Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Cloverwild’s main lodge was quiet this late at night.
As they walked through the lobby and toward the art studio, April’s stomach swelled with butterflies.
Of course, Daphne had seen her work, but it was mostly tattoos or a few slapdash drawings she had hanging on her walls in Wonderlust. There was her Instagram, and obviously, the piece now healing on Daphne’s arm, but all of that was for other people.
Her pieces for the Devon were different. They didn’t feel like the art she’d made to hang in her shop. They certainly didn’t feel like a tattoo sketch, no matter how much she loved something she created to put on someone’s body.
They felt like her.
Like April Evans, maybe for the first time in her life, and even her horoscope this morning had said as much.
This week, you’ll face a mirror, and you’ll have to decide whether or not you like what you see. Is it time for a change? Or is it time to embrace and celebrate the reflection that has always been there?
Madame Andromeda’s words flitted through April’s mind as she and Daphne picked up their pace down the hall.
Daphne squeezed her hand tighter, smiled at her, and then April realized all those butterflies weren’t nerves.
They were excitement. Because she wanted Daphne to see her too.
See what April saw in the mirror. See the person becoming and unbecoming and then becoming again in the journey of the tarot.
Fool’s Passage.
That was what April had decided to name her series, twenty-two illustrations on her favorite 9x12 vellum/medium-textured paper.
From the Fool to Death to the World, April had poured the story of her life into every illustration, then used oil pastels to saturate the dreamy images, each piece with a different three-color theme.
She loved her pieces.
She loved them, and she observed them with a certain amount of longing, because the life she’d lived…well. It was beautiful, but she wanted more.
So much more.
As the studio came up on their right, April’s heart picked up even more speed, but stuttered when she saw the door was already open, the light on inside.
Only three people had a key to this room—her, Daphne, and Mia, and April couldn’t imagine Cloverwild’s owner hanging around the art studio at nearly midnight.
“Who—” April started to say, but cut herself off as they walked into the room, stopping short as though she’d been slapped.
A fountain of dark hair.
That was the first thing she saw, and that was all she needed.
After three years, April still recognized her—the way she stood with her spine just past ninety degrees, the sharp angle of her shoulders.
Even with her back to them, April could tell one arm was tucked across her chest, the other bent and resting atop it, her fingers barely touching her mouth.
Daphne gasped, a sound loud enough to grab the woman’s attention. She turned to look at them, dressed in a white silk blouse tucked haphazardly into dark-wash jeans, but still in a way that looked couture and refined.
“Elena,” Daphne said, pressing a hand to her stomach.
Elena lifted her chin, her dark eyes flicking to April only once before going back to Daphne.
“Hello, my love,” she said.
And with those three words, April felt herself disintegrating, as though she was made of sugar and had been left out in the rain.
Hello, my love.
That was how she used to greet April, but she wasn’t talking to April this time. April glanced at Daphne, who looked a little green, but who had also dropped April’s hand and couldn’t stop staring at their ex.
“Happy birthday,” Elena said, then waved her hand at Daphne’s first painting, set up on an easel at the front of the room. “I see you’ve been busy.”
“How did you…What are you…” Daphne spluttered.
“You stopped answering my calls or texts,” Elena said coolly. “And it’s your birthday. I had to see you.”
You stopped answering…
You stopped answering…
April blinked as the meaning of those words settled around her.
“I got in a few hours ago,” Elena said, “but the owner didn’t know where you were and wasn’t comfortable letting me into your cabin. She said I could wait here. They’re fully booked, apparently.”
“And you found my painting?” Daphne asked. She still hadn’t taken a step toward Elena. But neither had she glanced at April.
Not once since they walked into the room.
“I got bored,” Elena said, then looked at the piece again. “It’s really extraordinary. I knew you had it in you.”
Daphne inhaled sharply.
April felt two feet tall.
Elena tilted her head at Daphne, eyes narrowing. “Did you get a tattoo?”
Daphne didn’t answer, but April supposed the word tattoo stoked something in Elena’s memory, or at least her manners, because she finally looked at April again and smiled.
“April,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”
I can’t say the same.
Is it really, you manipulative hag?
Fuck you, fuck you, and then fuck you again.
