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Better Days	By : fitzsns Category: Individual Celebrities > Orlando Bloom Views: 2553 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know Orlando Bloom. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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SUMMARY: When Faye McKenna was swept away to South Padre for spring break, her friends were hoping to snap her out of the funk left in the wake of her break up with her fiance. Little did they know that all it would take was a sexy smile and a British accent. Now, back in the real world, can Faye deal with the end of a fantasy and the reality of what she'd tried to leave behind? Or will the only cure be that damn accent?
DISCLAIMER: I do not know Orlando Bloom or, I'm sure, anyone who has ever come into contact with him. Nothing reflected in this story is based in reality. It's fiction. Any mention of other creative property, ie Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, is done with respect to owners of said property. All people and places are either fictitious or used fictitiously. All original characters and ideas belong to me. Consider yourself disclaimed.
A/N 'Better Days" picks up from where my short, "Get that Feeling" (also archived here) leaves off. It is essential that you read "Get that Feeling" first or you will be lost.... well, you'd probably catch on if you had to, but why not read it anyway, eh?
Also, please note the names on each chapter- POVs will change. Interludes are in the third person.
*~*~*~*~*
CHAPTER ONE: FAYE
New Brunswick, New Jersey

Saturday, March 22, 2003
I walk in my front door, drop my suitcase on the floor and, a few feet in, discard my jacket in much the same way— the only exception being that it accidentally lands on the seat of a random chair in my living room/kitchen/wallowing pit. I’m home and I feel like shit again.

