Has to Be Love

by Jolene Perry

  I stare at him with what must be a totally blank look because I have zero idea what he just asked. He tenses next to me again, making me feel worse because I’m being a really bad girlfriend tonight. Or fiancé. Or whatever.

  “I’m sorry. Zoned out.” I rest my hand on his leg under the table, and Elias relaxes into a soft smile—the one that tingles in my stomach.

  “I was just saying how generous it is of your dad to give you such a nice break before school gets out and before we start wedding planning and all that.”

  Dad drops his fork. I stare at my plate. Elias’s jaw sets.

  Rhodes coughs a few times before slapping his chest. “You’re not getting married soon, are you?”

  “I don’t see any reason to wait.” Elias takes my hand under the table. “We love each other. We know we want to get married. The house will be done in a little over a month.”

  “What about Columbia? You don’t turn down something like that,” Rhodes says.

  “Stop,” I say quietly, glancing at Rhodes for just long enough to see his face fall and for my heart to squeeze because of it.

  I pat Elias’s leg under the table and kiss his cheek.

  Rhodes coughs again, and I feel Elias’s leg muscles tense under my hand. I really, really hope this is the most awkward situation I’ll ever encounter, because I’m wishing to burst into flames. It would get me out of this situation and be infinitely more comfortable. I close my eyes and make a silent wish to disappear from the table, and then I start to bargain.

  Dear Heavenly Father,

  I know I’m not perfect, but if I could be excused from this situation, I would much appreciate it. And I promise to be better about reading my scriptures and saying my prayers and not wishing so hard that Elias didn’t feel the need to be so good around me.

  Thank you, Clara

  But I open my eyes to see Rhodes poking at his food with too much force, Dad leaning back in his chair staring at the wall, and Elias a little red from frustration or embarrassment, or both.

  “I’ll get more chicken.” I stand and grab the serving dish, even though there are still three more pieces, and head for the kitchen.

  Does running from the table count as an answer to my bargain-prayer? I’m not sure. But I grab the iron skillet and a furious pain shoots up my arm because the burner is still on.

  “Ouch! Shit! Shoot!” I slam on the faucet and shove my hand into the cool stream of water. Three sets of worried eyes are on me within ten seconds. The water has soaked my sleeve up past my elbow, but I’m not ready to take my hand out of the stream.

  “You okay?” Rhodes appears first, but Elias pushes his way around him and gently turns my hand under the faucet to investigate. Dad’s on the end of the kitchen rubbing his forehead at the two boys’ hovering concern.

  Well, this is some crappy way to answer my bargain-prayer. Is a burnt hand my way out? Now I guess I know to be careful what I bargain for.

  “I’m gonna get some aloe,” I say quickly. The best way to win back some points with Elias is saying, “Can you help?”

  He follows me up the stairs without a word.

  Once we’re in my small bathroom, I strip down to my camisole, drop my wet shirt on the floor, and stick my hand back under the water.

  “You okay?” he whispers as he steps close behind me.

  “Just needs to stay underwater for a bit.” I relax as the burning fades into the stream of water.

  “Okay.”

  Elias’s fingers start tracing patterns across my back and shoulders. He follows the lines of my scars where they disappear into my tank top. His warmth presses against my back as his fingers slide across my collarbone. Chills run through me, and I look up in the mirror to see Elias’s eyes closed and shiver when his breath hits my neck.

  When his lips meet the top of my shoulder, I’m still staring at us in the mirror. My marred face. His perfect one. Elias, who is so familiar and who I should be swooning over right now. This is what I wanted. Only I still feel empty. Elias is right here, and my chest is hollow. I have no idea how to fill it back up. I don’t know why this isn’t enough.

  “Can you just hold me?” I whisper.

  And without question, he does.

  “Clara.” Dad’s gruff voice carries through my door and I roll over to see the clock. One a.m. What the …

  “It’s me!” Cecily leaps through the door around Dad, and I grin.

  “I’ll leave you two.” Dad backs up a step. “Just don’t keep an old guy awake.”

