Happily Ever Afters

by Elise Bryant

  “Can I help you?” she asks.

  “No, I’m okay,” I say, trying to catch sight of Sam down one of the aisles. “But thank you.”

  My phone goes off again in my pocket, but I fight the urge to pull it out. Instead I force myself to look at the different products on the shelves. There’s dried lavender in tall plastic baggies. Something especially fragrant called ras el hanout in glass jars. Next to that are tubs of something that looks like a mix of a beautiful flower and a terrifying bug the color of midnight. I sort of feel like I’m walking through a magical shop in a fantasy novel, and I can get why Sam likes this place so much. I want to reach out and touch everything, hold the containers to my nose, but I stick to the way I normally am in stores—hands out where they can be seen, standing at least a foot back.

  I know it’s a little silly, because it’s not like I’ve ever stolen anything, but I always feel anxious in stores (well, more anxious than usual). I’m not oblivious to the way salespeople look at me, and I have had too many panicked nightmares about something accidentally falling into my bag and proving them right.

  And it seems like I’m not wrong to worry, yet again, because I get that familiar prickly feeling of being watched. I look up to see that the woman has moved from her spot behind the counter and just happens to be rearranging something on the same aisle I’m in.

  She smiles at me, but I catch her eyes flicking to my hands. I feel my neck burn red, even though I have no reason to feel embarrassed. I give her a polite smile back and then move on to another aisle.

  Where is Sam? If I’m with him, maybe this lady will accept that I have a right to be here and stop giving me her suspicious looks. I go up and down two more rows looking for him, but he’s nowhere in sight. I don’t want to yell for him and make myself even more conspicuous, so I take out my phone and send him a text: Where are you? (I can’t help but notice there’s only a text from my mom asking when I’ll be home. Nothing from Nico.)

  I cross my arms and stand in the middle of an aisle, waiting for a text back. Maybe I should just go outside?

  “This aisle is for our rarest spices,” the woman says, appearing out of thin air just a few feet away from me again.

  “Oh, wow,” I say, slapping on the plastic smile again. I want to yell, I don’t steal! I don’t even know what this stupid stuff is to want to steal it! Instead I mumble, “Uh, have you seen anyone else in the store? A guy?”

  Her dark eyes flicker around us nervously, and then she leans in close, like she’s going to tell me a secret. Her breath smells like stale minty gum. “Everything here is very expensive. You sure you’re in the right place?”

  Rage shoots through me like a shaken-up Coke bottle exploding, but I grind my teeth together, take a deep breath, and walk past her out of the store. The bell clangs so violently that I think it might fall off. I hope it does.

  When Sam comes out five minutes later, I’m still steaming.

  “You decided not to come in?” he asks with a dimpled smile, but then his face changes. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Mm-hmm. Fine.” I just want to go home.

  “No, you’re not,” he huffs. “We don’t need to keep doing this. I can tell.”

  “Oh yeah? How?”

  “I already told you, your face gives everything away. Like, right now . . . you always do this thing when you’re upset—like a wince? And you clutch your hands together,” he says, imitating me. If I wasn’t so pissed, I would laugh.

  “It’s just . . . the lady in there . . . ,” I say slowly. I want to just drop it, because maybe it was just in my head. Maybe I was just being too sensitive. But no—I know that’s not it. “She, um, she kept following me around. Like I was going to steal something. And she made sure to tell me how expensive everything was.”

  “What?” Sam asks, looking appropriately outraged. It somehow makes me feel better. “That’s bullshit, treating you like some criminal. I mean, you have a right to be there just like everyone else!”

  “Thanks, yeah . . .” I shrug. “It happens.”

  “I’m going to go talk to her!” He throws his bag down next to the car and storms off toward the store.

  I grab his arm. “Please, Sam, no! It’s not worth it.” A scene is the last thing I want.

