The Romance Rewind

Chapter One

One

I can always tell when Jason has a secret. He starts to do everything at double speed—speaking, eating, driving. It’s like he physically can’t wait for the part where he gets to unleash his surprise on the world.

Tonight, Jason starts rambling from the moment he picks me up at my house, all the way down the interstate and into the city, and he doesn’t stop even when he’s taking his first bite of spanakopita.

That’s how I know our dinner at Apollo’s is going to be special.

That—and the fact that today is exactly one year since our very first date.

It’s the only anniversary I like to think about this time of year.

So far only I’ve given Jason his gift. My adorable hand-drawn “Our Relationship Is a Toddler” card sits next to his plate, as he’s halfway through a monologue about the weather. Seriously. If his nervousness wasn’t so darn cute, it would be infuriating.

“And that, of course, doesn’t predict that we will have a warm fall either,” he says, chewing as fast as he’s talking, “but what the El Nino effect does do—”

“Babe,” I say, unable to take any more, “you’re going to choke on your food and not get to tell me what’s going on.”

I’m expecting my comment to draw one of his to-die-for dimples out of hiding, to coax his broad shoulders into relaxing, but Jason coughs a little instead. “How do you know…I mean, who said there’s something going on?”

“Oh please,” I say, rolling my eyes.

Jason Riddick is known for many things in our town, but being nervous is not one of them. His composure under pressure, pinpoint accuracy, and just-this-side-of-tolerable confidence make him the best captain the Sterlingwood High soccer team has ever seen.

I lean forward so my elbows are on the table. “You’re about as obvious as a zit on photo day. Just tell me already.”

Jason makes a face. He thinks people only use similes to show off a high SAT score.

I let him gather his thoughts while I covertly check that my lipstick is still flawless with my phone. I always wear at least one thing that accurately captures my mood, one thing that reveals what I’m feeling to whoever is paying attention, and tonight’s confident red lip is my open secret.

“Here you go.”

The waiter refills our waters, and I give him a smile and a “Thank you.”

Tonight, my best friends, Amber and Monique, have a bet going on whether Jason is going to give me a promise ring, pull out tickets for some romantic weekend trip he’s planned for this fall, or ask me to senior prom eight months early.

Personally, I’m leaning toward the promise ring.

I know promise rings are a million years old and dumb for a thousand reasons, but in old-money families like Jason’s, they’re still very much a thing.

His great-grandfather gave his great-grandmother a promise ring, because that’s What Was Done back in the day.

But then his grandfather did the same, and so did Jason’s father. Now, it’s pretty much tradition.

The thing about me and Jason is that we’re just the right amount of in love.

In high school, there are always those couples who are radioactive together.

Couples whose screaming matches are resolved only with equally gross public displays of affection.

But Jason and I are solid, emotionally healthy, mature.

If we were doing couple superlatives in this year’s yearbook, we would win Most Likely to Still Be Together in Twenty Years. The two of us just make sense.

“Zadie,” Jason says, and he’s tugging on the collar of his polo shirt like he’s uncomfortable. Maybe his dinner is too hot. “I really—I thought maybe we’d talk on the ride home? Just for privacy?”

“The ride home?” I’m incredulous. “If you think I’m waiting that long, you’re insane.”

“But the thing is—”

“Jason,” I whine, because he’s still not getting to the point, and my fingers are zinging with an energy that feels electric.

I’m picturing it already, the way the restaurant—which isn’t super full now that Maine’s vacation season has ended—will break into applause when Jason gets on one knee with his open ring box.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jason’ll say, grinning from ear to ear. “We’re not getting engaged. We’re only eighteen.”

Our rapt audience, having abandoned their meals, will whoop and holler when I whisper my teary yes. Yes, I will promise you my heart until we’re old enough to promise our whole lives.

“Okay, just hear me out,” Jason begins in real life. “I know the timing seems off.” My brain snags on the word timing, and I think maybe this is a promposal after all? Not the most exciting prospect, but still. “I’m only doing it now because I think waiting too much longer is unfair.”

I nod, trying to look like I’m taking in every word he’s saying. Really, my phone is now in my lap under the table, stealthily positioned so I can fire off the first of many all-caps group texts. Jason goes back to rambling again.

Something about “the best thing for us” and “You’ll understand in time.”

It bursts out of me. “Jason, just spit it out!”

And finally, finally, he does.

“I think we should break up.”

My mouth is wide open, ready to squeal out an enthusiastic Yes, oh my God! I thought you’d never ask!

But those words don’t leave my lips.

“You…think we should…break up?” I repeat, like the words have no recognizable meaning in English.

Jason swallows, takes a drink from his glass of water.

“Is this a joke?” I ask. My eyes sweep around the restaurant’s dining room, desperately landing on patron after patron.

If just one of them laughs, smiles, blinks, I’ll know it’s a joke.

One of Jason’s terrible pranks that he thinks are funny but are really just annoying and poorly thought-out, though I’ve never told him this.

But nobody is looking at us. Jason gives me a sad shake of his head. “No,” he says.

“Is there someone else?”

“No, Zadie. I just don’t think this is working anymore.”

“Of course it’s working. We’ve been dating one year. Today is one year,” I say, as if one year is a guarantee of something. Forever, maybe.

And despite the shock, the pure astonishment I feel, I’m still myself enough to be embarrassed by my shrill desperation.