I hit the play button on my answering machine, knowing my mother is due yet again. There’s another ridiculously long message. My brother just got an internship at Entertainment Tonight. It’s good to see someone in the family has some ambition. Liz McGuire’s son is engaged so I missed my chance. My cousin Julia just made partner at Gordan and Markowitz. Isn’t that lovely. Maybe I should be sending out resumes now that I won’t be marrying a Hamilton. And on and on and on and…
I hit delete before she’s even finished talking and I flip on the stereo, the one jointly owned object I took from my previous address. I have a way better record collection than Danny, anyway. I deserve it more. It’s not like he can’t afford a new one and I felt as though I was doing a, albeit temporary, community service to his neighbors. There is only so much Barry Manilow those poor folks can take.
I wonder, as the throaty, ever-depressing tones of Sarah McLachlan come blaring out of my stereo, if Gina has been subjected to Karaoke Night at Lee’s Hawaiian Paradise yet. The thought of her being dragged up to the stage to sing a duet— perhaps “I Got You Babe”— brings a very pleased smile to my face. The smile fades quickly as I realize she probably loves that shit. Was that it? Was I replaced because I hate Barry Manilow and Karaoke?
God he was a goof. And an unbelievable sap. What am I missing so much anyway? Why do I even care? He could be such an embarrassing goof sometimes. Even the way he proposed: goofy. He’d said he just wanted to curl up and watch a movie that night. He popped in what I thought was Charade. Rather than Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, pictures of us filled the screen— stills and video clips— accompanied by Shania Twain’s “From This Moment”. If it had been “A Whole New World”, I would have mistaken it for my high school graduation video. Talk about cheese. But, I’ll be damned if I didn’t melt into a little puddle of mush right there. I forgot. I loved the goof.
When the break up was still fresh, I used to have these really depressing visions about that tape. Gina would find the unmarked video, pop it in the VCR and tape over it with a very special Dawson’s Creek or something equally sad. Lately, the visions have become less depressing. She actually checks the tape first and all of Danny’s professions of love to me combined with our smiling faces haunt her until she’s forced to dump him just to get a decent night’s sleep. Then he gives up on women all together, having botched the relationships with the only two women who could ever love his goofy ass and he dies all alone. But who am I kidding? They probably have Tivo.
My pounding head shakes me out of my reverie. It’s a reminder of when Katherine accidentally knocked me smack in the middle of my forehead with her cell phone as we were boarding the plane in Texas. Don’t even ask how she managed that one. I can’t quite remember anyway and that thought makes me wonder if I should have gone to the hospital. After all, the three glasses of champagne I had on the flight home (first class is such a tease- Sid’s dad is spoiling me with perks of a life I’ll never have) plus a head injury can’t be the best combination. I could have a concussion. If I go to sleep I might never wake up. I shrug this idea off. There is no way, considering the way my life is going, that my death would be that painless. I pop four Advil: two for my future hangover and two for my concussion.
Let’s just say I’m tempted. And I can resist anything but temptation.
Okay, so the trip wasn’t a total loss. I’d dare say parts of it were fucking amazing, no pun intended. Orlando Bloom was definitely a force I wasn’t expecting. We had one night past the first. I hadn’t really expected that much, so I was downright ecstatic when he stopped me from leaving his bed that first night and then spent the next 36 hours with me until I had to leave.
I left his room for the last time some time after dawn this morning. He asked me if I’d miss him and he’d looked so damn cute. He had an adorable case of bed head and he was grinning at me like a little boy. I shrugged my shoulders teasingly but gave him a smile that assured him I would, indeed, miss him. And I do. Not just him but the way he made me forget about all the shit with Danny and that slut who used to call herself my friend. I’m sure as hell missing that feeling right now. Here I am, once again, in my little den of misery on the corner of Dismal and West Shit Street.
Sure, information changed hands. Cell phone numbers. "I don't know if I'll call you," he’d said, almost sadly. If it was insincere, the boy should be up for an Oscar in no time. "I just don't know."
"Yeah." I nodded, before adding a wicked grin and saying, "Don't worry about it. I will find some way to retain my will to live I don't hear from you again."
He seemed to ignore my attempt to tease him. "Call me, though." He leaned down and kissed my forehead and in that moment all I wanted to do was crawl back into bed with him. "Let me know how you’re doing once in a while?"
"Sure." I smiled at him knowing I never would call him the same way he never would call me. Were these normal Spring Break sex-buddy pleasantries? He had a look on his face I couldn’t quite place. Was he seriously feeling bad? “You're not going to stand there and feel guilty, are you?"
"I'm trying not to," he said. "I don't really do this very often."
“Do what?” I sighed dramatically, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“Getting into a physical relationship with someone knowing it’s not going to go anywhere.”
I didn’t completely believe him but what reason did he have to lie at this point? I don’t want an answer to that question. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is always a reason to lie. “Think of it this way, Orli. I picked you up. So don’t’ sweat it."
"You picked me up?" he laughed incredulously. "I picked you up." As if to prove his point, he grabbed me by the waist and lifted me so that my legs would wrap around his waist and gave me a quick peck on the lips. "I rest my case."
“Well it’s hard to argue with that,” I said dipping my head down to claim his lips one more time. I had to have one more kiss. He didn’t disappoint. A few moments later he set me down saying that if I didn’t leave now he wasn’t going to let me leave. That sounded pretty good to me but my vacation was over and logic was making it’s way, albeit slowly, back into my brain.
I could feel him watching me walk down the hallway and it pleased me to no end. I didn’t look back.
I need to stop thinking about Orlando Bloom and get some sleep. I’ll never see him again and I have to stop torturing myself. Well about that anyway. I still have one more day of good wallowing time before classes start again. I’ll sleep in, maybe walk up the block to Blockbuster and rent Fatal Attraction, get some ice cream and then sleep some more. Heaven. Well… ya know… if heaven was a place where you got to be self-pitying until the end of time because your fiancé dumped you for a big-titted idiot who used to be your friend.
*~*~*~*~*
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Katherine showed up at nine o’clock this morning, to “hang out”. I don’t “hang out” with anyone but my Teddy bear and my pillow at nine am on a Sunday morning. There goes Heaven. The face I made when I opened the door, sporting my bed hair and scowl, elicited a ‘if I only had a camera’ crack from the very intruder who’d caused it.
Two hours later, I’m no more awake than I was when she got here. Two hours of mindless chit-chat, 90210 re-runs, and no discernable point. The only redeeming part of the morning was the fact that she’d brought breakfast from Cinnabon. She flips through the channels. Not quickly. She leaves one station on long enough for me to become involved and then flips. Always an experience, I think, rolling onto my back and contorting my body until my feet are propped up against the chalky pink walls I haven’t gotten around to painting yet and my head is hanging off the side of the lumpy twin bed I’ve had since childhood. I don’t mind the blood rushing to my head. It takes the edge off my annoyance.
“Did Orlando Bloom call yet?”
She did not just go there. My look tells her that she just made a mistake. It’s bad enough that she keeps referring to him and “Orlando Bloom”. Never just Orlando. Or Orli. Orlando Bloom. It fucking pisses me off. I’m a bad friend, aren’t I? She sees me becoming silently yet progressively more ticked off at the subject she just raised and she shifts gears quickly.
“So what are we doing today?” she asks, as though she never asked me about Orlando Bloom, tossing my remote to the side and pulling herself up from the floor. She moves to the full-length mirror hanging on the back of my bedroom door to check her makeup. She got up at God knows what hour on a Saturday and made herself up to “hang out” in my glorified walk-in closet of an apartment.
“I don’t care,” I yawn, my blood cooling considerably from just a moment ago. “Did you wake up Sidney this morning or am I just special?” From my view, Katherine looks like she’s suspended in air. The image of a bat fixing its Max Factor lipstick springs to mind and I immediately stifle a chuckle. It ‘s too stupid a thought to explain but if I laugh and fail to tell her what’s ‘so damn funny,’ she’ll pout and declare she’s never going to speak to me again. At that point, I’ll blurt out the ridiculous truth and she’ll tell me I’m lying. She’ll leave in a huff and I won’t hear from her for three days at which point I’ll get an instant message from her with nothing but a smiley face in the text line. I don’t have time to worry about that shit. Best just not to laugh in the first place.
“Nah, you know what she’s like in the morning,” Katherine answers, adjusting her top until she’s satisfied her navel ring has the proper showcasing. I love the girl but she’s annoying the shit out of me right now and she doesn’t even know it. “I think we need to go spend an obscene amount of money,” she declares.
“Right after we rob that armored car, right?”
“That’s what credit cards are for.”
“Oh, of course. Then we’ll move into a cardboard box together after the repo men come knocking and we can’t pay our rent. Hey, we’ll finally be roomies!”
Katherine doesn’t appreciate my fake enthusiasm or my sarcasm. But she was the one who woke me up and then proceeded to ask me if Orlando called and now she’s the one who’s going to have to deal with my mood.
I am a bad friend. Who the hell am I kidding? I’ve been in a mood for three months and it has nothing to do with Katherine’s wake-up calls or my amazing-sex-with-British-Accent-Man withdrawal. If I could summon the energy, I’d make an effort to make things easier on my friends. They’ve been there for me despite my bitchy moods and general disregard for their feelings lately. Whatever. I can’t feel guilty now. I’ll write them each a note when I get out of this funk. I know I should do that now while I still have friends. But what the hell would I say at this point?
Dear Friends,

