Klaudine Bessasparis

Klaudine Bessasparis (she/her) recently graduated from Rider University following previous participation in Venture as the Treasurer and a Poetry Editor. Her college experiences as a copywriter, copyeditor, and tutor assisted her in becoming a copywriter at Whitestone. She is a book lover, an outdoor enthusiast, a tap dance fanatic, a decent volleyball player, and a constant source of (very bad) puns. Klaudine presented a short story at the New Jersey Women and Gender Studies Consortium Colloquium and was an invited panelist for Rider’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Colloquium the past three years. This is her second publication in Venture.

“I think I love him.”

Pity infiltrates her face like months-old trash contaminating a lake but more beautiful, an essence of ethereal magic dropping from shiny eyes coated with desperation. She slams the cherry red lipstick on the counter, wincing when the flimsy plastic cracks, blinking slowly while she shakes her head.

“You – you… you can’t.”

Slapping my arms against my thighs, a sigh of frustration escapes my lips.

“You don’t think I know that?”

“Well. Good. So… stop.”

She crosses her arms, leaning against the wall behind her like a defiant teen stubbornly insisting she needs to wear this outfit to the dance, no matter how ridiculous it looks.

My hands fly up again, sarcasm leaking from my mouth, “Great. Thank you for that beyond helpful recommendation.”

Her head ducks into a raised hand, the other landing on her hip, exasperation solidifying her new posture. She watches me for a moment, eyes widening, mouth puckering.

“All those times you mentioned him, I thought it was just… a little crush. I never…”

“I didn’t think it was anything more than a crush.”

I pick up the lipgloss, the tube making a “pop” as I open the brush. Nothing but my breath disturbs the room’s air as I apply it. Hesitation clings to the air purifier above me.

“… he told you no.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the waves in my eyes back to low tide as I face her, annoyance entering my tone.

“Yeah. I remember it quite clearly.”

The rejection rebounds through my head, each word ricocheting off the backboard in a missed shot – not thinking about a relationship… dating is a far away thought… wasn’t flirting…

“That… that was months ago. Why are you still holding on?”

I whirl away from her gaze, snapping, “You don’t think I want to move on? You don’t think I’ve spent every waking minute since that day trying?”

“The mixed signals…”

I reopen the gloss, swiping another layer over my lips. I lean against the counter, still avoiding her sympathetic, heartbreak-filled eyes. Raising my hand to list every single signal, I pause as my orange-painted nails flash into view. Hm. His favorite color.

“Let’s see… leaning in while working on a project together; maintaining eye contact with me when we have a conversation with the group; touching my arm and lingering when my knee grazes his; inside jokes that we keep close to our chests, never explaining to others and letting them figure it out themselves if they care that much; calling me ‘bro’ or ‘dude’ after every exchange; making me laugh when all I want to do is cry…”

“Sure, some of those things are misleading in a romantic-leaning direction, but can’t friends offer a few of the same comforts?”

“I mean, yes, but it always felt intentionally flirtatious versus how I see him with other people… a hint threaded into his tone during a quip that from others would sound more like a tease.”

“How does that make it love, though? You’re just explaining things I notice when it’s a crush…”

“You remember all those times you raced home after a stressful night, ready to wrap yourself in blankets and rest alongside your mom? Remember how, no matter what the circumstances were, you always felt at ease the moment you were in her presence? Like everything was going to be okay and you just needed to exist in her space for a little while to recharge?” She nods, leaning back against the wall, arms behind her back, clutching the lip gloss. “Well, the same sensation comes over me around him. I just… I relax more than I realize I need to, and I never get those ‘butterflies’ that really only ever felt like nerves with other crushes. I think… I think he’s the first person I’ve truly liked… and it hasn’t gone away – if anything, it’s grown stronger… so it has to be love…”

“You might’ve just misinterpreted those feelings in the past. You might just calm down around him the way someone would with a best friend.”

