Don't forget to read the author's note before this. This is a paid story!
01
T H R E E F A C E S
WE ALL HAVE three faces. One we show the world, one we show our loved ones, and one we show only ourselves. The last is the truest reflection of who we are. There's a proverb about that – I didn't make it up.
I wasn't particularly original or artsy in any manner, but I had my three faces, though my first two were virtually the same. I'd always been known as the nice girl. Even my two best friends liked to joke about how I was sweet and innocent – "too good for this world" or "a cinnamon roll". They were kind words, really, but they bothered me. Because I'd never asked for any of that.
Being the nice girl took energy. At school, I dressed how Papa wanted me to – pleated skirts with tights and knitted sweaters, Oxford shoes with matching white socks, little diamond earrings. Some people found it too formal, but it was attached to The Nice Girl, and because of that, it was attached to me, too. Ella Volkov wears skirts; Ella Volkov plays the harp. But even with that persona, I couldn't show up to a party dressed like that.
So there I stood in front of Luisa Acosta's full body mirror, waist-high jeans with rips in them and a pink crop top. Buggy blue eyes, pale blonde hair in tousled straggles over my shoulders – this was me. Would anyone notice those half-moon bags on my skin, or was that my anxiety magnifying them? And since when did I have that weird shadow above my upper lip?
I tugged the jeans up higher, hiding as much of my skin as I could. This look had been Jenny and Luisa's choosing, not mine.
"Oh my God, Ella, stop." My best friend, Jenny Smith, grabbed my jeans and tugged them down past my belly button. It was a slight outie, the ugliest damn thing I'd ever seen, so I pulled them back up.
"It makes me feel naked, Jen," I said, heat flushing to my cheeks.
She propped her hand on her hip and cocked an eyebrow. "If I had a tiny waist like you, I'd actually want to be naked."
I looked away, sick of my own reflection. Luisa had shelves of statues lining her walls, pretty little fairies with butterfly wings and glassy eyes. The blonde one – the one she'd always said looked like me – watched me with a vacant, unsettlingly realistic stare.
Ugh.
Jenny pushed me aside and took up the width of the mirror. She pulled her dark jeans over her stomach and adjusted her navy blouse, before her brown eyes darkened as they scanned up her figure.
"Look at me," she said, "I'm a freaking whale."
I shook my head. "No, you aren't."
She really wasn't. Sure, Jenny wasn't stick thin – she had a bigger frame and curvy hips and breasts – but she wasn't fat. Maybe she wasn't gangly like me or slim like Luisa, but she had her own beauty. I wished she was able to see that.
But I guess we all sometimes want to trade faces with somebody else.
"I'm up five pounds." Jenny's eyes were foggy. "You should be grateful, Ella. I'd kill to have your body. I know I've come far, but I still feel like the fat girl."
I shifted my weight and fidgeted with my fingers. Jenny's words made me uncomfortable. I hated when she compared herself to me, but I also got where she was coming from. Jenny wasn't labelled as "the fat girl" anymore, but in elementary school, she had been. She'd always been bigger and taller than the other girls. I didn't blame her for being unable to release that mantle. Being "the" anything was shitty.
But being the fat girl must've been a hell of a lot worse than the nice girl.
I still felt exposed with my midriff showing. Papa would've lost his mind. His icy blue eyes swept into my mind with a scowl.
"You look like a whore, Ella. Cover yourself up."
I shuddered and snatched my burgundy hoodie off Luisa's bed. I'd feign being cold in hot weather if it meant getting Jenny off my back.
Luisa walked out from her bathroom and ran a brush through her long, frizzy black hair. A maroon dress adorned her athletic frame and flowed her back like the tail of a mermaid. Jenny and I both came from middle-income homes, but Luisa lived like a damn princess. Even the marigold wallpaper of her room shone like it was crusted with rhinestones.
"Well?" Luisa asked. "You guys almost ready?"
We nodded. Physically, yes, I was ready. Mentally? Absolutely not.
Luisa hopped in front of the mirror and smiled a toothy smile, raising her large, bushy eyebrows. We all stared at our reflections. The image looking back was all too familiar – the three of us together. Though Luisa hadn't moved to Toronto until the sixth grade, while Jenny and I had been best friends since first, it was still impossible to imagine our trio as a simple duo. And even with all the drama in the last three years, nothing had been able to split us up – and if we'd made it this far, nothing ever would.
Jenny flattened her shoulder-length brown hair and frowned.
"What's up?" Luisa asked. She clacked her tongue at Jenny's silence. "Okay, you look good. Stop worrying so much."
"I dunno." Jenny huffed. "I just keep on thinking that this is our last year, and how everyone's gonna split up after grad."
