Clueless

"She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of--to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others." To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

The bathroom door swung closed with a snap, the noise triggering a tension in Lily that manifested itself in her bone-white grip on the edge of the counter. She stared into the stainless steel bowl of the sink, a smooth, thoughtless depression in the marble countertop, as unseeing as the mirror above it was omniscient. The last thing she wanted was to be seen--a reflection, merely, a face in a mirror that meant nothing, not even to her.

She heard a slow, liquid sigh as the tepid air in the bathroom stirred and, with a jerk, she twisted the cold water spout on, blasting its icy touch over her trembling fingertips. The door closed more quietly on this, its second journey. Lily didn't have to look up to know whose silent touch had sent it on its way.

"Lil?"

She took a shallow breath, focusing on her slowly numbing fingers and not the caution in the intruder's voice. It was too strange, too painful, to think of herself as the cornered, frightened animal that they saw. "Yes, Serena?" The words scratched themselves from her throat, like nails on a chalkboard.

The first thing to break the plain of her view was a black and white arm reaching out to press its fingers against her wrist, as though searching for a pulse. Don't worry, I am very much alive. "Are you okay?"

She finally looked up into Serena's honest, pained eyes, leveling her with a stare that allowed her to say everything she dared not speak aloud. "I'm fine," she said, instead. Serena, loyal as ever, kept her gaze strong and steady. "Its been a long week," she finally added weakly, gently slipping away from Serena's light touch as she reached out and turned off the faucet. She sighed, turning her back to the mirror and the Hollywood lights that glowed around its edges like a cheap halo.

"I'm…sorry if I made it seem any longer."

"You didn't."

"But I did." Lily stayed silent, too tired to argue. "I shouldn't have gotten all worked up over nothing. I don't know why--"

"You were expecting to see someone else." There was just a hint of a question in her tone.

She could feel Serena's firm gaze resting on her sharply defined cheekbone. "Well…yeah."

"Sorry to disappoint."

~

Lily, perusing the dessert menu of The Capital Grille, was deciding between a fruit or chocolate dish when a pair of hands suddenly covered her eyes. She gave a start, dropping the menu onto the table, and bringing her own, pale hands up to her face to drag her fingertips across the culprit’s skin. The offending hands pressed more tightly against her eyes.

“Who is it?” She demanded, grappling with their thin, strong fingers, trying to wrench them away from her eyes. Her fingers traversed the winding river valleys of veins and high, hard peaks of knuckle. She relaxed, suddenly. “My goodness, Serena! You startled me!” The darkness was abruptly lifted and the contours of the restaurant swirled back into focus, the afternoon light streaming through the windows almost blinding her. Serena, clad in leather from head to toe, appeared from behind her with a childishly disappointed expression on her face. She sat down in the empty seat across the table from Lily, closing the menu in front of her and pushing it away.

“How did you know it was me?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “You’re my best friend, Serena. How could I forget your hands?” Hands that had pulled her out of quiet corners and into city streets, fingers laced like corset strings as their feet tripped from frat house to bar and home again. Hands that she had held onto as her friend had wept beside her, afraid that if she loosened her grip for even a second, Serena would slip away into her own darkness, out of reach.

Her lively, brown eyes rested on Lily, that trademark, infectious smile spreading across her face like a sunrise. “Well? Aren’t you glad to see me?” Her tiny, well-manicured hand stretched the length of the table to grab hold of Lily’s, squeezing it tightly.

“Of course!” Lily assured her, giving her best friend’s fingers an answering dose of pressure. She saw Serena’s head cock slightly to the side, a question growing in her gaze, and knew that she had caught the strained edge to her voice.

“Is everything okay, Lil?”

“Yes!” She responded quickly. “Everything’s fine!”

“Am I interrupting...,” Serena glanced down at the extra menu she had pushed away, before looking back up at Lily, comprehension dawning in her eyes, “...something?”

