I choose a diner off the strip, a place I’m sure no artists or employees of Aerial Ethereal will be. It has a total of three Yelp reviews, all of which are two stars. The service apparently sucks, and one woman found a spider in her eggs.
We’re not going for the service or the food, so I don’t really care. I could’ve picked an alleyway, and it’d be just the same to me.
In the back of a yellow cab, we sit side-by-side. Vegas lights dance across Baylee’s features as the car bumps along the city street. I can see the weight of our past bear on her chest. I can see the emotion tunnel its way forward in her eyes—because I feel it all inside of me.
It’s nearly five years of silence. Of avoidance. Of not being able to talk about our love and our lives. It’s everything piled a million feet high. And then falling straight down on top of us.
Baylee unzips her wrist wallet and then quickly zips it back up, hands shaking.
My next step is instinct. Impulse, just like before in the hotel. I drape my arm over Bay’s shoulders and clutch her tight.
Closer. Firmer, and I feel her try to breathe deeper.
She eases back and rests her head against the crook of my neck, and I wrap my other arm around her tense frame. Holding her as protectively, as warmly, as I can.
Bay grips my arms like she’ll descend into darkness if she lets go, and we stare straight ahead. A raw wound still exists in us, healed crudely, and for a long while, the stitches have slowly been breaking apart.
We had no closure. There was no time to talk or say goodbye. Our relationship was just over in a gut-wrenching second.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, Bay.”
She lifts her head, and she nods a few times before shrugging. “Me too.” Her voice cracks.
I cup her cheek, our eyes reddening, and she clasps my wrist like it’s too much. Our faces contort—this indescribable pain gnaws at us. There’s a lot unsaid that we need to talk about—a lot we have to finally get out. At first, I don’t even know where to start.
Then I do.
Assure of myself.
“I still love you,” I say strongly. “There was never a moment I didn’t.”
Her chest lifts in a deep breath, and she starts to shake her head, almost in disbelief. Bay stops herself midway, and she says, “I think I love you.”
I actually smile. “You think?”
Her eyes pool, but she rubs them before any tears fall. “I do know, but it’s been four years, Luka.”
“Five,” I correct.
“Somewhere in between,” she nods. “And I’m terrified.” Her whole face warps as she fights tears, and I hug her to my chest while her hands cover her face.
“It’s okay.” I kiss the top of her head, my stomach overturning—my body stringent. I understand. “It’s the idea of us, right?”
She’s scared that we only love the idea of one another. That we’ve changed, and we have no clue if we’re good for each other now like we were back then.
Bay nods again, and after collecting herself, she sits up much straighter.
Away from me.
I feel as sick as she looks. This shouldn’t be that hard, but there’s so much—so much that we can’t do because of the contracts. What are we striving towards if we can’t ever be together?
I see that hopelessness cloud her eyes, and I want to prove her wrong. To show her that we’re meant to be together.
Even if it means toying with a punishment much bigger than us.
Act Eighteen
Baylee Wright
I’m incredibly nervous. More nervous than every first date I’ve ever been on. Usually I can articulate myself fine, but I feel like I’m one second away from stumbling over my words and feelings.
I sit tensely across from Luka in a tattered booth of an alien-themed diner. Stuffing peeks out of the ripped, midnight-blue vinyl seats, and UFO cardboard cutouts swing from stained ceiling tiles.
I kind of love how odd it is.
The sole waitress took our drink order and has been chatting up the only other customer, a mustached man at the bar. She’s not really attentive towards Luka and me, which gives us more privacy.
I observe Luka, mostly. He stacks all the sugar packets together, a cigarette between his fingers. He hasn’t lit it yet, but I think he wants to. I don’t mind if he smokes in front of me; I never really have. But maybe he’s not sure if that part of me has changed.
His eyes flit up to mine, a charismatic smile twinkling in them. “You still do that thing.”
“What thing?” I almost smile off of his, but instead, I spin a silver ring on my pinky finger, anxious.
“Watch your surroundings. In this case, me.” Luka stares so deep into me. As though he’s reaching for the person I am—or rather, the young girl I was. The girl he knew.
I stop fiddling with my ring. “Would you rather stay invisible?”
His smile envelops his whole face. “I want to be seen by you. Everyone else, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
I bring my foot to the seat, knee bent. It’s getting hard to look at him directly. Partially because we’ve been forbidden to stare at each other for years—and partially because he’s so much older. And hotter. I didn’t think that’d be possible.
As his smile slowly fades, the weight of everything we lost compounds and stretches taut between us.
“You look older,” I say the obvious—but I’m not taking it back.
“So do you.” He skims me.
I skim him, the table separating us.
Both of us wondering what else is different. What stayed the same. My style hasn’t really altered. Outside of work, I wear a pair of spandex pants and a long-sleeved Nike top.
He’s similarly dressed down like he used to be: jeans and a plain navy tee.
Luka runs a hand through his tousled, dark brown hair. Troubled lines form across his forehead, and then he eyes my floral-printed journal that I set by the salt shaker.
He hasn’t asked what it is, and I haven’t surfaced the list yet.
Luka nods to me. “Maybe we should start at what you planned to say.”
“Back at the hotel?” I just remember being cut off mid-sentence.
“Yeah.” He leans back, but then leans forward. “Or, you know, we can talk about how you are.” The intensity in his gaze speaks that question: how are you doing, Bay?
“How I am,” I repeat, thinking for a hot moment. I watch his fingers pause on the sugar packets. “It really depends on what area. Like work?”
“I work with you.” Luka begins to smile again. “I know how you are at work.”
“Then personal, health, financial, romantic—”
“All of it,” he interjects and spreads his hands out. Sitting close, I wonder if he wishes the table disappeared.
I lean back—almost afraid of taking the risk. He’s always been the one to plunge first. I rest my arms loosely on my knee. All of it. “I want to know the same about you.”
“Trust me, my life has been boring.”
“You’re so far from boring, it’s ridiculous.” I smile off of his smile again. It seems so unbelievable how easily he can flood me with warmth, but reality claws behind us. Ready to tear us apart, and my smile lasts two-point-two seconds before deteriorating completely.
Luka checks his canvas wristwatch. “Practice is at five a.m.”
“And?” Is he…saying what I think he’s saying?
“And we have six hours until then.” Yep, he is. “Want to pull an all-nighter with me, krasavitsa?”
I try to stifle my reaction at krasavitsa. It means beautiful in Russian. “Stop,” I say into another smile.
“What should I stop, krasavitsa?” he teases. The old term of endearment seriously does a number on me.
I put my hand to my face to hide this uncontrollable giddiness—that I’ve only felt from him. “You’re terrible.”
He laughs into the most gorgeous smile. This is where he’d hug me.
Kiss me.
As our cold reality bites us, the lightheartedness drops very abruptly. We’re not those young kids anymore. Being careless and fun on our free days.