Part 2 – Every Year After
“The blue seems eternal.”
Virginia Woolf
Present
“Thank you for coming today, Beatrice,” my psychologist released, shaking my hand.
One year.
One year I’d been gone.
Five months I’d lived in Paris, four months in Italy, and three months in Dublin.
My style was different, my hair was longer – still a rich blue, that would never change – my French accent polished and my Italian… well, a work in progress.
I spent my twenty-fourth birthday in an Airbnb in Rome, with Fawn on Facetime and my new friend Claire (who I met in Paris) sipping wine next to me.
She was the type of girl I was once intimidated by; bright blonde hair, striking green eyes and puckered, rosy lips. Jace’s profile type, I thought at first. The woman he’d pursue.
But Jace’s memory became a thing of the past as months flew by and Claire showed me cities and streets, flower gardens and museums.
I met her upon arriving in Paris; a map in one hand and a baguette in the other. Yeah, I was that girl.
She reminded me a little of Fawn due to the fact the first time she saw me, she laughed and said, “You’re a tourist, I’m not speaking French.”
Her long, manicured fingers extended to mine, but before I could reciprocate the handshake, she’d already taken the bread from my hand and threw it in the trash.
“Let’s get you an actual meal, oui?”
I decided right then and there that I could make a joke. That we’d be friends. That this solo trip was the best idea I could have had.
“I thought you weren’t speaking French?”
“Aha! So you do understand the language,” she teased. “I was testing you.”
“What for?”
Her eyes beamed with excitement as she mouthed, “Fun.”
I learned a lot of things about Claire on our travels. One, she was relentless and would not take no for an answer. Two, she preferred to be called “eclair” comme le dessert [like the dessert], she’d said. And three, she lived off her parents’ wealth (kind of like me, only no one had to die for her inheritance).
That was the defining factor between my friendship with her and my friendship with Fawn. Claire was fun, exactly what she wanted me to think, but Fawn was reasonable. She could be a bitch, but she told me things straight up. Claire never wanted to press my buttons, only the ones that led to partying or drinking.
After Italy, I said my goodbyes to her and left for Dublin. I knew it was the last stop I wanted to explore before going home.
Paris was a dream, but that’s all it was to me. I thought I could find a purpose there, something equivalent to a lost and found. Instead I found ten pounds of chocolate croissants, handsome French men who knew their way around the sack, and a lot, I mean A LOT, of tourists.
I thought the weight gain would bother me more since for the last twenty-some years of my life I’d been obsessed with my appearance, but something about being in a foreign place with no one who knew who you were… It was freeing.
I guess that’s what Paris taught me.
That I was free.
It was in Italy that I met a couple – Hunter and Marley Lane, their names were. The day after my birthday, I’d been too hungover to function and crossed the street to a café called “Tazza.”
It wasn’t my finest moment, but I lazily walked up to their table and asked what the pretty woman with brown eyes was having, as my Italian was terrible and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.
“Oh, we’re actually from America,” she laughed. Her smile was bright, like Fawn’s. “Nebraska.”
“Oh.” My mouth made a physical ‘O’ as I turned on my heel and prepared to flee. “Sorry.”
“No, no –” she’d said sweetly. “Stay.” She turned to her partner, a handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes. “I’m not going to finish all the food you ordered, Hunt.”
“Your name is Hunt?” I pried. Genuine curiosity always got the best of me. “That’s actually a really cool name.”
“It’s Hunter, actually.” He extended his hand to shake mine. “You are?”
I shook it proudly, feeling a calloused palm against my own. “Blu.”
“Blu? Now that’s a cool name,” he smiled.
So I made my decision to stay and chat with a random couple I’d never met before. Lo and behold, it was some of the most engaging conversation I’d ever had.
Marley and I had a lot in common, more so than I realized. She was a city girl who quite literally adapted her lifestyle to the country after losing everything. She didn’t go into much detail about her family life, but I knew it was bad.
I could relate.
I felt comfortable enough opening up to them about some of my experiences, but it was never forced upon me. If anything, I was the curious cat that begged to know everything about this beautiful couple. There was something priceless about the looks shared between two people who fit so perfectly.
I longed for someone to look at me that way.
“So what brings you to Italy, Blu?” Marley asked, sipping on a hot tea.
I’d been so honest up until that point. Why not dish it all out? “I just needed to escape my old life.”
She clinked my cup of water and looked to Hunter. “She sounds like me when we first met.”
He laughed, a husky, rough laugh fit him perfectly. I swear some laughs were just made for certain people. It made me smile.
