Page 138 of Bad at Love
I have a hard time believing that and yet here she is.
My heart starts to skip.
“Noah...”
“Hey, don’t get all mushy with me. Go home.”
“You did the right thing in calling me, you know?”
“I know. Now go. We’ll be okay.”
“I don’t want to leave you both.”
He pushes at my shoulder. “We’ll be okay. I’ll take care of Sarah.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“We aren’t. We have each other. Got it?”
I nod reluctantly. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
“Okay. Can you bring some In-N-Out?”
I smile. “Of course.”
Then I gather up my courage and head down the steps to the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MARINA
“NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN”
The momentI got the call from Noah, I knew I could no longer pretend that Laz didn’t matter to me. I couldn’t pretend he didn’t mean anything.
In fact, all my stubbornness and conviction over ignoring him had disintegrated the moment I came home from the movies with Naomi and saw what he had done to my place.
It scared the shit out of me at first. I thought that maybe some crazy serial killer had broken into my studio and left psycho letters all over my walls. You know, ones that say the same word over and over again or perhaps photos of me taken with zoom lenses, my eyes scratched out. That sort of thing. Doesn’t help that the movie I saw with Naomi was a thriller.
But when I flicked on the lights and had a good look, I realized it was the opposite of something scary.
It was Laz.
It was Laz over every single inch of my walls.
Poem after poem after poem.
Printed out on sheets of paper, taped to the walls.
Some poems were short and sweet. Describing the subject as honey.
Others were long and tortured, filled with darkness.
And others still were brimming with pain and beauty, both intermingling at once, like snakes wrapping around a caduceus.
I took every single one off the walls and read them.
I read them all until I realized that every single one was about me.
