19

THEN

It'd been over a month since he had last kissed her. Almost five weeks, living in a place that resembled heaven as strongly as it resembled hell. Isaac was at the apartment every day, every single day. Eating there, sleeping there, bathing there. Maxie couldn't escape him. Though she loved coming home and finding him lounging on the couch, or leaning over the refrigerator, or doing pull-ups from the bar he'd attached to one of the doorframes, it was getting harder and harder for her to watch him with Van.

Sometimes, when Van was around, he'd barely acknowledge Maxie. It was as if they'd never kissed, as if they'd never met. He wouldn't look at her, wouldn't address her, treated her as if she really were just Van's roommate. You asked for this, she reminded herself. She'd asked for his indifference, and she was certainly receiving it. Yet still, she yearned for just a small bit of attention. A look, a graze, a sign that she hadn't dreamt every moment she'd spent falling in love with him. That she hadn't conjured up their hidden kisses and forbidden caresses in a fantasy of hers.

He was punishing her, she concluded. He wouldn't leave. He wouldn't just put them all out of their miseries and leave. Every time he smiled at Van, kissed her, held her, anything, Maxie couldn't help but glare at him. It was all a lie; he'd said it himself. And now he wasn't speaking to Maxie, so why wouldn't he just leave?

Because he was punishing her, that's why.

One night, just after dinner when they'd retreated to their separate rooms, Van crept into Maxie's bed. She wrapped her arms around her friend and rested her head in Maxie's curls. "Max?" she whispered.

"Yes, Van?"

"Is it too soon for me to be in love with Isaac?"

Is it too soon for me to be in love with Isaac? "I don't know, Van."

"A part of me feels like it is. But then another part of me feels... well, feels in love. He makes me so happy. When I'm with him, I'm happy. And when I'm not with him, I want to be with him."

And he gives me butterflies, sometimes with just a glance. And he's constantly in my thoughts, even when I'm sleeping. And when he smiles, I smile. And when he laughs, I laugh. And when he's sad, I'm sad. I trust him, and I know he trusts me. I want him, and I know he wants me.

"It sounds like love," Maxie fretfully admitted.

"You know what? I think it is. I think I love him."

You know what? I know I love him.

 

It was like torture watching them, and it only seemed to be getting worse. With Van suddenly in love, everything Maxie thought she could learn to deal with only became even more unbearable. The confines of the apartment were near agonizing at times, so she began to get out.

Most of the time she wouldn't go much farther than the roof. She would disappear up there for hours, reading, dancing, thinking up new recipes. Anything to keep her mind off of what was transpiring just below her.

One afternoon, while Maxie roamed the city aimlessly, she came upon a sign that caught her eye. Large and glowing, she stopped to peer at the word TATTOO just in front of her. The shop was down a short flight of steps, pushed back and practically hidden. But Maxie was drawn to it.

She went inside, where the buzzing of the tattoo guns filled the air. The walls were sea-foam green and covered with drawings, paintings, photographs, sketches of tattoo ideas. There was a sofa behind a small coffee table where stacks of artists' portfolios were spread out. Maxie peered around the place until a girl emerged from the back room.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

Maxie gasped. The girl seemed as colorful and aesthetic as her artwork. Between her green eyes and long, fire orange dreadlocks, and colorful tattoos that nearly covered her, Maxie couldn't help but stare.

The girl frowned. "Ah... Are you looking to get some work done?"

"Yeah," Maxie replied, though before that very moment she hadn't been looking to get any work done. What the hell would she get? And what about dancing? She couldn't dance with tattoos.

She followed the girl to one of the back rooms anyway.

"My name's Beatrix," she said. "Call me Bea."

"Hi, Bea. I'm Maxie."

"Nice to meet you, Maxie. What did you want to have done today?"

"Ah..." She thought a moment. Barely a moment. The idea simply came to her, or maybe it'd always been there. "I want to get Unfair."

Bea raised an eyebrow. "Unfair, huh? What's unfair?"

With a sigh, Maxie replied, "Life."

They couldn't stop talking, not even when Bea finished the tattoo and wrapped it in plastic. She was endlessly interesting; just twenty-four years old, the second oldest of eleven, all half siblings by her father. She had started tattooing when she was just seventeen. After she decided not to go to college, her mother kicked her out of the house when she graduated high school.

"How did you live?" Maxie asked.

Bea shrugged. "I stripped."

Maxie felt her mouth fall open.