“I got you to stick around though, sweetheart,” he winked at her, making my insides bubble with envy.
This.
This was normal.
This was love.
Everything I had with all of those men… those boys – that wasn’t love.
Maybe this is my quest, I thought at the time. Finding that. Maybe my solo trip was about falling in love with myself, the world, the people in it… Maybe it was my destiny.
In Dublin I sat near the water every day with Fawn’s camera. The sights were beautiful, the greenery unmatched. Everything was a picture-perfect painting and I longed to soak it in.
Eventually when I got home, I’d rent a bachelor apartment and start looking for jobs, start the real life bullshit I knew I couldn’t avoid. But for now, I thought of the way I’d decorate my living room, covering my walls with photos of my travels.
That was a form of love, wasn’t it? Loving my surroundings so much that I wanted to bottle it up and cherish the memories forever?
One day, I sat on a cement block, taking photos of the sunset above waves when a man came and sat right next to me.
That was the one thing I discovered about my travels; anyone could approach you and have no reason to do so, simply because they wanted to spark up a conversation with someone interesting.
I guess many people found me intriguing because I wasn’t short of contacts on my trip.
It felt nice, to be noticed.
This man, Jeremy Hysac, worked at a bar in Riverside. He said a corny line like, “Haven’t seen you here before” even though Dublin had a population of like, five-hundred-thousand.
Anyway, we got to talking and he wanted to see some of my photos – said his good friend worked for a company in need of a travel writer. Fawn would’ve jumped at the chance, but I was no writer.
“I only take photos,” I explained, a tad disappointed that I couldn’t do more. That feeling of uselessness slowly started to creep back in.
At first I didn’t think he heard me; his eyes were glued to my camera screen as he clicked through the shots I’d taken across months of travel.
“These are amazing,” he eventually responded in a cute little accent.
I blushed. He recognized my talent. “Seriously?”
He nodded multiple times. I thought he’d snap his neck. “Here, take his card. He may have a spot for you.”
I read the red-stitched name on a white square: Hamish Cartwright. Below it was an address listed in Chicago.
“He works in the states?” I asked. “And he’s your friend?”
“Yes?” He laughed like I had ants crawling up my nose. “Why?”
“I don’t know Jeremy,” I handed back the business card, “I’m doubting the legitimacy of this offer.”
He rolled his eyes. “Look up Cartwright Blogs under Vakehale Press.”
So I plugged all this information into Google and clicked the first website I saw, widening my eyes. “Vakehale Press is a section under Chicago-Sun Times? He works for a newspaper?”
I continued to click and click until I found a face of a man in his late thirties, his credentials underneath the portrait: Hamish Cartwright, Senior Editor of Cartwright Blogs.
“No bullshit here, love,” Jeremy said, pulling out a cigarette. “Puff?”
I shook my head, waving the smoke fumes away as I wildly searched through articles and columns he’d written.
His main focus seemed to be documenting resorts and “Places to Go Before You Die.” He travelled himself, but never took the photos for it. Jeremy told me they were all Googleable shots that he’d placed within the article to add some life, but he wanted to make his journals more personable.
“That’s where you come in,” he stated.
“I have no experience with professional photography. I don’t even know where to begin.”
He slapped my knee, crushing the half-finished cigarette underneath his boot. “As long as you begin, you’re one step closer to being where you belong.”
And he walked away. No wave. No goodbye. Just his friend’s business card sitting next to me on a cement block, and a burning cigarette on the ground beneath my shoe.
That was the moment I realized the entire duration of my trip, I was waiting – anticipating for something bad to happen. But all the people I met, the events that’d taken place… It reminded me of all the kindness in the world.
The kindness outside the torment of my mind.
And that kindness brought me to this moment here.
The now.
Sitting across Dr. Hemline, spilling all my life secrets to a random stranger because I wanted to heal.
I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be the person someone met on a solo trip and never forgot about. In order to do that, I had to do this. For my sanity. For my self-discovery.
For me.
“Why are you here today, Beatrice?” she asked, pulling out a notepad.
When I first returned back home two months ago, I was jumping back and forth between Fawn and Carter’s apartments. Mom sold the house and dipped to God knows where. She only texted on holidays to let me know she was safe.
It didn’t matter if I was. Just that she was.
Maybe in her own way, that’s how she showed love. I had to accept that. It was the best she could do.
One thing I had to learn was getting comfortable with the unknown. In some situations, I’d never have closure and I had to be okay with that. Sometimes it was better for you to assign your own before letting that open wound fester.
