Love & Lies

by Julie Johnson

  “Now, let’s try not to have a repeat of yesterday. I’m assuming that you have all completed the required reading and the homework assignment, so if you could pass your worksheets to the front we can get start—”

  “Sorry I’m late, Ms. Ingraham. I had an extra stop to make on my way to class today.” The voice of the arriving straggler cut through her orders, his interruption equal parts apology and authority. Polite enough to garner favor without encouraging further questioning. A smart approach, I thought, but I doubted it would be enough to stave off Ms. Ingraham’s wrath. Every head in the room whipped in the direction of the voice, mine included, eager to see how the latecomer would fare against the strict tardiness policy. My bet was, this kid had some serious detention-time coming his way.

  Thankfully, I’m not much of a gambler.

  It was Sebastian, of course. He leaned casually against the doorjamb with his backpack tossed over one shoulder, a styrofoam cup of coffee held in each hand. Ms. Ingraham took one look at him and blushed like a schoolgirl. To my utter amazement, I watched as my overweight, bespectacled teacher turned beet red and said in a breathy, flustered, totally disturbing voice, “Oh, Sebastian, don’t worry about it. Take a seat.” She gestured loosely toward the only two empty desks — the one directly behind my chair by the window, and another by Amber, Nicole, and the other popular kids in the opposite corner.

  It wasn’t hard to guess where he was headed.

  I rolled my eyes after catching sight of Ms. Ingraham, who was still staring at Sebastian in a bewildered stupor. I couldn’t really blame her — the boy was good looking, and all the teachers had been thrilled beyond measure when the senator they’d elected chose to put his son in the public school system, rather than shipping him off to private school. But…seriously? Had we learned nothing from the Mary Kay Letourneau’s of the world? Despite my best intentions, a mutinous giggle escaped my lips.

  Sebastian heard my choked laugh and his eyes darted to mine as he entered the classroom and walked toward his friends with confident, self-assured strides. His lips lifted in a half-grin and he winked — yes, winked — at me, which only made it harder to control the escaping giggles. In hindsight, my mounting hysteria was probably a byproduct of the fact that Sebastian hadn’t ignored me, as I’d assumed he would, but had seemed friendly.

  Heck, he’d smiled at me. Winked at me.

  A flurry of butterflies simultaneously burst from their cocoons inside my stomach, and I quickly slanted my face down toward my desk to hide the dopey grin spreading across my lips.

  The smile quickly faded when I heard Nicole’s whisper echo across the room.

  “Ohmigod, Amber! Sebastian totally bought you a coffee. He’s so gonna ask you out.”

  Amber’s answering giggle was enough to instantly kill the swarm of butterflies. They dropped, mid-flight, to the bottom of my stomach where their once-beautiful papery wings were immediately incinerated by food-digesting acids.

  “Oh my god,” Nicole whispered. “Oh… my… god.”

  I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see the look on Amber’s face when Sebastian handed her that freaking coffee. I hoped it was some gross flavor like crème brûlée or blueberry. It would serve her right.

  My gaze downcast, I didn’t notice him until he’d come to a full stop next to my desk, his form hovering at the edge of my peripherals.

  “Here,” he said quietly, sliding the foam coffee cup onto the corner of my desk. My wide, disbelieving eyes watched the cup’s movement, captivated by the sight of his strong calloused fingers gripped lightly around its circumference. “Figured you could use this to get through seven hundred Latin verb conjugations.”

  He’d brought me coffee.

  He’d somehow known I’d be yawning my way through final period — which meant maybe, just maybe, he’d paid me more attention in the past than I ever could’ve guessed.

  I tipped my head back to meet his eyes, but he’d already moved beyond my chair. Frozen, I stared at the cup sitting in front of me and listened to the sound of Sebastian settling into the desk directly behind mine. A slow smile crept across my face and a furious blush spilled over my cheekbones. Shaking my head in disbelief, I accidentally locked eyes with Amber, who’d turned fully around in her desk to watch Sebastian’s surprise delivery. Her furious brown eyes were narrowed in a glare that threatened to burn a hole straight through me.

