by Lillie Vale
The sights and sounds around me faded, drained of color, of life, of everything. How could she do this to me? Betrayal twisted in my gut. My pain was not hers to use, hers to display. How many people had seen this? Wasn’t she scared by what her sketches would reveal about her? About us? About everything she said she wasn’t ready to share? The music, playing from chameleon-like hidden speakers, was drowned out by the erratic, sharp thumps of my heart.
Elodie’s eyes swallowed the room. I could only see her face, my face, her face, my face. The look of control she always wore like battle armor had slipped, leaving behind an unnerving storm in her eyes. Tension crackled between us. It was only my opinion of the drawing that she cared about, I realized. It was for me. It was all for me.
“This is…” Levi sounded unmoored. There was wonder and confusion in his voice, tinged with something else that I couldn’t place. He couldn’t look away from Elodie’s work, his face calm, but his jaw was clenched tight. Like me, he wasn’t immune to the chaos of the strokes, the palpable energy of the piece.
He swung his eyes to me, as if hoping I’d finish the rest of his sentence.
I didn’t have the words.
Desperate, I stared at Levi, willing him to say something. The muscles in his face were taut. This was the moment that he knew, I realized. Who my ex was. Maybe it hadn’t mattered to him before, maybe he wanted to let the past stay where it was … but this. This was an ambush. Not just for me, but for him, too.
Anger lanced through me. How dare Elodie pull this? This was hugely inappropriate. Tonight was about the artists, not us. She had no right to put me on the spot, to confront me with these memories. She’d had her chance. If she’d wanted to, she could have let us be in a real relationship two years ago. She could have thought about how devastated I would be when she said she didn’t even want to keep in touch. She could have not crossed the street to avoid me that first day I saw her after she came back.
I was with Levi now, didn’t she get that? He’d told her as much on the day she and her friends went to Bangor. I wasn’t hers anymore. Not hers to draw or hers to reclaim. It was too late for that.
In a cacophony of sound, the world came rushing back. My head pounded and my ears were hot. I didn’t want to stay in front of Elodie’s work for another minute.
I tucked my hand into the crook of Levi’s elbow. “Let’s go.”
Elodie’s eyes were bright. She made to reach out, but I flung myself away, taking Levi with me.
As we walked, my heartbeat calmed. Next to me, Levi was still. He gave me a long look when we came to a stop in a private alcove, away from the crowd. I waited for him to speak first. For a long, terrible moment, I thought he would say nothing. Then he sucked in his cheeks. “Are you all right?” he asked.
There was nothing strange in his voice, no undercurrent of anger or jealousy. I paused, weighing my answer. “I’m okay. I didn’t know she was going to do that.” I peered up, unable to read him.
“So.” He gestured behind him. “You and Elodie. She’s your ex.”
“Y-yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice resonated with confusion and the first brim of anger. There was a hard edge I’d never heard before—not from him. “I knew you were bi. You were up front about that. You were up front about everything except her.”
“I did tell you about Elodie,” I said. “I just didn’t tell you her name.”
“The most important part! Do you still have feelings for her?”
“No!” I took a deep breath. “When we were together, she wasn’t ready to come out,” I said. “I didn’t like having to hide our relationship, but I understood. She hasn’t even come out to her family yet. Jesus, Levi!”
I willed him to say something, but he seemed more at a loss than I was. I knew he was stalling and I knew why—he didn’t know how to approach this any more than I did, but it was hell waiting for his response. I knew it was entirely unfair to expect him to take the lead on what was absolutely my fault, but everything felt so adrift that it was all I could do to stay upright.
“Levi,” I whispered.
This seemed to snap him out of it. He swallowed once, hard, then ran a hand through his hair, savagely enough to look disheveled. “I get it,” he said. “I just … I wish you’d said something before we saw—”
“I know.” I took his hands between mine. “I don’t even have the words. I was horrified when I saw—”
“No, they were beautiful.” Levi shook his head. “I recognized you immediately. Only someone who knew you really well could have—” He broke off. “I had no idea she was this talented. I’ve seen her sketches before, but they were nothing like this.”