Fawn and Bryce had ended four months into me leaving town. Apparently it was a mutual breakup, and they wanted different things.
“I still have so much love for him,” she’d explained, “But at least now you don’t need to worry about running into Jace.”
Jace.
It was the first time I heard his name aloud since I last saw him at graduation.
A part of me wanted to know everything about his life, but the biggest part of me wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
So I never addressed that part, just consoled her hurting heart.
I felt comfortable enough to stay with Fawn now that she was single when I got back, but only for a few weeks before I needed my own space – my own home to go back to.
While I was apartment hunting, Carter let me crash in his spare room, visiting potential places with me on the weekends when he had the time.
Eventually I found a respectable studio near York and fully moved in a week and three days later.
After unpacking and relaxing, Fawn asked for a girls’ night. I was all for it since I’d been so go-go-go for weeks trying to find a place to live.
But of course, life couldn’t give me a break.
The first bar we went to was dead, so we sat on the street and contemplated our next move.
“Want to try Deaks?” she suggested.
It was a sports bar, and I knew there was some massive football game happening so I wasn’t sure we’d get seats but I said fuck it anyway and we went.
We shouldn’t have gone.
Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting across Stacy fucking Hemline right now if we hadn’t.
Jace, Bryce, and a random guy I’d never seen before were sitting at the curve of the bar, right near the entrance.
He saw me before I saw him. He would’ve had to. Another one of life’s jokes, I guess.
“Oh for the love of –” I started but Bryce cut me off by prancing over with a beer in hand, clearly wasted.
“Fawny?” he uttered, gaping at her like she was a goddess incarnate. “Ohhmyygoddd, Fawn!”
He embraced her as if they hadn’t broken up ten months prior, shocked that she didn’t reciprocate the same affection.
“Hi Bryce,” she responded, tapping his back cordially. “Nice to see you.”
“Been way too long!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gasped, “Blu? Blu Henderson? Do my eyes deceive me?”
“Yes,” I said, shifting behind Fawn. “Yes they do.”
“C’mere,” he gestured for me to stop hiding, “Give me a hug.”
But a hand pulled him back just as he stepped forward. A hand I recognized just by his rings alone.
“Down boy,” Jace released, squeezing Bryce’s shoulder.
I could feel his piercing stare as the other man I didn’t recognize approached our group. “Want another round? Jean’s asking.”
“Not now, Morris,” Jace addressed him.
Morris.
The guy Jace went to high school with. The one on his soccer team. The one he was jealous of.
God no. All those memories – I didn’t want them anymore. I didn’t want to remember any conversation we had last year; I barely wanted to remember him.
But here he was. A silly trick life played again, dangling the man I fought so hard for, and fought so hard to forget, right in front of me.
The air between us changed as I looked into those blue-green eyes for the first time in over a year, his angular, chiseled face, and those lips that spilled broken promises.
Fawn snapped her fingers, placing an arm around Bryce’s shoulder. “Let’s get you some water, shall we?”
She gave me a look as she led him to the bar where Morris sat, and I could hear Bryce slur, “You’ve always taken such good care of me, Fawny…”
And just like that, I was transported back to every memory, every feeling and every circumstance where I felt trapped inside the web of Jace Boland.
He adjusted the chain of his necklace before closing the distance between us. Even still, he left breathing room. It was for the best, we both knew that.
“Hi Jace,” I said. A year later and I was still the one making the first move. Classic.
His throat bobbed, his jaw tensed. “You’re…” He shook his head, searching for the right words. I recognized the mannerisms all too well.
It seemed like the perfect time to make a joke, to shield the weight that had been pressing on my chest since I arrived. “Dashing,” I smirked, “Dazzling, radiant –”
“Mine,” he whispered, cutting me off completely.
The words in my throat died, the smile on my face fading into nothing. I almost wanted to correct him on his mistake, to laugh in hysterics but then – then I would’ve played off the situation. Then, I would’ve made his comment non-existent.
I wanted it to exist.
I remembered what it was like to be his.
“Mine,” he repeated, as if he read my thoughts.
Was he as wasted as Bryce? “How much have you had to drink?” I teased, though my cheeks were stained with blush.
His features were inscrutable, void of happiness. He seemed pained, hurt almost. I felt the sudden urge to ease his sorrow – whatever that entailed.
“Yeah,” he nodded a few times, blinking like he couldn’t believe I was standing before him. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“That’s it what?” I laughed, twisting my lips into a genuine smile. “I asked how much you’ve had to drink.”
“Enough that this is a little too real.”
“What’s too real?”
“Jace!” Bryce yelled from across the bar. “Jace you’re missing second half!”
