Shameless

by Nina Lemay

  I start to walk down the empty hall, toward the elevators. Every step is slow, a meticulous effort like I’m walking on a tightrope strung over nothingness, with no net and no harness. I wait and wait and wait for him to call my name—

  And he does, when I’m almost at the elevator doors.

  “Hannah!”

  I don’t turn. I just stand there and watch the numbers blink above the elevator. Six seven eight. Ping.

  When I get into the elevator I see him hovering not too far off, a lost look on his face. In a movie, he rushes across the hall to catch the door at the last second as it’s about to slide closed. And then, as the doors slide shut, we share a big Hollywood kiss and make up and live happily ever after.

  But this isn’t a movie. Neither of us moves until the doors close in front of me with a dull thump.

  Saturday.

  Only in the late afternoon do I realize that I didn’t book myself to work—out of old habit, to keep my weekend free to spend time with Emmanuel. I groan under my breath when I think of all the money I could have made if I hadn’t wasted all these lucrative Saturday nights.

  So I’m forced to spend the evening at home, with myself for company. And right now I can’t think of worse company than myself.

  I start my painting playlist and try to pick up my last work in progress where I left off. This one is also a stripper, but she’s not on stage, she’s in a champagne room. She stands facing the viewer, with her back to the dark, faceless shape of a man sitting in the armchair, his knees splayed out, his trousers riding up to show socks over wingtip shoes. He’s done entirely in shades of indigo blue, his pale, ghostly zombie hands planted on the girl’s hips. Her hands are pushing against the edges of the painting in a trompe-l’oeil like she’s trying to break out of the canvas; her head is leaning back so you only see her lips and chin and her cascading hair, done up in braids that, if you get closer, turn out to be tiny snakes with slithering tongues. It’s frightening and violent and sexy at the same time.

  I shade her muscular legs, add details to her bikini bottom with a pattern of tiny skulls. Dot reflections of white where needed. It’s almost complete.

  The knocking on the door makes me jump and spin around. There are paint tubes and discarded palette sheets everywhere and I probably have paint in my hair. The knocking repeats, a rude, forceful pounding like they’re trying to knock the door off its hinges. If they do it again they might very well succeed.

  I tiptoe to the door, my heart jumping madly up and down. “Who is it?” I yell.

  I expect anyone form the superintendent to the police—wouldn’t be the first time something untoward happened in this rundown hellhole. But the voice that answers knocks me off-kilter completely, plunges me into a surreal parallel reality.

  “Hey, Hannah! It’s us. Open the door.”

  “Audrey,” I say tonelessly. More to myself than to her. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? Are you out of your mind? Open, I’m not yelling through the door!”

  My heart goes from jumping to hammering against my sternum like it wants to crack it open and escape. I open the door just wide enough to peek out.

  It’s not just Audrey. There’s at least ten people crowded in behind her—people from the photo workshop and a few from some of my other classes. That’s only those I can see.

  “What do you want?” I ask hoarsely.

  Audrey rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, very funny. You invited us, so enough with the surprised act and open the damn door. It stinks out here.”

  “I didn’t…” it takes me two attempts to get my voice under control. “I did not invite anyone.”

  “Sure you did! You sent the Facebook invite to everyone in our class. Saturday the 24th, at nine. Well, it’s Saturday and it’s a quarter to ten, so here we are.”

  The world does two full circles around me. “I didn’t send any invite.”

  “Of course you did.” She reaches for her phone and starts poking at the screen.

  “No, I didn’t,” I say levelly. “I’m not on Facebook. And you know it.”

  Audrey raises one heavily penciled eyebrow. “Uh, yeah you are,” she says. “If it wasn’t you, how did whoever it was know your address? And I’m here and so are you so I’m assuming this is where you live.”

  With that, she starts to push past me unceremoniously. The others behind her get agitated and I can no longer hold them back. I stumble away from the door and they topple in. Someone’s carrying a case of beer.

