86
Lillian
I’m bleary for a while, in and out and in some sort of pain.
Disorientation, time stretching out.
But eventually, I wake up properly.
Enough that what happened feels clear.
I’m so relieved to be awake that I sob alone in my hospital room.
I tell my mom and Jasper I don’t remember anything after I crashed my bike.
It bothers me to see my mom worried when she’s usually so unflappable.
I joke about how I never fixed the brakes on my bike at home, so I wasn’t ready for these ones to actually stop me.
Over the handlebars.
I was just trying to escape myself.
I didn’t mean to get into danger.
I tell them the second part of that, and my mom seems less afraid for me knowing it was nothing worse than a drunken mistake.
When it’s only Jasper and I, my attempts to make light break down.
I’m crying. He says.
“You know you can tell me anything. Whatever it is, we can get you help without Mom knowing if that’s what you need.”
“Don’t worry,”
I manage.
“I don’t want to die. I’ve never wanted to die.”
He rolls his eyes at me.
“I know you well enough to know that, even if Mom doesn’t. But it seems like the world cuts you really deep.”
“It was just love stuff,” I say.
“There’s no drama li —”
I hit him with a pillow.
“I only occasionally want you to die,” he says.
“Maybe next time.”
But when I see his face, I take his hand.
“There won’t be a next time. There really won’t.”
Because I do remember.
I remember lying on the sidewalk in the snow.
I wanted Sasha’s heart on my hand.
I wanted to look at it, and I couldn’t figure out why it was gone.
I remember being colder than I’ve ever been and being scared that if I didn’t stay awake, I’d be this cold forever.
I have trouble sleeping, so there’s a lot of empty space at the hospital even though my mom and Jasper are with me most of the time.
They don’t like to leave me alone after having almost lost me, and I don’t want them to.
While my brother plays games on his handheld console or my mom dozes off in the chair beside my bed and then pretends she wasn’t asleep, I learn about the character of Alexander Ash.
I watch the interviews Sasha did without Augustus.
When they were together, Augustus did most of the talking, but alone, Sasha was advocating for things.
They made more noise about more causes than anyone at the Channel could have possibly wanted them to.
I loop the video of Sasha singing the song for Lark.
Things like that save people’s lives.
Sasha visited sick fans and sent them Christmas gifts.
They joined protest marches and did charity shows.
They were always good, yet they always pushed back at the Channel’s definition of good.
In a video of one of these charity shows, I see them onstage with Isabelle.
Anyone would be jealous of her.
Stunning, talented, kind.
Wealth and a crew of people to turn her into some pinnacle of perfection.
There are infinite adorable, sexy pictures of her and Sasha together.
Loving captions, the perfect couple.
I can see it.
Sasha with romance and all the right words and a sweetness that only got sweeter when there was no one but her to see it.
It seems real, but despite everything, I find myself desperately hoping she’s the close friend Sasha said they only pretended to date.
Because if that was a lie too, my heart’s never leaving this hospital.
My friends stayed at the hospital most of the first night, including Emelia.
They didn’t go home until they were sure I was alright.
By the second morning, I’m basically recovered.
I’m only still here so the doctor can monitor and retest some numbers that marginally worry her.
Cyprus and Quinn come back to visit now that the situation is less dire.
Quinn starts a bit where he describes the grim little room as if it was a trendy, contemporary interior design.
Cyprus and Quinn tell me how Sasha wouldn’t stop worrying about me and looking for me.
How Sasha must have talked to every person at the party and how they were ready to put on a jacket and search the streets for me on their own if no one else thought I was in danger.
Cyprus won’t say it, but Sasha saved my life.
Even after what happened with Emelia and telling Sasha their heart didn’t belong with me, they didn’t give up on keeping me safe.
Sasha and Emelia are waiting, unsure if I want to see them.
Neither of them wants to upset me.
But they came along with Cyprus and Quinn for emotional support anyway.
Few love you adrift.
Few love you washed up.
But there are a few.
More than I thought.
I talk to Emelia first. She sits on the edge of the bed by my feet.
“Do I have to forgive you now?” she asks.
“I wouldn’t say no.”
I must look terrible and tragic, because everyone is being kind to me.
“The note was from before you were with Sasha, right?”
“Yes, that’s the truth. I can’t say sorry enough.”
“If you’re really, really sorry, you’ll stop saying you’re sorry and start accepting that we’re actually broken up. That’s what it’s going to take for us to be friends, Lil. It’s going to be the absolute worst. But you’re clearly in love with a popstar.”
“They told you?”
“I think we’re friends now?”
I cover my face.
“What is my life?”
“Queer,”
suggests Emelia.
“Very queer. Lil, sometimes you’re unlucky and two people you love arrive too close together and you don’t have the right heart for it. Now it’s clearing. You and I aren’t getting back together. I can say that. It’s certain in me. You’re not the love of my life, and I’m not going to pine over you for the rest of my days.”
“You’d look great in a sapphic Victorian tragedy though.”
“That’s true, and —”
“Like it’s raining —”
“— and, Lillian,”
says Emelia.
“It’s pretty clear that your heart is with Sasha.”
“I ruined things though.”
“I think we can safely say you two collaborated to ruin things. You’re actually really good together. Rebuild some trust and stop giving romantic presents to your ex at parties where you’re drunk, and you’ll be alright.”
I don’t tell her about the lyrics inside Butler. I think I’ll leave them there forever, the way Emelia chose to leave the book I gave her in the hospital library.
