3 Sides to a Circle (25 page)

“Libby…” I start, but she nibbles at my lips and pulls me on top of her.

“I know, I know. But later,” she murmurs. “This is our first kiss and I’m not screwing it up for anything.”

Honor

Toby’s stretched out on the small couch in Libby’s room, asleep. They’ve moved her out of the hospital to an in-patient facility to get proper treatment, but Toby’s here except for the times when they tell him to leave. Finals are done. I’m packed up and going home just long enough for me, Mom, and Dad, who is coming home in two days, to go to New York to find me a place to live.

I step up next to Libby’s
bed as she scribbles in her journal, sitting cross-legged and give her a hug. It’s not the body hug that she would normally have given me, and I pull away and stuff my hands in my pockets because none of this feels like Libby or me and Libby, whatever that is.

“Crap. Guess stuff between us is
gonna be awkward for a while.” Libby sighs as she stops her writing.

“I guess.”

“Or you’ll walk away and not look back.” She bites her lip and looks so…normal.

I’ve wanted to walk away. Sometimes I wish that I’d never met Libby. But not right now. “You’ve changed me more in a few months than anyone ever has.
And I can’t handle normal Libby. You’re so calm. This is…weird.”

“I’m drugged.” She sticks out her tongue. “While they re-sort my meds.”

“I’m moving to New York,” I say before thinking.

Libby freezes for a sec and Toby shifts on the couch
, and we both hold still until his breathing evens out again. She already sort of knew, but I think me saying it out loud between us makes it more real.

“You’re going to be famous.” She smirks, and this is a glimpse into
who she was the first day we met, and I’m so glad she’s still in there.

“You’re going to be okay.” I stare at her, and I know it. “You have you and you have Toby. And you have this amazing
ly normal and sweet mother. You’re going to be great.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

“I’m your friend, and I love you like a sister, and I feel like even when I sorta hate you that we’ll still be okay because I love you more than being exasperated with you.”

Libby
blinks a few times. “If I wasn’t totally drugged, I’d cry right now.”

This hug is a real one, and I sit on the bed and we hold each other
like it’s okay to hold each other for as long as we want. I start to finally get and feel that she is a part of my forever and because of that, we will always be okay.

I’ve never been this nervous in my whole life.

My hands are shaking.

Even though I’ve had three cups of tea this morning, my throat is still dry.

My lips feel numb.

My legs feel numb.

I feel a little like I might puke, or like I’ll shatter into a million pieces if he tells me no again.

These stairs are both taller and go on longer than any staircase I’ve ever climbed.

And now that I’ve finally made it up the stairs, Sawyer’s door is terrifying and huge.

I knock and wait as too many things splinter through me to grasp.

“Honor.” Sawyer says my name like someone kicked the wind out of him as he stares at me with wide eyes.

“I want…” I swallow again, but my mouth is so dry that it do
esn’t work so well and I cough.

“Breathe.”
Sawyer steps forward but freezes before we touch.

I close my eyes and breathe through my nose a few times before opening my eyes and soaking him in because he seems closer than he did when my eyes closed.

Now I need to say something that cuts through all the BS and gets to the point. “I’m ready for you to paint me.”

He glances down before meeting my eyes again. “What’s different?”

“Everything.” I nod, starting to get a rush of the same empowered feeling I had at the photo shoot. “Everything’s different. And I’ve missed you like crazy but wasn’t sure how to fix that. And you don’t get to call all the shots between us. It isn’t fair to me or to what I want.”

I wish I could pull what I’m feeling out of my chest and place it
in his so he’ll believe me, because I’m not sure if he will.

Sawyer
sighs as a million emotions cross over his face. “I feel like the moment I catch some footing with you where I feel like we’re both on the same page, you pull away, or something happens, and I just don’t know if I have it in me to try again.”

I close my eyes and try to breathe. I knew what
Sawyer would say. I knew it. “I know.” I swallow a few times before giving up and just knowing that it’s not going to be easy to talk. “It’s that I’ve been caught up in the Libby whirlwind, and yes, at first, confused about Toby, but only because of how I let myself get swept up in their mess. Toby is such a good guy, and I wish him all the best, but he and I are not… We won’t ever be, and that’s how it should be and how I want it. But with you…” I’m ready to get on my knees and beg, but at the same time, I know if Sawyer won’t take me, then I’ll find someone else. I’ll just always wonder if I should have tried harder if it doesn’t work now, and part of me wonders if I’d ever really get over losing him.

“I can see being with you. I don’t want to hold anything back anymore. It’s exhausting. I want to be your girlfriend. I want you to paint me. I want to meet your family and your sister, and I want it to be okay that I do this sort of strange thing for a job, and I want to go to school and stand next to you when people look at your art and tell you how amazing you are, because you are. Amazing.
I fell for you like you fell for me, I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

Our breathing echoes between us
in the narrow hallway, but Sawyer doesn’t speak.

“And I’m
moving to New York, which might just be complicating the hell out of this.”

We’re silent again, but his shoulders fall slightly and by the way his eyes are both looking at me and not looking at me, I’m hoping that he’s thinking hard about what it would be like to be together.

“Do you want to come in?” He steps back. “I’m painting. Maybe you could help me finish.”

