9. “COME ON, TRY A LITTLE. NOTHING IS FOREVER. THERE’S GOT TO BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN IN THE MIDDLE.”
“COME ON, TRY A LITTLE. NOTHING IS FOREVER. THERE’S GOT TO BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN IN THE MIDDLE.”
Gravel spewed from under Soren’s tires as he pulled into Jocelyn’s driveway. Her car wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t inside. Finding the door locked, he retrieved the hidden key from under the planter and let himself in.
“Jocelyn?”
Cordelia came charging out of the kitchen like a rabid, frothing dust bunny prepared to disembowel him on the spot for crossing the threshold without an invitation.
“Hush, you!” Ignoring the dog, he searched downstairs. “Jocelyn?”
When he checked for her upstairs, the feral gremlin spawn snapped at his ankles the entire way.
“Will you stop it! Where is your mother?”
The ugly little rat just growled at him through missing teeth in that absurd sweater that only made its strange blonde mohawk seem more ridiculous.
“Fuck.” He went to the back porch, locking the guard-rat inside, and waited for Jocelyn to come home. After ten minutes, he texted her.
I’m on your porch. Where are you?
Then he remembered she didn’t have his number.
It’s Soren.
He called her several times since she took off, but she never picked up. After another ten minutes, he sent her another text, asking her to please call him. Cordelia barked for thirty solid minutes until the thing finally tired itself out.
Of all the places for Olivia to show up, she had to choose the Chowder House at that exact moment. Her timing was impeccable.
He owed her nothing. They made no promises to each other, and Soren hadn’t done anything wrong. But according to both women’s faces, you’d think the opposite.
He texted Jocelyn again.
When the sun started to set behind the trees, he really started to worry. He considered driving around to look for her, but figured she’d have to come home eventually.
Where could she be?
He thought of all the places she might possibly go, thinking the strongest possibility was Wren’s, but in the slight chance she wasn’t there, he didn’t want to alert her best friend that he’d already messed things up with Jocelyn.
He already had one pocket-sized terror trying to kill him. He didn’t need two.
Trying to play it sly, he called his brother, who picked up on the first ring.
“Grey, have, uh, you seen Jocelyn?”
“You mean since we left the Chowder House?”
By the confusion in his voice, he could already tell the answer was no. “Never mind.”
“I thought she was with you.”
“What’s wrong?” came Wren’s concerned voice in the background.
“She was. We just got…separated. I gotta go.” He hung up before Wren could take the phone. Ten seconds later, his phone rang, but it wasn’t Jocelyn. It was Wren.
He silenced it.
Then the texts flooded in.
What happened?
You two were supposed to talk. You better not be fighting!
Soren, why aren’t you answering me?
It’s bad luck to ignore a pregnant woman!
When he refused to answer, she topped it off with a middle finger emoji. The effect of pregnancy hormones on Wren was wild. She never used to be this feisty.
He rubbed his temples. Jocelyn could be anywhere. The café, a bar, the library, the hardware store—buying rope, tarps, and a shovel.
Another text came through, this time from Olivia.
Soren, we need to talk.
About what?
He was still pissed that she confronted Jocelyn without coming to him first. When he saw her watching them, he felt a pinch of guilt, but nothing more. His concern was mostly about Jocelyn’s feelings, immediately registering that Olivia had just undone all his progress.
He tried calling her again. It was now getting dark. Glancing down at that goddamn wineglass that had been parked on the step for a month, he frowned.
The night they drank that bottle of red, they had been reminiscing about childhood. It was a hot summer day, and kids were running through sprinklers trying to cool off. There was something lazy and nostalgic in the air, and it had been one of the few times he and Jocelyn actually talked.
Of course, they had a hot, sweaty fuck first. But after he pounded her against the wall, she invited him to stay for a glass of wine, which turned into a whole bottle, as they got to talking.
He chuckled, recalling how he’d walked his glass to the sink and washed it before leaving. Yet, here hers sat.
He stiffened as the hint of a memory teased the frays of his mind. He rolled back the conversation as best he could remember, and then it came to him. He knew where she was.
On his feet, he rushed to his SUV and had the car in drive before the engine fully started.
Avoiding the foot traffic on Main Street, he took the back roads past the central part of town and deep into the woods. When he spotted the flash of hazards in the distance, he prayed it was Jocelyn’s car.
