by Anna Birch
“We really were,” I say.
“I’d talk to Sarah,” Kiersten says over her shoulder. “I had to stop talking to her when I finally took a good look at her and thought I was looking at myself. Let’s just say I’ve learned a few things, too.”
* * *
Boxes line the residency hall walls, all scrawled with Sarah’s bubbly handwriting.
Sniffling echoes out from the dorm room Sarah shares with Rhodes. The thought of seeing Rhodes again vibrates over my skin, but I only hear one set of small, familiar footsteps echoing from inside.
I tap on the door one, two, three times, then step inside.
Kiersten’s right: Without being attached to me, or Rhodes, or Kiersten, Sarah’s a ship without a sail.
She stands in the middle of the dorm room she shares (shared?) with Rhodes, in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. She’s cut her hair off into a flattering pixie cut; all hints of pink are gone and it’s back to its original peroxide blond. Her side of the room is nearly stripped down to the studs, all shoved into giant leaf bags and old boxes poached from the back of the liquor store down the block.
“What the hell is going on?” I clear the room to pick up Sarah’s dad’s cassette player off the almost-empty desk. A mountain of scabby, cracked crystals sit in a pile nearby, and the surface of the cassette player is raw with the ordeal of picking them off. “Are you moving home?”
“You need to get out of here. I’m trying to do this—” Sarah gestures for the cassette player in my hands. She doesn’t have to answer. It’s too late in the year to change room assignments.
“Before Rhodes gets back?” I hand it over.
She glares over her shoulder and doesn’t say a word.
“Does she know you’re moving home?”
“It’s better this way,” Sarah says.
It hit me after my conversation with Kiersten: Sarah had my locker combination memorized.
She knew the extensive history of the Ingrams’ relationship with June Baker.
Through Rhodes, Sarah knew what kind of a mutiny it would cause among the Capstone/Ocoee Festival leadership to prove that Rhodes and June were complicit in a little nepotism. Kiersten wouldn’t have been equipped for that. She was as much of a newbie to that whole crowd as I’ve been. Even if she’d been the one to overhear the conversation with Randall, it only makes sense that it would be Sarah to run the ball.
By the time the reality settles into my bones, there is nothing else: only the distinct feeling of facing down something you’ve sort of known since the beginning.
The agony and ecstasy of being right about something terrible.
“So, do you feel better about yourself?” I go straight to it. “Rhodes lost her chance at a scholarship, but she’s not even upset about it because it helped her figure out what she wants to do with her life. I won the Capstone anyway, and Kiersten isn’t talking to you anymore.”
“Is that what you came to do?” Sarah sniffles into her hands. “Rub it in?”
I knew this version of Sarah was in there somewhere, that one day the blurry facts, and half-truths, and sneakiness would be my problem instead of someone else’s. I always knew Sarah was the kind of person I only wanted in my foxhole, that she’s not the person you want on the other side of enemy lines. I just never wanted to believe it was possible that we could ever be anything other than friends.
“I don’t remember a time that you weren’t my friend, Sarah. I need to understand why you did this.”
“I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?” Her voice rattles the walls. “I don’t know.”
“Nobody does anything for no good reason,” I say.
“I just don’t want to talk about it,” Sarah says. “I’m allowed that.”
“Cut it out, Sarah Wade. No more precious-Sarah-is-so-fragile, let’s-not-apply-pressure-because-she’ll-break bullshit.”
“Nobody mattered here except the two of you,” Sarah spits out. “There was no other competition for the scholarship, no other competition in the visual arts program. Just Iliana and Rhodes, the best of the best.”
“Not you, though,” I say. I’m beginning to understand.
“Not me! I’m just as good an artist as either of you. I got into the Conservatory as a sophomore, same as you. I got into the Capstone based off my actual grades.” Sarah shoves her pillows into another leaf bag, one at a time. “You never took me seriously, though, because you two have always been so freaking obsessed with each other.”
