Between Everything and Us

by Rebecca Paula

  “I should—”

  “Go?”

  I wrench myself away. “Yes.”

  This anger suddenly clouding up inside me makes no sense. I race back up the steps and practically run out of the garden. I slam-dunk my coffee into the trash can.

  He emerges from the garden, his hand covering his mouth, and I realize he’s coughing. I soften a bit, but not much—the jerk.

  Stupid Cole. Stupid Aubrey. Stupid…me. Why did I think it would be different when I flew in? Why did I have to dream up other realities for us?

  I grab his helmet and rush up to him, slamming it into his chest. “Here.”

  “In a rush to see your boyfriend?”

  “Don’t be an asshole. Not now.”

  He scoffs, sidestepping around me as though I’m a sinkhole that will swallow him up.

  “I’m not being an asshole,” he says, straddling his bike. Beau looks really fucking good on his bike. I hate him for it. “You want to go, we’ll go. You wanted coffee and we had coffee, so whatever.”

  So whatever? “According to you, I owed you that coff—”

  “We’re even. Get on the damn bike. You can’t be late to see Cole.”

  I cross my arms. “I’ll get a cab if you’re going to be like this,” I snap. He glares at me, his eyes obsidian. “It’s not like I knew about these plans. Come out with us tonight.”

  “And tag along on your date?” He thrusts the helmet out, bridging the impossible distance between us.

  I swat it away. “What the hell is your problem?”

  I should have worn mittens; my hands are freezing. I stuff them into my mint parka and glare back. He doesn’t intimidate me. He never did, but especially not now after I spent the week in his bed, weathering out the Black Plague together. I know about his geeky Captain America pajamas. I know that he snores. I know how adorably lost he looks when he wakes up after too much cold medicine.

  And just like that, the anger between us that spiked so quickly fades. He doesn’t have to say it; I feel it. I haven’t been back in Portland for a full day yet, and already we’re being dragged apart.

  “I don’t have to go,” I say softly. I kick over the gravel in the parking lot, sweeping my foot in an arc like one of Renoir’s ballerinas.

  Beau jolts his bike alive, its throaty roar vibrating the tailpipes, sounding like the summer thunderstorms in Maine that rattle the old windows in my bedroom. And like the glass, I’m brittle and fragile, beginning to splinter.

  “Yeah, you do.” This time he nudges the helmet against me instead of wielding it like a weapon.

  My heart sinks, and my hands follow, dropping out of my pocket to grasp the helmet.

  His fingers linger over mine as our eyes meet. I feel the tiny smile on my face falter. He squeezes my hand once, letting go to look straight ahead.

  “Sometime today, Evans.”

  I tug on the helmet and climb onto the back of the bike. When we drive off, I wrap my arms tight around his middle. If he minds, he doesn’t say anything.

  I sober up to reality that we’re friends again, simply friends.

  And roommates.

  Nothing more.

  ***

  The act that’s on stage isn’t great, but no one seems to mind. We’re at a bar near campus, and everyone is regaling one another about their winter breaks. If I wasn’t so caught up in myself, I might even feel excited to be back with familiar faces.

  Except I’m not excited. I’m not sure what I feel. Sad, maybe. Frustrated. Empty, mostly. I must have gotten really good at lying, though, because everyone believes the smile on my face.

  “Hey!”

  Aubrey’s shout startles me, and I jump, falling back against a hard body. Hands gently brace my waist, hands with a leather wristband. My body doesn’t relax—wrong guy.

  I have to give myself a pep talk to face Cole. My smile falters when I finally do. I thought I’d be happier to see him than I am.

  “Thanks for coming tonight, Matt.”

  Cole smiles down at me as if I’m a belated Christmas present.

  My throat tightens. “Sure thing.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Awful.

  I pull my eyes away from gazing over his shoulder and pin them to his face, pretending I’m listening, trying to care, trying to give him a damn chance because Cole is a good guy. “Better, thanks.”

  “Good.”

