The Art of Us

by Hilaria Alexander

  The Art of Us

  Hilaria Alexander

  Contents

  Untitled

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Also available by Hilaria Alexander

  Untitled

  The Art of Us - Copyright © 2017 Hilaria Alexander

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  hilaria_alexander@outlook.com

  Editing: Editing by C. Marie

  Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover Design: Uplifting Designs

  Formatting: AB Formatting

  LENA

  “Why did you stop, Lena? Come on, let’s go home. I’m tired and we still have our whole room to pack. We’re never going to make it in time.”

  “Wait! I just had the best idea ever—I’m going to go back to the convenience store and go crazy and get everything we like. It’s our last night here in Tokyo, so we might as well enjoy it. Let’s stay up all night and watch the sun come up.”

  “You can’t see the sun come up from our place. Have you forgotten the huge building in front of our house?”

  She was right. We lived in an old-style house that was one of the few remains of a time far gone. I always wondered how long the little house had been there, being that the tall apartment buildings around it were much newer.

  Maggie gave me a pleading look and let out a huff.

  “Come on, let’s go!” she cried out impatiently.

  The sunrise…right. I thought about it for a second and came up with an idea.

  “We can go up to the pedestrian bridge and see the sun come up. Let’s not go to sleep. Let’s pack then stay up all night. Let’s make our last hours here count.” I bit my lip, realizing it was a silly excuse, because we had already been out partying all night with our friends.

  “We’re going to look like zombies tomorrow,” she complained.

  “Who cares! We’re going to be on a plane for hours. It will give us a good reason to put our Hello Kitty sleeping masks to use.” I winked at her and she huffed, shaking her head. “Come on,” I pleaded.

  “Whatever.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping with resignation.

  “Yeah?” I asked, looking for her approval, even though my mind was made up. I was going to stay up all night and soak in the last few hours in Tokyo. I wasn’t quite ready to get on a plane and go back to the US.

  Part of me didn’t want to leave this place. No, that was a lie—every part of me didn’t want to leave. Other than finishing up school, I had nothing to go back home for.

  I basically had no family. My mother and I weren’t close at all.

  It was different for Maggie. She had her whole family, and I knew her little brother had been impatient for her to come back. She had half a suitcase full of presents for him.

  No one would care whether I made it back home or not.

  Unfortunately, my visa was going to expire soon, and I had to go back to the US to finish my degree.

  I took a deep breath, anxiety threatening to take over my lungs. My chest felt heavy, and I knew I couldn’t help it.

  I didn’t want to go to sleep. I didn’t want to miss a single moment.

  The next morning—well, actually later that morning, seeing as it was already past midnight—we would be vacating the room of the Japanese-style house we’d rented for the greater part of a year. We’d have just enough time for a quick breakfast with our heavy luggage in tow, and then we would finally head to Narita airport.

  “Okay, so I’m going. I’ll get you the lemon sake you like so much. Want anything else?”

  “An onigiri with salmon. Oh! And maybe some of those chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.”

  “An onigiri and nuts, noted.”

  “And that cold green tea—the one with the light-green label.”

  “Gotcha. Anything else?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her expression suddenly somber for some reason, darker. “Hurry up, okay?”

  “I will.” I pressed the button to cross the intersection and waited for the green light to tell me I could go. It was a bit chilly for early April, but spring was unpredictable in Japan. A gust of wind blew across the street, carrying along a flurry of cherry blossoms.

  I was going to miss the sakura, the cherry trees that made spring in Japan so special. The trees looked so pretty when they were all in bloom, and when it was windy, the petals fell everywhere like a pink, delicate rain. The chirping sound of the crosswalk came on and I started crossing the street.

  I was halfway across when I heard Maggie calling out to me from the other side of the street. I glanced at the light. It was still green. I quickly turned around.

  “What’s up?”

  “Wait—I’m coming with you,” she said, making her way toward me.

  I glanced at the light again. It wasn’t flashing yet. “Hurry up.”

  I looked both ways on the deserted street and when I turned to my right, I was blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. I couldn’t see anything, but from the sound of it, I kept thinking it was going too fast.

  I should have gotten out of the way, but I couldn’t move.

  I heard tires screeching on the asphalt and the car swerved.

  A muffled scream and a thud.

  It took me a few seconds before I could see again, and when I did, I wanted to die.

  This cannot be happening.

