Painted Over

by Sofi Keren

  “They told you about that? Oh my god, it was so embarrassing. It was like being back in the college dorms all over again. I haven’t walked in on a hookup in years!”

  “You should have just sat down right next to them and turned on the TV like it was no big deal.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paige cut in. “Is this weird for you?”

  “Huh? Weird why?”

  “Because Elena’s your ex-girlfriend?”

  “From a million years ago.”

  “Weren’t you together for a couple of years? That’s got to feel at least a little strange.”

  “Not really, no. By the end, we were mostly just friends anyway. So breaking up just meant we were only friends. She’s really sweet. She just wasn’t the one.”

  “All right. If you say so.”

  “I say so. And anyhow, isn’t it lesbian law that we have to be friends with all of our exes?”

  “Ha. They say that, but I haven’t really kept up with any of mine.” Well, except for you. If that counts.

  “So what about you, anyway? I hear you’re seeing that art lady?”

  She felt her face turn bright red and she tried to focus on navigating traffic. “I don’t know what that is yet. Elena told you, huh?”

  “She had to say something to distract me from teasing her about her and Brandon getting busted.”

  “Well, she’s nice.” Paige felt herself growing defensive. “It’s still really new. I don’t know if it’s a thing yet. I’m trying not to worry too much about it and just let whatever happens happen.”

  Ria laughed. “The Paige I knew wasn’t really a relaxed and casual kind of girl, at least when it came to dating.”

  “Well, shows what you know,” she joked. “I’m like so casual now that it’s Casual Friday every day.”

  Ria got quiet and stared out the window. After a few more minutes of silence, Paige glanced over at her, concerned. “Did your trip go well?”

  “Yeah, it was good.”

  “Any solid possibilities?”

  “I think so, yeah. Tennessee was definitely interested in me. Virginia I didn’t love, even though they were plenty nice. But of course North Carolina would be my first choice. How could it not? I’d learn a ton from their head coach. It’ll just depend on what their final offer is, if they make one.”

  “Well they’d be stupid not to hire you.”

  Ria lapsed back into silence.

  She knew she shouldn’t pry, but she pressed on anyway. “I’m sure it feels weird, that you’re going to be the coach instead of the player.”

  “What?” Ria looked confused.

  “You seem kind of… lost in thought. I figured maybe it’s hard giving up playing and starting to teach up and coming players instead.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Paige, can you pull over somewhere for a minute?”

  “Oh. Um, yeah. Sure. Hold on.” She took the next exit and found a truck stop with a large, mostly empty parking lot.

  “What’s up?”

  Ria unbuckled her seatbelt and faced her. “I had a lot of time to think while I was gone. About what I want. Not just from my career but everything. And then I heard that you were starting to see someone, and I realized I had to say something before it got serious and I lost my chance. Because Paige, what I want most…is you.”

  Paige was stunned. “Me?” She hadn’t really believed Elena before, or maybe she’d been afraid to.

  “Yes, you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about ever since you came into the bike shop a few weeks ago, I haven’t stopped thinking about you for a minute.”

  “Ria… I…”

  “Just… hold on. God, I practiced this on the plane and it’s not coming out right.”

  “Ria…”

  “I know. I know, we were just starting to be friends again, but it’s not what I want. I don’t want to be friends. I want more.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You haven’t even thought about it?”

  “I didn’t even know it was a possibility. We had just started being friends again and then I thought you were back with Elena, and then…”

  “And then you met your art lady. I know. I should have said something earlier, but I wanted to really be sure of my feelings before I went for it and screwed things up all over again. You’re worth more than that. I don’t want to ruin our friendship, now that we have it back, but I also don’t want to ruin the chance if we might have a future as something more.”

  Paige’s thoughts were a muddy, confused swirl. It didn’t seem real. Surely, Ria wasn’t sitting in front of her in the parking lot of some truck stop saying all this. Not now. Not after everything.

  “Ria, I can’t… I just, let me think about all this, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. Think about it.”

  Paige started the car and headed back onto the highway. They rode in silence the rest of the way to the Worths’ house. When they got there, Ria grabbed her things quickly from the trunk and leaned into the open window.

  “I didn’t mean to just throw all that on you. I’m sure it came completely out of nowhere. But when I heard you were starting to see someone, I just… I knew I needed to say it now while I still might have a chance.”

  Paige nodded, not ready to voice her thoughts.

  “Call me or text me when you’ve had a chance to think about it, okay?”

  “Okay,” Paige said.

  She was tempted to say more, but she didn’t have the words yet. Ria looked so nervous, so vulnerable, in a way Paige had rarely seen her. She wanted to tell her it was going to be okay. But they had so much history.

  Ria looked like she was going to say something else, but then she stopped herself and instead turned toward the house. Paige sat stunned until Ria disappeared inside.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Paige sat in her car in the driveway, her synapses sending competing signals to her brain. Some told her to turn on the car, peel out of there, and pretend she hadn’t heard a word Ria’d just said. The others told her to get out of the car and go find her, right now. She felt a heady mix of emotions building inside her, threatening to spill out. Part of her wanted to rush in and say yes, let’s do this. But as she thought over everything that had happened between them, what Ria had done in college and the years she’d lost, she couldn’t help it. The emotion that won out was anger. It surprised her at its force.

