Beautiful Monster: a standalone age-gap romance

by Sara Cate

  The pain would go away. I keep telling myself that every day.

  I love you so much it hurts.

  Those words repeated in my head for days, and by the fourth day, I knew it wasn’t healthy. To love someone so much was reckless. Someone was bound to get hurt.

  On the fifth day, Valerie takes me to the city to get a tour of the program facility. She had put in an official recommendation to the university, which meant I was basically a shoe-in. In true co-op style, the program was housed in a warehouse loft with a small living quarter above, big enough to house eight people with three to four in each room. It was cramped, cozy, but she said the energy was good. I looked forward to the company and the structure. Responsibilities were evenly doled out to every member, which left optimal time for art and exploration.

  The program sounded like a dream, and as she and I sat at a small cafe, I tried to feel as excited as I wanted to feel. I would live and breathe nothing but art for six months. And that was a dream come true. The aching pain in the middle of my chest would subside, eventually.

  On move in day, I take nothing but a duffel bag full of clothes, my new Bluetooth headphones, and the brushes Alexander bought me, even though I knew they needed replacing.

  His large shirt, covered in paint, stays folded on the guest bed in Valerie’s apartment. I almost packed it, but I knew it would only prolong the pain. I need to be rid of this ache as soon as I can.

  By the first day of classes, everyone already knows who I am, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s not because I was Alexander’s too-young girlfriend, but because I was the Sun-kissed Lust artist.

  “You never gave it a proper name,” Valerie says in front of my new roommates. “So… We gave it one for you.”

  My roommates are all young, the oldest being in his mid-twenties. They all appear far more cultured and hip than me, but I brush off the immediate feeling of inadequacy. I imagine Alex standing next to me, introducing me as the wildly talented person, that I am. It helps.

  I’ll take the good things, I tell myself.

  On the first night in the co-op, I cry silently into my pillow, not moving even one muscle in my face as the tears soak the sheets. It’s the first time everything feels so irreversible. I can’t just walk across the yard and crawl into his lap. His bed is miles away, and I should be in it.

  This will go away.

  It has to.

  Alexander

  There’s a blood stain in the grout of the pool house. I can’t help but compare her mark on this world with mine. I have literally nothing better to do that sit on the floor with a toothbrush, trying to scrub the fucking blood out of the grout.

  I’ve been out here since four in the morning, when I woke up with a dick as hard as stone from dreaming about her bent over my couch again. A far cry from the dreams I used to have about banging her in the filthy stall of a shitty club. I refused to palm my own dick after waking up. I want to feel the fucking pain because it’s all I have left. When it doesn’t hurt, I feel nothing, and I hate feeling nothing.

  “Alex,” a voice calls from the front door. Charlotte told me she’d be bringing me food today, but I wish she wouldn’t bother. I didn’t want to tell her about Sunny in the first place, but she figured it out by my tone over the phone. She said I sounded like night and day, and that metaphor is not lost on me.

  The sun is fucking gone...in case it wasn’t clear enough.

  “Jesus,” she mutters as she finds me on the floor. Her shoulders heave with a sigh, and she reaches out to help me up. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  “Want to talk about it?” she asks, walking back into the house. She starts pulling groceries out of the reusable shopping bags she carried in. I tried grocery shopping yesterday, but I walked in, took one look at the carts she used to ride on and the seaweed snacks by the counter, and I skipped the shopping and beelined for the overpriced Whole Foods bar instead. Apparently, they have a three-drink maximum, but if you’re Alexander Caldwell and you flirt with the bartender enough, she’ll serve you five.

  “Not really,” I answer, pulling the cookies she knows I love out of the bag and ripping open the box.

  “I’ve never seen you this bad, Alex.” There’s a hint of a smile on her face, and it’s making it very hard not to lose my shit.

  I don’t have an answer to that so I simply shrug, tossing a cookie into my mouth.

  “Can you fix it?”