  Cecily slides in my bed and giggles as she tugs the blankets up to her chin.

  I relax under the covers. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.”

  “Tell me everything,” she says. “Because getting half stories over the phone isn’t cutting it.” Her large brown eyes widen. Her face is so familiar. It’s what I imagine a sibling’s would feel like. Her dark-toned skin makes my white sheets glow and makes her smile feel even bigger. I’ve missed her so much.

  My brain’s chaos settles, my chest relaxes, and I know we’ll barely sleep for the rest of the night. I tell her about how weird it feels to be engaged, and then about my burned hand at dinner and how Elias came upstairs with me. How my thoughts are jumbled over guys and school, and how I wish they weren’t. I wish I knew what to do.

  And the silence fills my room.

  “I’m glad I’m back,” she says, tucking her short hair off her face.

  I’m not ready for advice. I haven’t even sorted out all my thoughts.

  “I’m so glad you’re back.” I laugh a little and scoot lower in my bed.

  “And now as you try to fall asleep I’m going to whisper all the millions of reasons I think you should come to New York with me in the fall …”

  And she does.

  At some point I fall asleep wondering if I’ll ever go to New York again after my weekend. I really need to make this trip count.

  23

  I’m doing it alone. I’m at freaking LaGuardia Airport. I’m half-terrified and half-empowered. The noise of the terminal slams into my ears, and the only thing I’m sure I got right is that I’m on a curb that Lachelle can come pick me up from.

  It’s just so much. I tilt my head forward as I get yet another sideways look from a passerby. Whispers on the plane, at the airports …wonder what happened … She’s almost pretty … A gang? A knife? An animal?

  I grasp my phone more tightly and send Cecily a text. I’m telling you she’s not coming.

  I tug my hair down again and keep my face tilted toward the ground while also watching for Lachelle.

  Chill. She’ll be there.

  And I’m sure Cecily is right, but she was crazy excited when I brought up the trip to New York so she’ll do anything to put my mind at ease.

  My stomach’s rolling again. What do I do if I hate Lachelle? If she hates me? If she forgets to pick me up? I’ve never sat in a cab. I don’t even know where to tell the driver to go. Would the driver speak English? They rarely do in the movies.

  A small, white VW pulls up at the curb, and a girl I only sort of recognize from Rhodes’s phone waves from the driver’s seat. She reaches over to push open the passenger door before I realize I should maybe get in the car.

  “Clara?” she asks. Her small blouse is collared and she’s in a fantastic snug skirt, even for just coming to the airport. Her short, wavy hair sticks around her face like a girl from the twenties. I already feel a little unworthy in worn jeans, running shoes, and T-shirt—her being so put together only makes it worse.

  “That’s me.”

  “I guessed.” She smirks, her eyes scanning the right side of my face and her smile faltering, but just slightly.

  Right. I told her about being the scarred-up girl. I’m pretty easy to pick out.

  I sit down in the passenger’s seat, and she slips back inside the car.

  “Wow.” She leans forward and gets a good look at my face. I’m never sure what to do when people do thi
s, though I prefer it to the weird half-glances when people try not to stare. “They didn’t look so dramatic from the pic Rhodes sent. But … wow. I can’t believe you’re alive. Intense, Clara.”

  Instead of trying to figure out how I feel about her reaction, all I can think is, Rhodes has a picture of me? I’m not sure how I feel about that. Mostly warm and sort of flushed all over, which in turn makes me feel mostly bad. But not all bad. The wave of heat is a kind of high in itself.

  Lachelle snorts as she pulls into the lanes of airport traffic. “You didn’t know he took a picture?”

  I shake my head.

  “Awesome. This is even better. He now gains stalker status. Everyone’s already given him crap because he’s talked about you. The pic he sent is one where you’re in your desk next to some hot guy, and I couldn’t see your scars as well as I can see them now. But you were very obviously a student, and he’s obviously crushing on you a little, so you can imagine we’ve been giving him a hard time.”

