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Indy
An hour has passed with me on my couch, unmoving from the spot where Matt left me. My thoughts are scattered and my brain is fried, and the paint from making love with Ansel feels dry and brittle now.
I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to think, and I don’t know where to go from here.
I’m single. Free to do as I please, and yet now, it somehow feels more wrong than ever.
I’m shaken by my actions, by the choices that got me here and the truths I’ve yet to face, and I’m not even sure I know myself anymore.
Another hour of reckless soul-searching passes, and at last, I pick up the phone and call Lily.
But when she answers, the enormity of the situation consumes me, and I lose control of my emotions. I sob into my hands, and the tears drip between my fingers, raining down onto my socks and the floor beneath me.
“Indy.” My sister’s voice is in my ear, and the concern and worry only make me cry harder, deeper.
“Indy, what’s wrong? Where are you?”
“H-home,” I stutter through my gasping breaths.
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“N-no…I don’t know…” I can barely get the words out, and it only freaks her out more.
“Fuck you’re scaring me, Indy,” she says, and in a rush, she adds, “Just stay there. Stay right there. I’m coming over.”
And I don’t try to stop her.
Instead, I whisper, “Thank you.”
Not even an hour later, four frantic knocks pound against my front door.
When I open it, Lily’s eyes are wide and worried, and she scrutinizes my face. She takes in the remnants of my tears and my red eyes and my trembling lip and the paint still on my arms.
“Oh my god. Are you hurt? What’s going on?” she asks. I just throw myself into her arms.
She grunts her surprise but doesn’t push me away.
Instead, she lets me cry into her shoulder while she eases us into my apartment, shuts the door, and leads us toward the couch.
She sits me down, takes off her jacket, and then sits down beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer to her. “What’s going on, Indy?” she asks. “You need to tell me something because I am freaking out over here.”
“God, Lily…” My voice shakes, and my lips turn down into a frown. “I don’t even know where to begin…”
“Well…” She offers a soft smile and gently rubs my back. “The beginning is generally a good place to start.”
I look into my sister’s still-worried gaze, and I inhale a deep, rickety breath into my lungs. And once I get myself together, once I can breathe and talk at the same time, I tell her everything.
I tell her about Ansel. I tell her how I first tracked him down at the gallery.
I tell her how I’ve been spending time with him. I tell her that we made love.
I tell her how he makes me feel. That I’m so drawn to him.
That I’m falling for him.
And then I tell her about Matt.
How he came home early, and I ended things. That I admitted to cheating, and that he, understandably, reacted angrily.
I’m about to tell her about the other painting I found in Ansel’s studio when she sucks me back into the topic before it.
Matt.
“That sanctimonious bastard!” she yells, jumping up from the couch and pacing.
“Lily?” I question, wiping a lingering tear from my face as I flash to emotionally sober. That’s usually all it takes to snap me out of it—someone else going crazy.
“I can’t believe him!”
“He wasn’t that bad, Lil.” She shakes her head like a lunatic. “Seriously,” I emphasize.
Suddenly, she drops to the couch next to me and takes my hand in hers. “Okay. Okay,” she pep-talks herself. “Just tell her.”
“Just tell me what?”
“Indy…Matt…the rat bastard…has absolutely no high hill to stand on. He cheated on you too.”
“What?” I whisper, searching my sister’s eyes. “How…when?” I shake my head. “You knew?”
Lily nods guiltily and squeezes my hands to keep me from pulling them away.
“A while ago, seven or so months, I think…”
“This happened seven months ago?” My eyes pop wide open. “What the fuck, Lil?”
And she’s just telling me this now?
“I know. God, I know how it seems, Indy. But…” She pauses and grips my hands tighter. “As far as I know, it only happened once. I saw them in Chinatown together. He swore up and down it was the biggest mistake of his life and that he regretted it. I don’t know, Indy, I really believed him, so I didn’t tell you.”
I’m shaking head to toe, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to feel. Lily keeps talking to try to soothe it.
“I felt like I had finally gotten my sister back,” she whispers, and tears well in her eyes. “You seemed happy for the first time since… I didn’t want to ruin it.”
