Between Everything and Us

by Rebecca Paula

  “You can’t stay awake forever and not expect to fall asleep at some point,” I say.

  “I don’t need the lecture.”

  “I’m not giving one.” I stand, wincing at the stabbing pain at my side. “Want some pizza?”

  We settle into the living room a little later with delivery pizza and a movie. I lay on the couch, resting with my broken ribs and a bag of ice, a bit strung out on painkillers. Mati sits below me on the floor. I can’t see much of anything with my one good eye today, but I listen.

  “Isn’t your ass numb? Come up here. I can move over.”

  She shakes her head, never pulling her attention away from the Bond movie we’re watching. She never says it, but I know she’s sticking around because of last night. Just like I’m trying my best to stay lucid for her. We’re chasing away each other’s demons with pizza and a movie.

  I brush the hair off the back of her neck and trace my fingers over the line of her shoulders, back and forth. She relaxes against the couch, then slowly rolls her head around to connect with my stare.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  I nod, sweeping the hair away from her eyes. Those things I thought of last night, when the breath was crushed out of me and I thought I’d die, lay heavy on my tongue now. Timing is everything, and it’s not on our side. I swallow them down again. “You?”

  She nods and reaches for my hand, holding it over her shoulder as she turns back to watch the movie.

  We hold hands until I drift off to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Matisse

  What are you wearing?

  I’m not playing that game, Beau.

  It’s easy. Let’s try again. What are you wearing?

  Mittens, I text back. I’m curled up on the worn velvet sofa in the kitchen at home in Maine. A Snuggie, boots, an ushanka.

  An early snow is falling outside, the sky washed in gray and white. It’s supposed to be a blizzard, which means I might not make my original flight back to Portland. My things are packed, and I’m about to lose my mind if I have to stay home with my parents much longer. Even if the house is cozy.

  Classical music drifts down the hallway from my mom’s office, filling the silences between the fire log crackling and my suppressed giggles.

  Beau and I haven’t stopped texting all break. He’s kept me sane during my short trip home.

  Sexy, he replies.

  I look like Elmer Fudd.

  But a cute Elmer Fudd…with flapper hair.

  My fingers pause over the screen. I’ve been meaning to text him something for the past few days, but I’ve been too chicken to write it. I’m about to ask what we’re doing when another message pops up.

  When are you back in the city?

  Beau already knows when I’m landing. He agreed to pick me up, so it takes me a minute to digest the number and name on the screen—Cole.

  Soon, I hope. My flight might get delayed.

  That sucks, Cole replies right away.

  I haven’t seen him since Halloween. Haven’t heard from him much either. He asked if I wanted to go out to eat again, but I was slammed with work and passed.

  How was your Thanksgiving, Cole?

  Another message, this time from Beau. Where’d you go? Hunting wabbits?

  I burst out laughing as my mom comes in to take the kettle off the stove.

  “The kettle has been whistling. Couldn’t you have taken it off for me? I’m busy.”

  I rest my phone on my stomach and sit up so I can face my mother’s perpetual disappointment. “Sorry, I didn’t hear it.”

  She mumbles under her breath and slams the cabinet door. My phone vibrates, but I resist the urge to pick it up. I don’t want to upset my mom anymore. We didn’t exactly get along well over break. I’m already dreading coming home for Christmas.

  “You haven’t put that phone down,” she says, pointing her thick-knuckled finger at me. “You haven’t touched your paintings upstairs.”

  “It’s break,” I whisper. I feel like a little girl again, listening to her lecture me about being successful. I guess that’s the pressure of being an only child to older parents. “I’m tired from school—”

  “Are you keeping up your grades or are you out partying again?”

  We’ve had this conversation at least twice every day since I’ve been home. She refuses to believe me. I even brought home graded papers as proof. My parents gawked at the A- and B+ with open disdain. Their daughter is better than those grades.

  Their daughter is exhausted.

