I wake up on Elana’s couch Saturday morning. My eyes are so puffy they’re mere slits. I cried to her all night after I left Alex’s apartment. She stayed up until four in the morning, listening to me sob. We both passed out some time after that.

“What time is it?” Elana asks, trying to sit up in the armchair she slept in. “Ow, ow, ow!” She struggles to get her leg out from under her body. “I may never walk again.”

I check my phone. “It’s 11:17,” I say, draping an arm across my forehead. “I’m afraid to go home.”

“Do you think he’ll show up there?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept in his car in front of my apartment,” I say. “You didn’t see him when I left.”

“Crazed?” she asked.

I didn’t tell her the last words he said to me or how I responded. I couldn’t talk about it when the wound was still so fresh. I could see in his eyes that he meant it. He loves me. So why can’t he see that I can’t be with someone who’d lie to me? “No.” I sit up and hug a throw pillow to my chest. “When I was leaving he said he’s in love with me.”

“Do you think he was saying it to make you stay?” she asks, but I can see by the expression on her face that she doesn’t think he’d do that.

“I don’t understand him sometimes. He’s so sweet, and he obviously does care about me.”

“He loves you,” she clarifies.

“Yeah, so why is he so pathetically dense? You don’t treat someone you love this way. Doing things without their consent. He lied to me.”

“Why wouldn’t you sell him the painting in the first place?” she asks.

“Don’t start. You sound just like him.”

“Answer the question. I’m trying to see things from his perspective so I can help you figure out if we should march over there and castrate him or if you should give him one last shot.”

“I’ve already forgiven him once, and look what happened. If I do it again, that’s all on me.” I shake my head. “I have to return the money, which means I’ll lose my school.”

“You don’t have the money to return, Whit,” Elana says. “Mr. Ambrogi isn’t going to give it back at this point.”

I lean my head back and moan. “What am I supposed to do?”

“It’s not like Alex needs the money anyway.” She shrugs when I glare at her. “It’s true. Besides, he wanted to buy the painting. It’s done. You don’t owe him anything in return. It was a business transaction.”

One that cost me my heart. “I never thought the price of chasing my dreams would be so high.”

“Can I ask you something without you throwing that pillow at my head?”

I clutch it tighter. “I don’t know.”

She sighs. “Do you love him?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“You’re a bad liar.”

I launch the pillow at her head, but she catches it.

“You’re predictable, too.”

“How can you ask me that now? It’s not a fair question. You know the heart doesn’t listen to reason. My brain is feuding with it as we speak.”

“So, you do love him,” she says.

“As much as you can love anyone who lied to you.” I sit up again, too agitated to be still. “I can’t get past it. I mean, how was he planning to keep this from me? Was he going to hide the painting somewhere and hope I never found it? If that was the case, then why not leave it with his stepfather?”

“Because he wanted the painting.” She gets up and sits next to me. “Whit, I don’t think he would’ve kept this a secret. I think as soon as you started to sell more paintings, he would have come clean.”

“You don’t know that,” I say, my brain forcing me to be the voice of reason.

“No, I don’t. And you don’t know that it’s not true.” When I give her a look, she holds her hands up. “You’re not the only one who can state facts here. I’m the math teacher. Facts are my life. You’re the artistic one who’s supposed to see things from every angle and find all the possible meanings in a bowl of fruit.”

“What?” I ask, laughing at her awful analogy.

“Oh, you know what I mean. You teach your students to convey emotions through everyday objects, yet you’re unwilling to see the emotion Alex was conveying through his actions—even if they were wrong.”

“Loving someone isn’t an automatic ‘Get out of jail free’ card on every mistake, Elana.”

“No, it’s not. But you can be in love with someone and have the best intentions and still do the wrong thing. It doesn’t mean you’re a monster. It means you’re so consumed by love that you can’t think clearly. You painted that picture because you saw how he truly viewed you, right?”

I nod.

“Then why can’t you see it now?”

“Because I can’t see through his lie.” My vision and my brain are clouded by all that’s gone wrong between Alex and me. We’ve existed on two ends of the relationship spectrum, being insanely happy and not being able to talk to each other. I need something that falls in between, and Alex can’t give me that.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I guess I’ll open my school as planned and see what happens. If I get enough students, I’ll stay open. If I don’t...” I can’t finish the thought. My life has been one nonstop roller coaster. One minute I think I’m going to be okay, and the next everything falls apart around me again.

* * *

The flyers Elana hung up at Priority High School got me a few of my former students. Becky and Noah asked if they could share a class and split the cost. I agreed for two reasons. One, they’re great kids and I know Noah wouldn’t be able to afford the class otherwise. Two, I really need students.

