The Art of Us

by KL Hughes

  She fills and refills a Dixie cup, drinking every drop down until her throat stops burning and her head feels significantly less fuzzy. Then she gargles a bit of mouthwash before shuffling down the short path to her bedroom.

  The open doorway is like an invisible barrier, and Alex finds herself unable to cross the threshold. She stands in the frame, hands braced against the wood, and stares into the dark room at the covered lump in her bed. She stares, unmoving, until her feet start to hurt and she starts to feel sick again. She can’t go in there. She can’t be in there, not in that bed, not with Kari. Not when her head is filled with images of someone else. Not when her body is still thrumming with an almost kiss and her cheeks and jaw are still stained with the heat of Charlee’s fingertips. The salt of Charlee’s tears still coats her palms, and her throat is still tight, choking around the one word Alex had never truly been able to say to her. The one she still can’t forcibly form on her tongue—goodbye.

  She can’t be here.

  The hallway isn’t as warped as before. Alex trudges back toward the living room. Her legs still wobble beneath her, but the rest of the world, at least, has stopped shaking.

  Alex drops onto the couch and swipes a hand down her face. Rubs at her eyes. She can feel her makeup smearing beneath her knuckles, but she doesn’t care. Lying back, she tries to let sleep come and wash away the night, but it doesn’t. There are too many tremors in her chest. Too many ghosts haunt the darkness behind her eyelids, and there are too many echoes whispering inside her head.

  We fucked up, Alex.

  We fucked up, Alex.

  We fucked up.

  “I can’t do this,” Alex says to the empty room before rolling off the couch and heading for the door. She redons her coat, scarf, and gloves, adds a hat to the mix, then grabs her keys and heads out into the cold.

  “Alex, you need to sleep. You’ve been up for days. It’s seven in the morning, and you still haven’t gone to bed.”

  “I’m in bed right now.”

  “You know what I mean,” Gabby said, deadpan. “You’re exhausted from work and dehydrated from crying.”

  The early morning sun spilled through Alex’s window and across her face. She blinked against it and jerked her comforter up over her head; hid in the dark, suffocating hollow of her bed; and pressed the phone harder against her ear. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I have to get up for work.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You aren’t going to work today—or any day, for that matter, at least not for the rest of the week. I called your boss and told her you’d be out for a while.”

  “You what?” Alex choked on the words, voice shredded and deep. She jolted up in bed, throwing her comforter off her body. “Gabby, you can’t do that!”

  “Yes, I can. And I did. It’s done.”

  “Wha—how? What did you even say to her?”

  “I called as your doctor, because I am, and told her you have pneumonia and require rest and round-the-clock care. I faxed her a signed doctor’s excuse, so you don’t need to worry.”

  “Gabby, I—”

  “I mean it, Alex,” Gabby said. “Stop worrying. Stop panicking. Stop. You need rest and fluids.”

  “I don’t actually have pneumonia, you know.”

  “No, but you are making yourself sick. You won’t take care of yourself, so I’m taking care of you. That’s what mothers do. So don’t argue with me.”

  Alex blinked away a fresh wave of tears. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Gabby let out a soft chuckle. The sound rolled down from Alex’s ear to swell in her chest, comforting and familiar. “Good. Now, hang up the phone. I’m going to call you back on FaceTime.”

  “What?” Alex groaned. “Why? I look awful.”

  “I’ve seen worse. I’m about to leave for work, but I want to make sure you drink some water and take a sleeping aid first.”

  “Fine.” Alex huffed and hung up. When the phone rang again a second later, she clicked to accept the FaceTime call and couldn’t help grinning when Gabby’s kind brown eyes and easy smile popped up on her screen. The button nose that so reminded her of Charlee. They’d spoken on the phone almost daily for the last two weeks, and weekly prior to that, but Alex hadn’t seen Gabby’s face in months. It was both an ache and a comfort. “Hi.”

  “Oh, honey.” Gabby looked Alex over. “You need to wash your hair.”

  Alex rolled her eyes and shoved her tangled hair away from her face. “Do you want me to drink the water or wash my hair with it? Make up your mind.”

  “In the modern world, we have this wonderful thing called plumbing, which allows you to do both.”

  “We have this wonderful thing called the End Call button too.”

  Gabby laughed. “I forgot how grumpy you get when you’re sick.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Yes, you are. Honey, you’re heartbroken, and that is absolutely a sickness.”

  “Yeah?” Alex closed her eyes to stave off her building tears a bit longer. “Do you have a prescription for that?”

  “Time,” Gabby said. “Just time.” When Alex opened her eyes again, Gabby put on a sad, strained smile. “And, of course, plenty of fluids and rest.”

  The tiniest hint of a laugh puffed through Alex’s lips as she nodded. “I hear you.” She stood and trudged toward the kitchen. Propping her phone up against the toaster, she filled a large glass with water from the sink and turned to hold it up in front of the screen before chugging it down.

  “Thank you,” Gabby said. “Did you pick up the medicine from the store like I told you?”