  “Of course it’s worth it!” he yells, shaking me off, but then he puts his hand on my shoulder more gently. “You’re worth it,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. The spot on my shoulder feels warm, and it spreads to my stomach and my toes.

  Before I know it, we’re both in the store again, standing in front of the woman. She’s smiling at first, but then she starts blinking too fast, trying to put us together in her mind.

  “Mrs. Chen, my friend Tessa here told me that you treated her in a disrespectful manner and made her feel uncomfortable,” Sam says. He sounds all polite and perfect, like a Boy Scout. But still, my heart is beating too fast, and I have to fight the urge to run away from this confrontation.

  “Sorry, Mr. Weiner,” she says, her voice different than it was with me, all syrupy and sweet now. “I didn’t know she was with you.”

  Sam’s voice drops an octave. “It shouldn’t matter if she was with me.”

  “We just have to be careful, you understand, we have our regulars and she isn’t the typical customer—”

  “What’s a typical customer, huh? What do you mean by that? Let’s at least be forthright about this.” He’s not yelling, but his words have the same effect.

  “Mr. Weiner, I didn’t mean anything by it,” she says, shaken. “You know, we’re a small business and it affects us when we lose inventory. . . . In the past, well, we’ve had shoplifters that look like . . . We have our policies, you see—”

  “Well, fuck your polices.” I gasp. Who is this Sam? He keeps going, his voice icy and strong: “I will never shop in your store with these racist polices again. And I will tell my mom and all her associates to do the same.”

  He turns to leave, but then stops and adds, “And fuck you too!”

  With that, he’s out the door, and I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s just built-up anger at all the sales associates and shop owners who have made me feel like I didn’t belong, like I had something to apologize for just for taking up space. “Yeah, fuck you!” I yell. It feels good.

  We strut to the car and slam the doors shut, and when I turn to Sam, I find myself blinking a few times. And then a few times more, like you do when you first wake up and the world is still coming into focus. Because something’s different. He’s different. Or maybe he’s just who he’s been all along, and the different one is me.

  “That was . . . ,” I start. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He hits his steering wheel once and then half laughs, half yelps, shaking his head. “Hey, sometimes you just have to say fuck you.” He rests his arm on the back of my seat. “I’m just sorry you had to put up with that in the first place.”

  His hand falls to my shoulder, one finger stroking—slowly, tentatively. Our eyes meet, and I see the question there. A question that both thrills me and terrifies me.

  I hear my phone ping, and without thinking about it, I take it out of my pocket. Sam quickly pulls his arm away and turns his key in the ignition. There’s just a one-word response from Nico.

  Okay

  And looking at Sam again, I’m starting to realize that I’ll be just that, regardless of what Nico decides.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I spend all week trying to nail down exactly what these new feelings for Sam are.

  On Tuesday, I wake up thinking about the sturdiness of his voice when he was defending me and how it made every molecule in my body vibrate.

  On Wednesday, he has a dentist appointment, and I realize just how off-kilter I feel without our early morning talks and Tupperware filled with his latest sweet creation just for me. Did I ever really appreciate it before?

  And on Thursday, I almost miss Theodore’s announcement that he was chosen by th
e visual arts department for the winter gala because I’m so distracted by this new desire I have to run my fingers through Sam’s golden hair, glowing in the lunchtime light.

  But I keep it all to myself. My go-to would be to call Caroline and analyze everything, and maybe, just maybe, if this is what I think it is, we’d come up with a new, extensive plan to make things happen. That doesn’t feel right, though. I don’t want to share this, whatever it is, with anyone just yet. Plus, Caroline saw it before I did, and instead of listening, I assumed the worst and messed things up between us. We’ve been strained ever since. My phone call to her about this is also going to need to come with a big apology.

  “What’s your family doing for Thanksgiving?” Sam asks as we pull up to Chrysalis. It’s the Friday before fall break, and I’m looking forward to having some time off from putting on a show in my writing classes—though I guess I’ll just be switching to putting on a show with my parents at home.

