Chapter 25
THREE DAYS PASS IN silence. Julie doesn’t stop by, neither does Jill. But on Friday afternoon, Wilson calls at five o’clock. That makes me smile. It’s the only beacon of light in this entire ordeal.
When I answer, I’m expecting him to say he’s finishing early tonight. Maybe he’ll ask me to hang out after Monte’s is closed. Or better yet, maybe he has another date planned and we can—
“Jackie,” he says frantically the moment I answer the call. “I know it’s your night off, but can you come in?”
“Why do you sound like you’re dying?”
“I think I am,” he whispers. On the other end, I can hear a baby crying and what sounds like the door to Wilson’s office slamming shut. “Dominique called in sick, we’re down a server, and we have a birthday party arriving in thirty minutes. Please. I need you.”
Twenty-five minutes later I’m walking through Monte’s front door. I catch Wilson standing at the ticket kiosks, engaged in a serious conversation with a mother who is holding a screaming child against her hip. We hold a second’s worth of eye contact, and it’s somehow enough to propel me through the next three hours.
The party arrives. It’s a group of twenty-two kids and just as many parents, all celebrating a twelve-year-old’s birthday. Since the other waiters are busy serving the rest of the guests, I take on the party by myself. There’s a brief moment where I second-guess whether I can even handle this, but the moment I tie my apron and step into the zone, I’ve got it under control. I’m running out pitcher after pitcher of Coca-Cola and ice water. They order enough pizza to send Ridgewood into a wheat crisis, and the birthday boy insists on a “birthday tower of mozzarella sticks.” I get creative and ask the kitchen to whip up a triple batch. When they’re hot out of the fryer, I grab the baskets we reserve for french fries, line it with our signature checkered paper, pour the mozzarella sticks in so they create a small mountain, and stick a candle on top. For a reason I can’t comprehend, it’s a huge hit with the guests. The birthday boy screams so loud when he sees it that I actually have to cover my ears.
Then it’s time for cake. We have it stored in the kitchen fridge, and I carry it out oh so carefully. I haven’t sliced a cake in ages, but the second the knife glides through that blue and red buttercream—yes, it was Spider-Man themed—we’re in business. I get a good sixty slices out of it and hand out plate after plate faster than I can count. When the kids flee the table to hit the arcade, the parents order coffees and a few teas. I bring them out on two perfectly balanced trays and then, for the first time in three hours, I catch my breath.
The dinner rush begins to die down, and some of the other tables free up. A few waiters ask if I need help, but I insist that I’m fine. I want this party all for myself. That way, I’m not expected to split the tip with anyone.
After a few of the guests leave, I wipe down the tables and bring out a second round of cake for the kids who trickle back in. Finally, the birthday boy’s parents pay the bill and tip me a fat twenty-two percent, ringing in at nearly $176.00. I stare down at the check with the biggest grin on my face. This is why I fought to be a waitress so bad. Froggy money never paid up like this. It never felt this good, either.
After the party leaves and I begin cleaning up, a little squeal catches my attention. I look over and find three girls, no older than eight, huddled together by the claw machine. Trapped in the claw is a shiny pink dolphin. It’s getting closer and closer to being dropped into the slot when it falls right back on top of the mountain of plushies. The youngest girl immediately falls to the ground and bursts into tears. The two older ones, who I’m realizing are her sisters, don’t miss a beat. One of them sits down beside her and squeezes her tightly. The other sister gets to work. She shoves a few more tickets into the machine and tries again. I watch in agony as the claw grasps the dolphin and drops it right back on top.
Before I understand why I’m doing it, I stop wiping the table and march over there. I always keep a stash of tickets in my apron for this exact reason. The girl manning the game easily steps aside when I approach. I stick three tickets into the machine, and it whirs to life. I maneuver the claw to the left, back a little, then a smidge to the right. I rotate the tiniest amount, then slap the big red button. The claw lurches down and grabs the dolphin. When it drops right into the winning slot, all four of us screech with excitement.
I grab the sparkly pink plushie and crouch down until I’m eye to eye with the youngest daughter. “This is for you,” I say, handing it over to her.
Her face is red and splotchy, her cheeks so adorably chubby. She takes the dolphin from my hand and immediately tugs it to her chest, burying her face into its soft little body. Then she lurches forward and wraps her tiny arms around my neck.