That was true. Jenny, Luisa and I would always be friends, but we'd probably lose contact with everyone else. We'd graduate and move out of the Lakewood neighbourhood and get lost in the sea that was this city.
"And," Jenny continued, "if I don't get Ren to notice me now, it's never gonna happen."
I mentally groaned. Ren would be Rensuke Mori, this guy who Jenny had a sickening crush on. I didn't know him that well but had two classes with him this year, and I'd seen nothing but rude behaviour so far. While Max and Jenny had been talking in History earlier today, Ren had taken it upon himself to tell me to shut up.
Yeah, me. I had not been talking.
I shouldn't've been surprised, really. Ren didn't say much, and when he did, it always came out dickish. He was nonchalant whatevers and snide comments to teachers wrapped up in plaid button-ups and black jeans, but he'd never directed his rudeness at me. Ren had always been in different classes or on the other side of the room, a feather floating in the wind, indirectly a part of my circle.
Toronto was huge, after all. Lakewood High was as overpopulated as the next. But I guess Ren stood out because of Jenny's obsession with him, and the fact that he was best friends with Max Orchard, who was, well...
Hard to miss.
But anyway, Jenny liked Ren, and he did not like her back. I hated to admit it – even to myself – but it was obvious. I could read disinterested body language better than sheet music. Jenny was anti-gravity to Ren. Whenever she was around, he orbited away.
"You totally have a shot," Luisa said. "You should just ask him out, or at least tell him how you feel. I mean, he has to know you like him by now."
A forced smile stretched Jenny's freckled cheeks. "Well, it's not gonna get any better than this – let's go!"
* * *
Heather Ward lived in a massive stone and brick house in the west end of Lakewood, nearing the top of a hill. Over rows of houses and spiky pine trees, the CN Tower poked high in the sky. Cotton-candy clouds and streaks of lilac painted the backdrop.
We'd shown up way too early.
Parties for us often followed a basic algorithm: walk-in, get greeted, enter the kitchen, take shots, talk to people, lose each other, get wasted, find each other, go home.
I hated some of those parts. I hated the greeting because it put so much attention on me, and I hated the part where I somehow lost Jenny and Luisa. They were my crutches, after all, and even with the buzz of alcohol on my mind, anxiety roped around my heart.
Through the back window of Heather's modern-style kitchen, darkness cascaded over the sky and a full moon shone between the trees. I took a swig of my Smirnoff cooler (I was on my third, thanks to frayed nerves), and looked at the faces of the three guys and two girls who stood around me. I knew some of them, but not others, and the pressure on my chest increased. They talked about theater class or something while I stood there like a ghost – totally invisible – with no idea what to say.
Gemma Alderson bounced up and down on her heels as she laughed at something this other dude had said. I had to admit, there was something radiant about her. Splashes of freckles touched her pale cheeks and her irises gleamed like pools of maple syrup. And looking at Gemma's smile, an ice pick chipped away at my self-esteem, because though I didn't consider myself ugly, I did get a taste of how Jenny felt.
Because I could rationalize that attraction is subjective and that I was pretty in my own way but I didn't want to be pretty like me. I wanted to be pretty like her.
It was a pointless thought, so I held my bottle to my lips and glanced over my shoulder. Max Orchard, with his swoopy, sandy blond hair and dimples, walked through the living room with a big grin on his face. My cheeks grew hot. I snapped my head back to Gemma, whose toothy smile lit up the whole room.
If Max was here, that meant Ren was, too. Mental note: avoid the latter.
Actually, avoid both.
I stepped back from the circle. It closed right away. No one had noticed me leave – why would they? It wasn't like I'd been talking. The Nice Girl could be a decent filler, but she didn't add much.
My throat tightened as I waded through the crowd. The Weeknd's voice was heavy in my ears as I passed by one of the speakers, the bass pounding as loud as my heart. I spun around and searched for Jenny or Luisa, but they were off doing God knows what. Could've been in the basement, upstairs, the living room... I had no idea.
I need air.
I pushed through the kitchen and pulled open the sliding back door. The cool late-summer breeze touched my skin as I stepped onto the back patio and shut my eyes, inhaling a deep, alleviating breath of fresh air.
Glass shattered and jolted my heart. Heather Ward sat under the gazebo with some others and cackled. Heather was tall and slim, a cheerleader who spoke like a valley girl, but she wasn't as mean as she seemed. We worked together, actually, and were kind of friends. I could go talk to her, but...
Some girl screamed as a guy pushed her into the pool and jumped in after her. Splashes, laughter and talking cluttered the air, but at least out here, I could breathe.
