WORD ART, anonymous
I did not expect to fall in love with her. I guess nobody really expects that unless they’re like super hopeless romantics. Genuinely, I really did not plan on falling in love with her. I needed a roommate last year and she was looking for a place to live. I liked that she was organized and made random lists of pros and cons. Suddenly she was dragging me to parties or borrowing dresses and introducing me to boys. After the pandemic, I’ve been reluctant to get back out. Although, Veronica has absolutely no problem with it. By the way, her going out is totally fine. I've enjoyed our quiet apartment to myself, so I stay there to take in the silence. When I finally make it to my first party since February 2020, Veronica is back to introducing me to cute boys and leading me to the dance floor. She knows how to party.
“Okay, that's enough partying for me. I need to go,” I say to Veronica as she comes dancing over to me in her black dress with purple heels. She looks like she’s just getting started, but I’m hot and I would rather be watching a movie with her in our apartment.
“Aw, come on, one more song?” She says and makes a pouty face at me. She starts to pull me to the dance floor. I would do anything to make her happy. “Let go and have fun!” She yells over the music. I reluctantly roll my eyes and dance with her. We put our whole hearts into the Cupid Shuffle. She pulls me closer to her, my heart starts to race. What is she doing?
“Madison, there's a boy you need to meet.” She says and starts to walk away. Oh. That’s not what I thought was happening.
Yay, there’s another boy I have to meet. I grab her hand, “Can’t we stay here to dance a little longer?”
“You can dance with him, and besides I have to go check on Brandon,” she pulls me off the dance floor and towards some brown headed boy with curly hair. He’s about a head taller than me and has muscle for days. “This is Madison. She wants to dance with you,” Veronica says casually and walks away.
“Hey. I’m Lucas. Nice to meet you,” he smiles at me. He has a warm smile and perfectly straight teeth. We stand there for a few seconds.
“Nice to meet you, too.” I say.
“Want to dance?” he asks. I nod and we make our way to the dance floor.
“So how do you know Veronica?” I ask over the music.
“We went to grade school together and now we go to the same university. We were best friends in high school.”
“Gotcha. Do you know Brandon?” I ask him. Brandon is the person we were there to celebrate. Although, he's a bad boyfriend to Veronica. I would love to see her dump him, run him over, or get what he deserves, which is nothing.
“Yeah, he’s my roommate, I actually introduced him to Veronica,” Lucas responds.
I look at Veronica and see her having the time of her life with Brandon. He doesn’t seem to reciprocate those feelings of joy. I don’t get what she sees in him. He makes snide comments about her and always chooses his friends instead.
Lucas isn’t bad looking, but I’m not interested in him. Not because he’s friends with Brandon, but because I’m head over heels for Veronica. I don’t think she’s into me and she’s not one to cheat, regardless of how bad her boyfriend treats her. I would jump at the chance to destroy him.
We continue small talk until he says, “Do you want to go somewhere else?”
“Sure,” I say to Lucas. He pulls me through the crowd to the patio outside.
“What are you studying?” he asks.
“Interior design. What about you?”
“Animation,” he pulls out his phone and shows me some of his work. I glance at Veronica again, who’s inside eating a piece of cake. Brandon is off with his friends playing darts while she sits by herself. She looks stunning with her hair in that updo. She catches my gaze through the window and wiggles her fingers at me before heading back to the dance floor. Lucas’ art is really good. It looks like something out of an animated Disney film with its bright colors and characters. Lucas and I talk until Veronica comes to get me.
“Are you ready to go?” she says.
I smile at her and grab my things. “Bye, Lucas. It was nice talking to you,” I say to him.
“Oh, can I get your number?” he asks.
I look at Veronica and she gives me an encouraging thumbs up. Okay, fine, Lucas. You’re cool, but I’m not interested in playing house with you. I punch a few numbers into his phone and text them. A message that says, “Lucas” appears on my phone.
As Veronica and I walk back to our apartment, she interrogates me about Lucas. I fake my interest in him until she’s satisfied. Walking home with her used to be my favorite thing because it was only about us. I try to bring the conversation back to that, but she won’t let me.
“Let's have a movie night tomorrow,” I say, trying desperately to stop talking about boys.
“Oh yes! And you can invite Lucas and I’ll invite Brandon!” she responds.
That’s not what I meant to happen. How do I stop this?
“Are you sure you want Brandon there?” I ask.
She stops walking. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”
I shrug, “He’s not always nice to you. Do you remember the last time he came over?”
“He didn’t mean to. Besides, we both know it was an accident. He’s actually really nice when you get to know him.”
“Yeah, probably when he’s not spilling drinks on our couch.”
I think it was a really convenient accident. Veronica bought a pink couch and we waited months for it to come in. She was so excited about it, Veronica talked about it every day. The couch brightened our entire living room and we treasured it. We guarded it from food and drinks touching its pink fabric. One night a few weeks ago, Brandon came over to play board games. He got a coke out of the fridge while Veronica and I set up a game on the coffee table. He came over towards the couch with his drink and I said, “Brandon, can you please leave that over there?” He does not like it when anyone tells him what to do. Brandon rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. He started to turn but somehow tripped on the rug and the coke came flying backwards onto the couch. Now our pink couch has little brown spots down one side that we have to cover with a blanket. Veronica tried so hard to keep the couch free of any harm. My heart breaks a little bit for her that something she treasured so much was ruined. He didn’t even say sorry.