I’m miserable. You’re not. Fuck off.

Love ya, Faye.
Katherine turns briefly to give me a look and returns to her primping. I don’t know who she’s trying to impress. Certainly not me. The only thing her little mirror ritual is doing right now is compelling me to make fun of her. She knows it. I know it. I don’t know why she still does it in front of me.

I swing my feet around and clumsily pull myself out of the awkwardly comfortable position I’d managed to get my body into. I brace myself on the mattress while my equilibrium returns to normal and after my head stops spinning, I cross the room to stand beside Katherine in front of the mirror.
“Anyway,” she starts, “I saw this amazing dress in the window at Neiman Marcus that I must have. You know, you should have kept that diamond and sold it back to Tiffany’s or something. It was two fucking carats. You could have gotten more than a damn bag at Prada for that.”
She means well and that’s why I don’t flip out on her. Truth is, visions of Gina sporting that rock have lead me to the exact same thought. “Yeah, well…” With that, I brush it off and wait for her to make the face. I know it’ll make me feel better. She has this face she makes every time she sees her own reflection. First, her lips pucker into a small ‘o’, her abnormally short tongue presses up against the roof of her mouth and is barely visible behind her teeth. Her chin drops and her carefully sculpted eyebrows lift into two perfect arches. Her hair, which she never wears up anymore, has fallen forward, shadowing her eyes slightly. The last step comes when her hands whip up, capturing her thin locks in her fingers and combs through them at the speed of light. This gesture is repeated several times.
I know she’s annoyed by my presence beside her in my own room, but I consider it collateral damage and proceed to imitate the mirror ritual. She’s come to expect what happens when she does the mirror face around me. It’s her own fault if she doesn’t like it. By the time I started to whip my hands through my hair, she’d had enough.
“Stop it,” she whines, turning to face me.
“Stop what?” My expression is the picture of innocence.
“Stop doing my face!”
“What face?”
Oh she’s fed up, now. I think she might leave for a brief moment but she simply turns away, hair flipping, and plops down on my bed. I know she isn’t mad at me. She knows I know and doesn’t attempt to pretend other wise. She scoops the remote up off the floor and begins to flip again. I move over to my nightstand and grab my phone to call Sidney and see what she’s up to, if she’s up at all, lucky bitch. I’m about to dial when I hear Katherine gasp behind me.
“Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea! You’re floor gave me a splinter.”
Huh? Katherine does sometimes slip into her own distinct dialect but… “Wait. What did you just say?”
She explains her little grammar-school tactic for getting around actually saying “shit” to me like I should have known. I’ve heard her say “fudge” and “gosh” but this was a little excessive. Katherine doesn’t curse. It’s a constant source of amusement to me.
“Was that a School House Rock I missed?”
Katherine doesn’t appreciate my sarcasm.