Those sketches weren’t just talent. They were anger, too. I’d seen it in Elodie’s face when she looked at me. I’d seen it in the harsh strokes of charcoal across the canvas. She’d done them in a furor, and they were masterpieces. Her art wasn’t just beautiful—it was her. In painting the sorrow on my face, she’d exposed something else, too. Herself. Anyone who saw her work would wonder at the artist’s relationship to the subject. It wasn’t a huge leap to make.
Whether she knew it or not, this had been her coming out.
“I think I need some water,” Levi said.
“Do you want me to come wi—”
“No.”
I nodded, throat choked up. “Okay.” When he left, I closed my eyes. Shame prickled down my neck. I hadn’t intended to hide things from Levi, truly I hadn’t. But as long as Elodie didn’t say anything, things went on as they had been. I’d thought after she’d come to the lighthouse, she understood that there wasn’t any hope for us. I’d been wrong. If her art was anything to go by, she’d taken my turning her away as a challenge. As something she had to prove.
“Babe?”
My eyes flew open. Elodie.
“Did he ditch you?” she asked, a mini-scowl on her lips. She glanced around.
I stiffened. “He just stepped away for a minute. He’ll be back.” I didn’t know if that was the truth. “What are you doing here?” On the tip of my tongue were the words Haven’t you done enough?
Elodie’s brow creased. “I had to come after you. I saw the way you looked at my work.” Before I could stop her, she’d taken my hand. She held it between her own, and I tried not to think that just a few minutes ago, I’d been holding Levi’s hand instead.
“El, don’t.” I pulled free, holding my hand against my chest like an injured bird. “What do you want?”
I knew what she wanted, but I needed to hear her say it.
“I told my mom about us,” said Elodie.
My eyes widened.
“She … she didn’t really understand. But she was supportive. Mostly she just cried. She didn’t understand why I didn’t tell her. She thinks she’s been a bad mom for not suspecting sooner.” The words were flooding out of Elodie, a dam bursting free. She hung her head, then abruptly jerked her neck back up to look at me. “I told her for you,” she said, almost pleading.
“No, that isn’t fair.”
“Babe—”
“I’m with Levi now!” I said sharply.
I might as well have slapped her. Her head swung to the side and she clenched her eyes shut. I was saying words she didn’t want to hear. But she had to hear them.
“El, I’m glad you told your mom, but whatever you think is going to happen between us … it’s not. Okay? It’s just not. We had fun. We were each other’s firsts. But our summer is over now.”
“But I still love you,” she said in a small voice. Then, before I could stop her, she was leaning in. There was a recklessness in her eyes, and her impassioned charcoal sketches flashed into my mind. Even though I didn’t think she’d done this for the right reasons, for a tiny, microscopic moment, I wanted to let her kiss me.
But I’d been here before with Chad. Sometimes the past had to stay in the past. When you brought it into the present? Calamity.
“No,” I said
. One word. Soft, gentle.
Her lips stopped, hovering an inch from mine. “But I did it all for you,” she said quietly. “If you don’t want me, it was for nothing.”
It wasn’t for nothing. But it was more for her than for me.
I kissed her on the cheek, and tried to ignore the taste of salt. I tried to pour everything I had into that tiny peck, every last bit of love that her leaving had wrung out of me. “You will always be my first love,” I whispered. “But we both need to move on.”
The muscles in her cheek twitched. She pressed her lips together until the rasping gasps subsided. I could tell she was trying to stop crying.
I blinked back my own tears. As the blurriness went away, I saw Levi standing in front of us. Before the relief at his return could sink in, I saw his face change. He took in the scene, me and Elodie standing too close, our mouths too near. His cheeks bloomed red, and his mouth pinched into a hard, straight line. His fingers tightened around the bottle of water. Then he turned away and began walking toward the exit on his long legs. He didn’t look back once. Each stride took him farther, and further, away from me.