  With a nod, Alex opened the cabinet above the microwave and grabbed the small bottle of tablets and shook it in front of Gabby’s face. “Are you sure this will make me sleep? Because I took Benadryl a few days ago, and it made me drowsy, but it didn’t make me sleep.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Gabby said. “It’s a different active ingredient than Benadryl, and it always works for Ch—” She cut herself off with a sharp clearing of her throat, but Alex didn’t miss the near slip. “It always works for me.”

  Alex’s chest tightened to the point of pain, but she said nothing. She simply bore the feeling as she had been for far too long, popped a pill into her mouth, and drank it down with a fresh glass of water.

  She and Gabby did little more than stare at one another for a moment before Gabby spoke, her voice a strangled whisper. “Back to bed, then.”

  Alex shuffled back to her bed, plopping down against her pillow. “Do you have to go?” She hated feeling this way—weak and needy—but she knew she couldn’t hide from Gabby, so she didn’t try. Plus, Gabby was the closest thing to Charlee she still had in her life.

  Cam had stopped answering her calls, though she sent Alex the occasional text that typically said something along the lines of “soon” paired with a heart emoji. Per Charlee’s own request, Vinny had stopped seeing Charlee, so she could no longer be a bridge for Alex. Gabby was all she had left, and Alex couldn’t help but cling. They didn’t talk about Charlee; it was too painful for her, too much right now. Charlee’s presence was there in every call, and that was enough for Alex. It had to be.

  “I’ll stay on the phone with you until you fall asleep,” Gabby said. “How about that?”

  “You’ll be late.”

  “So I’ll be late,” she said, and though Alex’s eyes were closed, she knew Gabby was shrugging. She could hear it in her voice, the easy way she dismissed everything else to make this moment and Alex her priority. It reminded her so much of Charlee.

  She caved to the feeling of falling apart and asked for what she really wanted. “Talk to me about her.”

  “Alex, I don’t think—”

  “Please, Gabby.” Alex moved her phone closer. She could feel Gabby’s eyes
on her, but it somehow only made her feel better, closer to home. That was what she needed right now—the feeling of home. “Talk to me about her.”

  “You asked me not to, honey, and maybe it’s better that we don’t, at least not for a little while.”

  “Maybe,” Alex said, her head growing heavy as she melted further into her pillow and sighed. “Okay.”

  She’s standing in front of a familiar door before she even realizes she’s gotten off the subway, having traveled the city on autopilot. Her heart has lodged itself in her throat like a piece of hard candy, and she wonders why it is that her feet have betrayed her. The last thing she needs tonight is another emotional overload.

  The night is quiet around her, as if the snow has muffled out the sounds and made the world softer and more silent, as if everything has frozen in place and is waiting to see what she’ll do. Large, dirty mounds stand at the edges of the street just off the stoop, shoved from the road to make a path for the city’s traffic. They stand in stark contrast to the thin sheets of flakes that blanket the sidewalk, some gleaming and virgin, some already riddled with footprints, the closest being Alex’s own.

  Alex glances around her, takes it all in. She contemplates retracing her steps, finding her way back to her apartment, back before she decided to let her heart do the walking. She should’ve known it would walk her right down memory lane. Still, she can’t deny that part of her, perhaps the largest part, wants to stick to the course no matter how awkward or painful or emotional it could become.

  As soon as her index finger jabs the doorbell, Alex knows there’s no going back. She spends the next five minutes clenching her hands in and out of fists, hoping no one answers the door. But then—she winces as the porch light clicks on, momentarily blinding her—the door swings open.

  “Alex.” It’s said with a touch of awe, a hint of confusion, and a great deal of affection, and that is enough to draw a small, helpless smile to Alex’s lips.

  “It’s late,” she says, doing her best to look as apologetic as she feels for having woken Charlee’s mother at four or five or whatever the hell time it is in the morning. Her eyes feel like they’re peeled a little too wide, though, and she worries she might be coming off as more freaked out than apologetic. But her face is too numb from the cold for her to properly correct it. “I know it’s late.”

  Gabby leans her head against the door. “It’s early, actually,” she says around a yawn. She shivers in the cold air coming in through the open door and wraps her robe tighter around her body. “And from the look of your pupils, I’m assuming you’re drunk.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Alex says, eyes still far too wide. “Though considerably less drunk than when I left my apartment. If you have vodka, I’d like to correct that.”

  Letting out a quiet laugh, Gabby reaches out to take Alex’s gloved hand and pulls her inside the mercifully toasty house. She doesn’t give Alex a chance to take the place in or even shed her winter gear before bringing her into a tight embrace and kissing the side of her head. “It’s never too late,” she says, patting the puffy back of Alex’s coat, and even in her slight haze, Alex hears the weighted truth in the words. It’s never too late to come home. “I’m glad you finally came to see me.”

  Alex melts into the embrace and rests her chin on Gabby’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

  “You’re here now.” Gabby eases back to smile at her. “I’ll pour you a drink.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Well, you’re an adult, and while I’d prefer you not torture your liver in order to avoid your problems, you’re probably going to do it anyway. So, if you’re going to do it, you may as well do it here where you can be monitored.”