  Jeeze, it was just a coffee. No need to give herself a coronary.

  Laughing lightly, I winked at her — at which point her face turned a dangerous shade of red — before reaching forward and taking hold of my cup. Raising it to my lips, I took a sip of liquid heaven and sighed contentedly. I’d say one thing for the boy: he’d certainly found the way to this caffeine-junkie’s heart.

  Turning my head so Sebastian could see my face only in profile, as I was far too nervous to make direct eye contact with him, I whispered a quiet, “Thank you,” over my shoulder.

  “You’re welcome,” he whispered back.

  I didn’t even bother attempting to listen to Ms. Ingraham’s lesson that day. My attentions were elsewhere.

  Chapter 8

  Now

  * * *

  I swung the door open with a forceful bump of my hip and fell through the entryway, my bag-laden arms aching for relief. Beelining for my apartment’s tiny excuse for a kitchen, I immediately dumped my wine and snack cargo before leaning back heavily against the counter’s edge.

  Priorities were simple: music on, heels off, pour wine, decompress in bubble bath. Not necessarily in that order.

  I’d just popped the cork on my Merlot when the shrill ringing of my cellphone stilled my hand. With a trepidatious glance at the screen, I saw it was Fae and exhaled with relief. At least it wasn’t Jeanine.

  “Hello?”

  “Girl, where are you?” she whispered, a faint acoustic echo sounding in the background. She must’ve been in the bathroom at work, one of the few places at Luster that a NSFW call could be made. “I covered for you with Jeanine, told her you were out researching something for next month’s column. Are you okay?”

  “I’m… I don’t know what I am, actually. It’s a long story.”

  “I’ll be there after work.”

  “Fae, I’m not really up for comp—”

  “See you at six!” she interrupted, clicking off before I had a chance to protest.

  Damn.

  I turned to examine the small studio I called home. There were dirty coffee mugs piled in the sink and a basket’s worth of clean unfolded laundry lay in a tangled pile on the end of my low platform bed. My fluffy white down comforter was a knotted mess and there were enough high heeled shoes and boots spilling out of my closet and littering the hardwood floors to make Imelda Marcos envious.

  There was no food in the kitchen, with the exception of the Doritos I’d just purchased — and I obviously wasn’t about to share those babies with anyone, best friend or otherwise — and a few of those disgusting frozen microwavable “healthy” dinner alternatives that contained 300 calories worth of dried out veggies and cardboard-flavored pasta. Fae had convinced me to stock my freezer with them last January after informing me that we’d both be going on a post-holiday health kick. She’d only lasted about a week and a half — longer than the five hours I lasted — and I’m pretty sure the only time I’d touched the damn things since was when I threw half of them in the garbage to make room for my cartons of Ben and Jerry’s.

  Thankfully, I had wine.

  I’d have to clean up, now that Fae was coming over. And that meant no time for a long soak in my antique claw-footed tub. Slipping off my Louboutins, I flexed the cramped arches of my feet and reached up to remove the clip Fae had wound artfully into my hair earlier that afternoon. I laced my fingers through the strands and shook them loose, the silken locks falling heavily around my shoulders and down my back. For years Fae had been trying me to get me to cut it into one of the trendier pixies or even a bob, but I’d kep
t it long since I was a teenager.

  Never cut it. It’s the first thing I noticed about you, Sebastian had once told me as we lay together on the sun-dappled grass at our spot beneath the oak tree on the edge of his property. That first day in Latin, you walked in like you wished you were invisible. You kept your head down – you thought if you didn’t make eye contact, no one would even notice you were there. But your hair was so bright, it shined like this crazy blonde beacon. Every guy in the class was watching. You were so beautiful, I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.

  I closed my eyes at the memory. Sometimes I wished I could have my mind scrubbed clean of him — every touch, every trace permanently stripped from my thoughts, as though he’d never existed. But the days I wished for that were few and far between. Because, despite the pain and the bitterness that laced the edges of my time with Sebastian, for the most part I choose to live in the light.

