27. Brooklyn
27
brOOKLYN
I felt like shit.
Correction: I still felt like shit. Because I’d started feeling like shit about two minutes into my breakup with Gabe, and the feeling never really lifted, the shittiness had never given me a moment’s respite. In fact, it had intensified.
I felt like shit on my trip to the airport. I felt like shit on the plane. I felt like shit through my entire interview with Redwoods College, and the fact that they told me they wanted to hire me at the end somehow only made me feel shittier. I wasn’t supposed to get offered a job when I felt like this. Shitty people didn’t deserve job offers.
And so my brain found a way to be unhappy about it. I wasn’t complaining. Being unhappy felt right.
By the time I got off the red-eye back to the east coast and stumbled into Jeff’s waiting car on the arrivals level of the airport, I was almost proud of how shitty I felt. Just a zombified piece of human garbage. Then I judged myself for my pride and got to feel even shittier.
“So I take it we’re not going out for celebratory dissertation drinks, then?” Jeff asked as he finally pulled his car to a stop in front of my apartment.
I grunted.
“Got it. And I’m guessing you probably don’t want to talk about the video that no fewer than three of my other students have forwarded to me, of you and Gabe breaking up in the middle of campus?”
Another grunt.
“Cool.” Jeff looked at me. “If you were this talkative in your interview with Redwoods College, I probably don’t have to ask how that went either.”
I barked a laugh, startling even myself. It was the loudest sound I’d made since my fight with Gabe.
“Actually, they offered me a job on the spot.”
“Jesus, with you looking like this?”
“I mean, it hadn’t been quite so long since I’d showered when I saw them.”
“Still. I knew they wanted to revitalize their department, but I didn’t realize they were desperate.”
“Fuck you.”
“And you too, Dr. Abrams. We can finally curse at each other on equal terms now.”
“Oh joy.”
“It’s the little things, Brooklyn.”
“Yeah. Right.” I leaned through the opening between the two front seats to pull my bag out of the back. “Thanks for the ride, Jeff.”
“Any time. Get some sleep. And Brooklyn?”
I looked back down at him from the curb, peering through the open door and over to the driver’s seat.
“Yeah?”
“It gets better.”
“Fuck off.”
Jeff gave a jaunty wave before driving away.
I didn’t realize I’d been hoping Gabe would be waiting for me until I walked into my empty apartment. I’d only been gone for two days, but it felt like another lifetime since he and I had last been there together. I’d told him we were done. So why did I wish like hell that he were here?
I collapsed face down onto my bed. I was still debating whether I had the energy to get up and shower when I fell asleep.
When I woke up, my head was pounding. Or maybe that was just someone pounding on the door. I pushed myself upright, groggy. Fuck, it was both my head and the door.
I glanced out the window. It was still light out. So why did I feel like I’d been asleep for a week?
I stumbled out of bed and dragged myself to the door, hoping against hope it was Gabe, too tired to wonder why I thought he would ever come back when I’d told him I never wanted to see him again. It wasn’t Gabe, though. It was Jesse. I could see him through the peephole.
“Open up, asshole. You did this for me over the summer, now it’s my turn to do it for you.”
He raised his fist to bang on the door again, and I opened it before he could.
“What are you yelling about?” I asked, confused. “And do you have to do it so loudly? Fuck, I need painkillers.”
I turned around and padded away from the door, leaving Jesse to let himself in. I heard him shut the door and follow me through my apartment. He folded his arms and looked at me, thoroughly unimpressed, while I pawed through my medicine cabinet.
“I’m here for your breakup pep talk. You’re getting it whether you like it or not. I saw the video. And from what I can see of you, you need it. God, you look terrible.”
“Ah, the sweet balm of friendship. What would I do without you to tell me how nauseating I am?” I finally found some Tylenol and tossed two pills back with a gulp of water. “Can we just skip the talk, though?”
“Skip the talk? Never. What kind of friend would I be if I let you go without it?”
“One who realized that I was the breakup-er? I don’t need comforting, Jesse. I’m not the wronged one here.”
“Your mouth says one thing, but the fact that you haven’t answered any of my texts or calls for the past twenty-four hours—and the ungodly stench emanating from your unwashed body—suggests otherwise. Get in the shower, you disgusting excuse for a person. Then get dressed. We’re getting food, and then you’re telling me what happened.”
Twenty-four hours? Had I really been asleep for that long?
And was there any chance I could sneak back into bed without Jesse noticing?
I considered drowning myself in the shower but figured it wasn’t worth the risk. Jesse would probably barge in on me before I could finish the job, and then I’d end up in the ER with even more people wanting to talk to me. It sounded exhausting, so in the end, I let him pull me along to the Ogeechee Diner and plunk a greasy burger, cheese fries, and a chocolate peanut butter milkshake in front of me.
“Eat.”
My stomach rumbled, reminding me how long it had been since I’d forced myself to digest pretzels on the plane.
“I think I might throw up if I eat that,” I said, eyeing the spread with misgiving.
“Fine. Then talk.” Jesse grabbed a fry from my pile. “But you’re doing one or the other, and, to be honest, we’re not leaving here until you’ve done both. Be happy I’m letting you choose which to do first.”
