“You need to talk,” Tami says. “Right now. What’s going on between you two?”
Ivy looks at Ash, calmer than I’ve seen her all day, but a feeling of dread washes over me. She is so sure of the righteousness of her heart, so sure she’s going to win, but it is a naïve and foolish kind of confidence. This world is not made for people who think with their hearts. And people like Tami don’t like to lose.
“You didn’t tell her we knew each other from before?” Ivy asks Ash.
Ash just sits there with his mouth slightly open. His beautiful, empty mouth.
“We met a year and a half ago,” Ivy says. “On an island in Brazil. We fell in love.”
This is supposed to be Ivy’s triumphant big reveal, but Tami just laughs. It is a hollow, grating laugh. Tami is not someone who admits to being caught off guard. She acts like none of this is news to her. “Love?” she says. “Is that what you call a vacation fling?”
“It was more than that,” Ivy says. “It is more than that.”
“I know the vacation you’re talking about. Ash and I were already dating by then. He was depressed when he came back. I helped him recover from whatever you did to him. That’s what you call love. Not some two-week romance when you were a junior. Jesus, you really are nuts.”
“She’s not crazy,” Ash manages to say, but just barely, and then he retreats into his shadow, like he used up whatever tiny amount of courage he had for that useless statement and now there’s nothing of him left. He is hollowed out and gone. Now it is just Tami versus Ivy.
“Who needs a drink?” Tami says with false cheer, like this is all so small, it doesn’t even bother her. “I’ll make everybody drinks.”
“No one needs a drink,” Ash says. “Let’s all just go home.”
“Giving up so soon?” Tami says. “We’re just getting started. I want to hear everything Ivy Avila has to say.”
“Ash doesn’t love you,” Ivy says. “He’s never loved you. He loves me.”
“My god,” Tami laughs. “You’re batshit.”
I wait for Ash to interject, to at least say Ivy’s not crazy again, the one thing he seems capable of doing, but he stays silent, wide-eyed, watching this scene unfold before him like something he has no intention of participating in.
Ivy jumps up, wobbles slightly on her feet. “You don’t even know him. He only chose you because he gave up on real love, because he gave up on the life he actually wants. Because you and your fake little world sucked the life out of him. But he’s not going to do that anymore. Right, Ash? Tell her. Tell her she’s a mistake.”
But Ash is gone. He has a “Do Not Disturb” sign etched on his face. Everything Ivy says bounces off of him and falls flat at her feet. His shadow collects itself and sneaks away.
I try to get up to leave, but I am stuck in this place, tied to these people. They will not let me go.
“What’s going on, Ash?” Tami says, in an absurd imitation of kind. It would be comic if any of this was funny. “Tell us the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” Ivy says.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Tami snaps.
“Almost two years,” Ivy says. “He’s loved me the whole time.”
“Really?” Tami says, eyebrows raised, with contempt so thick, it’s practically dripping off of her. “You were in contact that whole time? You were seeing each other behind my back for two years, while we were away, together, at school?”
“Well, no. We lost contact for a while, but—”
“That’s not love. That’s not a relationship. That’s a fling. You’re a fling. No one loves girls like you. You’re just candy.”
“That’s not true,” Ivy says. “Ash, tell her that’s not true. Show her who you really are. Tell her you don’t want to get an MBA and be another A-Corp executive. You have dreams.”
But he’s just sitting there, a statue without its shadow.
“Oh, are you talking about his little music hobby?” Tami says.
“It’s his passion, which you would know if you gave a shit about him at all. You would support him being who he really is.”
“Yeah, and what? End up like you? Some washed-up child star whose career is already over at eighteen? You know you’re never going to work for A-Corp again, right? No one’s going to want to pay the kind of insurance you require. You’re not worth it anyway. There are so many girls like you, pretty little nobodies with desperate mothers who think they’ve got something special, some ticket to success. But you’re nothing special. There are thousands of girls just waiting to take your place.”
“That’s uncalled for,” Ash manages to say.
“Oh come on. What do you even see in her? Do you actually buy it, her whole tortured artist thing? You think being next to her, maybe some of it will rub off on you. You can pretend for a little while it’s you who’s the star. But I hate to break it to you, honey, she’s not a star anymore. That light’s gone out.”
“He doesn’t love you,” Ivy says again. She will keep saying it until she makes it matter to anyone but herself. “And if you supposedly love him so much, why are you cheating on him? He knows about it, you know. He knows all about it.”
“Of course he does,” Tami says coolly. “But he understands sometimes people need to decompress. Sometimes we’re under a lot of stress and need something uncomplicated. But it’s never about love. You know that, right? Ash? I’ve never cheated with my heart.”
“You’re a monster,” he says, barely a whisper.
“But you make everything so complicated!” Tami yells. “Give me a fucking break.”
Ivy walks over to the chair where Ash is sitting, kneels down beside it, and puts her arm around him. But he does not bend to her, does not lean in. He stays stiff, unmoving.
“Ash,” Ivy says, facing him. He cannot look her in the eyes. “It can all be over now. Just tell Tami it’s over. Tell her you never loved her, that your whole relationship was built on you following the rules. But you don’t want to do that anymore.”
“I never loved her?” he says, but his eyes are turned down, and there is a question at the end of his statement, like he’s saying it because he was instructed to, like he’s reading it off of a script and is not sure it’s a good line.
“You love me,” Ivy says.
“Yes.”
“You’re done with Tami. You’re coming with me. We’re going to start a life together.”