by Kristi Ayers
“No, not until after the New Year. But I’ll be okay. I’m sorry to make you stay; you don’t have to—”
“Holland, I can stay. Right in this chair. I don’t mind at all.” I knew she usually either had her roommate or Adam with her every night. If I left her alone, she’d probably just end up crying herself to sleep. Or not sleeping at all. I would end up staying awake all night worrying.
She took a few moments to toss thoughts around in her head, then she said, “Okay, but not in that chair. You can take my bed and I’ll sleep in Violet’s. I just really don’t want to be alone with my own mind.”
“You don’t have to explain. Just let me shoot Douglas a quick text so he doesn’t worry.”
She yawned behind her palm. “I guess I am sleepy. Funny, I feel like I could stay awake all night after these last few days.”
“We should lie down, then. You’re exhausted, even if you don’t feel like you are.”
“I have an extra toothbrush—not that it was meant for anyone.” She blushed. “I just like having extra things around.”
I smiled at how she seemed a little nervous. It looked adorable on her. “Let’s see this toothbrush that isn’t meant for anyone in particular.”
We started brushing at the same time and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. There was only one sink in her tiny restroom, so we’d have to take turns spitting and rinsing. When she was leaning over doing that, I slid beside her to go next. She raised up and our gazes locked in the mirror. I stopped brushing, mesmerized how stunningly raw she looked. Her lips were damp with water and eyes reddened from crying earlier, but she was beautiful.
She reached for two hand towels, one that she drew up to her mouth, and the other for me to use. She slipped out of the bathroom and began rummaging in a dresser. I finished and stepped out.
“I’m just going to change my clothes.” She paused, holding her sleep clothes to her chest, then said, “Oh, I don’t have anything for you…do you want to run and get anything from your room?”
No, because I couldn’t handle lying in your bed in anything other than jeans. “I’m fine in this. Really. I probably fall asleep with my clothes on more times than I like to admit.” I didn’t, but she didn’t need any ammo to force me to change into clothes that would only make me forget my job tonight.
The moment I relaxed onto her pillow, I knew my job was going to be that much more difficult to keep from doing all the things I’ve wanted to do with her for months. Her scent swirled around me, each inhalation proving to be more difficult to control my errant thoughts. She came out of the bathroom and I didn’t dare glance at her. The tiny sleep shorts and shirt I saw her grab wouldn’t help calm my imagination.
“Goodnight, Holland.”
“’Night, Max.” She yawned again.
What I thought would be a night of tossing and turning between bouts of intense, uncontrollable fantasies ended up being one of the best sleeps I had in forever. I woke up with a smile, feeling fully rested and happy, until I realized I was completely and entirely alone.
Chapter 19
Holland
I couldn’t fathom waking up and conversing first thing in the morning with Max; my emotions were all over the place. And one thing was certain.
I needed to be alone.
All the toggling ideas about continuing to have a normal social life rather than evading all living people totally went out the window at around four thirty in the morning, when I had to leave before Max woke up.
His soft breathing and dark silhouetted form in my bed played tricks on my mind. I erroneously worried I’d look over and think he was Adam, but no, that never happened. I was fully aware it was Max, and secretly excited he cared enough to stay with me. He slept peacefully while I worked out my thoughts to an exhaustingly thorough extent.
Adam undoubtedly hurt me, whether he meant to or not, making him the quintessential example of a toxic boyfriend. He thought of himself first and the rest of the world if he had time. I hoped he could rise above his alcohol addiction, but I honestly didn’t have it in my heart to stand by him. Not that he wanted me to; he’d said his final goodbye, after all. A goodbye that meant deleting his phone number, which I did around three in the morning. He most likely was going to change it anyway, but I didn’t want to have a weak moment and try to contact him, only to find a dead number. I wanted to cut all possible communication routes first.
I won’t avoid the blaring truth; it hurt to lose my virginity to someone who ultimately treated it like a newly released movie. He was fully invested, attentive, and enjoyed the afterglow, but real life was outside the theater doors, and when time was up, he threw away the soda and popcorn because he himself was just that. Empty. Done.
I was nothing but a stellar distraction.
And now I needed to gather the torn pieces of myself that were left scattered at every spot we walked and seam them back together with gold so that one day I’d be able to turn my scars into something whole again, something stronger. Like the art of Kintsugi.
Not many places were open this early in the morning as I took a bus into the city. The crisp, cold air was somewhat cleansing as it nipped the skin on my face, the only area not bundled on me. The fog from my breath rose into the first slivers of daybreak, urging me to pick a place for the comfort of a warm, aromatic cup of coffee. I finally pivoted into a cozy café offering bakery and breakfast items. The confectionary scent mixed with ground coffee beans had me at the first whiff. I sat in a booth by a window overlooking the street. A young waitress immediately greeted me and took my order.
A bit later, after I finished a cherry chocolate Danish and nursed my second cup of coffee, I saw a familiar face walk into the café.
Douglas?
My eyebrows drew together as I squinted to be sure that it was in fact him.
