I don’t need a weather report for Portland.
“You’ll be fine by yourself?” she asks, pulling on her coat.
“I’m a big boy, Mati.” I laugh quietly at how she shakes her head at my double meaning. I can’t help myself. “I’ll be fine.”
Her hands rest on her hips as she nods, searching around the bungalow. Her bags are by the door so I’m not sure what she’s looking for. I’m hoping I’m it, but she can’t look me in the eye after last night.
“You have enough of everything? Food? Medicine?”
I clear my throat, shifting over the couch that’s swallowing me up. It’s not helping the headache that’s crushing my skull. “We’ve been over everything three times. I’ll clean everything up. I’ll water your plants—”
“Don’t drown them.”
“I can handle it.”
Mati steps forward, playing with sleeves of her wool coat.
“Come here,” I say, desperate for another kiss. If I have to play up my cold, I’m not above doing so. I have no shame. And I’m not particularly worried about her making her flight either. Planes fly out all the time. Why does she have make this one?
We weren’t finished last night.
We haven’t even started.
“I’m fine,” I say, my voice is rough. She steps closer. The bright yellow scarf around her neck makes her green eyes pop. Or maybe I just can’t stop falling into them. Can’t get them out of mind. And those red lips. “Closer.”
Mati bends down, her arms braced on either side of me, her nose grazing mine. I smell coffee and apples, and I’m caught in those wild eyes of hers, sucking me in, pushing me forward. I shift closer, our lips barely brushing when a car horn beeps outside.
“Crap.” She kisses my cheek and jumps back. “That’s my ride. I have to go.” She grabs her suitcase, then opens the front door. A cold damp breeze sweeps in, erasing away what little I had of her. “And thanks, you know…for everything.”
I lick my dry lips and force a smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Matisse
I’m back home in Maine, stuck again in the gray of New England in winter. It seems unending in the way it gets dark early, in the way the colors drain from everything. Even a fresh snows robs everything of color. The world becomes white, contrasted only by a series of shadows.
As long as I’m here, I’m stuck in those shadows.
When I flew in, my parents made me see my pediatrician—twice. I can’t do anything at home without my mom breathing down my neck. If I’m painting, then I should be resting. If I’m resting, I should be painting. She called my boss at my winter break job at the local inn, telling them I was too sick to work, as if she were calling me out of school. I need a break, but she’s not giving me the kind I need.
I finally have a few hours to myself today, and I run into some high school friends at the pharmacy. We go to lunch and I guess we’re catching up, but mostly they’re talking excitedly about things and I’m trapped in the booth, waiting not-so-patiently for my pizza.
“You feel okay, Matisse? You look green,” Rachel says, pushing my Diet Coke closer. “Drink up. Maybe it’ll help.”
The other three girls keep chatting, ignoring me. I don’t know when to step in. I don’t know my place with them anymore. In high school, I understood the social pecking order. I was always solidly in the middle. I was on honor roll, the track team, and I helped with painting sets for the drama club. I floated, wedged in the middle of all the cliques.
“I’ve been sick, but I’m good, thanks.” I yank a napkin from the fingerprint-smudged dispenser and nervously fold it into an origami ship. The paper’s too thin, so it doesn’t keep its shape.
Everyone at the table is a junior at big colleges around the country. Laine recently returned from studying abroad in Prague for a year. Alexis has a kickass internship with the LA Times. Taylor is engaged.
She’s engaged. I’m officially old enough to have friends with wedding plans.
I’m light-years behind everyone. I sink a little further into the corner of the booth.
Once the pizza arrives, I pick at the cheese on my slice, pulling it into long strings while the rest of the table descends into plans—relationship plans, life plans, job plans.
When they ask, I tell them enthusiastically that I’m waiting to hear back on an important internship with a great artist and that I’m dating. They’re not total lies, but they’re not the truth either.
I should hear back whether or not I get an interview for the internship when I return to Portland. But dating? I don’t think you can consider whatever I have with Cole as dating. And Beau? Definitely not dating.
I nibble the pile of pepperoni I’ve picked off the pizza, folding each piece in half, trying my best to make a heart in the middle. The others watch, confused, but leave me alone to play with my food.
I wipe my hands on a napkin and grab my phone as it lights up with his face. It’s a picture of us in his bed making not-so-adorable faces. Except when he tries to make a funny face, that dimple makes everything hotter.
Skype tonight? Same time, he texts.
“Sorry, ladies.” I steel my face, pretending to be upset. “I have to run. Something came up.”
Sure thing, I reply. It’s early for you to be awake.
I dig through my wallet and toss my share of the bill onto the table in the midst of a shower of fake goodbyes. I hear their relief though. I guess post-high school, I’m the bottom feeder.
My phone vibrates again. I was thinking of you. Couldn’t sleep.
I smile, hiding behind my thick-knitted scarf as I step outside in the frigid cold for home.
Close your eyes and try, Beau.
He sends me a picture of the pillow beside him, the space where I fit not so long ago. Then he texts, You’re not making it easy.
