Look

by Zan Romanoff

She’s seen the aftermath, the wreckage, his body when it’s near hers always crackling with the hurt of how badly she betrayed him, but she’s never had to see the moment of it happening: the raw shock punching through him like a fist.

  Because of course when he saw it for the first time, he didn’t know she’d sent it out like that by accident. He assumed it was a selfish betrayal: that Lulu wanted attention so badly she’d share something private like that in order to get it. And once she knew he thought she was capable of that kind of thing—even though he wanted to forgive her—even though she wanted to forgive him—it opened up a chasm between them.

  Lulu has looked at him across a gap for so many months now.

  “I have to,” Lulu starts. “I have to go talk to him.” She waits for someone to stop her, the way Ryan did with Kiley, but no one does. Then there’s nothing to do but walk up the stairs and face him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  OWEN IS SITTING on the floor in one of the empty rooms. His phone is out on the floor next to him, but he isn’t touching it. He’s just sitting there.

  “Hey,” Lulu says. “Is it okay if I’m here for a minute?”

  Owen doesn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry that you had to see that again, and I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m just—I’m still so sorry, O. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I feel like I could say it forever, and it still wouldn’t change anything, or take back what I did, and I know that, so—”

  “You shouldn’t be sorry,” Owen says. “I know it was an accident.”

  “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

  “I never liked it,” Owen says. “I never wanted you to do that. I should have told you the first time you asked. I just—I don’t know. It seemed like the kind of thing I was supposed to be into. And you seemed so sure that it was a good idea.”

  Lulu slides down the far wall so that she’s sitting facing him. The room is surprisingly echoey, their voices tumbling around and coming back to them, little faint whispers of their conversation haunting the air.

  “I didn’t want to lose you,” she says. “I was trying so hard to figure out how to make us keep working.”

  “Because you knew that we weren’t.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You thought.”

  Lulu takes a deep breath. “I did,” she admits. “I thought. And I thought I could fix it too.”

  “I still don’t understand how you thought that was gonna fix it. You kissing other people.”

  “They were just—” Lulu stops herself.

  “What? They were just what?”

  “Just girls.”

  Owen laughs. The sound is hollow and hurt. “C’mon, Lulu.”

  “I thought you would think that,” she says. “That they were just girls.” She thinks of the way Ryan talked about her and Cass experimenting together. She gave him shit, but isn’t that exactly what she was telling herself? That it was all just silly, and fun, and it really didn’t matter? “I guess I kind of wanted to think they were just girls too. I lied to both of us, if it helps.”

  “Watching you kiss her,” Owen says. “Sloane. I thought, It’s been a while since Lulu kissed me like that.”

  “I didn’t want to lose you,” Lulu repeats. “And I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “No,” Owen says. “You definitely wanted to keep me. But you also didn’t want to be with me anymore, not really. You just already knew how we worked. I was the safe choice, and everything else was scary.”

  It makes a horrible kind of sense. Lulu never let herself wonder if she’d stopped wanting Owen—she was too busy wondering if he’d stopped wanting her. And so it was easy to not even think about whether she actually wanted to kiss girls, or if she just wanted to kiss other people, period.

  In that moment, Sloane seemed like a way of having both at once. But, in fact, she was doing the thing people always accuse girls like her of doing: being greedy. It wasn’t greedy to want boys sometimes, and girls sometimes. But to hang on to a person just to keep them, to try to have Owen and also someone else—anyone else—that was the thing she did wrong.

  Lulu looks down at her body—her hands in her lap, the lines of her legs. She wonders if it will ever stop surprising or betraying her.

  “I did love you,” Lulu says. She sounds as helpless as she feels.

  “I do love you,” he says. This is the worst, best thing about Owen. He’s so smart, and he’s so brave, and he’ll just say things. True things. Important things. “But it’s a good thing for both of us that we’re over.”

  Lulu feels something leave her. It’s effortless, like a wave rushing away from the shoreline. She’s been clutching at the edges of her old life like if she clung hard enough she might get to keep it. As if everything hadn’t already changed. As if she really would have wanted it back if she could have it.

  And now, just like that, she understands: It’s gone. It’s been gone.

  And now she’s nothing but scared. She has no idea what happens next.

  “I love you,” she says. “I still love you.”

  Owen comes to sit next to her. When he wraps an arm around her, she turns into his embrace and lets him hold her.

  It’s not until she’s done crying, and raises her head to see the wet spot that she’s made on his T-shirt, that it occurs to her that it was sort of a gross thing for her to do.

  Owen is the first person she’s ever been unself-consciously gross around. Sometimes it still feels like he’ll be the last too. The only.

  “I love you too, Lulu,” Owen says. “Always, okay?”

  It’s the first time he’s ever said it and not kissed her after. Lulu notes the absence. She allows herself to notice that it aches, but also that the pain is duller than it used to be. It’s a little bit distant now. No longer a fresh wound. Instead she feels the particular dullness of the beginnings of a scar.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Kiley is asleep in the tent. Owen kneels at the entrance, about to crawl in and wake her. “I’ve got to get her home,” he says. “She has curfew soon.”

