Page 16 of Happy Ending

“Look, over here!” Tatum beckons me over, ignoring my obvious comments about the exhibit room.

I join her in the far left corner, where the picture of me is hanging.

I take a good look at the face, then the body, all the way down to the feet.

I can tell the girl in the painting is me, but I hardly recognize her.

In the painting, her eyes are narrowed, and there’s a smirk across her face.

She looks to be seducing someone. Who? The painter, perhaps?

Either way, she looks like a panther ready to pounce.

I hate every bit of it. My eyes scan the canvas from left to right in disbelief, until finally, they reach the name and description placard beside the thin frame.

The placard reads Temptation by Laine Loveum.

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe how she would just change the whole meaning of the painting.

It hurts even more now, knowing that she’s changed even her depiction of me to temptation of all things.

The very thing she was afraid of most. The very thing she tried so hard to avoid.

This painting, the thing that brought us closer together, was now one of a villain.

The painting that was supposed to be—or at least I felt it was—a symbol of us.

A symbol of the significance of who we were together.

Laine had turned our love, and technically, my body, into something universally frowned upon.

Politely, yet dismissively, I tell Tatum I have to go and then book it to my car.

I can’t be here anymore. I can’t stand here looking at the aftermath of a fallout with the one person in my life besides my mom who felt stable, looking at a painting that became a symbol of what broke us just as fast as it became a symbol of what bonded us.

I need to leave. I need to get in my car and drive and cry and yell.

Once I reach my car and get in, I fight against my better judgment and call Laine.

To my surprise, she picks up. “Are you serious?” I ask hastily, anger boiling in my chest. There’s a silence through the line, but I can just barely hear her breathing, so I know she’s there.

“What changed, Laine? Why are you doing this?” Still, she doesn’t talk, so I hit her with what I know will get her to say something.

“You know, maybe you are just like your father.” There’s a faint whimper that comes through the phone speaker.

I can tell I’ve landed right where I wanted.

Right where she’s most vulnerable. “What did you say?” Laine responds through gritted teeth.

“I said…” I bite my lip, calculating my next words carefully as the anger is now completely taking over me.

“Maybe you will end up just like him. I mean, you’re doing exactly what he did.

You’re following this extremely rigid path for perfection and leaving no room for imperfections.

” Her breathing gets heavier as the volume of my voice rises.

“You’re expecting to live this perfect, picket-fence lifestyle to avoid becoming like him, but you’ve failed to realize that that’s exactly how he started off, isn’t it?

“You had this picture-perfect family until the pressure of keeping up with it became too hard, and he cracked. You said it yourself ! So why are you so goddamn hellbent on following this path so intently when you know how it ends?” There’s a long pause.

Suddenly, my car feels just as stuffy as the outdated exhibit room, and it becomes hard to breathe.

“He cracked.” She swallows a big gulp. “Because he gave in to temptation.” “And what temptation are you giving in to, Laine? You’re not a fucking drug addict or a murderer like him!

What could possibly be more sinful than that?

” “YOU!” Laine’s voice has now reached the loudest volume I think I’ve ever heard from her.

“You’re the temptation I gave in to, Drew!

You make me feel things I was never supposed to feel!

You’re the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person before I go to bed.

“You make me feel so conflicted because you make everything feel so easy in your presence, but once I go home, I’m hit with this terrifying guilt that there’s something wrong with me for feeling that way about you.

You’re the song that’s stuck in my head that just plays nonstop on repeat again, and again, and again, and again, and I can’t turn it off !

” The familiar feeling of streaming tears feels numb on my face after weeks of crying and wallowing away in my room.

I can’t feel my shaking limbs, only static in them.

My head feels uncomfortably pressurized, and when I go to open my mouth, nothing comes out.

My heart pounds abnormally fast, and the whole parking lot feels like it’s spinning.

Soon enough, I can’t tell whether the moisture on my face is sweat or tears.

Then, she hits back. “I’m going to start seeing Donovan, so out of respect for him, please don’t text or call my number again.