  “Staying at home, just the four of us this year. Miles loves watching the parade with the balloons. My dad’s going to try and re-create my granny’s mac and cheese and her sweet potato pie. Mom already knows to not even try.” I feel a little self-conscious. Another new weird development with Sam—I’ve never felt this way around him before. “It’s probably nothing fancy compared to what you have planned. . . .”

  “Oh, our standing dinner date with Rachael Ray, Ina Garten, and Gordon Ramsay?” He laughs. “Thanksgiving is actually pretty low-key for us. It’s usually me and Mom, and sometimes my bubbe. But her new boyfriend got tickets to some big show on Broadway, so she politely declined our invite.”

  “Oh, Bubbe is savage!” I smile.

  He shrugs. “Her and Mom usually just passive-aggressively take digs at each other the whole meal anyway, so this is better. Mom handles the mains and the sides, and then I’m in charge of the desserts. We usually make enough for leftovers until Hanukkah, or even Christmas.”

  “You celebrate both?”

  “Yeah. It’s kind of strange, I know,” he says as we both get out of the car and start to walk through the parking lot. I remember how I couldn’t wait to get away from him on the first day, and now I wish this walk would last forever.

  “Not at all.”

  “So, if it’s just the four of you . . . then you’re staying in town? You’re not going back to Roseville?”

  “No, most of my dad’s family is in the South, and my mom’s family . . . well, we don’t see them much.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, they weren’t very supportive when my parents got married. Dad wasn’t what they envisioned for my mom, if you know what I mean. They skipped the wedding and everything. Things are better now, but not spending-holidays-together better.”

  “Wow.” He shakes his head. “I thought that kinda thing was in the past. But I guess that’s a . . . privileged way to think.”

  I playfully punch his shoulder. “What, are you going for white ally of the year?”

  He pokes me back. “Can you put in a good word for me with the judges?”

  “We’ll see.” I laugh and shake my head. “Anyway, yeah, I’ll be here all week.”

  “Good, so . . . I don’t know, maybe we could hang out? Because we won’t, you know, have our daily drive . . . If you’re not busy.” He’s looking straight ahead instead of at me, but I can hear something in his voice. “I make really good pie. I can save you one.”

  “I’d like that.” My cheeks hurt with how big my smile is. “And you don’t have to bribe me with treats. I’d hang out with you anyway.”

  “Aww, shucks,” he says, nudging me with his shoulder. My whole body vibrates.

  Yeah, I don’t need to consult Caroline. There’s definitely something there.

  As we weave between the cars in the lot and walk into the shadow of the tall building that makes up half of Chrysalis, I see Nico standing there alone, head swiveling like he’s looking for someone. And I’m stricken with how much I’ve barely thought about him all week because my mind has been crowded with Sam. It’s such a dramatic change, especially when I was so sure so recently that Nico was it. That if I just found my happily ever after with him, then everything else would fall into place. But what if my happily ever after isn’t what I thought it was after all?

  Sam’s not just a love interest for some other girl. He could be a love interest for this girl. Me.

  Nico stops looking around, and he locks eyes on me. He starts to walk toward us, and he’s looking at me strangely. I kind of don’t want him to talk to me, which I wouldn’t have believed if someone had told me a week ago. But I don’t want to make Sam uncomfortable. In fact, I’m trying to think of a way to hint at how I’m feeling . . . to see if maybe he feels the same way too. Nico will just muddle all of that.

  But then Lenore appears in front of me, before Nico can reach us anyway. She’s wearing all shades of pink: shiny rose-gold pants, a blush tank, and a slouchy magenta cardigan, all topped with a black, wide-brimmed Beyoncé Lemonade-era hat. I want to tell her how much I love her outfit, but I’m stopped by the serious, very un-Lenore-like look on her face.

  She grabs my shoulder. “Has someone told you yet?”

  Only then do I notice the stack of wrinkled papers in her other hand.

  “Told me what?”

