Chapter Text
All these months later she still finds herself bursting into tears at the most random stuff. The crying used to be a relief and then it became a distraction and now she is pretty much resigned to the fact that it can be triggered by almost anything (Apollo’s toys on the living-room floor, car-insurance commercials on TV, wind creating ripples on the back-yard pool), but is all but guaranteed when she hears her own music on the car radio. And maybe that is not even all that random, because the songs inevitably remind her either of happier times or of the utter shitstorm that this past year has been.
Pulling into the studio parking lot that morning, she makes a valiant effort to get herself together before opening the car door. The teary hiccups persist stubbornly, though, and eventually she figures that she’s better off trying to make it to her trailer unseen rather than get caught hysterically sobbing into the wheel of her SUV. If watching countless music videos has taught her anything, it’s that there is something powerful and dramatic (if maybe a bit traffic-hazardy) about people crying while they are driving; crying alone in a stationary car in a near-empty parking lot is just depressingly sad.
Except that, pouring out of her car, she runs smack into Blake who has had the misfortune to arrive to his assigned parking spot just moments earlier. A fleeting look of utter horror passes his face and she can’t really blame him, because her make-up is probably running all over the place and she can’t seem to catch a proper breath.
Before she can do or say anything to let him off the hook and get on with his day, Blake’s expression changes and he takes a few quick long strides closer to her, pulling her into a massive, all-encompassing bear-hug. Her wet cheek comes into contact with his plaid-covered chest and her arms, completely of their own volition, wind around his body, and then they just stand there, alone in the middle of the sunny parking lot. A few more huge sobs wrack themselves though her, the surprise of the warm physical contact having already stopped the flow of tears, and then it’s over.
She takes a deep breath, expecting him to release her now that he has taken care of the crazy, but he doesn’t, giving her the lead.
“You’ve lost weight,” she mumbles into his shirt, weirdly reluctant to let go, and when a laughter rumbles through his chest she is glad that she hadn’t. He has lost weight, though, she just wouldn’t have noticed how much if she wasn’t folded around him like she is at the moment.
“Yeah,” he contends. “Went on a bourbon diet there for a while.”
She leans back a bit to look at his face and he shrugs down at her. Yeah, that makes sense. From what she has been reading, in her daily paranoid perusal of celebrity gossip sites and magazines, his year has not been much to write home about, either. They last met a month and a half ago, during the home stretch of the blind auditions at the beginning of July and the crazy thing is, back then she had not noticed a thing amiss about him. Now, given, she had been a bit busy trying to keep her own shit together and a smile plastered on her face, but a few weeks later his marriage was done and now he’s already been divorced for a month and she finds herself impossibly jealous of him for that.
“You okay?” he asks, lifting one hand to rub her shoulder.
She gives him a teary smile and nods. “I am, thanks. For now, anyway.”
Finally letting go of him and stepping back, she notices a big wet mascara stain smack in the middle of his left breast pocket. Instinctively reaching out to rub at it, her eyes widen in horror.
“Oh, God. I owe you a shirt. I’m so sorry.“ She gives up on the stain, stuffing her hands in the back pockets of her jeans instead. “I was actually trying to make a run for it, hoping I could reach my trailer before traumatizing anyone.”
Blake steps out of her way and gestures towards the trailers, stacked neatly next to each other a bit further away.
“Nothin’ to apologize for,” he drawls, placing his palm gently to her back and walking them both in the direction he’d indicated. “You have no idea how many of Adam’s fancy shirts I got mascara stains on back in July. It’s a pay-it-forward kind of a thing.”
She can’t help but laugh out loud at that. Somewhere in the back of her mind there is a thought that these kinds of mood-fluctuations cannot possibly be healthy, but she chooses to ignore it, because for some reason, in what seems like forever, she is not feeling utterly miserable.
He must still be worried about her, though, because he doesn’t leave her at the doorway, instead walking into the trailer with her, leaning against the door after he closes it.
