Page 40 of One True Loves

My friends, the people at school, the boys I’ve dated—I know how they would answer this question. Loud, sassy Lenore is definitely the life of the party. But is that really how I am if I have to make a conscious choice to do that? If, after I’ve been that Lenore all day, I have to go home and recover because my brain feels scrambled and my face feels prickly? It’s definitely a part of me, but it’s not all I am. It’s not my natural state.

How did I get to this point, where I have to perform for everyone around me? Am I going to do that for the rest of my life? Who am I going to be when I move across the country,away from everyone I love and everything I know, and start my life over?

My heart’s beating fast, and I can feel my face getting hard. I don’t want to do this right now.

“You know what, these corny-ass questions are not it.” I grab the papers from him, not roughly but assertively, and fold them. “I know you have ‘the best intentions’”—I put up quotes with my fingers—“but I’m huffing in way too much donkey shit and my thighs are burning and I’m sweaty and we just need to cut this.”

He stops walking, takes a deep breath, and his lips curve into a small smile. “Well then, I guess we can rule out any majors and careers that require physical activity.”

“Boy, you better be quiet,” I laugh, and playfully shove his shoulder. He stumbles backward, eyes going wide, and then catches himself. I bite my bottom lip and stare at him guiltily. Ireallywasn’t trying to do all that.

But then he bursts into laughter too. “Woooooooooow!”

“It was an accident! Mostly! Assume the best!” I giggle as I jog up stairs, and he chases after me, until we’re both falling over, laughing in between big gulps of breath. Two men with leathery tan skin pulling donkeys behind them give us curious looks as they pass by, and I wonder what we look like to them. Can they tell we just met a few days ago? That we hated each other until yesterday? It’s crazy how things became so easy so fast.

“Okay, yes, we can be a little less formal,” Alex says, whenwe finally stop huffing and begin walking again. “Plus, the next questions are about your emotional intelligence, and I know how you’re going to react to that.”

“CORNY. ASS.”

“Those are actually some of the questions that tripped me up the first time I took one of these tests and kept me from getting ‘doctor’ listed as one of my career possibilities,” he says. “So I just took it a couple more times until I aced it.”

“Oh my god!” I laugh. “Pretty sure that’s not how that’s supposed to work. Do you ever get tired trying to be so perfect?”

“You sound like my guidance counselor.” He shrugs and smiles. “But do you want a doctor who’s not a perfectionist?”

I point at him. “Touché.”

“Well, so, let’s get right to the point then: What are you really good at?”

I suck my cheeks in and fix my eyes on the ground. That question knocks me over like a wave at the beach. Am Ireallygood at anything? I’m good at a lot of things. But am Ireallygood? Am I the best, like Etta and Wally and my parents are the best at what they do? Like Alex apparently is? Maybe that’s why I hop around so much, so I can hide that I’m average.

I take a deep breath, swallowing down those feelings, and paste on a big smile. “I’m good at a lot of things, okay?” I say. I throw in a snap for emphasis. I know how to play this.

“I know you are.” He grins, but then his eyes narrow and he scratches his cheek. “But I mean, specifically.”

“I make clothes,” I say, pressing a finger into my palm. “And just, like, styling, in general. I’m okay at painting with acrylics, and I got really into block printing for a while there. I know my way around Final Cut Pro and InDesign. And art history, of course, but more modern stuff is my jam. Like, Basquiat, yes, Vermeer, let me take a nap. And yeah... that’s just some of what I worked on at Chrysalis. That’s the art school I went to.”

The words slowly sputter to a halt. Thankfully. I used to be able to list all these things and feel confident about it, but now it feels flighty, chaotic. No wonder my parents are worried.

But Alex doesn’t have the judge-y look I expected. Which is good, because if he did I was going to push him off this cliff, for real. “Okay, problem solved,” he says. “Major in one of those things, then. Honestly, this was faster than even I expected.”

I sigh. “Just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean I want to do it forever. Or even commit to studying it for four years of college. Plus, I can’t switch from a BA to a BFA with a form. It’s more complicated than that.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, do you mind if we stop for a second?” I ask. We’ve reached a bend, and my whole body feels like it’s on fire. I haven’t done this much exercise since we took the Physical Fitness Test in ninth grade, and I’m pretty sure I failed that.

“Sure. Yeah, of course.”

We walk over to a rest area that is thankfully void of donkey-poop piles because apparently those poor things don’tget to rest. I put my hands on my hips and really take in the view: the curves of the stairs we’ve already climbed snaking down the mountain. The bright sun sparkling off the brilliant blue sea. I guess this might have been worth it, just to see Santorini like that. But I will never, ever admit that to Alex.

I turn my camera on, the loud mechanical sound getting Alex’s attention. I can feel his eyes on me as I crouch down to get the perfect angle for this shot, the water stretching out into forever.

“Why not that?” he asks. I click, and a picture cranks out of the top.

“Why not what?” I ask, playing dumb.

“Photography. Why don’t you major in that? The way you look when you have that thing—” He gestures to my camera and shrugs. “Well, you seem happy. Peaceful.”

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