Axel
Six YearsEarlier…
DidI think Lex was serious about me? Her cutting words haunt me well into the week. She’s been avoiding me, darting past me when she sees me coming, not taking my calls, ignoring my texts. Her roommate asked me to please stop pounding on the door at all hours of the night. She said we were both batshit—that we probablydeservedone another. God, I hope she’s right about that second account. Unfortunately, she’s most likely right about the first. I realize pegging your girlfriend as batshit isn’t anything to be proud of, but it’s Lex’s wild side that I love about her. Shep called her scary. So what? I like scary. It’s appropriate that we christened our relationship on Halloweennight.
My stomach grinds as I glance out at the parking lot. I’ve been at the Witch’s Cauldron for an hour now. It’s cold as, yes, a witch’s tit. It’s two nights till Christmas and not a sign of snow, but the storm coming tomorrow night promises to bring a flurry. It was right here just a few weeks ago that I proposed to Lex. It was the best night of our lives. She said yes, took my grandmother’s ring, and then everything fell to shit faster than a hammer falling on myhead.
I texted Lex earlier in the day, told her this was it. I needed to speak with her. I pleaded with the reasonable side of her, reminded her that we were adults. Okay, so I begged her to show up. I told her that every good breakup deserved a blowout, and if she had any heart she wouldn’t deny me ours. I thought she might get a kick out of that one. If I’ve learned anything about Lex over the past fifteen months, it’s that her love language bites with searing sarcasm. The truth is, I need us back together. I need a nice shiny bow on the two of us because I want us to work, and because I promised my parents a big announcement on Christmas Eve. I happened to get their hopes up for something significant just a day before Lex sliced me out of herlife.
A pair of headlights turns into the lot. I hold my breath for a moment until it makes the turn and the moonlight exposes it for what it is—a whitesedan.
She’s here. A giant rush of relief washes through me. Adrenaline spikes through my bloodstream, and I resist the urge to pump my fist in the air and shout for joy. She showed. Lex is here. Everything is going to workout.
My own cryptic words come back to bite me in the ass. Surely, she’s not here to offer up a blowout. Nobody in their right mind drives a half hour up the switchbacks to oblige someone they claim to hate with an argument of all things. That would be so very ludicrous. My heart sinks because that would also be so veryus.
The slam of the car door. The shuffle of shoes across the gravel. The moon hits her with a burst of light and her hair lights up like a flame. Lex is a walking birthday candle. Those sultry hips of hers slowly sashay toward me like a promise, and for a second I fully believe she’s here to offer up a mouthwateringproposition.
“You came,” I say as the moon illuminates herfeatures.
Lex slices through me with a look that says hold onto your balls, and that knot I’ve been nursing in my belly cinches right backup.
“Bet your bottom dollar. I showed up with bells on.” She strides forward with a dark smile curving on her lips, and any hope of a reconciliation flees from the scene. “I came to give you this.” She holds out a balled fist, and I’m slow to offer up my palm. I already know what happensnext.
Lex drops my grandmother’s wedding ring into my hand and I stare at it a moment too long. She didn’t give it back that night in Founder’s Square. I thought she might keep it—she might keep me. It looks like any prospect of regaling my family with an engagement on Christmas Eve just dwindled down tonothing.
“I don’t want this.” I sniff hard at the sight of the lonely band. The gold grows cold so fast it burns its impression over myskin.
“It belongs to your family,” she huffs incredulously as if I were a moron for not wanting it back. “You’ll find someone in New York to give itto.”
“I won’t. I’m not going,Lex.”
Her eyes hook to mine with a fire all their own. Her anger over the fact I refuse to head north has her irate all overagain.
“What don’t you get?” My voice shakes with a fury of my own. “I don’t need NYU. I needyou.”
“You want NYU. It’s been yourdream.”
“You’re my dream. I’ll sacrifice NYU for you. I’ll sacrifice everything for you,Lex.”
“I don’t want you to sacrifice anything for me!” she bellows so loud her voice ricochets around us like a boomerang. “I refuse to be the reason you’re not happy. I refuse to be the one you can point the finger at when you start to contemplate why you stayed. We are not working. We are broken. We areover.” Her voice softens to just above a whisper. Her eyes though. I’m begging for a sign of life in this strangled relationship, something to gauge whether or not she means the words she’s throwing at me so convincingly. But there’s not a tear in sight. Not on her endanyway.
“We’re not over.” I close my fingers over the ring as if maybe we are. “We’ll never be over, Lex.” I take a step in and caress her cheek with my finger. “I love you. You’re hurting, and I don’t want that for you. Whatever happens between us, Lex—I want you to know I’m putting you in power of where we go from here. What do you need from me, Lex? I’ll meet you there. Ipromise.”
A single tear rolls down her cheek, and relief comes rushing back to the party. Lex cares. Lex is human. Lex loves me. This much I know forsure.
In a brazen move, I wrap my arms around her waist and bring her close to me, warming her body withmine.
She sniffs back her emotions, blinking hard as if disowning the tear that escaped without her permission. “I need you to go to New York,” she whispers while staring out into the dark just beyond the parking lot. “And then I need you to understand that we need to take abreak.”
“A break,” I repeat numbly. A break is simply a step up from a breakup, but at this point I’ll hang onto whatever she wants to giveme.
Her eyes meet with mine, a genuine disquiet about them. Lex’s eyes were always telling me something, hating me, loving me, openly laughing at me—with me. But at the moment, they are stone coldsilent.
She gives a single nod. “We’ll be friends.” Lex slips past me like an apparition. She’s in her car and barreling down the mountain before I can catch my nextbreath.
Friends.
My soul aches with the sting ofgrief.