“Fanks,” she says, probably leaking snot and tears on my T-shirt. Still, I hug her tightly.
“You’re welcome.”
I look up to find her two sisters smiling at me. A second later, the three of them run off, probably to win more games and make more memories to someday look back on.
When Anita walks over to me, I’m leaning against the claw machine, crying my eyes out. As soon as she spots the tears, she looks uncomfortable. It reminds me so much of Jillian that I only cry harder.
“Geez. Was the tip that party left you really that bad?”
That gets a laugh out of me, albeit a wet one. I untie my apron and use it to wipe my eyes. “No. It was actually really good.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Because I miss my sisters. Because I miss the days when we were this inseparable, unstoppable force that acted as one another’s shadow. We were three unmovable parts of a whole, and it seemed as if we had so much time to stay like that. And now we’ve grown up, and someday they’ll move on—into another house, maybe another state. We have only so many more moments left to be together like this, and I’ve already wasted too many of them fighting.
When it’s clear that I can barely get a word out through the tears, Anita walks me to the front door, careful to keep a solid three feet of space between us so I don’t taint her with my emotions.
She holds the door open and pushes me outside. “Get some air, Jackie. Just don’t go too close to my car, all right? I’m not in the mood to clean boogers off it tomorrow.”
I make it to the back of the building where the dumpsters are. I lean against the brick wall and manage to stand up for a solid minute before I begin to cry. When my legs give out, I slide down, down, down, until I’m sitting on the ground. The sobs break out of me so violently that my entire body begins to shake.
There’s a burning in my chest, too. An unmistakable contempt I feel for myself. All I want is to turn back time. Go back to before I started pleasebreakmyheart and allow myself the chance to do everything differently. I’d gladly sacrifice the promotion, go back to being in that freaking frog costume, if only it meant returning home to a house that isn’t empty.
I’m searching my apron for a tissue when I hear a pair of shoes scuffling toward me. I look up, and it’s Wilson, holding an entire box of tissues. I feel so relieved and happy to see him that I begin to cry all over again. Before I can stand, he is sitting down beside me, pulling me into his chest. And I know how clean his car is, how tidy his office is. Yet here he is, cross-legged on the dirty ground, all in the name of comforting me.
I bury my face into his neck. His hands rub small circles on my back, and the slight pressure feels so, so nice. I focus on that instead, use it to calm my racing heart. He doesn’t say a word. He just sits there, holds me, lets me slowly pull myself back together. Somehow, he seems to know exactly what I need.
And yet all I can focus on is the guilt. There is this ten-pound weight on my chest that reminds me of what I did to him. How pleasebreakmyheart not only hurt my sisters but hurt him, too. The only difference is he doesn’t know it yet.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispers, still holding me. He takes tissue after tissue out of the box and dabs at my face. “Did a customer say something to you? I can’t promise I’ll beat them up, but I’ll give them a very stern talking-to.”
It’s so ridiculously him that it makes me laugh, which quickly turns into more tears.
“Jackie.” He grabs me again, and we collide together. All I can think is how badly I don’t deserve this. That the only reason we got here is because I hurt him, and then I lied to him about it for weeks.
I pull away again and take the tissue from his hand, wiping at my eyes.
“Talk to me,” he begs.
It feels like there’s a roadblock in my throat. I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. Maybe because the words I truly need to say are too terrifying to put out there.
Before I can dig up the courage for that, I opt for a different truth. “I miss my sisters.”
Wilson latches on to that tiny bit of information. “Tell me what happened.”
“We got into a fight,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I really messed up, Wilson. I hurt them so badly.”
He reaches through the darkness and grabs my hand. “Do you want to tell me what you did?”
And before I even know it, I’m telling him everything. About iDiary . About pleasebreakmyheart . The hundreds of messages and the thousands of followers. I leave out the bit about Kenzie, but I tell him the rest. How I exploited Julie and Jillian, used their secrets so carelessly. How I’m terrified that they may never forgive me.
When I finish, Wilson sits there in silence. “Wow,” he says. “I was not expecting any of that.”
“Yeah,” I say. The tears have subsided, but I can’t seem to stop sniffling. “Do you think I’m a terrible person?”
