I BARELY MAKE IT INTO THE APARTMENT—barely have any time to let the giant gash in my chest mellow and heal over, when there’s a knock at the door. Again. My heart picks up a beat—because it’s Jem. It has to be. He changed his mind, and he’s here to give me my flowers back and I can give him his ring back and we can pretend this was all just a nightmare that never really happened.

Without thinking, I leap to the door, opening it.

Only to realize how stupid I am.

Because this time, it isn’t Jem.

It’s Kade.

And something about the way my mood plateaus should be a big, universal warning sign, but I don’t know what to do anymore. How to think. What to believe. And then it hits me. Jem always means what he says. So when he said goodbye—he meant it. But what did I really expect? For him to stay for a friendship he didn’t want? And what kind of relationship would I have left with Kade?

“Hey,” Kade murmurs. In the dim light, the green in his eyes almost match his dark hair. “What’s wrong?”

I figure I must look like I’m on the verge of tears, so I blink three times and try to inhale slower. “Nothing.”

But it doesn’t work, so the tears end up streaming down my face instead. I look away as I try to wipe them off my cheeks frantically, but it’s futile. Everything’s become such a giant, festering mess. And now I can’t even cry alone. In the safe, undisturbed sanctuary of my room.

“Indigo,” Kade says, reaching for me. “Something’s clearly wrong. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say again because there’s not really any feasible way to answer his question.  I turn to check if Scarlett and Mae are still asleep. They are, so I lower my voice when I turn back to face him. “Why are you here?”

“You didn’t reply to my text,” he says.

“What? I did.”

Kade frowns, checking his phone. “I didn’t get anything.”

I pull out my own phone to check, and find that for some reason, my text didn’t go through. “It didn’t go through. Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” He shrugs. “I take it you’ve been studying all day and you’re having a bad day. Do you want to grab something to eat? Get some fresh air?”

I look up at him, brows pulled together. He rarely initiates outings, so this is pretty rare. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Why would I be joking?” He cocks his head. “C’mon.”

“Okay.” Slowly, I nod. “Okay. Let me get my bag.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, “It’s on me.”

I nod, following him to the door. When we’re outside, it’s darker. The sun has disappeared in between the time I arrived and now. And for some reason, it’s so much colder than I remembered. And now all I can think about is Jem’s black shirt absorbing the sunlight, and I want to cry all over again.

“What do you want to get?” he asks, once we’re on the sidewalk. “Anything you want.”

Now that it’s the third time we “broke up” and he came back, I notice a pattern. There’s always this grovelling period where he’ll do a lot of things he wouldn’t normally do, so I’ll feel bad and forgive him quicker.

I sniff, still not totally in the mood. “I don’t know.”

He’s silent, but I know it annoys him when I’m indecisive. And that would be fine, except every time I come up with something, he always finds a way to knock it down and propose his own idea instead.

When we walk past an ice cream parlour, I stop, testing how far I can push him. “Actually . . . I want ice cream.”

I don’t know if I’m imagining things, but Kade turns a little green as he stares up at the shop’s sign. “I don’t know . . .”

“You said anything,” I remind him.

He sighs deeply, giving in. “Fine.”

We walk into the shop, and I marvel at the wide range of flavors behind the glass. The shades of ice cream, cerise, aqua, sunflower—are bright. Effulgent. And the toppings make me forget about everything. Only for a second. When I spot the flavor I want, I turn to Kade, but he’s got his back faced to me, looking at some poster on the wall.

“Kade,” I say, “I want the cookie dough.”

He turns, albeit slowly, and his gaze lands precariously on the person behind the bar. It’s a girl, and I didn’t even notice her before. She has long, straight hair with the most perfect blonde highlights. And she’s so skinny I swear she could be a model. I’m about to say hi, but when her gaze lands on me, and it’s alight and fuming. I frown, deciding against it.

Kade pays for my ice cream, and I’m definitely not picturing things, because the girl looks like she wants to kill him, too. Maybe it has nothing to do with us, and she’s just going through some stuff.

I lift a brow as he hands me my ice cream cup. “You’re not going to have some?”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Why?” I push. “You haven’t even tried it.”

Kade looks like he’s about to put up a fight, but at the last second, he sighs, glancing back at the girl for a brief second. “Can I get a vanilla cone?”

I can’t help but smile, but I don’t know whether it’s funny or sad —because we’ll never come to this shop again, and he’ll never eat ice cream again, either. But we will visit his favorite pizza place, more than once, even though I don’t like the way they make it.

When he pays, I wonder if I’m seeing things, or if the girl hands back his card more aggressively than necessary. We walk out of the shop and back on the sidewalk, and I spoon my ice cream, turning to him. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“That girl,” I say, “why was she looking at you like that? At me, too?”

Kade shrugs. “Beats me. Hey, isn’t your birthday coming up?”

I nod, because I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ll be turning twenty in two weeks.

There’s a bright glint to his eyes. “We’ll do something, yeah?”

I nod half-heartedly. “Probably just dinner with Mae. Maybe my mom will come, too.”

He makes a sound at the back of his throat. “Your mom never comes.”