  “Oh.” And the hot guy is Elias. The guy whose ring I took off before my flight. It felt weird to keep it on and weird to take it off. In the end I took it off because I knew I’d already feel like the small-town girl, and being engaged before high school is over sorta pushes that to the forefront. At least that’s what I keep telling myself to ease some of the guilt over being relieved that it’s in my jewelry box at home.

  “Anyway. I’ve been curious to meet the girl who has our Rhodes’s panties in a bunch.” Lachelle laughs lightly as she hits the gas, jerking us into traffic.

  “I’m … um … dating the hot guy next to me.” Engaged, actually … another part of my life that feels foreign.

  “Oh.” She lays on the horn and our car jerks to a stop. “Watch it, asshole!”

  I grab my chest as my heart races. Lachelle pats my knee. “Don’t stress. New York is always like this. But be warned. I haven’t driven in ages. Borrowed my cousin’s car for the weekend, though it might be more trouble than it’s worth. He lives in Jersey.”

  “Oh.” There’s too much to take in.

  “Bridge or tunnel?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Shit. Never mind. It’s too late.” She hits the gas.

  The buildings along the expressway suddenly give way to bridge supports, and I hold my breath at how incredible everything is. Across the river, Manhattan looks like a forest of buildings—a forest of ingenuity and design and function.

  Lachelle chatters about needing to hit the library and that there’s some party for literature students, and I just stare out the window of the small car. The bridge gives way to more city streets. People. Everywhere there are people—more beats and rhythms and meters than I could ever hope to count. I’m already a little in love.

  “A parking space!” She points as she turns the car down a side street. “Holy shit, a space!”

  I cringe into the seat as she once again hits the gas, slams on her blinker, and in two seconds has us next to the curb.

  “I’ve never parked this close.” She slips off the seat belt. “At least the few times I’ve borrowed the car. What were we talking about?”

  I clear my throat, determined to at least try to be the cool version of myself. “I don’t remember.”

  My body’s stiff from the flight, but my suitcase is out of the back of her car and in her hands. She’s on the sidewalk with dozens of other people. She just stands there waiting for my stiff body to unfold itself from the car.

  “Okay.” I get out, slide my hair forward, and shut the car door, determined not to be afraid. “I’m ready.”

  “My apartment’s up this way. So. First, library and my boyfriend. Second, we can walk campus. Third, party. Is that cool?”

  “Yeah,” I say as I carefully follow the path she’s paving through people on the sidewalk. “Thanks for showing me around.”

  Lachelle grins over her shoulder. “I love this place. I want everyone to love it. Pleasure is all mine.”

  Another block and she holds open a scratched metal door for me, and I step into a narrow hallway.

  “Up those stairs. It’s a squeeze. Good thing your bag’s small.” She laughs.

  I’m trying to figure out how anyone would even get a bed up these stairs, or a couch, or even a big load of groceries.

  “Stop!” she hollers when there are doors on my right and on my left.

  She slips her key into the door on my right and shoves it open.

  Lachelle’s apartment is almost comical in its smallness. The kitchen is just a tiny counter, hot plate, and microwave over the top of a mini-fridge.

  Her hand is on mine as I stumble around the tiny futon into an even smaller room than we were in before. “How many people usually live here?” I ask.

  “Three.” She points to bunk beds. “Two of us in here and one in the living room.”

  She flops my suitcase onto her futon. “Let’s see if you brought something fun to wear. If not, I have a wretched addiction to my sewing machine and to Modcloth.”

  I’m still admiring her skirt. “You … you look like a fashion student, not a … writer.” I clamp my mouth shut because it’s probably a rude thing to say or an insensitive thing or something.

  “No judging, Clara,” she chides with a smile. After a quick scan of the very few things in my suitcase, she surveys an assortment of hooks on the wall.

  “To hang out with my people, I think …” She shifts her weight a few times in front of her wall of clothes. “This.” She tosses down a simple black dress with antiqued ivory lace. I grab it and stare, wondering if I’ll look cool or like someone’s grandma.

  “With this.” She tosses a jacket. “And this.” A wide belt hits me in the head before I can duck. “And this.” A small, soft cardigan lands on me next. “Which means you don’t need this.” She snatches back the jacket.

