Page 58 of All That We Are Together

“It’s lovelessness.”

“I don’t understand.”

Maybe I was playing dirty, but I needed to know. And anyway, it wasn’t something Sam or another person couldn’t have asked. Collectors and art lovers came to openings for this reason: to meet the artist, learn the secrets behind the work, and decide whether it was worth buying, because they wanted that little extra that made it different, special, unique.

“It’s the exact moment when a person decides to give you back your heart even though you gave it to them. That’s why she’s holding it in her hands. Because she had given it up, handed it over to him, and she doesn’t know what to do with this thing that doesn’t really belong to her.”

Lord. That girl could kill me with words alone. With her eyes. With anything. She could make me turn to stone even when I thought I had the advantage. I understood then that she would always win. Always.

I was one step behind, trying to understand myself when she already understood both of us. I cleared my throat.

“How can I purchase it?”

“You’ll have to talk to my agent.” She smiled. “He must be around here. He’s tall, he usually has a furrowed forehead, and he’s wearing funny-looking glasses.”

I grunted in response, but I was happy to see the tension had been relieved. We went on playacting for a while more, considering the different questions a person might ask and the best way to answer them. When it was time to close the gallery, we said goodbye to Sam, and I walked Leah back to the hostel.

“The big day’s just around the corner,” she sighed.

“You still nervous?” I asked.

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep.”

“I’ll bet.”

“My brother will be here tomorrow.”

“I know. Your boyfriend too, right?”

Her back stiffened, and she licked her lips, unaware of that gesture’s effect on my self-control. She grabbed a flower from the creepers growing on the roadside behind a fence and plucked off the petals slowly.

“He’s not really my boyfriend, you know, not exactly. I wanted to tell you before, but honestly, it wasn’t something I felt like talking to you about. Landon is… I’m in a relationship with him. Without labels. It’s different.”

“Different…” I savored the word.

“We’re together,” she added.

“I hear that. I guess you’ll introduce us.”

With a thankful expression, still nervous, Leah kissed me on the cheek and disappeared through the door of the hostel. And apart of me thought if she didn’t have a boyfriend, I wouldn’t have stood there like an idiot; I’d have eaten her alive with kisses, even running the risk that she might reject me. But then, I was also starting to grasp that things aren’t always as simple as what one person can or can’t do. Sometimes, there’s a lot more to it.

49

Leah

Associative memory is dangerous, I’ve always thought. The memory we don’t control ourselves, that awakens forgotten sensations just because someone brushes past us. I had lots of things tucked away in boxes piling up inside me.

My mother was the scent of lavender, hands untangling my hair before braiding it, calm. Dad was a vibrant laugh, the scent of paint, color. The flavor of a strawberry lollipop and the sea breeze, that was my school days and afternoons walking through Byron Bay. The Nguyens were Sundays, cheesecake, family. And Axel…

Axel was many things. That was the problem.

Associating him with all those details had dangerous consequences, because the memory of him trapped me. Axel was dawn and dusk, tenuous light. He was printed shirts half-unbuttoned, tea after dinner, nights on the porch. He was the sea, the sand, and the foam on the crests of waves. He was the tattoo I had on my ribs, that “Let it be” drawn by his hands. He was the first time I’d been with someone between the sheets. He was that gesture of raising his chin to look at the stars, and the soft music that enveloped me…

The only person who, if “Yellow Submarine” started playing somewhere, would also hear an “I love you” behind the wordswe all live in a yellow submarine.

And it didn’t matter how much I ran, I could never escape what I’d been unless I was ready to erase those parts of myself.

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