I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to come up with something to say, but then the curtain rises, and a hush falls over the crowd. I’ll have to clear that up later. For now, they’ll have to go through the entire play assuming I’m with Olsen, not Lex. And Lex will have to do the same.
After moving past Lex and Olsen’s parents, we find our two saved seats and I sit in the second one, with Olsen to my left and Lex to my right. Both are shifting uncomfortably at the absurdity of the situation, but not me. I’m not afraid of the curse anymore.
The play starts and Gabe takes the stage, singing and dancing and delivering his lines like he was born to it. I glance over at Lex, her eyes shimmering with proud tears. Then, I look to Olsen, who’s wearing the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. All at once all the discomfort of the curse, of my weird situation, and the weight of the apology I owe Lex melts away. Right now, for this brief moment in time, none of it matters. We’re here and we’re together and we’re supporting our boy, and this moment could not be better.
Two hours later, we’re all on our feet cheering for Gabe as he takes centre stage with the other students and bows. My throat swells as I clap and whistle, and Gabe’s elated grin lights up his face. He did the damn thing. And the best part about it? All the other students seem to love him just as much as we do. I can feel Lex relax when she sees how the other kids put their arms around Gabe, how they draw him in for hugs and offerhigh-fives. Her worries about him not fitting in or making friends, of growing up and experiencing school like she did, no longer have to haunt her.
Then, the moment’s over. The lights go on, everyone stands, and people begin filtering out.
All the calm I’ve felt through the duration of the play ends with the realization that I actually have to follow through with my plan and face Lex.
Before I do or say anything, Olsen reaches past me and tugs on his sister’s sleeve. “I’m taking Gabe for ice cream. Mom? Dad? Jared? Want to come? We’ll head over to the house after for dinner.”
Carol tuts. “Ice creambeforedinner?”
Robert belly laughs. “We’re celebrating! Besides, no amount of ice cream can ruin my appetite when lasagna is involved.”
“Lex, can you and Aubrey can go back to the house and pop the lasagnas in the oven so they’re ready when we get there?” Olsen asks, giving me a sly wink.
Lex looks from me to Olsen and back to her parents, then agrees with a slight nod.
My heart is in my throat as we make our way out of the gymnasium. Lex is cold and distant, avoiding eye contact. Even once we’re in the parking lot in the relative quiet of the cool late-summer night, she’s still avoiding me. Lex drives us home, and we sit in uncomfortable silence for the entire twenty-minute drive. I so badly want to reach out, to take her hand, to comfort her, but I don’t. The next time I touch her it will be with nothing left between us but the truth.
She deserves that much.
We park in front of the house and I follow Lex up the front steps, my heart pounding in my throat. It all comes down to this. Everything we’ve been through together for the past few months, the joy and the fear and the elation and the sadness andthe love and the heartbreak—it’s going to culminate in these next few minutes, and Lex will decide on our future.
Lex unlocks the door and steps inside, making her way to the kitchen to start the oven and throw the lasagnas in. While she does that, I turn on the TV and take a deep breath. My heart is pounding in my ears as I listen to her open and close the stove, set the timer, and walk back over—her steps slowing as she approaches. Her brow furrows as she looks from me to the TV, where a PowerPoint with the title “SORRY AF” lights up the screen.
I gesture to the couch, which I’ve already prepped with a cozy blanket and a few pillows. “Please, have a seat.”
Lex’s eyes narrow slightly, but she does as she’s asked, sitting on the edge of the cushion as if she’s ready to run away at a moment’s notice. Can’t say I blame her.
“You were right,” I begin, echoing the words back to Lex that I’d so desperately wanted to hear from her ever since we started our curse-curing mission.
Lex’s head tilts to the side, but she stays quiet, waiting for me to continue.
“You were right about me using the curse to push people away—to pushyouaway. You were right about my fear of commitment. I’ve been running away from my problems for so long, it’s all I’ve ever known. You were right about me having trauma I haven’t dealt with in my past, but I’m not going to let that define me anymore. I’m not going to run away from my problems, or hide behind the curse, or push you away. I’m going to get a therapist and work on it, so I can be the best version of myself for you—if you’ll still have me after what I’m about to tell you.”
Lex leans forward on her seat, rapt.
“You assumed I was trying to break the curse with true love because that’s how it is in all the movies we grew up watching,but that’s not right. I knew the curse could be broken by true love because...” I take a steadying breath, steeling my resolve. “Because I helped write it.”
I click to the first slide, which has the curse written, word for word, in all its cringey high school glory—sans sparkly gel pen. Lex reads the words, her face turning pale, but says nothing.
“I’d so desperately wanted to be cool and popular in high school that I’d have done anything to fit in,” I explain. “Even if it meant throwing my best friend under the bus, spreading gross rumours about her, and then trying to curse her so her boyfriend would break up with her and ask me to the school dance, instead. I thought I got what I wanted, but the curse backfired. Instant karma. And I’ve been dealing with it ever since.”
Lex closes her eyes as she processes this new information. “So, this whole time when you were talking about a high school bully... it was you.”
My muscles tense as she draws the inevitable conclusion. “Yes.” I wait for Lex to say something, anything, but she stays quiet. My cheeks burn with shame, but I press on. Clicking to the next slide, an image of the graph Lex had shown me weeks ago appears.
“You suggested I sneak past the curse by starting off a relationship as friends—not jumping ahead to anything spicy, growing a relationship and getting comfortable with a person before knowing them intimately. As we’ve already established, that person was not any of the individuals I’d dated. Nor was it your brother, as I’d suggested. It was you, the whole time, which is made evident by the addition of this other factor.”
I click again and a new element is added: Lex’s involvement in the date. Lex had gone over P values and outliers and so many other science terms that I barely understood, but you don’t have to have a degree in statistics to see the clear linear trajectory with this new data.
Turning back to Lex, I squeeze the controller in my hand. “But none of that matters if I can’t be honest with you. I was scared that if you knew the truth about the curse then you wouldn’t love me anymore. So I hid it. I lied by omission. I ran from my past, like I always do, and you got hurt in the process. And I’m so, so sorry.”
Lex stays still and quiet, giving me time to sort through my thoughts.
