Page 55 of When I Picture You

She’d done everything in her power to keep Ava, and it hadn’t been enough.

Lola hadn’t been enough.

When Lola reached her seat, she felt a wave of relief that made it difficult not to cry. She wished she had someone there who understood, but she was completely alone.

Ava is here no one told me she’d be here, Lola texted Gloriana.

Really? We were told she rsvp’d no.

Can I leave, Lola texted, her eyes stinging.I can’t be here I don’t want to be in the same room as her

It took Gloriana an eon to respond.

It’s best to stay. Leaving will fuel more rumors. You’ll look like you’re running away. And we have an obligation to Nash.

Lola’s eyes burned with unshed tears. There was no way she could sit through the movie knowing that Ava was somewhere behind her. Gloriana was right about the rumors and her obligations but—but that didn’t mean Lola had to do what she asked.

Lola texted Renee, then hurried up the aisle, deliberately ignoring the eyes following her as she left. She pushed open the door to the mostly empty lobby as the lights were dimming.

Before her, like something out of a ghastly dream, stood Ava: snacking on popcorn, statuesque and beautiful, blonde mane tousled like she’d styled it with a romp in the sheets.

Time slowed down, in the hellish, drippy way it did in nightmares where you needed to run but your legs were Jell-O. Ava’s icy blue eyes caught Lola in their beam, then widened, like she’d spotted something shiny she wanted to tear to shreds.

Lola was entirely, completely fucked.

“Lolly, babe!” Ava strutted toward her while waving off the usher asking them to take their seats. “I thought I might see you here.”

Lola’s brain was broken. She couldn’t even attempt to say something cutting or dismissive; she just wanted there not to be silence, not to have Ava’s eyes on her. “Nash is my boyfriend,” she said stupidly.

“Right.” Ava scrunched up her face like she was promising not to tell Lola’s secrets. “But you two aren’t, you know … are you?”

Lola was too stunned to speak, but Ava sailed past the silence as if it were an answer. She popped a piece of popcorn in her mouth, then let a considering gaze drip down Lola’s body as she chewed. “You’re looking gorgeous though. This dress is something else. So, what happened to all those songs you wrote for me?”

“I—I went in another direction,” she choked out, because she’d heard Gloriana explain it that way. If only she’d listened to Gloriana and stayed in her seat, this wouldn’t be happening.

Ava’s smile faded a touch. “Well, I hope you didn’t change your plans on my account. I wanted to hear you sing about me on the radio.”

Lola’s chest was too tight, her throat too narrow, her breath too shallow.Of courseshe’d changed her plans on Ava’s account! Ava knew that without their relationship, Lola couldn’t release an album of sapphic love songs. Ava understood the careful construction of a public image perfectly well when it came to herself, but when Lola had explained, repeatedly, how delicate coming out would be for her, Ava had acted like she was making excuses.

Lola didn’t know what to say. There weren’t even words in her head anymore—they’d melted away, just like her ability to write.

The thought was the final crack in the fragile defenses that had been restraining sheer panic. The building swell of tears was hot and stinging, her lower lip trembling, her breath speedy, and Lolaknew: she was going to break down in public, right in front of Ava Andreesen.

17

When Renee got Lola’s text—meet me in lob y noe—it was alarming. Spelling errors like that could only happen when you’d really ambushed autocorrect. Renee stepped on the toes of a dozen of Hollywood’s petty nobility to get out of her seat. Then it was down two flights of carpeted stairs.What was wrong? What had happened?She didn’t know, but Lola needed her and that was enough.

Neither woman noticed as Renee approached: Lola, because she couldn’t take her eyes off Ava, and Ava, because she seemed like the kind of person who found noticing other people distasteful.

Normally, Renee might have been turned on to see two stunning women locked in a gaze like MMA fighters who couldn’t decide if they were about to kiss or kill each other. The sapphic energy was off the charts. This time, a feeling bitter and entirely unlike arousal surged inside her. She wanted to snap Ava Andreesen in two like a pretzel stick.

Then she heard Ava say, “I wanted to hear you sing about me on the radio.”

Renee flinched. How dare Ava say something like that in public? How dare she speak to Lola at all?

Renee announced herself with subtlety: “Hello, ladies!”

“Yes, we know the movie’s starting.” Ava waved her off, then said to Lola, “These ushers are so rude.”