Page 168 of Loving the Liar

I walk proudly out of the studio. Since I’m back studying dance as a major, I’ve been enjoying the rehearsal space whenever I want, and I was over the moon when they accepted my special request to teach Olivia one-on-one. The more I was teaching kids, the more I understood this is what I want to do.

I don’t want to deal with the anxiety that comes with competing, whether it be cheer or ballet. I don’t want the feistiness of the girls going for the main roles in the shows we’re performing. And even less in the shows outside of college.

I love dancing, but what I love the most is sharing it with others and seeing them thrive like I do from their growing passion. My dad must be turning around in his grave knowing I not only went back to a career he thought unstable, but also that will never make me the kind of money he would have expected. But fuck him because I love it.

Olivia runs to her mom’s arms the second we walk out of the studio.

“How was she?” Kayla asks me, holding her baby girl tightly.

“She’s amazing.”

She smiles to herself. “She really is.”

“Bye, Olivia,” I exclaim, waving at the little girl who completely ignores me as her and her mom walk out. “See you next week!”

I pick up a call from Peach as I exit the building half an hour later.

“Last SFU party of the year, baby. What time are we pre-gaming?”

“I’m not sure,” I say as I walk toward the humanities building, past it, and then to the parking lot. “I have to go somewhere, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Or if I’ll be back tonight.”

I play with the pearl necklace I’m wearing, rolling a pearl around the string. I finished it myself all those months without Chris. It was like a part of him was still helping me heal while he was staying away from me.

“Um…will you be back at all? You’re not running away or something, are you?”

She’s referring to me leaving without telling anyone over Christmas break. I didn’t want to spend Christmas at the family house, and I didn’t want to be in Stoneview knowing Chris was there. What I really wanted was to be in New York City, to see what my life could have been like if I had gone to Juilliard.

I spent a week among the tall buildings, walked in the freezing cold, then entered the stuffy subway. I tried to imagine being married to some middle-aged Shadow here and came to the realization that not only do I hate the city, but I would have hated it a lot more if Chris hadn’t stopped me from going there so my dad could marry me off to his CFO. And then I returned to the same usual problem: Chris should have run it past me.

That’s all my brain has been doing these last months. Oscillating between knowing some of his decisions were good, some bad, but that every single one of them was aimed toward getting us together without my knowledge. And every time, I have to purposely tell myself that even if it was everything I wanted, to be his, I should have a say in it.

I sit in my car and grab his journal out of my bag. I can’t seem to stop carrying it with me everywhere. I read it all the first night he gave it to me, almost calling him right away and telling him I choose him. But that would have been running back to my old ways.

As humans, we find such comfort in our toxic habits. It’s not just the obvious ones like smoking cigarettes or cutting. It’s the more subconscious ones. Loving someone who doesn’t deserve us. Putting our happiness on the line to please others. Letting our dark thoughts take over because they feel familiar.

It’s an everyday conscious decision to do everything in our power to be happy, but down the line, it’s worth it. And staying away from Chris for all these months was my own way of showing myself I could try my hardest to be happy without my toxic habits. I stopped cutting, I stopped forcing myself to be the girl everyone loves, and I focused on the things I truly wanted to do. And of course, I kept my ex out of my life.

For once, he was respectful enough to stay away. To not contact me, to not mess with my life so he could be in it. It’s funny how once we weren’t studying the same thing, we didn’t see each other that often. Not in the Law and Humanities building, not at parties, not at sporting events. Turns out, once the man stopped following me everywhere, it was easy to avoid him.

The hardest was his father’s funeral. All I wanted to do was run to the front and wrap my arms around him. But I stayed back with my mom while my brother hugged his best friend in front of his father’s grave. And that’s where I’m going now.

When I park in front of Stoneview cemetery, I open the journal again. Two pictures come out. They’re both from our high school years. Selfies we had taken together when we were alone. In one of them, we’re kissing, and in the other, I’m kissing his smiling cheek so hard my face is crushed against the side of his head.

We look so silly and happy.

I open to the first page, and it’s a note to me. The one I know by heart.

Dear Ella,

Someday, I will show you this. All the notes I made for you so you can see yourself through my eyes.

I hope then you’ll understand why I can’t stop thinking about you.

I flick through the journal for what feels like hours. Note after note about what he thinks of my eyes, my skin, my dancing skills. Of the way he sees my body and my mind. Of how impressed he is with me that I have a passion I can’t let go of. There are notes from the night I told him I wouldn’t be with him if he was my last option. Notes from the days he was assisting classes.

It's all there. His love and obsession for me.

It’s crazy to think that for a while, I was writing to him often, little sentences here and there, but that I never showed him how much I missed him. We did the same thing for each other without knowing for so long.

---