“How you doin’, Aaron?”
“I’m okay. Is Gen home?”
“Still in her room, I think.”
Other fathers wouldn’t let a boy into their home the way he does.
Her door is cracked open and I peek in and see her on her bed surrounded by wet paintbrushes and open paint bottles and sketchbooks. She tears a page out of one book, crumples it up, and throws it onto the floor, the graveyard of failed drawings. Then she grabs a new brush.
I knock and let myself in, tensing up when she looks at me.
She drops her paintbrush and bursts into tears.
I rush to comfort her, but there’s no room for me to sit with all these open sketchbooks and unfinished paintings on her bed. There’s one of a girl talking to a boy made of leaves; another of an ocean monster destroying a girl’s sand castle; a third of a girl falling out of a tree while a boy sits idly by eating an apple. I shove them aside. I’m not just wrapping my arms around her to make her happy or to lie to myself; I have to stop her hurting, and for once it’s so real I forget my own forgetting problems.
“I know better than to ask if you’re okay,” I whisper.
Genevieve pulls her hands away from her face. Now probably isn’t the best time to point out the fingerprints of paint across her forehead and cheeks. “Seeing you with Collin really messed me up, Aaron. I have no idea if you were at the track field to see Thomas or if it was a coincidence, but it brought back everything I had to pretend never happened.”
I turn away. “I’m sorry about that. And about him. I’m really, really sorry I led you on before the procedure. And even sometime after it. I wasn’t fully ready to be this guy who liked guys, and needed a girlfriend to protect me.”
She strokes my face, probably getting paint on me. “I know. Even after our first kiss, I knew.”
“Only a guy who likes guys wouldn’t want to kiss you,” I say. “I’m sorry for being such an asshole.”
Genevieve traces my scar, left to right and right to left, like I have countless times, like she might have too, if I could remember. “I could never hate you for being gay, but when you came back to me, I loved forgetting you were.”
“We made a pretty cool faux-couple when I thought it was real,” I joke.
She rests her head on my shoulder. “If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have lied to myself that it was real. I wouldn’t have dated you and I definitely wouldn’t have had sex with you.” There’s a moment where I think she’s going to say something more. She sighs and adds, “So you didn’t go through with the procedure. What made you change your mind?”
I can’t comfortably tell her how Thomas made me okay with myself. I can’t tell her how I want to spend my days taking on the world with him and watching movies and drinking Blue Moons late into the night while we draw on each other.
“The procedure promised happiness but it wasn’t real. About Leteo, actually . . . my mind is kind of messed up, which is why I really had to see you today. I’m going through this thing called anterograde amnesia which means—”
Genevieve pulls away. “I knew it.” Her bloo
dshot eyes are wide, searching. “It was in the video we watched before, the one about side effects. You also . . . when I spoke to you the day after you woke up, you forgot something I said to you. I thought you zoned out or were trying to hurt me.”
I can’t be selfish anymore. “Are you and Thomas happy together?”
“We’re nothing right now. Honestly. Just hanging out, but I like it. I think I need something real after everything . . .” It stings and burns and kind of kills me too, but I don’t take it personally. “I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sure it’s not something you’re particularly excited to remember.”
“Two of my favorite people being happy? Sure it is.” While it isn’t 100 percent genuine, it’s not a lie either. Not by any stretch. As long as Thomas is telling the truth about who he is. She would be lucky to have him and he would be damn lucky to have her.
I glance at her crumpled drawings on the floor. “Maybe you’re drawing the wrong things. You should try painting what you want your life to look like. It could be a map of your future. I’m sure Thomas would love to help you with that as long as you don’t let him get too carried away with it.”
“Or maybe you can help me,” Genevieve says, scooting over.
“I can’t.” I swallow and choke out the last two words, suddenly remembering my brother is downstairs waiting for me. “You’re beautiful.”
“Beautiful enough to turn you straight?” She wipes a tear away and laughs a little. “A girl’s gotta try. I love you, Aaron. I don’t mean it in a weird way.”
This is probably the last time we’ll stare at each other like this. I lean in and kiss her, and it’s genuine and happy and all final kisses should be like this.
“Genevieve, no matter what . . .”
She rests her forehead on mine.