Sweet Nothing (14 page)

“Hey. I know it’s super early, and I’m sorry to wake you, but—”

I freeze. Standing in the doorway looking puzzled is a woman. A gorgeous woman in jeans and a tank top. Barefoot. A woman with long, strawberry blonde waves. I don’t move. I don’t move or breathe, or even think, because I can’t. I’m frozen.

“Can I… help you?” she asks.

“Luke?” My whisper rattles, just barely audible. “I was, um, looking for Luke.”

My eyes flit to her hands, which are crossed over her chest. She wears no jewelry, except for a thin silver band on her left ring finger.

“He’s not here right now.” Her eyes narrow, then travel from my flat hair to my pumps and back again. I must look ridiculous. “Sorry, who are you?”

There’s something about her tone that makes my humiliation shift into anger. Suddenly, I find my voice again. It’s clear. And strong.

“I’m Elle. Who are
you
?” I peer around her, looking for Luke. Instead, I find a little girl, hiding behind the woman. She’s four, maybe five, and she’s just as beautiful as her mother. Tight, strawberry blonde curls, pink cheeks. And piercing light blue eyes. I know that blue. That blue belongs to Luke.

“I’m Ashley. And this…” the woman bends over and swoops up the little girl, nestling her against a jutted hip. “is Lilah. Our daughter.”

Our daughter. Luke’s daughter.
My body goes from feverish to frigid and back again. The woman’s outline dips and blurs, and I lean against the threshold for support.

“Are you… okay?” Her voice sounds far away. “Can I call someone for you?”

“No. No. I’m fine. I can…I’m fine. Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s okay,” the little girl chirps. Luke’s little girl.

“I didn’t mean to… you don’t need to tell him I stopped by.” My throat closes in, my words barely able to escape. I want to get out of here before the tears start. Dropping the coffee and the takeout bag on the front steps, I turn and break into a jog. Then a run, my heels cracking against the pavement. The woman calls after me, but I don’t turn around. As I run, I hear nothing but the roaring of my heart in my chest and the voice in my head, screaming at me for being such an idiot. For believing that a guy like Luke could be good. Could want only me.
He has a wife. He has a daughter. How could you be so naïve, Elliot?

Blocks pass in what seems like seconds, and then I’m bobbing and weaving across the busy streets of South Beach, horns blaring and brakes screeching. Hurrying down the steps to the beach, I know that my legs are about to give way. And they do, the second I reach the sand. I kick off my shoes and curl my feet beneath me, staring out at the mirrored ocean. The sun is rising now, a light so intense it’s almost pure white.

I wait for the tears to come, but they don’t. I feel nothing, other than pure disbelief. A wife. A child. Of course. It all makes sense now: how Luke had had to cut our first lunch short. The toys in his home that I’d assumed were just kitschy accents—the tricycle, the hula-hoop. The nightlight. And when he’d been out last week—was that to take care of his daughter? His wife? Does it even matter?

Of course not. The only thing that matters is that Luke is not the guy I thought he was. He’s a stranger. A liar. The only thing that matters is that we will never be together.
We will never be together.

The thought should be devastating. I should be inconsolable. I stare out at the ocean; watch the waves crash over the sand again and again. And I am completely numb. I don’t feel any of the things I should be feeling: rage. Shock. Sadness. As I sit and stare, the realization creeps in slowly. Of course I feel nothing. Deep down, I knew this was coming. Because I believe in karma. And this kind of devastation is exactly what I deserve.

Elle,

School starts tomorrow. Deep breaths. Wish me luck.

I’m nervous, but okay, actually. Here’s the thing: if you can start a new life with your head held high, then I know I can do this. So… thanks.

Love you for infinity,

A

I spend most of Sunday hiding out in my bathtub. Too humiliated to call Gwen or Waverly for a ride, I’d spent the rest of my cash on a cab home. Then I’d chased two aspirin with a giant jar of water, stripped myself of South Beach slutty, and settled in to an unbearably hot lavender bubble bath. Every time the water had dipped to a normal temperature, I’d filled it with hot water again. My fingers and toes had gone wrinkly three refills ago.

My cell buzzes on the toilet seat, at least the tenth time since I’d left Luke’s. I bolt upright in the tub, sending suds sloshing over the edge. My head is pounding. I scoop up the phone and power it off. I have zero to say to Luke Poulos.

“El? You okay in there?” Gwen calls from the other side of my door.