“You’re gonna have to be careful with the tears in front of me, though,” he muses and she squints at him, trying to figure out where this is going. “I might be all cleaned up and gentrified now, so it might be hard to believe this of me,“ a dimple appears in his cheek, letting her know that he is not being all too serious, “but I am still a Southern country boy at heart and we just can’t handle seein’ a beautiful woman sad and cryin’. Does funny things to us, makes us want to punch something. Preferably the person responsible for the tears, but sometimes the nearest wall will do. God knows what the tabloids would make of a cast on my hand right now.”
She gives him a thankful smile, appreciative of both his attempt to make her smile and his readiness to deal a punch for her in necessary. All this, plus something that she recognizes in the look of his eyes makes her want to be more candid with him than she has been with anyone in a long while. She’s been so careful about what she says to whom, near paranoid about any leaks but, looking at him now, all concerned and honorable and knowing, the mere thought that he might do anything that would hurt her seems ridiculous.
“At the risk of you running off to dole out Southern justice,” she says with a wry smile, “this,” she points at her face, “this is not sadness. I’m pretty sure the last of that went the day Gavin finally admitted to the affair with the nanny. Whose naked pictures, by the way, I found on my son’s iPad.”
“Jesus,” he exclaims, seating himself on the corner of the dresser.
The corner of her lips lifts in a self-deprecating smile. “TMI?”
Blake’s eyebrows lift. “Well, TM something.”
“Yeah, so this,“ she now turns to assess the tear-damage from the mirror, “is pure anger. And some parts embarrassment, I would even go so far as to say mortification. Because my husband of 13 years has turned me into a Hollywood cliché.”
He nods. “Havin' become a bit of a Nashville cliché just a short while ago, something I can empathize with.”
She grabs a damp tissue from a box in the drawer and fixes her face the best she can.
“The day that the Ben Affleck nanny story broke,” she says, absently, as if speaking to herself, ”I think I scared my housekeeper half to death. Even I couldn’t tell you right now whether I was laughing or crying, reading those TMZ headlines, but I was doing it so hysterically that I am sure she was this close,” she indicates with a half-inch space between her neatly manicured fingers, “to having me hauled off to a looney bin.”
They share a long look. There isn’t really much to say to that. Life takes abrupt, absurd turns, sweeping the carpet out from under you in the most unexpected ways and all you can do is react. And keep reacting, in lieu of just taking up a fetal position on your bed and giving up on everything.
“You want to see a picture of her?” she suddenly asks with a wry smile.
His eyebrows rise again, even higher, if possible.
“Oh, no, not THAT picture,” she laughs. “It is probably forever burned into my retinas, but I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to scrub it from all the other places that I might ever come into contact with. No, I meant, like, a random run-of-the-mill, walking down the street, paparazzi picture. I promise you, it will be worth it.”
Blake tilts his head. “Ok, now you’ve gotten me a bit curious.”
Getting out her phone, she does a quick Google image search, then silently hands it to Blake. He looks at what is on the screen, then up at her, then frowns and turns his gaze back down at the screen.
“At the risk of repeatin’ myself,” he drawls out slowly, “Jesus!” Slightly struggling for words, he mumbles, “It’s like it’s you… but like a cheap knock-off version.”
“Yep,” she nods, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “In hindsight, I was, indeed, totally, unwittingly Single White Femaled by my own nanny. I can’t really understand why that did not send all the world’s alarm bells ringing, but I am sure there is, like, a teachable moment hidden in there somewhere.”
Rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm, he sighs, “Yeah, can’t claim that this thought has not passed my mind lately, but all I can say is that there must be an easier way to learn things. One that would not, ya know, run the serious risk of killin’ you dead in the process.”
Gwen reaches out her hand and pats his knee in sympathy, then turns to inspect her reflection in the vanity mirror.