I turned to his direction but Jace grabbed my hand, ignoring Bryce, and squeezed my fingers gently. “Let’s go for a walk.”
It was early July, the night’s breeze blowing through my blue hair. Claire convinced me to get layers in Paris, and ever since then that became my go-to hairstyle. Only I wish the wispy locks didn’t poke my eyeballs every time the wind blew.
“Are you cold?” he asked, his eyes raking down my tank top.
While living in Dublin I got seven more tattoos, making my patchwork sleeve on both arms almost entirely complete. In other words, my scars were entirely invisible. Sometimes, sometimes, I almost forgot they were there. It was nice.
I rubbed my biceps, my fingers running over the tight skin where my cuts had been. Only they were fully concealed now – no one needed to know they existed but me.
Jace knew, but maybe he was too drunk to remember.
I’d never be too drunk to forget.
“It’s humid, so no,” I replied, throwing a half-smile his way. “How’ve you been?”
He continued to watch me, as if I was a creature at the zoo or the most majestic thing to roam the earth. It had to be the former. He’d always seen me as a burden.
“You seem different,” he let out. “I don’t know what it is, but you just… Sorry, I keep staring at you – Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. I didn’t want him to look at me, to dissect who I’d become once again. That’s how he ripped me open and tore out my heart. By seeing through me.
“I mean,” I started, “It’s been over a year. I’d hope that I changed even a little.”
“Paris treated you well,” he stated, flicking his eyes to mine.
Fuck.
Fuck him.
Fuck his stupid black tee that constricted his lean muscles, his navy blue pants and his muted grey ballcap.
Fuck the way he looked, the way he spoke, his fucking smile and eyes and walk and voice.
I hated it all.
I hated it all because I didn’t want to admit that I loved every part of it. That it was so easy to pull me back in. That he could yank the cord and I’d run back willingly.
I hated that a year later, I could sink into my old feelings by just one glance from Jace Boland, like I’d never even left at all.
“How was it?” he asked. “The trip.”
I cleared my throat, creating a gap between our steps. “Good, really good. I actually only stayed in Paris for five months, then moved on to Italy and Dublin.”
“Oh shit, seriously? Tell me about that.”
So I did, freely and openly. It felt like a breath of fresh air, a sense of normalcy between us. He asked questions with genuine interest, his glossy eyes wide with sparkle. He… He cared.
He cared.
That was the fucking problem.
His laugh carried two streets over when I told him about me getting thrown out of the Louvre for taking photos of Van Gogh’s painting.
“It was an honest mistake,” I defended, placing a wounded hand over my heart. “How was I supposed to know I couldn’t take a photo of a photo?”
“A painting isn’t a photo, Blu,” he wiped a teary eye, snorting in amusement. “It’s art.”
“A photo can’t be art?”
“A painting and a photograph are different.”
“Oh don’t even,” I challenged. “Weren’t you the one who told me that beauty is all around, if you only looked for it?”
His eyes softened. “How’d you remember that?”
I decided to ignore that comment. I knew it would lead to something more sincere, and I was quite enjoying our witty banter for once.
“Well I personally think my own photograph of Van Gogh’s painting to be beautiful,” I jested, crossing my arms. “It might even be better than the original.”
“So, you’ve been taking photos then?”
I nodded. “Tons,” then pulled out the digital camera from my purse. “Do you want to see them?”
His smile widened. “I really do.”
We crossed the park and sat on a picnic bench. I had no idea how far we were from Deaks, but I didn’t care. Being with Jace filled a vacant hole inside of me; I began to think that would never change.
Several minutes passed of Jace looking through my camera, commenting on the scenery of plains in Dublin, the streets of Paris and different foods I tested on my travels.
We laughed at my embarrassing selfies (luckily there were only a few), and he grilled me by saying, “Why didn’t you just use your phone like a regular person?”
“Why would I use my phone when I had a legit camera?”
His hand tapped my knee, sending a shock of pleasure up my spine for a single moment. “Classic, stubborn Blu.”
“I think I looked quite pretty,” I beamed, allowing a smidgen of confidence to shine through.
He stopped pressing the advance arrow and held my camera still, chancing a glance my way. “You always look pretty, darling.”
Darling.
Darling.
D A R L I N G.
God, I could hear it in every language, every fucking accent, but the way it rolled off of Jace’s tongue would never compare to anything else.
He owned that word, I remember thinking last year. He still does.
His phone rang, Bryce’s caller ID announced aloud, but he didn’t budge, his eyes glued to me.
“Are you not going to answer?”