  Not to her, not right now.

  The wind blew again, this time stronger. I couldn’t even see her, not with my impaired vision and the petals of the cherry flowers blowing everywhere. I was still frozen in place when the loud honk of another car brought me back to reality.

  Brightness again, too much of it. I closed my eyes, hoping to die.

  Brakes screeched, the car hit me, and everything went dark.

  LENA

  “Look at you this morning. Nice shirt. Well, at least you’re honest,” Violet said, pointing at my chest, which read: Hot Mess.

  “You know I’m no
t into false advertising,” I replied with a shrug, my lips scrunched up in a half-pout. She rolled her blue eyes, batted her thick eyelashes, and let out a sigh. Then, she walked me to my cubicle and started talking about the most recent developments on her upcoming nuptials to my best friend.

  I listened, paying as much attention as I could at nine on a Tuesday morning, but my mind went back to her playful joke.

  Hot mess.

  I owned what I was. I didn’t lie about it. I was one hundred percent conscious of the fact that I was indeed a hot mess. I embraced it. I didn’t quite revel in it, but I liked to think I accepted my fate and the fact that I was never going to be at peace with myself.

  On the outside, it looked like I had it all.

  I had somehow been blessed with good genes by Mother Nature, and I had more talent in my right hand than most did in their whole body.

  I laughed at my own thought, because it sounded like a dirty joke.

  “Something funny?” Violet asked.

  “Not really, just thought about a cat video I saw online last night.”

  “I didn’t know you were into cat videos—you, the snark queen.”

  “Even snark queens can have a secret fondness of kitties, but don’t let anyone know I said that,” I told her, cocking one eyebrow.

  “Is it the one with the cats and pizza? Marty and I laughed an entire evening watching that on replay.”

  “Hmm, no. It wasn’t that one.”

  When I said I had talent in my right hand, I wasn’t joking. As a comic book artist at Paz Media, I had the job many kids and teens—heck, even adults—dream of, if one didn’t care about being part of an industry that was constantly on the brink of failure, that is.

  Still, my job was my life. It had been my dream for as long as I could remember, and as hard as it was living with the constant uncertainty, I lived and breathed the comic world. At the moment, Paz Media was doing really well, at least from what my best friend and CEO, Marty Fredrickson, said, but publishing was a fickle business. Even so, I hoped I didn’t have to worry about being jobless for at least a couple of years.

  I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I’d spent a large part of my life learning how to draw and working to become a comic book artist. I’d worked for years on other people’s titles, waiting for the moment I could finally work on more personal projects, and that moment had finally arrived. I was the sole creator of Switch, a story about a transgender cop who decides to transition. I had worked on the story for years, and we had started publishing it two years ago. It wasn’t an instant hit, but eventually it found a following, and it was well received in the LGBTQ community. I was very proud of that since I’d done extensive research to get the main character right. Despite my sour disposition, which Violet liked to joke about, I’d made a few good friends in the transgender community. I was proud of my work and the fact that the comic was one of those that kept a steady cash flow coming to Paz Media.

  So far, it had been translated into five languages—my comic book.

  Sometimes, I couldn’t believe I got to live my dream.

  That alone should have been enough.

  After all, it was everything I’d wanted since I was thirteen.

  It shouldn’t have mattered that the rest of my life turned out to be lonelier than I’d ever imagined it would be. It shouldn’t have really mattered that every important person in my life ended up deserting me for one reason or another…but it did.

  I knew I had many reasons to be grateful to be alive, but sometimes I just couldn’t help it.

  In a way, I felt cursed.

  I felt like Rogue from X-Men, unable to touch the people she loved. Anyone I deeply cared about either abandoned me or passed away unexpectedly.

  Because of the events that shaped my life early on, I had kind of given up on the idea that I would be anything other than alone for the rest of my life.

  I hadn’t seen my father since I was a teen, and my mother and I hardly talked on the phone. I didn’t have a significant other, and I wasn’t looking for one.

  I wasn’t a hot mess in the way most people would think; I wasn’t the cute, quirky, goofy girl. I was a moody, restless, sometimes depressed fuck, the type of person who would purposely swim into her black hole of sadness, almost to the point of not being able to breathe.

  Very few people knew this, since I concealed my true self behind the mask of a careless bitch.