  I know a lot of people don’t. Most people, in fact. They gravitate toward the shadows – the grief, the loss, the heartbreak. They dwell in it, reveling in their personal darkness. Focusing on the things they can never get back — the broken promises, the shattered dreams — and living mired in demons of the past.

  Not me, though.

  Not when, in the twenty-five years I’d spent on this planet, I’d known more love than most know in a lifetime. Not when I’d felt it – that moment when a person you need more than air or water or sustenance steps into your orbit and everything subtly shifts, like a camera finally sliding into focus. That person, who used to mean less than nothing, enters your life and rearranges your entire atmosphere around them, as if every atom and cell that makes you you isn’t your property anymore. Suddenly, every part of you becomes theirs – your particles dissembled and rearranged to align perfectly with someone who you don’t even know or understand yet. You cease to exist as you once were, and that person who meant nothing is suddenly, overwhelmingly, everything.

  I’d known it well, that all-consuming sense that every fiber in your being was crafted and created specifically for another human being. And so, even after that feeling – that ridiculous, head-over-heels, transient, life-shattering feeling – was eventually lost to me, I couldn’t step fully into the shadows. I couldn’t be broken or even too sad about the things I’d lost.

  Because, for a brief span of time, I’d been complete. I’d been his, and he’d been mine, and nothing and everything made sense all at the same time. And once you’ve felt that joy of breathing, of being, entirely for someone else, you can’t ever really go back.

  So I live in the light.

  I dwell in the good memories. Revel in their happy, water-colored hues and fuzzy edges. I skim over the darkness – not out of denial or avoidance, but because in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it the light that matters more? I knew, at the end of the day, that even if I were living in some Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind universe where erasing someone from your mind was possible, I’d keep Sebastian where he belonged — etched into both my heart and my memories.

  * * *

  By the time the buzzer sounded, signaling Fae’s arrival, my messy apartment was somewhat in order and I was several glasses into a bottle of Merlot. My hair was still damp from my bath and I hadn’t bothered with makeup. The only place I was going tonight was to bed, preferably within the next two hours.

  I hopped up from my couch — a sleek low-slung black IKEA unit I’d gotten for cheap from a furniture vendor at the flea market on 39th last fall — and buzzed Fae in. Her knuckles had barely grazed the door in a knock when I slid off the security chain and flipped the deadbolt.

  “FAE! What’s goin’ on, guuuuurl?” I yelled, throwing open the door with enough force to send wine sloshing over the edge of the glass clutched in my free hand. Fae made no move to enter, staring at me from the threshold with a mix of amusement and concern.

  “And how much wine have we consumed this evening?” she asked, one dark eyebrow quirked up.

  “Don’t worry, there’s plenty left for you,” I said, grabbing her arm and hauling her inside with a giggle.

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  I chose to ignore that statement, flopping onto my couch and closing my eyes with a sigh. I gestured vaguely toward the kitchen area. “Glasses are in the ca—”

  “Cabinet above the stove. I know, love. I’ve only been here about a million times over the past two years,” she reminded me. I heard the pop of the cork and the familiar gurgling sound of wine filling a glass.

  “You’re funny,” I giggled.

  “You’re hammered,” she countered, sitting down gently beside me and crossing her legs. “I haven’t seen you this bad since last year’s Christmas party when we caught Trisha and Stu doing it in the copy room. And that was an occasion that called for alcohol, if there ever was one.”

  “Trisha!” I squealed, deteriorating into giggles once more. “Totally the secret president of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Who would’ve known under all that padding? Do you think Victoria’s Secret sponsors her?”

  “Unlikely,” Fae said, taking a sip of her wine. “Back to you. Care to share why you’re shitfaced at 7:00 p.m. on a work night?”

  “I saw him.” I sighed.

  “Saw who?”

