Love Abstract (The Art of Falling Book 2) (26 page)

“You know, with enough of those things you could re-enact Alfred Hitchcock’s
The Birds
but those little bastards could slay you with paper cuts instead of pecking out your eyeballs. So are you still planning on running away to St. Louis?” Brock comes back out wearing underwear.

“I’m not running away,” I lie. I’m simply leaving for a few days so I don’t continue to look after Ivy from the shadows like some creeper. I kind of hate myself for acting like such a pussy. At least work granted me the time off when I told them I needed to head back home for a few days to be with my ailing father.

“But you’ll be back in time for the opening, right?”

“Yeah. Though I’m pretty sure I’ll be on some security list to be escorted out of the building if I make an appearance.”

“You trust me with this, right?”

Not really
. I nod, knowing that this convoluted plan of his is probably the last legitimate shot I have of getting her to talk things out.

“I just hope it works,” I sigh.

“It will. Girls may not be my forte, but I am the master of apologies.”

I’M SURPRISED TO SEE FARRAH at the gallery so early in the day. Normally she doesn’t show up until the afternoon when her hangover wears off. But there she sits, typing away and brushing her golden locks from her eyes every few seconds. Why she doesn’t just clip it back, I’ll never know.

“Phoenix came by earlier this morning.” She doesn’t bother looking up from her computer.

Oh?
“And what did he want?”

“He didn’t say much, actually, looked like shit. But he left that for you.” She gestures to a soft blue paper crane perched on the edge of the desk. I finger the delicate paper bird for a moment and notice the words
I
’
m sorry
penciled lightly upon the wing.

My heart sighs for one hesitant moment before anger coats my insides at the thought of his confession. I snatch the bird in my fist and crush it before dropping it in the silver wastebasket. I don’t need this right now. I need to just let go and move on with my life.

Farrah glances up from her laptop and gives me a pointed look before taking a long sip from her oversized coffee cup. I notice the barista has butchered her name in big black bold letters—Fairuh. I’m convinced that baristas deliberately make a mockery of people’s names with bogus spellings. Once, they spelled my name as I.B. and Rachel claimed it stood for irritable bitch. And in some ways, I guess she wasn’t so wrong about that.

Farrah looks from me down to the wastebasket and back to me again.

“Don’t ask,” I deadpan and her eyes soften ever so slightly. My stomach falls because I don’t want her pity. It’s no secret that there’s trouble in paradise. Anyone can tell just by looking at me. You can’t hide sadness when you wear it in your tired eyes and your plastic smile.

“Listen, Ivy. I know you’ve got a lot going on in your personal life right now. Why don’t you take a mental health day? I’ve got things covered here.”

“But the show is in a few days and—”

“Exactly. We open in a few days, I’m wrapping up the final details here and just about everything is pretty much set. You’ve done a great job preparing for Sleeping Shadows. But you need to be on your A-game this weekend when we open. Go home. Read a book. Get some sleep. Go for a run. Do whatever it is you need to do to unwind and get back to your usual self.”

I can’t control the audible sigh. Farrah’s right. I certainly don’t want to be here. Although I don’t want to be anywhere else, really.

She stands up and walks around the desk, gently touching her hand to my arm. I think she’s trying to comfort me, which is a little weird considering how abrasive and standoffish she’s been since day one. “All you’ve been doing lately is working. You need to get out more.”

These days my idea of getting out is a dose of Nyquil chased with a bottle of wine. Who knows … maybe she’s right? Maybe I do just need to sleep this off so I can wake up with a renewed sense of life. But when I sleep, my dreams and nightmares are made of Phoenix. It’s a winless situation.

“Thanks for covering for me, Farrah.” The last thing I want to appear as is out of my element during the press preview. I can only hope that calming my busy mind will help pull me together.

Farrah squeezes my arm and gives me a reassuring smile. I turn on my heel and head out the door, determined to walk home.

Alone.

IT’S FUNNY HOW ACUTELY AWARE of the deafening silence you become when you are alone.

Actually, it’s not funny at all. In fact, it’s kind of depressing.

Alone.

That word has never bothered me. I’ve always been content on my own. But now that little word has two very different meanings.

First: Alone. In the company of one’s own self.

Second:
Alone
. In the absence of those who helped define who you are.

Similar concepts but completely different contexts. And for the first time in my life I’m falling into the latter category.

Alone.

And it fucking sucks.

The void that Phoenix left is just as painful as the truth of his past. He slept with my sister. And without even knowing it at the time, ruined the course of his future … my future … our future. Then, to add insult to injury, he knowingly lied about it straight to my face. That’s nearly as unforgivable as the act itself.

But the worst part about it all?

This is entirely my fault. I let my guard down. I trusted him and that was purely
my
mistake.

His love was simply a drug by any other name. His kisses, cocaine. His touch, ecstasy. It’s addicting. It’s debilitating. And it has completely fucked up my life. But falling in love is the greatest high I’ve ever experienced. It made me feel incredible if only for a little while. Is the high really worth the pain of coming down? This painful withdrawal that makes me question everything. For the past few months, Phoenix has been my crutch, my addiction. And I hate how I’ve become dependent on him. How my soul craves him. How my head and my heart are at war with each other.

Phoenix is the drug I can no longer allow myself to take advantage of. And at this moment, I feel like I’m coming down from a horrible high.