The room spun. My legs were shackled in place. I felt my chest tighten and snap, like a used rubber band. Scraped thin, yanked around and around. I pressed my fingers to my temple and took several ragged breaths. Around me, the animated chatter faded to the buzzing drone of an insect. Too close to be avoided, but flying past my ears at breakneck speed.
“Babe?” Elodie’s face swam into my vision. Smile composed, cheeks dry. She held my face, but her touch was all wrong.
The world came rushing back, every sound and sight and smell overwhelming and obnoxious in its vibrancy. Shame stabbed at me. I’d ruined Levi’s exhibition. He’d stalked out of here and was probably halfway to the parking lot by now. I gasped, tearing myself away from Elodie.
I couldn’t let him leave like this.
* * *
I ran after him, determined to catch him before he got into his car. I rounded the corner of the hallway, shoes slapping against the wooden floor. When I burst through the door, I swung my gaze, trying to find him. He was almost halfway to his car.
“Levi!” I shouted. His feet faltered in a fumbling half step, but he didn’t stop.
I caught up to him easily, catching his swinging arm and stopping him in his tracks. “It wasn’t what it looked like,” I said, and I knew at once it was the wrong thing to say, before his pained expression turned angry in a heartbeat.
“Seriously?” He wrenched himself free. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it that way. Nothing happened, I swear.”
“You know, I really want to believe you, but…” He took a step away.
“How could you”—I stabbed my finger in his direction—“think that I would kiss her when I’m here with you?”
“Because I saw the two of you!” Levi’s eyes glowed, hurt, furious. “God!”
He was overreacting, he had to see that, I had to make him see that. “Levi, no—”
He threw his hands up. “Are you trying to make me jealous? Or this whole summer, you and me, was this you trying to make her jealous?” he asked, voice sad and angry and broken all at the same time. He went for the killing blow. His words were coming out faster and faster. “You must have thought I was such an idiot. Falling for it again.” His laugh was full of biting cold. “All those kisses on the beach.”
My stomach bottomed out. He thought I was just like his ex. Someone who just wanted to use him to make another person jealous. I wasn’t like her; I would never do that to anybody. But I could see from the inflexible set of his face that I wouldn’t be able to convince him of that.
In the thorny seconds that passed, I was drowning. Every breath was a battle, gasped and rasping. My fingernails were embedded in my palms so hard that I knew there would be eight perfect half-moon indents.
My mouth tasted sour like vinegar. Blood rushed to my ears. He was so wrong, and yet, how could I blame him for coming to that conclusion? He’d told me weeks ago what his last girlfriend had done. In his eyes, this looked like a repeat of the same situation.
Realization crashed in his eyes. “So that’s a yes, then. To me being an idiot.”
“No, I wasn’t pretending, I wasn’t faking, it wasn’t like that,” I tried to say, but he wasn’t having it.
“Then what was it like?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell! I’m out; she’s not! I have no right to tell anyone her business. How are you not getting this?!” My voice cracked, but I kept going. “I don’t want to be with her, I want to be with you! Yes, okay, yes, she wanted to kiss me! But I wasn’t going to let her. I stopped her; I told her I was with you. The only person I want is you, Levi Keller, even if you’re being a huge fucking jerk right now!”
The secret hadn’t been that I’d withheld my ex-girlfriend’s identity. The real secret was that we’d both forgotten how much we could hurt each other. Though I’d been a hair’s breadth away from major drama all summer, it hadn’t touched us much. Even if I’d gotten nothing else right, we had been right. Even though Mom never came to visit me like she promised, even though I never got my perfect summer with my friends. Even if nothing else worked out the way I wanted it to, I’d had Levi, and that had been an awful lot like having a home.
