Gavin was flustered as he led Lindsay away from the hair salon.  The scene they’d just witnessed had an effect on him and Lindsay was surprised that his reaction was clearly negative.

“What’s the problem?” Lindsay asked as they walked.  “You don’t have a problem with Oliver getting together with Ricky, do you?”

“Uh,” he hesitated.  “No.  That’s fine.  All the power to him.  Great.”

If anything, Gavin’s words really drove home that his tone was off.  

Lindsay sighed.  “Did something more happen with Marissa after I left?”  That wasn’t what she wanted to say, but she had enough self-control not to say, ‘Did Marissa find some way to emotionally blackmail you after I left?’  

“Nothing much.  I let her talk it out.  I let her say what she wanted to say.  Then I said what I had to say.”

“And then she said what she wanted to say some more?” Lindsay volunteered.  She almost hoped she sounded disappointed with him.  Yet, how he behaved wasn’t exactly disappointing.  If she were in Marissa’s shoes and she wanted closure that badly, she’d be more grateful to the man who gave it to her than anyone.  Except, she was on the other side of the fence, so she wanted Gavin to be more decisive instead of understanding.  His continual understanding attitude was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

“I bet you’re really sorry now,” Gavin said between set teeth.

“Sorry that I left you alone with Marissa this morning?  I didn’t have a choice.  I told you…”

He interrupted her.  “No.  I bet you’re really sorry that you didn’t do more to hang onto Oliver.  If he has feelings like that and can make a speech like that…  You looked really moved.  Were you sorry he wasn’t saying those things to you?”

Lindsay laughed.  “No.  I was just proud of him that he was able to make a great scene like that.  I’ve acted with him on many occasions.  He’s been my partner for all kinds of acting.  We took an improv class where we had classes that were basically just us daring each other as to which one of us could say the most outrageous thing.  So, he’s said all kinds of bananas things to me.  So… he has said stuff like that to me before about how he loved me and couldn’t be without me.  That he would die in pain and misery if I didn’t let him smell my hair.  He didn’t mean any of it.  When he was talking to Ricky, he meant what he said.  It was beautiful to see the change in him.  I’m really grateful he asked us to watch.”  Lindsay smiled at Gavin and pulled his arm closer to her so they were walking very close together.

“Do you want me to make a speech like that?” Gavin asked soberly.

She shook her head in the negative.  “You’re mad at me. Even if you don’t think you’re mad at me right now, you’ll be mad at me soon.  I need to neglect you.  I’d be unhappy if you gave me your whole heart and I needed to give it back immediately because I had to go to work.”

“How much money do you owe?  Will you be squared away by the end of the month?” he asked.

She shook her head in the negative.  “I don’t know how long it will take.  But now that you mention it, I’m a little heartbroken myself.”

“How did I mention something that made your heart break?” Gavin asked cautiously.

“It’s just that I wanted to be an actress so badly,” she said with the ripping of her heartstrings in her voice.  “I wanted to say things on stage that melted the hearts of the people who watched.  I wanted to change their minds, make them think differently, give them a lift, give them a buzz, and… If I could be at the center of all that… I wanted to be a lead actress.  Even though that dream felt so real I could almost touch it, it was just a dream.  It was a dream given to me by other performers.  It wasn’t something I could do… I was so stupid.  And I took too much money from my mother.” Lindsay sobbed with pain.  “That’s who I’m trying to pay back.  She wanted to believe in my dream too.  She thought that if she didn’t give me the money, she wasn’t a good mother.  I let her think that because I wanted what I wanted.  I was wrong.”

Gavin stayed silent by her side as they kept walking.  He turned her and led her toward the docks.  

“More than anything,” Lindsay said, going on.  “I think I wanted to be Oliver when he was talking.  You know, be someone who loved someone else more than I loved myself.  Now I want to love my mother more than I loved my dream of being an actress.  It was amazing how he put himself on the line like that.  I want to do that too.”

“Are you thinking of moving home to help out and be closer to her?”  Gavin leaned against the rail over the water and looked at Lindsay’s face searchingly.

“Oh… No!” Lindsay admitted urgently.  “If I went home, she’d say things that would get me to change my mind.  She doesn’t think she’s suffering from the loss of the money or anything.  It was my sister who called me to tell me the situation.  My mother never would have called me.  But I know her.  I know the things she says, the things she thinks.  If I went home, my mom would find auditions for me to go on and I’d fall back into the same hole I was in before.  I can’t go back.”

“Wanna save some money by moving in with me?” he offered, but it seemed more out of politeness than anything else.

She smiled at him and chuckled.  “You’re already paying my rent.  I don’t want to take more help from you.  You’ve already helped so much and I really want to learn to stand on my own.  But, if you’re curious,” she said, feeling daring.  “I am wildly attracted to you.  If it wasn’t for Marissa, we would have already had our first kiss and our first makeout session in your truck.  I would have kissed your face in a spare moment at work and I would have told you how you check all my boxes—even mystery boxes that I didn’t know I had.  She’s such a turn-off.”

Gavin grumbled.  “How long will it be before there’s enough distance from that?”

“I don’t know, but I told you.  I want our first kiss to be on a day when you don’t see her and you don’t think about her.  It has to be on a day when you only see me and only think about me.”  Lindsay took a deep breath of bay water.  “Now you have to take me home.  I need a nap.”

“I want to meet you for supper,” he said.  “My treat.”

“Not until eight though.  I want a solid REM cycle,” she told him, yawning and a thousand percent ready for bed.