by Mia Garcia
She crossed the bathroom into David’s room, fighting the urge to turn on the light. Instead she left the bathroom light on, which was enough to go by. She lay on his bed, blushing at the memories it brought up.
In the quiet she listened to her heartbeat, feeling the cold of the bedsheets against her skin, marveling at herself, at what had happened the last few minutes.
I want to keep this. Whatever this is.
Happiness?
Hope?
Whatever it is, it’s mine.
“Am I late?”
“Late?” A startled Lee almost jumped off the bed.
David stood in the bathroom doorway, a silhouette. “My talking to randos worked too well.” He half-closed the bathroom door, letting only a small amount of light in. “The hour isn’t over yet, right?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” He jumped on the bed; they both froze as the creak traveled across the room.
Lee slapped him on the shoulder. “Seriously, you have to be quiet.”
He smiled, a wicked little grin. “I can’t promise anything.”
David placed his hand on her cheek, tracing her lips. It was almost too much and not enough.
I get to keep this.
“Enough of that.” Lee tugged at David’s shirt till his lips were a breath away. He closed the gap, hands wrapping around her waist as Lee’s lips demanded more and more. She slipped her hands up his shirt as he cupped her butt. The darkness inviting so much, they reveled in it.
Ryan
SOME KNOWLEDGE OF astrology would be useful right now. It would at least help pass the time on the terrace while he waited for Jason. Instead he made the sky above him a canvas, painting it with a wide brush the size of his hand, navy blue and black, no gray of clouds tonight. A toothbrush loaded with white to make a cluster of stars, a thinner one for the brightest ones. It gave him an idea: he’d paint the night sky for Katie’s ceiling. She hadn’t asked, but every pirate needed a sky to sail by. He’d use fluorescent paint so she could fall asleep to the soft glow.
At least his painting had slowly fallen back into place, as long as he ignored the empty canvas where his portrait would live, but that was something else. That was deeper and, after tonight, hopefully nonexistent.
Where was Jason?
He peeked back in—no sign of him anywhere. Just relax, he thought, and sat on one of the rickety chairs in the terrace. He’d already been at this party far too long, he should be back to Jess’s by now.
Jason wasn’t answering his texts either.
“You know what?” he said out loud, startling the two smokers next to him. “Sorry.”
Time to find Jason and figure this out.
Of course, Jason was surrounded by people. He showed no concern that Ryan was waiting for him outside.
His body coiled, angry. Maybe he had grandiose ideas and his expectations were a little high, but this? Why was he even here?
He moved toward Jason, intending to pull him aside and demand a conversation, when Jason’s face split into the biggest grin he’d ever seen, arms wrapping around someone tall and blond. He’d never seen that smile before, not when he was with Ryan. He would’ve wondered what it meant if Jason hadn’t kissed the blond guy, stopping only to laugh before they kissed again.
Shit. Jason is in love.
His smile gave it away. Jason’s body leaned toward this new guy—made to fit each other. There were no awkward lulls in conversation or pauses. They were completely at ease with each other, and it tore Ryan’s heart out.
Of course. Of course he’s in love.
It was Ryan who was the broken one. Ryan whose pieces no longer fit together. Who was made of awkward conversations and long pauses. Whose hands would never hold another’s like that again.
Then they were walking toward him, hand in hand, slow-mo. His brain needed to catch up with the present.
“Ryan,” Jason was saying, “this is my boyfriend, Michael.”
Michael with the blue eyes that mirrored Jason’s. Michael who looked familiar, like he’d seen him in a photo, one of the many faces that surrounded Jason in his shots. “Nice to meet you,” Michael said. Ryan’s own hand extended before he could stop it.
“I’ve got to go” was all he got out as he broke through, shirt plastered to his chest.
Ryan turned at the sound of his name. Jason came down the hall, visibly confused and swinging into anger. “What was that?” he demanded. “I introduce you to my boyfriend and you just bail like that?”
Really? Did he not see why Ryan would be thrown?
“Yes.” That was all that came, all he could manage.
“Why?” Jason’s face crumbled a bit.
“I—” His voice cracked. “Was it so easy to put us away?”
“I didn’t—” Jason sighed, moving closer to Ryan. “I didn’t put you away, we still talk.”
Ryan shook his head. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
They were silent for longer than Ryan thought possible.
“Why did we break up?”
“Ryan—” Jason started to say but then stopped, finding the nearest wall and collapsing by it. “You know why.”
“Actually I don’t,” Ryan said. “I really don’t because you keep talking to me like it never happened, and Boulder is, like, just thirty minutes away, so I don’t buy this long-distance relationship bullshit. So just tell me.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Can you just try?”
“Why?”
Ryan sat by the wall opposite Jason, needing to look him in the eye as they talked. “Because . . .” My heart still feels broken. “I just . . .” Have no idea who I am anymore. “Was it me? Was it my fault?”
