20. Nat #2
More mad at myself than at him, I stormed off to his room and shut the door behind me, our universal sign to stay out while the other dressed. I threw on comfy clothes as fast as humanly possible, opened the door, and changed places with him.
He didn’t shut the door completely, still trying to talk to me from the other side. “I’m sorry that you’re upset.”
“Upset?” This man was infuriating. “You’re so hot and cold. One minute, your tongue is down my throat. The next, you can’t imagine the idea of us kissing?”
He opened the door in joggers, yanking a tee over his wet hair. “None of that matters. What matters is that this”—his hands flew wildly between us—“isn’t happening.”
“Can’t happen anymore,” I corrected haplessly as I pushed my way into the room and sat on my bed. He sat across from me and gave me a terse nod. The urge to regain control slammed into me. “You act like I’m begging for it. Believe me when I say this: I’m not.”
“The point is, we will never be a thing.” He said it unflinchingly, and I died a little bit inside. But not enough to stop pressing him.
“Because we’re enemies?” I asked, still not entirely certain what had started the issue between us that had been boiling since day one.
“It’s never going to happen for more reasons than that,” he said, redirecting his gaze to the ceiling.
But it did bring up an interesting question. “What if I don’t want to be enemies with you, Jack?” I asked his back, feeling less angry and more vulnerable.
Nothing made sense. Not his face as we almost kissed again. Not the tension he exuded. His eyes pleaded with me to listen. So I waited for him to start talking.
“I don’t want to be enemies either, princess. But sometimes when I look at you, it’s hard not to remember.”
My heart raced. What was he getting at, and why did he look heartbroken?
“Remember what?” I asked softly.
His face changed from resigned to disappointed. “You’re really going to act like you don’t know?” he asked in disbelief. “You hooked up with my girlfriend last year, Nat.”
Girlfriend? I flipped through my memories of last year like a photo album in my head. Jack had had a girlfriend? And I’d hooked up with her? The only one I’d done anything with was a blip on my radar, a deep kiss that had ended as soon as it had begun. And then she’d ghosted me.
“You were with Gia?” I recalled Gia, pixie-like and fun, then regretful when I’d moved to go further. My heart crumpled as the pieces I should have seen toppled into place.
“Yes, Gia. My girlfriend of two years. Who was visiting me.”
I hung my head. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have done that to you, to anyone—”
His face went from anger to understanding, ending with an, “Oh.”
I let the word sink in. Jack thought I’d broken up his relationship last year, and he’d been angry with me ever since. It was sad. It was heartbreaking. It was… making me clench my fists.
My heart sped up, and I swallowed back tears I didn’t want him to see, before I took a solid breath and spoke as calmly as I could.
“So, what you’re saying is, you were wrong about me?
And all this time you’ve been putting me through hoops because your ex cheated when I didn’t even know you were together? ”
So many things made sense. The way he’d acted since my arrival. The pained look in his eyes after that romantic kiss, a moment neither of us could control. Then there was the distance between his best friend and me.
“Is this why Autumn has only been professional with me?” Autumn hadn’t been rude or even cold, but she’d been closed off.
In hindsight, it all made sense and felt night and day from how she’d treated me last year.
We’d opened up to each other then. I’d talked with her after Jamie left camp.
Now, the idea of her thinking I could be that type of person hurt.
Almost as much as it hurt that Jack would think this of me. “Did she know about this?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Does everyone know?” I sounded so small. It felt like everything was crumbling around me.
“That’s not the point—”
“Oh, my god. Everyone thinks I did this. I need to get out of here.” All my insecurities came rushing back as anxiety pounded through me, circling and taunting.
I’d been used to people making assumptions about me my whole life. Thinking I had to fit into this box or another. Breckenridges don’t do this. You can’t be like that. No one considered how those boxes could be both suffocating and confusing. I hadn’t felt that way at camp, but now it made sense.
Something crossed Jack’s face, and he looked regretful.
“Everyone thinks Gia hooked up with a random camper, Nat. Only Jamie and Autumn know who she was with. And I don’t think they hold that against you.”
“How kind of them.” My voice didn’t sound like my own.
All this time, I’d been feeling something different about my place at Starlight, about Wildwood. Maybe this wasn’t home after all.
Wasn’t that the understatement of the year? I was living out of a suitcase. I was sleeping in Jack’s bedroom, not my own. Of course, this place wasn’t mine. This was Jack’s home. Every cruel thing made sense now, and I hated it.
There was one thing I had to know. “Why didn’t you confront me?”
He touched his fingers to his temple, resigned. “What would have been the point? I was told one thing, and it turned out to be true. Most of it.”
“Not the important part.” I fought back tears as emotions swarmed me.
“Look, I didn’t realize—”
Tears turned to anger, and I didn’t want to hear another word. “You wanted me to be your villain. Gia left you, and you needed someone to blame. Everything makes perfect sense now. You think I seduced her? That I enticed her back to my cabin? You couldn’t be more wrong.”
Jack looked desperate. He tugged at his hair. “That’s not what I—”
“Tell that to me six weeks ago. Better yet, don’t say anything.
You have nothing to say that I want to hear.
” I pulled the blanket up over my head. My heart was pounding so loud that there was nothing that could calm me.
I could hear Jack moving around our room.
I could feel the tension of him wanting to say something, but he didn’t.
The silence was painful, and I knew just one touch from anyone would feel like the slice of a knife.
I closed my eyes, willing the hurt away. Tears slowly dripped from my eyelids.
It was in that moment that I realized he never knew me, just like everyone else.
Maybe that was for the best.