Chapter 30 Jessa
JESSA
It’s the Monday before Thanksgiving break.
I can barely see that little burn on my hand anymore, so I don’t know why I can still feel it.
Bird is catching up on something in the library, so I’m solo for lunch.
It’s quiet today. There are definitely fewer people outdoors now that the weather’s turning colder, but I’d rather freeze my nonexistent nuts off than spend one second in the cafeteria with Olivia Fucking Rubens.
Or at least it was quiet. Emmanuel’s sauntering down the sidewalk and I know he’s coming to talk to me.
I’ve noticed this happening more often with people…
first it was just Bird, back when we were only plotting together, then Bri and Paige would drop by from time to time.
Word has gotten out, and my space has become anything but liminal.
Every few days someone from a class stops by, makes that annoying motion for me to remove my headphones, and then asks me something.
My standing A in precalc has gotten me a lot of tutoring requests, which I have to turn down because the way I think through math is nothing like our instructor.
The big influx of visitors occurred after our first couple of editions of the Bulletin went out, which included my reviews of some local shows.
More than one student started their own “underground” band and wanted me to cover their set.
I figure Emmanuel is gonna ask for a review as well, but turns out I’m wayyyy off base.
“ ’Sup?” he says, once I pull my headphones down.
“Hey, Emmanuel, how’s it going?”
“Awesome, Jessa. I just wanted to thank you for giving me the DL on Kayla and getting her to Touchstone. We have a thing going and it’s hot, all thanks to you.”
He extends a hand in a high five, which is awkward on so many levels, and I just keep staring up at him from my crouch on the sidewalk.
“What do you mean, a thing?”
He shrugs, puts his hands in his pockets, and gives me a doofy grin. “You know, we’ve been hooking up. It’s sweet. Kayla is wiiiiild, too. Absolute fucking beast. Anyway, thanks.”
“Oh,” I say, the information still not settled in my head.
“You gonna be at the Touchstone tonight for the Hardcore Holidays show?”
“Yeah…”
“Sweet, we’re on second, see you then,” he says, and walks away. The clouds clear enough for me to see the shitstorm for what it is.
Kayla. Is cheating. On Dade.
Screw the school rules, I pull out my cell and call Dade’s number.
It goes straight to voicemail, which is not surprising.
He never has his phone on—I would always tell him I didn’t know why his mom would agree to keep paying for it if he never wanted anyone to reach him.
I let him know we have to talk about something important.
I can’t just tell him on voicemail that he’s getting screwed over. Even I know that’s mean.
Inside, I feel confused. I mean, this is the end of them, right?
It’s what I wanted, but somehow it feels shitty.
Dade said he might be in love with her. When this started, love was kinda a fake bullshit thing to me that was about as real as my concept of god.
Now, with Bird, I have an idea of why Dade vanished on me.
I mean, I’d be better about it, but it’s hard when you just want to be with that one person all the time.
Especially when you have school, hiding from your parents, college applications, and all the other day-to-day crap.
It seems like there’s so little time all of a sudden when before, the days spread out like the endless drum solo in “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
I did this.
Technically, Bird and I did this, but she never seemed comfortable with it even though it was her idea.
I was comfortable with it, though. She’s a nice person.
I’ve been learning that. She has a kindness in her that I’m not used to seeing in people.
Dwayne has the same vibe about him, never talking shit, instead finding fun stuff to joke about, cool things to learn.
But me, I have that meanness and I plugged it all into Operation Break Up, and now that it’s been successful I feel like garbage.
Immediately I think about going to Bird.
I need to feel better, but I also need to know what to do, how to work with other people’s emotions.
Dade will be hurt, but if there’s a kind way of telling him, she would know.
And maybe she could make me feel a little less like an asshole for setting up the entire Emmanuel/Kayla thing.
This isn’t school talk, though, so I wait until the end of the day, which makes sitting beside her in journalism excruciating.
I do my best to feign excitement as we photocopy Polaroids and place them on our zine layout.
When she arrives at Betty the Buick, she smiles and slides into the passenger seat like she belongs there—which she does.
I smile at her as she buckles up, and we pull outta the lot, waiting the first few lights until we hold hands.
“I have something big I gotta talk over, your place or mine?”
She looks concerned, worried. I hate to see that, but this isn’t so much a car conversation. “My place is cool, Liv’s at cheer practice and the sibs are with their grandparents,” she says.
I get us there in record time.
Up in her room, I nudge the duct-tape line separating the space with the toe of my boot, not sure how to start.
Looking around, you can see the effects of Olivia Fucking Rubens all over: cheer pictures, makeup and hair bows, a million photos of Garrett the mouth breather.
It’s muted Bird’s presence. She’s minimized herself to a couple of stacks of books and a Klimt The Kiss poster and nothing else.
“You should redecorate your wall with Melissa Etheridge and Indigo Girls posters,” I joke, still a little freaked that Liv is her stepsister and I’m in enemy territory.
One night, when we were getting deep, Bird asked me what Liv had actually done to me.
I finally told her the story about stupid middle school me thinking the world was a better place.
I made friends with this chill Jewish chick in my social studies class because I thought she matched the whole chill Greek chick thing I was about.
One day, while researching the civil rights movements of the sixties, I mentioned the queer rights movement and Stonewall and without waiting for a reaction, my dumb ass told her I had a crush on her.