” Her voice returns to normal volume but turns firm.

“I need to forget you, and I think it would be best for you to do the same.” The line goes static, just like the rest of my body.

******

The drive home feels ten times longer than the drive over.

And of course, since the universe absolutely fucking hates me, a Folklore song comes on from my shuffled playlist, the same one I teased her about on the drive up to the mountains.

I let it play, cursing myself and the world under my breath for the entirety of the song.

Finally, it ends, but then another song from the album plays. The lyrics start to blend together, and I can’t audibly piece together a single line.

Normally, this would be the moment the waterfall flows again, but this time, I have no more tears left to cry. Only stale numbness fills my eyes.

All she’s left me with are songs that remind me of her. Now that she’s gone, I don’t know how to listen to them anymore.

20

Laine “I like it.” Donovan smiles as he stares at my painting,

putting an arm around my shoulder. “Thanks,” I mumble, subtly flinching at his touch. “It’s got a funky look to it, ya know. Like, I can tell

she’s tryin’ hard to tempt the painter she posed for, but ya almost feel pity for her.

Like she don’t even know the power of her own seduction.

” He cocks his head to the side as if staring from a slightly different angle will help him unlock all the painting’s hidden easter eggs.

“Something like that.” My gaze reverts back down to

my shoes as I awkwardly try to think of what to say.

It's officially been two weeks since I told Drew not to contact me, and one week since Donovan and I started talking more than regular friends should. He’s a nice guy, and my mother likes him, which means I like him.

It means I’m back on the right track. Although I can’t help but feel like everything with him feels so forced.

I’ve been reminding myself that maybe we’re just in the awkward part of the talking stage and that it’ll probably feel more comfortable once we spend more time together.

After all, that is what happened with me and Drew, and that wasn’t planned.

I could like Donovan if I tried. I want to like him, I really do.

Father Robert smiles at us as we arrive at Holy Trinity and make our way into the main gathering room. Donovan and I got roped into decorating the stage for Valentine’s Day, which no doubt was a ploy that our mothers set up.

I’m not complaining, though, because this is the perfect opportunity to spend time with him without having to make awkward small talk about the project I’m trying so hard not to think about.

It’s not that I’m not proud of my work. After all, I managed to change the trajectory of it to not make me feel so horrible when I look at it, but deep down, I know the origin of it, and that origin is exactly what I’m trying to push out of my mind.

“Take that end over there.” Donovan points to the end of a long sheet of heavy-duty poster paper and takes the other end, dragging it along the side of the stage. “Right there.”

I tape my end of the paper to the stage, and Donovan tries to do the same, struggling to get a knotted wad of tape untangled using his only free hand. Eventually, he gets the tape unstuck and sticks it to the stage.

“Alrighty.” Donovan smacks his lips and rubs his hands together like some sort of mosquito.

It icks me out a little, but I try to ignore it, grabbing a paintbrush and dipping it in the red paint to draw hearts along the edges of the poster paper.

Donovan follows suit, painting smaller hearts in pink.

When we finally meet in the center, hearts neatly scattered, bordering the poster, I reach over him and dip a clean brush into the black paint to spell “Valentine” in the center.

“Woah, Laine!” Donovan grabs my arm and holds it above the paint bucket, black paint dripping from the brush back into the bucket. “How are your hands already covered in paint? All we did was paint some lil’ hearts.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I tend to get paint everywhere when it comes to art.” I laugh, awkwardly trying to ease the tension.

“You’re one messy girl.” He shakes his head.

When he lets go of my arm, I see a faint red mark where his hand gripped it.

I was so caught up in defending myself that I failed to realize how hard he had been holding on.

Surely, though, he didn’t mean any harm.

He probably didn’t even notice his own strength.

I rub the red splotch on my skin and return to work, eyes focused intently on the poster, trying not to make eye contact with him.

I don’t want to see whether he realized he’d made a mark on me. I don’t want him to feel bad.