Only Between Us

by Mila Ferrera

  “I need to clean up the brushes and get ready to close up,” I finally say.

  She goes still, but I feel the tension gathering again. “Okay,” she says in a choked voice. “I’ll go home.”

  She starts to get up, but I don’t let her go. “I’d feel better if you let me make sure you get home all right.” Which means I’ll know exactly where she lives, and she might not want me to. I remember how Dr. Greer and Jude looked at me. Like they don’t trust me. My heart beats faster as I wait for her response.

  Her head tilts up, and her somber green eyes meet mine. “Are you really willing to do that?”

  You have no idea how important you’ve become to me. “Absolutely.” And then I kiss her temple before I realize what I’m doing.

  By some miracle, she closes her eyes and relaxes, like my touch was what she needed. So I do it again, and then I grab our brushes and clean them. Romy wipes her fingers with a turpentine-soaked rag and washes her hands in the utility sink, and I do the same. I turn out the lights and walk her to her car. Her eyes dart up and down the street. I can tell she really thinks this guy is going to come after her, and it winds me tight. What if she’s right?

  “Does he know where you live?” I ask, now scanning the street myself, though I have no idea who I’m looking for.

  She shakes her head. “I’ve moved since last year. But he found my phone number, so I don’t know if he could find my address, too.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  She bites her lip. “N-no. He said he wanted to talk. He said he still had feelings for me.”

  I step closer to her, because she sounds right on the edge of panic. “Let’s get you home.”

  I put her toolbox in her trunk and then follow her in my truck as she drives to her apartment complex. I find a space in the lot and meet her as she gets out of her car. Once again, she’s looking around the parking lot like he might be here. “What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A red Acura TL.”

  And that instantly tells me something about him. Good with words, drives an expensive car. One of those assholes who thinks the world owes him something. Obviously, he thinks Romy owes him something, too. My fists clench as I search the parking lot.

  “He’s probably not here,” she says quietly. Like she’s embarrassed, making a big deal about nothing.

  I look down at her, dying to take her in my arms again. “I could walk you to your door if you want.” But since she might not want me to know her apartment number …

  “I’d like that.”

  I walk beside her as she crosses the lot and enters the building. She lives on the third floor, which is good because the asshole can’t climb in through her window. She’s safe here. He doesn’t have a key. She opens her door and I catch a glimpse of her space, a nice, soft-looking couch, a flatscreen TV, a sleek, polished wood table with matching chairs. Something tells me Romy’s parents have plenty of money. I sigh inwardly. One more thing that tells me she’s probably out of my league.

  She turns to me. “Thank you.” She touches the tab of my zipper, like she did a few weeks ago, and my arms rise from my sides, because it feels right. She walks into me and I hug her tightly.

  “You can call me if you feel scared or if you think he’s around,” I tell her, leaning my cheek against her silky hair. “You know I don’t live far.”

  “You have other things to worry about,” she mumbles against my shoulder. “Catherine and—”

  “Romy, are you my friend?”

  She looks up, searching my face. “I … guess so.”

  I stroke her cheek. I understand her hesitation. We’ve been as close as two people can be, but so much has happened and we haven’t had time to sort it out. Despite all that, what I want goes far beyond friendship—but I don’t know how to get there. I’ve never done it before. So I’ll start here. “I worry about my friends, and I like to know they’re okay. Give me your phone and I’ll put my number in.”

  She does, a tiny smile pulling at her lips. “I’m glad you’re my friend,” she says.

  I try to enter my number, but it takes me three tries because I keep getting distracted by her face. My body stirs. I remember looking up at her, naked and perfect—

  I kiss her forehead and hand her the phone, then quickly pull away, wishing I had better control over myself. “I’ll see you whenever, then.” I walk away as fast as I can without actually running.