  I grip the back of the worn velvet sofa, the phone vibrating a bumpy path down my leg before it goes unanswered and falls off my lap.

  “I’m doing well in school. I’m doing well.”

  My phone vibrates again, drawing my attention to the name on my screen. I’ve been so busy I might be losing something really good, and it’s because of this never-ending fight with my mother.

  “I don’t have time to party, Mom. I work over forty hours a week. And when I’m not working, I’m in class. In the few hours left, I’m doing homework or painting.”

  She waves me off. “You’re in my house, watch your tone.”

  I nod like the dutiful daughter I am and swallow down the lump in my throat. I’m being as perfect as I can be. I don’t know what else she wants from me.

  “You don’t get second chances when you’re this young, Matisse. You have to work hard to get somewhere in life. I don’t want you wasting potential. You’re talented, and I don’t want you regretting later that you never tried hard enough.”

  “I’m only twenty!”

  Oh. My. God. I can’t believe I just yelled at my mother.

  She spins around. “Excuse me?”

  I buckle and give in because that’s what I always do. I’m the gifted daughter, the overachiever, the perfectionist set on success. “I’ll try harder.”

  If my mom’s upset about me yelling, she doesn’t call me out for once. “You should go upstairs and paint since you have time. I checked, and the flight’s canceled.” She trudges down the hallway back to her office without a word more, shutting herself away with her academic research and pretentious symphonies.

  My phone vibrates a longer beat. I’m getting a call.

  “What?” I answer.

  “Mati?”

  I flop back down onto the couch and clamp a hand over my eyes. What I would give if I could be back in Portland, in my room, away from the world. And my future. And everything that’s crashing down on top of me.

  “I don’t have time to talk right now, Beau.”

  I don’t have time for you.

  I hear the TV on in the background, Noah and Hunter arguing as usual. And then with a door clicking shut, it’s quiet.

  “Everything okay?” Beau says softly.

  “You’re not calling to keep flirting? How unlike you.” I want to get up and break something. Or run. Man, I could run for miles right now.

  “Flirting? Is that what I was a doing?”

  Of course, all coy and stupid. He wouldn’t know his left hand from his right if the words weren’t tattooed across his knuckles.

  It’s too hot suddenly. I stomp over to the sliding French doors and wrench them open, stepping out on the deck. The powdery snow pours into my slippers and chills my feet, but at least here I can breathe.

  I stare straight up into the cinereous sky as I say, “You don’t need to pick me up at the airport.” It’s fitting to be outside, lost in the cold and drabness. It fits perfectly with gray, with the fissure that’s stretching across my chest.

  “I want to.”

  Even though he doesn’t say it, I hear his, I miss you. I hear it because I miss him, too.

  “Well, I’m not sure when I’m getting in now.” My voice is stiff. “You don’t need to take any more time off of work. I only have one bag. I’ll catch a cab.”

  “Mati—”

  There’s another painful silence that stretches for far too long. The snowf
lakes cling to my eyelashes.

  “I…don’t mind.”

  I’m angry at my mom, at my failure, at my inability to either move things forward with Beau or leave him behind. “Cole’s picking me up,” I blurt out. My heart thuds against my chest at the lie.

  If I wasn’t cold before, I am when Beau says, “Have a good flight.”

  I hang up, not even saying goodbye. You can’t say goodbye to something that never started. And apparently I don’t have time, so I might as well take another personal failure for the sake of my professional success.

  I’m a good daughter like that.

  Beau

  Cole. Fucking Cole.

  “Have good flight.” I force my words to sound sincere. I hope she doesn’t hear me throwing my pillow across the room.

  She hangs up. On me.

  The absolute silence I hear with my phone still pressed to my ear is exactly what I need.

  I was chasing after someone who doesn’t want to be caught, and really, why I am wasting time? I wasn’t going to be that guy who was caught up on a girl. Mati doesn’t want me.

