by Hazel Kelly
Lily.
She was unmistakable. Sure, I thought I glimpsed her all the time, especially following her disappearance mere days after her eighteenth birthday. But those sightings had been nothing more than the figments of a hopeful imagination.
I loosened my tie so I could breathe better and forced myself to break my gaze so she wouldn’t catch me watching her. I didn’t even make it a whole second before my eyes were on her again.
She appeared to be with an older man, or at least a man whose hair had a distinguished smattering of gray running through it, and she smiled easily while they spoke, making my heart clench in my chest.
Had she been smiling all these years without me?
The vase was replaced a moment later with a fresh fern, and she disappeared from view.
“Excuse me,” I said, laying my napkin down in the middle of Dave’s rambling before making my way to a place at the bar where I could see her again.
She was as pretty as the first time I saw her. Only this time, her hair was longer, and she was wearing deep burgundy lipstick that made the sparkle in her eyes seem even brighter.
I don’t know how long I stood there juggling my desire to not get caught staring with my determination to not lose sight of her again, but when the man finally got up and went to the bathroom, I walked straight over to her table.
When she saw me, her eyes grew wide and her plump lips fell apart, but I couldn’t even force a smile. I was too frustrated that a single glimpse of her was all it took to stir up the warm feelings I’d tried so hard to forget, the feelings she’d so coldly turned her back on.
“Lily.”
Her chest dropped as she exhaled. “Sebastian.”
“Shouldn’t you be having lunch with me?”
Her dark lashes looked heavy but didn’t fall shut.
“Seeing as how we never broke up.”
It felt like she wanted to look away, but she didn’t. Of course, where she would’ve looked, I couldn’t say. Everything around us faded away the moment we made eye contact.
“I apologize for the interruption as you’re with someone, but—”
“He’s just a friend.”
My chest loosened slightly. “I just had to say hello when I saw you.”
Her dark eyes smiled.
“You look…” I took in her face and her hair and her slim shoulders and imagined what it would be like to hold her again, to breathe her in.
“So do you,” she said.
“Can I call you?”
She hesitated for an eternity before nodding.
“What’s your number?”
Her gaze dropped to my hands before rising again. “Do you need a pen?”
I shook my head.
“Eight-three-five-double four-double four.”
“Area code?”
“Nine-one-seven.”
“You live in the city?”
“Yeah.” A flush spread across her cheeks. “Are you sure you don’t need to write that down?”
I would if it were anyone else. “I’m sure.”
She swallowed.
“Promise me that’s your number,” I said, fixing my eyes on hers and wondering if it was foolish to trust her after what she put me through.
“It is.”
“Promise you’ll answer when I call.”
“I will.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I promise.”
“Great. ’Cause I’ve been trying to reach you for five years.”
A sadness passed across her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I wanted to touch her, hug her, and pull her to me, but she seemed as startled as I was, and I didn’t want to risk scaring her away. Especially when I had no idea what scared her off before. “Prove it by picking up the phone.”
T H R E E
- Lily -
I was still thinking about Sebastian when I pulled into the parking lot at the Lotus Center.
It was a relief to see that he was okay. Hell, he looked better than okay. He looked positively smoldering. And he sure as hell hadn’t become a cop. That much was obvious from his designer silk tie to his freshly shined shoes.
I also noticed he wasn’t wearing a ring— almost too quickly— as if there were still a little girl inside me hoping he’d turn up on a white horse and steal me away from the unspeakable horrors in my life. Like he had all those years ago, if only for the fleeting moments we spent together.
Some people have a happy place or a safe place, but I had Sebastian, a person I turned my back on so long ago it felt like it was someone else’s life I was remembering when I thought about him.
But it was for the best. I knew it, and Sebastian’s dad knew it, too.
Or at least, he was the last one who ever asked me for a promise.
I could still remember how I shook when I said it, how much the chemicals in my body stormed as I forced the words from my mouth. But I had more than just myself to think about, so I looked Mr. Rodriguez in the eye and promised him that, if he helped me, I would never contact Sebastian again.
It was a promise I kept.
In fact, I still hadn’t broken it. After all, he’d found me. And his dad never told me I couldn’t accept a call from him in five years’ time. Not that either of us was thinking long term that day.
I pushed my way through the revolving doors, tormented by the notion that Mr. Rodriguez would’ve wanted me to give his son a fake number, would’ve wanted me to disappear again.
But the look in Sebastian’s eyes had derailed me. No one had looked at me like that since him, and it made my heart skip in a way that felt hopeful, a sensation I was all too hungry for.
“Lily,” a nurse said as she came out of Paige’s room with an empty tray. “How are you doing?”
“Fine, Brenda, thanks,” I said, smiling. “And you?”
“Never better.”
“And Paige?”