Ouch. I can’t say that didn’t hit a spot. So much for grovelling. He notices my expression too late.

He winces, almost dropping his steadily melting ice-cream that he hasn’t even tasted once. “I didn’t mean it like that. Shit. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” I say, “It’s fine.”

And there it is. I say it’s fine, instead of calling him out on his bullshit. Not even when some of the things he says hurt. A lot. Sometimes, I feel like he does it on purpose. Like he knows my weak points, and he doesn’t even try to avoid them. He just steps all over them with muddy shoes.

He turns to me. “I can invite a few of the guys, if you want?”

“Why?” I make a face. I don’t know half of his friends, and the half I do know are snobbish and think way too much of themselves. Going to an ivy league doesn’t give you the right to be an awful human being.

An uncomfortable look takes over his face. “C’mon, Indie. Don’t make me say it.”

I draw my brows together. “No, seriously, what do you mean?”

He sighs. “You’re really going to celebrate your twentieth with two people?”

And I don’t know—when what he says finally sinks in, the tears that I’d somehow managed to distract myself from threaten to come back. Yes, I only have one friend. And a half-boyfriend. Of course he has to remind me of this in the most ungracious way possible.

It’s true—my circle is small. Incredibly so. Probably another reason why I’m so afraid to lose him. Because if I do, I’m only left with Mae. And what if she leaves, too? What if one day, she gets tired of me, like everyone else? It’s what haunts me most.

Being alone.

“Kade,” I say, keeping my voice steady, “Do you love me?”

He doesn’t hear me at first, he’s too busy groaning about how much of a sticky mess the melting ice cream is making. And as we pass a nearby trashcan, he chucks his uneaten cone into it, turning to me. “What did you say?”

This time, it’s harder to control my tears, and the knot in my throat is painful. “Do you love me?”

He frowns, then it morphs into a cynical smile. “What are you talking about?”

“Just answer the question,” I say, “Please.”

He huffs an empty laugh. “Yes, Indigo, I love you. I thought you knew this.”

I swallow, playing with my ice cream that’s begun to lose its taste. “It’s nice to hear every now and then.”

There’s so many other questions I want to ask him. Like: do you love someone so much that you would sacrifice your own happiness for them? Buy them flowers every week? Keep a buzzcut so they feel less alone?

Truth is, Kade has never had to struggle for anything. His life, for as long as I can remember, has been smooth sailing. His parents are wealthy and happily married and would do anything for him, whatever the cost. His mom calls every two days, and he almost always spends his birthday with his family. So I’ll never be able to tell what he’d do if he was in Jem’s position. Or mine.

But that’s not Kade’s fault.

I glance sideways at him. In the streetlight, I see him clearer. And I try to look at him through new eyes. He’s wearing a Columbia sweatshirt—tall, dark messy hair, green eyes and high cheekbones. There’s no doubt that he’s good-looking. He looks like the main character in a dark academia movie.

I don’t blame my high-school self for wanting him so badly. He was pretty and smart, and every girl secretly wanted him. I would’ve done so many horrible things for him. I would’ve done anything he asked. And when I finally got him, it felt like happiness was seeping out my pores. But it all wore out so quickly. And now, I’m not sure what I’m left with.

Feeling my silent gaze on him, he turns to face me, narrowing his gaze on my hand. “What’s that?”

“What?”

But before he can answer, he grabs my hand, bringing it up to inspect it. He’s looking at the ring, I quickly realize. And he’s about to pull it off for a closer look when I snatch my hand away from his grip. “Nothing.”

His expression turns sour, and . . . vaguely threatening. But I’m not scared of him. Not really. I wonder if he thinks I am. The ring on my finger feels like it’s burning into my skin.

“You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” he says.

I play dumb. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says.

That’s what being with you feels like, I want to say, like Nothing.

I wish Jem hadn’t showed up in my life. Because then I wouldn’t have known any better. I wouldn’t be feeling so miserable right now. It’s like finally finding your favorite flavour of ice cream, only to be told that you’ll never be able to taste it again.

But maybe I’m being unfair. I can’t keep comparing Kade to Jem. There’s no way a five-year relationship can have the sparks of something fresher, newer, more exciting.

Besides, just as quick as he’d come, Jem had left. But Kade stayed. Kade always stays. Even if he leaves, he always comes back. It’s why I keep letting him in. Because somehow, he always ends up being the constant.

So maybe this is it. Maybe he’s all I’ll have left some day. Maybe it’s what I deserve — to be half-loved. Tear-stained cheeks and insincere apologies and an I love you I have to beg for. Maybe it’s just not in my stars to have my favorite ice-cream all the time, and I should just be satisfied that I have any ice cream at all.

Besides, real love isn’t like how it is in the books and movies. It’s messy and imperfect and boring, sometimes. Not that I’m an expert in the matter. Far from it, actually. And even if they’re not true, I convince myself of all these things as we walk back to the apartment in the dark.

*

a/n:

god. itʼs brutal out here

had the olivia album on repeat for this one + cinnamon girl by lana.

 until the next one,

stay gold,
yuen

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