AMOS
Shitty. That was how I felt. I felt shitty. I knew I should have brought it up sooner.
I should have told her I had a girlfriend before I insisted we go out. I should have told her I had a girlfriend before we messed with the college kid, pretending to be a couple. I should have told her before we’d started slow dancing, before she’d looked at me with her eyes full of fire and need.
I felt even worse when I did tell her, when disappointment filled her eyes just long enough for me to see it, before she concealed her emotions behind the mask she wore most of the time.
It was wrong, all of it—me not telling her, me wanting to play along with her, wanting to get close. There was no way to get close to her without hurting her, myself, and Olivia.
Shit, how could I forget about Olivia?
We’d been dating on and off for…what, a year? More than that?
God, I am such an asshole.
It was true that Olivia and I had hit a rough patch lately. She complained I wasn’t invested enough in our relationship, and part of me knew she was right.
I didn’t really make much of an effort. I’d expected her to break up with me months before, but she hadn’t pulled the trigger, and neither had I.
We were both complicit, and we kept dating because it was better to have someone than being alone.
I should have told Lena.
Unsurprisingly, she hardly spoke to me on the way back to Portland, no matter how hard I tried. I knew I’d let her down, so after the fourth attempt at a conversation, I stopped trying to make small talk.
The previous night had been the kind of night I’d wished we could have had years ago, when we first met. The light, the fire in her eyes was one I hadn’t seen before.
I wasn’t the kind of ass to believe it was exclusively because of me, but we’d had a good day and were genuinely having fun together. Then, when we were dancing, when I put my arms around her, something shifted.
I got a taste of that same irrefutable, electric connection we’d had before, when we were skin to skin in Marty’s closet.
I got a glimpse of how things could have been between us, but we’d missed our chance. Back then, she was the one who’d done me wrong; now, I was the one guilty of pushing her away.
LENA
“So, how was it? Did you have a good time?” Violet asked. “From the pictures, it looked like you guys were having fun.”
“What pictures?” I asked.
“The ones on the comic-con site,” she replied. “There are some of you and Amos smiling together. You guys look super cute.”
“The comic-con was fun. Good attendance, nice people.” I shrugged.
“And the rest of the weekend was…?”
“Forgettable,” I replied, raising my eyebrows, hoping Violet would leave me alone. Amos’ rejection still stung. Leave it to me to get crushed the one time I tried to open the door of my heart.
Big mistake.
“You lie! That’s your lying face,” Violet exclaimed.
“I have a lying face?”
“Bitch, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You and Amos, alone…all weekend…in Seattle,” she said in a singsongy voice.
I rolled my eyes and let out a frustrated breath as I sat down in my chair.
Unfortunately, the expression on her face told me I couldn’t fool her.
“You like him!”
“Stop it. I do not.”
“Yes, you do. You wouldn’t get so worked up otherwise.”
“Hmph.”
“So, how is he? Nice package?”
“For fuck’s sake, Violet. Nothing happened. He has a girlfriend.”
“He does? Well, shoot.” She scrunched her nose up in disdain.
“Yeah, and I…I kind of made a fool of myself. I thought…never mind.”
“You thought what? What happened? Oh shit, please don’t tell me you threw yourself at him.”
“Fuck off!” I dismissed her words with a playful glare. “You know I don’t throw myself at guys.”
“That’s right—you seduce them with your sexy, mysterious eyes and no-fucks-given attitude,” she teased, batting her eyelashes.
“Well, not this time, apparently.”
“Sorry, honey.”
“It’s okay. We were flirting, and then out of the blue he tells me he has a girlfriend. Fuckface.”
“Screw him,” Violet chimed in supportively.
“Seriously. What a loser.”
Violet gave me a commiserating look, lips pursed together. Oh, no. I didn’t have enough patience for that right then—or ever.
“Can I be alone now that I filled you in on my weekend? I’m not in the best mood, as you can see.”
“Pfff. When are you ever in a good mood?” she joked, and that earned her a scowl. “Fine, I’m leaving.”
I turned around just in time to see the pissed look on her face.
“Sorry, okay? I just got back and have a lot to do. I can’t spend the rest of my day discussing Amos’ package.”
“Which you haven’t even seen.”
“Correct.”
“Whose package are you guys discussing?” Marty asked as he joined us.
“No one’s,” I said just as Violet said, “Amos’.”
I rolled my eyes in annoyance, but Marty was completely unfazed by the conversation. The corners of his lips turned down and he shrugged his shoulders a little, as if he had no problem whatsoever with the topic of our conversation.
It was wrong on so many levels.
“Oh, come on, Marty, don’t encourage her! I got work to do, boss. Can you rescue me from accounting, please?”
“My pleasure, cranky pants. Let’s go, love. Can we break one of your rules and do it in the janitor’s closet?” She laughed, amused by her fiancé’s words, but then said, “Absolutely not. You know how seriously I take my job.”
“Oh yeah, very seriously,” Marty teased her with a voice loaded with innuendos.
Violet had been an accountant for Paz Media since the very beginning, although her position was only a part-time one for the first couple of years. Back when things were still very much up in the air, she’d kept her day job at an accounting firm.
Ugh. Those two.
“Get a room!” I mumbled, but then I smiled, thinking how glad I was that things had worked out for my friend.
When Marty and I had first started talking, he was dating a girl he was very much in love with. Months later, he found out she was cheating on him with a coworker at the restaurant where she worked.
Marty was crushed, obviously. It took him months to recover from his girlfriend’s betrayal. I remembered trying to console him, promising him that one day he’d find the one person deserving of his love, even if I didn’t believe in love.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do is tell someone the words they need to hear, the words that can offer them solace during a dark time, even if you don’t necessarily believe in them yourself.
As I watched Marty and Violet walk down the hall wrapped in a loving embrace, I smiled. Maybe I hadn’t been so far off in my prediction, after all. He’d proposed after four years living together, and they were going to get married in a couple months.
Marty had such a special place in my heart, and I could never forget what he’d done for me. He was the one who had singlehandedly lifted me during the worst time of my life, when I’d been broken and felt I had lost everything.
Sometimes I wondered where I’d be if Marty hadn’t been such a constant in my life. Maybe I wouldn’t have become a comic book artist at all.
Maybe I wouldn’t even be alive.