  “Um …”

  “Just change.” She flits her hand between us as she smiles. “I’ll be right back.”

  She closes the door to her room, which might even be smaller than our entry closet—clothes hanging on pegs on the walls, books stacked above my knees in other places. Music filters in on one side, there’s the constant noise of the cars and the streets, and every time the upstairs neighbors move, it sounds like elephants are roaming the roof. This is amazing.

  I clutch the dress and belt and cardigan.

  The feeling here is so different. A place I’ve never been with people I’ve never met … I resist the urge to dial Elias for a piece of home about four times before finally undressing and putting on clothes that belong to a girl I just met.

  I slide on the dress, and it’s a couple inches above my knees, which my dad would give me raised eyebrows over, but he’s not here, so it seems fine. The thin sweater is trickier, but I adjust it over the dress and get the collar laid down and the belt on, and I’m feeling … like me, but better. In someone else’s clothes. A tornado of a girl I just met, who I’m pretty sure would never fit into the confines of any kind of poem.

  “You done?” Lachelle hollers.

  “Coming out,” I call back. Maybe my outfit is cute enough that no one will notice my face.

  “Holy fantastic body!” she squeals. “You comfortable in that?”

  “I think so.” I glance down again. It’s just more put together than I ever bother to be.

  “And it even matches those little flats you brought.” She kicks them toward me. “Also, I have people for you to meet, so let’s play with makeup so we can get out of here. Cool?”

  “Cool.” Because I don’t know what else to say. Everything since I left home for this trip has felt like a whirlwind, and Lachelle is just helping my spinning thoughts pick up speed.

  “You have an insane amount of energy. You know that?” I say as Lachelle smudges more eyeliner on my lids.

  I’m sitting on her toilet, and I’m sure her back is pressed against the wall opposite me as she straddles my lap with a makeup brush in hand.

  “Life
is so incredibly short!” She shifts her weight and bites her lip as she concentrates. “I just don’t wanna miss anything, you know? I mean, I’ve seen almost none of the world, which is totally not okay. I’m a city girl though, so I’ve already realized that if I’m going to be a happy traveler, I need to be a city traveler. I really wanna go to the Sorbonne. The second they accept me, I’m dropping everything to go.”

  I laugh as she moves around the eyelid that leads into one of my scars. “I’m about as opposite of city as you can get.”

  “But look at you, all fitting in and wearing my clothes like you own them,” she teases as she pinches my shoulder. “I’m so glad we get along. I mean, I get along with most people, but still. So glad.”

  “Me too.” I release a breath. “I know my scars are—”

  “A good challenge to work around. You’ll have to tell me if something I do feels weird.” She pops her lips a couple times and sets down a brush on the worn white counter only to pick up another one that looks exactly like it. “Don’t apologize for having scars. They’re here. We’ll deal.”

  Since we started, I’ve tried not to think about how she’s going to know my scars probably as well as I do after this. She’s gone over them with concealer and foundation and who knows what else.

  “So this party tonight …” I start, needing to not think about how she sees my scars.

  “Just lit students. It’s our end-of-the-year bash.” She starts smoothing shadow over my other eyelid. “You know, once you get mascara on, you have such long lashes that it sort of masks how that one big scar touches your eye.”

  My stomach tightens. Masking a few missing lashes is very different from being one of the pretty girls. “Huh.”

  I wait for Lachelle to ask me something else, but her hands have stopped pressing on my face and she’s leaning over me with her cat-eye makeup and glossy lips. “I think … Yep. I think I’m done. The scars aren’t easy … you know … to work with, but …”

  She backs up to the doorway and gestures toward the mirror.

  I stand slowly and turn. The second I catch my reflection, I freeze. My scars are there, but they’re less … No. They’re the same but lighter. Maybe this is sort of what they’ll look like after I do some more serious bleaching. But the rest of my face … My eyes look bigger and my lips fuller and my cheekbones higher and my skin smoother. Aside from my scars, I actually look like the kind of girl who could belong here. “You’re … amazing.”