When Jason didn’t answer right away, Ryan almost stood up and left right then. “Yes. And mine.” Jason placed his head between his knees. “I don’t know how you fall out of love, Ryan. I don’t know how it happens.”
“But you fell out of love with me?”
Good thing his heart was already broken, because this would surely break it.
“I did,” Jason said. “I tried to . . .”
He knew what he meant. They’d tried to fix it before their second breakup, but it hadn’t worked.
“It wasn’t about you.”
How could you fall out of love with someone and have it not be about them? That made no sense. Jason must have seen that in Ryan’s face because he added, “It’s not a reflection of you. It wasn’t.”
“Feels like it is.”
“If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t still want to be friends with you.”
“Yeah.” Ryan thought back to all the texts and confused feelings. “That might not have been the best approach.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe we should’ve given each other some space.” He should’ve given himself some space. “It’s my fault, really. I kept coming back to you, like a habit. No, more than a habit. If I’m honest with myself I thought there might be something still there, even after everything. It was like this little speck of hope covered in a coating of denial.”
Jason stood, moving over to where Ryan was. Not the best move, considering they were just talking about giving each other space, but Ryan didn’t have it in him to say anything. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“I should’ve given you space.” His hand drifted to Ryan’s before pulling back. “But I liked having you there. And it felt like we could be friends, and I didn’t want to lose you.”
“That’s not really fair.” Jason couldn’t break Ryan’s heart and then expect him to hang out and chat without any repercussions to Ryan’s heart.
A burst of sound shocked them as a group of people exited to the left. Ryan waited until the hallway was quiet once again before continuing.
“Was it easy to fall in love again?”
Jason took a breath. “I’m not sorry I found someone.”
“That’s not wh
at I asked.”
It was obvious from the earlier scene that Jason wasn’t one bit sorry about his feelings toward Michael.
“No,” Jason said, waiting for Ryan to meet his eyes before saying, “I did love you. I did. We were right together when we were right together. But then we weren’t anymore. Breaking up was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t easy. I missed talking to you and the way you made me feel. I worried I would never feel that way again.”
Ryan felt something loosen within him, a worry released. At least he wasn’t as easy to forget as he thought. “But then you did.”
“I did.”
“How? How did you move past it?”
How did he put everything back together?
“I—”
Ryan didn’t wait, feeling the words fall out. “It feels like all of me was tied up with you and then I broke and the pieces don’t fit together anymore.”
Because they aren’t the same. Hadn’t his grandmother said that? That it was impossible to piece everything back together like they’d never broken. He was broken. Pieces of him shattered and changed. So why try to fit them the same way?
Jason hadn’t said anything—just as well. The more they talked, the more Ryan realized he wouldn’t get what he needed from this. Jason wasn’t the key to figuring this out. He wasn’t the key to Ryan.
Ryan stood, then helped Jason up. They did not hug or promise to talk. Jason didn’t say he was sorry, nor did he need to.
Back in his car, he rested his head against the steering wheel, feeling strangely blank. He’d hoped for answers, ones that would lead him where he needed to go. Instead all he got was what he’d been avoiding all along: he needed to find himself. No one else. No magic words from Jason. Him.
Maybe when he got to Jess’s he could hide in her room until the party was over. Jess would understand. She would stand by the door to guard him. He started up the car when his phone blew up. The screen blinded him in the dark.
A message from Lee:
There’s been an accident. We’re in the ER.
Jess
JESS WAS CLOSE to calling it. Nora was lost on the dance floor, Lee was in hiding, and the walls were too close for her liking. She nursed another cup of water after the beer invited another wicked headache in to stay and pull up a chair. What did everyone around her see, did they see the cracks? Was she not as careful as she thought?
She’d been good after Lee had caught her with the sponge. Jess had found someone to talk to, to smile and nod to when they needed it. Why was it so hard? Jess was usually a talker, but lately it was hard to concentrate—every empty second her mind would fill with reminders. She picked them well, knowing they would dominate the conversation with minimal input. And when the conversation died down she found another, checking her phone in between, counting down the minutes in her head, doing the math.
More than an hour till she could throw everyone out, then how long to clean? Two hours? After that she had a paper to write, and she’d promised the center she’d help schedule out fall courses to make them more efficient. And of course she should triple-check (or was it quadruple-check?) whichever deadline was next. She could not afford another mistake.
Why was nothing in her brain silent, like, ever? She could feel the itch starting down her back as she balanced from foot to foot. The concentration needed to keep from falling over often helped keep the thoughts away when the slow breathing and counting didn’t work. Maybe it was time to research a few more techniques tomorrow?
Someone was smiling at Jess, someone she was supposed to be talking with, but she wasn’t paying attention. They waited for her response, and all she could do was smile and excuse herself to get something to drink.
She recognized the signs of another panic attack fast: heartbeat, flushed skin, need for isolation, a domino of thought after thought after thought. Quiet, she needed quiet, if only for one moment to settle.
Cutting through the bodies with a smile plastered on her face, she reached the door to her room, realizing too late that David had the key. She tried the door just in case and gave a silent thank-you that Nora had forgotten to lock it.