“You really think all of this back-and-forth between Rhodes and me was about you? The fact that we’ve always been at each other’s throats doesn’t mean anything other than what it exactly is—that we hated each other, and we wanted each other out of the way. It never meant anything about what you can or can’t do.
“There is so much context there, so much history between Rhodes and me, and you’ll never understand it.”
“Never understand it!” Sarah laughs, but there’s no humor. “Are you kidding me? I could write a complete history on the two of you, week by week, month by month, semester by semester. I’ve been caught in the middle of it every step of the way, and it has been a complete nightmare.”
All I can do is roll my eyes. “Oh yes. Caught between two girls that hate each other. That’s the story you tell yourself, right? Little, misunderstood Sarah; big, mean Iliana. Bitter, tragic Rhodes.”
“Oh, don’t even start, Iliana—”
“Here’s the thing I’ve figured out: You liked us fighting over you. As long as I’m pissed because you’re throwing it in my face that you’re hanging out with Rhodes, I’m trying to pull you back to me. Let’s be honest here: When you figured out that we were talking online, and we didn’t know who the other was, you felt threatened.”
“WHO ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?” Sarah throws the leaf bag in her hands into the hall. “You said it yourself! No one compares to either of you here. I have been living in your shadow for longer than I can even remember. If—if you found each other, and actually loved each other, where would I even begin to fit?”
Sarah’s chin trembles. She swipes at her cheeks with her forearm.
“I guess I thought if I could win the Capstone Award, you’d finally see me as equal to the both of you.” She shakes her head. “I couldn’t pull myself together after your fight. I couldn’t stop crying to give my project presentation, and the Capstone board didn’t care.”
“So if you didn’t get it, we couldn’t, either.”
“Don’t think I never saw all the ways the two of you could have worked as friends. You know like I do—opposite isn’t always bad. It can be complementary. I saw it, but you were so freaking determined to hate each other.”
That first night, the night Rhodes and Sarah met, could have been yesterday.
You’ll love her, Sarah said then.
You’re nothing alike, but I just see it, Iliana. The three of us are going to have so much fun—
I hated Rhodes for it. I hated Sarah for it, and I hated the idea of anyone taking her away from me. In this moment, I understand everything.
“Was it worth it?” I’m an asshole for even asking, but I’m not sorry.
She cringes, and glowers, and shakes her head.
“Will we come back from this?” she asks.
The answers are in front of both of us.
No, we’ll never come back from this. No, it wasn’t worth it. But I know there’s only one thing left for me to do before I go.
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry you lost your chance at the scholarship. I’m sorry I wasn’t better to you. I’m sorry I floated your new Barbie down the drain when we were seven and—”
“Come on, Iliana,” Sarah says, wiping at her face. “That was when we were little.”
“But it’s the way it’s always been,” I say. “Even if I eventually fix stuff with you later, I always crashed into you to get what I wanted. I’m sorry.”
Sarah lets go of the bag in her hands to stand straight, my sister
for as long as I can remember. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t speak, doesn’t move.
For a long time, she doesn’t look at me.
She neither accepts my apology nor apologizes herself, and I just have to be okay with that.
Without another word, I help her move the last of her bags into the hall on my way to the stairs. Rather than head for the car, I make my way up to Studio B instead.
CHAPTER 31
RHODES
Username: n/a
Studio B is in disarray.
Turpentine fumes hang around the ceiling tiles, chairs are scattered, and in the center sits a cornucopia spilling onto a card table. Wax fruit catches whatever light it can, and fake ivy dangles halfway to the floor. It’s still Christmas break, just for another day, which means campus is still surrendered to winter intensives.
Somehow, Randall had the good sense not to ask me to help aide this year.
A series of dings cuts the silence from the bag that lies on the table next to my leg. It’s probably Griffin, reminding me that I’m supposed to be in Homewood in ten minutes. There’s a blanket with our name on it next to a bonfire, and ribs from the barbecue place on the corner, and a water bottle half filled with Stoli from Dad’s liquor cabinet.