“She’s doing great,” she said, setting the empty tray on a trolley against the wall. “Just finished her lunch.”
“I’ll remind her if she tries to tell me otherwise.”
“Sounds good.” She gripped the rails of the trolley and headed down the hall. “And press the buzzer by the bed if you need anything. You know the drill.”
I nodded and pushed open the door to the humble room. “Hi, girlie.”
“Lily!” My sister’s face lit up when she saw me, and warmth spread through my chest as I approached her.
She rose from the couch and pulled me into a hug.
I held her tight and rocked her side to side. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” She set her coloring book to the side and sat back down. “How long has it been?”
“Two days. I had an exam yesterday so I couldn’t come.”
“Two days,” she said, twisting her face. “I don’t remember.”
“We played checkers,” I said, reminding myself not to buy her any more new clothes since she always chose one of the same two blue shirts. “You almost beat me.”
“I think I’ve been practicing.”
I leaned back on the couch.
“You’re just in time for lunch,” she said. “Mine should be coming any minute now.”
“Brenda told me you already had it.”
“Oh.”
“So you’ll have to wait until your four o’clock snack.”
“Is that a new thing?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“I think so,” I lied.
Her expression lifted at the thought that maybe the world wasn’t a total mystery.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Great.”
“That’s wonderful to hear,” I said, though her answer was always the same. I didn’t know whether her sunny disposition was genetic or a side effect of her having lost the ability to make short-term memories, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she seemed happy, which meant a lot considering the sacrifices I made to keep her at such a reputable
place.
Sometimes I envied her condition, which made me hate myself. Even worse were the days I wished we both died alongside my mom in the crash, but it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, I walked away with nothing more than a seatbelt burn, and Paige walked away forever thirteen.
She hadn’t made a new memory since.
I used to test her all the time. I’d do something really crazy and super memorable, like show up in a banana suit or with a fake tramp stamp tattoo. But the new memories never stuck.
Which wasn’t so bad. There was a lot that happened after the crash that I wish neither of us remembered.
“Is Dad going to come with you next time?”
“Maybe,” I lied. But what was I supposed to do? Say that he was never coming? Say that he’d been dead for five years and didn’t deserve to be held on whatever pedestal he occupied in her mind? I’d tried that. All it did was cause us both unnecessary stress, and the truth didn’t keep her from asking the same question on my next visit. “Guess who I saw today?”
“Who?”
“Sebastian.”
“Sebastian Sebastian?”
I laughed. “How many Sebastians do you know?”
“Only one.”
“That’s the one I saw.”
“No surprise there. I can’t remember the last day that went by when you didn’t see him.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Whereas I haven’t seen him since we went to see Night at the Museum at the Regal.”
“That’s a long time ago,” I said, remembering how she sat between us in the theatre, much to my disappointment. But he was so nice about it. His patience with her surpassed even my own. Even after the crash. I used to watch him with her and admire how he never lost his enthusiasm for answering her same questions over and over.
But I knew why he went to so much trouble. It was because he loved me. He loved me in a way no one else ever had, and he understood what she meant to me. What taking care of her meant to me.
“Maybe we could go to the movies with him again sometime,” she said. “It would be nice to see him.”
“Maybe,” I said, recalling all the times I dragged her along when he and I had planned on being alone. Most teenage boys wouldn’t have put up with that, and I used to apologize constantly for letting her encroach on our limited private time. But he always said, “don’t worry about it, Lil. We have forever.”
And I believed him.
But that was before I knew one mistake could change your forever in an instant.
Then again, for something to be a mistake, you have to regret it.
And I didn’t. Not only because regret was a waste of time, but because, as much as it scared me, I believed I’d do the same again.
F O U R
- Sebastian -
I wished I could blame the gin for my lousy productivity that afternoon, but I knew it was seeing Lily that had knocked me for six.
I couldn’t stop wondering how long she’d been so close. That restaurant, for example. I went to The Atrium with Dave almost every Friday. Had she been there before under the same roof? Christ, there had been days I’d wondered if she was still even under the same sky.
The last time I saw her was as fresh in my mind as the pain I felt when I learned she’d skipped town.
We’d gone to Johnny Rockets for milkshakes and split an order of fries. She was in a red and white gingham sundress. I remember because I always thought she looked amazing in red.
I’d felt her up and sucked the delicate skin on her neck in the alley near our street on the walk home. I remember how she’d pressed her hips against my hard-on and teased my tongue with hers. I would’ve lassoed the moon for her back then.
Growing up, my dad used to tell the story of how he proposed to my mom the same night he met her. According to the tale, he crashed a mixer at the community college she was attending and fell for her at first sight. After dancing and talking all night, he proposed.
She’d laughed at him, said something like I’ve heard guys will say anything, but that’s a new one. He said he’d ask her every day until she realized he was serious. Two weeks later, she said yes, either to shut him up or because she finally believed him.