At one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, my phone rings. “Hello?” I say, not recognizing the number.

“Is this Whitney Stillwater of Stillwater Art School?”

I decided to go with the name Elana came up with. “Yes.”

“This is Arthur Ellison, the manager of Fitness World.”

“Hi, Mr. Ellison. What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping I could enroll my niece in your school. She’s been living with me for about six months now after her parents were killed in a car accident.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, it was rather unfortunate, and I’m afraid she hates having to spend so much time at the gym with me after school. I figured since your art school is so close, it might work out well to sign her up for classes so she’d have something a little more exciting to do than sit around here.”

My heart skips a beat. “Absolutely! I’d love to have her.”

“Great. You open on Monday, right?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Okay, I’ll bring her by after school if that’s okay with you.”

“That sounds perfect. I’ll see you both then.” I hang up and write the appointment down in my day planner. I haven’t set a schedule yet for classes since my only students were Noah and Becky. My guess is that they’ll come after school though since neither plays a sport or is an after-school club.

It’s too soon to get too excited. Three students that amount to two classes a week aren’t exactly going to keep me in business. Unless, Mr. Ellison decides to use my art classes as a babysitting service and send his niece here several days a week. Normally, that would bother me because I don’t want to be a glorified babysitter, but it sure as hell beats waiting on tables at Last Call, so I’ll take it.

My front door opens, and Elana walks in. “Hey.” She slumps down on my couch. “I have cramps like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I have Motrin in the bathroom.” I say, not wanting to spill my good news until she perks up a bit.

“It’s too far away.” She extends a hand, miming that the bottle is out of reach.

“I’ll get it.” I get up from the armchair, placing my day planner on the coffee table, and start for the bathroom.

“I had another date from hell last night,” Elana calls from the living room.

She’s been having a lot of those lately. I wish Marco didn’t turn out to be such a piece of crap, secretly dating two women. I thought he sounded too good to be true, though. Like Alex. He was perfect until his true colors started to show.

I pour two Motrin from the bottle into my hand and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Then I bring both to Elana, who is now sitting up and looking through my day planner. “So much for personal boundaries,” I say, handing her the water and Motrin and then taking the planner from her.

“Sorry, but you left it open and you wrote in all caps, so how was I not supposed to notice you have students for your art school?”

I look at the planner. I did write in all caps. I laugh at myself. “I guess I was a little excited.”

She downs the Motrin, chasing them with a swig from the water bottle. “We need to celebrate.”

“You said you have killer cramps.” I motion to the couch. “A second ago, you were sprawled out and unable to make it the twenty feet to my bathroom.

She waves a hand in the air. “I took the Motrin. I’m good.”

“Wow, just like that. Those must be super drugs or something.” I’ve never seen the placebo effect work so quickly.

“What kind of a best friend would I be if I didn’t take you out to celebrate the grand opening of your own art school?”

“A pretty crappy one,” I say with a smirk.

“I’m just glad you got some students,” she teases. “I thought I was going to have to throw one sad party and have to plaster on a fake smile while I told you everything was going to be all right.”

“Gee thanks.” I swat at her arm as I sit down beside her.

“Yeah, well if it makes you feel better, I didn’t get the job bartending at Last Call.”

I place my hand on her knee. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “It’s fine. I can’t blame Caleb for not hiring me. I did give a guy at the bar my number after Caleb had me make some test drinks for people. I guess he was afraid I’d be hitting on all the customers.”

“It makes for good tips, right?” I joke.

“Yeah, but after he lost the last bartender to two failed relationships with people she met at the bar, he was hesitant to hire someone who might follow in her footsteps.”

“So, I guess you don’t want to go to Last Call then?”

“Oh no, we have to go there. I’m certainly not going to Maurice’s. That place is a tourist trap, not to mention that woman Marco was seeing behind my back works there. She didn’t take it out on me when she walked in on my date with Marco, but I don’t trust her not to spit in my drink if I show up at her bar.”

I laugh. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

“Nope, but I’m taking you out. My treat to celebrate your success.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. I only have three students.” I pull her to her feet. “I’ll drive since you don’t feel well.”

“Nothing a little alcohol can’t fix,” she says with a smile. “But let’s call Uber so we can both get hammered and not have to worry about driving home.” She already has her phone out.

“I’m going to run upstairs and get ready,” I tell her.

I take the stairs two at a time. I’m excited to celebrate with Elana, but I’m also nervous because Last Call is the unofficial meeting place of the For the Record staff. I could run into Alex. He hasn’t tried to call me, which is good. Maybe he’s accepted that this is what I want. More like what I need because I can’t be with him after what he did. No matter how much I miss him. No matter how much I want to take him back.