  Enough. I’m not pushing things down any more. She threw open the car door and slammed it shut behind her. Striding up to the house, she steadied herself. She was finally going to get some answers.

  Ria was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and drinking a glass of water.

  “How fucking dare you,” Paige said. She wasn’t going to cry. Hell, maybe she was going to cry. She was past caring.

  Ria looked up at her like a startled deer. She looked like she was going to say something, but Paige stopped her. “No. I don’t want to hear anything you might have to say right now. How dare you come back into my life when things are going well and try to screw it all up? Goddamn it, Ria. You had your chance. You know you broke my fucking heart, right? Maybe it was over ten years ago but it’s not like it’s just disappeared from my memory. You treated me like I meant absolutely nothing to you. I was your goddamn best friend. I was supposed to be different. I thought I was different. And you had the gall to pretend like you didn’t even remember. Like you hadn’t said you loved me. Like we hadn’t spent the whole night making plans. I was going to come with you to France.” Tears poured down her face but she continued.

  “I was going to paint and sell art to tourists while you played soccer, and we were going to travel and explore the world together. And then morning came and you pretended not to remember. Like I would believe that. But I just took it. I let you pretend. I didn’t force it. Because if you didn’t really want me, then it didn’t m
atter anyway.

  “But now? Now that we were finally becoming friends again. Now that I was willing to ignore all the years I spent feeling like you tore my heart out. Like I’d lost the person I loved most in the world and my best friend. Now you think you can just tell me you have feelings for me? That’s not how it works, Ria! I don’t care how long ago it was. It might as well have been yesterday. Because you never said you were sorry. You just pretended like it didn’t happen, and then you pretended like you didn’t even notice that we weren’t friends anymore. And I let you. And none of it is okay.”

  Ria looked at her like she’d been gutted. For a moment, Paige felt guilty, but she stood strong.

  “I need you to admit it. That you remembered. That you were just pretending.”

  Ria breathed. She looked like she was going to cry, and she rarely ever cried. “I remembered. But there was more to it,” she said quietly.

  “Tell me, then. Tell me why you would do that to me.”

  Ria took a deep breath. She looked at the floor and then raised her eyes. “I woke up that morning so happy. When I opened my eyes, and you were next to me, it was all I’d ever wanted. You were fast asleep. You know how heavily you sleep, like nothing short of a tornado could wake you? So I got up and went to your kitchen to make coffee and see if there was any food in the fridge. And that’s where I found it. Your acceptance letter to UCLA was right on top of the microwave and I read it. It offered you a full scholarship for your MFA. You’d always talked about going to UCLA someday and how amazing their programs were. And there it was, an offer for you to have it. And you hadn’t even told me! You let me go on and on about playing soccer in France, and going to camp for the national team, and you talked about coming with me, and I realized you were going to give up your own dreams to follow mine.

  “I was so tempted to let you. I thought about putting the letter back, pretending I hadn’t seen it, coming back to bed and making more plans for our future together. But then, it dawned on me. I’d be letting you give up everything for me, and what if you regretted it someday? It would be my fault. I knew you wouldn’t have thought twice about turning that program down and coming with me. It’s the kind of person you were, that you still are. So I got my things. I snuck out. And I made up that stupid excuse about being so drunk I couldn’t remember anything. I didn’t know what else to do.

  “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I’d rather hurt myself a thousand times than hurt you even once. But don’t you see? I did it for a good reason. Look where you are now! Painting giant murals and creating amazing artwork for bands all over the world. If you’d come with me, you probably wouldn’t have had all that. It all worked out, in the end, didn’t it?”

  Ria looked up at Paige, her expression begging for forgiveness, for understanding.

  But Paige stared back, furious. She stood, shaking, and finally opened her mouth to speak. “Do you really think you were some kind of hero? That was not your choice to make! It was my life! If I wanted to throw away all my plans and go with you, that was up to me. Even if it was a complete disaster, even if it was stupid and foolish and a total mess. How could you?” Ria started to protest, but Paige kept going.

  “Don’t. Don’t try to defend it. What you did was just as bad as what you let me believe. You lied to me. You hurt me. And you thought you knew what was best for me so you just decided what I should do. And now you want to try again. Have you even grown up at all?”

  Tears streamed down Ria’s face. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming. Paige steeled her heart. She wasn’t going to let Ria’s pain change her mind. Not after all of this.

  “My answer is no, Ria. No. I don’t want to date you. I don’t even know if we can be friends. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t let me be equal. Who doesn’t respect me enough to even let me make my own choices.”

  “Paige…I’m sorry.”

  “I have to go.” She spun around and ran for the door. Mila was just coming down the stairs as she passed.

  “Paige?”

  “I’m sorry, Mila,” was all she could get out.