As Serena’s smile widened, Lily cringed. The last thing she needed, right now, was for Serena to be jumping to conclusions and creating dramatic situations out of nothing at all. She didn’t have the emotional energy that was necessary to deal with convincing Serena that it was, in fact, possible to meet someone of the opposite sex for lunch and not have it mean anything more than platonic friendship. “You’re not interrupting anything. I’m simply having lunch with a friend and they happened to go to the restroom--”

“So, you’re on a date?!”

“Yeah, hot stuff, and you’re in my seat!”

Serena whipped around at the intruding male voice, her expression shifting from surprise to shock and finally suspicion in rapid succession. “Jamie?!” The word came out a soft hiss, adding a distinct dose of venom to her incredulous tone.

Jamie McGinn, leaning one hand on the back of his occupied chair, grinned down at Serena, unperturbed by her inhospitable tone. “The one and only.”

Serena spun around to face Lily, then, her expression of outrage demanding an immediate explanation. Lily gave her a weakly apologetic look before frowning up at Jamie. “I thought we had agreed that this was not actually a date...”

Jamie resisted the urge to roll his eyes and laughed lightly, instead. “Sorry, sorry! Momentary amnesia.” His winning smile was enough to erase any misgivings, on her part. It was not, however, received so generously by Serena, who only glared back. “And what are you doing out here in the light of day with the rest of us mortals? I thought you were a working woman?”

She gave him an acerbic smile. “Actually, that’s exactly why I'm here. Meeting a client for lunch.” She still hadn't made a move to leave his seat. "The better question is what are you doing here?" She paused delicately before adding, "Where's Ryan?"

Jamie's jaw tensed, his teeth disappearing as his smile was reduced to a thin, tight line, his hazel eyes suddenly cooling to an ice-blue. "Not here," he replied, the words cast in steel.

"Jamie was showing me around the city," Lily put forth.

"Huh," Serena murmured, poorly feigning innocent curiosity, "when did you guys become so chummy?"

The curtain of cheery pretense dropped and Jamie's eyes narrowed. "When did it become your business?" He hissed, gritting his teeth.

Serena stood up, abruptly, the feet of the chair grating across the polished wood floor, making the guests at the neighboring table glance their way. Even in her heels, she was still much shorter than his 6'1" frame, but this didn't stop her from trying to get right up in his face. "This has nothing to do with me--"

"Then leave us the fuck alone!"

"--and everything to do with your teammate and friend," she finished.

He just stared at her, his expression a mix of fury and frustration. "How about you mind your own damn business, Serena? Lily's a big girl. She can make her own goddamn decisions about who she wants to fucking hang out with. Right, Li--?" But she was already sweeping past them--too fast to see the look on her face, but swiftly enough to alert them to her distress.

They watched her retreat and then, when she had disappeared around a corner, they turned on each other, accusing in unison, "Nice job, asshole." Their anger turned sheepish and their eyes dropped to the floor.

~

"I'm sorry, Lily. Really. I was completely out of line back there."

Eyes closed, Lily pressed two fingers to her right temple, rubbing gentle circles against her skin. "It's fine, Serena," she murmured.

"No, it's not."

Her eyes, as cold and blue as an Arctic sea, flashed open, her hand dropping to her side impatiently. "Can we please just drop it?!" She snapped, making Serena jump.

Shades of confusion and fear rippled across Serena's features. "What's wrong?" She asked, her voice as soft as her touch, her hand finding its way back to Lily's arm. "You're not acting like yourself."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Serena recoiled as though Lily had slapped her across the face, the pink flush rising on the apples of her cheeks only serving to enforce the image--and make Lily sick with guilt. "Oh, Serena, I didn't--!"

Serena took a step back, the initial caution with which the conversation had begun returning to her voice. "Is that what you really think? That I'm…that I'm forcing you to change?" The hurt in her eyes was too much for Lily to bear. How many times had she comforted her friend since they had met, knowing the fragile underbelly of her tough facade--yet, here she was, inflicting a wound deep enough to cut through that hardened exterior and spill blood.