It’s Griffin’s friends and Griffin’s food, and even if I’m in a marginally better place emotionally, I still can’t stomach the thought of watching anyone else fall in love.
I twirl the ring on my right hand with my thumb, then drag my hands through my hair.
No. I’m not going.
Even if I’d rather go sit in a crowded mall than be alone another minute, I’m done putting myself through things I hate because it makes everyone else feel better. Griffin will understand—sometimes, it feels like he’s the only one nudging me forward, encouraging me to care for myself in the same way I go out of my way to please everyone else.
Cheshire—Iliana, I guess—would agree with him.
I pull my phone from my pocket and fire exactly that into a text to Griffin, then hit send.
Thinking of Iliana stings in the same way it always does.
I haven’t seen her, or spoken to her, since we returned to Birmingham from Nashville and school let out for Christmas break.
She’s come up in my mind again and again—in the decision to stay in Birmingham for the holiday rather than drag tail back to Nashville to watch Mom drunk-text her boyfriend while Dad’s sucked into the five thousandth rewatch of Die Hard on the couch. I thought about her while shopping for Christmas gifts. I thought about her when I’d catch my reflection in the shop windows, wondering what she’d look like loaded down with bags next to me—pissed, probably, and lecturing me about late capitalism and consumerist holidays, but I’d take it over this silence any day.
She’s the last thing I think about at night.
The first thing I think about in the morning.
But tonight, instead of meditating on radio silence, I picture the studio filling with soft light from the hall. I know the shape of Iliana’s silhouette like I know my own, and it isn’t hard to call to memory the scent of her shampoo, or the sound of her voice, or the feel of her skin.
My phone pings again, pulling me out of my little fantasy:
Grif.ingram 7:17p: you sure? I hate you being alone so much
ring.ram 7:18p: omg you are pitying me
ring.ram 7:18p: you’re being gross. stop
Grif.ingram 7:18p: I’m just looking out for you
ring.ram 7:19p: thanks I hate it
Grif.ingram 7:19p: whatever
ring.ram 7:19p: now you can make out with your new girlfriend without feeling bad about me third wheeling. Happy birthday or something.
The studio door creaks at the hinges, and it’s hard to separate what’s real from a product of my imagination.
I drop my phone into my lap.
Iliana’s silhouette in the doorway isn’t backlit like I imagined it; there’s no light from the hall to cast onto the floor, and pale silver-blue light from the windows in the studio across the hall cast a halo of curls into relief against the dark. It caresses narrow shoulders and falls on familiar curves, and it’s only just strong enough to glint off the backs of the chairs closest to the door.
It’s a permutation of my original fantasy, and I like this one better—it feels more real, somehow. This isn’t healthy, though, falling head over heels into daydreams and wishful thinking. Hope can only fly unchecked for so long before it needs to be anchored into something absolute.
I clear my thoughts and take a breath, but the figure in the door doesn’t disappear when I try to blink her away.
She’s so much more than I remember, too—which means the Iliana in my dreams is only a fraction of the vital, breathing girl who stands before me now.
I don’t remember how to speak anymore.
Iliana-slash-Cheshire stands in silence, the girl I’ve hated and the girl I’ve loved all rolled into one impossible package.
This night, these clothes, this skyline through the studio windows: This is how I imagined revealing my identity to Cheshire—to Iliana.
“It was Sarah,” I say, apropos of nothing. It’s just a guess, maybe an educated one, but Iliana’s nod confirms it. “I came back from dinner and saw her boxes out in the hall, so I came up here instead.”
There was no way it could have ever been Kiersten, not really.
She didn’t have skin in the fight like Sarah did.
“Kiersten came up to Sylvia’s,” Iliana says. “She admitted to wanting to break us up, but she swore she’d never try to sabotage us. I came up to ask Sarah about it, and I barely had to press her for information.” Iliana steps farther into the room. I stuff my hands into my armpits. “I think she’s been holding on to it all for a while. She just kind of upchucked it everywhere.”