“It’s just weird,” she says, frowning. “Cause marriages end all the time, for all sorts of reasons, but it really never occurred to me that mine would. And I don’t really know why that is. Thinking back now, even before the whole nanny thing, there were these… calling them warning signs would be a major understatement… things just screaming in my face to get the fuck out and I didn’t,” she chances a quick glance back up at him and finds him listening intently. “Because when you’re married you work things out. Because you’ve promised to. And because you have made these three kind, beautiful, smart boys together. So you think you have to do whatever it takes to make it work, compromise where necessary, negotiate, whatever.”
It’s hard to not get nostalgic along with these kinds of trains of thought. To not miss the days of naïve ignorance when everything was safely black and white and she had this single-minded confidence that tomorrow would be just as good as yesterday had been. That whatever she’d been building for years was meant to last.
“And then,” she lets out a sad chuckle, ”something like this happens, and you are left wondering who the fuck is this guy standing in front of you. Cause, like, it sure as hell isn’t the man you married all those years ago. Cause that man would never have betrayed you like this and then tried his damnest to lie and squirm and browbeat his way out of it. Try to make you feel guilty about it, instead of accepting any responsibility for his own actions.”
Now it’s Blake who reaches out and swipes his thumb comfortingly along her shoulder. Gwen turns her head to look at his outstretched hand, takes a quick deep breath and shrugs.
“So here we are now. This was not my plan at all. And I am clearly better off. But I think it’s going to take a while for it to start feeling that way. Thus the tears at random things.” Suddenly she remembers the flash of helpless horror on Blake’s face when he first saw her at the parking lot and her laughter is genuine. “And I mean, like, truly weird random things.”
Taking her cue, he smiles. “So, what was it this time?”
“Oh, the thing that gets me every time,” she admits. “But I feel dumb and egomaniacal even thinking about it, let alone saying it out loud.”
“Come on,” Blake goads, “I’ll bet you I am more dumb at any given moment.”
Gwen relents. She thinks it must be those dimples he flashes at her. “Fine. My own music on the car radio.”
“Pfft,” he scoffs, “that’s not random. That’s a real thing.”
“Ah, that’s right,” she suddenly realizes who it is she is talking to. “You are uniquely qualified to understand that one, aren’t you?”
“Well, I don’t quite become a slobberin' heap like some,” he teases, “but it is a distraction alright. Cause even if those songs aren’t about her, they’re still very firmly connected to those times.”
“Right?” Gwen squints. “I’ve even tried to find ways to avoid my songs. Like, talk radio, but, you know, with the world clearly going to hell, that didn’t really help my mood much.”
Pushing himself up, Blake chuckles at that. Gwen gets an oddly teasing glint in her eyes.
“I’ve also dabbled in country stations,” she admits, now beaming at him openly, “which would work as, for some strange reason, they never play my music, but then, like, some particularly fitting wailing “my love done me wrong” song comes on and I am just about ready to wrap my car around the nearest tree again. So, I am mainly back to Top40,” she shrugs, “which is mostly upbeat and I have not had that many hits lately, so what are the odds?”
“Better than you would have figured?” he offers.
“Yeah. Damn my longevity.” She thinks for a moment. “Weirdly enough, his music doesn’t get me crying, it just gets me…”
“… pissed off?”
”You too, huh?” she asks, tilting her head.
He nods. “Somethin’ like that.”
For a moment they just hold each other’s gaze, knowing smiles playing on their lips. Then he glances at the trailer door, bites his lip and looks back at her.
“I’d better get goin’ before they raise the alarm. You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, and he could swear that the smile she beams at him is making the small room noticeably brighter, “of course. Sooner or later, right?”
“Right,” he agrees and opens the door to leave.
“Hey, Blake,” she yells after him. One foot already on the stairs outside, he turns. “Thanks. For… you know, all of it. Send me the dry-cleaning bill.”
He nods, showing his appreciation, then swipes his hand at her in dismissal and closes the door behind him.