  “You’ve always taken care of me.” Alex follows Gabby into the kitchen and settles onto a cushioned stool at the kitchen island while Gabby pours her a drink. A tiny tumbler of vodka. She then pops a few pieces of bread into the toaster. Alex is surprised that it doesn’t feel strange being back here. It feels familiar. Comforting. Alex tries to take in as much of the space as possible: the framed photos around the great room, a bit too blurry to actually recognize in her state, and the old leather armchair across from the television. It’s still visibly ripped at the back from when she and Charlee tried to have sex in it, only to knock it over and bust a seam. They never told Charlee’s parents that part, and now that Alex thinks about it, she can’t even remember the story they conjured up to cover themselves.

  Alex blinks away the memory and turns to face the woman she used to think would one day be her mother-in-law. “I feel like we should catch up,” she says. “But I guess we don’t really need to since we never stopped talking.”

  “It does take the awkward out of it, doesn’t it?”

  “Thankfully, yes. I’ve had enough awkward in the last two months to last a lifetime.”

  “I heard.” Gabby places a plate of toast in front of Alex. “Now, eat. Your organs don’t like swimming.”

  “You know about the stuff with Charlee?” Alex removes her gloves and sets them aside. She bites into a piece of toast and washes it down with a swig of vodka. “The gallery and the dinner? You never said anything when we talked Wednesday.”

  “I assumed you wanted to avoid talking about it.”

  “You assumed correctly.”

  “You two never can do things the easy way, can you?”

  “That’s the understatement of the year.” Alex drains the remaining vodka in two sharp gulps and then lets out a long, loud sigh. “How did things get so messed up?”

  “That’s the way it works sometimes,” Gabby says through another yawn, leaning her elbows down on the island. “We make plans, and then most of us spend our lives watching them fall through at one point or another.”

  “That’s depressing.” Alex frowns. “What do we do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When our plans fall through? What are we supposed to do?”

  She smiles sadly. “We make new plans.”

  “And when that doesn’t work?”

  “Well, then we’re miserable.”

  “Is this supposed to be a pep talk?” Alex quirks a brow, too tired and intoxicated to care that she’s talking with her mouth half-full of toast. “Because if it is, it’s the most morose pep talk I’ve ever been given.”

  “I’m glad the alcohol hasn’t affected your vocabulary.”

  “Scrabble master, remember?”

  “I remember.” Gabby laughs. “And, no, it isn’t a pep talk. It’s a truth talk.”

  “Well, truthfully, I’m screwed up enough as it is,” Alex says with a bitter huff, dropping a piece of half-eaten toast onto her plate. She starts pulling at her clothes as she talks, trying to get her coat off. It’s much too warm in Gabby’s house to stay bundled up. “I think that’s about all the truth I can handle.”

  “You aren’t screwed up.” Gabby comes around the island to help with Alex’s coat. She removes Alex’s scarf and hat and then quickly unzips her coat for her. “You’re sad.”

  A sigh of relief slips free as Alex’s coat falls off her and onto the floor along with the rest of her winter gear. “I’ll pick those up.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Gabby waves a hand dismissively. “It’s not the first time your clothes have been strewn around my house.”

  Alex’s cheeks redden. “Charlee promised me you two wouldn’t be home that night for at least another two hours. I’m still embarrassed about that.”

  “Well, Drew thought it was hilarious, so I suppose that was the upside,” Gabby says. “I still don’t understand the appeal of having sex in your parents’ house, especially when you have your own place. But you two rarely kept your hands to yourselves, so I can’t say I was surprised. You could’ve avoided the kitchen counter, though.”

  “I think I need anothe
r shot.”

  Gabby chuckles as she turns to grab the bottle. “All right, but this is the last one. I’m cutting you off.”

  Kicking the vodka back as soon as it’s poured, Alex revels in the burn slithering down her throat and in the pleasant buzz that seems to swarm around her brain after. She spins a bit on the stool and takes in the rest of the great room. After a moment, she stands and moves toward a large framed photo on the wall.

  Her own face smiles back at her, hair windblown and wild as she stares into the camera, the Parker family cabin behind her and Charlee pressed to her side. Charlee’s nose squashes against Alex’s cheek, and her blue eyes are closed as if she is absorbing the moment, breathing Alex in. Looped around Alex’s waist, Charlee’s arms are sunburned, and there is a visible sheen of sweat coating Alex’s forehead. The summer sun beats down on them. It’s beautiful. Alex has never seen so much joy in a single shot before, in a single captured second; she’s never seen so much joy in her own face, in her own body language. This, she thinks, is what life is supposed to look like. This is what love is supposed to look like.

  With her back to Gabby, Alex closes her burning eyes. The only thing that will soothe them is the watery release Alex so often fights against. Here, though, faced with a perfect glimpse of a past she’s spent too much time aching over, she lets the release come. She lets the tears build, lets them crest. Lets them fall.

  “Everything’s so blurry,” she whispers. She’s surprised when Gabby’s hands settle on her shoulders and steer her toward the couch.

  “That’s the alcohol.”

  “No, it’s me.” Alex drops onto the end of the couch. “It’s this. It’s us.” She waves her hand aimlessly through the air, nearly knocking a glass vase from the end table.