Patchwork Paradise

by Indra Vaughn

  “What?”

  I said nothing and he nudged me.

  “It’s okay. You can tell me. What did she say?”

  “That you’ve been in love with me for years,” I managed to croak, blood rising to my cheeks.

  He smiled serenely at the sky. “I’m surprised she kept it a secret for this long. I never wanted you to know or feel awkward about it. But yes, she’s right.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He gently squeezed my shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s not on you. It never was. It was my problem and mine alone. I never expected anything of you, Ollie. Especially after . . . after Sam died.”

  I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I wanted to touch him somehow, so I took his hand and held it. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” His fingers tightened on mine. My hands were cold, and the heat of his felt so good I never wanted to let go. “We’ve been good friends. Great friends, even. I don’t want that to change.”

  “But you’re leaving.” I was mortified when my voice broke on the last word.

  “Ah, Ollie.” He gently worked his hand loose and hugged me close. I wondered if I should be the one comforting him. “I’m not leaving you. I’m taking a little bit of the dream you offered when you gave me that map. And we’ll talk, won’t we? Whenever we can. I don’t want this to change anything.”

  “Me neither,” I whispered. I pressed my face into his shoulder for a moment and then sat up and looked at him. He was so young with his hair short, so much more vulnerable. I reached out and ran my hands through it. He closed his eyes. “I was pretty drunk that night. But I really liked that kiss.”

  His eyes flew open. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I’ve been beating myself up about it all week.”

  “I’m not. I’m telling the truth.” My heart began to race, and I realized I wanted to kiss him again. It would be an incredibly selfish thing to do though, because I had no idea what I could offer him, if this was me responding only to being wanted. It hung in the air between us. The tension crackled. I could tell he knew what I was thinking. His eyes darkened to pools of liquid heat, and a jolt of desire I hadn’t experienced since I was with Sam awakened me from the inside out.

  “I liked it too,” he whispered. He cupped my face in his big hands and pressed his forehead to mine. “So much. But I can’t keep doing this to myself.”

  I made a breathy sound. He kissed my temple, my eyelids. I tilted my chin, still not really knowing what I wanted, apart from him here, close. He hesitated, then let me go, and it felt like I was falling.

  “I should finish packing up.”

  Unable to speak, I nodded. We stood in silence and walked the rickety iron suspension bridge that crossed the narrow part of the lake. When we reached his house again, I was cold to the bone. I had no idea what to say to him, so I hugged him tight instead. His arms wrapped around me like a warm security blanket.

  “I’ll miss you,” he murmured into my hair.

  “I’ll miss you too. Be safe. And call me.”

  He nodded and took a step back, his eyes dark and unfathomable. “Bye, Ollie,” he said and walked into his house.

  Suddenly I wanted to rush after him, beg him not to go, because I feared he’d come back a different person. But I didn’t have the right to do that, wasn’t in a place where I could, so I got in my car and drove home.

  “Is he still pining?”

  “I’m not pining.” I drew a heart in the condensation ring of my beer. Oh my God, I was pining. I sat up. “It’s all this Valentine’s rubbish, okay? It’s been going on since the beginning of January. Christmas decorations go down, and suddenly wild hearts appear everywhere. I’m sick of it.”

  “Aw, honey. You’ve never been alone for Valentine’s, have you?”

  “No.” I propped my cheek up with my fist and continued drawing in the condensation.

  “So, what, are you . . . in love with Thomas now?” Imran eyed me warily, like I might bite his nose off. For a second I wanted to, but I just sighed. My stomach felt tight with confusion. I couldn’t seem to find any peace, torn one minute between missing Thomas and feeling guilty about it the next.

  I hadn’t heard from Sam’s parents either, and every time I thought about Thomas and how much I wanted him near, I wondered if I even deserved to keep the house. And yet every morning I woke up, and every evening I came home from work, the place felt a little more mine. Sam was still there, in the furniture and the walls and the empty spaces in between. But his presence was an afterthought now, part of the building, like the touch of the architect who’d built it.

