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On my phone screen, Lauren shrugs. “The odd funeral or wedding?”
My parents and Ashley’s parents hate each other. My dad never liked his younger brother, and after Uncle Jonathan sold my parents out to the tabloids back when I was a teenager, they stopped speaking.
Ashley is five years younger than me, but I remember her as a child following Timothy and Nic around. The hearts in her eyes whenever Nic glanced her way. The wheedling and pouting she’d pull to get her way—mostly with my parents.
After the tabloid thing, Ashley still came around, off and on, for the odd big family holiday party, but we never really spoke beyond a little small talk.
Lauren and I watch a couple of episodes, but snarking back and forth about the show doesn’t distract me from the ache in my chest and I bail halfway through the third episode. It’s impossible to appreciate Ashley’s full embrace of villainy when my thoughts keep drifting back to Nic. Is he home from the hospital by now? Will he go back to LA or finish out his stay at my parents’ house? Is there a small chance in hell he’s changed his mind and he’ll come here?
I know the answer to that one and it’s no.
Honestly, I need to wallow in self-pity by myself. This hurts so much more than anything else ever has. But this time, when I go full broken-hearted-stereotype like the basic bitch I am, I’m going to do a better job with personal hygiene. Not a great job. Just better. Flossing? Don’t know her. Makeup? Who’s that? But deodorant? We’ve met. Shampoo? Besties. I’m going to eat vegetables too. I will drown them in cheese sauce but I will eat them.
I’m going to survive this. I have to because Nic’s always going to be in the picture. So instead of doing what I want to do, I drag my hungover ass to the shower, put on real clothes, and stand in front of my Fuck It Closet, ready to confront my past. Sort of.
I left my paints at my parents’ house, but I have more stuffed in this closet. As much as I don’t want to dig through all the crap I’ve tried to forget about, I want to paint.
At least I found my way back to that again, thanks to Nic.
I open the door and the universe shits on me, everything spilling out, burying me in an avalanche of art supplies, old clothes, and god knows what else.
Well, if this isn’t a metaphor for the mess that is my life. Except I can clean this up in half an hour. Fixing my life…
It feels impossible.
Like a masochist, instead of putting the old Christmas gifts from Nic back in the closet, I line them up.
The How To Paint book.
The jelly bra inserts.
A bottle of jellybeans labeled Bitch Pills. The jellybeans are long gone, victims of my lack of willpower when I needed a sugar hit.
Warwick’s leather pants from the first movie—I’d put rubber gloves on before pulling them out of the box, complaining I didn’t want anything his sweaty balls had touched.
The year after that, he was modeling underwear and signed a pair of white briefs for me and I’d threatened if he ever gave me something like that again, I’d make him eat them. After I got Timothy to wear them.
The very first gift I ever got from him is inside the Bitch Pills bottle. I’d tucked it in there when I’d moved into this apartment. It’s a silver necklace, simple with a little infinity symbol. I’ve never been big on jewelry, but looking back…it’s sweet for a fourteen-year-old boy.
I pick up a still-wrapped Christmas present in shiny gold paper.
The year Nic brought Addison home, I’d left before we opened presents. Timothy had brought all mine over later. I’d stuffed this one from Nic into the closet without opening it.
I should stick it back in the closet. There’s no point in this little depressing journey of Christmases past. But I’m feeling emo so I might as well add to my pain. I rip it open.
It’s a notebook. The paper is thick, made for watercolors, but instead of the plain black cover, like all my others, this one is a rich, buttery leather in a deep coral shade. I flip through it, and a small inscription on the inside of the front cover catches my eye.
I’m sorry. -N
He was sorry about Camden, I suppose.
I’m sorry I didn’t turn Nic down in the laundry room.
That’s not true. Even though it hurts, I’m not sorry about the time we had together. Only how it ended.
The presents go back into the closet—everything except the notebook—and I break out my old paints. Some of the tubes have dried out, but most of the pans are still good.
My work stuff is shunted into a corner as I turn half my home office back into the art studio it used to be.