A myriad of retorts arranged themselves quickly in April’s mind, coalescing on her tongue and ready for fire, but before April could figure out which was the most devastating—if a bit immature—Elena’s attention shifted back to Daphne.
“Can we talk?” she asked. Her voice was softer now, her shoulders rounding a little in submission. “Alone? Please.”
April waited for Daphne’s response—hell, no, or even a polite I don’t think so, because it was her birthday and April had taken her to dinner and given her a tattoo and then an orgasm, and she was about to share her art with Daphne, her whole fucking soul, so surely, surely, Daphne was not going to say yes to the woman who’d nearly wrecked both of their lives.
But then…
You stopped answering…
April squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel Daphne turning toward her, everything tumbling down around her.
“April,” Daphne said softly, but April didn’t wait to hear what she was going to say.
The plea. The apologetic expression. She simply turned and walked out of the room, and she didn’t slow down until she reached her car, started the engine, and peeled out of Cloverwild’s parking lot, her tires spitting gravel.
April didn’t remember turning onto certain roads or even getting out of her car. But half an hour later, she was standing on Ramona and Dylan’s front porch, ringing the bell and shaking, despite the balmy breeze drifting off the lake.
It took a few minutes, but eventually the porch light flicked on, the lock slid back, and the large oak door swung open, revealing a bleary-looking Ramona with her hair piled on top of her head, sleep shorts adorned with cartoon illustrations of sushi, and a baby blue tank top that was on backward and inside out.
“Apes?” Ramona asked, blinking into the golden porch light. “What—”
“I saw Elena. She’s here. With Daphne right now at Cloverwild.”
Ramona’s expression cleared quickly, eyes rounding and mouth dropping open a little.
She said nothing, just opened the door wider, then led April into the kitchen.
The stove light was on, but Ramona flipped the switch next to the sink as well.
April sank onto a stool at the white-and-gray quartz island while Ramona filled a kettle with water, then set it on a burner before dropping two peppermint tea bags into dark blue mugs.
Still, neither of them said anything, not until they both had steaming cups of tea in front of them, April’s hands curling around the warm ceramic. Even then, she wasn’t sure what to say.
“So,” Ramona finally said, leaning her elbows on the counter. “Elena?”
April nodded at her reflection in her tea. “Yeah.”
“And Daphne…”
“I don’t know. I think she’s been talking to Elena on the phone, but I…” She set her mug down, dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Fuck, I just don’t know.”
And she didn’t, but as she sat here, her heart beating fast as she thought about Daphne, about Elena, about the Devon, about everything that had happened this summer and still might happen, she realized she didn’t want to talk about Daphne.
She couldn’t.
Not until she talked about something else.
“What happened to us?” she asked, lifting her eyes to look at her best friend of nearly twenty-five years. Such a simple question, but as heavy as the sky pressing down on them.
Ramona sighed, a resigned expression on her face. “I don’t know.”
“I think we need to figure it out,” April said. “Because I don’t want to keep doing this. Feeling like this. It’s not good for either of us.”
Ramona nodded. “Let’s start there, then. How do you feel?”
April took a sip of tea to order her thoughts, but they weren’t so muddled after all. They were pretty damn clear, in fact.
“I feel lost,” April said. Her voice cracked on the last word, but she forced herself steady. “And I feel left.”
Ramona didn’t look surprised or affronted. She just looked sad.
“How do you feel?” April asked.
Ramona’s eyes were shiny in the dim light. “I feel guilty.”
April frowned. She wished she could be as unsurprised as Ramona seemed to be at her own declaration, but she wasn’t prepared for those words. “Guilty?”
Ramona nodded. “I know I left. I know I’m far away. I know I’m ha—”
She cut herself off, looked down at her tea.
“Happy,” April said. “You know you’re happy.”
Ramona nodded again.
“I want you to be happy, Mona,” April said.
Ramona tilted her head. “Do you?”
April’s fingers tightened on her mug. “Yes. God. Of course.”
“I know,” Ramona said, shoulders drooping. “I know that, but lately, it hasn’t felt like that. It feels like you’re always annoyed with what I’m saying or how I’m saying it or what I’m not saying.”
“I found out about your engagement through a tabloid.”
“That wasn’t my intention though.”