The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, page 30
Vanessa laughs, sudden and bright. “You’re so funny.”
“Am I?”
She sticks out her tongue. “Fishing for compliments, are we?”
“No,” he says. “Just curious. What do you see in me?”
Vanessa smiles, suddenly shy. “You’re … well, it sounds cheesy, but you’re exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
“And what’s that?” he asks.
If she said real, sensitive, thoughtful, he might have bought it.
But she doesn’t.
She uses words like outgoing, funny, ambitious, and the more she talks about him, the thicker the frost in her eyes, the more it spreads, until he can barely make out the color beneath. And Henry wonders how she can see, but of course, she can’t.
That’s the point.
* * *
They’re at the Merchant a week later, he and Bea and Robbie, three beers and a basket of fries between them.
“How’s Vanessa?” she asks, while Robbie looks pointedly into his drink.
“She’s fine,” says Henry.
And she is. He is. They are.
“Been seeing a lot of her.”
Henry frowns. “You’re the one who told me to get Tabitha out of my system.”
Bea holds up her hands. “I know, I know.”
“It’s new. You know how things are. She’s—”
“A carbon copy,” mumbles Robbie.
Henry turns on him. “What was that?” he asks, annoyed. “Speak up. I know they taught you how to project.”
Robbie takes a long swig of beer, looking miserable. “I’m just saying, she’s a carbon copy of Tabby. Waifish, blond—”
“Female?”
It’s a long-running sore point between them, the fact that Henry isn’t gay, that he’s attracted to a person first and their gender second. Robbie cringes, but doesn’t apologize.
“Besides,” says Henry. “I didn’t go after Vanessa. She picked me. She likes me.”
“Do you like her?” asks Bea.
“Of course,” he says, a little too fast. He likes her. And sure, he also likes that she likes him (the him that she sees) and there’s a Venn diagram between those two, a place where they overlap. He’s pretty sure he’s safely in the shaded zone. He’s not really using her, is he? At least, he’s not the only one being shallow—she’s using him, too, painting someone else onto the canvas of her life. And if it’s mutual, well then, it’s not his fault … is it?
“We just want you to be happy,” Bea’s saying. “After all that’s happened, just … don’t go too fast.”
But for once, he’s not the one who needs to slow down.
Henry woke up that morning to chocolate-chip pancakes and a glass of OJ, a little handwritten note on the counter beside the plate with a heart and a V. She’s slept over the last three nights, and each time, she left something behind. A blouse. A pair of shoes. A toothbrush in the holder by the sink.
His friends stare at him, pale fog still swirling through their eyes, and he knows that they care, knows they love him, knows they only want the best for him. They have to now, thanks to the deal.
“Don’t worry,” he says, sipping his beer. “I’ll take it slow.”
* * *
“Henry…”
He’s half-asleep when he feels her run a painted nail down his back.
Weak gray light spills through the windows.
“Hm?” he says, rolling over.
Vanessa’s got her head on one hand, blond hair spilling down over the pillow, and he wonders how long she was leaning like that, waiting for him to wake up, before she finally intervened.
“I need to tell you something.” She gazes at him, eyes frosted with that milky light. He is beginning to dread that shine, the pale smoke that follows him from face to face.
“What is it?” he asks, rising onto one elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just…” She breaks into a smile. “I love you.”
And the scary thing is, she sounds like she means it.
“You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s soon. I just wanted you to know.”
She nuzzles against him.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I mean, it’s only been a week.”
“So what?” she says. “When you know, you know. And I know.”
Henry swallows, kisses her temple. “I’m going to take a shower.”
He stands under the hot water as long as he can, wondering what he’s supposed to say to that, if and how he can convince Vanessa that it isn’t love, it’s just obsession, but of course, that isn’t really true, either. He made the deal. He made the terms. This is what he wanted.
Isn’t it?
He cuts the water off, wraps the towel around his waist, and smells smoke.
Not the scent of a match lighting a candle, or something boiling over on the stove, but the char-black smell of things that aren’t supposed to be on fire, and are now burning.
Henry surges out into the hall, and sees Vanessa in the kitchen, standing at the counter, a box of matches in one hand, and the cardboard box of Tabitha’s things burning in the sink.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
“You’re holding on to the past,” she says, striking another match and tossing it into the box. “Like, literally holding on. You’ve had this box as long as we’ve been together.”
“I’ve only known you a week!” he shouts, but she presses on.
“And you deserve better. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live in the present. This is a good thing. This is closure. This is—”
He knocks the matches from her hand and pushes her aside, reaching for the tap.
The water hits the box in a sizzle, sending up a plume of smoke as it douses the flames.
“Vanessa,” he says, gritting his teeth, “I need you to go.”
“Like, home?”
“Like, go.”
“Henry,” she says, touching his arm. “What did I do wrong?”
And he could point to the smoldering remains in his kitchen sink, or the fact it’s all going way too fast, or the fact that when she looks at him, she sees someone else entirely. But instead, he just says, “It’s not you. It’s me.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, tears sliding down her face.
