Five
WHAT, JACKSON?” I SNAP INTO THE PHONE.
“Olivia. Okay. I’m sorry for calling you three times. Sincerely,” rushes the voice of the only boy who’s ever said he loved me.
If I weren’t in the van, I would strongly consider explaining to Jackson Roese—Pronounced like “rose,” he says with his winning smirk upon even the faintest hesitation over his name’s jumble of vowels—how calling me multiple times does not even scratch the surface of what he needs to be sorry for.
Then, though, the sterner part of me would prevail, the part I called on one Friday night with my phone in my hand, tearstains drying salty on my cheeks. The Olivia who’d closed out of her Instagram DMs, opened Jackson’s iMessage conversation, removed the purple heart emoji from his name, and then sent, I wish I had never trusted you. We’re over. Please do not try to talk to me.
In the three weeks since, I’ve held firm. I’ve refused to let Jackson “explain himself”—which I know with near certainty would look less like explaining himself than promising everything would be different, imploring me with those perfect brown eyes, pouring honeyed poison down my throat. Not going to happen.
The only reason I pick up now is present circumstances. Jackson has respected my privacy, never harassed me or pressed me with multiple calls like just now. With everything riding on today, with every intricacy requiring careful maintenance, I need Jackson off my back before I initiate the first phase.
“You’re coming to the wedding, right?” he asks, his voice humming with urgency.
Wishing not to prolong this conversation, I give him the easiest answer. “Of course I’m coming.”
“Okay. Olivia. Please,” Jackson starts. He has this habit of prefacing significant things he says with staccato introductory sentences. Okay. Olivia. Please. Olivia. Okay. I’m sorry.
Okay. Olivia. I know you like your nickname.
Evading Jackson’s efforts to win me over was only part of why I’ve refused contact with him for the past three weeks. The other is the memories I knew his voice, his face, his eyes, his manner, would summon up.
Jackson was my first friend at East Coventry High, the one who asked the “new girl” if she wanted to walk with him to third period two days into her transition from the hushed halls of Berkshire Prep. Every day, he provided the conversation, until, week by week, I opened up. Even while I did, I remained “new girl” to Jackson. It became our thing. We enjoyed the irony of the nickname, Jackson calling me “new girl” eleven months into our friendship, when I could walk East Coventry’s corridors with my eyes closed.
I liked the nickname. I liked the way he said it, as if I were simultaneously the punch line and the one who told the joke.
I liked everything Jackson Roese said. I liked his smile, the diamond-cut grin set in his sharp jaw. I liked the curl of his hair. I liked everything he woke up in me when we would walk from class to class, laughing, Jackson regaling me with whatever outlandish thing he did over the weekend or passing me his headphones to share his newest musical discovery.
Which is how I found myself heading with him from class to our locker hall one day last year, listening intently after he announced he had “something he needed to discuss with me.”
“I know you like your nickname,” Jackson started.
I nodded, conceding. I did like my nickname. Was it original? No. It was something better—it was mine.
No, it was ours.
After reaching my locker, I shoved my econ textbook in, then grabbed the scuffed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for English.
“Which is why I’d understand your reluctance if I were to retire it,” he said.
I stopped. Glancing up from my locker, not quite comprehending, I found Jackson leaning on the closed locker next to mine. He looked right into my eyes.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’d really like to call you Olivia.”
I’ll never forget the way he breathed my name.
In our heist van with my phone clutched to my ear, the wound in my heart pounds while Jackson continues.
“I’ve given you space,” he says. “Like you asked. You were clear, and I care. I promise I just—maybe in person we could—you could let me know what’s going on with you. With us. I could—explain. Whatever you want me to explain.”
I grimace. Needless to say, my plan does not include pleading from Jackson. The recency of our breakup is deeply unfortunate—if it had happened months before the wedding instead of weeks, he could’ve easily been uninvited. But Maureen sent her invites perfectly on time, and of course she invited her soon-to-be stepdaughter’s (gag) boyfriend.
Which means I need this conversation over, now. “It’s not going to happen. My father’s wedding isn’t the time. It will never be the time. If I see you in the next six hours, it will not be by choice. We’re done.”
“Olivia—”
Jackson is persistent. Which means I’ll need to deal the death blow.
“I—I’ve moved on,” I say. “I’m with someone new.”
The line goes quiet. It’s horrible. I know intimately the whirlwind I’ve just plunged him into. Remember how you felt, I remind myself. Like the breath was ripped right out of your lungs.
Miserable, I fill his silence. “I told you, Jackson,” I say softly. “Don’t try to talk to me.” Then I end the call.
When I return my phone to my clutch, I glance up to find nobody looks like they want to heckle our driver or debate the Spotify playlist. Everyone is stiffly quiet, gazes elsewhere, until Deonte speaks up. “You good?”
I meet his eyes, gauging what he really wants to know. Is he concerned for me personally or for the stability of the girl who holds his nonexistent criminal record in her hands? Deonte goes to East Coventry with me and Jackson, which means he has context for the phone call I just hung up.
“I heard—” he continues, then cuts himself off, as if he’s realized half a second late the car holding my heist crew might not be the place where I want to discuss my romantic misfortunes.
“Heard what?” Tom asks. There’s no misinterpreting the shrewd hunger in his tone. While I did not know Tom well when we were Berkshire classmates—even when we were freshmen, he was one of those campus celebrities who few really knew outside of his beloved TikTok—you didn’t need to be close with Tom Pham to know he loves gossip, which is what he’s caught a whiff of in Deonte’s well-intentioned question. Even Cass glances up with guarded curiosity in her eyes.
I realize instantly the stakes here. I cannot have my crew thinking I’m going to be distracted when I’m not—I’m honestly not—or that I have some heart-throbbing ulterior motive.
“You heard the rumors.” I finish Deonte’s sentence. “They’re true. Jackson cheated on me, and it broke my heart. It’s in the past. I feel nothing for him. Him coming to the wedding has no involvement whatsoever with our plans today.”
The group goes quiet. Well, Cassidy and McCoy stay quiet. While Deonte’s expression doesn’t change, somberness enters his dark eyes. I shift my gaze to Tom, for whom my speech was intended. I knew he would be the hardest to convince. Thespians tend to recognize most keenly when other people are performing.
I guess the firmness in my voice or the calm in my demeanor are convincing, though. Tom nods once, meeting my eyes with respect, maybe even contrition.
When Cass speaks up, I’m not certain I hear her right. “Okay, but who’s your new BF?”
Glancing over, I find the ghost of her smile saying the question was ironic. I return the grin, relieved but unclear why she’s ushering us past the fraught moment.
“Forgive me if I’m wrong,” I say, using the opportunity Cass has given me. “But I don’t think we’re here to gossip. I think we’re here”—I pause potently—“to get rich.”
With perfect timing—which I didn’t plan, but if the group wonders whether I did, then great—McCoy guides the van right into the wide opening of the driveway I’ve pulled into countless times over the past seventeen years.
In front of us, the gates of the Dashiell Owens estate loom, open and waiting.