Between Everything and Us

by Rebecca Paula

  I hate and love her body against mine, trying so desperately to commit this to memory, even if we’re both attacking one another with angry, punishing lashes of our mouths. I want to remember that I loved this body, this mouth…this incredible person.

  Holy hell, she’s so fucking incredible.

  Her palm connects with my cheek as she draws back, her lips still swollen and shiny from our kiss. I fight back the urge to lead her to a mirror so I can show her what I see. The proof that despite all the shit piling up between us, we still have something important. There is still more to me and Mati, even if the universe has other plans for us.

  I love her too much to let this happen and love her too much to let her stay. I don’t want her there to see me fall apart. I don’t want her there if my results are bad and I actually do have cancer. I don’t want to have to fight that and be with her, too.

  I have to let her go, to end this.

  “Get out,” Mati repeats. She wipes the back of her hand across her lips, wiping me away.

  I shut my eyes for a moment, trying so hard to concentrate on this and her and feelings. On the love we have, even if we’re both daring each other to end it. I’ll be the bad guy, I guess. I’ll be the one to crush our chances since she can’t say the words.

  “I’m dropping out of school,” she says quietly. My eyes flash open, meeting hers. “I turned down the internship. You want to shut me out, Beau, then go ahead. I’m not coming back.”

  At first, I can’t say anything. The room actually sounds fuzzy, as if I’m stuck in a weird tunnel. But my fear edges away, fading to anger and love and jealousy. I hate that she has choices right now. I hate that she’s taking them without me.

  “What the fuck are you doing to your room?” I say instead. My eyes narrow over her, concentrating on the way she throws her shoulders back and stands straighter. She wants me to believe she’s okay, except her jaw tenses and her bottom lip wiggles ever so slightly. If she’s going to break me, then I’m going to break her. “What the fuck are you doing? Why would you do that?”

  “I’m redecorating.” She blinks, then swings her gaze back to mine. It’s so fierce, so determined that I swear she just stabbed me. I swear I’m bleeding out in her bedroom. My already unsure feet even stumble when I try for another step toward her.

  “I don’t want you doing this. I don’t want you dropping out because of me.”

  “I loved you,” she says, walking by me. She points her hand out to the hallway, making it clear she wants me gone.

  And because I love her, even if she doesn’t know it, I cave and walk out.

  “But I’m tired of living for the expectations of everyone else in my life—you included. I didn’t drop out because of you, but I am moving out because of you. And I’m going to change my number.” She ducks her lips by my ear, and I swear my fingers ache to haul her up against me one last time. “I’m going to do everything I can to forget you because I don’t want to love you anymore. I can’t,” she whispers, “not if you keep pushing me away.”

  I lost her. It’s all I can think as I stare into her bottomless green eyes, swallowed up by the ugly feelings churning up in my chest.

  “You can go now,” she says. “I took care of the dirty work. I made it easy for you. You love uncomplicated.”

  I deserve all of this. I deserve every hateful thing she can fling my way, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to take. Not without immediately wanting to make up and talk things over. I’m not a complete asshole.

  When I don’t move, she rushes forward and shoves me back against the doorjamb. “You can shut me out. You can pretend to be asleep while I’m stuck trying to fix this. It’s not fair. This isn’t fair, but I still wanted a future with you.”

  My back aches from being jolted into the corner of the doorway. My head aches. My heart…is completely destroyed.

  “Jesus Christ.” Her hand balls into a fist around my T-shirt. “Say something. Anything.”

  She can’t love me because it’s too hard to be with me. And I can’t say anything more, not without spiraling this out of control. I’ve never wanted to tell someone I love them as much as I do now. Even I know it’s not the right time to say it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say instead. When she looks up at me, puzzled, I repeat myself. Then again until I wear those words out.

  Her eyes cloud, and then my heart is truly ripped out of my chest. I’ve made her cry. I’ve made her cry and I can’t fix this. And I do. Fuck, I want to fix this and us and me.

  Mati falls against my chest and wraps her arms around my waist, her ear pressed over my heart. The anger, the bitterness—it seeps into sadness. Utter hopelessness.

  I cup the back of her head with my palm and bend down, gently kissing the crown of her head, taking in one last smell of her apple shampoo. Remembering one last time what it feels like to be with someone who fits me so perfectly.

  Beau and Mati. Mati and Beau. I was going to love her forever. We were going to be it. She is everything to me. Was everything. Will always be everything.

  “For now,” I say, the words thick in my throat, “we have to be over. You have to live your life, and I need to fight for mine. I can’t let you throw everything away for me. You’re going to take over the world. You’re going to make everyone fall on their knees. You’re so brutally brilliant like that. And I can’t be responsible for letting that die just because I might.”

  I can’t tell who’s crying after that confession. We both are, but I can’t make out the edges that separate us anymore. That line has been so blurred, it’s dumb to pretend it ever existed. Paint runs, colors mix into other colors, and Mati and me melt into one heap of melancholy until the air burns in my lungs and I’m forced to acknowledge what’s really happening.

  This is it. This is goodbye.

  Tell her you love her. Tell her.

