Chapter 3
Wesley
I’m not really sure what to make of the brief conversation Addison and I had last night.
Granted, it all ended okay, and she was back to her chipper self afterwards, I just don’t know how to go from here.
If she brings Brantley up again and how hard of a time he’s giving her for having anxiety, I’m gonna wring his neck.
Dude’s known her for about a hot minute.
I’ve known her for years, so for him to expect she’s just going to throw herself into his life and be comfortable doing whatever he asks is ridiculous. You have to work up to that.
Addison didn’t even start going out for pizza with me and the guys until junior year, and it was months after that before she would even order anything to eat. She’d just come and sip water while we all hung out.
If I’ve learned anything in the last few years of being her friend, it’s to embrace unpredictability. At any moment, she might decide to leave, stay longer, change plans, or even throw up…you never really know. And if you want to be her friend, you just have to roll with it.
The more often she does things that challenge her, the better she gets. Usually.
I step out of the shower and get dressed for church before I go downstairs to have breakfast. The smell of bacon wafting upstairs has my mouth watering. Mom makes breakfast every morning, but Sundays always have a little more variety compared to the rest.
Mom looks to me as she places a plate of pancakes in the center of the table between my dad and my sister, Harper.
“You were out late,” she says.
I take a sip of coffee. “Yeah. Took me longer than I thought and I just wanted to get it done.”
“Addison was over, wasn’t she?” Harper asks, hiding a smile behind her coffee mug.
“Yeah? But that’s not why it took longer,” I lie. I would’ve been wrapped up in half the time, but Addison distracts me. Her jokes, problems, or whatever else she starts.
“Sure,” Harper says with a smug grin, but I ignore it. She’s annoying. Always trying to get us together.
* * *
“Wait. Let me get this straight,” Mom interrupts from the passenger seat. “Addison cancelled on her boyfriend to come watch you work on a tractor?” She looks over her shoulder at me.
“…Yeah?” She does stuff like that all the time, comes over to watch or sometimes helps.
“But instead of seeing her boyfriend?”
“She was anxious. If Addie’s anxious, she doesn’t go,” I remind my mother.
Addison’s anxiety can be pretty intense. I hadn’t ever witnessed it take place until we got to high school. Sophomore year, Valentine’s dance. I had no idea what was going on with her at first and it was kinda terrifying. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Three Years Ago
For a bunch of small-town redneck kids, we sure do clean up nice.
I pan across the gymnasium, watching the lights flash along to the beat of the loud music.
Most of the juniors and seniors are on the dance floor.
Being a sophomore without a date has left me with nowhere near enough confidence or desire to join.
I meander back towards the snack table and catch a glimpse of one of the doors opening.
Seeing that long, wavy brunette head of hair is a dead giveaway. It’s Addison Jennings.
My breath catches for a second, my heart picking up its pace for reasons I don’t want to think too hard about. She’s my best friend, after all. But damn, she looks good.
She’s wearing a knee-length, fitted, sparkly red dress. I’ve seen her in plenty of dresses at church but never something this formal. She looks a little out of character for sure, but…amazing.
I swallow hard and put one foot in front of the other, walking towards her. I ignore the feeling of the walls closing in around me.
“Hey. You just getting here?” I glance up at the clock above the door. She’s fifteen minutes late, which is unheard of. She’s usually fifteen minutes early to everything.
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to come but my parents practically forced me out the door.”
“Oh, why didn’t you want to come?”
“I don’t know.” She crosses her arms and struggles to look at me. “Party scenes like this…the unknown…” She looks around at everyone and everything that’s going on.
“I can assure you, no one’s gotten out of hand”—I pause—“yet.”
“Not funny,” she says with a shallow breath, her eyes still rapidly looking all around the gym.
“Sorry. You wanna hang out with me? I was going to get something to eat.” I gesture at the food table.
“No. No.” She waves a hand and shifts her weight, getting the table out of her sight. I watch her bring her hands up to her waist, her chest expanding as she takes a deep breath. Her entire body is tense, stiff. It’s like she’s not even here.
I step closer to her. “Are you okay?”
She presses her lips together tightly and nods.
“So, you wanna dance?” I blurt out before some other guy swoops in and steals her from me.
“Uh, sure. I’m just anxious,” she says, starting towards the dance floor.
“Don’t be. Everyone’s just having a good time.”
We insert ourselves in the crowd. The song is upbeat, which is not exactly what I was hoping for when I asked if she’d want to dance with me.
Twenty minutes have passed and of course not a single slow song has been played.
It’s beyond irritating. I’m half tempted to ask the DJ if he’s physically incapable of playing something slower than this ear-aching pop crap.
None of these songs are familiar to me or to Addison, but we’re doing our best to make the most of it.
I thought Addison was fine and that her nerves went away. She’s been laughing at my dance moves, or lack thereof. I’m second-guessing that now though, because she’s been in the bathroom the last ten minutes. I’m not sure what to do; I can’t exactly go in there.
I wait, leaning against the wall in the hallway across from the bathrooms, the music from the gym still audible but muffled.
Finally, the women’s bathroom door swings open and out she comes. Her hair is now tied back in a loose ponytail, her face flushed.
I push off the wall. “Is everything alright?”
“I just…can’t get it together.” She shakes her head, “I’m too worked up. Did you see Dylan and Joel in there sharing a flask?” She exhales, as if those words themselves disgust her.
