Anyway, it’s not like I had the slightest clue what I was doing. I was twenty-one years old. She was in her mid-thirties. There were a million things working against us being together. The fact that there actually was a time when we managed to make it work is a miracle—before we started using together—back when we spent the days and nights watching movies and making love and never leaving the queen-size bed in her little studio apartment.
Being with Sue Ellen was never like that. And as much as I want it to be with Fallon, well, I can see now that it doesn’t even come close. Call me crazy or fucked up or whatever, but when I saw Zelda today, even after all the years that’ve gone by, the enchantment Fallon had been holding over me was gone in an instant. All that bullshit about God’s plan for me and whatever. I realized right then it was all a lie—a lie I’d been telling myself because I wanted so badly for it to be true.
But it wasn’t true—it isn’t true.
There is no God.
It is all a fantasy—just like that love I thought I had with Fallon.
Zelda has shown me the truth without even meaning to.
Christ, man, I could never be with a girl like Fallon. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with her, but we’re just completely opposite. Maybe I wish I was more like her. Maybe I wish I was positive and full of faith and could get so much pleasure out of such simple things.
But I’m not like her.
I’m like Zelda.
That’s the truth of it.
Thank God the two of us met up today, ’cause I was about to make a big-ass mistake.
But it’s over now. I swear it is.
Zelda came up behind me while I was ordering a coffee and grabbed me by the waist and said, “How weird is this, right? I recognized your voice from all the way downstairs.”
I turned and hugged her frail body against mine for a long, long time.
And now here we are, sitting together on the outside patio, where we’ve sat together a hundred times before.
She looks older. I mean, I hate to say that, but it’s true. She looks older and more scarred and lined, and she’s super thin and sickly. Her green eyes are faded. Her upper lip is bruised from where she obviously must’ve just gotten Restylane injections or something—which is particularly sad, considering she got out of rehab yesterday.
But, of course, as always, her clothes are super cool, and she’s got the newest iPhone, and she tells me about her BMW she’s got parked in the garage. She shows me photos on her phone of different parties and things she’s been going to and, of course, all these goddamn celebrities just happen to be making cameos in, like, every shot.
It’s pathetic, really—pathetic and sad.
“I’ll tell you what, Nic, I spent the last two months before going into treatment smoking meth with a bunch of drag queens downtown and, man, smoking that shit is such a better call for me than shooting it. Remember how fucking nutter butter I used to get—thinking you were hiding drugs all over the apartment and everything?”
I put my hand on her back, feeling the bones all sticking out there.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Yeah, I remember.”
She hangs her head down. “Nic, I really am so sorry about everything. I don’t know how I can ask you to ever forgive me.”
“Nah, come on, girl,” I tell her. “You don’t need to apologize. I mean, I’m sorry, too. We were both really fucked up is all.”
“Yeah, but we were so much in love, too.”
“We were in love,” I say. “Hell, I’ve never stopped loving you.”
I hold her tight against me, inhaling the smell of her.
“I love you, too,” she tells me. “Even after all this time.”
I breathe.
This is my future.
This is my life.
I can’t believe she’s here with me.
But she is.
And this is all I’ve ever wanted.
When I think about Fallon, I just wanna laugh at myself.
Zelda is my one. I’ve always known that.
“Do you wanna try this again?” I ask her. “We can do it right this time—I know we can.”
She turns to me and smiles—leaning forward—kissing my hot forehead.
“Oh, honey, I don’t know,” she says, resting her chin on my shoulder. “This is all happening so fast. But, uh, I definitely think we should see each other again. And then, well, whatever happens will happen, right?”
I touch her neck gently, carefully, ’cause I remember how sensitive she is about that, considering her mom hung herself and everything. My fingers just barely caressing the line of her jugular. “Right,” I tell her. “Right, that’s right.”
She pulls herself up to standing and then leans against the glass floor-to-ceiling window of the bookstore café—her breath coming out all raspy, so she has to get her inhaler out of her expensive-looking leather bag. I watch her sucking in the Albuterol, or whatever it is—laughing at herself for being such a dork.
“You look so fucking beautiful,” I tell her.
She just laughs. “You’re the beautiful one, my beauty. Hey, remember this.” She pulls up her sleeve and shows me the tattoo she designed when we were together. I have the exact matching one on the same exact spot on my arm. It’s pretty weird, I mean,