I had this dream in my head that she’d say me too and we’d walk into school the next day, rainbow-clad and holding hands, the perfect lesbian couple.
Instead she outed me to the entire school, which led to me prematurely coming out to my parents, and led to the past four years of open harassment from at least half the student body. The other half was just quieter about it.
Bird breaks me outta my I-hate-Olivia-Fucking-Rubens reverie. “Okay, unless you want me to freak out, I need to kn-know… this big talk. Is it Mack? Is it—is it something with us?”
I look at Bird, her beautiful face, round in the right places, perfectly celestial nose, wide eyes that see me as I’ve always wanted the world to see me.
My actual dream girl. My partner in my worst crime, which unfortunately worked.
I know telling her will make her feel bad about her participation, but the Band-Aid needs ripping, that scab has to be picked.
“So, Emmanuel told me at lunch today that he’s been with Kayla. She’s cheating on Dade.”
“Oh,” she says, and looks down at the floor.
“I can’t believe it. Like, how did it work? I thought Kayla was decent or something. How shitty am I for putting this in motion? What the fuck do I do now?”
“You aren’t shitty, Jessa, we worked together on this,” she says, but she still isn’t looking at me.
“Yeah, but Dade said he might love her, that’s huge. How do I tell him?”
“I don’t know, Jessa, is it really yours to tell?”
“We may be on the rocks right now, but he’s my best friend! Telling him is literally my job. Wouldn’t you want to know if I was doing some shit like that?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“No, but you’d want to know.”
She’s picking at her fingernails. Looking everywhere but at me, her eyes unfocused on the wall of Liv photos.
“Bird? What do I do? How do I say it?”
“Um…”
“Um? This is big shit! Why aren’t you more shocked?”
She clears her throat. Takes a deep breath. I get it before she even says it.
“Kayla told me.”
Movies show people getting stabbed and it seems painful, steals their breath, and right now I feel like the guy from Saving Private Ryan, that knife descending slowly toward his chest, begging the other soldier to stop, pathetic, sad, hoping to stop it but knowing that centimeter by inevitable centimeter it will cut through and end everything.
That pain spreads in me, cuts into my heart, takes my breath and brings tears to my eyes.
“When?”
It seems important to know the facts right now.
“That Saturday, after the mill town, after…”
After we said, I love you.
She looks at me and I see guilt on her face. She had to know this was wrong.
“What the fuck, Bird? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Kayla told me in private. It was in confidence.”
“Kayla, who shared lies about your summer boyfriend, deserves confidentiality?” I’m standing now, my voice is rising in pitch, I can feel control slipping away.
I can feel the anger Mack gets, sudden and white-hot.
I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, dipping between rage and grief.
She lied. But am I overreacting? Am I about to tip down that ride I can’t get off?
The fear adds in, and my emotions are a muddy puddle ready to trip me up.
“You would have gone right to Dade,” she says.
“Because it’s the right thing to do!”
What really hurts is that she kept it from me. We share everything these days. Car rides, lunches, beds, secrets. Or at least I thought we did.
“Jessa, please. Okay, maybe it was a bad judgment call, but I didn’t feel like I could—”
“Jesus, Bird, I told you I loved you, and you’re keeping secrets for her?
Secrets that affect me and my best friend?
” For a moment, I thought things were changing, that Bird had gone beyond a girlfriend and a love and taken Dade’s spot as my best friend.
But lies, she knows how all the lies in my life weigh on me.
At least Dade didn’t lie. “What else haven’t you told me?
” The accusation comes out bitter and mean.
“Nothing! I swear.” Big tears roll down her face. I hate that I’m doing this to her, but something in me can’t stop, something in me won’t let go of this. It hits deep, this betrayal. “Jessa, please, I just didn’t think it would do any good.”
“And look what it’s doing now.” I spit the words out, looking away from her, angry she gets tears while my feelings just eat at me inside.
I feel like letting all the awful, cruel parts of me tear at her in this moment, anything to keep away that knife that is slowly slicing into my heart. I stand up and start toward the door.
“Jessa, you don’t know all the particulars with Kayla right now. It—it—it’s—” She’s struggling. “She’s messed up and… Please, let’s talk this out.”
“You really don’t want to hear what I have to say right now.
” I keep everything down, push it to where all the other anger and hurt lives, that horrible roiling pit in me, because no matter how agonizing it is to hold back, I just can’t let myself unload the poison on her.
I need to get away. I need to punch something.
I need to find a fucking void and scream into it.
I need to go into a mosh pit, lie down, and let every last footfall stomp me into nothing.
“I need out,” I choke when she tries to catch my hand.
“From me? Jessa, are you breaking up with me?”
She’s all tears now, crying hard. The words slam into me and I know they aren’t right. Something smart in my brain says hold up. I let go of her hand.
“No, but I need a break.”
Dade’s words in my mouth.
“Well…” she mutters, her voice so sad. “H-how long of a b-break?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you.”
As I walk away and she starts crying harder, I know how she feels with the not-knowing, but I also know that until I get control, I’m not gonna know how long I need either. If I get control, that awful mad voice inside hisses at me.
When I get to the car, I slam the steering wheel so hard my hands turn numb.
I thought I’d changed. I haven’t. I thought I was better now than I used to be.
Kinder, warmer, softer. But I’m not. I pump up Tool and peel out, heat on my cheeks telling me the tears finally made their way to the surface.