And then, I talk to Sasha.
The moment they walk through the door, I know this is going to hurt. Because on the surface of everything, I’m furious and shattered at what they’ve done and the lies they’ve told. And I’m guilty about Emelia and the book. I still have the urge to pull away to protect myself before they can break up with me.
But then there’s the undertow that wants to wrench me out of my fear and my hurt and my hospital bed and straight back into their arms.
It pulls at me with every step they take toward my bed, remembering how I was attracted to them from the first time we spoke and how every interaction from then until New Year’s Eve only made that feeling stronger.
Part of them must still be my person, right?
Sasha sits in the chair next to my bed and wipes away a tear from the corner of their eye before they even say anything. It leaves a tiny smudge. I would have reached out to clean that up a couple days ago. Then they skip the hospital and the ER and all the things that they know feel like small talk to me in this moment.
“Lillian, I’m so, so sorry. You should have learned the truth a lot earlier, and it should have been from me.”
This time they don’t talk fast or add anything. No warning to be careful with their secret. There’s no excuses or trying to justify the lie they told, but then in the tilting memories of the party, I realize they didn’t do that before either. They apologized and went straight to looking out for me and Quinn and Cyprus.
I want to brush it all away at the same time that I want to scream at them to get out. I want to tell them to come here and kiss me on this bed as much as I want to be the one to say this is over and at least have that pitiful comfort to hold on to.
I just say what I thought when they came in.
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”
Sasha sighs and rests their head in their hands. “Yes.”
“Well then, I think we should hold hands for it. You hold on to me through it all and I’ll hold on to you. If that’s alright.”
They nod silently, and I reach out and tangle my fingers through theirs. Fuck, I may never feel their hand paired with mine again after this.
“Can you go first?” I ask.
They squeeze my hand and start in.
I was right.
It’s worse than crashing my bike on the frozen pavement or burning myself on hot glass.
It’s awful both ways, with me talking about Emelia and my whole mess, and Sasha talking about the life they kept hidden from me.
I learn about their contract that still has years left on it and Heather Erin and why they left.
All through it though, I notice each little glimpse of hope and store it in my chest.
That we aren’t cruel or indifferent.
How each of us fights to understand how we got here.
We each ache for having caused the other pain.
And that we hold hands through the whole thing, even when I say I need a break from dating them.
I’m ready for them to react how I did when Emelia told me the same thing this summer.
But they tell me they were going to ask for the same thing.
I quote Emelia about rebuilding trust for each other, and they don’t think I’m abandoning them.
We agree to talk about it again after opening for Monochrome Stoplight, because we both care about that show even if we can’t releas.
“Elevator.”
We talk for hours and hours, and when they leave, I just want them to come back so we can talk for more hours.
That’s hope too.
I miss Sasha’s body, but I need time.
I need so much more time than I ever thought I did.
Once I’m out of the hospital, we visit their apartment.
I can’t believe all along they’ve had an empty apartment with a big bed and downstairs neighbors who didn’t care.
My mind goes straight into the gutter looking at their bed as the need for that closeness overwhelms me. But also.
“Did you cheat on Isabelle with me?”
I ask, standing in their apartment.
“Oh,”
says Sasha.
“Oh my god, no. Isabelle and I have never been together.”
It’s like this. So often, Sasha told as close to the truth as they could while still maintaining their biggest lie. I learn about Sasha and Isabelle’s fake relationship and how it’s held like a state secret. Sasha’s trusting me with things that would destroy their career, and Isabelle’s too.
Everything I learn fits with Sasha. Sasha colored in all the way to the edges. Sasha complete with tour stories and accidentally mentioning celebrities they know by their first names and being embarrassed by our reactions. I’m settling into it.
“Why here?”
I ask as we walk through the snow back from their house to mine.
“This isn’t exactly one of the great cities.”
“I’ll tell you, but then you owe me a question. We went through here once on tour.”
“I remember. The hysteria was insufferable.”
Sasha rolls their eyes.
“I blame Augustus’s hair. Anyway, everyone said it was a nowhere city. I looked out at the crowd, and I imagined I was from here. It seemed happier. Not glamorous, just happier and simpler and without the desperate need to be of consequence and relevant every day. So after the show, I got someone to drive me all over the city. We drove through this neighborhood. I probably saw your house. I imagined I lived here with my parents and I went to this school. Sometimes I’d click through the street view. It’s taken in springtime.”
“You made it,”
I say.
“And you’ll see it like that soon. There’s no reason for the Channel to look for you here.”
“Soon they’ll want me to record and promote and tour. Admirer’s more famous than ever. Every day Augustus is free and I’m not there, they lose money. And that really upsets them.”
I can’t think of Sasha leaving. I’d never have a reason to walk down this precise street again. It’d be Sasha’s street — empty. So I ask what their question for me is.
“What’s the tattoo on your calf mean? The blank-O-blank-E hangman.”
“It symbolizes the incompleteness of thoughts and dreams and how time essentially operates as a closed loop which is in itself enclosed within emptiness. And also an E.”
“Wow,”
says Sasha.
“That was some pretty articulate bullshit.”
“A friend of Emelia’s did it at a party, but we didn’t finish the game. It doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t even have a word in mind, so it could still spell lots of things. Or not. Long O sings well on its own. I like it this way.”
“Yet,”
says Sasha.
“paradoxically, within its meaninglessness, it represents a form of meaning, a type of potentiality defined by its undefined —”
“I will push you in another snowdrift.”