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“Valerie’s,” I whisper, staring at the floor.
“You know you can stay here,” he mumbles, his back leaning against the wall opposite me.
“The internship starts in a couple weeks. I’ll be fine.”
As he stares at me, I tell myself that he’s grown sick of me. He did this with all of the girls; it’s just who Alexander is. Knowing that I am just like the rest of the girls actually makes me feel better. It reminds me that I’m not walking away from anything special. Just a sexy fling with the hottest bachelor in Pineridge. Any girl should be so lucky.
There is no real breakup conversation, but it was never a real relationship to begin with, was it? We were a summer fling, a phase, a moment in time. I was Alexander’s road to recovery, and he was the support I needed to get out of my head. When I couldn’t convince myself that I was worth it, Alex reminded me I was.
As my phone chimes with a text from Valerie that she’s at the house to pick me up, I finally raise my eyes to reach his for the first time. He doesn’t say anything, just crosses the space and pulls me into his arms.
“Leave this all behind, Sunny. Do you understand? Leave me, your mom, everything. Just go and don’t look back.” His words crack open something in my chest, and it feels as if I never truly stop bleeding out.
It takes me days to get out of bed. Valerie is an amazing host, offering me space and companionship when I need it. She makes me binge-watch trashy reality shows with her, and she stays up with me all night, making me paint when all I want to do is cry.
I only check his social media a few times, and I don’t know if I’m terrified to see him miserable or happy. There’s nothing on any of his accounts, but on the third day, he posts a picture from the day at the farmers market. Neither of us are in the picture, and it’s just a photo of a flower. The caption reads, Blossom. Just that. I don’t know if he’s just pointing out what is in the picture, or if it’s a message to me. Is he telling me to move on and grow?
Either way, I look at the picture about a hundred times a day, touching the picture, like he can actually feel it.
The pain will go away. I keep telling myself that every day.
I love you so much it hurts.
Those words repeat in my head for days, and by the fourth day, I know it isn’t healthy. To love someone so much is reckless. Someone was bound to get hurt all along.
On the fifth day, Valerie takes me to the city to get a tour of the program facility. She had put in an official recommendation to the university, which meant I was basically a shoo-in. In true co-op style, the program is housed in a warehouse loft with a small living quarter above, big enough to house eight people with three to four in each room. It is cramped and cozy, but she said the energy is good. I look forward to the company and the structure. Responsibilities are evenly doled out to every member, which leaves optimal time for art and exploration.
The program sounds like a dream, and as she and I sit at a small cafe, I try to feel as excited as I want to feel. I will get to live and breathe nothing but art for six months. And that is a dream come true.
The aching pain in the middle of my chest will subside, eventually.
On move-in day, I take nothing but a duffel bag full of clothes, my new Bluetooth headphones, and the brushes Alexander bought me, even though I know they need replacing.
His large shirt, covered in paint, stays folded on the guest bed in Valerie’s apartment. I almost packed it, but I knew it would only prolong the pain. I need to be rid of this ache as soon as I can.
By the first day of classes, everyone already knows who I am, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s not because I was Alexander’s too-young girlfriend, but because I was the Sun-kissed Lust artist.
“You never gave it a proper name,” Valerie says in front of my new roommates. “So…we gave it one for you.”
My roommates are all young, the oldest being in his mid-twenties. They all appear far more cultured and hip than me, but I brush off the immediate feeling of inadequacy. I imagine Alex standing next to me, introducing me as the wildly talented person that I am. It helps.
I’ll take the good things, I tell myself.
On the first night in the co-op, I cry silently into my pillow, not moving even one muscle in my face as the tears soak the sheets. It’s the first time everything feels so irreversible. I can’t just walk across the yard and crawl into his lap. His bed is miles away, and I should be in it.
This will go away.
It has to.
CHAPTER 31
ALEXANDER
There’s a blood stain in the grout of the pool house. I can’t help but compare her mark on this world with mine. I have literally nothing better to do than sit on the floor with a toothbrush, trying to scrub the fucking blood out of the grout.
I’ve been out here since four in the morning, when I woke up with my dick as hard as stone from dreaming about her bent over my couch again. A far cry from the dreams I used to have about banging her in the filthy stall of a shitty club. I refused to palm my own dick after waking up. I want to feel the fucking pain because it’s all I have left. When it doesn’t hurt, I feel nothing, and I hate feeling nothing.
“Alex,” a voice calls from the front door. Charlotte told me she’d be bringing me food today, but I wish she wouldn’t bother. I didn’t want to tell her about Sunny in the first place, but she figured it out by my tone over the phone. She said I sounded like night and day, and that metaphor is not lost on me.