"No, no! I…Oh, Serena, I just…it's…it's that time of the month," she finished reluctantly.

Serena's attitude morphed from wounded to incredulous in a heartbeat. "Bullshit," she announced emphatically, "you always get it the first week of every month." Lily merely huffed, deigning not to reply. They stood in silence for a few, tense moments before Serena spoke again. "Ryan thinks you've been avoiding him," she said quietly, her eyes on the floor, demanding nothing and everything at the same time.

Guilt, an almost constant companion these days, bubbled within her, again, leeching away any will to keep her secrets under lock and key. "I've simply been busy." By 'busy', she meant that she’d taken to locking herself away in her room under the pretense of working when, really, she wasn't writing a word. She was hiding from them, where they lingered just outside of her bedroom door, insistent and mocking. Instead, she’d mostly lain in bed, on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling and listening to the heavy silence of an empty house or the sounds of Ryan moving around somewhere beneath her, quietly going about his business. At first, he had tried to lure her out of her room, eager to go to lunch with her or take her to the rink, but when she kept rejecting him, he finally understood that she needed some time alone and granted it without further complaint.

"Yeah, he said that."

Silence fell again.

"Did he tell you about Christopher, too?"

"Yeah." Lily shifted uncomfortably, feeling judged, until Serena said, "I know he was your friend and all, but, to be honest, I always thought he was a dick."

"Really?" Lily sighed, but a corner of her mouth had turned up at her friend's words.

"Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I never said anything to you, because you worshiped the ground he walked on--"

"Wha--!"

"--but I always thought he was a pretentious douchebag."

While she didn't quite appreciate the 'worship' remark, she had begun to agree with Serena's overall analysis of Christopher's character--which only led her to question her own. What did her friendship with Christopher say about her? That she naturally bonded with pretentious people? That perhaps she, herself, was just as pretentious? "Serena," she said abruptly, "I know this is rather--well--but--" She fell silent and stared at her snakeskin flats, studying the worn areas around the soles. "Serena, when you look at me, what do you see?"

The silence in the bathroom was so profound, Lily swore she could hear the water moving through the pipes. Moving slowly, as though approaching a frightened animal, Serena aligned herself against the sink with Lily, reaching out for Lily's cold, soft hand as she did so. "Lil," she began, gently stroking warmth into her friend's fingers, "I see the most beautiful girl--inside and out--that I have ever met, the smartest--and kindest--person I know, and, most importantly, my best friend." Taking Lily's hand in a firmer grip, she turned her to face the mirror, to face herself. "And what do you see?"

She only had a moment to run her eyes down the sharp angles of her face, across the curves of her cheeks and lips. Only a moment to look herself right in the eye and realize that their depths were as closed to her as they were to everyone else. "I don't know." The words had barely left her mouth when the bathroom door swung open amidst girlish laughter. The three women who entered only spared the two friends a passing glance before congregating in front of the mirror of the neighboring sink, not giving a thought to their intrusion. "I need to change," Lily said, slipping her hand out of Serena's grip and leaning down to pick up a plastic bag at her feet.

"Into what?"

"My most recent clothing purchase."

~

"Have you been here since training camp?"

"He takes me here when he can--which is, as you know, not often."

"What do you do, watch him practice?"

Lily stared out the front window of Jamie's SUV, her eyes on the sturdy, concrete building that grew to fill the frame as they rolled down a row of the parking lot. South Suburban Family Sports Center. The site of her first leap of faith in years. All thanks to the man who was closing the trunk of his new Porsche, a hockey bag slung ever-so-casually over one shoulder, his curly hair poking out from beneath a baseball hat. "He's been teaching me how to skate." At first, Ryan's eyes had swept past the car driving towards him, but he had to do a double take when he realized who was sitting in the front seat--and who was driving. He leaned back against his trunk, marking their approach with a passionless stare. Jamie's hands tightened on the wheel.

