THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS: Half Past Three in the Morning
DISCLAIMER: The author claims none of this book series. Its special rights belong to Ann Brashares and Alloy Entertainment.
Lena Kaligaris was tossing and turning all night. Her thoughts were spewing out from nowhere, and she felt like they were about to drag her under the bed.
She wondered if her drawings were good enough. They just had to be. Otherwise, it was goodbye, RISD and hello, some other university that would make her miserable for four years and possibly, the rest of her life.
She wondered about Kostos Dounas, her first and only love. How was he doing? How was his baby? How was Mariana? She didn't know; she didn't plan to; she had no idea as to how she would acquire the answers to these questions.
She missed her Bapi, who had died just a year before. If only she had her whole life to love him and care for him and get to know him. She had done that only two summers ago.
She rolled over and faced her best friend, Carmen Lowell. "Carma," she said. "Hey, you awake?"
"I am now." Carmen's tone was a mixture of grogginess and annoyance. "God, Len, what time is it?" She stared at her digital alarm clock, glaring at the thick red numbers on it. "It's one in the morning. Go back to bed."
Lena and Carmen have literally been hanging out before they were born. The two of them, plus their other best friends Bridget Vreeland and Tibby Rollins, have been a foursome for as long as they could remember. Their mothers were friends from a pregnancy exercise class, and their children were all due in September, making them the Septembers.
They were different, sure, but that made them even closer. Lena was Greek, painstakingly beautiful and just as painstakingly shy. Carmen, half-Puerto Rican, was the overemotional one with a stepfather, a stepmother, two stepsiblings and a half-sibling on the way. Bridget was the heartthrob, the life of the party, the confident soccer player who hid a secret loneliness. Tibby was the rebellious filmmaker with ex-hippies for parents.
Other than their seventeen-year-long friendship, Lena, Carmen, Tibby and Bridget also shared a pair of pants that fit them all. They called it the Traveling Pants and it accompanied them throughout the past two summers, where they were separated. Now, only Bridget was gone, but that didn't stop the Pants' circulation among them.
"I can't." Lena sat up. "I need to clear my head."
Carmen groaned. "Then go do it someplace else, will you? I have to go with your grandmother to the hospital tomorrow."
Carmen was Lena's grandmother's—Valia's—"nanny." Since Lena's grandfather—Bapi—died, Lena's dad had decided for her to stay with them in Bethesda, Maryland. Not that she even liked it there.
Lena was sleeping over at Carmen's. She needed to get away from home, if she could call it that. She worried about her drawings once again. What if her dad, in a fit of rage, found them and burned them all?
Cringing at the thought, Lena found her way to the door of Carmen's room and opened it slowly, as not to wake Carmen who had gone back to sleep.
She walked slowly in the hallway that led to the living room. She silently wished she'd brought a flashlight.
Lena almost screamed when she saw Paul Rodman sleeping on the couch. She'd completely forgotten that he was crashing there for the weekend, thus thinking that he was an intruder of sorts, even a ghost.
Paul was Carmen's stepbrother, and a past potential crush to Lena. Things had gotten awkward for them from the start, when they'd met the year before, and it didn't help that Lena avoided Paul for the rest of that year.
Lena had to smile. Paul looked so serene, just laying there. It was the happiest she'd seen him, truth to be told, because she knew he was under a lot of stress. His father was an alcoholic and was sick. That was a lot to put on a twenty-year-old's shoulders.
She blushed as the thought that Paul also looked very handsome came to her mind. Even with his dazzling sapphire-like eyes hidden under his eyelids, Paul was cute.
No, she decided. "Cute" just isn't right. There has to be a better word for it.
Realizing she'd been staring at him too long, Lena drifted away and felt her way to the kitchen. She switched on the light.
Just outside of the kitchen window was the moon. It seemed especially bright tonight, and especially round.
Lena fetched a tall glass and the carton of milk from the fridge. She cupped her hand over her chin and leaned on the counter slightly, letting her thoughts bring her from this world to another.
She closed her eyes, drinking about half her glass, absorbing every word her mind produced.
I have to get those drawings to Annik right before the dinner shift. And then to RISD.
Why do I still think of Kostos? He simply is not right for me. So why can't I will myself to stop loving him? Why? Why??
After college, even this summer, is it goodbye to Bee, Carma and Tib? Goodbye forever? Goodbye for years? I can't imagine it. But it happens.
Why hadn't I met Paul before Kostos? He's far nicer and just as good-looking. Maybe even taller. Why did I have to avoid him?
Why am I asking so many whys? Why am I asking so many questions? Why can't I shut my mind down?
She opened her eyes. They were instantly met by the pair of dazzling sapphire-like peepers she'd been thinking about earlier. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"Hi, Paul."
How long had he been standing there? She probably still had her milk moustache. How embarrassing. She wiped it off with the back of her hand.
He waved at her, taking the seat next to hers. "Hi, Lena."
They'd seen each other at dinner, when Lena burst through the door clutching a soaked umbrella, looking a little soaked herself (it had been raining for two days, which was pretty normal, if it wasn't in the summer), but all they did was stare at each other in disbelief. Well, maybe that wasn't the case for Paul, but for Lena, it was. She couldn't believe Carmen hadn't warned her that Paul had returned a week after staying there for a night and the day after that. Lena had drawn him then, for her portfolio, and it was a moment to cherish. But it was full of awkwardness and the like, too.