  I kiss her wet cheeks, knowing too well that I can’t stop her tears. I’m the cause, and she has every right to cry, every reason to hate me, every right to move out and cut me out of her life.

  I’ve never been much of a writer, but suddenly I want to write her novels about everything that lies ahead of her, of what waits if she just lets go and begins to live life for herself instead of trying to please everyone else. I want to tell her everything, but those words get stuck in my throat, too, and I’m silent. Always so fucking quiet. I always thought I’d live loudly, go out fighting. Apparently, I’m wrong. I’m just going to go mute and let it happen.

  “We’re done?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “And that’s it?”

  I shrug.

  “You’re an asshole, Beau Grady.” She pushes up onto her toes and kisses my cheek, then quickly presses her lips over mine so softly it’s almost as if it never happened. “But I love you, and if you decide to take your head out of your ass, I’ll be right there beside you, fighting, so we can have a future together.”

  I nod again. I’m the very bastard who’s stomping on her heart because he’s too scared to imagine hearing he’s dying and having to figure out a way to live the little bit of life he has left with someone he never wants to leave.

  I grab her hand one last time and press my lips against her knuckles, closing my eyes at the sound of her sigh. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to see what it looks like when Mati loses her love for me.

  Tell her. Tell her. Tell her.

  I let go and shuffle back to my room, closing my door on her again. Closing Mati out for good.

  Matisse

  As far as fights go, the one we had earlier was really, really bad.

  But I’m through with work, and I think, I hope, that we can talk through it. That we’re only letting fear get the best of us, that if we try, we can make it through his surgery and whatever else we have to face.

  For all the weeks I’ve spent scared shitless, watching Beau shut me out of his life is so much worse. His back to me, that door in my face—those were certainties.

/>   I grab a tub of ice cream for us to share on the way home and race back on my bike through the drizzle.

  The house is quiet when I step in from the garage. There aren’t any lights on. I knock on Beau’s closed door, then step inside.

  To a completely empty room.

  The air crushes out of my lungs, and my feet go numb. I sink to the floor. To hell with a broken heart, he just ripped mine out.

  Without a word, Reagan walks in with two spoons and opens the ice cream tub, scooping out some. She peers at me and shakes her head, bumping her shoulder into mine as if to say “I know.”

  We finish that container without saying a word out loud.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Matisse

  I’m homeless.

  I guess I am, anyway. I called home to break the news that not only was I not going back to school, but I dropped out of the internship. In between the bouts of yelling, I heard I was throwing my life away and I wasn’t welcome home anymore. That I have to make my own way if I can’t be responsible and make good decisions.

  I probably deserve it.

  I might even care if it wasn’t for me trying to hauling my two suitcases and my bicycle in the rain across the city. I wouldn’t be homeless if I hadn’t moved out, but I couldn’t stand being in the same house, having to walk by his empty room every day.

  I probably could have planned things out better, but the joke’s on me—that never works out. At least that’s what I’ve learned since my I arrived in Portland. I never knew adulthood could be delivered with such a resounding amount of suckage.

  I wrestle my way into the front door of Cole’s apartment building and buzz the intercom.

  I wait for his voice, not expecting to see him walking toward me through the lobby, shaking his head.

  “Two times now, you’ve showed up looking like a drowned rat. Get an umbrella.”

  I try to keep a grip on everything, but the bag on my shoulder slips and my luggage and bike tumble to the floor between us.

  “Where’s the rest of your stuff?” he asks.

  The rest of my impractical things. The items that pile up when you start to put roots down somewhere. Like my pots of flowers and plants, my easel, my bed. Those won’t fit in suitcases, but suitcases are all I have to move with.

  Cole places his hand on my shoulder, nodding as if he can read my mind. “I’ll grab the band’s van and we’ll run over for the rest after you take a shower and warm up. Then the keys are yours and I’m on a plane to Louisiana, subletter.”

  When we go upstairs, I stop, noticing his things are packed and his room has been cleared to become mine. For the summer, at least. In a few months, maybe life will make more sense.

  Since the dorm is closing tomorrow, I couldn’t stay with Aubrey. Cole agreed to let both of us stay at his place for the summer since he’ll be on tour before going to Europe on vacation.

  I wheel my two suitcases into his room, uncomfortably looking at his unmade bed. It’s waiting for my sheets, the drawers waiting for my clothes.

  “Where can I paint?” I ask, cringing when I notice the nice carpet under my feet. I’m going to ruin everything here, leave my colors on all of his things and break his apartment.

  “Wherever you want,” Cole says from the doorway. When I wave my arm out, hopeless and helpless, he sighs. “We’ll get a mat or something if that makes you feel better.”

  I don’t really feel anything at all. After Beau left, the hole in my chest grew until I wasn’t much of anyone anymore.

  “You’re going to have a fun summer,” he says. “Maybe you don’t think so now, but it gets better.”

  But Beau might not get better.

  The thought jumps in front of everything else I want to say. Maybe Cole guesses. He steers me to the bathroom, shows me where the stack of clean towels are, and closes the door.

  “We have to hurry,” he shouts from the other side. “I’m going to miss my plane.”