  It was a carefully studied persona, a combination of smartassness, edgy clothes, and resting bitch face. My façade worked, keeping people at a distance, to the point that the other nerds I worked with rarely included me in their idiotic daily conversations.

  They knew to leave me alone, and I was okay with it.

  From the moment I crossed the threshold of Paz Media, the only thing moving me forward was my love for drawing, for telling a story with pictures.

  It’s the only love I truly cherish.

  I pondered giving therapy another go, but I had tried that after the accident.

  It was disastrous.

  Nothing good came out of it. It didn’t help me deal with my emotional pain any better than I would have fared on my own. I didn’t need to go see another shrink to have him tell me I had abandonment issues, and that I couldn’t let go of my deeply rooted feeling of guilt.

  These days, I was a closed-off weirdo who intentionally drove everyone away. Well, ninety percent of the time I tended to keep people away, and ten percent of the time I would drive men away after a fuck or two.

  That was what I was good at, and it was what was good for me.

  It was what I knew I could manage without getting in too deep, without getting too close. I didn’t need love.

  My work, my art was the only thing I felt anything for, the only thing keeping me truly alive…and Violet and Marty, too, I supposed.

  As I tried to listen to my friend’s monologue on floral centerpieces, I wondered if my life could have been different if I hadn’t gone through all that pain years ago.

  Would my life be different now? Would I be happy? Would my best friend and I still be best friends?

  I never wanted to go through that kind of heartbreak again. My life was just fine this way. It was safe. It was—

  “Good morning, Violet…Lena.”

  Amos’ voice startled me, as it often did on the rare occasions he spoke to me, because we were on non-speaking terms. We hadn’t spoken in so long, not since a little after he started working there.

  All because of what had happened between us that night.

  I barely nodded a hello, too surprised to even manage a word. I should have looked away immediately. Instead, my eyes settled on him, taking in every feature of his masculine, strange beauty. He was tall, with wide shoulders; his build alone made him stand out in a sea of geeks, but it was his face and the magnetic hold of his brown eyes that made him more appealing. His black, longish hair cascaded on his forehead that he brushed to the side one too many times. His eyebrows straight and full like the ones of comic book characters. Too often, I’d seen those eyebrows pull into a straight line when his hazelnut-brown eyes looked at me. His nose was straight, but slightly too big. Yet, it managed to make his profile look even more masculine, and it complemented his full lips. I remembered running my fingers along his square jaw.

  That did it. I was immediately hit with the memory of his touch, of his lips on mine, of his strong arms around me.

  His brown eyes studied me for just a second before darting in Violet’s direction.

  My heart sank in the pit of my stomach.

  “Hey, Amos. How are you? Ohayou gozaimasu. Did I tell you I’m learning Japanese? Marty and I have decided to go to Japan for our honeymoon,” Violet announced, as if it was a piece of information she needed to share with him that morning.

  Amos and I didn’t really talk and we also hardly crossed paths; his cubicle was on the opposite side of the floor.

  Why is he over here on my side?

&nb
sp; A forced smile stretched across his face as he passed us in the hallway. He didn’t glance in my direction again. I knew he wouldn’t, but still, a stupid ache wrapped around my heart, tightening around it like a boa constrictor.

  Stupid, stupid heart. I clenched my jaw and looked down, trying to avoid staring at him.

  “Cool. I’ll see you around. Sorry, but I have to go. I actually have a meeting with Marty and I’m ten minutes late.” He turned his back to us and kept walking.

  “Oh, don’t worry. He won’t mind!” Violet chirped.

  I followed Amos’ silhouette down the hall as it got smaller and smaller.

  “Good God almighty! I know I’m engaged, but man, that guy is hot. Am I mistaken or has he put on some serious muscle?” she asked.

  She knew I didn’t like talking about him and avoided it at all costs.

  “I didn’t notice,” I lied.

  “Oh, bullshit. You did notice. I saw you look at him, Lena.”

  “I did not look at him. He was just in my way. Where else was I supposed to look?” We reached my cubicle and I dropped my purse on my desk. I fired up my Mac then checked my phone for missed calls. There were none, because no one liked to leave voicemails anymore—thank God. Talk about awkward as fuck.

  Bless the twenty-first century and the invention of electronic mail.

  Still, right then I could have used a distraction, an urgent message about an impending-doom type of catastrophe that would have let me escape Violet’s insinuations unscathed. I checked my emails on my phone, deliberately ignoring her.