from the restroom anyway.
Five minutes or so passed before the door opened and two sets of shoes hurried in. Lynn and Mason. Mason smacked him palm against the stall door, startling me.
“Fallyn, baby…are you OK?” He sounded worried. I knew all his tones and that was the worried one.
“I’m…fucking peachy.” I sounded like a dying cat. There was no way he would buy that.
“Open the door…just open the door for me and we’ll leave.” He shuffled his feet and I could tell he was getting anxious.
“I should have stayed in the room. I’m not ready to meet all your friends. I thought I wanted to but I can’t. I just want to leave.” I sounded like a pussy.
“Maybe you should let me talk to her,” Lynn suggested quietly. Her feet moved closer to Mason.
“No, Lynn…I’m not going anywhere.” I imagined the look on his face. He didn’t like to be told what to do when I was involved.
“Mason, come on.” Lynn sounded calm as ever.
“I said, I’m not leaving!” His hand collided with the metal of the stalls. The noise echoed around and I jumped at the sound. It only made me cry harder.
“You’re making this worse; this is the ladies room,” she said coolly. “Go on and finish dinner. I’ll take Fallyn back to the hotel.”
Mason’s shoes disappeared without further contact with me. I was shocked that he’d just left me without another word. My stomach twisted. What if I’d just messed things up?
“Come on Fallyn. Let me in.” Lynn tapped lightly on the metal door with her fingernails.
I let my foot that was holding the door slide to the floor. The door swung in slowly and revealed a very worried Lynn. She stepped in, not caring in the slightest that we were in a bathroom and I was wedged in between a toilet and the tiled wall. She studied me and I hid my face, totally embarrassed.
“I’m really sorry, Lynn.” It was all I could say.
I thought she would pull my sorry ass out of there, but instead she slid to the floor next to me.
“You know…when I was younger, before I grew into myself, I hated the way I looked. I spent so much time trying to impress other people and look the way I thought I was supposed to look that I never really found myself.”
I let her admission sink in. “I don’t think I really know who I am. My life is completely defined by Mason at the moment.” I smiled when I said his name even though it wasn’t such a positive thing I’d just admitted.
“It’s all right to search for yourself. That’s the point of being in your twenties.” She laughed. “I do think that you and Mason have this super intense thing going on that surpasses anything I’ve ever experienced.”
I turned my head to look at her. “I don’t even know if I’m doing the right things. I didn’t have any direction growing up, you know?”
“Fallyn, you can’t let your past define you and I say that with my whole heart. I don’t have any clue what you’ve been through but I do know that the person I see in front of me has her head on straight.”
The door to the bathroom opened and a woman clicked in with her high heels on. She looked down at us in disgust before choosing a stall furthest from us. “Maybe we should take this conversation elsewhere,” Lynn said.
I agreed with a nod and lifted myself off the floor. I washed my hands and face and began the walk of shame through the dining room. Lynn shielded me from the watchful eyes of everyone at the table I’d just run away from. Her hand stayed firmly in mine until we reached the front door. We separated and I pulled a cigarette from my bag as we exited the restaurant at the same time.
Flashes bombarded me from every angle. I stood in shock for a minute with my lighter in one hand and unlit smoke in the other. Paparazzi… I wasn’t expecting them and it caught me off guard. They were all men and they yelled different things at me as Lynn and I walked down the sidewalk toward the hotel.
“Fallyn, you were great on CSI.”
“Are you and Mason dating? Are you friends?”
“Lynn, who are you dating?”
My mouth was dry and I didn’t know what to say to the voices yelling at me from behind the cameras. Lynn just smiled politely and pretended they weren’t there