When Wilson smiles at me, it’s nothing short of a lifeline. “Jackie, I think you’re the best person. Which still feels incredibly weird to say, but I do. And I get why you did what you did, with starting that blog. But I also can see why it hurt your sisters so badly.”
I nod. “I hate that I hurt them.”
Wilson lets out a long breath. “I can’t believe you’ve had all that going on this entire time.”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” I say. “You know, we were kind of mortal enemies up until a few days ago, so.”
Wilson knocks his knee into mine. “I really liked being your mortal enemy.”
“So did I,” I admit, something I’ve realized in hindsight. “It sort of made coming to work a lot more fun.”
A moment passes. I rest my head on Wilson’s shoulder. He wraps an arm around me, pulling me close. It feels so good, I wish I could hit Pause and live in this moment indefinitely.
“Your sisters will come around,” he says.
“How do you know that?”
Even in the darkness, his eyes find mine. “Because that’s what family does, they come around.”
“I don’t like when we fight like this,” I say quietly. “I don’t like feeling so separated from them. It’s like the rational part of me knows we will be okay, but this other voice in my head reminds me that I may have lost them forever.”
“You haven’t lost them forever.”
As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I think about Wilson’s dad, someone he truly has lost forever. “I’m sorry. That was so insensitive. I shouldn’t have—”
“Hey,” he interjects, his free hand squeezing my knee. “You say whatever you need to, Jackie. This isn’t about me right now.”
I breathe out. In the exhale, I give voice to all the thoughts running wild in my mind. “They’re my older sisters,” I say, feeling tears sting my eyes again. “I need them so badly, Wilson. Like, every day feels so terrifying without them here. I never realized how much I rely on them to just exist alongside me, you know? They’re this constant companion that makes every day feel less scary because at least we’re facing it together.”
Wilson doesn’t say a word. He only watches me, holds me, lends me his comfort, which is really all I need.
“I think what I regret the most is being so... so reckless with their feelings,” I continue. “Now it seems so freaking obvious, but in the moment, all I could see was my blog and how it blew up. I was so focused on pleasing some strangers on the internet, I forgot that the people I love the most that were right beside me.”
“Did you tell them that?” he asks.
“I did.”
“Then that’s all you can do, Jackie.”
I lift my head off his shoulder and stare at him. “But I shouldn’t have done any of it to begin with.”
Wilson reaches out and runs his thumb along my cheek, catching another tear. “Of course you’re going to say that now. Everyone looks back at their past and thinks, hey, I really wish I had done that differently. But isn’t that the point? That we can learn and grow? Look, what’s done is done, and you can’t undo it, so focus on what you can do. You apologized, you owned up for your mistakes. Now all you can do is wait for them to come around.”
I groan. “I don’t want to wait, Willy. I want everything back to normal.”
At that, he smiles. “Normal would be you in a frog costume and us hating each other’s guts.”
I stand corrected. “I want some things back to normal.”
Wilson leans in and kisses my forehead. “I, for one, kind of like this new normal.”
I return his smile. “So do I.”
“Do you think...” His voice trails off. I watch his eyes flicker up to mine, see that familiar shyness creep into his demeanor. “Do you think this could be our new normal?” he says, blurting the words out.
I start to cry all over again. My hand cups his face, and there’s nothing I want more than to say yes. To dive into him and see where the current takes us. But if we agree to this, if we agree to move forward together, we can’t start off on shaky ground. If the foundation isn’t there from the beginning, it’s only a matter of time until the floor gives out entirely.
With my sisters, I never confessed. I waited until they found out themselves, then I closed my eyes and apologized, hoping they’d believe me and come around. But I learned my lesson now, and I’m not making the same mistake twice.
“Jackie.” I’ve gotten so used to the way his voice cradles my name. “You’re crying again.”
“I lied to you before,” I blurt out.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “What did you lie about?” Even now, he’s so gentle.
I sniffle and Wilson hands me a tissue. “You asked if I had apologized. If I owned up to my mistakes. I did with my sisters. But I haven’t apologized to you.”
“What’s there to apologize for?”