Addison doesn’t drink. She’s sipped on some different things, just to try it, but she has absolutely no interest in drinking. My friends drink a little, but nothing ever gets out of hand or anything. Sometimes I’ll have a beer with them, but one’s enough for me.
“Yeah, but you’re not going to get in trouble for it.”
“I don’t want them to get sick. If someone gets sick—”
“They’re not going to get sick,” I cut in, shaking my head.
“You don’t know that!” she snaps. I’m taken aback a little; she doesn’t snap at me, ever. She paces around the vacant hallway with her chin lifted towards the ceiling and her eyes closed.
“Call my mom. Tell her to come get me,” she chokes out.
“Addison…”
“Call her!” she pleads. I shut my mouth and pull my phone out of my pocket to find Maureen Jennings’ number.
While I wait for her to answer, I study Addison, still pacing, still taking deep breaths, and still looking up. Her eyes are open now, and it looks like she’s counting by the way her lips are moving.
Maureen’s voice comes through the phone. “Hello?”
I turn around and walk away from Addison, lowering my voice. “Hey, Addison told me to call you…I think she wants to leave.”
“I’ll be right there. Are you outside with her?”
“Outside?” I question. “No?”
“Get her outside.”
“Okay.” We hang up, and I slip my phone back in my pocket and turn back to Addison. It clicks in my head—getting her outside where the air is cold will help. She’s told me that before.
“Let’s go outside,” I suggest. My words speak some type of deeper meaning to her, and she nods and starts to walk towards the set of doors that lead out to the back parking lot.
She’s not saying anything to me. My heart is beating faster; I’m worried about her. I guess this is what the anxiety is like to witness? I didn’t take it to be this intense. She definitely downplays it when she talks about it.
Once we get outside the doors, I see her shoulders drop and her knees unlock. She’s starting to relax.
I give her a minute to breathe. “You good?”
“Yeah, you can go back in,” she says, shooing me.
I don’t budge. “You think I’m gonna leave you out here in the dark?”
“I’m fine. My mom will be here soon.”
“Right, so I’ll wait.” I sit on the top concrete step.
Addison doesn’t say anything, just paces slowly, taking deep breaths. The silence dancing between us feels different than normal, heavy.
I clear my throat and speak, my voice low and steady, “I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“I’ve told you how it is.”
I stare at her. No. She just gave the word anxious an entirely new meaning for me. Because what I just witnessed was so much more than that. I just watched this girl silently battle her mind and body.
“You didn’t tell me it was that severe.”
She looks down at her hands. “I don’t always want to talk about it, I guess. I just want it to go away.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s the only thing I can think to say. My heart for her just doubled in size.
* * *
“I don’t know, Wes, it sounds like she likes you more than she likes her boyfriend,” Harper says in the seat beside me, bringing me back to the present. My dad looks at me through the rearview mirror just as we pull into the church parking lot.
Irritation floods my veins, and my voice tightens, “When are you guys going to accept we are just friends and stop forcing us to be more than that?” I pause, but no one responds. “That’s what I thought.” I huff and get out of the truck as soon as my dad puts it in park.
I know lying is wrong but I’m not ready to admit the truth to anyone.
I’ve been in love with Addison Jennings for years.
There are a million things about her that you’d have to be stupid not to love. Her laugh, her smile, her eyes, her voice, her wit, her heart, her…everything. She’s the dream.
The older we get, the more I’ve had to fight the feelings.
Push them down and forget them. It’s brutal most days, and even worse now that she’s dating this Brantley guy.
Who, I should mention, met her while we were together at a rodeo two summers ago.
I left her alone for two minutes and of course came back to find him flirting with her.
They haven’t been dating quite two years yet, even though it feels like it’s been an eternity. I hate it.
Because Addison doesn’t have any girlfriends, I am the one she talks to about him.
She enjoys the idea of getting a guy’s perspective, I guess.
I’ve given her advice, listened to her worries and mental battles.
I try to help as best I can. Seeing the way she lights up when she’s texting him sometimes isn’t the easiest thing to watch, but I’m figuring it out. Slowly but surely.
Speaking of Addison, there she is now. I watch her wavy brown hair make its way down the aisle and slide into a pew beside her family.
She makes Cody and Mason slide over so she can sit with her mom.
As the worship team takes the stage, her oldest brother Jesse struts in with a coffee in hand and Ella in the other, leading her up to the pew.
After Sunday school I make my way to the bathroom but stop when I feel a pull on my bicep, and I turn around to see Addison standing there, sporting her pretty, dimpled smile. Short wisps of her hair fall to the sides of her face beside her dark brown eyes.
“Did you get to bed before midnight?” she asks.
I think back. “Actually, I did.”
She left around 10:30 p.m. I was done fixing the tractor way before then, but she didn’t have to know that.
“Wowww,” she draws out. “Tell me you’re relaxing today.”
I shake my head and she cocks her head at me. “Wes, please. Don’t you want to take a nap, watch a movie, do something mindless?” she insists.
I just laugh and glance around the room, my eyes stopping when I see my sister staring at us, a smug grin on her face that says See what I mean?
My laugh stops, and I clear my throat. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you Tuesday, okay?” I put one foot forward to leave.
“Every week,” Addie says just as we part ways.