Page 24 of Be Your Anything
I’ve perfected a mask of confidence that I wear when he’s around, allowing him to only see the best version of me.
But on the inside, I’m desperate for his approval, his validation, his interest.
It’s a scary place to find myself—and yet one of the most wonderful places to be.
“Find anything interesting?” I ask, breaking the silence as I sit back into one of the much more comfortable armchairs on theotherside of my desk, digging a pair of chopsticks into my plain white box of eggplant stir-fry.
Lucas’ silence has me turning in his direction, and when I see what he’s looking at, it takes everything in me not to groan, not to rush over and snatch it out of his hands.
It’s the picture.
Thepicture.
The one that sat prominently in my residence hall room then in my bedroom at the sorority house before following me off campus and then to Paris.
It used to sit on a shelf in my bedroom, but I moved it to my office knowing Lucas would be too likely to see it with all the time we’ve been spending rotating between our beds.
I was fifteen years old in that picture, Lucas just a year older. A year ahead of me in school, he was that older boy I just couldnotseem to get out of my head, the boy I’d grown up with, who I’d always wished would pay me a different kind of attention.
That night, at Tinsley’s party, someone snapped a picture of the two of us.
It’s innocent enough. We’re both sitting on the steps of the back patio at her dad’s house. In the background, there’s a pool lit up with lights and palm trees growing up twenty or thirty feet.
We’re seated on opposite sides of the steps, our backs leaning against opposite posts, looking at each other, and whatever had just happened in that moment, it’d made me burst into laughter, my head tilted back, my eyes squished shut, and my mouth wide, the joy and happiness on my face—in my smile—undeniable.
And the way Lucas is looking at me, a sly grin teasing at the corners of his mouth…well, it was a moment I’ve always been glad was caught on someone’s phone and sent to me, even if I don’t remember what made me laugh like that.
He won his first big tournament that day, the youngest winner in his division at barely sixteen years old.
I remember standing next to him as he waxed his board, nerves rolling off of him in such thick waves I could feel it on my skin.
“You’re gonna be famous someday,” I told him.
He looked up at me, that cocky bravado he normally exudes not anywhere present in his face.
“I’m not worried about being famous,” he’d said. “I just don’t want to make a fucking idiot of myself in front of all these people.”
I gave him a saucy smirk, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Well, my opinion of you is the only one that matters, and I already think you’re a fucking idiot. So stop stressing.”
He laughed, stood from where he was kneeling, and gave me a hug.
“You are exactly what I need today, Len. Thank you.”
Lucas kissed me on the cheek, winked at me, and went back to waxing his board.
I nearly buckled at the knees.
And then there was what happened later that evening, between the surfing competition and the picture in the backyard.
That night he looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
And, for just a few minutes, Lucas was mine.
“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to,” he says, the kindness in his eyes only visible because of the little bit of light creeping through the doorjamb. Otherwise, the room we’re in is completely dark.
I’m unable to respond, my nerves continuing to bubble up to the surface in a way they never have before.