“I need some space, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, clinging to him. “I’m sorry. I love you.”
Her limbs are wrapped around his waist, head buried in his side, and for a second, he thinks he might have to physically pry her off.
“Vanessa, let go.”
He guides her away, and she looks devastated, ruined. She looks the way he felt the night he made the deal, and it breaks his heart at the thought that she will walk out feeling that lost, that alone.
“I care about you,” he says, gripping her shoulders. “I care about you, I do.”
She brightens, just a little. A wilting plant fed water. “So you’re not mad?”
Of course he’s mad.
“No, I’m not mad.”
She buries her face in his front, and he strokes her hair.
“You care about me.”
“I do.” He untangles himself. “I’ll call you. I promise.”
“You promise,” she echoes as he helps her gather her things.
“I promise,” he says as he leads her down the hall, and out.
The door shuts between them, and Henry sags back against it as the smoke alarm finally begins to ring.
New York City
October 23, 2013
XIII
“Movie night!”
Robbie flings himself across Henry’s sofa like a starfish, long limbs hanging off the back and sides. Bea rolls her eyes and shoves him over. “Make room.”
Henry plucks the bag from the microwave, bouncing it from hand to hand to avoid the steam. He dumps the popcorn into the bowl.
“What’s the movie?” he asks, rounding the counter.
“The Shining.”
Henry groans. He’s never been a fan of scary movies, but Robbie loves a reason to scream, treats the whole thing like another kind of performance, and it’s his week to choose.
“It’s Halloween!” defends Robbie.
“It’s the twenty-third,” says Henry, but Robbie treats holidays the way he treats birthdays, stretching them from days into weeks, and sometimes into seasons.
“Costume roll call,” says Bea.
Dressing up, he thinks, is just like watching cartoons, something you enjoyed as a kid, before it passes through the no man’s land of teen angst, the ironic age of early twenties. And then somehow, miraculously, it crosses back into the realm of the genuine, the nostalgic. A place reserved for wonder.
Robbie strikes a pose from the sofa. “Ziggy Stardust,” he says, which makes sense. He’s spent the last several years working through Bowie’s various incarnations. Last year it was the Thin White Duke.
Bea announces she’s going as the Dread Pirate Roberts, pun intended, and Robbie reaches out and picks up a camera from Henry’s coffee table, a vintage Nikon currently playing the part of paperweight. He cranes his head back, and peers at Henry through the viewfinder upside down.
“What about you?”
Henry’s always loved Halloween—not the scary part, just the excuse to change, be someone else. Robbie says he should have just become an actor, that they get to play dress-up all year round, but the thought of living life onstage makes him queasy. He’s been Freddie Mercury, and the Mad Hatter, Tuxedo Mask, and the Joker.
But right now, he already feels like somebody else.
“I’m already in costume,” he says, gesturing at his usual black jeans, his narrow shirt. “Can’t you tell who I am?”
“Peter Parker?” ventures Bea.
“A bookseller?”
“Harry Potter having a quarter-life crisis?”
Henry laughs and shakes his head.
Bea narrows her eyes. “You haven’t picked anything yet, have you?”
“No,” he admits, “but I will.”
Robbie is still fiddling with the camera. He turns it around, purses his lips, and snaps a photo. The camera gives a hollow click. There’s no film. Bea plucks it from his hands.
“Why don’t you take more photos?” she asks. “You’re really good.”
Henry shrugs, unsure if she means it. “Maybe in another life,” he says, handing each of them a beer.
“You still could, you know,” she says. “It’s not too late.”
Maybe, but if he started now, would the photos stand on their own, judged good or bad on their own merits? Or would each and every picture carry his wish forward? Would every person see the picture they wanted to see, instead of the one he made? Would he ever trust them if they did?
The movie starts, and Robbie insists on turning out all the lights, the three of them crammed together on the couch. They force Robbie to leave the bowl of popcorn on the table so he can’t throw it at the first scary moment, so Henry doesn’t have to pick up kernels after they’re gone, and he spends the next hour averting his eyes every time the score whines in warning.
When the boy rolls his tricycle down the hall, Bea mutters, “Nope, nope, nope,” and Robbie sits forward, leaning into the scare, and Henry buries his face in his shoulder. The twin girls appear, hand in hand, and Robbie grabs Henry’s leg.
And when the moment passes, a lull in the fear, Robbie’s hand is still resting on his thigh. And it’s like a broken cup coming back together, the shattered edges lining up just right—which is, of course, wrong.
Henry gets up, taking the empty popcorn bowl and heading for the kitchen.
Robbie swings his leg up over the back of the sofa. “I’ll help.”
“It’s popcorn,” Henry says over his shoulder as he rounds the corner. He tears the plastic wrapper off, shakes the pouch. “I’m pretty sure I just put the bag in the microwave and press the button.”
“You always let it go too long,” says Robbie, right behind him.