  Science is fact. Fact is, I’m a chickenshit for never being straight with her. Fact is, my roommate is a fucking gorgeous girl who I can’t have. Fact is, I’m totally that guy who’s caught up in a girl and it’s pathetic.

  Conclusion: it’s over. I have to get back to doing whatever it was before I moved in and she knocked over my world.

  Except, this summer, I slept on random couches. This summer I had zero plans and I was fine with that. But Matisse has made me restless. I need more than what I had this summer, more than the thin line of boredom I’ve been skating lately.

  It’s three hours until the deadline closes, but I submit my registration. I can stay here in Portland and hold on to a future that won’t ever be mine, or I can finish my shit and make something of myself.

  And now I need to blow off some steam and forget the girl who just crushed my heart.

  Matisse

  “Let’s go, Evans. My stomach’s going to eat itself soon.”

  I haven’t spent much time with Ethan since moving in, but he seems like a cool guy.

  “Are you listening?” he asks. He nips my nose between his fingers and pulls my hat down over my eyes.

  “Of course. You were saying something like blah, blah, blah.” I readjust my hat and glare back at my roommate.

  “I asked what you wanted to eat.”

  We’re walking through the living room when the front door opens and Beau stumbles in, a tall blonde tucked under his arm. They’re both wearing sunglasses. Noah and Hunter tag along behind, as do a few others I’ve never seen.

  Ethan curses under his breath, then ditches me. I spin around, confused, as he thunders up the stairs to Reagan’s room.

  “You’re home,” Beau says from behind me.

  I should have expected this. I probably deserve it after I lied. I try my best to look unaffected when I face him, even as the girl nips at his neck, leaving behind rings of pink lipgloss.

  I can’t do this. I’m out the front door before Beau follows me.

  “No Cole?”

  I step outside as a painful wrenching pulls around my heart. If this is what it feels like to let go, I hate it. I suck at it. I want no part of it. Still, it surprises me when my answer of “no” comes out resolute.

  “We’re having a party. You want to stay?”

  I readjust my shoulders, leveling out the weight of our relationship crashing down on top of me. “No.”

  “Too crowded?” He props himself up against the doorway, filling up the entrance as he casually breaks my heart.

  “Don’t be an asshole, Beau. I’m going out to dinner with Ethan.”

  Noah shouts something from the living room, and then Ethan and Reagan appear behind Beau. Her face is flushed. She mutters a string of curses at Beau as she ducks down under his arm to step outside. He mumbles something back, followed by a laugh that is so unlike Beau, full of ugliness. I glance over my shoulder at the retreating figure of Reagan marching down our street, then switch back to Beau. “What did you say to her?”

  Ethan shoves him against the doorjamb, gripping his T-shirt so tight that Ethan’s knuckles turn white. The force of it knocks Beau’s sunglasses down, and it’s clear by his unfocused eyes that he’s high.

  Ethan slams Beau into the doorway again. Beau only laughs.

  I’m afraid punches are going to be thrown soon, so I grab Ethan’s coat and drag him away. We get halfway down the driveway before I whirl around.

  “I took a cab, you douchebag,” I yell. “I’m glad you never came to pick me up. I’d still be standing there since you’ve apparently been busy.”

  There, it’s out. I’m jealous; he’s hurt me. This is why you don’t get involved with your roommate. I thought I was smarter than this.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Beau

  The kitchen in a frat is hell on earth. I can easily drink myself to cirrhosis of the liver here, but no go on the food. And fuck, I’m hungry.

  “We’re going to get something to eat at some point, right?” I ask, tapping my hand over the sticky table. My cast is itchy, but it’ll be another two weeks before I can get it off. Solo cups with stale beer are still scattered around, leftovers from the party.

  The same party that started a few nights back at the bar where I met Layla again, the dean’s daughter, who I didn’t knock up, despite the rumors. The same party that continued back at my place where I was a bastard to Mati and Reagan. Even Ethan. I guess I’m out of the running for roommate of the year. I haven’t been back to find out if my shit’s been tossed out on the front lawn. I wouldn’t put it past Reagan to evict me in grand style.

