Page 6 of Happy Ending

But seeing her actually showing up at my door that evening, laying on my bed in only a bra and sweatpants, watching her eyes narrow in concentration as she laid still as a stone for me, while studying each freckle on her body so intricately, I couldn’t ignore the butterflies swarming in my stomach.

I’ve never been a bold person, but with Drew, I find myself taking control. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling as it comes over me.

All I know is the fire in my chest that took over me at the lake when I suggested we go skinny dipping was the same fire that took over me when she came to model for me. It made me do things I never would have imagined I’d do, never planned to do.

I’ve always had my whole life planned out ahead of me. Until Drew came along. With Drew, all of the things I thought I wanted to feel dull, and suddenly I don’t know what I want for myself or my future.

The plan was to move back here, get through senior year, go off to college with a fresh start, possibly meet my husband there, settle down in a copy-paste picket fence house in the suburbs, have maybe two and a half children, raise them, then grow old, die, and go to heaven.

I didn’t plan for Drew to be such a big part of my last year before I went off to live the life I had etched out for myself. To go forth and achieve all of the things I thought I wanted. But despite knowing deep down that I shouldn’t, all I know I want now is her.

It scares me, considering I’ve never been one to hold doubts. But I’ve never felt more uncertain than I do with Drew, and I’ve never loved it more than I do right now.

******

The more I stare at my canvas, I’m flooded with memories of the night everything changed. The painting now only brings reminders of the feeling of her lips on mine and her hands on my waist, and I feel guilty for just the act of painting it.

I crouch to a low squat, spinning the canvas around to find an angle that doesn’t feel like it holds the weight of that evening, but I just can’t get it.

Pacing back and forth in my room with my hands perched on my dizzy head, I think about a sermon Father Robert gave us this past Saturday evening—only a few days before I kissed Drew.

Don’t hate the sinner, hate the sin. We mustn’t cast out our confused youth but rather help them realize their sin before it’s too late.

Father Robert’s words echo through my head, buzzing incessantly. His teachings clash in my mind with annoyingly vivid memories of my evening with Drew, my body wrapped in her embrace, my lips wrapped in her breath.

How could something that feels so right be so wrong?

Before I know it, I’m pulling out my phone and calling the only other person I know I can trust. “Hey. Meet me at the cafe in ten?”

******

When Thom walks up to the table I snagged in the far corner of the cafe—a safe distance away from everyone else who may have ears—he’s carrying a briefcase and a plate with a singular miniature muffin atop it.

“What’s that for?” I gesture to the briefcase as he takes off his trench coat and sits across from me.

“Well, ya sounded like ya had something quite important to tell me. I figured it would involve feelings, yeah? It helps me to draw out my emotions when I’m havin’ big ones.

Thought maybe it would help you too?” Thom pulls out a pen and a notepad filled with scribbles and turns to a blank page, sliding it across the table to me.

“Oh,” I say quietly, taken aback by his thoughtfulness.

I’d never had someone do something like this for me before.

Never had someone put this much thought into my feelings about things, considering I’ve always been forced into a go-with-the-flow mindset.

“Thank you.” “So what’s on your pretty mind, Laine?

I’m all ears.” He chuckles, playfully pulling at the lobes of his own ears.

My shoulders relax as the comforting aura Thom holds is making its way to my side of the table, and suddenly I’m telling him the words I never thought I would say to myself, let alone another person.

“I think I’m in love with Drew.” Silence overtakes the dimly lit corner I’ve stuck us in, and my chest drops, my breath holding as I try to quickly run through every possible response he could give.

“Oh,” he says quietly, almost at a whisper.

I immediately regret opening my mouth to say anything at all.

“Well, have ya told her?” My chest drops again, and my breathing slowly returns to a steady pace at the sound of his nonchalant reaction, like my confession means more than my identity to him.

It’s relieving to hear, and oddly surprising.

“Yes. Well, no. Sort of ?” “Sort of ?” “Technically, I told her with my lips, and my hands, and my-” “OH!” Thom’s face widens as he repeats himself, no longer in a whisper this time.