And then the words rush out of me, like they should have weeks ago. “Kenzie wrote into my blog. I had no idea it was her at the time. She wrote in and asked for advice to break up with you, and I gave it to her. It was my idea for her to do it in a letter. I mean, I guess she would have broken up with you anyway, but I helped her do it. And when I found out that it was Kenzie, I should have told you. But I thought offering to help you win her back would be enough to right my wrongs. You have to believe me, Wilson. I had no idea it was Kenzie who wrote in. I didn’t realize until the day I found her letter in your desk. And then I tried to make it right. I really did.”
Wilson moves away from me and stands up. Time stretches on in silence as he stares at me, his mouth slightly open. His eyebrows draw together, and I can see him trying to process everything I said.
“Kenzie wrote into your blog, asking for advice to break up with me?” he repeats.
“Yes. I can show you—”
“No. Please don’t.”
Wilson begins pacing back and forth. With every step, I feel him getting farther away.
I stand up too and walk to him. I grab his hands, root him in place. “Talk to me.”
“You didn’t know it was Kenzie,” he says slowly.
“I didn’t. I thought she was some random girl who needed help, which is why I gave it to her.”
“But you knew the moment you read the letter, Jackie. You knew then what you did, and you lied to me about it,” Wilson continues. “All those weeks we spent together, planning for Kenzie, and you went along with it.”
I stammer over my words. “I’m so sorry,” I say.
But no, those words don’t feel right.
I try again. “Wilson, I thought I was being helpful.”
No. Still wrong.
“When I found out what I did, I tried so hard to make it right,” I say frantically. “That’s why I offered to help you win her back. I wanted—I wanted to right my wrongs. I wanted to help fix what I broke.”
“But you leveraged your job,” he says. When he turns to me, I can see how badly I’ve hurt him. “Did you really care about helping me, or were you just trying to get your old job back?”
“I think—” I take a breath, hating myself for what I’m about to admit. “I think a little bit of both. When I saw you that day at The Rundown , you looked so heartbroken, Wilson. I had never seen you look that way. I really did want to help you, but—I guess I had to help myself too. I selfishly threw in my job promotion. You’re right. I shouldn’t have made it about me.”
Then Wilson takes his hands out of mine, and I know I’ve lost.
This time, it’s a different sense of loss. Not the same ache I feel with my sisters. Not that deep pain that is bearable only because you know that, like Wilson said, family always comes around. But Wilson isn’t family. This thing growing between us is so new, so unsteady. It could collapse under the slightest weight, and I’m afraid I’ve dropped an anvil on it.
“Jackie, you lied to my face for weeks.” He runs a hand along his jaw. “God, I probably seemed so pathetic. Moping over my ex to you, when you were the one who gave her the courage to dump me.”
I feel like I’m falling apart all over again. I can’t stop myself from babbling, throwing out apologies and explanations, but Wilson just stands there without saying a word. His silence cuts me to the bone. It says so much without saying anything at all.
“Wilson, I didn’t know the account was Kenzie—”
“I know that,” he says, his voice growing louder. “I get that, Jackie. I’m not mad you gave Kenzie the advice. That doesn’t matter. At all. But you should have told me about the blog before we teamed up to win her back. You could have been honest.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m telling you now. I should have been up-front weeks ago, but I was so scared. For some reason, protecting my blog and my anonymity came before anything . I realize now that it shouldn’t have. You were more important, my sisters were more important. I messed up. Badly.”
There’s so much more I have to say, but then Justin peeks his head out from around the corner. I instantly look the other way, not wanting him to catch sight of my tear-streaked face. “Wilson, some lady wants to speak to the manager. Said her kid choked on a mozzarella stick or something,” he says.
I’m so shaken I can’t even manage a laugh.
“Be right there,” Wilson calls back.
When Justin walks away, Wilson takes my face in his hands. I want to hit Pause. I want to hit Pause right now .
“I need to get back inside,” he says softly, his eyes searching mine. That subtle action alone means everything to me. That, after what has happened between us, he still waits for me to give him the okay to leave.
“I want to keep talking about this,” I say, gripping his arms.
“We will,” Wilson says, “but not right now. I need to go do my job, and I think we both need a minute to calm down. Why don’t you leave early? I’ll have your tips ready for next week.”
I must nod, because Wilson lets go of my face. He heads back inside, taking all the warmth with him.