As a teenager, I felt the same way about Lily, but I was too young to propose. I had nothing to offer her then apart from my undying love and an enviable collection of Tarantino DVDs.
Still, I went to great lengths to convince her that I was the person she could always turn to, the person she could trust with anything. Too bad I didn’t do a better job. If I had, things might’ve turned out differently.
Like they were supposed to.
I pushed open the door to my condo and threw my keys in the silver bowl to my left. Tiffany’s tacky dance music was blasting down the hall, and based on the humidity in the air, I figured she’d probably spent the last hour in the shower.
Eager to crack a beer and put my feet up, I loosened my tie and headed to the kitchen, but when I was just steps from the fridge, an open magazine on the butcher block caught my attention. The top of the page read: Who’s your Celebrity Engagement Ring Muse? One of the hands was circled with permanent marker. An arrow had been drawn beside it as well, in case the message was too subtle.
It was sort of flattering, I guess, despite the fact that the word marriage had never so much as crossed my lips in Tiffany’s company.
Yet the magazine was the least of my worries. A mere foot away, two short lines of coke had been racked up, presumably with the credit card bearing her name beside them.
I swept the lines into my hand and dumped them down the sink before continuing my search for beer. I was staring into the fridge when I heard her voice behind me.
“What the fuck, Sebastian? Did you do those?”
I grabbed a Stella and swung the fridge door shut. “Do what?”
“Those lines that were just here?” She was in her underwear, but her hair and face were red-carpet ready.
“You told me you were going to quit.”
She craned her neck forward. “I am.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Eventually.”
I popped the cap off my beer and dropped the opener back in the drawer.
“Seriously, what did you do with it?”
“You don’t need that stuff.” I tilted the bottle against my lips, letting the delicious liquid cool my throat.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you take them? Just tell me.”
“I didn’t take them,” I said. “I dumped them down the sink.”
She ran to the sink like I’d mistreated sentimental earrings, letting out an obnoxious groan when she realized the stuff was long gone. “Why do you have to be such a narc?”
I hated that word and she knew it. “Why do you have to be such an addict?”
“I’m not an addict.”
“You’re acting like one.”
She rolled her eyes and stomped down the hall.
“My day was great, anyway, thanks for asking.” I took another sip of beer.
“That makes one of us.” She appeared again and proceeded to rack up a line on the counter.
“I don’t want that shit in my house.”
“Well I don’t want SportsCenter on my TV all the time, but I put up with that.”
“It’s not your TV.” I looked away when she bent down to do the line.
“Don’t be like that,” she said, righting herself and flicking her nose. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal, and I don’t want you doing that around the house. And by yourself, for Christ’s sake. It’s fucked up.”
She walked up to me and trailed a finger up my shirt. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“I want to break up.”
Her face twisted. “Don’t be so dramatic. I get it, okay? No more coke in the house. Whatever.”
My eyes dropped to her ass as she walked away—or at
least, what was left of it. Her curves seemed to be shrinking in direct correlation to her expanding coke habit, a habit I had no idea was so severe when we first got together. Sure, it was the party drug of choice in the circles we traveled in, but I didn’t think she was a fiend for the stuff.
And I did want to break up. Not just because of the coke, but because her new pastime of dropping hints about marriage was sucking a lot of the fun out of our casual relationship.
I leaned in the bedroom door and eyed the pile of dresses on the edge of the bed.
“Do you want to come out for a bit?” she asked, pulling another from the closet.
“Who are you going out with?”
“Tracey and some of the other girls from this week’s shoot.”
Most of the guys I knew would jump at the chance to drink Dom with a bunch of models, but I hated the way Tiffany acted around them. Like she was dumber than she was. “No, thanks.”
She wiggled into a body-hugging purple dress that barely reached two inches below her ass. “Zip me up?” she asked, making big eyes at me before turning around.
I set my beer on the dresser and slid her zipper up after she pulled her hair out of the way.
She spun around and made a kissing noise without pressing her lips to mine. God forbid she smeared her lipstick.
I drank silently as she crammed shit in the world’s smallest purse while making no move to do anything about the heaping pile on the end of the bed.
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to be done, it didn’t seem right to mention breaking up again. Not then. Not when she was on drugs and hoping to have a fun night.
“You’re sure you don’t want to come out?” she asked, cocking her head.
“I’m sure.”
“Call me if you change your mind.”
I nodded.
“And I’m sorry about earlier,” she said, batting her false lashes. “I’ll make it up to you if you wait up.”
“Oh yeah? How do you plan on doing that?”
She rose up on her toes so I could feel her warm breath on my ear. “By sucking your dick until you pass out.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and leaned back to look at her. “Tiff.”
“What?” she asked, searching my eyes.
“Make it up to me by getting home safe.”
