Chapter 2 #2
Leah first met Ariana when she was thriving in life.
She was at the top of her game in her previous career, had a solid group of friends, financial stability, and understood what a partner could bring to her life—and, equally, what she needed to avoid.
She had her shit together. Ariana was everything Leah wasn’t: worldly to her na?ve, resolute to her hesitant, city-born where she was suburban-living.
Initially, it seemed like the perfect match.
“Would you like another drink?” Ariana offered.
“I should probably go,” Leah said, nervously looking at her empty wine glass.
“Please, just one. . . ” Ariana said smoothly.
“Okay.”
Leah excused herself. A quick bathroom break allowed her time to recompose.
She pulled the thin tub of concealer from her bag, trying her best to smear away the years.
She was no longer the wide-eyed girl she used to be—her reflection was older now.
Strands of brown hair framed her face, a few lighter ones catching the light in ways that betrayed the years.
Her blue eyes looked back at her steadily, softer than they once had been but touched with resilience.
She pushed her brows up with her fingertips.
Did Ariana notice the new addition of lines around her eyes?
The trace of years’ worth of squinting was still there beneath the layer of foundation.
She observed her masked appearance. The evidence of every energized conversation she’d ever had was present in the indents around her mouth.
The worries of years gone by creased themselves, one by one, into her forehead—one layer of makeup and it all disappeared.
She looked—polished. She looked less fragile, less broken than she did when she last shared such close proximity to Ariana.
The last words Ariana said occasionally echoed in Leah’s mind: I think I’m still in love with Hannah—the blow could still be felt vibrating through her body even now, five years after the fact.
“I see the length of your bathroom breaks haven’t changed,” Ariana laughed. “What on earth do you do in there?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Leah joshed.
“So, do you. . . have someone. . . who you share your time with?. . . sometimes, or—” Ariana fumbled her words.
“Are you asking me if I have a girlfriend?” Leah laughed.
“I guess,” she bowed her head.
“No, I don’t. I haven’t, since—” Leah didn’t need to finish the sentence. Ariana’s eyebrows raised in surprise. She appeared visibly taken aback by Leah’s answer.
“Oh.”
“Does that surprise you?” Leah asked.
“Yeah, I mean, you were so highly sought-after when I first met you. I figured people would be lining up for their opportunity,” Ariana said.
“That’s kind of you to say, but also very untrue,” Leah replied.
When Leah first met Ariana, her love life had been more active than in previous years.
Her ex-girlfriend had shown interest in rekindling.
She had a dog-loving owner of three dachshunds who she saw in the local park on a daily basis asking if she’d like to grab a coffee—and, of course, Ariana.
It was the first time in her existence that she was on the receiving end of a triple-threat.
The attention fast became too much, and admittedly, Leah knew the moment she met Ariana that the others wouldn’t compare.
“What about coffee girl?” Ariana probed. “She seemed really into you at the time.”
“You remember coffee girl?” Leah raised her eyebrow.
“Do I remember the clumsy, Daphne-looking redhead hurtling towards you with a pack of animals?” Ariana chuckled. It was a fairly accurate description—she did, in fact, look like Daphne from Scooby-Doo.
“She was really sweet,” I countered.
“Oh, I know. And beautiful, too. I just remember that day—she almost floated towards us, all three of those tiny dogs yapping at our feet, and the look of loathing on her face when she saw us holding hands,” Ariana reminisced.
“You were so jealous,” Leah laughed.
“I was not!” Ariana challenged.
“It was cute!”
“I was not jealous!” Ariana protested.
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with being jealous, Ari,” Leah teased.
Ariana smiled and excused herself to take a phone call, leaving no time to object against her jealous traits.
In that moment, hearing the word Ari so casually fall from her lips brought back a flood of memories.
It felt nostalgic, even bittersweet, to briefly be transported back to a time when Leah would so comfortably call her Ari.
The intimacy and closeness that once existed was oddly comforting—and painful at the same time.
Leah considered herself in a solid emotional state now, but after the break-up she’d wanted to drive around town vandalising couple-themed posters and destroying every romance novel in every bookstore she came across, like some vigilante for all the broken-hearted women of the world.
She didn’t, of course. Instead, she nursed her broken heart with a form of 21st-century torture—social media stalking.
Yep. She hated to admit it to anyone, but she stalked.
And stalked. And stalked some more until she knew every last detail of Hannah’s life—her life with Ariana, before and after.
There wasn’t a scenario she hadn’t created, hypothetically lived, dreamed, or foreseen happening.
She tortured herself to the point of no return.
Late nights turned into sleepless nights.
One coffee turned into four. One power bank turned into two.
And her iPhone was one step away from automatically inviting her to a self-help group based on her disgustingly high daily usage.
She was almost beyond the point of no return—until she saw the picture.
The picture should’ve destroyed her. It should’ve been the final nail in her social-media-crazed coffin. Hannah posted a photo of her and Ariana eating pizza. But it wasn’t just any pizza. This wasn’t a slice of Papa John’s Pepperoni that could be found on almost any street corner in America.
No, the pizza slice was from their pizza spot.
The white box was clear to see, laid out in front of them both on a blanket in Central Park.
In the photo, Ariana placed a large, drooping slice of sausage, mushroom, onion, black olive, and extra cheese—she assumed—into Hannah’s mouth.
The caption read: you’re my favourite slice.
It didn’t even make sense. Not really. Leah stared at the photo for an unhealthy amount of time before something switched.
Her mom described it like a raging fire being attacked by ten powerful fire trucks—one minute it’s a blazing glory, the next all that’s left is a pile of ashes, and the recovery process begins.
Leah felt the fire within for months after the break-up, but with each post she viewed, each comment she read, and each story she exacerbated, what she didn’t realise was that the fire was slowly being put to rest. The photo doused the final flame, and she was able to move on.
Ariana strolled back into the bar moments later, her room key in hand—a subtle signal of what would be her hasty exit. Leah suspected the phone call came from Hannah. Something in the way Ariana’s body froze—a momentary flicker of discomfort at the caller ID—a clear giveaway.
“I should get to bed. I have a meeting across town in the morning,” Ariana yawned.
“Is it okay if I stay and finish my drink while I wait for a cab?” Leah asked politely.
“Yeah, I mean, of course. It’s a bar. You have just as much right to be here as I do. I don’t think that’s strange. You live here. I live here. We might bump into each other from time to time. New York is a small place,” Ariana mumbled.
Leah squinted, confused. “Is everything okay?”
New York was the fourth most populated state in the whole of the United States—it was by no means a small place.
“Uh-huh. Sorry. I’m just delirious. I rarely see past midnight these days,” Ariana explained.
She looked nervously through the full-length windows on the right. They were the type of windows that exposed every patron on the inside because of their sheer size. The outside was too dark to make out anything other than a distant street lamp.
“It was nice seeing you tonight,” Leah admitted. “When I moved to New York, I understood the possibility of one day bumping into you, but I honestly thought the city would at least allow me a few months to settle in,” she said light-heartedly.
“Ahh, well that’s your first rookie mistake,” Ariana said, placing a hand on Leah’s shoulder. “This city does whatever the hell it wants, when it wants. I guess that’s the beauty of it.”
Ariana took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Leah.
“I hope to see you again one day,” she murmured against Leah’s ear, her voice barely above a whisper.
When they pulled away, their eyes locked. Leah could still feel the connection they once shared, beating down the walls of her heart with unexpected intensity.
“I should go,” Ariana broke the silence. “Take care of yourself, Leah.”
“You too, Ariana.”