Don’t Be in Love

16

Don’t Think About Dating Her — Dorian

“You’re throwing your life away,” Victoria spat from above me.

She texted me that there was an emergency while on my way back from Adelaide’s after the art studio, so I came immediately.

If I knew that my life choices were the emergency, I would’ve walked slower. Maybe grab an acetaminophen and a drink to relieve the headache that was forming in my right ear where she was shouting as I fixed the lock in her door that her landlord refused to fix. The packaged deadbolt on her counter made for a good distraction during this conversation.

From my kneeled position on the ground, eye-level with the lock, I unscrewed the old deadbolt with the drill.

“Are you really just going to throw your future away?” she questioned.

“By wanting to open a gallery?” I asked. I was so tired. She must see it.

“Yes!” she shouted.

“This is what you wanted to talk about? I haven’t seen you or heard from you in three months and this is what you’ve been thinking about?”

She skipped half of my question. “Because it affects the both of us.”

“Affects us how?”

“Are you joking? Rye, what you do affects our future. What I do affects our future. Which, by the way, do you know how embarrassing it was to hear about your post-grad plans from your mother?”

“I’m sorry. You’ve been busy. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.” Since up until ten minutes ago, I thought we weren’t together.

“Of course I want to hear about it. You’re supposed to discuss big-life decisions with your partner.”

“There’s not much to discuss. I’m moving in with James after graduation so I can use my own flat as the gallery space. I have it all planned out.” I placed the new deadbolt on the door, lining it up with the holes.

She scoffed. “You’re going to move? Seriously? To live with James? When your parents could just buy you another place? That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes, Victoria.” Were we standing on a spinning scratched record?

I put one of the screws between my lips, and strung the other through the hole, fitting the drill in the divot. Then onto the next screw. She began talking louder as the drill shrieked.

“You’re ruining your life by not considering joining your father’s production team! This art thing is a joke! What are you going to do? Sell your paintings? It’s embarrassing!”

I stopped the drill. I bit the inside of my mouth. She’s just upset you didn’t tell her. You’d be upset if she kept something from you.

She has, you idiot. Gregory, Drew, Lewis, Alfie. There’s probably even more from this summer.

“The deadbolt is fixed. Have a good night.” I opened the door, threw the rubbish in her bin, dropped the drill on her counter, and grabbed my coat from the ground. I took the stairs down to the lobby two at a time, praying she wouldn’t follow.

Once the goosebump-raising air hit me outside, I exhaled. It wasn’t enough to cool the heat on my neck and sides of my face, but it was something. A droplet of rain against the hot pan that was my body.

Embarrassing. She thinks I’m embarrassing . Maybe I was. Maybe that’s what happened to a person who kept going back to someone who didn’t love them.

What should have been the sound of the lobby door shutting behind me was her voice instead.

“Dorian wait.” I turned. She was pulling her blond hair from the restraint of her coat.

Sometimes if I looked at her long enough, she began to look like the girl I fell in love with at seventeen. I could see the light freckles that polka-dotted her nose fighting for space through her makeup. Imagine the smile that lifted on her face when she saw me. Pretend that her next words were going to be supportive and sweet, the way they used to be.

But it was just going to be an empty apology.

She folded her arms tightly against her chest. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Well, you did Vic. But I can’t change how you feel. If you want to spend entire summers pretending I don’t exist and continue to hate my life choices, then that’s fine. But I don’t want it.”

“Don’t want what?”

“This. Us. I’m exhausted.”

“You’re just going to give up? Five years and something gets tough, and Dorian wants to give up, yet I’ve been here for you through everything. Really?”

“You know this isn’t the only thing. It’s been like this for years.”

“No.” She shook her head, and her eyes developed a glassy glow. “You don’t get to just leave. Who else will deal with the publicity and scrutiny and still stick by you? No one. No one but me because I know you. I’ve always known you.”

Maybe she did know me. Five years did that.

She’d been there through every scandal, every speculation. When people in class stared at me and when tabloids ripped me apart, she was there. She had a right to worry about the future.