He rolled down his window as they came up alongside his teammate. "Hey there, stranger," he called out to him, a tight smile stretching across his face.

"Hey," Ryan answered, pushing off of his trunk and sidling up to the open window. His eyes went straight to Lily, who smiled at him, which forced a similar response from his own lips, as usual. He focused back on his teammate, in a vague attempt to hold onto the jealousy that was bubbling just underneath the surface, threatening to boil over at the smallest provocation. "So, you're her new friend, huh?" Once again, when Lily had mentioned she was going out to meet a 'friend,' he had automatically assumed said friend would be female. The fact that her mystery acquaintance turned out to be Jamie only made it worse--he couldn't help but wonder if she had purposely left her friend's identity anonymous, because she was afraid he would be upset. And what about Jamie, himself? He knew how he felt about Lily. Everyone did. Maybe Jamie had grown tired of waiting around for him to make a move and decided to take what he wanted--and what he knew he could get. Ryan hadn't realized that there was a time limit for him to win her over before the rest of his teammates joined the race.

Jamie's eyes flickered closed, for a moment, and he let out a soft snort. "I guess you could say that." He looked for Lily's reaction out of the corner of his eye, but her expression divulged no hints. "I've just been showing her around, taking her to places she might like…nothing big."

Not yet. "That's...nice. Good to get out of the house every now and then. Guess you can't work all the time, right?" His question, directed at Lily, elicited an uneasy chuckle.

"Well, thank you for driving me, Jamie," she said quietly, reaching out to brush her fingers across his upper arm. Like a puppet on strings reacting to the slightest tug from its master, Jamie turned to face her. "And thank you for treating me to lunch."

"No problem," he replied, his genuine smile belying the tenseness swirling around the trio.

She slipped out of the car and started around the front towards Ryan. Her outfit caught his attention. "Uh…new…pants?"

"Oh, yes! These so-called 'yoga pants'. Do you like them?" She did a quick twirl that sent Ryan's head spinning and any lasting feelings of irritation into the ether. "They're quite comfortable."

"That's…good," he managed to choke out.

Jamie leaned out of his window, muttering under his breath, with the barest hint of derision, "You can thank me later."

~

Their skating ritual was simple: an hour or two on the ice, then a chat over hot chocolate, and home again, home again, jiggety-jig. But today, as they sat sipping from their cardboard to-go cups, sitting side by side on one of the rickety, wooden player's benches, Lily felt restless after only an hour of skating. Even though their time together was far from being over, she was loathe to leave the enclosure of the rink, where the air left her refreshed, rather than cold. She had been pleasantly surprised to find that she liked skating. There were times where her momentum urged her to speeds never before reached and she wondered if the adrenaline rushing through her veins and the wind whipping her hair was what flying felt like. Light, free, unburdened by thought or outside forces. And in those moments, she loved the ice, itself. She wanted to fall to the ground and lay her cheek upon the frozen plain, praise it for all its reflectionless perfection. She wanted to trace every scar that she had etched in its surface and marvel at the beauty of such imperfection. This was freedom. Whether real or imagined, this was it. And Ryan was the one who had opened her eyes to it.

She glanced over at him, then, and murmured, "Thank you for inviting me along today."

He ran his thumb along the rim of his cup, staring into its chocolate depths, rather than in Lily's devastatingly blue eyes. "I'm glad you weren't too busy today." That was a bit of a low blow and they both knew it. He felt her shift uncomfortably beside him, which instantly awoke his guilt. "It feels like I haven't seen you in ages. I missed my roomie," he added in an attempt to reconcile, playfully nudging her with his arm, and earning a wistful smile.

"Hopefully…" Hopefully, I can regain control of my life. "…my workload will lighten next week and everything can go back to normal." What was normal, though? She was starting to wonder that more and more.