Relief flooded him when he confirmed it was.
The ancient stone arches of the bridge spanned the babbling brook below, as glass mason jars glowed like fireflies on the balustrade. Jocelyn wasn’t looking over the edge, but she was there, sitting with her back to an aged pillar, knees up as she sat on the planked ground.
He parked behind her car and turned off the engine.
Despite seeing him, she didn’t acknowledge his approach as he crossed the bridge, so he silently lowered himself to her side and sat in the same position.
It had been a decade since he’d visited this place.
The scent of wet earth and minerals brought back feelings of his teenage years, some pleasant, some not so much.
Looking like a version of her younger self, she flipped a coin back and forth, weaving it in and out of her fingers as her hands dangled between her knees.
“Did you make a wish?”
“No.”
“How come?” he asked.
“It’s a little hard when you don’t know what you want.”
It wasn’t like her to be so indecisive. He wanted to give her an out and tell her that if this was too much, he would back off. But he was a selfish prick, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, fanning through the folds and only finding credit cards, a few crisp bills, and a condom. “Where did you find a penny?”
“My console.”
He glanced back at the cars. “I used to come here after my mom died,” he confessed, remembering how many times he made wishes from this bridge. “I must have sunk eight piggy banks into that creek, begging to somehow bring her back. Once, I even…”
She looked at him when his words broke off, but he couldn’t bring himself to say what he’d been thinking. He didn’t need to, because she seemed to understand.
“They say bargaining is a stage of grief. You were a kid who just lost his mom. Don’t beat yourself up about it. We all have intrusive thoughts.”
He swallowed tightly, recalling how long it had taken those thoughts to fade. They finally stopped when his dad died. But no matter how many pennies he threw into that creek, his mom never came back.
“I never once wished he would come back.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t love him.”
Did he love his father?
Could you love and hate someone at the same time?
He glanced at Jocelyn, realizing those two emotions were more related than most people realized. “I thought I hated you for so long.”
She looked up at him with a flat, deadpan stare. “You did hate me, Soren. Until I showed you my boobs.”
“No, I didn’t. You got under my skin because no matter what I did, you were never impressed by me. You were so damn pretty—even in the third grade when the rest of us were trapped in that buck-toothed awkward stage.”
She laughed. “I was just as awkward as everyone else. Besides, I was the new kid in town. I needed to make girlfriends before I could care about the boys.”
“You showed up like a hurricane, inserting yourself so brazenly, no one had the balls to question you.” He chuckled. “You were the most confident girl I’d ever met. And part of me hated you for it, because I knew it would make it that much harder to impress you.”
“Why did you care what I thought of you?”
“You were beautiful. Every guy had a crush on you.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“I mean it. Then, once you got boobs, forget about it. We were all tripping over ourselves trying to get close to you.”
“Stop lying. I barely got asked out.”
“That’s because you terrified us. You were smart, quick with a joke, edgy, and sexy as hell. You had this look about you, unlike any other girl. Even your clothes were one of a kind.”
“According to you, it was only what was under my clothes that mattered.”
“That’s never been true, Joce. You’re sharp and funny, and you used to humiliate the balls off of me for sport.” He laughed. “I’d walk into school with a hundred-dollar haircut and designer jeans, and you’d annihilate me in one breath.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be. You made me question everything. But then I’d find myself in bed at night, fuming, wondering why you were such a bitch to me. I’d lose sleep over it.”
She sighed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Hearing this was stressing her out.
“So I started jerking off.”
“What?” She drew back, her face appalled.
“Yeah,” he grinned proudly. “I’d picture you all pissed off, but without clothes. I imagined you in every position possible, begging and moaning, as I’d come all over you.”
“You fucking pervert.”
He grinned. “Sometimes I came so hard I saw stars.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know it pisses you off.” He bumped his shoulder against hers. “I mentally violated you for years and you didn’t have a clue.”
“You’re a pig.”
“Yup.” He shifted his foot, walking it two inches to the right so he could brush the sole of his shoe against the sole of her boot. “Imagine my shock when you took your shirt off and actually shoved my hand in your panties that day.”
Her head lowered, and her hair fell over her shoulder, hiding her face.