Page 20 of Happy Ending

“Laine!” Her mother answers the door. “Hi, Ms. Sterling. May I speak to Drew?” I twiddle my thumbs around each other by my waist, nervously anticipating what it would feel like to see her again.

To speak to her again after everything. The familiar scent of Drew flows out from her house and into my nose, instantly making me weak in the knees.

“Let me go get her. Come inside.” Ms. Sterling leaves the door open, but I don’t go in.

She walks over to the bottom of the stairs, leaning over the banister.

Drew must not have told her anything that happened between us, because she doesn’t seem surprised to see me, and the way she calls for Drew sounds easy, instinctual even, like we’re having a normal hangout.

My ears are ringing from the pressure in my head, and my hands are still shaky as ever.

Drew murmurs something that I can’t quite hear, and then Ms. Sterling turns to me, brows furrowed in what I can’t tell is confusion or anger.

“Well, it seems that she doesn’t want to see you.

” “If I could have just a few hours of her time, I’d like to show her something.

” “Look, Laine, I’m not sure what happened between you two, but if she doesn’t want to see you, I’m not going to make her.

” She grabs the front door and starts to close it, but I reach a hand out to stop her.

Right now, I’m about to make the greatest decision of my life, or fall straight on my face.

Either way, at least I’ll know I tried. “Ms. Sterling, your daughter is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

” I start, my voice trembling. “Every day spent in her presence has been my best yet. She’s always teaching me new things about myself that I didn’t know I had in me, which is one of my favorite qualities of hers, and one of the reasons I was such an idiot to let her go so quickly.

Hurting her was the last thing I wanted to do, and it’s my biggest regret, so please, let me see her.

” Ms. Sterling glares at me through her oval-shaped glasses, like she’s trying to read between the lines of what I’m saying, even though I’m truly giving it to her straight out.

I continue, voice shaky as ever. “We had such a whirlwind friendship, and maybe that’s because God had other plans for us.

Maybe Drew was the lesson I needed to learn.

The person I needed to lose in order to appreciate, even if it’s too late.

I don’t care if she never talks to me again after this.

Honestly, it would be better if she didn’t because I don’t deserve her in my life.

Just please, let me give us both the closure we need.

Let me apologize for-” The steps creak, and I look up to see Drew standing at the top of them.

My heart skips a beat the moment I see her, and I'm instantly reminded of how she makes me feel. How much I missed her. How easy she is to love. How hard it was to feel like I lost her, even if just for a month, or depending on how this goes, possibly forever. Drew’s hair is a rat’s nest, and she’s in a stained, horrendously blinding neon green shirt with bright purple sweatpants, a color combination that would make Ms. Bardot start convulsing at the sight of.

As an artist myself, the sight of it pains me.

As the girl standing here, hopelessly in love with Drew and about to pour her whole heart and soul out in a desperate attempt to fix what she’d broken, I don’t care.

Drew could wear a skinned cow rug for a shirt with garbage bags for pants, and I would still think she’s the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

Drew looks just as disheveled as I usually am, and this time, the roles are reversed.

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

23

Drew

T he 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? For us ?

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 reads Drew 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.

“What is-” My voice trails off as I turn to Laine, looking for some sort of verbal explanation, which she has yet to give me this whole time we’ve been here.

“I was the one who vandalized the painting.” She says with a soft inclination in her voice, almost light enough that I can hear her heart pounding in her chest.