  The idea of explaining it sounds exhausting, so I lean back on the stool and rest my head against the cool quartz countertop. “It’s complicated, Char.”

  “Complicated is good, Alex.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I snap back, losing my patience.

  “It means that every relationship you’ve suffered in the past had a pretty simple demise. You cheated on her, she cheated on you. You stopped calling or you lost interest. Complicated means there were more complex feelings involved, and I’m not gonna lie, Alex...this is what you needed.”

  “I needed to have my heart ripped out of my chest?”

  Finally, Charlotte sits down on the stool opposite me. “I’m going to need more information. I have nothing but time, but first, you need a shower.” She waves her hand in front of her, and I can’t help but laugh. The most I’d really showered in four days was a couple cold dips in the pool to stave off the raging hard-ons.

  “Fine. Make me something to eat, and I’ll tell you about it when I get out.”

  The shower is exactly what I need. The hot water beats down on the stiff muscles in my neck and shoulders, further proof that I’ve been sleeping like shit.

  When I come out, my sister finishes grilling a panini on my stove and passes me a plate that smells like roast beef and peppers, the first hot meal I’ve had in days. Over our lunch, I tell her the basic rundown, Sunny leaving for the internship, the conversations we had before the end, the fights, the silent but mutual acceptance that she needed to do this on her own.

  After I’m done, I’m surprised to find my sister’s eyes moist and red-rimmed. “What?” I blurt out, seeing the emotion on her face.

  “I wanted this for you, that’s all.”

  “I feel like a teenager,” I sigh. “Lovesick and missing my girlfriend. It’s pathetic.”

  “And you don’t think she’ll come back when the program is over?”

  “I don’t want her to, Charlotte. Sunny has her whole life ahead of her. She’s going to get jobs all over the world. I’m forty-fucking-years old. She doesn’t need me weighing her down.”

  “Alex,” she says, putting her hand on my arm. “I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. I thought you were back at your same old tricks, getting in bed with a teenager. But when I came over and saw you two together...I’d never seen you happier. And not just a superficial happy either. Baby, you were more yourself with her than you ever were without her.”

  It's hard to breathe. I know what she’s saying is true, and I was happy with Sunny. But it doesn’t make anything easier. She’s not telling me anything I don’t already know.

  “I’ll get over it,” I mumble, moving crumbs around on my plate.

  She laughs quietly. “No, darling. You won’t.”

  Her words stay with me for the rest of the day. And something about the hot meal and hot shower has me feeling energized, more than usual. My mind is running a mile a minute, and I desperately need something to busy my hands so I glare at the stack of boxes in the corner of the living room. Putting on a little music on the Bluetooth speakers, I start opening them one by one.

  As I start hanging pictures and arranging books on the shelves, I replay every moment with Sunny from the first encounter to the very end. I remember the first time I wanted to kiss her, when she came over and stared at that blank wall, and I remember the first time my lips finally touched hers.

  A play-by-play runs through in my mind as I work from one room after another. By the time I finish unpacking the la
st box, working through the memory of her bent over the couch, knowing it was goodbye, I’m spent.

  So spent, I fall asleep on the shag rug in the middle of the living room.

  In my dreams, she’s there, lying on top of me, her hands caressing my chest, my shoulders, my neck. She whispers against my skin.

  “Show me.”

  And somewhere between dreaming and awake, I let my hand do what my body so desperately craves. With her name on my lips, I let the vision of her, riding me like the beautiful confident woman she is, carry me through until I’m calling out for her and spilling my seed all over my own hand.

  After I clean myself up, I hit the showers again, crawl into my bed, feeling more at home than I have since I moved in. I’m finally surrounded by the things that make me, me and I think about what my sister said. I wasn’t just happy when Sunny was around, I was free to be myself, and I know I never would have gotten there without her.

  Sunny

  Four months later

  The inspiration won’t come. The more I stare at these paints, the less I feel like a true artist.