  “I don’t know. I guess I miss him, and whenever we talk on the phone, it’s for hours and I feel happy.”

  “Sounds like love to me,” Cleo mumbled. Imran elbowed her, and she sniggered. They’d been getting along a lot better since their little fallout at my house.

  “Not necessarily,” Imran said. “It’s easy to mistake a deep friendship for romantic love, especially when it’s one-sided to begin with. You might be responding to his feelings rather than generating feelings of your own.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m aware of that, thank you. And you’re not helping.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I lifted my pint and drained half of it. “Fuck knows. He’s in Greece. Being bathed and fed olives while young, nubile, athletic Greeks wave banana leaves at him. Have you seen him recently? He looks like a god. With pecs and abs. And skin like honey. Ah, hell.” I drained the rest of my beer as Cleo thumbed through her phone.

  She shoved it under my nose. “Like this, you mean?” I knew the picture she was going to show me before I saw it. I followed him on Instagram too. It was in front of a cute blue church on the rocky island of Rhodes. He perched shirtless on a motorbike. His grin was white in his brown face. I seethed with jealousy at the person holding that damn camera.

  “I think this may go beyond friendship,” Imran said as he gave me a wide-eyed look. I pulled myself together.

  “I honestly don’t know. Some days I feel like I don’t want to be with anyone at all because I’d be cheating on Sam.”

  “You know Sam would’ve wanted—”

  “Yes, Cleo,” I said tersely. “I’ve heard it all before. That doesn’t change the fact that this is how it feels.”

  “You’re right,” she said, like I was a petulant child who needed calming. “So how often do you talk?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Once . . . four, five times a week?”

  “Five times a week?” Imran and Cleo shared a look.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I mumbled and played with my empty beer bottle. Thomas was my best friend. I couldn’t risk losing him to a probably misconceived notion of romance. Besides, he was too far away to get romantic with, so why was I even worrying about this? A teenager walked past with a red heart balloon, and I wanted to pop it with a toothpick. Ten toothpicks.

  He called me that night, because I was a giant liar and we talked every day. I’d snuggled into my pajamas like I always did, ready for him on the couch with the TV on mute and a mug of rose hip tea cradled in my hands.

  “Hey, Ollie,” he said.

  “Hey, how’s it going? You still on Rhodes?”

  “Yes. I’ll be leaving tomorrow for the mainland, and then it’s up toward Istanbul.”

  “Man, that sounds so exciting. Tell me everything you did today.” And he did. I closed my eyes, only for a moment, so I could bask in the warmth of his voice. I’d gotten used to ending my days with him murmuring in my ear. I wondered how I’d get on when he returned. He’d been gone for three weeks and already I couldn’t imagine not talking to him every day.

  Maybe he’ll be here, actually murmuring in your ear, when he gets back, a little voice in my head told me. It made me sad because it made me remember Sam, how I’d loved him my whole life, and here I was not even a year later, thinking of loving someone else.

&n
bsp; “Ollie, you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “Good, because I have to tell you something.”

  I sat up a little bit. “Yeah? What is it? You okay?”

  “Yes, I’m . . . I’m great actually. I, uh, met someone.”

  In my head, all the gears ground to a screeching halt.

  “His name is Stephen Dane. He’s American. He’s traveling too, for a whole year, can you imagine? He’s, um, going to tag along with me for a while.”

  “Oh.” My mouth felt dry as dust. “That’s great, Thomas. So . . . he’s nice?”

  “Yeah, I like him a lot. He finished an international business degree so he’s taking some time off before starting the job hunt.”

  “That sounds . . . amazing.” I couldn’t reboot my brain, so I mumbled nonsensical things as he went on about the places he’d visited with Stephen. It sounded like they’d been hanging out for days. Why had he not told me sooner? I didn’t want to ask. It wasn’t my place.

  I didn’t remember how we ended the conversation, but after that Stephen was in nearly all the pictures. He was disgustingly gorgeous in that wholesome American way. Broad shoulders, white teeth, close-cropped hair, and a jaw Michelangelo would’ve wanted to sculpt. I hated him. And maybe I wasn’t very good at hiding it, because Thomas called less, and I didn’t call him either.