He turned and spotted me, beaming instantly. “Holland.” His messy mop of hair looked only a touch less chaotic, as if he took a moment to tame it for once. He strode over to me. “What are you doing here? It’s six in the morning on a day we have, thank God, no classes.”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“Touché. My weakness is in the form of delectably delicious puff pastries and the like. This place has the best. I thought that you…” He shook his head and seemed to think better of what he was about to say.
“Would you like to sit down? I already had a Danish, but I’m still working on my coffee.”
“Sure, thanks.” He took his coat off and slid into the seat across from me. After he ordered a plethora of different sugary, fruity items and a coffee, he sat back, hands behind his head, elbows in the air. “So. Did you have a nice holiday with the parental unit?”
He knew everything that happened last night; I could read him like a book. “How long do you plan to skirt around the obvious?”
He let out a long breath and dropped his arms. “Well, a bit longer, like until after I got my order.”
“That’s fair,” I conceded. I sipped my coffee and looked out the window, wondering how this conversation was going to proceed. I didn’t want to hear him tell me he knew this whole thing with Adam was destined to happen, that Adam would slice my heart just like the long line of hearts before me, and I’d be left trying to sew the contents of my chest back in place. “Look, I’m not really wanting to talk about Adam.” I hooked my thumb in the direction of my phone sitting on the table. “I’m not waiting for him to contact me like some pining preteen. I deleted his number this morning.”
Douglas sat straighter, his eyebrows raising, as if what I said changed what he was about to say. Right about then, his order came. He took a few bites and scrutinized my face, reading it in a way that made me nervous.
“What? Just spit it out. You’re killing me.”
He dabbed powdered sugar off his mouth like some uppity intellectual ready to confess the mysteries of the universe and leaned forward.
The waitress took that moment to give him his c
heck. “No rush; take your time,” she said, monotone, her eyes barely making contact before rushing away.
He glanced at the copy of the bill after she left and nearly fell over, clutching his chest.
“What? Did she mess up the bill?”
“No.” He stared, perplexed, at the rectangular slip of paper. “She gave me her phone number…” he said slowly.
My jaw dropped, then I immediately grinned from ear to ear. “That’s great!” Max had told me Douglas wasn’t the one to land the attention of many girls. They all had flocked to Adam mostly.
“Maybe Adam’s departure is good for more than one person.” His lips slid into a dark grin.
“It seems so.” Then I thought about it and wondered what exactly he’d meant by more than one. “Wait, who is the other person benefiting from his leaving, because it’s not me. The last eleven hours have been…” I shook my head, unable to put words to what I’d endured.
“Holland.” He looked at me with earnest eyes, his face completely devoid of humor. “Open your eyes. Someone has been in love with you since day one.”
“What?” My voice came out mousy.
“Max. Max has been stupid over you to the point where he has become his own love song, unrequited, as of yet.”
The last few months played in rewind, my mind replaying every moment Max and I shared. If I thought about everything before our kiss, yeah, this could be true. But the moment I tried to deepen our connection into something more was the moment he designated me as…what? I had no clue, but that was the end of it. “You must be mistaken. He doesn’t want— It just doesn’t make any sense.” I shook the thought out of my head, certain he was wrong.
He gave me a tortured look. “Holland. Seriously?”
“He kissed me and then he…thought better of it.” I twisted my lips and shrugged. “He changed his mind.”
“He didn’t change his mind,” he said, exasperated. “He pulled away because he knew Adam had his sights on you. You and Adam had a history of sorts and Max knew better than to compete with him. Adam ruined a potential relationship in high school for Max and he didn’t want a repeat of those fun times.”
I didn’t know what to think about this. To a rather overwhelming extent, it made me hate Adam, now that I was living in the thick of his rejection and learning he had a track record for being a greedy asshole. My curiosity got the better of me, so I asked, “How long was he with that girl?”
Solemnly, Douglas tented his fingers and divulged what I already knew deep in my gut. “Not long, maybe a month.”
Like me.
I hurt for that girl. And double for Max. History really was in repeat for him, as much as he tried to avoid it. The puzzle pieces were connecting, and finally, I was able to see the whole picture. Max was never able to get close to someone because Adam would sweep in and take without regard to anyone else, and when he was unable to use that girl to numb his pain, he moved on. Much like Bex, but they were together longer because she was just as toxic, and she undoubtedly enabled him to keep captaining his sinking ship.
This was a lot to take in and Douglas mistook my pensive silence as the end of the subject. “Her name is Jessy.”
“What?”
He held up his bill. “The waitress who obviously wants to kiss and caress me amorously. Jessy.” His eyebrows moved up and down comically.
I cracked a smile. The change in topics gave me a break to think about something else before my head exploded from thoughts zinging around like pinballs. “Yeah, you should call her. She’s cute.”
“In a broody sort of way. I come here frequently, and she has yet to crack a smile, or even a sneer.” He swept the café with his eyes, looking for her. She was taking an order from another table, a bored look on her face. “I bet I could make her smile, or at the very least, not frown. Yes, I think I’ll contact her, ask her out on a proper date and the such.”
It was cute to watch the beginning of something, the first lines in his potential love biography. “So, Romeo, where would you take her, someplace snazzy or…?”
