Chapter 30
Jade
Things in life had a way of coming full circle.
It was late, and I was feeling sick, and I felt like I just needed a little breath of fresh air, so I trudged across the house and out the back door, onto the back deck, where I let out a startled scream at the sight of a person there—a figure shadowed against the darkness behind the house, watching me—and I struck out without meaning to, and in the end, I backhanded Cat across the face.
“Ow, shit,” she said, holding her cheek. My heart was going a mile a minute, and I hunched over myself, snapping at her.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Cat, what the hell are you doing here?”
“What?”
“I… shit.” I unclasped my hands from my body, signing. “What are you doing on my deck at midnight?”
“Checking in on you,” she said, suddenly beaming again, standing up taller. She still nursed her cheek, though. “You really hit hard.”
“Just… be glad I’m not wearing any rings.”
“Are you kidding? I got the slap and missed out on the sexy scar. That’s just lose-lose.”
“Are you out of your mind? What do you mean, you’re checking in on me?”
She hugged me. It was out of nowhere, really—I mean, this whole thing was—and for a second, I stood awkwardly with my hands up, not sure what to do with them, until she said, “You’re really going, huh?”
I relaxed, slowly, letting myself have it—hugged her and let the thick, ugly tension in my stomach go slack, and I nodded against her.
“You’ve probably already found something, haven’t you?”
I hesitated before, again, slowly, I nodded.
I didn’t want to have to tell her about it, but this was the way I should have done it from the beginning.
Should have told everyone how I was feeling, what I was considering.
Sure, Cat would have tried to convince me to stay.
Maybe some other people, too. Didn’t that just mean I was loved?
Dammit, I was a fucking idiot.
Cat squeezed me tighter. “I know this has been messy, but… please stay in touch, okay? I really value your friendship. And I’ll worry about you off somewhere else without people to talk to!”
I sighed, stepping back from the hug to sign. “You know me. I’m a hermit.”
“You’re not a hermit,” she laughed, wiping her eyes.
The faint shimmer of tears there against the low lights on the back of my house, crying the tears we should have cried together, a while ago, when all of this started.
“You go to parties and make gifts for your friends and keep track of everyone’s birthdays so you can celebrate them.
You went out of your way to stick up for me when things got rough.
You’re one of the kindest people I know. You’re just a bit grumpy about it.”
Alyssa said the same thing, more or less. Maybe I was due for a reckoning. I was coming up on thirty years old, and wasn’t the point of your twenties to figure out who you are? “I hate to tell you that you’re right,” I said. “You’ll be rubbing it in my face forever.”
She grinned, wiping her eyes again. “You’re damn right I will. Where are you going?”
Ugh, I felt sick even saying it. “Just got a call back a couple hours ago, actually,” I said, not quite looking at her. “An opening in San Antonio.”
“San Antonio, Texas? God, that’s so far away. Going to be a road trip to come see you.”
“Cat…”
“This is why you have to call all the time, okay? I miss hearing your voice.”
“Uh-huh, yeah, hearing my voice, that thing you do.” I shook my head, a sad smile on the corners of my lips.
“I will. You and Daniela. And anyone else who wants to hear my voice. Hell, maybe randomly video call me and put me up on the big screen in the Birdhouse, without telling me you’re doing it. That feels like something you’d do.”
She laughed. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“Yeah. You too. I’m glad you and Daniela are so good.”
“Force to be reckoned with in the kitchen together,” she laughed. “She’s cooking, I’m baking… next time you visit Vermont, we’ll have a whole spread for you. Tag-teaming you in the kitchen.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“We’re going to Burlington again next weekend. Are you, uh… are you gonna be gone by then?”
“Not yet… gotta give my job my two weeks. I mean, I don’t have to, but my bosses have been decent, they deserve the courtesy.”
“In that case, we’ll make a big farewell party dinner for you together before you go. Maybe we’ll have it at the Birdhouse, get everyone together to see you off.”
I pursed my lips. “Maybe at Daniela’s place. I don’t want to hang out with Drew.”
“Ah… yeah.” She looked down. “Well, we’ll make something work. That’s a promise. Gotta make sure you’re leaving this place with good memories.”
“Thanks, Cat.”
She smiled sweetly at me. “What are friends for?”
