Page 105 of The Other Side of Paradise
God, this… this poor woman. Had she always been trying to convince herself of this? Had she always been this empty, and it just took Ryan to force her open and make her see it?
She wasn’t that different from me, I guess. We both… both fucked things up, a lot. Both too scared to let ourselves care too much. Both just… wishing we found something we could really dedicate ourselves to.
Both hurt.
I’d wanted to be more like Brooklyn. Here I was.
She let out a quietshitunder her breath, dropping back into her seat. “I’m… I’m sorry,” she said, the air between us suddenly tense, quiet, nervous. “I didn’t mean to go off on you. I appreciate you coming around and checking in. I’m just a little bit of a mess at the moment.”
That was an understatement. But so was I. I laughed through the lump in my throat. “Okay, well, verdict is, I don’t think I like hookups.”
“Fair enough,” she said with a sad smile.
“I’m not sad I did it, though…” I said, shifting in my seat. “Thanks. For the push, and everything.”
“You’re a better person than I am, Allison. Glad I get to at least make you pizzas. Now eat up. It’s getting cold.”
“It was just in a trillion-degree oven. It’s not getting cold that fast.”
But I took some of the pizza, and I took a bite, where it was still plenty warm. We both picked at the pizzas for a minute before, quietly, Brooklyn said, “I’m glad she’s a writer.”
I looked at her. “Ryan?”
“Yeah. I subscribed to her newsletter,” she laughed. “Under a different email that doesn’t have my name in it… just in case. I’ll get to read her writing, and it’ll be like I’m hearing her voice again. So I’m going to be very well-informed.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Christ, you’re down bad.”
“Christ, I really am.”
I shook my head, smiling to myself. “Stella’s studying graphic design, so I, uh, I followed her Instagram. She posts a lot of her work there. She’s really good.”
“You’re just as down bad…” she said lightly, and I pouted at her.
“At least I used my actual name.”
“Okay, you win just this once. It’s still close, though.”
“I’ll give you that.” I sank back in the seat, swirling my drink, staring up at the slow-moving clouds, trying to work out what to say. I’d gone into this thinking I could admit to this thing aboutI wish I could send her those paintings,but I, uh, didn’t want to admit to the paintings. Nor to what they’d entailed. “I… kept telling her we should go do painting or something together, but we never actually got a chance to do it…” I said. “Now I feel sad I didn’t get to put my studies to good use trying to impress a hot girl.”
It was more true than I’d realized—wishing I could have taken her to one of the workshops, to coach her in painting, or to attend one together. Wishing we could have done everything on the island together. Just one day to the next, figuring out what we wanted to do with our time.
Brooklyn smiled at me. “Do some paintings and post them on your Instagram. Shedidfollow you back, right?”
Jesus, I couldn’t imagine the reaction if I’d posted the paintings publicly on my Instagram. Two of them would be fine. One… wouldn’t. Stella would probably support it, though. “I amnotbecoming an art influencer just to get her attention. I’d be just as bad as you then.”
“Just as bad,you’d be ten times worse. I could see you doing it, though.”
I pouted. “Ten times is alot.Have you seen how bad you are? Maybe just like… three times worse.”
“Five times.”
“Five.” I looked away. “I almost wish we hadn’t added each other… a clean break would have been easier.”
“Says the one chiding me for having a clean break,” she said idly, and something snapped in me, and I whirled on her, my heart pounding all of a sudden.
“I said Ialmostwish it. Ugh. What’s the sense in life if you’re not going to spend it looking for something good?” I pointed at her, gesturing with each word, and Brooklyn flinched. Hell, I surprised myself. “If you’re just cutting out everything that makes you happy because one day you might not have it? When everything we have in life, everything that’s good and everything that’s bad, all of it is temporary anyway? There’s no difference between hiding from everything you want and just lying down to die. Jesus, why were any of usbornif not to go and look for those things that make lifegood?What’s the point of carrying on each day just wincing that the next one might hurt?” I slumped, my voice falling off at the end, looking down. I wasn’t talking to her, was I? I was talking to a different girl here, one who wasn’t listening. “What a stupid-ass fucking mindset,” I muttered.
She was quiet, just sat in the silence between us as the words hung heavy in the air, looking at the torch lights crackling, the glow that still came from the pizza oven. After a long silence, Brooklyn said, “You’re going to start posting your paintings, aren’t you?”