  Things go quiet until Aubrey saves me and cuts in. “How was your break, Cole?”

  “Boring. Glad to be back.” He avoids Aubrey, holding a staring match with my lips instead.

  I lick them, nervous, except that draws him closer.

  He leans forward, his hand on my shoulder as he whispers into my ear, “Listen, can I talk to you for a—”

  “Shots!” I duck away, nervously wiping at the warm spot where his breath grazed my cheek. “Let’s do shots to celebrate the new semester.”

  No one seems to think this is as brilliant of an idea as much I do, but I’m halfway to the bar before Aubrey and Cole catch up. I order six shots of whiskey, thankful that the bartender is a friend of Aubrey’s who doesn’t card me. Girls with broken hearts don’t do girly shots; we head straight for the hard stuff.

  I toss my head back and chase two down, waiting for the others to follow. When Cole passes on his second, I do the logical thing and take it off his hands. Then I do the next logical thing and cup his face in my sweaty palms and kiss him. Our teeth knock together when I pull too hard at his neck—not eager, just desperate.

  Cole jerks away. “What are you—”

  The room drops out, cold and black. I might puke on his shoes. “I have to go,” I say weakly. Aubrey stands beside him, her mouth hanging open. Cole tries to reach for me, but I shy away, bumping into the person behind me. “I have to go. I don’t feel…”

  By the time I make it home, the whiskey’s hit my veins, heavy and warm in my stomach. I forgot how much I hate that stuff. Its stringent taste has blown out my taste buds, and my mouth feels numb. I feel numb.

  I stumble into my bedroom, flick on the bedroom light, and stagger back against my door.

  Beau’s asleep on my bed.

  “Turn the light off, bug,” he mumbles into my pillow. His words are slurred.

  After shots and a few beers, I’m spent. I should have eaten. The room swirls, and I awkwardly reach for the wall, bracing myself. I try to hide how much of a wreck I am from Beau, pawing at the wall for the light switch. I don’t think he cares. He’s drunk, too.

  I crawl into bed beside him, too tipsy to attempt to take off my heels. My feet hang off the bed as I cocoon myself under the blankets the best I can.

  I tuck my hands under my face, staring back at Beau in the dark. “Why are you here?” I rub the sheet over my lips, trying to wipe away the feel of Cole’s lips against mine, the lingering taste of him. I feel dirty now that I’m back here, staring at Beau’s mouth.

  “Came back early,” he whispers.

  The bourbon on his lips makes me nauseated. I hate what we’re doing to each other. My fingers ache to sweep over the curve of his cheek, to cup his face. I want to get lost in kissing Beau. I want more than that, too. I want everything.

  I’ve never felt so alone in bed with another person. His heat wraps itself around me, yet there’s this huge void separating us. A void that we put there for whatever reason—rules, plans, pride.

  Beau brushes my bangs away from my eyes. “I set an alarm.”

  More rules, more unspoken confessions. There is so much left unsaid between us that I swear my room is falling in around me. It hurts when I softly say, “Okay.”

  “One more time, that’s all.”

  God, it hurts so much. I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t think the organ that is vital to living could be painful because of an emotion you feel. Its function is to pump blood, not get involved in my love life. But I guess it missed that memo because I feel it being torn in two.

  I duc
k my head against his chest. It hurts to breathe, hurts to think of what this means. “Sure.” My voice cracks, then I slowly crumble apart. “I tried,” I say, struggling to get myself back together.

  At some point, Beau became more than a roommate. He became more than a crush, more that an object of lust. I want him. I want to be with him. I want to wake up in his bed and be a couple and not have to hide from everyone.

  I want his love—me, the most unromantic girl in the world.

  His breathing is uneven, but his heart beats in a slow rhythm against my ear. I think he’s asleep, until he leans over and kisses my cheek. My hands frame his face, and we kiss until the air burns in our lungs, until the room is whirling and I think I might be sick.

  I fall asleep against his chest a while later, one last time.

