as you see the right amount of sunlight hitting the floor and lighting up the entire room.
"The previous residents here was a family of four actually, even though this is a two-bedroom apartment," the landlady tells us. "It fitted them all. If you're living alone though, rent might be a bit hard."
"It's really beautiful in here though," Kari remarks, looking out the window. "You know what, Courtney? I'll help you pay rent here if you like this place."
"Ha, so you can come by any time you like," I tell her, and she nods, laughing. "Well, I'll think about it..."
"I'll give you girls some time to look around, I'll be downstairs," the landlady says before leaving the room.
"So, you like this one? I love this one, and the rent's not that high even if four people fit here," Kari tells me. "Probably a couple with two toddlers, that's why they could afford this place. If you have someone over, then at least you have a spare room."
I look around the unit a little more. Each bedroom is big enough for two people. Bathroom is spacey enough. The entire unit is spacey enough, and the rent's just slightly higher than my previous apartment's rent. I stop thinking about financial for a while. I think about how this place would feel so empty without a roommate. I take a video of the place and send it to Shayne.
From: Shayne "The Rock" Bottom
Woah, that looks kinda pricey.
From: Courtney Long Knee
Actually, it's not too pricey for a two-bedroom apartment. Really cool. Damien even has a discount code here for some reason, and I didn't even know apartments could have discount code.
From: Shayne "The Rock" Bottom
Power of Damien.
"So?" Kari asks me as I put my phone back in my pocket.
"It's okay."
"That's it?" she says, walking towards me. "Courtney, I swear, every time we go out together, you aren't like this. Are you okay? Is there something you want to tell me?"
I take a deep breath. Well, better now than in a car, right? "Yes, I have something to tell you."
I tell Kari everything as we sit on the apartment's floor. I tell her about Vegas, about living in with Shayne, about how much Shayne has changed me so much for the past nine months, and about how the divorce was going through. "So basically, I'm...," I mumble, my voice starting to crack. "I'm... I don't know. I don't know if I'm okay or not. I don't even know if I can actually afford this place, because I don't know how to live alone anymore. I... I'm in love with Shayne, and every single day I'm losing him even though we told each other that that wouldn't happen."
"Just let it out," she tells me, patting my back.
"And he'll never know that I'm in love with him, because that'll just ruin everything. And it's so unfair. It's so freaking unfair that I didn't even have to find someone I loved genuinely; I just had to get drunk in Vegas and unconsciously marry my best friend, and then I have to lose him because it's a mistake."
Kari embraces me as I continue to cry in her arms. "It's okay, it's okay," she tells me, also getting teary-eyed. "I can't believe it though, that you hid this from us so well for nine months. But for a good reason."
"I have no idea how to tell Mom and Dad," I reply, rubbing my eyes.
"Oh, don't worry, I'll take care of them," she assures me. "And for the record, Courtney, I'm not mad. I don't think I'll ever be mad at this, because even though you get hurt a lot, you're learning. Pain is crucial for you to understand that. Leave Mom and Dad and everyone else to me, because I think that there is someone else you have to tell this about clearly. You have to tell him this so that you have nothing to hide anymore, and so you can sort it out."
"Who?" I ask, and she nods at me with a sad smile. Of course.
It was awkward to leave the apartment looking like a couple of crybabies, and even the landlady was weirded out by us. I drop Kari off with a hug after our short dinner, and she reminds me to buy some cheese for Shayne. I call Atty. George on the way home about Kari's suggestion, and he agrees with it, but with conditions. When I get home after buying some cheese, he's just finished cooking the pasta. "Hey, how was the apartment hunting?" he greets me. "And the cheese?"
"Here you go," I reply, putting the cheese over the counter. "It was okay."
"The last apartment you showed me was really good," he remarks, washing his hands. "If the rent isn't that bad, I suggest you get that one."
"Yeah."
"You alright?" he asks me, looking up from his first layer of lasagna. "Oh, how did it go with telling your sister?"
I sigh. I had to tell Shayne what Kari wanted me to do. What she think we needed to do. "Shayne, I have to tell you something," I begin. "And you might think it's a bad idea, but when I told Kari everything, she said that we needed to do this so that we sort everything out... and also so we wouldn't be hiding anymore. Don't worry, I consulted Atty. George, he told me he had some conditions with it, but he was on board with it as long as we get it planned and executed well."
Shayne gives me a confused look. "What do you mean?"
I answer, "We need to tell this to Ian."
-/-/-