  Panic floods my entire being. I push past them to the other end of the room, where I flip over the unfinished painting, stack others against the wall, sweep the paint tubes and brushes into a box that I shove under the table.

  “Don’t put them away,” Audrey drawls, materializing behind me. “I want to see! I’ve never seen any of your work. You’re so secretive.”

  My ex-roommate, Madison, saunters up to us. When I see her, my insides tie into a knot. I told her I found a deal with three roommates in a four-bedroom apartment in Mile End. Maddie might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but this clearly isn’t a four-bedroom in Mile End and my only roommates are the girls in my paintings. “Nice place,” she says, throwing an appreciative glance around, at the industrial high ceiling with the old pipes underneath. “So cool. Must cost a fortune.”

  Her gaze, slightly distorted by alcohol and whatever she snorted or smoked before she got here, alights on me, mocking. Knowing.

  “I think you have to leave,” I say.

  Audrey claps me on the back. “Oh, my God, Hannah, you’re hilarious. I swear, you’re the coolest Américaine I’ve ever met.”

  Someone is on my laptop, changing the music—a pounding hip-hop beat is shaking the walls within minutes. More people show up, someone starts dancing in the middle of the room. Someone spills her beer. Someone pulls up a chair and starts rummaging through my cupboards.

  “Hey,” says a guy’s voice. “Babe. Been a while.” I turn around and see that guy I hooked up months ago—I think it’s Jack or James or Jackson. He tips his beer at me as a hello.

  I think I’m going to suffocate, so I flee into the hall and press myself against the door. I can feel the vibration of the music with my back as I slide down till I’m curled up at the foot of the door, my knees pulled up to my chest. I wait for my breathing to calm down a little.

  Then I take my phone out of my hoodie pocket, praising the stars I didn’t leave it lying around inside. My fingers shake a little when I go on Facebook and type in my own name.

  The screen is too small for me to see much, but what I see is more than enough. There’s an account, with my full name on it, Hannah Melissa Shay, and a profile photo that I tap with my trembling fingertip: me, in the school hallway, aloof in one of my usual oversize hoodies, not looking at the camera. Taken candidly with someone’s phone.

  I can’t handle looking at it any longer. I close the app and clutch my phone in my sweaty hand until I think I might crush it.

  Then I turn the phone back on and stare vacantly at the default screen. On the other side of the door, I hear an explosion of shrieking and laughter through the booming music.

  I do the only thing I can think of: I call Emmanuel.

  I have to crank up the volume in my phone all the way to the maximum setting so I can hear anything through the noise. The ringtone in my ear is endless. Once, twice.

  The second he sees my number he’ll hit Decline, I think right before it clicks on the other end.

  But instead of the soulless hum of static and the automated voice, I hear a rustle, and then:

  “Hannah? Is that you?”

  At the sound of his voice, relief spills in my chest, warm and thick like hot chocolate. I sink a little deeper into the floor. “Emmanuel,” I say. By some miracle my voice doesn’t crack.

  “What’s going on? What’s that music? Are you calling me from—?”

  Before he can say work, I cut in. “No. I’m… I�
��m at home, and there’s this—people just showed up. And Audrey. And others.”

  Stunned silence on the other end.

  “What do you mean they showed up?” he sounds fully awake now, and alert.

  “Someone sent a fake invite on Facebook,” I say. A sob escapes from me and I clasp my hand over my mouth to keep it in.

  For a moment, he’s silent. “I’m on my way,” he says.

  “Wait!” I panic. “If they see you—”

  “I don’t care. I’m coming over.”

  He arrives minutes later, storming through the door in jeans and an oversize t-shirt, disheveled—it looks like my call pulled him out of bed. Astonished glances follow him through the loft. When Audrey sees him, her eyes grow round and her smile fades.

  He walks over to my laptop and slams the lid down. The music cuts out, and the silence is so intense my ears ring.

