"So tell me again... why are we having dinner today and not tomorrow?" My father asked again, taking another bite of his food. It was a Thursday night, unusual and contrasting with our Friday night dinner tradition.

"I've already told you. Tracy is having a party, I mean, a small gathering to celebrate her birthday."

"It's funny. I've never heard of this Tracy before."

That's because she doesn't exist.

"We're not that close." I say, glancing at my mom for help.

"I thought it was nice of you to come here today to make up for tomorrow, honey."

"Thank you, mom." For all the ways and meanings behind those three words.

Joe's birthday was tomorrow. March 31st. The day before the regatta.

If the regatta wasn't so close on the calendar, my father would've been much more persistent and annoying about my slightly suspicious behavior, but his mind was elsewhere. His worriedness was physical. A blind man could see right through the transparency of his feelings. I didn't exactly know why he was like this. It was just a race. There were no qualifications. It was all a bit just for show.

"What's wrong, dad?"

And then he glanced at my mother with the same pleading eyes for intervention that I also held minutes prior.

I knew in this moment that it wasn't just a race.

"The Washington crew hasn't won in a while." He started, after my mother refused an intervention with an incentive for him to finally tell me the truth. "If we don't get a win soon, we might get cut off. Probably not entirely, but... yeah."

"Oh." The sound that left my mouth echoed in the kitchen like lighting bolts.

"Our sponsors are getting a little disappointed." Those words struggled to leave his mouth. It was almost like he was still admitting that to himself.

"You don't think any of the boats can win?"

He hesitated.

Shit.

I tried to forget about the new information I received last night when I met up with Joe in the morning. The sun was out, but the air was a little chilly for spring. I could feel the wind in my hair as I knocked at his window.

Joe opened it immediately as if he had been waiting for me.

"Is Roger still sleeping?" He nodded to my question. I got inside and he gave me a helping head to prevent me from tripping or falling and eventually making too big of a sound. Even after my feet steadily reached the ground, he didn't let go of my hand and all I could do was look up at him and smile. "Hi."

"Hi." He whispered back to me, gaze fidgeting to my lips before kissing me.

"I have something for you." I said and he raised an eyebrow. "Sit down."

After he sat on his bed, with his hands on my legs pulling me closer to him as I stood in front of him, I took his present out of my trustworthy leather messenger bag.

"What is that?" His blue eyes stared at the paper looking parchment with a red ribbon around it.

"Happy birthday." I gave it to him. His hands left my legs to accept it, I could feel the phantom-like memory of his fingerprints burning through the fabric of my pants.

He unwrapped the red ribbon while looking at me from time to time to catch my reaction. I was pretty much just smiling like a fool, with a nervous tick in the pit of my stomach.

He unraveled the paper and the accelerated bomb inside me turned up the volume of the tick, tick, ticks. It was a drawing, a simple, flawed drawing that resembled him. That was what he asked for, that day where I was still rueing my thoughts and fears in relation to what I felt for him, that day when we encountered each other in George's crafts room and I had to stood there as they looked at the shrine of past works in the wall next to the window.

The simple, flawed drawing was an image of him that I did one day when he fell asleep with his head on my lap after rowing practice. We were outside, under the same old tree, with the river keeping us company in the distance.

Joe looked up at me. I waited for him to say anything, but it was taking too long. The silence was eating me alive.

"I know it's not perfect. And I know it's slightly creepy that I did that while you were sleeping, but you asked for it that day with George and I thought it'd be a nice gift. Because, honestly, I didn't know what to get you. I actually don't know if I should've gotten you anything or not. I just-"

"Thank you." He gently place the drawing on his nightstand before his hands met my legs again. "It's perfect." He pulled down into his lap. "You're perfect." His eyes were glistening. "You didn't have to get me anything."

"But it's your birthday!"

"It's just another day." He leaned closer to me, face less than an inch away from mine.

"No, it's not." I said. "It's your 20th birthday. It should be special."

"I never liked my birthday."