  I make it back to my apartment and go straight to my room. She’s there. Right there on my wall. “This is going to be hard,” I tell the 2-D Romy. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

  My phone rings, and my eyes go wide. The 3-D Romy is calling me. “Romy?” My gaze flicks to her green eyes, staring back at me from my sketch. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to thank you. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome. But I didn’t do much. I mean—” Not like what you did for me last night.

  “Sometimes we don’t know what we do for other people. Sometimes we never get to know,” she says.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I guess it depends.”

  “You saved me last night,” I blurt. There’s no other way to describe it.

  She’s quiet for a moment. “All I did was listen.”

  “You know it’s more than that. There’s no ‘all I did,’” I say, settling in on my bed and staring at the ceiling.

  “There’s no ‘I didn’t do much,’ either,” she jokes, doing a silly imitation of my voice.

  I smile. “Tell me why that is. Why does it help so much, just to have someone listen to you? I mean, you’re the therapist.”

  “I’m not your therapist. If I were, we couldn’t be friends.”

  “No?”

  “No. That’s how it works. If I were your therapist, I would be there for you, and that would be my purpose. You wouldn’t have to worry about whether I was okay, because you’d only be talking to me to do something for yourself. But—”

  “I’m there for you, too. And I like it that way.”

  Another few seconds of silence. “Yeah,” she finally says. “I think I like it that way, too.”

  This crazy-fierce feeling of triumph rushes through me. It’s easier to talk to her like this, when she’s not right in front of me, making my heart race. “So. Listening.”

  “Listening,” she says quietly. “I think it helps to have another person sit next to you and say ‘yeah. That happened.’ It keeps you from feeling crazy.”

  God, that’s exactly what it is. That’s what she did for me last night. After so many years of climbing the walls of my own skull, of having my own mom tell me I was lying, of having my own sister scream that I was making things up, Romy simply said, “It happened.” And that made all the difference.

  “Amazing,” I whisper, then clear my throat. “I never knew it was that simple.”

  She chuckles. “I don’t think it is. If it was, we’d all be totally sane, right?”

  My heart clutches a little as I think of Katie, who at this very moment is in the hospital. “Yeah,” I say, airy and hoarse. “I wish it was that easy.”

  “I know, Caleb,” she says, and the tenderness in those words is devastating. It lays waste to my walls, all my defenses. “I know. I wish it was, too. But she has you, and not everyone is so lucky.”

  “Do you think—” Do you think she’ll ever be okay? I suck in a breath. Romy’s going to think I’m such a fucking mess. And she’d be totally right. “Never mind. So. Have you seen Daniel’s most recent painting? He’s got a new obsession.”

  There’s a huff of breath into the phone, and I brace myself. “Tell me about it,” she says. “I haven’t seen much of Daniel’s work.”

  Holy shit. She’s totally letting me get away with changing the subject.

  “Marbles,” I tell her. “He’s collecting marbles and painting them in all sorts of styles. He came up to me earlier today and was like ‘I found a Christensen Nine Bloodi
e on eBay!’ And he’s waving around this swirly marble like it’s the most magnificent thing that’s ever existed.”

  “Marbles? Huh. I guess his style is a lot different from yours.”

  I smile as I think of him. “Actually, he switches styles a lot. Most painters I know kind of settle in on one thing for a while, but Daniel’s always trying something new.” And he’s surprisingly good at everything he tries. I’ve always been kind of jealous of him for that. “I think he likes to surprise people. Throw them off balance.” I chuckle as a memory comes to me. “When we were in high school, we were supposed to do a watercolor project, and everyone else was painting the lake or flowers or a rainy cityscape. But Daniel did a re-imagining of the shower scene from Psycho that had the teacher calling the guidance counselor on him. It was a joke, but the counselor was convinced Daniel was a future serial killer.”

  Romy giggles. “He seems pretty live-and-let-live, actually.”

  “He’s better than that,” I say. “But he doesn’t want anyone to know, so don’t tell.”

  “His secret’s safe with me.”