  The weeks crept by a minute at a time. Valentine’s came and went, and so did Thomas’s return date. Cleo told me he’d ditched his car somewhere and he was staying in Prague for a few weeks because Stephen loved it there so much.

  I knew they both returned to Belgium at some point, but I saw neither of them. Instead I gritted my teeth and went to work, went to see my mom. I went for drinks with Cleo, consulted with my lawyer about the house, generally walked through life in a numb haze—and then there it was. The anniversary of Sam’s death.

  I hadn’t planned anything in particular. It was a normal Monday afternoon in June, with weak sunlight and the threat of rain. I didn’t expect anyone to take time off, but I sent a mass text to whoever I thought might care that I’d be at his grave at two, and that anyone who wanted to join me for a coffee afterward was welcome.

  Because I wanted to clean up the headstone, I arrived at one so I could remove moss stains and trim the grass a little bit. He’d been cremated and his parents had dusted his ashes in their backyard where he’d played as a boy, so I knew he wasn’t even remotely there. And still I felt him with me, like a warm presence at my back.

  “Hey,” I murmured as I pulled a daffodil from the grass. “Is it good where you are now? Is it warm and light, and do you get to stay up late and eat to your heart’s content and never gain a pound?” I sat on my heels and smiled. “Or in your case, do they have the latest Hugo Boss suits, and do you get to drink the best cocktails without ever having a hangover?”

  No response, obviously. But the warmth was there and the peaceful feeling in my stomach didn’t leave.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered and tugged the gloves from my hands. “I’m so, so sorry this happened to you. It wasn’t fair, and I shouldn’t have . . . I should’ve stayed at the gallery with you. I tell myself that all the time. I know it makes no difference, that it does you no good now. But I want you to know I’ll always be sorry for that. Part of me will always wonder what it would’ve been like to grow old with you. To be married to you. I think that hurts the most. That I never got to be your husband. I miss you.” I touched the smooth marble of the gravestone. “I think I always will. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore as it did in the beginning, so I guess that means I’m . . . moving on. I listened to your voice mail this morning, and it didn’t make me cry anymore. I think I’m finally ready to delete it. I’ll forget what your voice sounds like, and that makes me sad. But I think I’m supposed to forget, aren’t I? That it’s okay to? I’m twenty-seven. I can’t hang on to you like a crutch forever.”

  The wind stirred my hair.

  “I love you, Samuel,” I whispered. I tucked the gloves back into the small canvas bag I’d brought, arranged a bouquet of roses next to his name, and climbed to my feet.

  I wanted to get rid of the bag before the others arrived. I had turned around to make my way down the path when I saw Thomas standing there. Tall and handsome and carefully smiling. I laughed. Laughed and threw myself at him. He caught me and hugged me and I finally cried.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay.” He held me for a long time. I closed my eyes and listened to the easy rhythm of his heart. I was so happy to see him, I couldn’t stop smiling, and he gently rocked me side to side.

  When I finally straightened, I noticed other people slowly walking up the path. I took a step back and quickly dried my face.

  “You look great,” I told him. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this,” he said. “I wanted to be here for you, and for Sam. Are you doing okay? Is it . . . very bad?”

  “No. It’s not so bad. I’m sad for him, but I’m doing all right.”

  “Good. I’m really glad to hear it. Do you . . .” He ducked his head and blushed. My heartbeat picked up speed. “Do you want to meet Stephen? He’s here too. I told him about Sam, and he wanted to come. I hope you don’t mind.”

  And just like that my stomach sank to my feet, but I tried to keep my brave face on. If I failed, I hoped he’d ascribe it to the crying I’d been doing.

  “Sure. I’d love to meet him.”

  Stephen was as American as he looked in the photographs, and the worst thing was, he was really nice.

  He hugged me nearly as hard as Thomas had. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he drawled, and oh God, was that a Texas accent? Was he a cowboy? “Thomas told me so much about you. I feel like I know you.”