The silence swallowed her up like water on a cool day. She’d left the bathroom light on, good, easier to find her bed and sink into it and the mountain of pillows she’d left on it. Her heart was a drumbeat that took no heed of the band or tempos. It beat until it was all she could hear; it took all her strength to rein it in.
She shut her eyes, remembering the chill of the earth under her fingers, dipping her hands under the pillows trying to mimic the feeling. Imagining the fabric under her palms was the dirt underneath her, till the beats slowed and she was alone in her room with just the distant sound of a song seeping through her door, but that she could handle.
She twisted, curling around a pillow, pressing it to her abdomen, feeling the material beneath her hand dissecting everything she felt and giving her mind nowhere to wander. She closed her eyes, her body stretching out, relaxing, when she heard a sound.
A breath taken, not hers.
She heard it again before it slipped away, a gasp both sharp and soft, cutting through the darkness. The gasp was in her room and all around her, then it was gone. Where did it come from? Or was it just a couple lingering in the halls, the sound traveling too far? But there it was again, this time sticking in her ears for what it was: an intrusion.
Seriously?
The sound came again, closer. She sagged. Someone was in her brother’s room. This was not what she needed and the reason she’d asked Nora to lock the doors. It made her body ache once again, tears welling up. This night would be the end of her. Nothing was going right—why couldn’t anything just go right for once?
Jess could’ve stayed there, closed the bathroom door and let them have their fun, but her anger carried her up and to the connecting bathroom. The sounds were louder as she entered David’s room, and Jess should’ve made a noise, should’ve warned them, if she’d been thinking clearly.
The light hit them like a stage light, highlighting every position, every missing article of clothing, like a scene in a play that Jess had not studied her lines for.
Jess’s entire body flushed with confusion, keeping her frozen in place while hands rushed to find tossed shirts and offer explanations, but all she could hear was the sound of the bass in the hallway, her own heart beating, and eventually her mind screaming at her to leave.
So she ran.
Even as Lee called out and she bumped against anyone in her way, she ran. Somewhere along the way she found her car keys and kept going.
It was so much easier to breathe outside. She could stay here and wait until the volume in her head settled down. But David would follow, and Lee would follow, and Jess didn’t want to talk, she just needed quiet, any quiet.
The keys in her hand offered a solution. She would drive to a park or the mall and just sit and wait for everything to make sense.
That might take forever.
Then forever it would be.
You should just keep driving and don’t stop. Doesn’t that sound better than everything that’s waiting for you here?
She started the car; her mind flashed to tangled limbs and bare skin.
Everyone’s going to be talking about this tomorrow. Did everyone know but you? I bet they did—I bet Ryan and Nora knew all about Lee and David and just didn’t tell you. Maybe they didn’t think you could take it; you can barely keep yourself together, after all.
Nora hopped in the passenger seat as Jess was getting ready to pull out of the driveway. “What’s wrong?”
Pulling out she saw Lee and David, now fully clothed, come out the door, looking for her. She should stop and talk, that would be the sensible thing to do, but already her body rebelled against her.
“Let’s go back. Whatever it is we can talk about it,” Nora coaxed from the passenger side. She could hear the caution in her voice. “It’s late, you had some beers. This isn’t safe.” Jess nodded�
��it wasn’t safe, of course it wasn’t safe, and she didn’t seem to care, why didn’t she care? She gripped the wheel tighter; her body didn’t feel like hers anymore.
“Jess,” Nora tried again. “Stop the car, please, stop the car.”
She felt Nora’s hand on her shoulder, one squeeze, then another, each time saying: “Come back, Jess, come back.” Nora’s voice curled itself around her, guiding her out of the muck until she was almost herself again. They weren’t far from the house, and Jess drove the car to the nearest space and stopped.
“Okay—good.” Nora smiled, turning toward Jess, who would not look at her. “Are you okay?”
Jess’s hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel, knuckles bled of their color. Her heartbeat was slowing down, but it still felt like she was jumping out of her skin. A part of her still wanted to lie, to say “fine” and pretend that whatever facade hadn’t completely shattered.
“No.” Each breath was harder than the next, each a step up a mountain. “But I don’t know—I don’t know if—”
Without another word Nora leaned over and hugged her. “How about we go back and throw everyone out of the house and it’s just us? We can talk about it then or we can just sit and not talk.”
Back at the house with Lee, David, and the damn mess she’d just made, with everyone looking at her and knowing. They would all know.
“Can you do that?” Her eyes couldn’t meet Nora’s. “Can you throw everyone out and I’ll stay in the car?”
“Promise not to run away again?”
She wanted to say yes, but all she got was “Maybe.”
“That’s good enough,” Nora replied. “I might make Beth sit on you then to make sure.”
Jess nodded, she didn’t have the energy to run away again.
“Do you need me to drive?”
“No.” She took a deep breath. “We aren’t that far.”