Jade
Chapter forty
My first art class was amazing. I can't wait to tell Coop all about it, but when I pick him up, his mood is sour. He hasn't been himself lately, and he was already angry with me because he had to go to my mom's.
Charlie called me on Christmas, but I didn't answer. I don't think I can face her. Then she texted me yesterday and asked if I would meet her for lunch. I didn't respond. I realize that makes me a bitch, but I need distance. At least until I can figure out a way to get into Addie's good graces.
I've ignored all Liam's requests to take Coop too. And Mateo's.
I'm being selfish, and I know it, but everything that's happening is everything I was trying to avoid. All of this. We weren't supposed to get close. None of us. It was supposed to be me and Coop against the world.
Before Mateo, I'd come to terms with my life. I was creating something stable for Cooper. We shared a family that was more than us, but why did it need to be his too?
Mateo made me want more, he made me think I could have more. A life about more than stability, about joy.
"Is Addie mad at me?" Coop asks from the backseat.
"No kiddo, why would you think that?" I ask, glancing in the rearview mirror. He leans against the door, his forehead on the window.
"Because it's my fault."
"What's your fault?"
"You and Mateo."
Coop knows about as much as an eight-year-old should about what happened. But he's also not an average eight-year-old, so it's been a little rocky trying to get him to understand why Addie isn't talking to me.
I stop at the red light and turn to face him.
"That's not your fault kid. She's mad at me."
"But I set the booby-trap."
The car behind me honks their horn, and I turn back to the road.
"The booby-trap?"
"Mateo told me they could be good things, and I thought this was. I thought he liked you, and you liked him, and he liked me, and I liked him," Coop rambles, his little voice shaking. "I thought it'd be cool if he loved us."
My heart shatters. Ten thousand pieces of beating heart shattered.
"He does love you. And so do Liam, Charlie, and Addie. None of this is your fault. None."
"But it was my idea for you to work with him," he says.
"Bud, that's not—"
"And then we were at the arcade, and I took his phone. I saw he didn't send a text, so I sent it. I didn't know what it meant, but I hoped it was good."
"Cooper—"
"And I followed your InASnap account from his."
"My what?"
"Your art one, the one you thought no one knew about."
I pull over into a strip mall parking lot and put the car into park so I can face him.
"Addie and I found it a few months ago," he says. "And I thought if he saw it, he could see you the way you see other people and maybe, maybe something good would happen."
Tears slide down his cheeks, his eyes glistening beneath his glasses.
"Hey, hey, hey," I say. "I'm not mad at you. Nobody is mad at you."
"Then why can't I see my best friend? And why didn't we go to the lake?"
I don't have a big enough broom to sweep up the mess of my broken heart. How could I have been so fucking stupid? So careless.
"Listen to me," I say. "This is my fault. Mine. Do you hear me? I'm sorry, Coop. I'm so fucking sorry. I made choices for myself that affected us both and that wasn't fair to you. I fucked up."
He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes.
"I miss them," he says.
"I know, bud."
I just wish I knew how to make it right. Or how to build a time machine. One that could fix every bad decision I made from the moment I saw that butterfly tattoo. Including the one taunting me from the paper pharmacy bag on my passenger side floor.
But I took care of myself before Mateo. I can take care of that too.