  I shook my head back and forth in slow denial. “Never thought it’d happen. Nuh uh, never in a million years,” I confided, opening my eyes and turning to face Fae. “‘Specially not today. I wasn’t even wearing my good bra… Hey! You think I should talk to Trisha? Maybe she can get me a discount!” I snorted at my own joke, laughing so hard tears started to leak from the corners of my eyes. Fae reached over and removed the wine glass from my precarious grip. Setting it carefully on the coffee table and far out of my reach, she grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a firm shake.

  “Lux, who did you see today?”

  “Sebastian,” I told her, rolling my eyes in exasperation. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” she agreed dryly. “But who, my darling little drunkard, is Sebastian?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about that,” I said with a laugh, lifting one hand to mime zipping my mouth closed and locking it. I nearly fell off the couch when I wound up to hurl the imaginary key across the room, which set me off in another fit of giggles. “It’s a secret.”

  “Lux, focus.” Fae snapped one finger in front of my face in an attempt to capture my attention, her tone growing impatient. “Sebastian. Who is he?”

  “Fae, you’re my bestest best friend, you know that?”

  “I do know that, but I’m beginning to doubt whether I want to keep the position,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Now tell me the big secret, otherwise I’m leaving and taking the wine with me when I go.”

  “Okay, but you have to promise.” I leaned across the couch into her space, my voice dropping to a grave whisper. “Promise not to tell.”

  Fae looked like she was fighting off a grin, but somehow managed to keep her face relatively serious when she stuck out her left pinky finger. “I promise,” she agreed.

  I wrapped my pinky around hers and nodded solemnly. Her lips twitched.

  “So who is this mystery man?”

  “Oh.” I shrugged, reclining against the couch cushions and curling my knees up to my chest. “He’s only the love of my life.”

  “Excuse me?!” Fae shrieked.

  “Mmm,” I murmured noncommittally. The wine had worked its magic, loosening my muscles into relaxation and lulling me toward that indiscernible, transient state somewhere between consciousness and dreaming.

  “What? Lux! You seriously cannot leave me hanging like this right now.”

  Sleep was beckoning with undeniable force, and Fae’s voice was an unwelcome intrusion — a pesky mosquito buzzing around my head and demanding attention. I grumbled in response, nestling further into the cushions.

  “What happened, Lux?”

  “I broke him,” I mumbled. “So
he hates me.” A solitary tear escaped from under my lashes and tracked down my cheek. “But I love him,” I added in a broken whisper.

  “Christ,” Fae cursed under her breath, her tone softening. I felt the cushion beneath my head sink as she scooted closer to me, followed by the gentle touch of a hand on my hair, petting me in long soothing strokes a mother might use to calm an upset child. “Lux, love. Why didn’t you ever say anything about him?”

  A sob rattled in my chest but I forced it down, trembling with the effort.

  I will not shatter. I will not break. I will get through this, just like last time.

  “Shhh,” Fae breathed, listening to my small hiccups of air as I fought for control. “It’s okay, love. Just relax.”

  I listened to her quiet words, breathing in and out until my chest stopped aching and my tears had subsided. And with Fae’s voice in my ears and her hand in my hair, I slipped over the line of consciousness and was dead to the world.

  * * *

  The loud ringing woke me from a deep slumber.

  My eyes snapped open to find my apartment cloaked in blackness. Bleary eyes yet unadjusted to the pervasive dark, I threw off the blanket Fae must’ve tucked around me before leaving and fumbled for my phone on the coffee table. My head was pounding and night had fallen outside my window, which meant I’d been out for several hours.

  “Hello?” My voice was huskier than usual, cracking with the remnants of sleep I’d yet to shake off.

  “Babe! You okay? I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  Desmond.

  “I’m fine, just nodded off for a few minutes I guess,” I fibbed, rubbing an aching temple with my free hand. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I glanced down at the screen. It was 9:57 — I’d been out for nearly three hours. More of a mini-coma than a nap, but Desmond didn’t need to know that. “What’s up?”