  I’ve had a pretty amazing experience so far in the program, after the first few weeks of misery, but at the end of the first month, I started sleeping through the night. I stopped crying and started making friends.

  I still missed him so much it hurt. He was always in my dreams, and whenever I started painting or sketching anything he was there. But it wasn’t killing me anymore. Time was not going to heal this wound, but at least I grew used to the pain.

  Our first showcase is this weekend, and we’ve each been given a commissioned area of the downtown square for their annual City Arts Festival to design and display however and whatever we want. I have a sketchbook full of ideas, but nothing feels powerful or important enough.

  “Girl, just start painting,” Hanna, my German roommate calls toward me while I stare at the spray paint cans at my feet. I’ve started to fall in love with spray paint. It was never my usual medium, but there’s something about the toxic smell and way you can manipulate it that’s led me to pick it up more than my brushes anymore. That and my acrylics still bring back too many memories.

  If I pop open my paints, I smell them on his skin. I feel his lips on my back. I hear his voice in my ear. But he’s not really there, so I don’t bother teasing myself.

  I didn’t invite him to the festival. Of course, it’s a free event to the public, so maybe he’ll come anyway. Maybe he’ll bring someone new. Maybe I’ll see him strolling through the crowd, admiring the sidewalk chalk display with a supermodel on his arm and a look on his face like he doesn’t even remember my name.

  I did invite my mom, Cadence, and my dad. I haven’t spoken to Dad since the fight, and I doubt he’ll come, but I feel ready to finally put the pain and anger I hold toward him behind me. I’d like to act like a regular father and daughter now, unless he chooses not to show, at which point I will move on anyway.

  Love cannot be replaced. The love someone denies you cannot be filled by someone else. Alexander gave me enough of it to make up for what my parents denied me, but it was never intended to. He didn’t give me love to fill the empty cup. He gave me love to teach me how to stand on my own without it.

  Those times he forced my chin up, made me look at what I’d accomplished, what I deserved...he built the legs I’m strong enough to stand on now. The rest of them were only concerned with knocking them out from underneath me, so I never had to look down on them.

  I know Cadence is coming. I’ve spoken to her every day, and I get the feeling that watching me pursue my dream is inspiring her. I can’t wait to see her face.

  I hope my mother comes. I want to see her face outside of our backyard.

  “You’re going to run out of time, you hussy. Start painting.” I’ve gotten used to Hanna’s brash attitude and terms of endearment. I hated her at first. I was in so much pain and moping, but she was never gentle with telling me to snap out of it, stop crying and use my pain in my art. She is German through and through.

  The other housemates have been kind and wonderful, but I didn’t bond with them the way I did with Hanna.

  “You’re nervous because you think he’ll come,” she calls over to me from her spot of eight by eight, taped up along the wall. “Or you're nervous he won’t come. Either way, use it and start fucking painting!”

  “Both,” I mumble as I pick up the seafoam green paint. If I paint something he’d like to see, I’ll be disappointed when he doesn’t show. If I don’t paint something for him, I’ll miss an opportunity to show him something of meaning if he comes.

  “Come on, Sunny,” she calls, and I laugh. Her painting isn’t much more done than mine, and this is all we really have to finish this week, so I don’t know why she’s being such a pain in my ass.

  Hearing her say my name makes me think of the first time she heard it and laughed at me. “You are anything but Sunny,” she said, and it immediately made me bawl because it’s what he said. It took me a couple more weeks before I opened up to her about that and told her what his nickname was for me. His little rain cloud.

  I don’t feel much like a rain cloud anymore. At least I’m not so down and sad anymore. I’m still sad, but I live with it. I work through it, and I used it to push me forward. Don’t get me wrong, I’d kill to see him again. I’d crawl back to our bed if I could, and I don’t foresee myself ready to move on to anyone else anytime soon. I can’t even look at other guys right now, and I definitely underestimated the amount of partying that would go on here. But none of it interests me.

