Page 102 of The Other Side of Paradise
“Yeah… me too,” I said quietly. “I think it’d be fun to try. Just…”
She finished my thought. “Just once we’ve had a minute.”
I stared down at my drink, running my fingers around the edge of the glass. “Yeah,” I murmured.
I felt Ryan’s eyes on me, like she wanted to say something, but she kept it on the inside, turning to the railing again with a frustrated sigh. She didn’t have to spell it out—I could tell what she was thinking. Thinking that it should have been so easy—that we both wanted the people we’d found here, and how that should have been enough, but there was nothing more to say. That sometimes it wasn’t fair and you had to accept that, like her and BB, like me and Allison.
When Ryan did finally speak, she said what was on my mind already. “Feelings kind of suck.”
I pushed out a small, thick laugh, nodding. I wasn’t going to start crying. I’d ruin my mascara and look like a demon. “I just want to fall in love,” I said quietly, and she gave me a thin smile.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I’m sure we will,” I said, looking up at the sky, long lines of clouds streaked with sunset orange and gold, as the light disappeared over the horizon. Wasn’t that some symbolism? Sunset was the oldest metaphor in the world for good reason. “I, uh… I’m glad I have someone who gets it.”
“Wish I didn’t get it, but I’m glad I have someone who gets it too,” she said thickly, following my gaze upward. We were quiet for a while before I said,
“Oscar definitely doesn’t get it.”
“Yeah, no, for sure he doesn’t.”
“Are you sure you’re twins?”
“Not in the slightest. I blame you, you know.”
“Me? I didn’t swap you out for a changeling.”
She laughed. “We were all, you know, codependent twins until you came along. Changed the dynamic. Suddenly it wasn’t just the two of us, and I wasn’t seeing myself as the other half of twins but as just one sibling in a set…”
“Huh.” I kicked at the floor. “Should I apologize?”
“Nah. It’s better like this.” She raised her glass to mine again. “We’ll find… something good next. Both of us. So here’s to that.”
“Here’s to that,” I said, clinking my glass against hers, but dammit, I didn’t want something good next. I wanted to run back to Allison and spend the summer here with her instead of going back to the mainland where I had nothing except an icy reception from a fractured family holding a million grudges against me and Ryan now.
Whining about going on the vacation, whining about leaving the vacation. I was like a toddler who didn’t want to go to bed and then didn’t want to wake up.
Maybe one day I’d grow up.
Chapter 26
Allison
Well, I guess that was that.
The house was impossibly quiet once Stella left, like it had always been supposed to have two people in it, and now that I’d experienced that, I had a missing limb without it. The chair under the blueblossom drapery felt like it was supposed to have Stella in it, just like she’d been there last night after her dinner with her family. The second easel, still set up in the living room, looked sad and alone, like someone on a dance floor searching for a partner who was never coming. The books filled with sketches of Stella, most from imagination and then some in glorious, lifelike rendering, were suddenly unsent love letters, a reminder of what wasn’t there.
Fuck me. Of all the days to be off work. This was the first time I’d ever wished I was working when I was off.
I didn’t know what to do once I’d closed the door—I’d stood there in the doorway watching Stella drive away, and then she was gone, around the corner and disappeared, nothing but the wind in the leaves overhead, the trees swaying, but I’d still stood there watching the spot where she’d last been. Awkwardly, Istepped inside, shut the door, and then I stood like a stranger in my own house, taking it all in.
I drifted, moving from one spot to another—into the kitchen, opening the fridge, staring into it, and then shutting it. Drifting to the couch, picking up my sketchbook and staring down at it. Out to the back yard, where I sat on the couch and stared at the birdbath, a pair of dragonflies buzzing over it, sketchbook still in hand.
I think I spent an hour like that, just moving around like I was lost, before I wound up on my bed, staring at the ceiling. That painting of Stella, propped up by the bed—one of a couple, now, along with the painting of me that she’d left—it was suddenly a bad idea. Sad and aroused was a stupid combination. I hated this.
I pulled up my phone, and I sent Sherry a text.
I want to help coordinate a workshop