“Fine.” I sink back into the tub until my earlobes dip beneath the water. “I just kind of want to be alone, okay?”

“Okay. It’s just… um, Luke’s at the door? He looks upset.”

“I don’t want to see him.” Lowering my lips to the surface, I blow bubbles across the tub. “Tell him to go away.”

“Huh?” I hear the handle turn, and suddenly Gwen’s leaning in the doorway. “What’s going on with you guys?”

“Can you shut the door?” I snap.

“Yeah. Sure.” She comes in and closes the door behind her. She’s wearing scrub bottoms and a ratty tank top, her face soft with sleep.

“Not exactly what I meant.”

“Well, that’s just too bad.” She steps over my heels and dress and sits cross-legged on the toilet seat. “He’s like, freaking out, El. He says he really needs to talk to you. What’s going on, lovebug?”

“I told you, I don’t want to see him.” For the first time since this morning, I can feel tears welling up. Maybe it’s the way Gwen’s speaking to me. Softer and sweeter than I would ever speak to myself. Certainly sweeter than my mother has ever spoken to me. “I really just want him to leave.”

“Did he hurt you?” Gwen’s expression hardens like granite.

“Nothing like that, I just—”

“HELLO?” Waverly raps on the door, hard enough to send my bathrobe sliding off its hook. “Does somebody want to explain why Luke Poulos just saw me in my ugly robe?” She rattles the handle and barges in. “What are you guys doing?”

I sink even deeper beneath my bubble blanket. “Waverly, can you—”

“She just wants to be alone,” Gwen barks. “That means get out.”

“And you get to stay?” Waverly sits on the edge of the tub. I shrink away from her. “God, Elle. You look like shit.” She tightens the sash on a Pepto pink silk robe. She wears her black sleep mask like a tiara.

“Thanks. And by the way, that is an ugly robe.”

“Okay. Okay.” Gwen shifts into her calming yoga-instructor voice, which sounds ridiculously fake. “Everybody take a deep breath.” She finds a lighter in my top drawer and lights a citrus candle on the shelf over my toilet. “We need some good vibes in here, man.”

Waverly and I roll our eyes.

“I mean it!” Gwen barks. “Deep, cleansing breaths! Both of you! In through the nose! Out through the mouth!”

“Fine.” I do it, just to shut her up.

“Now,” Gwen rests her palms on her knees, facing upward. “Could you please explain why there is a very attractive, sweet guy at our front door, and why you are in here, refusing to see him? Aaand, go.”

“Gwen, I don’t really—”

“GO!”

“Okay, okay.” As my body prunes in the warm water, I tell them everything. I know it will come out eventually. At least they’re both here, so I don’t have to tell the story more than once. I don’t ever want to speak about this again. I don’t even want to think about it. All I want is to erase Luke Poulos from my brain. Permanently.

“Ohmygod,” Gwen whispers when I’ve finished. “Ellie, I… I don’t—” She reaches over and squeezes my wrist. “He’s
married?
I—”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. There’s not really anything to say.”

“BullSHIT, there’s nothing to say!” Waverly yells, which comes out more like “BUY-ULL SHIYIT, they-ers nuthin’ to say!” She jumps up and storms out of the bathroom. After a few seconds, we can hear her yelling at the front door. She’s so loud that if Luke’s even trying to speak, I can’t hear him.

“God, I love it when she goes all rogue redneck,” Gwen says ruefully.

“I can’t believe that accent!” I burst out laughing. At the same time, the tears start to come.

“I know. I’ve only heard it one other time,” Gwen says. She doesn’t ignore my tears, but doesn’t try to stop them. I’d hug her if I weren’t naked. “Early last year. I borrowed these insane flats of hers. They were this beautiful turquoise color. The softest leather you’d ever seen.”

“Vegan?” I quip through my tears.

She pretends not to hear. “Anyway, I borrowed them to go to this poetry reading at this bar. And I was literally sliding off my barstool, ready to come home, and this guy trips and spills whiskey all over them.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Uh-oh.” I tried to clean them, but that didn’t work. Then I tried to get Waverly really drunk and convince her that she’d spilled whiskey all over them.”

“And?”

“That didn’t work, either. Apparently, the girl knows the difference in smell between good whiskey and cheap whiskey. She said she wouldn’t be caught dead drinking the kind of whiskey that had ruined her shoes.” Gwen whips her hair into a bun, rifles through my drawers, and starts applying a seaweed facemask. “She was so pissed I could hardly understand her.”

