The One Where The Lines Get Kinda Blurry

The One With The Handwritten Note

David turned off the news and sat in shocked silence for a while. His heart was pounding and he didn't know quite why, but his stomach began to knot up in a ball of anxiety. No matter how much he had tried over the past nine months he had not been able to shake his heart completely free of her. He'd thought by moving to the opposite side of the country it would help, and to some extent it did, but he still thought about her all the time. All the damned time. Whether he wanted her to or not, she would pop into his head at random moments throughout his day. A certain song came on the radio and it would remind him of her. A woman walking by in the street wearing the same perfume and suddenly he was transported back into her arms. Her face cropping up almost daily in the entertainment section of his newspaper or as he walked by a magazine stand. She remained stubbornly all around him and that made his still healing heart ache. And now it seemed, she was about to be plastered all over everything in even more abundance. This wasn't just a small segment in the gossip part of the shows, this was the headline news of the moment, front and centre of every bulletin and every broadcast since he had woken up and sat down with his morning paper as part of his new daily breakfast routine. He was about to head out for a walk in the park and take a detour via a couple of news-stands to see just how big this thing really was blowing up, when his cell rang.

"Hey Matt! How's it going?"

"Hey Schwimmer! Yeah I'm good thanks. Listen thanks again for coming over to direct on the show the other week, I really did appreciate that and all the guys loved you. They wanna know when you're coming back! So, uhmmmmm listen, I guess you heard?

"I heard yeah. How is she?"

"You still didn't speak with her?"

"No...... I didn't."

"Look, tell me to fuck off if you like but what happened with you guys? You were so close. Was it Brad? Did you fall out over him? I sensed you weren't exactly a fan."

"Something like that yeah" David replied, thanking his lucky stars that the excuse Matt had inadvertently provided him with at least sounded semi-plausible, "Listen I just want to know if she's ok?"

"Well, no dude, of course she's not ok. You've seen the news right? You've seen the hundreds of paps following her every time she tries to leave the house. She's in a mess, and right now she needs all the friends she can get, so maybe you need to put whatever it was behind you and check in on her. I know she misses you more than any of the rest of us. She's never actually come out and said that but it's pretty obvious." Matt paused for a moment before adding, "look, whatever happened..... or didn't happen, you two had something special, we could all see that. Please, just at least think about it. Sooner or later, I'm sure we will all be together again for something or other, and it would be better for everyone, mostly you two, if there was less of an atmosphere than at the Oprah thing." He paused again, "seriously, she needs you."

David had hung up the call with Matt and sunk back down onto his couch. He stared at the wall, spinning his cell in between his fingers and trying to decide whether to reach out to her or not. His heart told him yes, of course you should reach out you fool. She's your girl, she's hurting badly and she needs you. But his head was screaming no. You remember the anger and the pain and the anguish she put you through. You cannot risk that again. She has plenty of other friends to help put her back together this time. You don't have to be her saviour. He put his cell down on the table, opened the front door and walked out. His head won, for now at least. He needed more time to consider his options properly.

He did consider calling her so many times, but there was always this little voice in his head telling him no, just don't do it, not yet at least. He had typed out a long text to send to her on several occasions but then deleted it every time before hitting the ok button. He wanted to be there for her, he really did. He wanted to hold her hand and guide her through the public hurricane that was currently battering and bruising her. He wanted to take her into his arms and whisper into her hair that it would all be ok, she could get through this. But he couldn't do any of those things. And he couldn't because he was scared. He was scared that if he offered his help now, after all this time, she would reject him all over again and he was pretty sure he couldn't survive that for a third time. So, he did the only thing he knew how to do. He put on his professional face and he threw himself into his work, directing a few more episodes of Joey, and then heading into pre-production of a stage play he had been cast to appear in.

Eleven weeks and three days after the statement regarding Jen's private marital troubles had been broadcast to the world, she found herself on a private plane heading back across the Atlantic to London. There were a number of scene re-shoots needed for Derailed so she was travelling back there for a few days. A tiny shred of her hoped that things might be slightly quieter media wise on this side of the pond, but as she stepped out into the early evening gloom, she was met with a barrage of screaming photographers and lightning quick flashes. She drew her jacket up as close around her face as possible, sunk her head down and followed her burly minders through the jostling crowd. She was so glad she had on her oversized sunglasses despite the heavily clouded skies, because at least no one could see the tears that were threatening to overflow from her eyes once again. She sucked in her cheeks and bit down hard on the shredded, ulcerated and scarred flesh inside. It was one of the best tricks she had found to stop her tears and she had used it more times in the past few months than the rest of her life combined.

She finished unpacking the clothes from her small case into the hotel closet and sunk down onto the soft, cosy bed. As usual when she stayed at this wonderful hotel, her private chef had arranged for a small evening meal to be delivered to her room. She desperately wanted to jump in the shower so she could wash the flight off her weary body, but her head was pounding and her eyes felt as dry as the Sahara desert. She closed them for just a little moment and then suddenly bolted upright again at 3.47am, her meal untouched and the clothes she had worn on the flight still stuck to her body. She dragged herself from the comfort of the bed, peeled them off and stood under the steaming hot shower for an age, letting it run as hot as she dared before it burned her delicate skin. She liked this pain. This pain took away the emotional pain for a few moments and this pain was much easier to switch off. She finally ceased the water and wrapped herself in a fluffy white towel. She stopped in front of the mirror for a second or two, poking and pulling at the seemingly permanent black rings beneath her eyes. It was a good job the scenes she needed to reshoot in just a few hours required her to look less than perfect, she thought to herself. She wandered back over to the bed and sat herself down, reaching for her purse and taking out a small, folded, handwritten note. She read it over and over as if trying to memorise the content, then placed it carefully back where it had been hidden.

She finished up on set at around 7pm the next day and instead of asking her driver to take her straight back to the hotel, she had delved into her purse, showed him the slip of paper and asked him to take her there first. He'd had to make a number of diversions in order to lose the trail of cars that were following them, photographers hanging their giant zoom lenses out of the windows trying to get the shot that would see them living comfortably for the next few months at least, but after around forty minutes of driving he had delivered her safely and undetected. Her heart was in her mouth as she exited the car and slipped inside the discreet side entrance where she had been told it would be best to try first. The guy behind the desk had given a huge double take when he realised exactly who was stood in front of him, and, once he had composed himself, was only too happy to direct her to where she wanted to go. 'Shall I call ahead for you' he had asked, but she had declined, insisting she wanted it to be a surprise.

The long, narrow corridors reminded her of so many similar ones that she had trawled in the very early stages of her career. Strangely they all seemed to have the same kind of smell; musty, sweaty, adrenaline filled air mixed with thick make up and big dreams. There was no one around as she made her way through the dimly lit rabbit warren towards her destination. She stopped. There it was. She felt a few beads of perspiration form on her brow which she wasn't sure whether were due to the intense heat down here, or the anxiety she felt running to her very core. She stood nervously outside the door, willing her hand to raise and knock, but needing just a few more moments to gain control of her breathing first. Finally, she inhaled deeply and tapped twice on the scuffed white wood. 'It's open' she heard as she pushed down on the handle and stepped carefully into the room. "Hey stranger" she said, her voice husky and cracked, "it's been a while...."