I took a long breath, leaning back against the door. “Breaking onto my fucking deck, apparently.”
“Oh, come on. You left the side deck entrance unlocked. It’s on you at that point!”
“Were you here the whole time from earlier?”
“Nah, I went and had a mental breakdown crying at my place first, and then I ate three cinnamon buns, felt sick, and decided I was going to sit on your deck all night if that was what it took to get you to talk to me.”
“You know, Cat? Nothing surprises me from you.”
She grinned. “I take it as a compliment.”
“I’ll be in touch. That’s a promise.” I shrugged, kicking at the floor. “Sorry I hid things from you. You deserved to know.”
“Sorry I had a breakdown on you when you did tell me.” She softened, sinking into the porch swing. “Genuinely, I’m happy for you. A new chapter in your life. I hope it’s a good one.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back to visit. That’s a promise.”
I sat with her, and we didn’t say much, just looking out over the valley at midnight, nothing but the soundtrack of the wind in our ears.
Not that a soundtrack meant a whole lot to Cat.
I wondered if her thoughts expanded to fill the space left without hearing.
Mine were already so big, so overwhelming, I couldn’t imagine.
Hard to say what it was about that moment, sitting out on the back deck with Cat, watching the trees sway in the valley below us, but something about it broke me.
I cried—started out sniffling, holding it back, but it got to be too much before long, and I wiped my face as the tears came harder.
Cat sat closer to my side, her hand on my back, and I made ugly crying noises as I broke.
“I don’t want to fucking go,” I said quietly.
Didn’t matter if I screamed it—Cat wouldn’t hear—but saying it out loud, even to someone who couldn’t hear me, broke down the last little walls inside me.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want.
Christ, I know what I want, it’s to have Alyssa back here, to stay here with her, to be her girlfriend and see where life takes us all.
Is that so much to ask? Is that wrong to want? ”
She looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “Are you saying something?”
I shook my head. “Just thinking out loud. Sorry.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
I swallowed. “I think I need to get to sleep. Deal with things with a cool head tomorrow.”
She studied me for a long time before, slowly, she nodded, standing back up. “I’m always just a text away.”
I closed my eyes. “Thanks, Cat. I really appreciate you.”
But then she was gone, and a cool head wasn’t coming anytime soon.
I didn’t want a fucking cool head. I wanted to see Alyssa again.
I wanted to go to the Birdhouse holding her hand and have her in my arms while the whole group chatted and laughed together, and we’d all share drinks over a game with us there as Jade and Alyssa, Alyssa and Jade. Alyssa’s girlfriend.
Too fucking late now. Should have had the epiphany earlier. Should have spoken up earlier. But I guess it was better to speak up late than never.
It was one in the morning when I lost my mind, because I heard the garbage truck pulling up to my street, and I panicked, falling off the bed where I was trying to sleep, and I didn’t have a single thought, just motion, as I tumbled through the house and out to step into my slippers, one of them not on quite right, and then I was out the door in the middle of the night, my one slipper slapping against my foot and threatening to go flying off as I ran down the damp path of my driveway in my pajamas like a woman possessed, just in time to find Tony the trash guy—technically my coworker, being on the town commission—picking up the box of scent samplers and looking at me like I was either going to kill him or myself in front of him.
“Sorry,” I said, and I took the box back. “Hi. Just realized I’m gonna be using these.”
He blinked once, letting go of the box. “Not gonna fight you for ‘em, Jade.”
“I appreciate it. Will appreciate it also if you pretend you didn’t see me like this. Or do. Fuck it, what does it matter? I guess I’m the woman who runs around grabbing trash in her pajamas at midnight.”
“Not too far off from my job description, just that my pajamas are hi-vis. Not gonna judge you. Have a good night with your, uh, box.”
“Thanks. Will do.”
Took them back, popped one into the wax melter, and I kept it in my bedroom as I went to sleep, surrounded by the smell of Alyssa’s combination of sweet hair products and delicate perfume.
∞∞∞
Work could not go fast enough the next day.
Sleep gave me a cool head, but not in the way I’d expected or been counting on—instead, I woke up feeling like everything in me had hardened into iron resolution, and I thought it was just inside me, but judging by how I got to the town services building in the morning and scared the shit out of my boss Linh by, quote, looking like I was ready to stab someone, I guess it showed on the outside, too.