A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 11 A Carousel to Remember

My head is hanging off the couch, feet up on the wall, looking at my cute living room upside down. Before this, I lived in a tiny run-down apartment with only one working baseboard heater, a shower I had to crouch down to use because of the slanted ceiling, and a landlord who said I shouldn’t be bothered by rats barreling through the bedroom. I told myself I’d work seventy hours a week as a maid if it meant getting to stay here, but it does seem like I won’t have to do that. Maybe I could even grow some veggies in the backyard for spring.

I straighten out and rest my head on the solid surface of my sofa before signing into my social media. The notifications make my heart palpitate when they pop up, persistent and red, but I go straight to Issac’s page. The first picture in Issac’s carousel is of us doing cartwheels onstage after he was lead in our eighth-grade school play. The other pictures are of us throughout the years: me doing his hair; giving him a piggyback ride; him tying my shoes; us painting on an old leather couch; his arm around my waist before senior prom, even though we had other dates. The most recent one is from the day he signed his first modeling contract. He’s alone in the photo, but I’m holding the camera close to his face while he’s looking past it into my eyes.

The caption of the whole post taunts me as I stare at this one picture.

Get someone who distracts you by smelling like peaches and pineapples all day long.

A warm feeling breaks across my chest remembering the way I hovered over him that day. I lift my shirt, do in fact smell the body butter still on my skin, swallow. He’s stolen butters from me before. But I’m surprised this was the first thing that came to his mind when considering what to write. Was it only a tactic to get people to Wildly Green? Or does he think about the way I smell often? What if…

Woof. I refuse to go down that road. Issac’s lack of romantic interest in me is proven by him knowing me so thoroughly that if he thought I was his soulmate, he would’ve definitely made a move by now. Therefore, he is not sitting around thinking about the way my skin smells.

To shake off the thoughts, I scroll through the comments and immediately feel like a masochist. There are people I’ve never heard of with blue checks near their names and hundreds of likes on their comments. And thousands of others with things to say.

Y’all are cute. Couple goals.

She’s a whole snack.

You’ve finally decided to try a real relationship. Too bad it’s not with me.

Awesome 3. Dm @theclothingbambino to promote

We’ll see how long this is gonna last before he’s back on the serial dating shit.

Her hair is gorgeous, but Melinda is beautiful and deserves better.

I suck in a breath, close my eyes like it’ll soothe the stinging in my chest.

Our relationship is open to the opinions of the world, and none of it feels fake anymore. How does Issac handle being exposed like this? Before opening my eyes, I steady myself to scroll through his feed. It takes a few swipes to realize I’m seeing layers of him like a perfectly curated mood board. This newest layer is green. He’s walking away from his old-school car with its sage-green paint and beautiful white seats. There are plants and trees and darkness in shadows, and there is the sun and him, his energy effervescent in the camera lens without even trying. This is how the world sees him when he lets them but how he always looks to me.

In each of these photos, I’m nowhere to be found. But I could be if I wanted to.

I scroll a little farther and there’s the smallest slice of a bedroom. My bedroom. Just the sun hitting the hardwoods and the edge of my platform bed. Issac and I picked it out together before I moved in. The caption: Nothing like it. My heart starts to swell before looking at the next picture. It’s of him in my kitchen, at my oak wooden table with my huge monstera behind him. He has a spoon in his mouth and he’s eating food I’d just cooked. At my table. With me taking the picture. Caption: Coming home for cooked meals.

Home. I laugh, feel silly and even giddy for a moment. I’ve been in his new life all along, but I didn’t know it. I decide to stop feeding my insecurities, remembering I felt similar when Issac turned eighteen and left his foster home. My mom asked him to live with us, but Issac preferred to come and go, spending a few weeks at our house, then a few with friends. Mom said he might be scared to put down roots, but it annoyed me. When he told us he was moving in with some random guys from Craigslist, I almost panicked. Issac laughed and said he couldn’t wait to have me over, but it took him too long to actually invite me. I found out later that while I was agonizing over losing our friendship during classes without him at Rhode Island College, he was just adjusting to living with roommates who left pizza boxes around for weeks and to life after deciding not to take out loans when he knew he didn’t need to go to college to do art.

Each time I’ve worried that Issac might be growing too far from me, something subtle reminds me that I’ll always have a place in his life. I blink back happy tears, proof that I’m a crier like my mom, before clicking on his tagged photos. The first thing that pops up is a video Lex mentioned to me earlier. Issac’s walking through the airport with Bernie and holding a green smoothie in his hand. The reporter says something and Issac stops walking, despite Bernie’s background protests.

“What was that?” Issac asks.

“Is it true that you and Laniah Thompson are a couple?” the reporter repeats.

Issac gives the reporter a nervous laugh. “Yeah, Laniah’s my girl. We’re together.”

I pause the video to stare at the sloppy smile on his face. He looks…happy? And he told me what he said earlier, but hearing it out loud hits different. Laniah’s my girl.

Goose bumps cut across my skin. Something stirs in my chest. I click Play again and lift one of the couch pillows to my face, shielding myself as if someone can see me smiling.

Good Lord, why am I smiling while listening to him lie?

“How long have you been together? Did you date at all or go straight to a relationship because she was already your friend?” the reporter asks.

Issac shakes his head. “The details are between me and her. But just know she’s my person.” He points a finger at the camera, not exactly at the reporter but at the world. “And I’ll know it if you get out of line with her.” Then he flashes that famous smile everyone swoons over and walks off with Bernie and his bodyguards.

Just as the video ends, Issac texts me. I’m still working but call me as soon as you wake up tomorrow, no matter how early it is for me. I want to hear about your day at the shop, and I want you to hear my voice when I say I told you so.

I sink farther into the pillows, rereading the message again and again. He’s always been my person too, and that is enough to know this plan will work. It just might require me to allow myself a temporary lapse of good judgment so that I’m not beating myself up each time I wonder what his voice would sound like if he were whispering sexy things in my ear instead.