I knew that was coming. My mind had already thought about the amount of birthdays Joe had spent alone, by himself, all by his lonesome, since he was 14 years old.

"It's time to change that." My lips brushed against his. "I'm taking you out tonight."

"You are?" His lips curved into a smile.

"Yes. We're going to the movies."

We saw It happened in Paris. It was a romance movie with many open seats. The screen room was rather empty except for a few other couples and small groups of girls.

The story was sweet. Really sweet. It was about two artists, he — an aspiring painter — and she — an aspiring fashion designer.

In the beginning of the movie, there was one scene where the woman found the man's sketchbook and saw a drawing of her. The moment when that scene showed up on the screen Joe whispered into my ear:

"Is that what your sketchbook looks like? Only drawings of me?"

There was a grin in his tone and I called him an idiot under my breath as I felt his arm go over my shoulders. I thought he looked happy, carefree. That certainly made me happy and carefree.

"I wanna run off to Paris, right now." He said after we walked out of the movie.

"You liked it?" He nodded to my question. We were walking side by side on the sidewalk, hands grazing, not quite touching, not quite holding.

"Sometimes I forget that there's an entire world outside this country." He started speaking his mind, which was something that didn't happen much without my persistent questions. But here he was opening up about the ruins of his brain completely voluntarily. "This state, even. I've never been outside of it, I think, at least I have no recollection of leaving."

"We could go on a road-trip one day." I suggested.

"To where?" His eyes gleamed in this perfect night.

"Anywhere."

"Anywhere?" I nodded to his question.

A voice called for him, interrupting our conversation:

"Joe!" I watched his head lift up in the name of surprise before I turned around to meet the owner of the voice.

The owner was a beautiful, elegant, angelic, blonde girl with an irritatingly welcoming smile. Very much like the woman from the movie. She looked like a Hollywood starlet. A star in itself.

"Joyce. Hi." He greeted her with a hug and I just stood there wondering who she was, and how did they know each other, and why they were hugging, and many many other things. "This is Elizabeth. My-"

Joe looked at me with a different kind of joy in his eyes.

"Your girlfriend!" She went to give me hug. I felt awkward. Her voice was sweet, almost too sweet. I didn't know why I felt so disarmed as she hugged me.

"It's nice to meet you." I said.

"God, you're even more beautiful than Joe described!" She complimented me eye to eye. I was starstruck, trying to figure out which thought to bring to light.

"Thank you." I settled for gratitude, even if I was simultaneously thinking about the fact that he told her about me, the fact that he was close enough to her to mention me, the fact that he was trying his best not to blush but still failing, the fact that she didn't actually know me but still had the initiative to tell me I'm beautiful. "You're really beautiful too."

She was. She was beautiful, and, as much as I hated to say this, I hated her for it. Not hate. Something close, something that I didn't want to admit.

She smiled at me, with a Thank you in the sparkle of her eyes, before speaking again:

"What movie did you guys watch?"

"It happened in Paris." He answered.

"I love that movie." Of course she did.

What is wrong with you, Elizabeth?

Envy. That was what was wrong with me. Envy. Envy. Envy. I envied her eyes, her lips, her glow, her essence. I envied her.

"Where do you two know each other?" I popped up the question.

"You never told her about me?" She joked and I watched her hand softly hit his shoulder.

Jealousy.

"No." He said between a low laugh.

"We went to school together." She explained, but that information didn't give me the explanation for why they were so comfortable with each other.

"But Joyce transferred in..." He turned his gaze to her. "What? 6th grade?"

"Around that, I think." She seemed excited and gloomy.

I envied her for knowing him before I did. Joyce knew a different side of him that I would never know. And, in the fog of my green lights, I tried not to think of the many ways she knew him that I didn't, or even the ways we both knew him. 

"Did you keep contact?" I asked.

Did she know the pressure of his kiss?

"No, no." He answered.

"We actually only reunited like a month and a half ago." She added and looked at him for confirmation.

Joe and I started dating a month and a half ago.

