Zoey smiled instinctively, and she met my eyes for one short second before she turned away from me again. “Just for a short while,” she said.
We walked inside, and I saw Zoey looking around the apartment like she didn’t recognize it. I had packed away all my paintings, and the place looked empty without them… maybe even a little lonely. But that was my perspective. I wondered what Zoey thought. Was she seeing the chance to start fresh without me and make memories of her own? Or was she seeing the recent past when we had been happy and together and ensconced in our own little bubble?
“You took down your paintings,” Zoey said.
“I’m getting all my packing out of the way,” I told her. “And preparing for the exhibition at the same time.”
Zoey gave me a smile. “Seth told me that your paintings were still being exhibited. I’m really happy for you. You deserve to have your paintings seen.”
“Would it be too much to ask if you could possibly come?” I wondered out loud.
Zoey didn’t say anything immediately. She seemed intent on avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know, Devlin,” she said. “I want to be there to support you… I believe in your work, and I think you deserve this but….”
“I screwed things up so royally you don’t want to look at my face ever again?” I offered.
She sighed. “That’s not how I feel.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you di
d,” I said. “I did lie to you… and I kept justifying those lies, which is even worse.”
“If you don’t mind… I’d rather not to talk about all that,” Zoey said quickly.
I nodded. “Ok.”
“I’m sorry you have to leave this place,” Zoey said. “I know you’ve always loved this apartment.”
“It represented my freedom,” I said. “My autonomy from my parents. It was the first place that was truly mine, and it took a while to get here.”
“Where did you live before you moved to this apartment?” Zoey asked.
“I rented out a room in this guy’s house,” Devlin told me. “Uh, actually it wasn’t a room so much as their basement. But the rent was dirt cheap, and I didn’t need much space anyway. I couldn’t paint though, and that part was hard.”
“Where will you go now?” Zoey asked.
I smiled. “It’s back to the basement for me.”
“What?”
“I called Jeff… he’s the guy whose basement I rented back in the day. Turns out it’s free, and he’s willing to let me rent it out for cheap.”
“Doesn’t sound that way,” Zoey said, looking slightly rattled by that information. Was it possible that she still cared about me… enough to care where I was sleeping after I’d moved out of here?
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ll be fine… and it’s going to be temporary. Just until I find a real job.”
“Can’t you… ask your parents for some help?” Zoey suggested.
“No way,” I said immediately. “I’m already in their debt for the bail posting my father made. I can’t ask them for more.”
I looked at Zoey and tried to memorize her face. She was so beautiful, but I knew that that beauty was beyond my reach now. It felt as though all I had left of her now were the paintings I had created in her image. They all seemed like pale imitations… but they had come to mean much more to me over the last few weeks.
“I never did thank you,” I said. “For convincing my father to come and help me…”
“I wasn’t sure if that was the right decision,” Zoey admitted.
“I never expected him actually to listen.”
“Apparently he does care about you.”