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I’m put together, and she’s the messy one.

23

Drew

The last thing I expected was to see Laine standing on

my doorstep. Her hair is neatly tied back, not a single strand of hair loose. Her shirt looks ironed, and her pants are pressed.

I almost don’t recognize her, which makes me all the more sure I don’t want to talk to her. After all, she’s a completely new person now, not the one I fell in love with. I have nothing to say to the stranger standing in my doorway.

I take her in, looking her up and down. Her shoes are tied in perfect bunny ears, but as my eyes make their way up to her hands, I notice they are still stained with paint. Except now, the paint is plain black instead of pastel.

My eyes dart to the floor, part of me hoping she chickens out and walks away, but knowing Laine, I know she’s far too stubborn to even consider it. Though I have to say, I am slightly grateful for her stubbornness, because the other part of me doesn’t want her to go, afraid that if she does, it will actually be for good this time.

Honestly, how could I blame her for doing what she needed to survive in that world? Why do I blame her anyway? Is it because she didn’t fight for herself ? Because she didn’t fight for me? Forus?

Catholic school changed her.

“Drew,” she says softly. “I just want to show you something, and if you don’t ever want to talk to me after this, then fine. But please come with me. I think you’d like to see it.”

Laine’s eyes water as she whispers my name, and her face falls dormant. She looks helpless, just like she did that very first night at the playground, and consequently, the memory replays in my head.

I can vividly picture the way the dim moonlight shone on her disarranged chestnut hair, parallel to the way the sun shines on her neat, slick back as she stands in front of me now. The waves in her hair are straightened, but they still gleam from the same angles as they did before.

As much as I want to be angry with her, shove her out the door, yell at her for breaking my heart, for being able to leave everything we had so easily, I find myself steadily descending the stairs and toward her. Almost as if she’s tied a magnet around my waist, and the attractive charge around hers. The way I always seem to gravitate toward her feels like sorcery, like she’s the irresistible kryptonite I can’t turn away from.

Before I know it, I’m in the passenger seat of her car, staring so intently at the road, careful not to meet her eyes. I expect her to say something, but the drive is painfully silent. My eyes occasionally gravitate toward her hands, and I notice she’s wearing a fitness watch, which displays her heart beating at one hundred and one beats per minute.

I don’t know where she’s taking me, but for some reason, despite the fallout, I trust her.

“I’m sorry to hear about your painting being vandalized.” I finally break the silence.

Even though I’m not at all happy about how it turned out, I know how hard she worked on it and how important it was to her.

“Wait, you didn’t see it?” Laine responds, her head turning between facing me and the road.

“I saw it a few days after it was put up, the evening I called you.”

“Hold on.” She swerves into a parking lot, and I realize she’s taken me to the site of the crime.

Laine puts the car in park and comes over to my side, opening the door excitedly. She grabs my hand, which I almost jerk back, but don’t, and leads me inside.

“You have to see it again, then.”

She takes me down the hall and opens the door to the exhibit, beckoning me inside.

“I really don’t think that’s necess-” I start, but then I see it.

Her painting has faint scribbles all over it. Over the head, the hair, the stomach, the hips. It looks to be marked with black paint, each line etched with careful precision despite them being squiggly and all over the place.

There are holes punched into the canvas where the eyes used to be, and the corners are imprinted by tire track marks, almost like they’ve been run over.

I look sympathetically at Laine, who’s watching me look at her painting. I go to say something, but then she nods toward the title and description placard. There’s a thick piece of paper superglued to the original placard, and on it, the title readsDrew Sterling.

I look at Laine again, worried that someone found out about us and vandalized her painting in protest. She only smiles, then turns her head toward the paper placard for me to keep reading. Under the title, a new description has been written in Laine’s uncluttered handwriting.

Theepitomeofmessy,whoallowsherselftobemessy, andinreturn,allowsmeaswell.