  She got in her car and started driving. Halfway home, she had to pull over. By the side of the road, she broke down. Tears poured out, all the things she thought she’d gotten over, all the dashed hopes. It was even worse, she thought. Ria did want her, but she wanted to make all the decisions for both of them. Sure, Ria thought she was doing the right thing, but Paige didn’t care about the reason. It was like it was all happening again.

  She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, and once it finally passed, she pulled back onto the road and headed home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hello? Earth to Paige?” Brandon waved his hand in front of her eyes.

  She sat at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the window, her coffee gone cold in front of her.

  “Oh, hey.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Just…thinking.” Ria had called so many times that she’d finally turned her phone off. She didn’t want to talk to her.

  “Can I do anything?”

  “No. I’m okay. What’s up?” She looked up at him and realized that he was practically glowing with happiness. At least one of them was happy. That was something.

  “Elena and I would like to invite you to join us at the Worths’ for dinner tomorrow night. She’s cooking something special as her way to thank everyone for putting her up and making her feel at home.”

  “Oh, Brandon, I don’t know if I can do dinner…” The last thing she wanted was to see Ria right now. The anger had settled into a heavy mix of emotions that she hadn’t yet parsed out.

  “Come on, she really wants you to come.”

  “She barely knows me.”

  “Okay, well, I want you to come. I’m really crazy about her and I want you to come hang out with us.”

  She sighed. She thought about making up an excuse about last-minute changes needed for the mural. Normally she would tell Brandon all her troubles, vent and yell about Ria and what she’d done. They would psychoanalyze the roller coaster of emotions running through her head. But he just looked so much like an eager puppy that she couldn’t bring him down. He was a good friend. She owed him this.

  “Fine,” she said. “What can I bring?”

  She wasn’t sure how she was going to be in the same room with Ria. It had been a week and she couldn’t stop thinking about Ria’s explanation for why she’d done it. Looking back now, it made sense, the puzzle pieces now in place. She’d tried to do the right thing, but she’d botched it. She kept hearing Ria’s words before that, too, saying she wanted to try again. It was both too much, and too little too late. She was still ignoring her calls and texts. Cara had been texting her too, and she’d been responding, but something had changed. It was like the air had gone out of it and she was having trouble mustering the enthusiasm to pursue her. Leave it to Ria to quash the excitement she’d been feeling for another woman—finally, when she met someone who she might actually like, who actually spoke her language. It was so hard to meet someone in Indianapolis. Not that there weren’t any women there, but it was a relatively small dating pool, and she felt like she always had to make so many compromises if things got serious.

  Maybe she should just move. Her dad didn’t need her here anymore, and there wasn’t really anything tying her down. She could work from anywhere. She wasn’t great at making friends, but she’d manage. She had Brandon here, but now he was in love and things were bound to change.

  She was going up to Chicago the next day to start painting the mural. Maybe she should think about moving there? It was close enough that she could come back and visit her dad. She liked the city. Maybe she would look around while she was there and see if she could find any decent apartments. She’d be sad to leave Brandon, but he could come up and visit too.

  I just have to get through this one dinner. Then I’ll get started on my new life. Not a whole new life. Just new in the parts I
’m lacking.

  She decided to wear a costume, to pretend to be someone else. At the back of her closet she had several dresses. She’d bought them and then always found excuses not to wear them. Dresses always made her feel like not quite herself, and today, that’s what she wanted.

  She chose a knee-length sundress covered in sunflowers. It looked happy, and she hoped the vibrant color would change her mood. She plaited her hair into a long, pale braid that hung over one shoulder, and she carefully outlined her eyes with a navy pencil and curled her eyelashes. Adding a dash of mascara and pulling on some sandals, she stood in front of the mirror. She looked different, but good, she thought. This Paige could handle one awkward dinner.

  At the Worths’ house, she stood in front of the door, putting it off as long as she could. She felt like she should ring the doorbell for some reason, though she hadn’t done so since she was a little kid. She was still standing in front of the door when it flew open in front of her.

  Brandon grinned. “Hey! I thought I heard a car. Come on in!”

  He grabbed her by the wrist and led her into the kitchen where, just a week ago, she and Ria had come to verbal blows. But now it was a hotbed of activity and Elena crouched over the stove, taking out a pan of something that smelled heavenly. Pots simmered on the burners and a tray of fruits and vegetables sat on the counter.

  “I’m so glad you could make it,” Elena said, grinning. She pulled the oven mitts off her hands and gave Paige a kiss on each cheek. “We are almost ready!”

  “Paige, would you mind taking that tray into the living room?” Brandon asked, nodding at the fruits and veggies.

  “Um…sure,” she said. She guessed she would have to go in there eventually.

  “We’ll call you to dinner!” Elena said.

  Paige carried the tray in and stopped short when she realized the only other people there were Ria, Mila, and Henry. She’d imagined the entire family being there, but of course, they’d all returned to their own cities or they were at home with their families. So it was to be just the six of them. Her heart beat just a little harder, but she steeled herself. This was for Brandon, she reminded herself, and he deserved every bit of happiness, even if he’d found it with her ex-best friend’s ex-girlfriend. Who was she to judge? Elena seemed sweet, and hell, if she’d put up with Ria for two years, she must have a lot of patience.