Until a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted into my face. I shot an instinctive glower to my left.
And what a surprise, it was one of the last people I wanted to see.
For once in his life, he wasn't wearing a flannel, but a simple white t-shirt. Fabric wristbands lined the length of his forearm and his black hair fell in pieces over his forehead. Dark eyes, deep like two stones of obsidian, drilled into me and made my hair stand on end.
"Ella," he said, his tone as flat and apathetic as always.
I looked away. Ren was a jerk – I had no interest in talking to him. That rude, unnecessary shut up from earlier wasn't about to leave my mind. Out of habit, I tilted my cooler back to my lips and took a big swig. It burned a shudder through me. The mosquitoes and porch lights in front of me grew hazy. Crap – maybe I was a bit drunk.
"What's up?" Ren pushed himself off the wall. "You get that project done yet?"
"No, it isn't due until Monday."
"Sunday, actually."
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah. Supposed to have it in the drop-box by Sunday."
Shit—I think he's right.
"Don't look so panicked," he said. "I don't have it done either. Plus I have a job interview tomorrow." He held up his can of Budweiser. "Yet here I am."
We fell quiet. Ren's black eyes scanned across the wooden porch as he took a drag of his cigarette. Really, could he and Max be any more different? Max was a star athlete – captain of the swim team – and Ren was always seen either smoking, reading, or both.
Maybe I was drunk, but Ren had opened up a door when he'd engaged me, and I was going to walk through it. I kicked a stone on the porch and faced him.
"So... you're Max's best friend, right?"
Well, I'd never been very good at small talk, but whatever. Literally everyone at Lakewood knew that Max and Ren were best friends.
"I guess," he said with a brusque laugh.
I jumped out of the way as a couple of drunk girls toppled out from inside. They slammed the sliding door behind them, and I attempted to straighten my shitty posture as I looked up at Ren. He really was tall, even taller than Max. He crushed his cigarette in the beer can on the windowsill and met my eyes.
"So?"
I frowned. "I'm sorry?"
His lips quirked. "You're not gonna ask me what type of girls he likes?"
My cheeks burned. Okay, either it was super obvious that I liked Max, or Ren was just a jerk. Either way, that was totally rude.
"No," I said.
"Sorry." He smirked. "As his best friend, those're normally the types of questions I get."
"Um... it's okay."
God, this is awkward.
More edgy silence surrounded us. Some idiot smashed another bottle off the cobblestone, while a different guy started up the barbeque. Great, drunk people around fire.
"Sorry, by the way," Ren said.
I patted down my messy hair and smacked my lips. "For what?"
"For telling you to shut up in class earlier. Kinda realized later it was Jenny and Max who were babbling. You're pretty quiet."
I blinked at him, stunned. "That's... okay."
I mean, I guess it was okay. I hadn't expected him to actually apologize. Maybe Ren wasn't that bad of a guy, after all.
Everyone has three faces, right? How different were his? Actually, maybe he had four, because at school he never so much as cracked a smile, but now a devilish grin pulled at his lips, giving him a boyish charm that I'd never seen before.
Ren was hot, actually. Not like Max was, but still. I liked how his jet black hair and eyes contrasted with the paleness of his skin. It was like the moon against the night sky, distant and ethereal, yet comforting and familiar. I cringed at my own weird thoughts. I must've been drunk, because it wasn't like me to check out anyone who wasn't Max, least of all my best friend's crush.
There was something about my little three faces philosophy that I'd forgotten about. The first two masks can fall off and inadvertently reveal face three in times of weakness: when you're drunk, in extreme emotional distress, or having sex.
Well, it was obvious where I stood.
"Ella?"
I snapped out of it. Right – he'd asked me something.
"Sorry. What was the question?"
"Did you wanna come back to my place? Max and I sort of do an after party thing. He's probably already invited your other friends."
"Oh, well..."
My shoulders swayed and euphoria buzzed in my mind. Yep, I was drunk.
"Sure," I said. "Sounds fun."
"Cool. Well, I'm gonna head out now." His eyebrow twitched at the two dudes wrestling on the grass nearby. "Fuck this noise. See you then."
He turned and walked away. His figure retreated down the back of the house, and for whatever ungodly reason, my chest sank. I hated this party – in fact, I hated every party that Jenny and Luisa dragged me to and ditched me at. And I realized, in my stupor, that for the first time since I'd gotten to there, I actually felt semi-okay talking to someone.
If we were all going to end up back at his place later, then why draw out the torture?
"Wait," I said.
Ren turned around, his dark eyes clashing with mine. I held my hands together with a hopeful smile.
"Can I come with?"