  “You good to drive, man?” Ryan asks.

  “I’m good,” Owen says. “I quit drinking a few hours ago.”

  Ryan turns to Lulu. “What about you, Shapiro?” he asks. “Up for more?”

  “You know,” Lulu says. “I’m not.”

  She can’t remember the last time she was this tired. She can’t remember the last time she went home before she was sure the night was well and truly over. She never admits to her friends that she’s tired. She never says out loud that sometimes, she’d really rather be alone. “I might call myself a Ryde or something.” It’ll be expensive, and even pricier to get back to pick her car up tomorrow. But she can’t stay here anymore.

  “Suit yourself,” Ryan says. He turns away.

  Cass draws up close to Lulu. “I was going to say I could drive you,” she says, low. “But, you know. Actually I probably shouldn’t.”

  “You definitely shouldn’t,” Lulu says. “And like—whatever. It’s fine.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Lulu says.

  “Are you—”

  “I thought you didn’t want to hear about this stuff,” Lulu says, trying to sound light. “About boys.”

  “This is more than boys,” Cass says. “And I just—I wanted you to know that you could stay. If you wanted. We’d want you to. I’d want you to.”

  “Are you trying to say that seeing that video didn’t, like, change anything for you?” Lulu is demanding something, and she doesn’t know what. She’s so tired. There’s nothing left in her but instinct.

  “Ryan said he told you something, earlier. About me.”

  “He did.”

  “He shouldn’t have.”
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  All the hope Lulu has been nurturing contracts inside of her. “I can forget it if you want.”

  “No, you don’t have to. I just meant—if anyone understands—I mean.”

  There are no words left. Lulu reaches out for Cass, and Cass comes. She curls against Lulu’s body, and even though she’s taller, she leans her head down to rest on Lulu’s shoulder. She murmurs, “All I’m saying is, if you wanted to, you could stay.”

  * * *

  Lulu FaceTimes Bea when she gets home. It’s not even that late—the darkness, its early fall, just made it seem that way.

  When Bea answers, she’s still in bed in a pitch-black hotel room.

  “Shit,” Lulu says. “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

  “Yeah,” Bea says. “Kinda. It’s, like, seven in the morning.” The screen shows Lulu more sheet than face.

  “I can call back some other time,” Lulu says. “I should go to sleep anyway. I just had a weird night.”

  Bea fumbles the phone as she puts on her glasses. “Weird how?”

  “Owen and I talked for the first time since—you know. Like, really talked.”

  “Oh.”

  Bea doesn’t say anything else. Lulu lets the silence linger. She really doesn’t want to put anything heavy on Bea right now. She just wanted to hear a different voice in her head before she went to sleep—something that wasn’t Owen saying goodbye to her, or Kiley laughing at her. Or Cass, saying she could stay.

  “You’ve never really talked to me about that, you know,” Bea says. “What happened. Why you guys broke up.”

  “What’s there to say, B?”

  “I don’t know, Lulu.” Bea’s voice gets stiff. “Because you won’t tell me.”

  “I just called you!”

  “Yeah, because you’re upset, but it wasn’t because you actually wanted to tell me anything. Didn’t you think, Bea and I will have a gossip, and then I’ll go to bed?”

  “Jesus. I just said I had a weird night.”

  “Yeah, no, I—whatever. I’m kind of out of it. I was out late with the cousins last night. Charles bought me some vodka shots. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Okay?”

  “I should go. I’ll be home for New Year’s. Or you can call me tomorrow, if you want.”

  “I—okay. Sorry for waking you up.”

  Bea shrugs. She waves, blows Lulu a kiss, and presses END on the call.

  Lulu stares at the black of her screen and feels like fucking shit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE FIRST THING Lulu sees on her phone in the morning is a Flash message from Kiley that just says sorry.

  She’s feeling mean enough that she writes back for what. Then she drifts off to sleep again.

  The next time she looks at her phone, Kiley has sent her a picture of herself with the text I am sorry, Lulu written underneath it.

  Lulu’s first instinct is to roll her eyes. Why does Kiley think a selfie, of all things, is the right thing to do right now?

  But she presses her thumb to the screen to stay the image anyway. Kiley clearly isn’t all the way up yet; she’s not even wearing her usual no-makeup makeup. She’s just . . . there. Looking at Lulu. Letting Lulu look back.

  Another message comes in. you’ve been nothing but decent to me. you didn’t deserve it.

  Has she been decent? Lulu knows she hasn’t been cruel to Kiley—not outwardly, anyway. But she hasn’t liked her. Hasn’t made space for her. Hasn’t been nice to her either.

  Now she has an excuse to be horrible if she feels like it. She could talk shit about Kiley forever and Kiley would probably just take it. She would keep saying I’m sorry over and over again.

  Lulu probes at the edges of her own feelings, delicate. She’s expecting to find anger, hot and fierce. Instead she finds blankness. She feels tender and tired. Lulu made the video. She posted it. Other people decided to make sure it would stay posted. It’s not like Kiley told anyone a well-kept secret. She just pointed Cass toward something she was always going to end up seeing, one way or the other.