  And it goes like that. For the rest of the night. We talk about art and music and the fact that we both like fried food more than is good for us. We talk about books, and when I quote from one of my favorites—this line from a Terry Pratchett novel that goes “It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has a drink”—Romy crows, “The Color of Magic! I love that one!” By the time it occurs to us to hang up, it’s four in the morning, and we’re both starting to drift.

  “Romy?”

  “Caleb?”

  “I think I need to get some sleep.” But I wish I could stay on the phone with you forever.

  “Me, too. I have to be at my internship by nine.”

  “Oh no! I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I loved every minute of this.”

  It steals my breath, how she says stuff like that, just puts it out there. “Me, too. Maybe we could talk again sometime.”

  “Maybe. You have my number.”

  “So I do.”

  “So call me.” She whispers goodnight into the phone, and then she’s gone.

  I sink into sleep with her voice in my ear, continuing the conversation in my dreams.

  I step back from my painting and pull my earbuds from my ears, plunging myself back into reality and feeling the image in front of me release its grip. My lips lift into a smile, like my body knows what’s going on before my brain does.

  This is right, and it’s beautiful, and I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. It’s amazing how a few weeks can change everything.

  The flyer sits on my supply table. I saw Romy taping them up, saw her talking to Daniel, Markus, Daisy, and a few others about making donations to the charity auction in a week. She hasn’t mentioned it to me, probably because of the way I reacted when she first told me about it. But this, right in front of me, is because of her. I’m going to donate it.

  There’s an intake of breath behind me, and I turn to see Sasha standing outside my stall. “Wow, Caleb,” she says quietly, looking at the canvas.

  I grin. “I think I’m finally happy with it.”

  She smiles, too, but she hasn’t taken her eyes off the painting. “Yeah. Is this for a gallery show?”

  I shake my head, then realize she won’t see that, because she’s still got her eyes on my work. “No, it’s for the charity auction thing? I’m donating it.”

  She finally tears her gaze away and looks at the flyer. “Are you sure you don’t want to try to sell it? It’s huge. Worth something.”

  “No, this is spoken for.” Sure, there’s a chance I could sell this and make money, but I’m after something that’s worth a lot more. My phone chirps and vibrates in my pocket, an alarm I set to make sure I didn’t lose complete track of myself. “I have to go pick up my sister.”

  Sasha’s eyes have drifted back to my work. “Tell her hi,” she says absently. I squeeze her arm affectionately as I leave, grateful for her reaction, practically floating as I descend the stairs and head out to my truck. I haven’t even washed up. I’ve got paint on my shirt and I left my brushes dirty. But I can’t be late to get Katie.

  I drive to the hospital. Once Dr. Greer got involved with Katie’s case, he suggested that she attend a partial hospitalization program that includes this treatment with a long name I can’t remember, but that’s called DBT for short. It’s a lot of individual and group therapy, and Romy told me it works really well for people who have the same diagnosis as Katie. Dr. Greer and Dr. Prihadi consulted together and suggested Katie apply for some disability benefits, too, since my mom isn’t supporting her anymore. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve felt hope, that I’ve felt like things might get better. I still owe a shitload of money, but I’m hoping the hole won’t get any deeper.

  My phone rings as I pull into the parking lot, and my heart jolts as I see Romy’s name. “Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “I know you’re picking Katie up now, so I won’t keep you—”

  “You can keep me,” I blurt.

  She laughs. “I was wondering if you had time to talk later. Before eleven this time.”

  We’ve been on the phone for hours every night. I call her as soon as I get home, or she calls me when she’s done studying. Neither of us is getting enough sleep, but goddamn, I’ve never been this happy. I just wish—

  Katie comes walking out the front entrance of the partial hospitalization wing, looking for the truck. A smile flickers across her face when she sees it, and relief loosens my chest. “Yeah, I’ll make time to talk,” I say to Romy. “I need to check in with Katie and see what she’s up to, and I’ll call you?”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask Romy as Katie reaches the truck and pulls the door open. I’m dying to ask if Alex has tried to contact her again, but I can’t, not right now.