She could feel his serious, intent stare on the side of her cheek. Finally, he said, "You know, I know that whole scene with Christopher really…got to you." Quite the understatement. "And I know I'm just a dumb jock--"

"No, you're not," she interjected, finally looking him in the eye.

What a look. And just like that, he had to catch himself before falling into those depthless, honest eyes. He cleared his throat, gave her a tight nod of acknowledgement, and moved on. "Alright, well, I'm just a guy and most girls think we don't like to talk about, you know, emotional things, but if you do wanna talk about it, I'm all ears. Because you're not just my roommate, Lil, you're my--" He knew he was going to regret the next word out of his mouth, the word that would put him into a self-induced friend-zone, but he also knew that he couldn't not say it. Because it was true. And he cared more about the relationship he had with Lily, now, than the one that he had made up in his head for his not-so-distant future. "--friend." Her smile was worth the simultaneous knife to his gut. "And I just wanna make sure you're okay."

She reached out with her free hand to cover his with her palm. The heat from her fingers induced an involuntary response of acceleration from his heart--if her pinky had been an inch lower, she probably could have felt his pulse hammering against it, threatening to burst through his skin. And then he realized that she was speaking, which forced him to concentrate on her words, rather than how badly he wanted to kiss her. "Thank you for that, Ryan. I really do appreciate it." But then she slid her hand away, back to her side, her eyes dropping to the floor again, this time more sad than cagey. "It's true. I have been having a hard time with…what happened. And I don't know why. I don't doubt how I reacted to all of those terrible things he said, but…I suppose I still don't understand why he said them." She glanced up at Ryan, her expression that of a confused, innocent child. "I know that you said he was jealous of you. But in order for him to harbor such feelings, that would mean that he…"

"Liked you." Ryan finished slowly, watching Lily's reaction carefully.

Her brow was furrowed and he could see her mind working through a concept that seemed more difficult for her to grasp than it should have been. "He was so easily provoked, though! And it was so easy for him to just--for him to--" Her distress was palpable, as she talked through her confusion and the hurtful truth became more clear. "--drop me. As though I meant nothing more to him than…" Her face grew dark, suddenly, anger suffused with a powerful pain that made Ryan's heart ache. "As though I only had one thing to offer him." Christopher's own words echoed in the cavernous space above them, magnifying and clarifying and multiplying. Lily trembled where she sat, staring into her now-cold drink, thinking of her cold and heavy heart. And what do you see? Serena had asked her. Though she had feigned ignorance, at the time, she had known the answer: nothing. She saw nothing, because there was nothing. There was nothing but lumps of organ and empty spaces, dead spaces like the surface of the moon. She was hollow. Frozen.

And yet, how they desired her! Praised her! They were fools, all of them, and she was the greatest fool of all for hoping that one of them could be different. That one of them could shatter the ice and find something inside worth saving, something more than just the heat and electric of one night with a pretty face and a dead heart.

She looked over at Ryan, then, her eyes trying to hold onto the accusation that she felt deep in her bones, but the genuine concern reflected in his blue gaze left her unsettled. However much she wanted to say that they were all the same, she knew that she couldn't. It is not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us. And so far, Ryan had done nothing to hurt her. So far. All she could do was hold him at arm's length and hope that her icy touch was too much for him to bear, not worth the risk or the effort.

"Lily?" But she knew that she could never do that. She wanted--no, needed--him close. He had become her shield from the stares and whispers, the lewd glances and brushing hands. A protector. And as long as he stayed that way, everything would be fine. But now she knew what tightrope she had been walking for the past few weeks--the thin line between protector and admirer, friend and scorned. The stakes suddenly seemed much higher, the wire thinner. "Are you okay?" No. She set her cup to the side and then buried her face in his chest, inhaling his musky, comforting scent. She didn't give a thought to how his heart was racing under her ear, only curling closer to him as his arms came to rest around her, encircling, protecting. This was all that she wanted from him. Just this.

She only hoped that it would be enough for him.