Chapter 25 #2
How could I—because I had that same thought seeing him with Anissa: how could he?
Because it wasn’t that I’d lost my chance, wasn’t that I never had one…
How could I—because Jake is in love with me like I’ve been in love with him for so long, and must have been too scared to risk our friendship just like I was.
Why else would he be so upset over me kissing someone else?
Oh God, I’ve ruined everything, for one reckless, foot-pop-worthy kiss.
My heart hammers in my chest, and all I can do is stare because Jake’s in love with me, too, and this is the best news and the worst news and I have to fix it, I have to…
Jake bolts past us, into the house, and I peel out from between Max and the wall to follow him, only pausing to snap, “Don’t follow me,” at Max. I can’t undo the kiss, I know that, but I do know that he can only make things worse right now.
I catch Jake’s arm in the hallway, tugging him to a halt.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what happened, I—”
“You don’t even like him!”
“I—”
Oh shit, I’m really not as subtle as I think, am I?
He knows, he’s probably known all along, he probably thought that inviting us both to watch OWAR was a good way to help me get along with his new mate…
No wonder he cut me out of things like their cosplay-crafting for Comic Con when he knew I didn’t like Max!
“It’s not that I don’t like him, Jake, I—”
“You never talk to him! Both of you! You never even talk to each other! You act like you can’t bear to be around each other, all the time!
Is this why? Is this…Have you both been…
How long—” His face crumples, and he presses his fingers to his eyes before his tears can fall.
They leave smudges on the inside of his glasses when I draw his arm away, but he pulls back, like he can’t bear for me to touch him.
He hiccups, and I bite my lip, not sure how much of this is real and how much of it is just close to the surface because he’s been drinking. I don’t suppose it matters either way.
“Jake, it’s not like that, I promise, it’s—it was—”
“How could you?” he asks again, with another hiccup, and this time a couple of tears spill over. “You’re supposed to be my friend, Cerys, my best friend, but—”
A laugh cuts out of me before I can stop it. It’s a short, barking sound that is nothing like me, so much so that Jake startles, pausing whatever tirade he’s got brewing. I laugh again, another horrible, hollow sound, but somehow it feels so good to let it out.
So I let some of the rest out, too. All the dark, anxious, nasty thoughts I kept pushing down and pretending there was a good excuse for. I let it all come spilling out.
“Best friend?” I sneer. “Is that what you call it? When you hardly talk to me, or tell me anything anymore? Half the time I feel like you’re ghosting me, trying to cut me out of your life like you did everyone from school, and when we do talk it’s only because of this stupid fandom—”
“What, you mean the stupid fandom you only got into because I told you about it? I didn’t make you get involved, Cerys. I thought you’d like it, and I thought it’d be a cool thing for us to enjoy together, but I didn’t make you watch the show.”
“If I didn’t, we’d never talk! I’d never see you!”
“That’s not true—”
“Yes it is, and you know it. If we’re supposed to be best friends, then why haven’t you been there for me?
You know how much shit I’ve had going on at home with my parents, but you only seem to bother asking when it’s convenient.
I needed you, Jake. I needed my best friend and you were—you were too busy geeking out over OWAR with your new friend—”
“So what, this is your idea of revenge? This is how you’re getting back at me for having a life outside of you? By going after Max?”
“I’m not going after him, Jake, I’m—that’s…” This whole thing feels like it’s gotten so wildly off track; I try to wrangle it back. “I’m not mad at you for having other friends, I’m mad at you for—”
“Yes, you are!” he scoffs, then hiccups again and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
Even if he is tipsy, this fight seems to be sobering him up by the second.
Every word thrown seems to make him steadier on his feet; it makes me feel wobbly and queasy.
He scowls at me, and brushes another rogue tear off his cheek.
“You never let me have anything of my own, Cerys. You’re always—you’re always tagging along. ”
“I’m what?”
“You are!” he bursts out, nodding sharply, even as his breath shudders. “You tagged along at school, and you tagged along to the Worlds Beyond con, and now you’re tagging along with OWAR and Max just like you tag along with the girls at school and wear whatever they wear and do whatever they do—”
“Oh, like you were so into the idea of cosplay before Max—”
“At least Max cares about stuff! At least he knows who he is!”
“What, unlike me, you mean?”
“Yeah! Yeah, unlike you. And you’re so shallow about it—”
“You want to talk about shallow, Jake? How about your soccer drama, and Ginny being annoyed that you’re borrowing her car to learn to drive, and every time you crack the same joke about being late with your homework?
All you ever talk about is what’s going on with you.
You barely ever ask how I’m doing, Jake, and when you do—”
I break off, trembling, sick to my stomach. When he does, it’s hidden under layers of conversation about OWAR in the Discord. Like he’s…ashamed of me. Squashing me down, pushing me out, tucking me out of the way of his “real” life.
My eyes search Jake’s, and cold settles into my bones. My best friend feels like a stranger to me.
“It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” I tell him. “And you know what? If this is how you’re going to be, I’m not sure I want to.”
He staggers back, the words slicing between us like a guillotine, and the fight drains out of him in a shuddering exhale. Jake’s whole body slumps, his face growing taut around the edges and eyes shining with more tears, but he doesn’t let them fall.
Instead, he spins on his heel and storms out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.
I watch him go, feeling all at once numb and agonized. Jane Austen’s Captain Wentworth eat your heart out: I am all in agony now, and it’s definitely worse than when there was still half hope.
I’ve destroyed it. Not just the hope of a potential romance, but the hope of salvaging our friendship. It’s gone. I did that.