  I tip a cup around with my index finger, watching it circle on the edge of spilling. Noah hauls me out of my chair. I’m still drunk. If I could just puke, I’d feel better. I drag my feet and head for the bathroom.

  “What are you doing? We have to get to work.”

  I nod, but that’s a bit of a mistake. “One minute.”

  I stumble into the bathroom and puke my brains out. I don’t feel any better, not even after splashing cold water over my face and washing my mouth out. I catch myself in the mirror. That’s my second mistake.

  I look like shit.

  Noah pounds on the door, but I’m stuck staring at myself. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, been sleeping on a friend’s couch, and I’ve been drunk and high for a week. I’m a real standup guy. No wonder Mati thinks I’m an asshole.

  “Asshat, let’s go.” Noah yells.

  I got a good laugh, though, right? I’m good at pretending, I guess. Good at the things that don’t matter. But that’s not how it used to be.

  Mati is a someday-girl, the one you’re supposed to meet later when you’re less of a prick and have your shit together. Someday girls are lost to idiots like me now, and if I’m being honest, they don’t exist in the future either. Because there’s a guy who is ready, who does know how to be an adult and can love a girl like Mati as much as she deserves. And those guys turn someday girls into forever girls and leave us losers to keep chasing after a string of hookups while we’re stuck remembering the one perfect girl who got away.

  My stomach rumbles again. I fucking hate my life. Hate that I’m that guy I used to make fun of before everything happened.

  Noah pounds on the door again.

  “Give a girl a minute. I’m powdering my nose,” I shout back.

  I scrub my hand over my face and pull it together. I walk out, the ground a little more steady under my feet, and reach into my pocket for my sunglasses.

  Noah looks over at me, the question in his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything. “All set, beauty queen?”

  I want more than dishing out Vietnamese all day, but that’s my life until I get out of my own way.

  Next semester can’t start soon enough.

  Matisse

  I’m cleaning up my art supplies at the end of class wh
en my professor asks me to stay behind. I leave thirty minutes later feeling as though my chances for securing this internship with Aiden McKenna are almost nonexistent. I have another week to finish things before finals, and my portfolio, according to my professor, is mediocre. I went from starting this semester with praise to ending it with the usual disappointment.

  I can win awards and attend prestigious art schools, and I can fail out and be forced to go to a small liberal arts school, but what won’t change is me and my talent. I either have it or I don’t, and this semester I’m finally realizing I don’t.

  So I’m back to being lost, stuck on the outside. I’ve even been living by myself these past two weeks. After my disastrous return home from Thanksgiving break, my roommates haven’t been around. The bungalow’s been quiet. I guess that’s nice, but some part of me misses the company. And I’d be a big liar if I didn’t admit to missing Beau.

  I have thought about him—maybe even too much, but your heart has a funny way of demanding one-on-ones at three in the morning when you’re trying to write a paper. Between moving in at the start of September and now, between the silences and the breaks, the time I’ve spent angry at him, the near-kisses and making out, the flirty texts, the stolen touches—I’ve thought about it. I’m tired of wasting my energy on someone who can’t make up his mind about whether or not I’m worth the chance.

  I’m walking across campus to nanny for the afternoon when a hand taps me on the shoulder. I spin around, met by nothing, before it taps me on the opposite shoulder.

  I meet Cole and his gentle smile this time. I like the way it lights up his eyes. That still doesn’t dull the stab of disappointment I feel or the guilt that chases at its feet because he isn’t Beau.

  “Hey, you.” The slow drawl of his words warm me up.

  “Hey yourself.” I dare a girl not to fall for a guy in a peacoat. It’s my kryptonite. Maybe it’s an East Coast thing, I don’t know. Either way, he looks wicked-good, and as always, I feel a bit better now. I don’t know why I go so long without seeing him.