*~*~*~*~*
Saturday, March 29, 2003
It’s Saturday. A week to the day since I returned from South Padre. Last night, me, Sid, and Kat went a little overboard at the pub around the corner from my apartment. I think I may be becoming an alcoholic. I better get over this soon because I’ll be damned if I let Danny put me in a twelve step program.
Over brunch with my little brother, Devin, I try my damnedest to tell the story of my Spring Break adventure without puking. Then I tell him about last night. Why? Because I am an asshole. After a comment on the status of the level of shit I’m looking like today, Devin goes on to laugh for approximately ten minutes about me getting hit in the head by an eight ball at the bar last night. Out of the few things I remember from last night, it has to be that. Plus I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut. Was this always a problem for me or have I just recently started making a fool of myself?
“Yeah, laugh it up, Curly. See if I lend you money next time you’re living on Ramen Noodles,” I say, pouring another pound of sugar into my coffee.
“I’m sorry, but it could only happen to you, Faye,” he replies, trying to compose himself. The waitress returns with our food and smiles appreciatively at my little brother. I hate him sometimes. His love life is a never-ending string of women throwing themselves at him. They are always attractive. More often than not they’ll end up having decent heads on their shoulders. All he has going for him are some boyish good looks that will be gone in a few years and a moderate level of charm. He is interning at Entertainment Tonight which a great line if you’re a guy, I guess, but c’mon! He’s broke and lazy and inconsiderate. He has atrocious manners and a mouth that’s no stranger to verbal diarrhea. If he were a girl, he would never get a date.
“Yeah, that’s me. Magnet for disaster.” I sound bitter. That’s only because I am.
“I still can’t believe you met Orlando Bloom. He is going to be so big,” Devin shook his head, shoving a fork-full of eggs into his mouth. He chews with his mouth open. “We just did a profile on him at the show.”
“Oh so you want to die. I get it.” I just got through telling him ten minutes ago that I never wanted to hear that name again.
“Faye, you need to get out of this funk,” Devin says suddenly, dropping his utensils onto his plate with a clang. “You look like shit and it just not healthy to be miserable all the time.”
“Was that supposed to snap me out of it?” I question, my face scrunching inward. If I hadn’t over plucked them when I was bored the other day, my eyebrows would be touching.
“Listen, Faye, I love you like a sister—”

“I am your sister.”
“— and I don’t want to see you get hurt again. But you can’t just shut yourself off. You are a great person and any guy would be lucky to be with you. Even Orlando Bloom.”

“Why? Why do you keep saying that name? Why?” What is my baby brother trying to do to me? Does he hate me? He hates me. He wants me to suffer.
“It’s true. If he hasn’t called, it’s his own damn loss. I know it was just some Spring Break lovin’ but I meant what I said. Any guy would be lucky.”
Okay. He’s being sweet. Can’t be mad. Dammit. “Aww, Dev, I didn’t know ya cared,” I coo, reaching across the table to ruffle his unruly curls.

“Yeah well, I’m outta Captain Crunch.”
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Better Days