"What? It's not as big a deal as people make it. I got to wear a thong the whole time. Shook my tits for some old men a few nights a week, made more money than a lot of people make working forty-hour jobs."

"I'm not judging you," Maxie assured her. After all, who the hell was she to judge? She was the one falling helplessly for her best friend's boyfriend. She was the one dreaming about the last time his hands were on her, wondering if, despite her protests, she would ever feel them on her again.

Bea had stripped at night, but during the day she had apprenticed at a tattoo shop. A year and a half later, she was significantly wealthy and officially tattooing. No more stripping, not that she had minded it. And she had a career. Just nineteen years old.

"Talk about following your dreams," Maxie said.

Bea nodded. "I know. It seems so impossible sometimes, but I'm living proof that it is possible. You just have to sacrifice. But if it's for something you really want, it doesn't always seem like a sacrifice."

Maxie thought of Isaac. If he were there, he would have agreed with Bea. He would have told Maxie that if she really wanted to publish her cookbook, or open her restaurant, she wouldn't care what Van or Van's family thought of her. She wouldn't care about the time and money and energy she had wasted in Julliard.

She wondered if she could apply that thinking to wanting him as well.

Aside from tattooing, Bea's life revolved around her thirty-seven-year-old boyfriend, a man who was married with two children.

"He says he's leaving her," she said with a shrug and wave of her hand. "I don't believe him for a minute. I mean, he's cheating on her, so obviously he's not that good of a person. But he's not a bad person, either. He wouldn't just leave her hanging."

"Don't you feel bad?" Maxie asked. "About...you know... sleeping with someone else's husband?"

"Not really. I mean, if it wasn't me, it would probably just be someone else. Why shouldn't it be me? He buys me things. I genuinely enjoy his company most of the time. And he's a damn good fuck. I don't see what the big deal is."

No, Bea never saw what the big deal was. She stripped, so what? She carried on an affair with a married man, and...? She smoked weed like most people smoked cigarettes, it's natural, after all. Once in a while, she went skinny dipping in her apartment's community pool for fun, because who the fuck is going to do anything about it? Maybe that was why Maxie felt so comfortable opening up to Bea. Or maybe it was because she couldn't bear to keep her secret inside any longer.

She told her everything.

About the first night she met Isaac, when he hit her with his car. About how she had wanted him that night, but she had let Van have him. She always gave Van what she wanted. But then he'd shown up at the coffee shop. And they sat and talked for hours, and she knew she was getting herself into trouble. Into big trouble. Before he even opened his mouth to tell her the truth about his own feelings, she could feel hers, brewing in the pit of her stomach. Then there were the dinners, the seemingly innocent dinners that were anything but innocent. And then the kiss. And then everything else.

"...And now he hardly even looks in my direction. I feel like I don't even know what's real or fake anymore. And you know the worst part? Sometimes I wish I never would have ruined things between us. Sometimes I wish I never would have said anything." She buried in face in the palms of her hands. "What kind of friend am I?"

Bea scoffed. "A damn good one if you ask me. I wouldn't hesitate."

"You don't understand. Van is like my sister. She is my sister." She thought of Arnold. "And she's sacrificed a lot for me."

"Is that what your tattoo is about?" asked Bea.

"Among other things," Maxie admitted.

"Well, then," Bea said with a sigh. "I guess you're right. That is pretty fucking unfair."

"So," Isaac said, tugging at Maxie's sweater to reveal the word Unfair written across her shoulder. "Are you going to tell me what that's about?"

She shrugged, moving her sweater back in place. "It's about a lot of things," she said, not looking at him. She sat at the table working on her cookbook. Isaac stood behind her, hovering over her.

He leaned down close to her ear and said, "Van told me she loves me. Did you know that?" Biting down on her bottom lip, Maxie said nothing. "That's unfair. How long are we going to drag this out?"

She finally turned to look up at him, their faces just inches apart. She wanted to kiss him, she wanted to tell that they didn't need to drag it out for another second. She wanted to tell him that she wanted to be with him, that she would be with him. Instead, she said, "You know where I stand."

With a sigh, he nodded and stood. "Fine," he said. "Have it your way."

As if on cue, Van sashayed into the kitchen and, as always, threw herself into Isaac's arms. And he took her, gladly, pulling her against him as he leaned against the sink. Maxie watched as Van's arms went around his neck and she pulled his face against hers. They stood there for a while, frozen in a passionate kiss, only parting so Van could whisper, "I love you," against his mouth.