And frankly, I’m not sure if it’s worth all of this searing hurt. With pain of this magnitude, how can love
ever
be worth it? Judging from my parents’ relationship, or my sister and the sultan of spunk bubbles as Rachel so eloquently put it … I’m just not sure that love, or what people perceive love to be, is enough.

When I walk into the apartment, I’m not greeted by Phoenix blaring the latest Foo Fighters or the sound of nineties sitcoms in syndication in the background. There is no one here to kiss me deeply and say, “Why are you home so early? Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

There is only the shaky sound of my own breathing and the rattling hum of the damn motor in the old refrigerator.
I should really call the landlord and get that fixed.

Our apartment is so much bigger now that he has moved out some of his belongings. Then again, I guess it’s
my
apartment now in spite of the constant reminders of him and our life and love together. This morning I found one of his old T-shirts tucked into my drawer when I was putting laundry away. I cracked when I pulled it out and sobbed for a solid hour.

How could I have been so stupid? Falling for a guy I barely knew. Or rather, a guy I
thought
I knew.

As if on cue, my phone rings and a photo of Rachel and I from my last visit to Chicago fills the screen. I really need to find a way to make my arms longer because both of our heads are cut off from our horrible attempt at selfie.

“Hi,” I say meekly and curl up on the couch.

“Hey, sweetie ... how are you holding up?”

“I'm alive. So that should count for something, right?” I look across the room at the bookshelf. It's lifeless ever since I took down the picture frames that held memories of us around New York City.

Lifeless ... just like me.

Rachel sighs in my ear. “Have you talked to him at all?”

“No, I haven't. I can't.” I run my fingers over the throw pillow on the couch that we picked out together. I hate that I can't see the imprint of his body sunken into the pillows anymore. I hate that he's not here. And I hate that I hate myself for missing him.

I need to make myself angry. I don't hurt nearly as much when I'm angry with him. It helps mask all the pain I'm feeling deep inside. “Did I tell you he called me a bitch?” I say, trying to change the subject to one of hurt to one of anger.

“He what? Doesn't he know that
I'm
the only one allowed to call you a bitch?” she shrieks into the phone. “When did he say this?”

“The other morning when my life imploded. I told him what he did to Genevieve was no different from what Sully did to me.” Rage starts to bubble within at the thought of that conversation before I left him behind to collect his things.

“Ouch. Don’t you think that was kind of harsh, Ivy?”

Feel the anger.

Embrace the anger.

Own the anger.

“It's the truth, isn’t it?”

“Oh, sweetie ...” Rachel goes silent for a few moments. “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Uh huh.” I don't like how she's prefacing this. I clench the throw pillow to my chest like a lifeline.

“But as your best friend, I need to tell you I think you're looking at everything completely wrong. You have every right to be upset about this whole situation. Really, you do. But I think you've been acting out of anger so you don't have to feel vulnerable and hurt.”

“You don't think I'm hurting right now?” I grip my cell phone tightly and fight the urge to throw it across the room at her insinuation. I'm hurting to the point where I don't remember what it's like to exist without this kind of pain. It is all-consuming.

“No, I know for a fact you're hurting,” she says pragmatically. “But don’t you see that you're hurting and angry and upset because you care about him so fucking much? If you didn’t love him, and if you didn’t want to work things out, I think you’d be acting differently right now.”

Rachel pauses for dramatic effect. “Besides, don’t you remember what happened with Ivan?”

His name was actually Evan, but I don’t want her to recount the story to me. And I remember all too well how I slept with Carter on a Friday night, not realizing he was Evan’s roommate until the next morning. Evan and I were going out on Saturday night, or at least we
were
until he saw me parading out of Carter’s room wearing nothing but his boxers and a wife beater. Evan punched Carter and word has it that their friendship never recovered. But I had taken the path of indifference and pretty much brushed off the whole debacle before I ever made it home that day.

“That was different,” I quip, wanting to avoid this trip down memory lane.

“Exactly. It
was
different because you didn’t care. And Matt and Geoff and Parker and Charlie and your entire little black book of guys were different from what you’re going through with Phoenix. And it’s different for the most obvious reason. Think about that, Ivy.”

I sigh into the phone.

“Besides, maybe Phoenix was right? Maybe at that moment you really were being a bitch and he called you out on your shit because he loves you enough to not let you walk all over him and destroy your relationship? I know that doesn't make it right, but maybe he's not the only one who was wrong?”

I'm not sure I agree with her on that. I would never call him an asshole to his face even if I thought he was acting like one. But I guess I see what she's saying.

I chew on my bottom lip as I think back to our fight.

“Ivy, you’re not always the easiest to love, hon. Don’t get me wrong, I adore you. You’re my best friend and have been for years. But you have a bad habit of keeping people at arms length the instant things get tough. Even me.”

Her voice is thick with pain and earnestness. I want to stop her right there and correct her. Even after learning that Phoenix had lied about Hailey, I worked hard to not push him away, even when my instincts told me otherwise. I forced myself to see the good in our situation. Convinced myself that he was telling me the truth. Took a chance and blindly trusted him. Pretended that it was all a misunderstanding. But then the truth of Genevieve came to light. And I had to push him away. I can't have that kind of toxicity in my veins. I needed to remove all traces of him from my life.