I sit silently, watching his facial expressions and trying to read his reaction.

“And did her lips and hands and whatever else you told her with respond in a mutual way?” He raises an eyebrow, smiling giddily and nodding toward the pen and paper.

“Ugh! Yes!” My brain melts at the memory of our kiss.

The way she grabbed the back of my head and ran her fingers through my hair, pulling me into her as our lips communicated what we couldn’t out loud.

“Well, great, I’m happy for ya! What’s the problem then?

” The chilling feeling comes back as Thom asks, tapping the notepad with his fingertips.

I feel safe with him though, reminded of his judgment-free comfort solely from the way he delicately uses his fingertips for everything from brushing granola crumbs off his desk the first day we met at school to holding the check still as he paid for our lunch the first time we hung out at this cafe to the way he taps the notepad now.

“I don’t know. The way I feel when I’m with her is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

When I’m with her, I feel alive. Like I could accomplish anything as long as she’s by my side.

I feel like a completely different person when I’m around her, different from the image I’ve always had for who I wanted to be as I grew up, except I actually like who I am when I’m with her.

” “This sounds great, Laine. I’m happy for ya, really!

Still not seeing the problem though.” “The problem is just that! Everything I feel about her is tenfold, and I can’t shut it down.

I’ve lost who I was before her, which feels like a blessing and a curse at the same time.

I didn’t like who I was before, but the version of myself that she brings out is the version I strive to be and then some.

“With Drew, I feel like I have it all, no matter what else in my world is crashing down, because she is my world. I can be messy, unapologetically, and emotionally raw, and she still sticks around.” “Wow.” Thom raises his eyebrows and scratches his head.

“So you don’t like that you love her?” “I don’t know.

” My head drops as I’m brought back to the doubtful thoughts.

“I want to. I really do. But Father Robert says that people who feel like I do are confused, sinful even.” “Well, do ya believe him?” “I don’t know anymore.

” We sit in silence for a minute, his eyes searching my face, trying to think of what to say.

“There’s nothin’ wrong with ya, Laine.” Thom’s face goes serious.

The most serious I’ve ever seen him. It scares me.

“If ya want to believe in the church and your God, ya can. But please know there’s room for ya up there in Heaven.

No matter who gives you the ol’ stomach whirl.

” Thom’s words are comforting, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong with me.

That I shouldn’t even be feeling this way in the first place, even if it weren’t a sin.

The lifestyle those feelings bring is unorthodox, and nobody gets the life my mother would want for me to live an unorthodox life.

I don’t say anything back to him. Instead, I lightly draw a heart on his notepad, then draw a bold line across it diagonally, tracing over it several times to make sure it’s visible.

Though judging by his reaction, I take it that I don’t need to do that for him to see my feelings on the paper.

Sliding the notepad across the table to him, I purse my lips and watch him stare down at the drawing.

A soft smile grows on his face as his eyes relax, ripping out the paper and handing it back to me.

“Keep it. Hang it somewhere ya look at every day.” Thom taps his fingers on the table, studying my face again.

I can tell he senses my confusion because he continues.

“Every time ya look at it, let it remind ya of your feelings. Moreover, let it remind ya that what you’re feeling is okay, yeah?

That ya need to let yourself feel everything your head’s holdin’ ya back from.

” I give him a subtle nod as he gets up and scoots in his chair.

As he walks toward the door, he glances back at me, a gentle smile plastered across his face.

He leaves me at my small corner table with even more thoughts than I had coming in here today.

****** I want to believe Thom, but I can’t help but wonder if there is truth to Father Robert’s sermon as well.

Could confused people still go to Heaven? Or if Thom is right, would Hell be safer for people like me if people like Father Robert go on to reside in Heaven in the afterlife?

If God knows best, would He put me where I’m supposed to be? Where am I even supposed to be? And if I don’t even know where I’m supposed to be, how could He possibly know me better than I know myself ?

15

Drew

L aine and I don’t have a label, but I don’t care. She’s