Page 10 of All That We Are Together

Lately, I was thinking more about Axel.

Maybe it was because I was working on something that seemed like him if you could see him from every angle. The sea. Immense. Mysterious in its depths, breathtaking, transparent where it touched the shore. The strength of the waves. Its cowardice when it licked the sand, then retreated…

Or maybe that wasn’t the only reason I was remembering him. Maybe it was the exhibit too. Because at some point, when I was fourteen, or maybe when I was nineteen and fell in love with him, Istarted taking it for granted that he’d be by my side when I had my first success. That the first time a painting of mine was hanging on the wall with a label next to it, I’d have Axel there, smiling, proud of me, ready to say something stupid to calm my nerves.

But now that wouldn’t happen…and it hurt. Not because of what we’d lived through, not because I didn’t have him as my boyfriend, but because I didn’t have him at all, not as a person, not as a friend. He wouldn’t be there…

I set aside what was left of the empanada when the knot in my throat made it impossible to swallow another bite. I got up, grabbed the brush with my heart pounding out of my chest, every beat hard and relentless. Instead of dipping it into the pastel blue I used for the sky, I looked for a jar of something darker.

I looked at the spongy clouds I’d painted.

An hour later, I’d covered them with a stormy sky.

10

Axel

I saw it, as always, when I entered my room.

The only picture I’d painted in recent years. The one I made with Leah while I was fucking her slowly on top of the canvas, coating her skin with color, with kisses, with words now lost to oblivion. I stared at the lines, the chaotic blotches. Then I looked up in the top of the closet and sucked in a breath. I hesitated. Just as I’d hesitated many times before. I let my routine carry me, left my bedroom, and grabbed my surfboard.

11

Axel

Oliver was sitting on the front stairs when I arrived just before nightfall. I waved at him, and he came inside. He opened the fridge as though nothing had ever come between us and pulled out two beers.

He looked happy—over the moon.

“Let’s toast!” he said.

“Sure. What’s the occasion?”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but then I thought…” He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable. “I thought it was the right thing to do. Leah’s got an exhibition this month in Red Hill. Just three pieces. But it’s a huge step; her professor recommended her. And I thought…I thought you deserved to know. Because all this is thanks to you, despite everything.” He reached his hand out and clinked his beer against mine.

But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t…

I stood there glaring at him. Hating him. And hating myself even more. I realized I was pissed he was telling me this, stirring up so many memories all at once. Still, it would have been evenworse if he hadn’t told me, and with the bitterness of knowing that, I kept quiet. What did it matter? Nothing he could have said would have made me happy, and I was struggling to pretend that nothing was wrong.

“Axel…” He looked at me hesitantly.

“When?” I murmured.

“Next week.”

“You going?”

“I can’t; I’ve got work.”

“I will.” It wasn’t a question; it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a decision. A firm one. I was going, I had to, I needed to see it with my own eyes.

Oliver set his beer down on the counter.

“You can’t. You think you can just show up and ruin her day? I only wanted to tell you because I was proud and I know you helped her, dammit, even with all the rest of it… I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately…” He trailed off, as though he didn’t know how to continue.

“I don’t care what you say. I’m going.”

The muscles in his jaw twitched.