  “It’s fine,” Romy replies. But she sounds nervous, and now my happy, relaxed feelings are draining away.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I can.” I hang up as Katie buckles her seatbelt.

  “So,” she says, pulling her knit cap off her head, “are you going to tell me about her?”

  I stare at my sister. She sounds so … normal. I mean, it’s been getting a little better every day, but I’m not used to it yet. “What do you want to know?”

  “Girlfriend?”

  I laugh. “I wish.”

  Katie frowns. “Why isn’t she, then?”

  “It’s complicated. We’re friends.” Well, sort of. To her, I’m a friend, and to me, she’s the girl who has my heart in her pocket, but whatever.

  “Why don’t you ask her out?”

  I lean back against the seat, half of me considering the question, half of me processing the weirdness of talking to Katie like this. She’s usually so focused on her own stuff that she doesn’t ask me about my own life. I don’t want to mess it up or brush her off. “I … I guess I want her to ask me out. If she even wants to.”

  Romy’s needed space. She’s got this Alex guy breathing down her neck. He’s called her a bunch of times, leaving voicemails asking her to go out with him, telling her he wants to apologize. She’s too scared to pick up, but he isn’t letting go. It’s so fucking creepy. And it makes me want to kill him. But with all that going on, there’s no way in hell that I’m going to step out of the friend zone without an express invitation. I’m going to do this right. I just wish she wanted more from me.

  “Can I meet her?” Katie asks. “If she’s that important to you, you should introduce us.”

  I turn my head. Katie tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles hopefully. I want to bottle this moment and hoard it away forever. “You’ve met her already,” I say gently. “She was with your therapist the night you came to the co-op.”

  She bites her lip, her brow furrowing. “Library girl, you mean?”

  “What?”

  “The one wit
h short hair. Before that night, she came to the library. We talked about books. But then she came to the hospital, too …” She’s obviously working hard to piece it all together. Whether it’s her meds or the fact that she’s usually focused on herself, trying to keep control of the demons in her head, her memory isn’t that great.

  “Yeah. She has really short hair.”

  Katie’s gray eyes meet mine. “She’s nice.”

  “She is.” Nice doesn’t even begin to describe Romy. “I could ask her if she wants to come over, if you want me to.”

  She smiles. “I don’t have plans tonight. We could make … I don’t know. Spaghetti. Does she like spaghetti?”

  “I’ll call her when we get home. Tell me about your day?”

  “Talking. Listening. I drew some stuff.” She fiddles with her purse strap.

  “Really? Like, art?”

  She pushes my shoulder as I pull onto the road. “Not art like you do.”

  “Did it feel good?”

  “Yeah. Like I don’t have words for some things, but I have colors and shapes.”

  “I know exactly what you’re saying.”

  We drive home, and as we talk and laugh together, it feels like I’m watching from outside of my body. Me and my sister, actually having a civil conversation lasting more than a minute. When we get to the apartment, Katie heads straight for the computer to catch up with her friends, leaving me to call Romy. My heart beats like helicopter rotors as I hit SEND on her number. I try to sound casual as I ask her if she has plans, if she wants to come over.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asks. “I mean, is it okay with Catherine?”

  I keep forgetting that Katie’s asking people to call her Catherine now. “It was actually her idea.”

  That seals it. Romy’s at the door an hour later—with a loaf of French bread and some flowers. She looks adorable, her hair tousled by the wind, wearing a loose sweater and skinny jeans that remind me how gorgeous her legs are. I take the flowers and bread from her and head for the kitchen, forcibly shoving away the memory of how it felt to have those legs locked around my hips. No matter what I do, those thoughts always ambush me when I’m around her. I almost wish we’d never slept together, because I can’t forget how it felt. That’s why phone calls are easier.