Page 5 of The Other Side of Paradise (Story of Paradise #2)

A lifetime ago and just yesterday at the same time.

I could still see her face next to me at the bar—I’d gotten smuggled into a friend’s party at a club, and I was still nineteen, so I felt like the queen of the world getting to sit at the bar and ask for a drink.

And when I’d seen Ellie at the bar, all sun-kissed glory with freckles and blue eyes with the most perfect eyelashes, short messy hair and a grin like all she knew how to do was radiate, maybe it was just my first time feeling tipsy that gave me the courage, or maybe it was from feeling like a mature adult with the confidence to go for what she’d wanted, and I’d sat next to her. Flirted.

My heart had been pounding the whole time, thinking somewhere deep down holy shit this girl is actually flirting with me.

Thought I’d won the lottery. She talked about her music—a corporate drone by day and escaping to play in a local pop-rock band at night.

I talked about my classes, my art, my dreams of traveling the world to paint people and sceneries in every corner of the world, and I’d been thinking the whole time, maybe you could come with me.

Because I was a fucking sentimental dumbass who couldn’t take the littlest bit of attention from a girl without falling uselessly for her in ten seconds.

Laughter and gestures turned into flirtatious touches—a brush of the hand here, a touch on the shoulder there—and when she’d taken me dancing in a different room away from all our friends and we’d laughed over my clumsy steps, she kissed me, and I soared to the moon.

Then she came back to my apartment and fucked me like it didn’t mean anything.

I’d kept on a smile, riding the high while feeling hollow all the while, and I’d fallen asleep while she was in the bathroom.

She wasn’t in the apartment when I woke up half an hour later, and I found out the next day when I asked a friend—being tactful and acting like she was just a cool friend I’d crossed paths with and was idly curious about—more about Ellie.

The friend lit up, all, oh, Ellie’s wonderful, shame her girlfriend couldn’t make it, she’s great, you’d love her.

Yeah. Maybe I would. Probably I wouldn’t. What was for sure, though, was that she wouldn’t love me.

I shook my head, back to the present moment. “It’s been a minute… that was back in March.”

She nodded. “So, how’d it go? Girlfriend blew up at you?”

Ugh—she was assuming I was a better person than I was. I winced hard. “I wish I were as good as you are at this,” I said. “Nope. She never found out. Far as I know, they’re still together.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m a terrible sack of shit.”

“We’re all terrible sacks of shit at one point or another,” she said, a small smile on her face. “You only really do well for yourself in life if you recognize it and start to do something about it. It should be her responsibility to come clean, though.”

She jumped up to her feet, fetching the pizzas from the oven, and I sighed, looking out into the distance, the wind rustling the palm leaves around the little brick patio.

Her responsibility was a nice thing to say—an easy little out to absolve myself of the guilt.

Sure, it was her responsibility, but that didn’t really mean much when I knew she wouldn’t do it anyway.

But whatever. I let Brooklyn grill me about the details, extracting my sordid past like pulling a tooth, and as much as I never in my life wanted to admit to it—to having sex with another woman’s girlfriend and then hiding it, to getting duped like that and falling for a girl so easily when she was leading me on just for the thrill of infidelity, to sitting here wringing my hands knowing the girlfriend wouldn’t have believed me if I’d tried to tell her anyway because Ellie was so far out of my league—as much as I didn’t want to say it, I guess I did feel better with it off my chest. It was a hollow feeling in my gut, but almost in a good way, like I’d had something stabbed into me and I’d pulled it out, and I was bleeding, but it meant I could heal.

“I’ll…” I started, shifting awkwardly as I did, looking down at the pizza I’d been working my way through, the night getting late now.

I swallowed back the thick feeling in my throat and said, “I’ll work up the guts to tell her.

And if she brushes me off and tries to give me shit over attacking her relationship, then I can at least say I tried. ”

She smiled. “That’s the spirit. If it goes badly and gets you down in the dumps, I’ll bring you food while you lose yourself in video games for a while.”

I laughed, a shallow thing more from relief than anything else. “Look, I’m not even gonna pretend I won’t take you up on that in a heartbeat. Thanks, BB. And thanks for the pizza, too. I owe you one.”

“Forget it,” she said. “Don’t owe a thing.”

“Nah, I do.” I don’t know what compelled me, but I found myself compelled—the relief from letting go of the weight, even just a little. “I’ll go rock-climbing with you next time and won’t even complain,” I said, and I paused. “Won’t complain too much, anyway.”

She laughed. “Okay, you win. Deal. We’ll take that and call it even.”

Ugh. I was going to regret this. I’d gone rock-climbing with her twice before and both times made me hate my life.

But hey. If I wanted to face my demons, maybe I could start with facing some rocks.