Method - Kate Stewart Page 0,115

tell her tearfully as she hugs me close. “Now I do,” I sob as she grips me tighter. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Mila, you were a better friend than anyone else. You couldn’t know. No one knows unless they have to go through it themselves.”

I can hardly speak as I unload on her and she does her best to console me. “I can’t handle this. I’m losing him.”

“Mila, you’re scaring me, what’s wrong?”

“I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it’s no problem for me to believe that I’m somebody else.”—Daniel Day-Lewis

Mila

Casey and Bonnie Morning Radio Show

Casey: This just in, Bonnie, our golden couple may be in trouble.

Bonnie: Uh, oh. What’s going on with Lucas now?

Casey: A source on the set of Silver Ghost, Walker’s new movie, says Mila Walker was on location yesterday in El Paso.

Bonnie: She’s always with him on location, so what went wrong?

Casey: Rumors are circulating that tensions are running high and it’s getting a little bit risqué. Walker is filming opposite of Adriana Long.

Bonnie: Not another set romance?!

Casey: Could be.

Bonnie: Come on, Lucas, you know better than that. I think Mila’s prettier than Adriana. She’s had too much work done. So, what happened?

Casey: Apparently Mila left the set furious and the drama went down in Walker’s hotel room shortly after filming wrapped for the day.

Bonnie: Oh, no, Casey, not those two. They always look so in love.

Casey: Right? Let’s hope these two can get it together.

Casey: I guess we’ll see, it wouldn’t be the first set romance to ruin a marriage.

Bonnie: We’re rooting for you, Lucas and Mila.

Pulling into our drive, I turn off the radio and bury my head in the steering wheel. That news will broadcast on every entertainment medium by the end of the night. Over the years we’d been extremely careful to avoid that type of speculation, and even with Lucas doing his absolute worst, I was the one to bring the shitstorm to us. I wonder if Lucas was trying to warn me out of the hotel so the rumor mill wouldn’t start. Had I overreacted?

So, he kissed an actress and made it look convincing. That was his job. But we agreed. We agreed on nothing that intimate, so why would he go there? I’m sure he’s attracted to her in some way. Maybe Wes directed it that way, but Lucas knew that was a hard limit for me. And to twist the knife further, I felt threatened because we hadn’t been intimate, in what felt like forever. That made it even more inexcusable. And I was officially, at that moment, sick of his career being a reason for anyfuckingthing.

For any of our problems, for any miscommunications. I am exhausted with worry and fretting over the decisions he’s making, his actions. His actions are his own, and he can’t convince me differently. And if he is attracted to her to the point that he acted on it, what does that mean for us? Furious tears trail down my cheeks as I try to again catch my breath. It’s too much.

A saint wouldn’t have the patience to deal with this. Career or not, he broke promises, and I deserve some answers. But I have to wait for those.

For the first time in all our years together, I’m ready to abandon our relationship.

No excuse will be good enough. He knew, beneath whatever layers he’s constructed, he knew beneath the madness he’s surrounding himself in. He also knew before the premiere he would have to come clean about that kiss. So why? Why do it? Maybe if we’d discussed it and I hadn’t been blindsided, I would have reacted more rationally. Or perhaps he did it to end us because he knew that would be what it took.

“You’re gonna have to be the one that walks away from this, because it won’t be me.”

Did he purposefully push me out of his life?

Halfway down our walkway, I pause when Amanda’s words from our conversation at the diner strike me like lightning. “It was like whiplash. Blake was smiling one minute and screaming the next. He was never comfortable on set or off while filming. The only time he wasn’t restless was when he slept, and that too was rare. I’m telling you, Mila, it’s the job that drives them crazy.”

“I don’t know what the hell he’s doing, but he’s pushing too far—himself, me.”

Amanda eyes the waitress who refills her coffee before taking her leave and