“Good inquiry.” He pondered for a moment. “This I will have to mull over before I execute the text.”
“Does she know you play music? Maybe serenade her?”
“Like Max did for you?”
“Whoa. That was Adam who invited me to watch you guys.”
“Yeah, but Max recognized you, which made him try entirely too hard to sound good, wherein he suffered an unfortunate voice crack and an undue plethora of humiliation.”
I was about to argue his wordy declaration regarding Max’s unnecessary embarrassment, but something Douglas said stood out. “What do you mean he recognized me?”
He froze. Swallowed. “Did I say that? I meant, when he saw you. You know. At Adam’s.”
I studied his face closely with a discerning eye and noted he couldn’t meet mine. He looked at his coffee mug. Out the window. Over to another table. “Douglas. What aren’t you telling me?”
He exhaled a lengthy breath and reluctantly gave in. “I hope you caught that my longsuffering sigh means that I really don’t want to tell you this, not because I don’t think you should know, but because I think he should be the one telling you. Max.”
“Spill it.”
He wiped a hand down his face, truly not wanting to tell me this. “He told me the first time he saw you he found you under a tree with a storm coming. You were pretty much frozen with fear. Of what, he didn’t know. He got you to your dorm—our dorm—right before the rain started. He was shocked to see you again at Adam’s house because he spent the previous few days wishing he got the number from the girl who caught his attention in a way other girls hadn’t—other girls who were superficial and threw themselves at him because he had the mysterious rocker thing going on. He said the real emotions you had that day made you beautiful in his eyes.”
I sat back, stunned mute.
He saw me in the middle of one of my episodes. When I was not in my right mind, removed from all rational thought, stuck in an endless reel of horror about my sister, he thought I was beautiful. Max was seeing…just me.
On top of that, he directed me to shelter, to safety, unknowingly bringing me back to myself, back to reality. He could have left me there. He could have ignored the strange girl who obviously had issues, but he didn’t.
I had an idea. “Can you amplify my violin?”
“Well, of course.”
Later that day, after debating for thirty minutes on what exact words to use, I texted Max.
Me: You, me, at six tonight on the boardwalk by the costume store. In?
Max: Very cryptic, but I’m intrigued.
Me: So, yes?
Max: Count me in.
Me: Keep your ears open.
Max: They always are.
After Douglas set up an impromptu concert venue in front of the now closed costume shop, we both stood there equally nervous, me for Max and him for Jessy. Okay, I was also nervous because I’d never done this kind of thing before. I wasn’t a street performer. Just envisioning people stopping to stare at us made me want to vomit.
The city was still adorned with Christmas lights, setting a romantic atmosphere for our little serenade. People were out enjoying themselves regardless of the ocean chill in the air. Strolling, shopping, taking in all the boardwalk had to offer. It seemed to be the happening place to spend the evening.
Douglas enlisted the help of Wes, Kyle, and Jordan from the band. We needed the additional sound of a guitar, keyboard, and cajon to pull this off. The guys were more than happy to help. It was second nature for them to play in front of crowds. Sure, I’d played in front of an entire audience in the orchestra setting many times, and critical judges for competitions, but that was with the intention of playing well-rehearsed classical music. This…this was entirely on another level.
Jessy showed up first, just as Douglas planned. He got her a fold-out chair to sit in and a steaming cup of coffee from the java shop a few
doors down. Her eyebrows twitched, maybe a slip that she was impressed? Far from a smile, but the night was still young.
I scanned the passersby, intently looking for Max’s familiar tall frame, and hoping when I did, I could imagine it was just the two of us because what I was about to do would be the most soul-bearing thing I’d ever done.
Promptly at six o’clock, we spotted Max walking toward our location. Douglas motioned for Kyle to count the beat. It was go-time. I stepped up to the microphone the moment Jordan played the familiar keyboard intro of Coldplay’s song “The Scientist.”
And then I started singing, my violin and bow gripped loosely to my side, like holding hands with a long-time friend, infusing me with a different kind of courage. I heard my voice from the speakers, and for the first time since I decided to do this, I relaxed. I relaxed because my voice sounded like Lia’s. It was shockingly familiar and ended up being the most comforting sound I’d heard in a long time. It was as if she were the one singing, and I was only standing next to her. My voice bled the passion she had every time she sang.
The lyrics were for Max, though, who stood a few feet in front of me with a look of dawning wonderment, his eyes barely taking a moment to even blink.
And it happened; everyone disappeared. The crowd blurred into a mix of muted colors. The guys behind me carried the song, but they ceased to truly exist, as if the instruments were simply coming from a track.
When it came time for the instrumental part, I raised my violin and played, my eyes never leaving Max. The mix of instruments meshed so well, it sounded as if we all had been playing together for years. Then when it was time for me to continue singing again, I lowered my violin. I remained in this alternate headspace until the last note, when I finally came back to myself.
A crescendo of applause came from all directions, a few whistles from the distance. The guys behind me were clapping and shouting praise. The blur of colors became people again, and I noticed quite the crowd had gathered, but all I cared about was the feel of Max’s arms circling me in an ecstatic hug.