So when she leaned forward to kiss me, I gave in. Sank into the comfortable space I was accustomed to because no one else would ever offer the same. Because I had no other choice.

“What are your thoughts on a Halloween party?”

“James, are the Americans hypnotizing you? Writing subliminal messages into your journalism notes?” I ruffled the papers between us on the library table. The reflection of raindrops bouncing off the windows behind me slid against the notes.

He swatted my hand. “I just think it’d be fun. A conversation I had with Adelaide made me think of it. My mother agreed—wants to use it to celebrate the retail launch for Beverly now. We could make it a masquerade rather than some tacky costume party.”

“My presence is contingent on whether or not I have to handle caterers and mingle with your mother’s friends.”

“You don’t enjoy talking to Gretchen?”

“Is my sleeping during my conversations with her not obvious enough?”

“You could start drooling and she still wouldn’t notice.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment to my looks or a hit at my acting skills …”

He rolled his eyes. “To answer your question though: no Gretchen and no hosting duties. But you do have to show up in a suit. A shirt included.”

“That was one time . I didn’t anticipate on taking a nap in the middle of your mother’s Christmas party and waking up with my shirt missing. Whoever made those drinks was insane. And to be frank, I think you enjoyed it since you mention it so much.”

He tipped his head back and laughed. After a moment, when our laughter fizzed out down, he asked, “How’s tutoring with Addy going?”

Addy? Suddenly, there was a thick blanket thrown over the mood. I felt stiff but continued to write down the research Adelaide assigned me to look for.

“It’s good,” I replied.

“That’s good.” He nodded. “Have you guys been getting along?”

Getting along? Was she telling him we weren’t?

“Yeah,” was all I said before returning to my notes. I tried to ignore the heavy silence, but it was petulant, dancing on my tongue. I wanted to tell him how I was feeling. How she made me feel. Anxious. Admired. Agitated. Adored. Acknowledged. A complex canvas with layers of paint that couldn’t be traced back to their first brushstrokes.

I needed to hear that I wasn’t insane. Because the way my skin shivered as Victoria kissed me last night felt like the embodiment of loneliness. I walked home with a fishhook grip on my conscious, filled with guilt.

Guilt for caring for Adelaide. Guilt for not considering Victoria. Guilt for hoping she’d let me go.

I couldn’t navigate why I was feeling this way.

I had to tell him about everything that happened last night.

Then he spoke. “I hope it wouldn’t be awkward then if I asked Adelaide out?”

My pencil snapped. The lead flew across the table, leaving a short, thick line in my paper—proof of what he just said.

“Adelaide? I didn’t realize you were interested in her,” I said.

“I didn’t know if it’d make things weird, but I’ve been seeing her enough to know that there’s a correlation between her and my heart palpitations.” He laughed. It was small, focused on his lap where he picked the skin around his nails. “So you don’t mind then, since you guys are getting on well. I know Victoria’s back anyway so …”

If we were in the campus kitchen, I’d assume the shooting pain in my chest was from a fork pressed into my chest. But no. I leaned my head into my palm to stop the swaying and prepare myself in case this was some early-on heart attack. I’d sure provide a doctor with quite a bit of entertainment.

The cause of the attack, you ask? Best friend fancies the woman I’m dreaming about.

“Of course not. You should pursue her,” I said. I didn’t recognize my voice.

“You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“Alright, I will then.” He leaned back as if he was preparing to get up and ask her this second. But he sat forward and restored the steadiness of his voice. “Now that that’s over with, what’d you do last night?” he asked.

I paused.

I couldn’t tell him now. If I told him I took her to Poppy’s, then he’d know Adelaide meant something.

He knew no one saw me paint. It wasn’t supposed to be for anyone. The moment you created art and shared it, everyone took it as an invitation to tell you how to make it better. More interesting. To critique and commoditize it. To make assumptions about it that weren’t supposed to be made.

Art was meant to be enjoyed. To provoke. Not to be pulled apart and judged stroke by stroke.

But Adelaide just watched. The same way I watched her run her finger over her computer screen to breakdown definitions and explain analytics.

“Nothing much,” I told him.