"That's nice." I tried to sound honest. "I didn't know you had any friends of your own."

Horrible thing to say, I know. I was afraid he would take it seriously. He didn't. He laughed nervously. He was nervous... Why was he nervous? Did he feel guilty? Why would he feel guilty?

"I don't want to keep you two here. Nor do I want to meddle in your date." She spoke while still casting that polite smile. "I just wanted to say hi and finally meet the Elizabeth." I couldn't hate her. "Have a good night."

She didn't wish him a happy birthday. Did she know? Maybe she didn't. Or maybe she had already told him before.

"You too." He said.

And she walked in the theatre as we walked away from it.

"Why did you never tell me about Joyce?" I had to ask.

"Oh. I don't know. I just didn't think it was important." He intertwined our fingers as he spoke. It was important. Very important. So important that it made me spiral. I was feeling dizzy. Anxiety was spinning me around and around and around and a r o u n d.

"You seem close." My words were slightly bitter.

"She is the only person I know from my childhood." He said and my heart cracked open. "I met her before... everything." Joe heard the cracking of my heart, the bloody crooked lines. I was completely sure of it.

"I'm happy you have someone." A bittersweet happiness danced in my tongue. "I just kind of wished you had told me about her."

"You do?" I nodded. "I'm sorry."

You weren't supposed to say that.

"I..." Need to shut the fuck up.

He stopped walking when I stopped speaking after making a humiliating and egocentric noise.

"What is it?"

I took a deep breath.

"She's pretty." Simple words. True words.

I watched his face dissolve into an emotional epiphany. 

"Liz..."

"I'm sorry. I know it's stupid, but I can't not feel this way."

"You thought I had something with her?"

I hesitated.

"Yes."

I watched his face dissolve into a frown.

"You thought I'd do that to you?"

Yes.

"No."

I felt my eyes watering with the way he was staring into my cracked open heart.

"Come here." He wrapped me in his arms and rested his head on top of mine. I held on to him for dear life. "I would never do something like that."

Cheating. Lying. Something like that. Something like what I continuously let Anthony do to me.

"I know..."

I knew it. But at the same time I didn't.

We stayed there for a while, holding each other's bodies in silence, under the night sky, in the middle of some empty street. My mind was travelling through endless waters.

What will my father say? What will he think? I didn't want to be wrong again, I didn't want to be broken again just because I broke his rules. I didn't want him to be right. I didn't want him to tell me I told you so all over again. But it could happen. I had no guarantees that Joe wasn't going to hurt me in the same way Anthony did, or even worse. I had absolutely no guarantees, my hands were rather empty. But it was not about the stupid rule. If the one that gathered my heart in their net wasn't one of my father's rowers, I would still have no guarantees, no insurance on the safety of my own feelings.

It was out of my control. It was out of my dad's control.

That was probably where he was coming from: a parental protection. And probably, in his head, it was even harder when the person with the bloody sword in their hands had an oar in the other.

I shouldn't be thinking about this.

"Joyce was actually the one who pushed me into talking to you." He said and I looked up at him extremely confused. "When I told you I liked you, hum... the day before... she helped me realize that I had to fight for you."

"You don't have to fight for me." There were cracks in my voice.

"I did have to. You and your little head tried to push me away and I couldn't let that happen." He tried to make a light joke, but guilt was the only thing I saw in my blurried vision.

"I'm sorry for ever thinking that of you."

"It's not your fault."

Marilyn told me the same thing, when I was deep in the trenches of my insecurity. However, it didn't erase the murdering feeling of guilt inside me. I had an imposter-syndrome, as it was written in her textbooks. I had many other things that poisoned my brain and cracked open my heart.

I felt shattered. The pieces that somehow didn't fly with the wind, nor drown in the raging water, still stood in the soil, rotting to death. And I wondered how was he still here. And why. I couldn't help but keep wondering why.

"Let's go." He said, squeezing my waist.

I'd really run off with him to literally anywhere.

a/n:

—> we're finally approaching the plot of the movie... yupiiii