Veronica and I continue walking in silence. I know better than to encourage them to break up, despite how bad he treats her. Plus, if she didn’t have him, I would be forced to tell her that I love her.
For the next week, Veronica won’t stop asking about Lucas and when I’m going to see him next. Lucas and I occasionally text, but nothing more than surface level. I’m trying not to lead him on. I discovered he likes books, action movies, prefers cats over dogs, and grew up with horses. We make plans to get coffee.
“Lucas, I need to tell you something. I think you’re a great guy and we have lot of common interests, but-”
“But you’re not into me,” he interrupts.
“No. I’m not. I like-”
“Veronica,” he interrupts again. Is it that obvious?
I nod.
“Yeah, I kinda knew,” he says, “you lit up when she texted you about buying toothpaste and you didn’t stop looking at her that night she introduced us. It's no hard feelings.”
I sigh, relieved, “I didn’t know I was obvious about it. I’m sorry if I led you on at all.”
“So what do you like about her?” He smiles.
“Have you seen her? She’s gorgeous. And she has the biggest heart,” I smile, “she is selfless and I love the way she talks about others. She really sees the best in people.”
He nods in a, “keep going,” kind of way.
“Oh, also, she’s a great cook. I’ve never eaten a grilled cheese as good as hers. She makes pros and cons lists for everything and she sings all the time. It's annoying but cute,” I continue.
“Why haven’t you told her any of this?” he asks me.
“It's hard to talk to her without her bringing up Brandon.”
“I don’t know what she sees in him. Once our lease is up, I’m out.”
“If I had the chance to tell him off, smash his windows, or make him disappear, I would. I would love to see her break his nonexistent heart. I’ve even considered taking her phone and dumping him over text as if I’m her.”
He looks at me with a blank stare.
“Please don’t do any of that. Ever. About anyone. No matter how badly you want Brandon to suffer, it's not your place to tell him off. Veronica is the one that’s suffered, not you.”
He’s right. Wishing ill upon Brandon is not the way to get Veronica.
After our conversation, I feel much closer to him. I continue telling Veronica that things with Lucas are going well. It’s not a lie, either, it's just not going the direction she wants it to. I’m relieved that I have someone to confide in. Lucas doesn’t mind that I don’t want to be his girlfriend.
I’ve started feeling less guilty about liking her, too. She came home one night from a date with Brandon with tears streaming down her face.
“Veronica, what happened?” I say, wrapping my arms around her.
Through her tears she responds, “He slapped my hand.”
“What?” I take her towards the couch and sit her down.
She tells me how she reached into the bowl for popcorn at their movie date.
He slapped her hand away because she’d “had enough already.” He apologized profusely all the way home and managed to make her feel guilty. I tell her she didn’t do anything wrong and we talk until she feels better.
I say, “Why don’t you break up with him?”
“Why would I do that? He didn’t mean it,” she says.
“That doesn’t matter. He hit you. Dump him.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” she says, getting up, “I need to go to bed.” I hear her crying all night. I have to interrupt my feelings about Brandon with what Lucas said. It’s not my place to ruin his life.
A few days later, I’m tidying up our apartment before she comes home from grocery shopping. As I grab our pile of junk mail, I find a notebook page titled “pros and cons.” I regularly find these around the apartment and am always intrigued to see what Veronica’s latest internal debate is that she needed to write out. I’m expecting something like “Why I Should Break Up With Brandon,” but this one is untitled.
My face gets hot and something wells up in my throat. This one is not like the others. I read through it again. Under the “cons” column, it reads, “what about Lucas.” The first thing on the “pros” side is, “finally getting to tell Madison how much I like her.” The second one says, “saying bye to Brandon.”
As I start to fantasize about a life with her, I’m pulled from my thoughts by the clink of Veronica’s keys unlocking the door. “Hi! I’m back. And I have more chicken nuggets!” She yells. I beam at her.
“I was going through the pile of papers here and I found this.” I showed her the paper. She starts to get panicked as Brandon comes through the door, too. Uh oh. Yes, I’m in love with her, but I do not need to cause a lot of drama and ruin our chances because of a paper I found while cleaning. I don’t think I was supposed to find it, either. Because I don’t want to see him mad, I shove the paper back into the pile and head towards the recycling bin.
“What’s that?” asks Brandon.
I pull a coupon for pizzas out of the stack. “Um, just this,” I say as I hand him the coupon. The rest of the papers go into the recycling bin. I’m heartbroken. “Uh, I’ll see you guys later,” I say as I go to my room.
A few hours later there's a knock at my bedroom door and I go to open it. “I just broke up with him,” she tells me.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She shakes her head. I expect her to tell me she ran him over based on the look on her face. “I have to tell you something,” she says. “I really like you. I didn’t want to deal with my feelings. I thought maybe if I made you talk to Lucas, then my feelings would go away because now you are dating. It didn’t work though. I still like you. I’m sorry for any drama this is going to cause. I’m not even sure if you like me, but I just needed you to know.”
I pull her into me. Our lips meet and it's like the world falls into place.
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