“I know,” he says, quiet, apologetic. “And you can call me an asshole for doing it today, but I just couldn’t stand to pretend anymore.”

Of all the upsetting, surprising, traumatic things Jason has said in the last five minutes, it is this—this last sentence—that undoes me. I just couldn’t stand to pretend anymore.

“Pretend?” I repeat.

I feel like I’ve drifted out of my body.

Like I’m standing at the far end of the restaurant’s dining room, watching some unsuspecting girl—with perfectly styled hair, her bold red lip for memorable occasions, and a body-hugging dress—get broken up with by her boyfriend.

(Poor girl, I think. How embarrassing for her.) Her voice is loud, growing in volume and pitch each second, unrecognizable to me.

She sounds angry. Heartbroken. Blindsided.

But what do those things actually feel like?

I have to pull myself back into her place to know.

Blindsided is the soft cushion of the chair under my butt and thighs. Angry is the wood of the table beneath my elbows. Heartbreak is the thick padding of carpet under the wobbly stiletto heels I wore for this special occasion. It is the cold emanating from the sweaty jug of ice water by my hand.

I feel all these things, and I feel none of them.

“You’ve been pretending?”

“I mean, no, of course not,” Jason fumbles. He looks smaller, not like the near six feet of boy who routinely blocks balls with his head. His wide shoulders and calves of steel. My Jason is so solid, and this boy is not. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” And then, to my horror—to his probably too—my voice cracks.

My voice cracks, and suddenly my throat is closing up, and the room gets very, very blurry. I am no longer tables away watching this happen. I am beside myself, pleading with everything inside me to please God don’t cry, please not now. But the hiccup leaps out of me and then an avalanche follows.

I am crying and sniffing and wanting to die from sheer embarrassment, which makes me cry harder, which makes me want to die even more.

I see Jason steal an embarrassed glance around him as he gets up from his chair and hurries over, putting his hand on my back.

He speaks quietly and comfortingly to me.

And maybe it’s that self-conscious look around the room he does or the fact that he doesn’t seem to be saying any actual words of comfort, just sort of mumbling and there-there-ing, but something snaps in me.

I shrug off his arm and catapult away from the table.

I race out of the restaurant, past the lobby, and into the cool night air.

It’s that idyllic window between summer and fall, where it’s lobster season still but the influx of vacationers has dispersed.

I should be having the best night, but I’m sobbing as I frantically pull up a rideshare app on my phone.

“Come on, come on,” I sniffle, willing the app to move faster and pacing the sidewalk until Jason comes out of the restaurant.

“Zadie,” he says, reaching for me.

I fling his arm off with a strength I didn’t know I had. I’m suddenly furious. How could he do this publicly? How could he not spare me the indignity of making me cry where everyone can see? “Don’t touch me.”

“Please, babe. Don’t do this. Let’s just…Let me take you home.”

If my voice was something you could hold in your hands, it would be shattered porcelain. Broken and all sharp edges. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Jason frowns, hands on his hips. “What are you going to do, walk?”

“Does it matter to you what I do?” I spit.

He sighs. “I thought we would be mature about this.”

“Did you?” I say, and I’m both ashamed of the mocking tone in my voice and unable to help it. “Why did you think we would be mature about this, when you had never discussed it with me?”

I speak louder as I walk away from him. “Maybe in future when you make decisions that affect us both, you’ll remember to check with me.”

“Zad,” Jason says tiredly. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t see it going like this either. I thought we’d be forever.”

It’s like taking my heart to a shredder.

“Why can’t we be?” I’m practically pleading. “We’re so good together. We’re the best together. I just don’t get it.”

“Please let me take you home. I’ll explain on the drive,” Jason says, pushing his fist into his left eye.

Is he crying? Can he be…is it possible that he’s really as upset about this as I am?

The fact is that I don’t want him to explain on the drive home; I want him to take it back.

To say it was all a mistake, a slip of the tongue, a misunderstanding on my part.

Maybe he was blackmailed by someone into breaking up with me.

A million wild scenarios run through my head, and I’m willing to accept any of them so long as it undoes everything that just happened.

It’s that hope that makes me not book the rideshare.

It’s that hope that makes me hug my purse to my chest as I sink into the passenger seat of his SUV.

Jason starts the car.

“So?” I say after a few seconds when the air conditioner has just been whistling in its tone-deaf way. Please take it all back, I plead inwardly.

Jason breathes out through his nose. “It’s so hard to explain.”

He’s really doing this. He’s really breaking up with me during the first month of what was supposed to be the ideal senior year.

“Oh my God.”

Bile rises in my throat. I think I’m going to be sick. I open my purse and start rummaging around for a cough drop or random Tums, anything to calm the upheaval in my stomach. I check under the last book Dad and I buddy-read for our Father-Daughter Book Club, bookmarked and on its third reread.

We’re stopped at a red light when Jason scrubs a hand over his face.

The light turns green, and he lifts his foot from the pedal, and we start to roll forward. “Okay, so it’s like this…” he says, at the very same moment I whisper his name and then puke the dinner I barely touched into my purse.

“Jesus, Zadie!” Jason shouts, horrified. “Not in my c—”

But before he can finish his sentence—before he can freak out about his car’s leather interior or give me an explanation for why he would break up with me after one incredible romance-filled year—before he can say anything at all, there is the smashing of metal.

A burst of light. Three panicked car horns.

And the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard.