The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

50

I JUST DON'T GET IT, why did you say that?" I said to her while she had a face mask on, sitting comfortably on the sofa and scrolling through her phone. She knew what I was talking about.

"Maeve, it's a tiny thing." She looked above her phone at me, her words a little muffled by the wet thing placed on her face. I heard her just fine though.

"No, it's not a tiny thing."

"Yes it is," she sets her phone down and comes over to where I'm standing, taking both my hands in hers. "Honey, you're just tired from filming, we'll talk about this tomorrow, alright?"

It hadn't been the first time something like this has happened. She would soothe me out, talk some sweet talk to me, and distract me away from this topic. This topic, which was a very blurb at first, has become crystal clear over the past two to three weeks.

I took her hands off of me. "I'm sick of this, no, I am done with this, Klarise. You're running away from what you're so clearly doing, what you're so clearly afraid of."

She crossed her arms above her torso, eyes no longer so sweet. It scared me a little when she stared at me like that. "What am I exactly doing? What am I exactly afraid of?"

"You're," I took a big inhale, barely able, barely wanting to say it out loud. It had been in my head for a while, but saying it out loud felt like it was becoming a clearer truth. I didn't want to believe it, but that interview was the last thing keeping me from avoiding it. "You're afraid of being seen with me."

A bitter laughter escaped her, and as she did I frowned, just waiting for her to be done. The laughter seemed to go on endlessly between my ears.

"Okay, Maeve, you're really tired, now please, can we just go to bed?"

"You're not only afraid of being seen with me, you don't want anyone to know about us. You're ashamed."

She stopped smiling, and now her face was still.

"And this is why I am telling you this. I am telling you this because of that interview, I don't want to be your rival or whatever, Klarise. I want to be your girlfriend. I want to...to show you off as my date for premieres, for Academy Awards. I want to take you out to dinners, to treat you after a tiring week. I want to——"

"Stop."

Each breath I was taking felt like swallowing needles.

"Stop what you're saying, Maeve, because you don't know what you're saying. In fact, you have absolutely no idea what you're saying."

I scoffed. "I know exactly what I'm saying. You're just too scared to hear it."

She laughed bitterly. "Fine, well I guess I am. You want to do this now? Okay then, let's talk about fucking homosexuality!" She threw her arms up, spun around one turn, and looked at me. I flinched.

I swallowed, trying to still myself. "Why do you have to put it like that?" My voice came out that of a little shy kid, so quiet and timid.

"Because that's what you are!" She stepped closer to me, hands squeezing my arms. "You're a lesbian who hasn't come out to the world yet! Because you're scared it'll jeopardize your career!"

"No, that isn't true. I am proud, I am not ashamed of——"

She shook her head back and forth rapidly. "Well tell me why haven't you announced to the world that you're queer yet?"

I couldn't answer her.

She laughed. "I thought so."

As quickly as my confidence has fallen by her words, it came back as I remembered what this was really about. "Don't talk about this like you're any different. We're in this together."

"Actually, I am different. We're very different, Maeve, if you've even taken a second to think about that."

"No we're——"

"I can like guys, I can fuck them all day long if you asked me to. But you? Maeve, you know you can't. Okay, maybe you can, but the difference here is that I can have sex with them and feel pleasurable, feel happy. And you can't."

The way she said it, the way her eyes had glared down at me as she did so, I think it was the first time I heard an insult coming from her. An insult that really, really hurted.

And as if to confirm that, she added, "I am better than you, Maeve."

I slapped her hands off of me, backing away. "You're a fucking coward, Klarise."

"I am, at least I can admit that."

"You're right, we're not so much as the same."

Before she said anything else, I ran out of there. I opened her apartment door, banged it shut behind me, and started to run off. Did I always run that much? And I found myself in the parking lot below the first floor, the only thing keeping me company was the cars parked in the dark massive space. I had tears pouring out of my eyes unwillingly.

There was something I had also learned during the past two to three weeks just being with Klarise. When something hits, when she reaches pass a certain line, words start coming out of her, sometimes incredibly harsh. And I don't know if she can stop herself, but when those words come out I feel both her and me start to fall apart. Most of the time I know that she doesn't truly mean it, that it's just the anger and the point passing doing its work. But they still hurt, and especially coming from someone you so love, it hurts like a thousand stabs to a fresh wound. In the end, that's what always broke us.

I don't know exactly how long I stayed there for, but when I thought I could stop the tears from gushing out, I pulled myself up and walked toward the elevator. I didn't bring my keys, so I couldn't walk in secretly without waking her. I knocked.

The door opened, and when it was, I was prepared to maybe just let her have it, let her win, let her fight, and I'll just apologize and leave the topic alone as the way she had wanted it to be in the first place. Someone always had to take a step down in a relationship for it to work.

But instead, when I saw Klarise in her nightgown, her face was tear streaked and her hand was trembling on the door even as she held onto it.

"I was so scared you weren't coming back." She said then, eyes barely able to focus on me. "That you might leave me."

I let myself sink into her, the fight more or so drained out of me. Her cries made me ache.

"I-I didn't mean any of what I said. I'm so sorry I said those things, I really do. But they just kept coming and I couldn't seem to not stop them at the time. I——"

"Shhh," I put my finger up to her lips, tears now dry on my own face. But I wanted to cry even as calm as I was. Wasn't that why I was an actress? "It's late now, do you want to go to bed?"

She nodded, a little too gently like one more movement from her might break me. "Yes. I want to go back to bed."

That had been our first fight.

"Don't ever leave me," She murmured before falling asleep, fast. That night, when we slept, for the first time there was a space between us on the bed. I started to weep as she slept.

She was the one who left me in the end.