  “Um, well.” I awkwardly patted his back until he let me go. “It’s nice to meet you. And thank you.”

  He nodded, and his baby blues shimmered in the June sun.

  “Come meet the others,” Thomas said. I watched them go. Stephen even had a swagger, like he’d just stepped off a horse. I waited to see what emotions would bubble to the surface, but all I could think was, I hope you’re happy, Thomas. I’d have to tell him that later.

  Now I just had to deal with being overwhelmed by all the people showing up. Cleo and Imran were there, of course. My mom, Sam’s parents. Beyond that were Sam’s boss, some of his coworkers I’d met what felt like a lifetime ago, my own boss, distant friends. I couldn’t believe it.

  We stood around his grave, and everyone had something nice to say. A few of the stories were so funny we laughed too loudly, and I was worried security would come and throw us out of the cemetery. Instead other mourners came to stand close and listen, and they too smiled, like they could find hope in this picture. Like there was a future after loss. Life. Love.

  It took so long there was no time for most people to join us for coffee, so instead the usual gang, plus Stephen and my mom, came back to my house. I saw Martine and Simon have a tense discussion by their car, until Simon shook his head sharply and yanked the driver’s side door open. Martine, looking over her shoulder at me, quickly climbed in too.

  I did feel a vague sort of sadness, because I realized the death of a lover was something you carried with you for life, but it became a bearable sort of weight after some time. Whereas the death of a child was a burden that never lightened, an ache that never eased, a loss that was beyond healing.

  I hadn’t expected that many visitors, but it was okay. I made do. They mostly consumed lots of coffee, and I spent my time praying no one would come up with the brilliant idea of taking a look at Sam’s art room. I hadn’t touched that picture since Thomas and I haphazardly covered it up again.

  “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  I jolted and looked up at Thomas. Automatically my eyes searched out Stephen, and I spotted him stuck between Imran and Cleo on the couch. They both looked a bit lovestruck, to be honest.


  “You might lose your cowboy,” I said, nodding in their direction. Thomas smiled so softly at Stephen’s back, it made me ache. That faraway look had been mine for so long, only I hadn’t known what it meant. “Are you happy, Thomas?”

  The smile widened a little. “Yeah. I think I am.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and sounded almost completely normal when I said, “Good. I’m glad.”

  His dark gaze zeroed in on me, but I didn’t meet his eyes. “Are you?” he whispered.

  It felt like a whole lot depended on my reply, but the day had drained me and I had nothing left to give. And really, it wouldn’t have been fair to answer it any other way than, “Yes, of course I am. I want you to be happy.” Like a coward, I added, “More coffee?” He didn’t say anything for a long moment, then shook his head once. “Well, I’m going to—” I lifted my mug and tried a smile on for size. It didn’t exactly fit right, but it would have to do.

  As I walked into the kitchen, it felt like something was tugging me back. Then it gave with a sharp snap. I turned around and saw Thomas leaning over Stephen, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips. Cleo’s eyes caught mine, and I looked away.

  At nine I had the house to myself again, a strange quiet settling over the old building. It was too big for me, but the idea of giving it up made my heart hurt. Where would I go? What could I possibly find that would be better than this? Maybe I should get a roommate, a student, like I’d once upon a time suggested to Samuel, but the thought didn’t appeal to me anymore.

  Maybe I should do some traveling too. I had a nice little sum saved up. I could do with seeing some of the world. Maybe I’d travel to Texas and come home with my very own stud. They did seem to grow on trees over there.

  I fell asleep on the couch, very much like I’d done with Thomas that fateful evening. Only now there was no one to kiss me good-night.

  I dreamed of kisses though. Lots and lots of kisses, dealt out by two mouths. It was Sam and Thomas, and we were all naked, and my mind was about to blow when Stephen joined too. I jolted awake, a second away from shooting my load in my pants. I hadn’t had a damn wet dream since I was sixteen years old! Half stumbling, I cursed my way up to the bathroom and took a shower to deal with my erection before falling stark-naked into bed. I needed to get laid.