I’m laughing and crying so hard, my whole body is sore. I can feel every blister, ache, and pain. Especially the one deep in the pit of my stomach. The part of me that feels totally wrecked by a guy I’ve only known a week.

“Men suck,” Gwen says softly. “They take what they want without thinking of the wreck they leave behind.” She blinks at her reflection in the mirror.

The front door slams.

“He’s gone!” Waverly bellows. Silence, then the sound of glass crashing in the kitchen. “Be there in a sec!”

“Well, you can tell she cares about you. You and those damn turquoise flats.” Gwen rinses her hands and uses my bath towel to dry them, leaving mint-green shadows.

“Yeah. I know.” It’s the one thing keeping me from doing a belly-flop off the edge of sanity: knowing that Waverly and Gwen won’t desert me the way Luke has. “God, I just feel so stupid, you know? I mean, I’ve been to his house! And I had no idea he had a wife or a kid or anything. Can you believe that?”

“He’s probably a pathological liar,” Gwen says simply. “That kind of person can con you without you realizing it.”

My eyes fall on the black-and-white photo of me, the one Luke took at his house the night we first kissed. I’d tucked it into the edge of my bathroom mirror, so I could look at it every morning. Now all I want to do is set it on fire with a lavender candle.

“Okay. We’re all settled.” Waverly hip-bumps her way through the door with a glass pitcher of tea and a stack of takeout containers. “That sonofabitch won’t be coming back here anytime soon.” She smiles and flutters her lashes at us. “Afternoon tea? The snacks are a few days old, but we can make it work.”

I let out a long, shuddery sigh. “Actually, I—”

“Okay,” Gwen says softly. “Sure, Ellie.” She stands up and nudges Waverly out of the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind them. And even though it’s what I want—maybe even what I need—it feels like shit to know that I am completely, utterly alone.

Elle,

School. Today. I’m. Screwed.

Love you for infinity,

A

The next morning, I’m showered and dressed almost an hour earlier than usual. Getting ready—the kind of ready that announces to the world in blimp-over-a-stadium-style that I AM JUST FUCKING FINE, THANK YOU requires extra time. Extra flatironing. Extra gloss. Extra tight clothing. Extra extra.

“Damn, girl.” Perched on the kitchen island with the Arts and Entertainment section of Sunday’s paper, Gwen lowers her travel mug to stare as I clack into the kitchen in a skintight navy knit dress and pointy neutral pumps. My feet are already killing me. Too bad. “Being dicked over looks kind of good on you.”

“Can we wait to use the word
dick
until after 8 AM, please?” Waverly herds me over to the table, then sets a nuked breakfast burrito and a glass of orange juice in front of me.

“Maybe you can.” Gwen slides off the counter and pours my coffee.

“Thanks. You guys are really sweet.” I demolish the first cup in seconds. I may look halfway refreshed, thanks to a generous coat of highlighter, but I barely slept at all last night. I haven’t had a nightmare about my family, or even a flashback, since the reception at Luke’s house earlier in the week. Practically a record for me. A record which came to a screeching halt at approximately 2 AM.

“You do look good, though.” Waverly eyes me approvingly. “You should walk by the art building on your way to lunch.”

“Desperate,” Gwen decides. “She should make him come to her.”

“I think I’m gonna try to focus on class today.” I bite into the burrito, which is frozen in some places and burned in others. To her credit, Waverly has melted at least eight different kinds of cheese on top. I love her. “Whatever happens, happens.” Of course, I’m hoping that I’ll see Luke. No. I’m hoping that he’ll see me, but only from afar. I’m not sure I could handle looking into his eyes. Being close to him.

“Good for you. See you guys tonight— I’m making vegetarian tacos, if you want.” Gwen chugs my orange juice, grabs her bag, and leaves.

“I should get going too,” I tell Waverly. “But let me help you with this stuff first.” I start to clear the table, but she practically slaps the plates out of my hands.

“Quit. I’m free ‘till second period. I’ll get it.”

“Thanks.” I toss my leather tote over my shoulder. “And… thanks. For everything. I really appreciate it.”

“I know.” I’ve gotten to know her smile well since I arrived in Miami: half shy smile, half smirk. Genuine enough to let you know that she cares; slick enough to keep you on your toes. “Now get the hell out.”