***
“If I show you, but you can’t laugh.” I lean my elbows onto my crossed legs. It’s so flipping cold in my bedroom.
Beau readjusts his screen, finally coming into view. “Why would I laugh?”
“I only worked on it today. I’m not sure it’s ready yet. I don’t—”
“Show me.”
I pick at my glitter nail polish, littering my bed with tiny blue sparkles. “I’ll send a picture later.”
“But I can see it now. That’s the magic of the Internet.”
Beau’s voice is rough from sleep. It looks like he hasn’t shaved either. His dark stubble makes his lips appear pink. I stop there. I don’t want to be thinking about his lips.
But the rest of me warms because I do remember.
“What are you smiling about?”
I snap my eyes up to my laptop, staring into the webcam. “Nothing.”
Since I’ve been back in Maine, we’ve Skyped every night. It started when I texted him the night I flew in. I couldn’t sleep. I felt stupid that I had grown used to having someone sleeping beside me. I missed having him there, keeping me warm. I missed having his chest to drool over. I missed that heavenly bed of his and how his arms always found me in the middle of the night. I was never cold with him wrapped around me.
The next night we started Skyping before we watched a movie together. It made it easier to be away from him, even if it’s scary to think of why. For now, this is what we share. Our own little secret.
“What else did you do today?”
I reach behind me for my mug of hot chocolate heaped with extra marshmallows. “I was at lunch with some old high school friends when you texted.”
“Was it fun?”
“It’s weird how you’re such good friends with people before college and then you come home and it’s like you don’t know anyone anymore,” I admit. “I don’t even feel like I’m home.”
“We all change.”
I nod and set my hot chocolate down. “Yeah, I guess. I wish it was easier. It would be nice to know I could come back here and still fit in.”
“You fit in here.” He
settles back against his pillow. “In Portland.”
“Maybe.” I drag the laptop over to my pillow and lie down beside it. I stare up at the glow-in-the-dark stars scattered across my ceiling. I was never good at recreating the constellations, so my galaxy is unfinished—strings of stars span above me without a purpose.
“You know what I’m afraid of most, Beau?”
He doesn’t say anything, and even though he’s not beside me, I trick myself into imagining him there. I pretend his shoulder is close so I can lean against it. I pretend his fingers reach for mine. I pretend he’s resting his chin on top of my head and I can hear him breathing and his heart beating. I pretend he’s tangible when I’m really stuck with ghosts.
“I’m afraid that I’m working so hard that I’m missing out on what’s supposed to be the best time of my life.” My voice cracks at the end. The day’s been weird. I blame it on that.
“What do you think you’re missing out on?”
“Everything.” I roll over on my side and prop up on my elbow. “I’m missing everything.”
“You’re living for everything. There’s a difference.”
I’m about to jump underneath the covers when my mom walks in.
“Who are you talking to?”
Jesus, she doesn’t miss anything.
I minimize Skype and pray he’s quiet because she’s hovering by my bed, watching. If I try to mute it, she’ll only ask more questions.
“It was a stupid YouTube thing Aubrey sent to me.”
“It’s late.” My mom walks over to my easel and examines the painting. “You need your rest.”
I want to disappear. I feel like I’m twelve again, and what’s worse is that she’s treating me like a child in front of Beau. Even if she doesn’t know it. I’m always her little girl, no matter what I’m doing.
“I’m going to bed, Mom.”
“Good. I worry about you.” Her voice is soft, spurring a rising tide of guilt. She’s my mom; she’s only looking out for me. But then she opens her mouth and reminds me that she’s more like my prison guard. “This piece shows promise, but it’s not there yet. It’s too monochromatic.”
This is why I don’t feel like I’m home. I’m always forced to be on here. I’m expected to do great things according to the path my parents set out for me. There’s no room for me to try to find my own way.
“Goodnight, Mom.” I sink lower into my bed, pulling the comforter up to my chin. I wish it were an invisibility cloak.
She seems satisfied and waves her arthritic hand in a not-so-graceful flutter. “’Night.”
The door clicks shut, and I reopen Skype. “Sorry,” I mouth to Beau, holding out my hands in apology. I’m mortified.
He yawns, shrugging off the incident, before readjusting the gray beanie on his head. It makes his eyes stand out. Then I notice the dark circles under them and his still too-pale face.
“I want to see it,” he whispers softly.
I shake my head, too afraid. “You’re working again?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah, rent to pay.” He scratches his chin. “I’m feeling better.”
I’m not convinced. “Wear a scarf.”
I. Am. An. Idiot.
“Okay, Mom,” he says with a laugh. Except his laugh is still chased with that cough.
I cross my arms, arching my eyebrows.
“Show me your painting.”
I don’t like how it still sounds as if he’s chest is being broken into tiny pieces. I don’t like the fact that I’m here and he’s there. I don’t like this space between us.
“Fine, but you can’t laugh.”
“I can’t without dying first. Fucking Christ, show me the damn painting. I have other plans, you know.”
There’s a chance I suddenly take a cue from Casper and whiten. He hasn’t mentioned plans and other girls for a while until now. The idea that things are shifting back to how they were before sort of feels as though I’ve been caught outside in a nor’easter without warning. It’s blinding.