  I nod to myself, slowly peeling the soaked clothes off my body. My hands are shaking. I didn’t even realize that I’m trembling from being wet and cold. That’s something I should know. That’s something…

  I cup my forehead in my hand and blow out a steadying breath. I thought this would get easier. I thought I meant what I said to Beau about not wanting him in my life, except that was another lie. I blame him. He made a liar out of me. He made me a lot things—happy, mostly, but especially a liar.

  The warm water pulses from the shiny chrome showerhead as though I’m still outside, stuck in a Northwest downpour. I’m about to step in when my phone lights up, buzzing over the granite vanity.

  Beau’s surgery is tomorrow. Can you come up? Quinn texts.

  My stomach drops. I don’t know if I even have the money for it, but I can rent a car or get a bus or something.

  Yes, I text back. Just don’t tell him.

  Beau

  I’m not sure if I’m awake or if I’ve been awake—only that the hospital room floats into view again.

  A nurse messes with something on my arm. She tells me to stop pulling at the IV. I don’t realize I am. The doctor arrives next. He tells me the surgery went well when I ask. Quinn’s in the corner, mad that I said that. I keep asking apparently. I can’t remember that either.

  I want something to drink because the tube down my throat is fucking uncomfortable. My mom hands me only ice chips. I guess that’s okay because, judging by my headache, I might be sick. I try to touch my head, but she swats my hand away. Something about a drainage tube. That doesn’t help me wanting to be sick any.

  The doctor asks me to swallow, to smile, to wiggle my toes. I thought I was getting a tumor removed, not getting surgery to become a circus monkey. I try to focus, but things are hard to follow and I really want to sleep.

  The lights dim and my parents are leaving. The nurse is trying to get Quinn to leave as well, but she’s worried about a box in the corner of the room. She flicks a switch on this round orb, and suddenly the room is filled with bright bursts of light—a million tiny stars covering everything around me.

  “Go to sleep, Beau,” she says softly.

  I don’t answer, at least I don’t think so. Everything sort of quiets inside. The stars spin around the hospital room, wrapping around me. I picture green eyes and then close mine, drifting off to sleep while the stars whirl around the room and draw me into a familiar feeling—something misplaced.

  ***

  The drainage tube is out. I keep getting asked if my head hurts. It does. They have me on painkillers, but nothing strong enough to take away the edge. They need to know if the pain gets worse. At least that’s what the nurse says when I ask.

  It takes two people to get me up and resting in the chair beside the bed. Once I’m there, I fall asleep. When I wake up, my dad is reading a newspaper in the chair opposite me. And when I wake up again, it’s dark out and only Quinn is in the room.

  I can’t follow the hockey game on TV. I keep getting the plays and the players mixed up.

  My attention shifts around the room, landing on that box again—that box of my things. I recognize my hockey jersey on top.

  My things are here. Our time together fits in a box. I’m only a box to her.

  We were so much more.

  I struggle to connect the box to the person missing from this room. Her face in my mind is even a bit blurry. Quinn sits beside me and takes my hand. Mati was here. Mati was here and brought my things and never stayed for when I woke up.

  She’s gone. For good.

  “Mati left yesterday,” Quinn says gently. “After you stabilized in the ICU.”

  I don’t want this to be what I wake up to. I don’t want to miss her voice or that smile. I want her to walk into this room and tell me I’m an idiot so we can make up.

  “She made you something.”

  My sister sits on the edge of the hospital bed and holds out a notebook for me. My arms won’t move. I tell them to move. The only response is my heart rate
on the monitor.

  “Relax,” Quinn says. “I’ll show you.” She opens up the first page, and a laugh scrapes against my dry, sore throat.

  It’s a notebook filled with sketches of Tillamook Beach, of forests, of a couple in bed. They’re pictures of us, our story.

  “I told her she had to do something besides pace the waiting room, so she bought this in the gift shop and started drawing.” Quinn flips the pages, quick enough so I can keep up. And when things start to go a little foggy, she stops and closes the notebook. “Those the rest of your things in the box. Mati gave you that star thing, too. She thought it might remind you of her…in case you had trouble remembering.”

  It did remind of Mati. And her eyes. The brilliant lights that shined down on us under the tent of blankets. Those nights we had under the stars during spring break. The little good we found before everything went to shit.

  “Give me your phone.” As soon as it hits my palm, my mind goes blank. I can’t remember her number, can’t remember how to even find it on a phone. Quinn pulls up Mati’s contact for me, and I call, listening to the rings, counting each one so I remember how long it takes before she picks up.

  I don’t even hear two before she picks up.

  “Is he okay?” Mati asks, skipping a greeting. “What’s the matter?”

  My throat gets thick again. The words get stuck, and I look over to Quinn, panicked.

  “Beau? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

  I want to remember her voice forever. I think I’ve thought that before. That seems like a familiar echo.

  She’s my echo.

  “Mati,” I whisper finally. My eyes land on my box of things in the corner of the room, and it all hits me again. That we’re done. That there’s a border between us now, that I pushed her away, that and we broke up. “Mati.”

  Her name sounds like a prayer on my lips. Maybe it is. I want her here, even if I’m broken and confused and my head is stapled together.