The fireworks keep going outside. BOOM and crack! and fizzzzz, and the oohs and aahs of an appreciative, tipsy crowd watching them all.
Behind me, I’m aware of Max and Anissa standing silently, having watched the whole fight.
Max can’t meet my eye.
That hurts almost as much as Jake storming out on me. I feel so stupid for thinking Max was more than this superior, judgmental ass.
I feel so stupid for thinking maybe he meant it, when he acted like he cared about me, and that’s why he kissed me.
Anissa gives his elbow a quick squeeze, saying something to him that I don’t catch, before coming over and slipping an arm around me. “Do you want to go home?”
I nod.
We don’t ask Max for a lift. He makes himself scarce. Anissa and I wait at the foot of the stairs until my dad texts to say that he’s outside.
“How was the party, girls?” he asks brightly.
“Yeah, great. Really good. We’re just tired,” I say, and if he thinks our mood is subdued, he understands now is not the time to ask about it.
We’re halfway home when Anissa waves her phone at me. “Jake went back to the party. He’s going to get a lift home with some of the others.”
Right. Of course. They’ve been chatting in the Discord. She’s someone he likes chatting with about the books.
Mom tries to give us more of the third degree when we get home, and I offer up a few half-hearted responses. Anissa fills in for me with a bit more enthusiasm, and a huge yawn that has Mom sending us both off to bed to get some sleep.
Anissa and I change quickly and in silence, and I don’t think this is how sleepovers are really supposed to go. I’m not being a good host.
Then again, we’re not twelve, and my life has just imploded because of a kiss.
I roll over to face Anissa down on the air bed.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I whisper into the dark. I don’t think she’s asleep yet. “I didn’t even really mean to kiss Max, it just…happened.”
“I thought you and Runic…I mean—”
“Yeah,” I say. “I thought so, too. I don’t know. It’s all a mess, and…God, the look on his face…I’ve never seen Jake like that. He was devastated. The things I said to him…I really didn’t mean…”
Anissa props herself up on one elbow, the air bed making a plasticky rustle. “He said some pretty harsh things, too, Cerys.”
“It’s nothing I didn’t deserve. He’s right, I do…tag along, I’m—”
“He was out of order,” she reiterates, so sternly that I let myself believe her.
At least for the moment. “And anyway, he’d really been putting those hard ciders away, plus a few vodka Jell-O shots…
Give him a couple of days to get his head straight, he’ll see things differently.
You can both apologize and go back to normal. It won’t all seem so horrible then.”
“Do you think?”
She nods; I see her silhouetted head bobbing as my eyes adjust to the dark.
Weirdly, I trust her judgment. If she’s been chatting with Jake for a while—and she knows him from school and spent all night at the party with him…At the very least, I trust her judgment far more than mine right now.
Can I blame Jake, for being so hurt? He caught me kissing his best friend. He wouldn’t have reacted like that if he didn’t feel the way about me as I do about him. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t this what I wanted?
So why is it Max that my mind keeps circling back to—putting his arm around me, keeping me warm from the chill, coming after me when I got upset, then not looking at me after the kiss? Why is that the part that seems to hurt so much more right now?
Is this how Jake felt when he saw me kissing another boy? This overwhelming ache in the pit of my chest that feels like it’ll drag me down, drowning me?
A couple of minutes pass in silence, though neither of us falls asleep. Instead of processing anything, my brain just feels full of raging white noise I can’t decipher. My lips are still tingling from the aftermath of the kiss, and I touch a finger to them.
I really don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t even know how we got to a point where we were kissing! I thought Max hated me. I thought I hated him. That can’t all change in the span of one conversation on opposite sides of a bathroom door, can it?
Is this what the whole fuss is with the enemies-to-lovers trope? I kind of understand it if that’s the sort of kiss it leads to.
One very quiet but very clear thought swims to the surface: I wish we hadn’t been interrupted.
I risk saying out loud, “It was a really good kiss, though.”
Anissa giggles. “I’ll say! We only caught the tail end but you two looked very steamy.”
“And his hair’s really soft.”
“Mm-hmm.” She makes the sound through closed lips, like she’s trying not to laugh. I throw a spare pillow down, smacking her square in the face, and a giggle bursts out of her.
And because she’s proving to be a good listener—a good friend—I say, “For a minute when I saw you and Jake together, I thought…”
Anissa snorts. “As if.”
“Oh. Well…okay.” Good. Bad? I don’t know anymore. “Thanks for, um, coming with me tonight. And for coming home early with me. I know you were having a good time…”
“Of course!” she says. “I did have fun. It’s sad we didn’t get to hang out more, though.
You totally vanished after we got there.
I thought…” She gives a small laugh. “Well, after I saw you and Max all over each other, I thought maybe that was why you’d invited me.
So you could both ditch Jake without it being weird.
Fourth-wheel me. It’s okay if you were,” she adds in a rush. “I just—”
“No, Anissa, I—” Rumbled, but not quite.
I feel truly, properly heinous for having used her at all—even if it backfired wildly, and even if I do genuinely like spending time with her.
More sincerely, I tell her, “I’m sad we didn’t get to hang out more, too.
Honestly, I thought you and Max would get on really well. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe…,” she starts, and then falls quiet, never finishing her sentence.
I try to finish it for her. I don’t know her like I do Jake, but I think I’m starting to. I know I’d like to. “Maybe we could hang out again soon? Outside of school or the Discord chat, I mean, and without boys getting in the way.”
“Yeah.” I can hear the grin in her voice. “I’d like that.”