"I couldn't sleep," Lena said lamely, looking out the window. It was still raining, she noticed.
Paul was being the quiet person that he was. Lena wished she'd combed her hair.
"I just woke up from a pretty weird dream," Paul said in return, in the same slow manner he always used.
Lena didn't ask what that dream was, out of pure shyness. But she was surprised when Paul told her about it anyway.
"In it, I'm in the hospital, perhaps to visit my dad." He was looking at her as he said this. His gaze was so intense, yet she felt self-confident and not the usual self-consciousness she carried around with her. "And his back was turned to me. Despite this, I saw how weak he was. Slowly, he turned to me, and when I finally catch a glimpse of the face, I see not his but my own."
She felt her hand take his after he said this. It didn't really matter if it was awkward or not. All that mattered was that it was the right thing to do at the time.
"What do you think it means?" she asked, feeling sorry for him once again.
It had obviously been hard on him, having a dream like that. Sleeping was one of his only escapes. Now the problem had taken over that, too.
"I think it means I'm letting it get to me a little too much, and it's sort of like it's my own problem and not my dad's." Paul shrugged. He squeezed Lena's hand.
Lena took her hand away, but she kept it on the counter, just in case Paul might want to hold it again and squeeze it once more. She liked how he'd done that.
She looked into his eyes, seeing all the sadness once again. "You have a whole life ahead of you," she told him sincerely. "And while it's okay to feel lonely once in a while because your dad is sick, you should also go right out and live life."
"I guess, but it's hard, you know, trying to balance everything?" Paul was an uptalker sometimes, too, like his sister Krista.
This launched a very long conversation between them. Lena liked the thought of telling Paul what her worries were and actually feeling better about them, and vice versa.
"You shouldn't have to face it alone." Lena meant it as one thing—that she was here for him, as a friend.
But apparently it sounded to Paul like it was more than that, because the next thing she knew, his lips were on hers.
Paul didn't talk much, but it showed that he found other things to put his mouth to good use, such as, well, kissing. Because Lena had to admit, this was the best lip-lock she'd ever received, ever. Better than the one given to her by…hmm, what was his name again?
Oh, right. Kostos.
Well, Kostos who?
She didn't need him now, she realized. She never did, actually. She remembered last summer when her mother had called Eugene, a man with whom she had a relationship just like Kostos and Lena's with, a fool. Now she felt like calling Kostos that, too. How dare he tell her he loved her when he, in fact, had made love with another woman?
She pulled away. Then she leaned over and kissed him again.
He was smiling when they'd both pulled away from the second kiss. It didn't seem like he was suffering from a life-altering problem at all. She smiled back, content with the fact that she had made him happy, even just for a while.
"I'll be going away tomorrow—uh, I mean, later," Paul said, looking at the huge clock in the kitchen that Carmen considered as her enemy. It was half past three in the morning, more than two hours since they began talking. "I have to visit my dad and do some things."
"Oh," Lena said.
She hadn't meant to say it like it disappointed her, although she really was disappointed, but it came out that way anyway.
"I'm sorry," Paul added hastily. "But I'll return next week, I guess, or maybe the week after that." He looked down at his hands, which were now placed under the counter. Underneath the glass, Lena could see them, both clenched into fists. "Carmen would want to talk." He said that like it was his duty to listen to her, and that he had no problem with it; instead, he enjoyed listening to Carmen and making her feel better when her world seemed to hang upside-down. "And," he added sheepishly, "I'd want to see you again. Would that be okay, Lena?"
Lena smiled as she nodded. She liked how he said her name.
"Hey, I just wanted to say thanks," Paul said. "For, well, everything."
Lena was practically shaking with giddiness all over, but she didn't want to jump into another whirlwind romance that would just break her heart. Let them take their time. They'll come to each other when they're ready.
She stood up, took her glass to the sink, vowing to wash it after she'd taken a little nap.
"You're welcome," she said, her back turned to him.
As Paul's shadow hovered over her—he was more or less a foot taller than her, after all—she turned around. Here they didn't need words anymore. They just put their arms around each other, getting enveloped in a warm, comforting embrace.
Lena let the tears fall freely, even though she didn't know where they came from or why they were here. Were they because of joy, of relief? Were they because of all that has happened and what's about to come? Did she just need to blow off some steam?
They stayed there, in each other's arms, as if they were in their own world, as Carmen had imagined back at Dizzy's Grill when they were first introduced to each other last year.
Somewhere, right outside the kitchen, was Carmen herself, grinning at them like mad.
Maybe hope wasn't lost, after all, as Carmen thought it had been.
Maybe Paul and Lena were meant to be, as she'd known when she'd seen the look on Lena's face on that fateful day.
Maybe, just maybe, the Traveling Pants really were the Love Pants. No need for rethinking.
She felt sure of it.
(A/N: My first non-HM fic in a year. It feels great not to have to write about that show. Variety is always good. Anyway, I got into a writing frenzy after realizing that the last two books in the Sisterhood series didn't have any real romance between Lena and Paul, which really let me down, because I was expecting it so bad. Anyway, how was this? Please review! Thanks! Expect more Sisterhood fics and maybe some Gossip Girl and others.)