“Pretty par for the course,” I say. This is so natural, like every conversation she and I ever had over Slash/Spot direct messages. I go on: “I want so bad to be like, ‘I thought I knew her! This is so unlike her!’ But honestly—?”
“It felt like a matter of time before something like this happened,” Iliana says, finishing my thought. “It’s wild, thinking about a best friend in past tense.”
“You were my best friend.” My voice shatters. I clap my hand over my mouth.
“You were mine,” Iliana says.
She moves to sit next to me on the table.
Mine.
One word is enough to steal my breath.
Mine indeed.
“Deep down, under everything, I had this fear that Cheshire would be you,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Iliana whispers. “I should have said that before, properly, but—”
Apologies feel wholly necessary while you wait on one, almost as if they’re some kind of magical incantation that’ll make the pain go away. But hearing it from Iliana now, it takes something from me rather than giving me what I needed.
I pull my bottom lip through my teeth, and Iliana reaches between us to touch my face.
Iliana, friend and rival.
Lover and enemy.
I drop the weight of my cheek into her palm. It was never supposed to be Iliana, but it could have never been anyone else.
“Rhodes, I am so in love with you,” she whispers. “I should have told you that night. And then I should have told you when the night in the studio happened. Then I should have told you at the condo. Then I should have told you at the art show. When Kiersten found out about our history, she threatened to tell you herself and I got desperate—I just wanted a chance to prove myself before I shot it all to hell.”
She meets my eyes as she speaks.
Iliana smiles, but there’s nothing happy about it. “I screwed up every time I turned around. I was careless.”
“Were you ever going to tell me who you were?”
“I—” Iliana pauses to mop at her cheek with the back of her hand. “I was afraid of this, that you’d find out who I was before I was ready
and then hate me for it. But yes. I planned on telling you.”
It isn’t hard to forget the past, to imagine that we’re simply here, together. And yet.
“I just wish we could, I don’t know—” she sighs, and pops her lips together.
“Pretend it didn’t happen?” I laugh. “I bet you do.”
Iliana drops her hand into her lap, and already I ache to be touched again.
Everything feels so final.
“It’s going to be a part of us for the rest of our lives,” I whisper. “No matter how much we wish it away.”
“So that’s it, then?” Iliana angles toward me to meet my eyes. Hers are wide, uncertain. There’s more uncertainty in that gaze than I’ve ever seen from her. “It happened, and it’s over.”
“No,” I say. Iliana’s eyes are rimmed pink, and I hand over a wadded paper napkin from my back pocket. “That’s not what I mean at all.”
I’ll forgive her, and keep on loving her, but our past isn’t something I’ll pretend never happened. For good and for bad, this is the story that could only ever belong to us. In this moment, I know the answer to my own question. Yes, I can forgive Iliana.
Iliana moves closer to me. Whenever I imagined the first time I was meeting Cheshire—Iliana—face to face, I imagined it like this: The first touch would be a soft, slow brush of fingers, eyes closed so I could catalog the tactile wonder that is Cheshire’s—Iliana’s—skin.
For so long, it was only loving a mind.
Words and pictures on a screen.
Every night I imagined a thousand and one scenarios that would lead to this moment, and each time I allowed myself to be engulfed by the mere notion of physical contact. It would crash into me, and I’d let the current pull me under and wash me out to sea.
As expertly as my imagination walked my heart through this in a thousand different ways, it was nothing remotely close to the reality of Iliana’s fingernails cautiously grazing the top of my arm, or the soft bloom of her breath against the curve of my throat.
But this isn’t a work of my imagination; this is real life.
Iliana touches me, and my hands are the first part of my body to remember it works. I thumb the moisture away from Iliana’s cheeks. I touch her hair, follow the path from the corner of her jaw to the base of her skull, and let my fingers trail down her back. I hold on to her like I’ve never held on to anything, as if she will lift off into orbit and I’ll never see her again.