  Our silent, drunken goodbye.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Matisse

  A week passes, and Beau and I stay out of each other’s beds. We even manage to stay out of each other’s way. Which is good because I really need to focus. I have my big interview today.

  My mom makes me send her a selfie of my interview outfit. So that’s how my morning is going. I toy with the idea of sending her a picture of me in my sweats and Beau’s hockey jersey, which I may or may not have confiscated. I’m good, though, because I always am when it comes to my parents, and send her a picture of me in my first suit. A suit that took five miserable hours at the mall to buy, but I guess it’s a rite of passage for college students. I have one now, and it’s another box I can check off.

  I even manage to leave the bungalow without getting any paint on the expensive gray wool. This is the first piece of clothing I’ll need to take to a dry cleaners. That’s a thing adults do, and I guess it’s something I have to do now, too.

  Interviewing is weird when the stakes are real.

  I keep running over small things in my mind, minute accomplishments of mine to help calm the nerves shaking me up. I know I must have some qualifications if I got this far in the process. Yet my palms are sweaty, clutched around the steering wheel of some beat-up car Ethan brought home last night for me to borrow. Besides the drive shaft sounding as if it’ll snap when I take the next turn, it drives fine-ish. I turn up the radio to mask the rough sounds of the engine. I don’t want to acknowledge that the car might fall apart before I get to where I need to be.

  Aiden McKenna’s house and studio are almost an hour outside of Portland, tucked away in the state forest, not far from the Pacific. When I ride up the long and twisting drive and spot the modern building, an expensive contrast of wood and glass, I panic.

  It snowballs, and even though I know it’s ridiculous, I can’t stop freaking out.

  My chest tightens, and I freeze, slamming on the touchy brakes. The car grudgingly comes to a shaky halt. I try to tell myself to push the gas, to keep driving because otherwise I’m going to be late. Instead, my mind tumbles into a nasty tangle of doubt, and I lose myself to those ugly words.

  It takes remembering Beau’s voice, his calm counting in my mind, before I do the same out loud, alone in the car, in the middle of my potential boss’s driveway. It feels like forever before I push the gas pedal to pull in all the way and park the car. It’s even longer before I can catch my breath and realize my interview is in five minutes, not fifteen like I had planned.

  Shit.

  I grab my portfolio and attempt to lock the car, except the door doesn’t close tight enough and the keys keeps getting stuck. I give up and take the stone steps cut into the cedar-mulched embankment two at a time, racing to the front door. Copper bells clang and jingle from trees, and sparks of light catch my eye from stained-glass windmills staked throughout the modernist gardens. It’s a funhouse of adulthood, a whimsy of money and an artistic mind.

  No one answers when I knock, and eucalyptus incense burns on a small table beside a sleek black bench when I step inside. A small water fountain bubbles quietly at the opposite end of the hallway in front of a giant window overlooking a thick backdrop of aged pines. I understand the aesthetic, the simplistic vision of what it’s like to be connected with the outdoors, but I still don’t fit in. Especially not when a woman emerges from a room, her patent heels clicking over the perfectly polished wood floors.

  “You’re Matisse Evans?” She sounds foreign, but I can’t place her accent. I don’t have time to, really. She skips a handshake and ushers me down the hallway into a huge studio. A man stands in front of another bank of windows stretching from floor to ceiling. Everything about the room makes me feel small, insignificant. I swear I can taste that blueberry muffin I ate earlier start to climb up my throat.

  Focus, Evans.

  “The next candidate is here,” the woman says. “Evans. You’ll remember.” Then she promptly abandons me and shuts the door.

  When he turns, I’m surprised to see a young face. Aiden McKenna prefers to let his art speak for itself. He’s not big on photo ops, though, staring back at him now, I’m not sure why. He’s classically handsome, like Cary Grant or George Clooney kind of handsome.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. McKenna,” I say. My voice is shaky, but I push down my nerves and march forward, holding my hand out. I poured over proper interview etiquette blog posts most of break. That’s why I have my suit, why I have extra copies of my résumé, as well as another art portfolio of additional work. I might be nervous as hell, but I’ve got this.