“I’m watching a movie with you, remember?” he teases. “It’s not like I’m prime for picking chicks up right now. I’m still in zombie territory after you contaminated me.”
I relax as soon as the corner of his mouth kicks up in a small smile. “So you’re saying I’m chopped liver?”
“I’m saying you should show me your painting sometime before I die.”
I climb out of bed with my laptop. The cold wood floor bites through my wool socks as I tread over to the window where my easel is. With a sigh, I flick on the lamp beside it and stare out my dark window while he examines my painting.
“See,” I say in a choked whisper. “It’s not done yet, so…”
“Is that what it’s like in Maine right now?”
I nod even though he can’t see me. It’s a frozen tundra, cloaked in white and freezing shadow. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t belong.
The painting is monochromatic, white on white. That moment when you find yourself lost in a birch forest in the winter. The longer you stand there, searching for a way out, you realize that even white has shades of color.
“I like it. Can you bring it back with you?”
I flick off the light and trudge back to bed. “If it can fit in my suitcase. Maybe.”
Beau’s reclined in bed, his arm behind his head. “It reminds me of home.”
“Where’s home?” I ask.
“A small town on Vancouver Island.”
“You never talk about it.” He doesn’t talk much about his family either, even though I caught him Snapchatting with his younger sister, Quinn, while we were sick. He was supposed to go home for Christmas, too.
“I don’t fit in there either. Not anymore.”
I can’t deal with how serious this is, so I switch tones, struggling to make this lighter again. “Very brooding of you.”
He grins and scratches his head, then flings off his beanie. His hair hasn’t been trimmed in a while, so the longer top cuts across his cheekbones until he brushes it back, his eyes lighting up as he does. “Your room looks different. I thought it’d be more like your room here.”
Everything is orderly in this bedroom. The furniture is practical, the space planned to efficiency. My walls are plain, void of art because it’s all stacked neatly and organized in my closet. I don’t have a butterfly mobile here or paint stains on the floor. This space is clean. The perfect reminder of who I was before I lost sight of things two years ago.
“Let’s stop talking about me being stranded at home.” I pick at my nails again, fighting back the edging panic clawing at me. I don’t want to be here, but I’m not ready for another semester either. I’m going to be twenty-one in a month, and I still feel like a little girl with no idea of what to make of herself.
“Fly back early.”
I glance up. “Then I’ll be stranded with you.”
He sets his laptop on the pillow beside him and lays on his side. I shamelessly ogle his tattooed bicep whiles his reaches back and rests his head on the crook of his arm.
“It wasn’t so bad. To be stuck with you,” he says.
I lick my lips, remembering his over mine. I even close my eyes, pretending we’re on the couch again, so caught up in each other that we forget we need air to breathe. “No. It wasn’t. Not terrible.”
“What would we do if we were stranded here together again?”
I’m convinced I’ve swallowed a bottle of butterflies. My stomach flutters, and my body warms. Heat spreads over my cheeks.
“I’d teach you how to build a structurally sound fort, for one,” I say.
I expect him to tease me back, but he dives right ahead. “Would you kiss me?”
Yes. “It’s a bad idea if we do that again. Maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“I like it though.” My voice fades off. “Kissing you.”
I pull off my sweatshirt to reveal my floral Henley because, if I don’t, I’m going
to combust. My room’s turned into the Caribbean after my confession. I guess this is the one thing about distance—I’m not so afraid to say what I think. Well, mostly.
My body is on fire, full of a pleasant ache I haven’t felt in a while. I close my eyes and remember the feel of Beau beneath me, his hardness between my legs. I swallow past the lump in my throat.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice sounds like I feel—fragile.
“You,” I say on a choked whisper. My hips shimmy under the sheets, and I grow frustrated because he’s turning me on and he’s not even here next to me. I want his hands on me. I want to feel his skin against mine, warm and a little rough. I want to smell him, feel his tongue against mine. I want my fingers to run through his longer hair, then brush across the shorter contrast, waking up my fingertips.
“What about?”
I glance up, then back down to the pink chevron pattern of my sheets. “That I want you here right now. With me.”
“Why do you want me there?”
I want you to touch me.
I don’t say it, but the ache between my legs is unbearable at the idea of us in bed together. We were so close on that couch. If only I hadn’t listened to my doubts, I might know right now what it would feel like to have his body naked against mine. I might know what it would feel like to have him moving inside of me.
He doesn’t give up. “If I was there, what would I be doing?”
My hand creeps beneath my comforter, but I still. “We’re not going to do this.”
“Yes, we are.” His voice is a hoarse rumble. “Touch yourself. Pretend it’s my hand.”
Holy fuck, that’s hot.
“Beau.” I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement. His uneven breathing blows out of my computer’s speakers, and I swear I feel it brush against my skin as if he were here. I know he likes this. I guess this can be our secret, too.
“Have you thought about New Year’s Eve?” he asks. “How we kissed? My hands on you?”
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