“When did you get so bossy?”
“I’ve always been bossy. You’re just not usually this mopey.”
I picked at a french fry, the melted cheese stretching out like a string as I pulled it from the basket. It tasted like cardboard, but I made myself swallow. I thought maybe I’d get points for good behavior, but Jesse just folded his arms and stared at me, and I didn’t think I could stomach more food at that moment.
“Why don’t I feel better?” I asked finally.
“What do you mean?”
“I did what I was supposed to do. I took the high road, did the right thing. But I feel like shit. What’s wrong with me?”
Jesse shrugged. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “Maybe there was just something wrong with what you did.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I couldn’t let Gabe move with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I couldn’t let him throw his life away like that. He had a chance to move to fucking Paris. To finally do the things he’d been planning for and dreaming about for years. And he was going to give that all up for a bet that didn’t even mean anything anymore.”
“I’m pretty sure he wasn’t doing it for the bet, Brooklyn.”
I sighed. “I couldn’t let him do it for me, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just couldn’t. It’s not that hard to figure out that he’d get sick of me after a few months of living in the middle of nowhere while I taught Intro to Bio to a bunch of kids taking it as a Gen Ed requirement, worked every night on publishing, and pushed myself around and around on the fucking tenure-track hamster wheel. I get sick of it just talking about it, and it’s my life.”
“Maybe that says more about you than it does about Gabe.”
“Would you just say what you mean for once instead of all this cryptic maybe shit? Please, Jesse, I’m barely awake here.”
“Fine, you want me to lay it out for you? I will. I was trying to be nice to you, but if you don’t want me to sugar-coat it, I won’t. I think you’re being an idiot. I think you’re panicking, because you’ve realized that maybe the thing you wanted so desperately when you were fourteen isn’t what you want now that you’re almost thirty. There’s a shocker. People change.”
Jesse shook his head at me. “But you’ve never allowed yourself to consider that possibility, because you’re terrified of having to face a world of unknowns where you can’t control everything. So instead of acknowledging the fact that you don’t want to be a professor anymore, you’re pushing away the one thing in your life, the one person, who you do want, in the insane hope that this will somehow set things back to how they used to be. Newsflash, Brooklyn: Life doesn’t work that way. It’s confusing, and it’s hard, and yeah, it’s scary as shit when you don’t know what you want to do, but you know the one thing that makes it better? Having someone who wants to go through that shit with you. And you went and pushed him away.”
I stared at Jesse in shock. I’d never heard him talk like that before. So vehement and so…direct. I started to laugh, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. He glared at me for a minute in silence while I cackled.
“Great. I broke you.” He rolled his eyes. “So you’re not only a dumbass with a major case of denial, you’re a dumbass in denial who can’t stop laughing. This should make the rest of lunch pleasant.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m sorry, I just. You’re not—you’ve never—I mean, you’re not normally like that.”
“What can I say, you bring out the best in me. Rawr.” He flexed his fingers at me like tiger claws before dropping them. “So how out of line was I just now?”
“Fuck.” I sighed. “Probably not out of line at all.”
“Really? I can’t wait to tell Mark. He thought my speech was too harsh, but I told him you weren’t such a delicate flower that you couldn’t take a little tough love.”
“Oh God, you’ve talked to Mark about me?”
“Duh, he’s my husband. That’s what you do with husbands. You tell them about the shit that’s important to you.”
The remark hung there in the air between us. Jesse grabbed another fry and munched on it while he watched me struggle with all the words fighting inside my head.
“I miss him.” There were a million other things I could have said. But in the end, that was all that was needed.
“It’s about fucking time ,” Jesse said, sounding exasperated. “I don’t know what kind of burnt offerings I need to make in gratitude to what god, but I’m glad someone’s made you open your eyes.”
“Why do I put up with you?”
“Because I’m the only person not scared enough by your angry-grump aesthetic to be chased away?”
He had a point.
“Fuck, Jesse. What do I do?”
“Call him, dummy. Text him. Fax him a letter to 1996 and tell him you’re in love with him and you’re sorry.” He eyed me suspiciously. “You have admitted to yourself that you’re in love with him, right? Because if not, we have a lot more work to do than I thought.”
I nodded. “No, I know. That ship sailed a while ago.”
“Good. I suspect lovesick might even look good on you, once you decide to stop moping around and do something about it.”
“But what can I do? Yeah, I know, call him, tell him I love him, I’m sorry, whatever. But what then? Let him make the same mistake I did when I was twenty-two, change his whole life around for a guy and a relationship that might not work out?”
“Brooklyn, that’s every relationship. There are no guarantees. But if you push people away because you’re not sure how your relationship will end, you can guarantee that you’ll end up alone.
“I don’t want him to hate me.”
“I know. And it’s scary. Knowing that you can’t control everything.” Jesse made a face. “But that’s life. You have a right to your actions, but not to anyone else’s. You don’t get to make his decisions for him.”
“What if we get back together, and it ends horribly?”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Brooklyn? Is that you?”