“What else don’t I know?” Levi asked, chest heaving like he was struggling for breath.
Him being in pain was worse than me being in pain. I didn’t mean to say it, but something inside me unleashed, came sprawling out in a torrent before I could think. “Idon’tthinkIwanttohavealong-distancerelationship.”
“What?”
I said it again, this time slower. “I don’t think I want to have a long-distance relationship.”
There were no secrets left. They were all out in the open.
He blanched. “I think—I’m just gonna—” Levi edged away, hand raking through his hair. His face was bleached of all color, except for the two bright patches of pink in his cheeks. He made it to his car without looking at me.
I wanted to follow, but my legs had jellied. I swallowed. “You don’t have to—” I tried, but it was no good.
“Can you get a ride back home with someone?”
I nodded. “Lucy’ll drive me.”
His key fumbled in the lock, but then he got it to slide in evenly, and with a quick twist, he was inside. The door slammed. He was my ride, but now he was leaving alone.
He stared at me through the glass for a long moment, then started the ignition. I wanted to tell him not to go, that I was sorry, but what came out was: “What about the exhibition?”
“The only person I really cared about showing my art to was you,” he said, and then he was reversing out of the parking space.
An infinity passed between our eyes. My chest felt raw, shaky. Everything hung in the balance. Would he still think about staying? The things I had counted on an hour ago now seemed elusive, out of reach.
He waited until I took a step back before peeling out of the parking lot. I watched the taillights until they faded, and only then did I remember to blink.
* * *
I didn’t know how long I was out there, leaning against Lucy’s car, struggling to process. Going back inside wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to be stared at, didn’t want to see Elodie again. Didn’t want her to try to win me back. Didn’t want her or anyone else to wonder where Levi had gone. I’d just wait for Lucy out here.
So this was it. Whatever remained of summer, here it was. This was how it all ended, in a dimly lit parking lot with my makeup running down my face. My eyes burned, and when I swiped at them, a black mascara smear rubbed off.
“You look like shit.”
I didn’t even have to look up. “Thanks, Penny. Really what I needed to hear right now.” I wiped at my nose.
I felt the tiny shift of the car as she joined me in leaning against it. Instead of crying harder or feeling upset that s
he was witnessing my epic breakdown, all I could think about was how long her legs looked in her black velvet skirt and Doc Martens. The thought was so unexpected that I laughed, a horrible, snot-nosed, bubbly laugh that made Penny flinch.
Half waiting for her to make some kind of remark, I was surprised when she just put her arm around me. Naturally. Not like she had to think about it first. Just as easily, I found myself leaning into her.
“Saw the two of you coming out here,” she said. “Figured you might need a friend.”
“Is that what we are?”
“I was actually going to say that you needed me and the solace only I can provide, but that seemed egotistical,” she said, deadpan.
“It’s all about you,” I said through a watery laugh, not really meaning it. She’d made me smile, and that was what she’d intended all along, I realized.
A shadow fell in front of us. “Room for one more?” Chad’s unsure voice asked.
I couldn’t hold back my gape. “W-what are you doing here? You didn’t say you were coming tonight.”
Silence.
Chad joined us, flanking my other side. He breathed noisily. “I came with my parents,” he said. “I saw him stalk out. Then you chasing him.”
“I guess everybody did,” I said, a little sourly.
“If you mean Elodie, I doubt it,” said Penny. “She’s parading around on John’s arm.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise me. Elodie was always good at rallying. “Oh,” I whispered. “Were you watching me?”
“Not the whole time.” Penny let her head rest against mine. “Just when you stopped in front of her work. I kept an eye, you know, just in case you needed backup.” A beat passed. Then: “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I was being a colossal bitch. I just … I just couldn’t stop. I hated myself.”
Next to me, Chad stiffened. I knew he was listening.
“I know the kiss didn’t mean anything,” Penny continued. “It was just the thing that set me off. It’s so much easier to be angry than it is to face up to things.”