Henry tosses the pouch into the microwave and swings the door shut. He presses Start, turns back toward the door. “So now you’re the popcorn poli—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish before Robbie’s mouth is on his. Henry sucks in a breath, surprised by the sudden kiss, but Robbie doesn’t break away. He presses him back into the counter, hips into hips, fingers sliding along his jaw as the kiss deepens.
And this, this is better than all the other nights.
This is better than the attention of a hundred strangers.
This is the difference between a hotel bed and home.
Robbie is hard against him, and Henry’s chest aches with want, and it would be so easy, to fall back into this, to return to the familiar warmth of his kiss, his body, the simple comfort of something real.
But that’s the problem.
It was real. They were real. But like everything in Henry’s life, it ended. Failed.
He breaks the kiss as the first kernels begin to pop.
“I’ve been waiting weeks to do that,” whispers Robbie, his cheeks flushed, his eyes fever bright. But they’re not clear. Fog winds through them, clouding the vivid blue.
Henry lets out a shuddering breath, rubs his own eyes beneath his glasses.
The popcorn rattles and pops, and Henry pulls Robbie into the hall, away from Bea and the horror movie score, and Robbie starts toward him again, thinking it’s an invitation, but Henry puts his hand out, holding him back. “This is a mistake.”
“No, it’s not,” says Robbie. “I love you. I always have.”
And it sounds so honest, so real, Henry has to squeeze his eyes shut to focus. “Then why did you break up with me?”
“What? I don’t know. You were different, we weren’t a fit.”
“How?” presses Henry.
“You didn’t know what you wanted.”
“I wanted you. I wanted you to be happy.”
Robbie shakes his head. “It can’t just be about the other person. You have to be someone, too. You have to know who you are. Back then, you didn’t.” He smiles. “But now you do.”
But that’s just it.
He doesn’t.
Henry has no idea who he is, and now, neither does anyone else.
He just feels lost. But this is the one road he won’t take.
He and Robbie were friends before they were more, friends again for years after Robbie called it off, when Henry was still in love with him, and now it’s reversed, and Robbie’s going to have to find a way to move on, or at least, find a way to smooth in love into love, the way Henry had done when it was him.
“How long does it take to make popcorn?” shouts Bea.
A singed smell wafts from microwave, and Henry pushes past Robbie into the kitchen, hits the Stop button, pulls the bag out.
But he’s too late.
The popcorn is irretrievably burned.
New York City
November 14, 2013
XIV
Thank god Brooklyn has so many coffee shops.
Henry hasn’t been back into Roast, not since the Great Fire of 2013, as Robbie calls the whole Vanessa incident (with a little too much glee). He gets to the front of the line and orders a latte from a very nice guy named Patrick who is mercifully straight, who looks at him with cloudy eyes but only seems to see a perfect customer, someone friendly, and brief, and—
“Henry?”
His stomach drops. Because he knows that voice, high and sweet, knows the way it bends around his name, and it is that night again, and he is down on one knee like a fool as she says no.
You’re great. You really are. But you’re not …
He turns around, and there she is.
“Tabitha.”
Her hair has gotten a little longer, the bangs grown out into a sweep of blond across her forehead, a curl against her cheek, and she stands with the easy grace of a dancer between poses. Henry hasn’t seen her since that night, has managed, until now, to avoid her, to avoid this. And he wants to back away, to put as much distance between them as possible. But his legs refuse to move.
She smiles at him, bright and warm. He remembers being in love with that smile, back when it felt like a victory every time he earned a glimpse. Now she simply hands it to him, brown eyes shrouded in fog.
“I’ve missed you,” she says. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” he says, because it is the truth. Two years of a life together, replaced by a life apart, and there will always be an empty space in the shape of her. “I had a box of your things,” he says, “but there was a fire.”
“Oh god.” She touches his arm. “Are you okay? Was anyone hurt?”
“No, no.” He shakes his head, thinking of Vanessa standing over the sink. “It was … contained.”
Tabitha sways into him. “Oh, good.”
Up close, she smells like lilacs. It took a week for that scent to fade from his sheets, another for it to vanish from the sofa cushions, the shower towels. She leans into him, and it would be so easy to lean back, to give in to the same dangerous gravity that drew him to Robbie, the familiar pull of something loved, and lost, and then returned.
But it isn’t real.
It isn’t real.
“Tabitha,” he says, guiding her back. “You ended things.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t ready to take the next step. But I never wanted it to end. I love you, Henry.”
And despite it all, he falters. Because he believes her. Or at least, he believes that she believes herself, and that is worse, because it still doesn’t make it real.
“Can’t we try again?” she asks.
Henry swallows, and shakes his head.
He wants to ask her what she sees, to understand the chasm between who he was and what she wanted. But he doesn’t ask.
Because in the end, it doesn’t matter.
The fog twists across her vision. And he knows that, whoever she sees, it isn’t him.
It never was.
It never will be.
So he lets her go.