  Part of me is still holding out for him. I know that. And I know that will go away with time, too.

  The idea of the rain cloud nags at my mind, and I look down at my colors again. Without a sketch, I grab the gray paint and stare at the wall.

  “Fuck it,” I say and start the outline of a cloud on the wall. Within minutes, I have a full sketch in my head, and I have to move fast before it goes away. Whether he comes or not, I’ll make sure he sees this. I think he’ll be proud of it.

  The day of the festival comes around, and I’m so busy running around, helping set everything up that I don’t even register the nerves. It’s the first nice weekend of the year, and it’s finally warm enough for people to be outside so, the streets are instantly flooded. The wall of student submissions is just along the main drag, giving us a perfect view of the crowds. We’re supposed to stand by our artwork all day, but the sun is blazing, and even with the cool breeze, I feel like I’m sweating my ass off. It’s already crowded when I find my rain cloud and stand by it. Hanna is there next to me, taking hits off her vape pen every five minutes.

  When I feel my phone buzzing, I know it’s Cadence, so I fish it out and give her directions to where I’m standing. A moment later, I hear her shrieking as she bolts across the crowd and snatches me up into her arms. This is the first time Cadence and I have been apart in our entire lives. Even when I was at Alex’s house, I still had her nearby, and I could see her when I wanted.

  Suddenly seeing her for the first time in five months has me feeling emotional. I run toward her, meeting with a hug that knocks the breath out of us both. There’s something to be said about having your sister around when you’re feeling bad, but having her here when I’m feeling good might be my favorite.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she cries into my hair. When she pulls away, her face is wet with tears, and I marvel at just how gorgeous my sister is. While everything about me feels quiet, small, and meek, Cadence is fierce, loud, and fearless.

  “This one is yours?” she asks as she steps forward, squeezing my hand in hers. I feel myself looking around for mom, but it becomes painfully obvious that she came alone.

  She catches me looking. Biting her lip, she says, “She’s at Passages. She didn’t want me to tell you, but I thought you should know. If she was going to miss this, I knew you’d be happy to know it was for good reason.”

  It feels like a weight has been
lifted off my shoulders. My mother going to rehab, and not using the smallest reason to bail, feels major. I want to ask more, but I can tell it’s weighing on Cadence too much so I change the subject. I tell her all about my rain cloud, and she tries her best not to cry. Then she tells me about a hundred more times that she’s proud of me.

  “Is he coming?” she asks without looking at my face.

  “I don’t think so,” I answer quietly. “I didn’t invite him.”

  When I glance at her, I see her biting her lip, and I can tell she’s holding something back. Of course, she lives behind him, and she can probably see just about everything he does. If she knew something about him, I could ask and she would tell me.

  But that would only make things harder. If he’s moved on, I don’t even want to think about how bad that would hurt to hear, but also if she tells me that he’s miserable, it will only make this pain I’m enduring last longer.

  She must sense my hesitation because she looks at me. “How are you holding up?” And I know she’s referring to him.

  I shrug. “A little better every day.”

  “Breakups are hard, sis, but I have to admit. I didn’t see this one coming. It took Alexander so long to find someone he was willing to give it all up for...I didn’t think he’d ever let that go.”

  The wind leaves my lungs like her words ripped it out.

  He let me go. All this time, I saw this as setting me free, but something about hearing her say it the way she did makes it sound like he sacrificed himself for me.

  The whole time he was afraid he was pulling me down. Alexander held onto me so tight because I was the one thing holding him above water. And he let me go.

  I’m suddenly desperate to know how he is. I should have called or texted or something to keep tabs on him, to make sure he’s okay. He was always supposed to take care of me, but who’s taking care of him?

  But just as I’m about to ask, Hannah interrupts us by introducing herself to my sister. She offers to watch my spot, even though there’s really nothing for me to do, so Cadence and I can go get some lunch together.