“Absolutely not,” he released sternly. “Not with you right in front of me.”
“Got something to hide?”
He shook his head, dropping it low. “Not in the ways you think.”
I pushed his shoulder playfully. “Always so cryptic, you.”
But before I could retract my arm, he grabbed my hand, placing it in his.
I remained frozen, unable to move as he circled his thumb against my palm, weeding his fingers through mine and letting out a long exhale.
“Please hold my hand,” he whispered, almost breathless.
My voice was shaky. My pulse erratic. “Why?”
A quiet sniffle escaped his nose as he intertwined our fingers, placing his left hand over the bundle of ours.
“Because –” he began, his voice breaking. He wouldn’t look at me.
My body willed a movement, but succumbed to paralysis. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what was happening. But his emotions bled onto me, whatever they were, and stopped me from breathing.
“Because if you touch me, I’ll be okay. I’ll know you’re still in there – that…” He turned to me, his eyes bloodshot and glazed, “That one year later, you still have love for me.”
I stared at him, my heart pumping out of my chest, begging to mend his own. Out of all the things he could’ve said, all the emotions he could have felt… This, this I could not predict.
I remember Blu Henderson, the broken shell of a girl I used to be over one year ago, crying in her room over this very boy who grabbed hold of my hand currently.
I remember her sobbing in the arms of Fawn because Jace couldn’t embrace me – couldn’t embrace me because he was the one who caused my pain.
There were moments of utter heartbreak that tormented me through my travels, moments that found me in my sleep. Promises he made never to hurt me, but bled me dry until the very end.
He didn’t say goodbye.
He didn’t contact me.
He abandoned me, and now –
Now, he wished for me to have love for him.
I wanted to scream in his face, to wipe away his tears and plaster them all over my cheeks because that is where they belonged.
I loved him viciously, my entire being stripped raw by his essence. I would’ve done anything for him; he knew that. He took advantage of that.
And he still continued to do so. To play on my emotions. To see if I would run back all to boost his ego.
One.
Year.
Later.
I released my hold on his, swallowing the truth and spitting out the lie. “I don’t.”
His hand opened and closed a few times, as if feeling the loss of my absence.
How does it feel, Jace?
How does it fucking feel?
“Then pretend,” he whispered through a cracking pitch. “Pretend for me, Blu.”
Pretend.
Pretend.
It was all fucking pretend.
Nothing was ever real, and he was okay with that.
As long as I was pretending.
Pretending to love him, to need him, to want him –
Just as he did.
I shook my head, moving away from the bench, forcing myself to my feet and ran.
I fucking ran rogue.
I ran even though I knew he wasn’t chasing me, because he never would.
It would always be me.
Days, months, years later –
It would always be me.
The wind howled in my ears, a chill frosting my bones. Not because of the cold, but because I let him in. Somehow, someway, he tugged on my vulnerability once again and swallowed me whole. He opened me up, allowed me to feel, and it wasn’t real.
It was pretend.
I rang Fawn once I cleared the open street, hiding behind an alley wall next to a pharmacy.
“Hello? Blu?”
“I’m near Adelaide, by a Subway and barber shop. Can you come meet me?”
I could hear Bryce’s groans through the phone. “Yes, yes I’m coming. Are you coming, Bryce?”
“Yes!” He shouted at the same time as I said, “No!”
Fawn respected my wishes and hung up the call, asking me to turn on my phone location.
When she reached me I hugged her tight, explaining everything that happened, then called Carter before Ubering home.
Now we were back to this moment.
Present day.
Sitting on a velvet sofa across a middle-aged woman with chestnut hair and bronzed skin.
“Why am I here?” I reiterated my psychologist’s question, blinking away the flashbacks of Jace from last week. The panic attack I had on my bathroom floor. The cuts I almost made.
Almost.
She nodded for me to begin, leaning back into her loveseat.
“Because I thought I healed,” I admitted, turning away from the mirror to my left.
My thoughts unintentionally wavered to him.
My comfort.
My pain.
“Honestly, Stacy…” I exhaled, cursing the reality of my life. How I’d travelled to three different places across the world and still wound up back in the same position that I was last year.
Fake growth.
Fake healing.
I’d wasted three-hundred and sixty-five days chasing a fake dream of being fake happy.
Fake. Fake. Fake.
“Yes, Beatrice?” she provoked, her voice soothing and levelled.
I wished so badly that I could mirror her solid exterior, her calm demeanour and straight posture.
But instead I released a cynical goddamn laugh and declared the truth. “I’m still really fucking fucked up.”