  “All right,” he snarls. “C’est assez. Everyone get out, allez, crissez votre camp. Dehors.”

  It’s like someone pressed pause on a movie. People gape at him, uncomprehending. Someone murmurs, giggles, but his glare silences them.

  “Everyone out, immediately. Someone called the cops for the noise. Unless you want to get your asses arrested, split.”

  With discontented murmurs, they start filing out, just in case. A few people give me dirty looks. But Audrey is the last one to leave, and she’s beaming. She must be shitting herself with joy at this display.

  “Wow, didn’t realize you sent the invites to the teachers too, Hannah.”

  I return her saccharine smile. “Only to those I consider close friends.”

  It’s cutting too close, but the look on her face is so worth it.

  “It’s time for you to go,” Emmanuel says dryly.

  “All right. See you in class, Mr. Arnau.”

  The second the door closes behind her, he locks it and puts on the chain I almost never use. Maybe now I should start.

  “What the hell is going on? How did this happen?”

  I shrug and wrap my arms around myself. I feel so weak my legs might just buckle under any second. “Someone started a fake Facebook account for me.”

  “What? Who?”

  “I have no idea, okay? I only found out twenty minutes ago.” I let myself slide to the floor and rest my forehead on my hands.

  “This is serious, Hannah.”

  “I’ll report it,” I say.

  “Do it now.”

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to do it now. I don’t even want to look at it, I want to stick my head in between the floorboards and pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend none of this happened, it was just a bad dream.

  I only come back to reality when he kneels beside me and gently puts his hand between my shoulder blades. “Hannah, are you okay?”

  I groan through clenched teeth. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was happy to help.”

  “No, it’s not that. I could have done it myself, if I had an ounce of backbone. I should have done it immediately. I had no right to call you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” he says.

  A shiver courses through me. “I thought we were done.” The words, so blunt and true, cut like a knife. Neither of us had actually said it, that we were over. If there even was an us to begin with.

  “So? You were in trouble. Just because we no longer—doesn’t mean I’m going to act like you don’t exist.”

  “Well, that would be kinda hard, seeing how I’m in your class and all.”

  “It’s not the only reason.”

  He leans over and kisses my temple. I melt into it, into the tiny spot where his lips touched my skin. I breathe in the musky lavender.

  “I missed you,” he says. “This was the longest week of my life.”

  I want to say me too. I want to tell him about all the empty hours and the mental tricks to think about something else. I want to tell him about what I saw in those photos I gave him and ask if that really was the way he saw me. But I was never very good with forming feelings into words. Maybe that’s why I always relied on shapes and colors.

  And right now the shape I’m thinking of is the shape of his lips and his hands, the ripple of muscle under my fingertips. The colors: rich chestnut of his hair, reddish glint when light hits the stubble on his jaw, the ever-shifting brown-green of his eyes. I want to paint it, but I don’t have the right colors on my palette. I want to sculpt it, but I don’t have the right clay.

  All I need to do is look up, tilt up my chin—and my lips meet his, waiting there all along. His hand brushes back my hair as he cradles my face.

  We don’t even make it to the bed. I unbutton his jeans while he pulls down my paint-stained track pants right over my shoes. The rush is too intense, and we consume each other with an almost desperate hunger. He pushes my shirt up, not bothering to take it off, and covers my chest with hot, wet kisses.

  He pushes inside of me in a frenzy of desire, like he hasn’t touched me in a million years. It’s too soon, and too fast—a pang of soreness jolts me, but I don’t care. It dissolves within seconds and I’m as wet as I’ve ever been, moaning into his shoulder. He rolls me over on top of him and we rock back and forth. It all records in flashes, like in a strobe light: my hair tumbling over and caressing his face; the ache of my knees on the rough wooden floor, the scrape of paint chips and splinters. The way he grips my hips so hard his fingers leave red marks. The way I bite down on the skin over his collarbone. The jolts and shudders like a series of aftershocks.