“Yes.” And I bite my lip to keep from completely overreacting
in excitement at his small concession.

The
door closes, leaving us blissfully alone. And together. Only Sawyer walks back to a large canvas on the wall, his back to me.

Nerves
slide through me again as I kick off my shoes and step behind him.

I suck in a breath and hold it. He’s painting me. The silhouette of my face is etched in thin black and he kneels down
staring at the white.

“If you’d like to help, you can come down here.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “But it’ll ruin your clothes.”

I freeze, but then strip down until I’m in my tank and panties. At the very least it should get his attention. When I kneel next to him, his eyes float over my body before he closes them and lets out a breath, a small smile forming on the edges of his mouth.

“
You’re not playing fair.”

“You’re too important
to play fair.” I touch the painting, the edge of my closed eye on the canvas. “And you’re not playing fair either.”

“Here.” He takes my hand and dips it in the cool paint, which feels a bit l
ike thick pudding on my fingers and doesn’t touch my hand to the canvas, but leads me close.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Close your eyes and feel it, and tell me where it goes.”

I close my eyes, but the painting isn’t done yet. “You’re missing.”

“What?”

I open my eyes and touch the canvas, leaving red fingerprints on the outline of my forehead. “Your face should be here.”

His hand comes over mine and together we trace the beginning of the outline of his face in smeary red. When he lets go of my hand, I’m still staring at the painting and how the silhouette of him overlaps with the silhouette of me, and all I can think is—
Yes. This is what I want
.

Sawyer
’s thumb traces my jaw, sending shivers through me. “God, I love you, Honor. So much. It hit me so hard and fast, and I’ve been trying not to feel this way. You have the power to ruin me, you know that?”

“I don’t want to ruin you.” The warmth of him starts to take over my body, and I rest my hands on his
face, realizing too late that I’ve painted him.

“You just got me.” He cringes but smiles.

“And did you get me?” I tilt my face to show him the side of me that his thumb slid over.

“Just a little.”
His lips graze over my cheek.

Ignoring the paint and the mess, I take his face in my hands and kiss him like he’s
my everything. Because suddenly he is. I want him to be.

“I want some firsts with you,
” he whispers.

He
stands and pulls me to my feet where I rest against him, tracing the red paint in his hair, his neck, across his cheek.

“
But we need to take care of something first.”

I’m so out of breath from being this close to him that it takes me a minute to answer.
“What?”

He chuckles before touching my nose.
“You’re a mess.” He leans down and hoists me over his shoulder and I laugh as he starts for his bathroom.

“But the painting?” I squeal.

“We can paint it later.” He sets me down in the bathtub as his lips meet mine. The hot water hits me, and I can feel his smile and his hands, and his honesty and the possibility of us because I’m no longer a side of a circle, I’m Honor, the girl in love with Sawyer. The girl who is taking control of her future. And this is all I need to be because I am whole.

Six months later – summer break

Toby

Honor and Libby slam into each other in the hallway of Honor’s New York apartment—the one she shares with
Sawyer.

The girls hold each other w
ith no sign of breaking away and Sawyer gives me a polite shake because we might all be sort of friends, but we don’t know each other well, and are on opposite ends of the nice-guy spectrum. At least I don’t think of him as just “the painter” anymore.

Six months ago Libby came out of the hospital, and we’ve been together ever since. I was honestly scared that her medication would change her somehow, make her less “Libby” but it
didn’t. It made her low days turn into days where we watch movies on the couch together instead of screaming and crying and lying on frozen ponds and her high days less manic and frightening and more like the best parts of being with her. I love her a little more all the time.

The girls are still locked together, and
Sawyer and I both shake our heads.

“How was the drive?” he asks
, trying to fill the near silence.

“Long.” I nod, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Almost as long as it took us to find a place to park
once we got here.”

“I hear
ya.” He chuckles. “I got rid of my car.”

Honor has some big thing where she gets to “parade around” (Libby’s words)
as one of Ralph Lauren’s Black Label girls this weekend, and we’ve come to town to celebrate. Honor’s parents are already here in a hotel somewhere.

Sawyer
clears his throat, but Honor and Libby have their foreheads together and they’re whispering, probably about us.

“Libby said she wanted to see some of the art stores,”
Sawyer says.

“I think she wants to be seen with you at an art store where your work is hung.”
And probably embarrass him. I laugh a little and the girls finally break apart.

“Geez, guys.” Libby’s eyes go wide and exasperated
as she drags Honor through the door. “Don’t just stand in the hallway. It’s weird.”

She is definitely my Libby.

The walls inside the apartment are covered in canvasses, and I wonder how long it took them to clean enough space for us to come.

We play catch up for a bit and Honor plops next to me and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Glad you two have each other.”

“Me too.” I squeeze Honor’s hand.

“Well. I’m supposed to be sleeping and drinking lots of water, and probably not eating anything.” Honor laughs a little as she stands
back up, and it’s still the same gorgeous laugh.

“God
, that’s beautiful.” Libby looks at Sawyer. “Please tell me you appreciate the perfection of that laugh.”

Sawyer
slides his hands around Honor’s waist as Honor’s cheeks flame. “I definitely appreciate the laugh.”

I’m glad Honor has him and I’m glad that when we’re all together it’s not as awkward as it could be after
our time together.