  “Here. Just look.” She hands me the stack, and the first thing I see is that my name is at the top of each page. Why is my name at the top of each page? I can’t seem to make that fact make sense in my mind. But then I recognize some poems I wrote in ninth grade—the embarrassing kind with rhyming and too many similes. And then I see—no no NO—Dream Zone fan fiction. I mean, loose Dream Zone fan fiction, with just Thad, set before he joined the band. But still. Most of the stack, though, is pages and pages of the unfinished Tallulah and Thomas novel. Tallulah, who’s a lot like me, and Thomas, who looks a lot like . . .

  Nico is next to us now. “Uh, Tessa, can we talk?” His hands are filled with the papers too.

  I don’t think. I just run. Someone—maybe Nico, maybe Sam—calls after me, but I keep going until I’m inside the building, pushing past people who are talking about me. I can feel their looks and their whispers tickling my skin. I hoped to find relief inside, but the hallway of the first floor is practically wallpapered with my work. I stop in shock. I’m scared to keep running, scared to find that all five floors look the same.

  Is this actually happening? How can this be happening? This is like one of those things that happen in teen movies, not real life.

  I rip one of the pages off the wall next to my US history class and see that it’s even worse than I thought, as if that was possible. It’s a page from one of my Tallulah and Thomas chapters, the one where she sees him for the very first time, and it’s marked up, like someone was studying it for a test. Highlighted in blinding yellow are “dark hair” and “moody eyes” and “long eyelashes” and “skinny frame” and “tight black jeans” and “mysterious artist” and all the other things that make Thomas just like Nico. Written at the bottom in all caps is: SHE’S OBSESSED. The page next to it: STALKER MUCH?

  No! That’s not it! I want to scream to the two ballet dancers standing behind me smirking and murmuring something to each other. I wish I could go over the PA and explain that I wrote these stories before I met Nico. That it’s not my fault he ended up looking like he walked out of my story. But at the same time, I want to just disappear, because how will anyone believe that I’m not the crazy stalker this is making me out to be?

  I can feel my neck start to burn, and my breaths get too fast, each one providing both not enough and too much oxygen until I start to get light-headed. I think I see Sam, coming through the crowd—when did a crowd develop? But no, I don’t want to see him right now. I want him far away from here, in a sensory-deprivation tank somewhere. What will this make him think about me?

  And the bigger question: who would do this?

  I get my answer to that, though, when Poppy appears
next to me, her arms full of copies. She looks perfect in an oversized sweatshirt dress and bright red lipstick.

  “I have some extras, if you want these,” she says. Her lip curls in disgust, as if she’s scraping something gross off one of her Chelsea boots. “God, how desperate can you be?”

  Someone laughs. I don’t know who it is because I can’t see anyone’s face anymore; everyone is blurred together. And my neck is prickly now on top of the burning, and I reach up to feel hives are starting to form there, covering my neck and spreading down my chest. I hate when this happens. It’s my body’s white flag. The final shut-down message letting me know that this is too much. That I can’t process any more.

  I am standing in the middle of my worst nightmare, and I’m completely frozen. I would probably stand there forever, until I stopped breathing altogether or my body became one giant hive or I just sank into the ground like I was begging the universe to make happen, but someone grabs my arm and gently pulls me outside. I know only from the familiar butter-and-sugar scent that it’s Sam, but I can’t look at his face. I can’t look at anyone.

  He leads me to his car, opening the passenger door and nudging me inside. We sit inside together, the only sound my quickening breath. I want to explain everything to him. I want to scream. I want to take off from the car and tackle Poppy to the ground. I want to run through the halls removing every last page. But instead I just sit, listening to my breath, blinking away tears, as the parking lot slowly clears and we’re the only ones still there. In the distance, I can hear the bell ring.

  After who knows how long, Sam reaches over and tentatively places his hand on my shoulder. It feels solid, tethering me to the seat, when my head is taking off in so many places.