I turned at the sound of my name to see Julian Jackson, the third-grade teacher from Adair Elementary, standing at the edge of our booth. With him was a tall guy with dark brown hair, a baseball cap, and an intimidating-looking scowl. Julian had a receipt in his hands, and it looked like they were on the way out of the diner.
“Uh, hey, Julian.” I smiled hesitantly. How much had he overheard, and just how embarrassing had I been in the past fifteen seconds? I couldn’t remember. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good. We were in town visiting Connor’s grandmother—” he jerked his thumb at the guy standing next to him, “—and decided to stop here for food before heading back to Summersea.”
“Your grandmother lives in Savannah?” I asked Connor. “Small world.”
“She lives on Summersea, actually,” he said.
“But she’s been staying with a friend in town here for a bit, and—” Julian cut off when Connor snorted. He sent Connor a questioning look, and Connor rolled his eyes.
“Friend? We’re really still saying that?”
“Until she decides to use a different word, yes,” Julian said. “We can respect her wishes in that regard.”
“As though she’s ever respected anyone else’s when it comes to relationships,” Connor said darkly. “I’m not sure what she’s done to merit that consideration.”
“Hey, she’s trying now.” Julian put his hand on Connor’s arm. “That counts for something, doesn’t it?” He turned back to look at Jesse and me. “He’s just still grumpy because she told him to take his hat off before eating dinner last night.”
Connor muttered something that might have been ‘ fucking pointless social theater ,’ but I decided to just smile and nod. Whatever they were talking about was way above my head, and I had too much going on in mine to try to figure it out.
“Anyway,” Julian continued, “I’m really glad I ran into you.”
“You are?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I was going to call you. I found out on Friday that Amy Carruthers, one of our second-grade teachers, got engaged.”
“That’s…nice for her?” I said, still not quite following.
“It is, but more to the point, it could be nice for you.” Julian smiled conspiratorially. “I don’t suppose you know anyone who’d be looking to take over a second-grade classroom halfway through the year, do you?”
His smile broadened, but all I could do was stare back blankly. I had a feeling I was missing something, but my brain didn’t feel like cooperating and telling me what that something was.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “My brain’s a little slow today. How does this relate to me?”
Connor laughed. “Your brain’s fine. Julian just got so excited by the prospect of working with you that he skipped over the part where he explains that Amy’s husband is in the military and is going to be stationed in Germany for another two years. He was home on leave, proposed, and now they’re moving overseas, and Julian’s spent the whole weekend trying to figure out how to ask if you want to take over her job in a way that doesn’t creep you out with how enthusiastic he is about it.”
“No chance of that now,” Julian said, shooting Connor a rueful look.
Connor grinned. “Happy to help.”
“I’m sorry, I’m still trying to catch up,” I said. “So, Amy’s leaving Adair Elementary?”
“Yes, and that means we’re going to have an opening. And normally, it’s hard to fill a position like that mid-year. But then I remembered all the times you’ve talked about loving teaching, and I just thought…” Julian shrugged and smiled. “Why not, you know?”
“I do love teaching,” I said slowly. “But I was kind of referring to the college level.”
“But you already know the kids, and the school. And you’d get to keep working with Human Nature—”
“I’m not even certified.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure we could get that temporarily waived, if you enrolled in some sort of alternate certification program in the spring.”
“Julian, I—I mean, listen, I’m flattered. Really. And I’m not going to lie and say parts of it don’t sound tempting. But I literally just finished my PhD program. I’m not sure that more grad school is what I want right now.”
“I know, I know,” Julian said hurriedly. “And as much as I think having a teacher with a PhD would look awesome to the administration, I am sure you’re swimming in offers from colleges and universities and have so many places you’d rather be this spring than teaching at an elementary school on Summersea. Believe me, I get that this is a somewhat insane proposition. But just…think about it, maybe? We’ve got a few weeks before we have to get it all figured out, so you don’t have to decide yet.”
“Or at least lie and say you’ll think about it,” Connor put in, “so that he doesn’t mope the whole way home.”
The smile he gave Julian then was so soft, so tender, that it completely transformed his face. Julian had mentioned Connor to me before in passing, and that smile was all it took to see that Connor was completely head over heels for him.
I knew what that felt like.
“I can do that,” I said with a laugh. “Actually think about it, that is,” I clarified.
“Awesome. We can check in next week.”
With a final smile and wave, Julian and Connor exited the diner, and I turned back to Jesse.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I told him.
“How am I looking at you? Am I looking at you like you’re the kind of person who just had the answer to all his problems drop out of the sky? Am I looking at you like I might fucking kill you if you don’t at least consider this option? Or am I looking at you like I can’t believe you’re still sitting here talking to me instead of trying to get your husband back?”
“Fuck.” I exhaled slowly. “Jesse, I fucked things up so badly.”
“That just means you need to do an amazing job fixing them. Piece of cake. You’ve got a fucking doctorate.”
“Do you think he’d even take me back?”
“How should I know? But I’m not the one you should be asking.”
Fuck. He was right. And if I was going to have any chance of fixing this, I had to get started. Now.
“Calling him?” Jesse asked as I pulled out my phone.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not yet. First, I’m calling his brother. There’s something I need to do.”