“But it always seemed like more than that.” I throw my head back, posture straightening like an oak tree in freezing weather, annoyance flooding my veins. “Clearly I was wrong though, since he said it wasn’t flirting… I just can’t believe that everyone – every single person I talked to – interpreted each action the same way, helping me pack my bags for the Dating Express only for him to close down the road for good… unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless… it’s just a detour… a pause before we can be something more.”

“You know damn well that’s not a healthy way to process any of this, and leaning into that love you think you have won’t help.” She hovers over the counter, staring me straight in the eyes through the mirror. “Given how long since everything happened and how nothing has changed in that time… it’s time to move on.”

The damn breaks, salty water gushing from the fall, cascading down soft cheeks, landing in a puddle on the countertop next to the lip gloss container she placed back down. Frustration transforms to anger, turns to disgust, reveals self-loathing. Shouts climb up from my lungs, blasting out of my mouth like cannonballs.

“Goddammit, I reprimand myself each time he crosses my mind and hangs around for more than two minutes, wiping him off like dirt on my skirt. But then I remember I rarely wear skirts, and how he would’ve complimented me regardless, how he appreciated the effort I put into my clothing every day. And I watched him pour all his energy into passion projects that were so attractive to watch him produce and discuss. And he’d recall basically anything I told him, like he was a vault to my memory with a keypad I didn’t know the code for. And he’d remind me of such with comments like ‘oh, that’s your favorite pair of earrings’ and ‘yeah, you mentioned something about that rough time before.’ He’d throw in one of those jokes that’re incomprehensible to the outside viewer like a language shared between lovers…”

“But every time I texted him to no response, I catapulted through the trampoline I was jumping on, landing on my back, out of breath and gasping for help. I try every goddamned day to let go of those feelings, and then some song, movie, show, topic, whatever, comes up that we once talked about, and I’m right back at square one, alone, confused, and still in love.”

I start to pace back and forth, flailing my arms without purpose. “Maybe I’m romanticising every action, bound by hope and strangled by desire, but when love seems to be within your grasp, you just can’t help but keep reaching for it. I spend an embarrassing amount of time daydreaming about us, what we could be, knowing damn well he isn’t doing the same but still unsure of how to function without those thoughts to buoy me in the river of my emotions.”

Silence coats the walls, the sorrow-filled air pungent with bewilderment.

“I hate that I can’t just get up and forget I liked – love – him. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be having this issue right now.”

“Oh, honey.”

“Don’t you dare condescend me, you two-faced fool.”

I pick up the cracked lip gloss tube, lock eyes with her, and use as much force as possible to throw it at her nose. The tube hits its target with a “clang” before I watch fragments of my face deconstruct, spiderwebs across the mirror as shards land in the sink, a blurry vision through tear-coated lashes. Nothing remains but smudged lip gloss on her mouth and red-rimmed eyes.

A sob breaks free, my body shuddering in lovesick pain as I fall back against the wall, sliding onto the tile, where I lay for another ten minutes, wallowing in self-pity, disgust, loathing, what have you. When I’ve calmed down enough, I stand back up again, straightening my orange dress and adjusting the matching bow in my hair. He would’ve loved this outfit. I wipe under my eyes, splashing my face with cold water while carefully avoiding the remnants of my broken reflection on the counter. I tuck the lip gloss into the bottom of the garbage bin.

Fueled by comments I imagine he’d made about how I’m dressed and how I look, I slip out of the bathroom, waving over the first employee I spot and shouting, “There seems to be a crack in your mirror in the ladies’ room,” Sabrina Carpenter’s obnoxiously cheery tone poking fun at misinterpreted signals through rusted speakers.

I stumble back to the table, hardly sure I have the right person until he smiles back at me. Failing to remember his name or face probably isn’t a good look for me.

“What took you so long in there?” The stranger asks, genuine curiosity on his face.

I slide into my seat, shrugging. “Couldn’t get my lip gloss on right.”