49. Serena
Serena
For the next week, my friends try desperately to bring me back from the dead.
Grayson asks if I want to go apple-picking with them. Georgia insists I at least get up and go for a walk, or I might get blood clots. Lillie begs me to come down and eat dinner with them—she made something special for me, and I need to come down to see.
Sid just slides a chocolate bar under the door for me, which makes me laugh, then cry so hard I hiccup for the next few hours.
I hold my bladder until they’re all gone. I take quick, furtive showers with the lights off. In my room, I flip through news channels and celebrity gossip rags, looking for news of the guys.
Mostly, I just wallow.
The two voices in my head are constantly at war. One insisting I did the right thing—that we avoided pain the only way possible. That we cut off the danger at the source.
But the other voice is crushed. Begs me to go back to them, to agree to the plan. She tries to convince me that I’m enough, that they want me. That they might even really love me.
The days tick away. Saturday morning, I wake up with a hollow pit where my large intestine should be.
And I wake up to the sound of four angry fists against my door, sounding like they might actually batter the thing to the ground. Then, after some rustling, there’s a click. The door swings open, and everyone except Sid tumbles inside, falling to a heap on the floor.
Grayson helps Georgia up, then Lillie, and they all turn to look at me. My roommates.
My friends.
Grayson in his too-big basketball jersey and jeans, looking like a nineties heartthrob.
Georgia is wearing a sleek black workout set and her signature ponytail.
Lillie with her lilac hair twisted into a bun, and Sid bringing up the rear with two long arms thrown over all of them, his piercings glinting in the light as he gives me a crooked smile.
“Hey, if you see my parole officer, I did not just pick that door.”
I blink at him, trying to get my voice to sound normal, “Is that a clue, Sid?”
He shakes his head, and the girls surge forward, speaking at once. “Serena, Jesus, your hair—” and “We’ve been so worried about you?—”
“Come on!” Grayson says, stalking to the other side of the room and wrenching open the window, so a rush of early autumn air floods inside. “You are leaving this room if we have to drag you out!”
The girls make me shower and dry my hair properly, so the curls aren’t lank and smashed against the side of my face. They do my makeup and put me in a cute sundress I got in Italy, which makes me cry, which makes my mascara run.
God, I’m a fucking mess…
When I’m ready, they stuff me in the Pacifica, roll the windows down, and demand I feel the wind in my hair. Georgia gently sets my camera bag in my lap, and I blink down at it, realizing I left it in the hallway. It’s the longest I’ve gone without holding it in… years?
It feels good in my hands.
We drive for a while, and I doze against Lillie’s shoulder.
Eventually, the Pacifica stops, and we emerge into a beautiful park I don’t think I’ve ever been to.
In the distance, there’s a pond and a large willow tree draping down toward the ground.
The sun is high in the sky, giving the air a hazy quality.
Lillie unpacks a picnic, and we eat together. It’s the first time I’ve had a vegetable in a week, and my body greedily sucks in the nutrients.
When the food is mostly gone, Grayson announces he’s going to look for frogs and rises from the blanket. I stand, too, saying quietly, “I might take some pictures.”
The park reminds me of Graham. And Ryan. And Travis. I see them in everything, which makes me feel a little out of my mind. I’m grieving their loss more than I ever did Alex’s.
With each shot I line up, I feel the pain of their absence.
The park is huge, and I have no idea where everyone else went.
I just let my feet carry me from place to place.
There’s a playground built from wood, made to look like a castle.
There are no kids around, but I can hear what the bridge would sound like if someone bounded over it, and I try to capture that feeling in the photo.
After the playground, I find the path down to the water and follow it, zooming in on the lily pads down on the water, then following that zoom over to the weeping willow, which stands tall and creates a canopy.
Through my viewfinder, I see Grayson, standing with his hands outstretched, cupped around something small.
Even from this far, even without seeing his face, I can tell he’s smiling.
A shadow moves into frame—Sid. He takes the frog with gentle movements, walks it to the tree, and sets it down beside the trunk.
Grayson says something and walks toward Sid.
Sid turns around, catches Grayson around the waist, and kisses him.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Sid’s hands sliding up under Grayson’s jersey. Their bodies crushing together with a grace of familiarity. This is not a first kiss. This is one of a million, knowing and certain. Comfortable.
Grayson and Sid. It had never—not once—occurred to me.
“Serena.”
I break away from my camera, gasping, realizing I’ve been shooting this whole time, taking picture after picture of them together. It was mesmerizing, beautiful and tender, but I didn’t mean to take the photos.
“What are you—?” Lillie asks, then her gaze shifts over my shoulder.
When she sees Grayson and Sid together, far enough that they’d have to strain to see us all the way up here at the top of the hill, she doesn’t look surprised.
“Oh,” she says, wincing a little. “Bet they didn’t want you to see them. ”
“I—” I swallow, shake my head, my brain still processing. “How long—? You knew—? Are they?—?”
“Come here.” Lillie laughs quietly, tugging me away so the guys won’t hear us. When we get back to the blanket, Lillie announces to Georgia, “Serena saw Sid and Grayson.”
“Oh,” Georgia looks up from her book, squints at me, and says, “Wait, you didn’t know?”
“No.”
“It was so obvious,” Georgia laughs, waving her hand. “Those two have no subtlety. But you’ve also been gone for a few weeks.”
“It’s new?”
“No.” Lillie reaches for another strawberry, drags it through chocolate, then bites into it.
“They’ve just gotten lazier with hiding it.
I don’t know why they are, not like we’d care.
But you know how private Sid is. Just likes to keep things to himself.
Whenever they decide to tell us, we figured we’d act surprised for their sake. ”
I try to say something, but a garbled noise comes stumbling through instead.
Sid and Grayson.
It’s not what I thought, what I expected. Secretly, I’d always thought it would be Lillie and Sid, Grayson and Georgia.
It’s not what I thought, but it is beautiful. Real. Love I could feel from that far, and through my camera. Art through motion. Through emotion.
“Is she having a revelation?” Lillie whispers under her breath to Georgia.
Sid and Grayson are in love, and for some reason, they feel the need to hide it. Even though it’s everything, and I could tell. It’s everything, and not what I thought, and it might look different from the pairings I expected, and that doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that they’re together. That they make each other happy. That they’ve found someone to spend this life with. All of it, or just a piece.
“Oh my god,” I breathe, closing my eyes, all the grief and denial of the past week slamming into me.
I can’t deny myself the guys any more than I would try to keep Grayson away from Sid. It’s real, and it’s what I want, and I don’t care about what anyone else thinks.
Especially that stupid fucking voice in my head that keeps insisting they’re going to throw my things on the lawn.
Instead of arguing with that voice, telling it that they wouldn’t do that, I feel an entirely new argument enter the ring.
What if they do?
So what if that’s how it ends up? I’m not going to keep avoiding something real just so I don’t get hurt. No more dating the Alexs of the world so the break-ups don’t hurt.
If the guys leave me, it will be the greatest loss of my life.
But at least it will be real.
“Oh, yeah, she’s definitely having a moment,” Georgia whispers back.
I stand up, breathing hard, looking at my friends wildly. “I need to go. I have to—I have to?—”
Georgia grins, stands, while Lillie grabs her phone and fires off a text. “Your outfit is in the back. Lillie brought your makeup. Let’s get you ready for the gala.”