  We lie on the floor next to each other, catching our breath. I feel raw inside, in more ways than one; glancing over, I see he’s staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, lost in his thoughts.

  “Hey,” he says, out of the blue, before I can ask him.

  “What?”

  “Look at that. I’m finally inside your apartment.”

  I blink. Then swat at his shoulder. He ducks out of the way and sits up.

  “And all it took was a major crisis.”

  “Is it as bad as you expected?” I ask.

  “It’s okay. I’ll chalk it up to the party people.” He props himself up on his arms. “You have anywhere I can rinse off?”

  I point him to the bathroom, trying to remember if my towels are clean. I listen to the water running behind the door, seemingly forever.

  He appears out of my bathroom and towels off, naked and glorious like a god. It’s a vision, a hallucination. I want to pinch myself to make sure it’s true.

  “There’s a hole in your ceiling,” he says.

  I can’t help it. I burst out laughing and I can’t stop till my eyes are watering and I’m about to suffocate.

  One AM.

  He showed me where to report my fake account. By tomorrow, he said, it should be taken care of.

  We sit side by side, huddled on my computer chair, our faces bathed in the glow of the screen—the only source of light in the apartment. I scroll through the photography workshop’s group. People post their works, black and white, color, just cool shots of random stuff on the street. They chat with each other and share stupid articles from Buzzfeed and the like. So normal. So something I’m excluded from forever.

  The reminder never fails to sting, even after all this time.

  I stop scrolling when I see Audrey’s profile picture, a pretentious shot from above where she looks over the rims of thick plastic glasses. My mood darkens.

  “She saw you here,” I say. Yeah, thank you, Captain Obvious. “What are we going to do?”

  “You aren’t going to do anything. I’ll handle it.”

  “How exactly are you going to handle it? Does it involve hacksaws and a tub of acid?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  I snap my fingers. “Dang. I was hoping.”

  “Even if she was the one who made that complaint, she doesn’t have anything on us. Nothing real anyway.”

  “And she won’t.”

  I’m still staring straight at
the computer screen. I feel him shift as he turns to look at me.

  “We’ll be extra careful.”

  “No.” I close my eyes. The image of the screen still swims in front of my vision. “We won’t be extra careful. We won’t be anything.”

  I listen for his reaction. He moves. He breathes in. “Hannah…”

  “Nothing has changed,” I say. Every word cuts on the way out like I’m spitting glass shards. “Nothing is different from a week ago. If we get back into it, it’ll just end the same way. A week from now, a month, it doesn’t matter.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry, Emmanuel. I told you I was okay with a relationship that went nowhere, a casual sex thing, but I was wrong. I’m not. I can’t have anything real with you and I don’t want anything less.”

  “Hannah—” He puts his hand on my arm but I shake it off. I can’t bear it right now.

  “And if what you told me back in Quebec City was true, you can’t really be okay with it either.”

  I finally open my eyes and look at him. The light from the laptop casts half his face in shadow, drawing convoluted patterns of darkness and bluish, ghostly light.

  He speaks after a small eternity.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “No. But it’s the only thing I can have.”

  He gets up, slowly. “So that’s all? I should just go?” his voice is dry and brittle and he’s struggling not to let on.

  “I think it’s best.”

  “But… we just—” he trails off, rubs his eyes, shakes his head in disbelief. “Was this some kind of… retribution thing? Petty revenge?”

  “No. I think it was just a mistake.”

  His throat moves as he swallows. “I hurt you, so you’re trying to hurt me back? Is that it?”

  “It has nothing to do with it.” Tears build in the back of my throat, and it takes all the effort I can muster to hold them back. I wish he’d let go. Another minute and I’ll collapse, fall right back into this pointless masochism tango that always ends the same way. “I’m just trying to save myself from another Quebec City.”

  He takes a while to process this. “Is that how you’ll remember it? The Quebec City Incident? The worst weekend of your life?”