  I don’t know how I feel, Lulu sends.

  Fair enough, Kiley says. I just wanted you to know.

  Why did you do it? Lulu asks.

  A long silence. Lulu gets up, brushes her teeth, washes her face, and gets back in bed with her laptop. Today seems like a Netflix-binge-type day.

  Kiley messages her back just as Lulu is pressing SKIP on the title sequence of Friends. I hate seeing you and Owen together sometimes, she says. You look like you belong together. I was drunk. I shouldn’t have.

  She asks, do you ever just feel mean?

  Lulu doesn’t. She wants to be nice so badly it feels like it’s eating her up sometimes.

  But underneath that, inconvenient and irrepressible, she has felt things that were wild and impulsive and impossible to ignore, things that sang under her skin until she had to find a way to let them out.

  I feel a lot of dumb things, Lulu says.

  I wish I didn’t, Kiley says.

  Lulu says, Me too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  LULU IS FOUR episodes deep into Ross and Rachel’s breakup when Cass messages her, Have you ever seen the Connie Wilmott Bluebeard?

  No, Lulu sends back. I keep meaning to watch it.

  My brother is doing a backyard screening thing here tonight, Cass says. If you want to come over for it.

  Here? Lulu asks.

  My house, she says.

  Lulu has never been to Cass’s house before. It’s on the other side of town; there’s been no reason to drive all the way east when they’ve got The Hotel to themselves.

  Last night, Lulu found out Cass had never kissed a girl before, but that she thinks she wants to. Cass found out that Lulu has kissed a girl and told the entire internet about it.

  Now she’s inviting Lulu over.

  Don’t freak out, she commands herself. It may just as well be an elaborate no-homo-even-though-we’re-both-kind-of-homos gesture. She should act like it is. That’s the safest move, for her pride and her sanity.

  Sounds dope

  Dope, really, Lulu?

  Dope AFFFFF

  You’re a dweeb

  Lulu sends back a picture of herself sitting in bed. She showered last night after her conversation with Bea, trying to wash the discomfort off her body, and then fell asleep while her hair was still wet. Usually this would mean waking up to some kind of rat’s nest nightmare, but instead for once it just looks tousled, like magazine bedhead and not the actual messy thing. She wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out at the camera.

  Exactly, Cass says. She sends Lulu her address. Movie starts around 8, she says. But if you want to come over earlier we can get dinner or something.

  Cool, Lulu says. I’m in.

  * * *

  Cass’s older brother, Dylan, looks so much like Cass that Lulu sort of can’t figure out whether it’s weirder to be into him or not. They have the same angular faces and slightly suspicious gazes, the same slender, lanky limbs and flame-red hair. He lets Lulu in, and then balks when Cass appears wearing his plaid flannel, the same one she had on at the beach a few weeks ago.

  “Oh come on,” he says.

  “What, this old thing?” Cass plucks at a sleeve.

  “You could at least pretend to respect me.”

  “What would be the point of that?”

  Dylan shakes his head and turns to Lulu. “I’m Dylan,” he says. “By the way.”

  “Lulu,” Lulu says.

  “Do you have an older brother, Lulu?”

  “Sister.”

  “Do you steal her clothes?”

  “I would,” Lulu says. “If they weren’t so boring.”

  She deliberately dressed down tonight, trying to find something that felt boh
emian-hipster enough for Silver Lake without making it too obvious to Cass that she was doing anything different. It seemed like an experiment, after their conversation a few days ago: What does she want to wear? Can she separate it from what she thinks she’s supposed to wear? Lulu isn’t sure she pulled it off on either count.

  “Mmmm,” Dylan says. “Attitude. Well, I see why you and Cass get along, I guess. You guys in for dinner?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Ordering in from Pine and Crane,” Dylan says. “Plus there’s beer, if you’re not scared of Mom coming down and seeing.”

  “What do you think, Lu? Chinese food with cinema bros? There’s also a lot of great places around here—some really good Malaysian on Sunset, or there’s poke, or, like, I don’t know, what are you in the mood for?”

  Lulu tries to imagine sitting across a restaurant table from Cass—interrupting their conversation to order and whenever a water glass gets refilled, trying to figure out what to eat and how much, making small talk in the car on the way there and back. It’s so temptingly, terrifyingly date-like.

  She chickens out.

  “Chinese sounds good,” she says. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “I’m always happy to mooch off of Dyl.”

  “I’m stealing the shirt back while you sleep tonight,” he tells her.

  “You’re welcome to try. But I’m not stupid. I’m not taking it off my body until you go back to school.”

  * * *

  A couple of Dylan’s friends drift in, carrying six-packs of beer with brand names Lulu doesn’t recognize. Dinner arrives, and it’s a mess of high-end Chinese food that smells so good Lulu almost forgets how bad she is at eating with chopsticks. She’s thrilled when Cass grabs a fork and says, “C’mon, let’s go eat on the front porch, away from these animals.”

  They settle into chairs there, plates balanced precariously on their knees. The sun has already sunk behind the hillside across from them, a last golden glow lingering above their jagged tops, turning their silhouettes flat black.