  I think.

  He studies me with narrowed eyes, then reluctantly holds his hand out. “You wore a suit?”

  I draw back, short of shaking his hand. It’s pretty manicured for an artist. If he looks too closely, he’ll see I still have aubergine paint beneath my nails and a callous from gripping my paintbrush too tightly.

  “This isn’t an interview for a corporate job, and I mostly hate all that bullshit,” he continues.

  Inside I want to die, but outside I try my best to be positive and friendly. Be professional. I might not be the best-mannered coffee barista, but I can be an adult and talk about art professionally. And since my suit isn’t being interviewed, I ignore his comments and let the silence fall to awkwardness. Let him clean up that mess.

  “Anyway,” he says, motioning me to a pair of leather chairs separated by a small table. “Have a seat. How are you?”

  I hate him insulting my suit, almost as much as I hate forced polite conversation. I never did understand why they called it an icebreaker. Not unless they mean for you to feel cold and lost, faced with the threat of slipping through the ice to drown. “I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

  He clears his throat and sits, his attention pinned to the large pile of portfolios stacked this way and that. My future is somewhere in that Jenga pile. My stomach drops. There are a lot of them.

  “So tell me about yourself, Martha.”

  I slide over the leather chair. The wool is too slippery. “It’s Matisse.” I meet his impartial gaze, then take a deep breath. It’s hard to remain dignified when you’re seconds away from slipping off your seat onto the floor. “I’m here today because I want this internship, sir. I’ve worked hard to get where I am.” I want to say I’ve sacrificed a lot, too, but know that might come off as a negative. “I know that I have talent and think, under your guidance, I could improve.”

  He lifts his squared chin, then says quietly, “Find your portfolio.”

  I nod, then tip forward, having to lean my weight on the balls of my feet to stop me from toppling over completely in my heels. The portfolios mostly look similar, the same rectangular black leather. I comb through a few, then pause after the eleventh, realizing these are my competition and they’re good. Really fucking good.

  I keep shuffling until I find mine stuck at the bottom of the stack. I place it on top and settle back into the chair, holding out my second portfolio without pause. “And I’ve brought more work.”

  I expect him to let me wallow in the little dignity I have left. Instead Aiden takes my second portfolio an
d pages through it quickly. “I asked about you, not why you’re here today.”

  “But that is why I’m here today. Art is everything to me.”

  He shuts the portfolio, his expression blank. “Your parents mentioned the same thing.”

  I wince as soon as I hear the p-word. I want to die. I want lightning to strike me down right now. I want to have this stupid slippery chair swallow me up so I don’t have to face the constant humiliation of my helicopter parents.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your parents called, told me all about you and your art. I see the talent—I do. But you just looked through the rest of the candidates. Everyone’s talented, but only your parents called to push your qualifications. I honestly don’t care much for your work. It has potential, but you’re holding back. I’m not interested in wasting my time on someone who hasn’t found their artistic voice yet.”

  Ouch.

  He holds out the portfolio, and I grab it, not slinking back. “Besides, you failed out of art school. The best in the country, actually.”

  I don’t have to worry about the chair swallowing me up—my body turns cold and panic wins again until the familiar black dots cloud my vision.

  I can’t do this here, can’t let this happen.

  “This internship isn’t about me giving you guidance. It’s a support role. You work for me, and I’m not going to hire someone who lacks drive. I’ve been successful because I haven’t quit—”

  “And that’s why I’m here. Today.” The words tumble out. “If I had given up, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have come to Sutton. I wouldn’t have answered the original essay about why I want this opportunity. I wouldn’t have submitted a portfolio of entirely new work or hunted down letters of recommendations or have spoken with your assistant for the phone interview. I’m here because I’m full of ambition, not because of the lack of it.”

  Somehow this little speech of mine changes the tone of the interview from an interrogation to something a little friendlier. And by the end, I even manage to make him laugh. I fool myself into thinking it went well. At least, I do until I reach the end of his driveway.