Isaac opened his eyes, met Maxie's gaze, and held it for a moment or so before replying, "I love you, too." For a moment, he watched Maxie while he kissed Van, and then let his eyes flutter shut again. Swallowing hard, she gathered her books from the table and rushed to her room before he could see her cry.

 

That night, she woke to the sound of Van and Isaac's lovemaking. At first, she wasn't sure if that was really what she was hearing. The sounds came every couple of minutes, the bang of Van's headboard against the wall, the creak of her mattress, a moan, a giggle. She listened for a while, not because she wanted to, but because she needed to be sure that what she was hearing wasn't what she thought she was hearing. But indeed it was.

It was three AM, and the morning air was brisk, but Maxie left the apartment anyway to spend the rest of the night sobbing on the roof.

 

NOW

Isaac sat in the kitchen, waiting for Maxie when she returned from work. He wasn't going to let her avoid him anymore. He didn't care what time she snuck in or how tired she was. He didn't care who came around. He didn't care if she didn't feel like talking about it. All he cared about was getting the truth.

It was after eight when she quietly pushed open the front door and crept inside. He knew she didn't see him sitting in the dark, watching her from the kitchen, because she practically tiptoed across the living room toward her bedroom. And then he stood.

"Oh, my God!" she cried, jumping back and clutching her chest. "Oh, my God, you scared the fuck out of me."

"We need to talk," he said, ignoring her. "Come, sit."

He could tell she contemplated it for a moment. Maybe she was going to try to give him another excuse of why she couldn't. However, she finally conceded, dropped her bag on the couch, and made her way to the seat across from his.

With a sigh, she asked, "What do you want to know?"

He flipped on the light to see her, and inhaled sharply.

She looked beautiful.

Her hair was pulled up into a perfect bun at the crown of her head. Her nails were painted a deep, blood red. She wore a dress. A tight, black dress that showed enough of her thigh and enough of her chest to make Isaac stare a little longer. And makeup. Smoky eye shadow. Lipstick to match her nails. A bit of rouge. "How was your day?" he breathed.

Her eyes widened. Of course, she hadn't expected him to ask that. "Huh?"

He finally tore his eyes away from her. He wasn't thinking straight. "I mean, why are you so dressed up?"

"Oh." She glanced down at her outfit. "Charlie had a woman over for lunch today. I thought it would be fun if I served them, like a waitress. It was nice. Almost like a date."

He didn't want to say it; it just wasn't the time. But he couldn't help it. "You look very pretty."

She blushed, looked away from him. "Thank you."

"Maxie," he said, sitting down again. "Please tell me what was going on between us. I need to know the truth."

"It was really nothing," she said, averting her gaze. "For a little while, just in the beginning—"

"Look at me," he said.

She exhaled heavily, slowly raised her eyes to his. Her leg bounced under the table, she tapped her fingers against the surface of it. "In the beginning," she repeated, "we... we had a fling. It was before you and Van got too serious. And once that happened, we ended it."

"A fling?"

"Yeah."

"Were you in love with me?"

She grimaced. "No."

"Was I in love with you?"

Even lower: "No, Isaac."

"Were there any emotions at all?"

She shook her head.

Isaac contemplated for a moment. It wasn't so unbelievable. He'd had countless meaningless relationships with women, just for sex. The difference was, they all remained nameless, faceless. Maxie was anything but. She was a permanent resident of his thoughts, the main object of his dreams, the sole occupant of his memories.

Was it possible that it was more than just a fling to him? Maybe she hadn't known. Maybe he'd cared for her more than he'd let on. That didn't seem so unlike him, either, he thought. Especially if she hadn't returned the feeling.

"That's all, Isaac," she said.

"Those pictures didn't look like that was all."

She shrugged. "I didn't say we didn't like each other."

"Why did you lie?"

"Because what we did was wrong," she said, her voice no longer low and timid. "What was the point of reminding you of it? It's over now, and it'll never happen again."

"Why didn't I choose you, Max?"

She lowered her eyes again. "Because Van is my best friend. You and I were never a real possibility."

He thought a moment. Something still didn't make sense. But what choice did he have other than to believe what Maxie told him? Or at least accept it. He had no proof otherwise. "If you're lying to me..."

"I'm not."

"I hope not."

"I just told you we were sleeping together behind my best friend's back. If there's anything else besides that, what's the point in hiding it, Isaac?"

"I don't know, Max," he replied. "You tell me."