Chapter 38 Jade
THIRTY-EIGHT
jade
“Why do I always get it wrong?” I whine Saturday afternoon as I’m sprawled out on Madison’s white linen sofa. “I’m actually getting worse at relationships the older I get.”
“Come on,” Madison says.
“I am. At least my seventh-grade boyfriend was actually sad when we broke up. Every guy since then can’t wait to cut the strings and run for sweet freedom.”
Reeve and I haven’t talked since I walked out of the restaurant Thursday night—a painful forty-two hours ago, not that I’m counting.
It was immature to walk out like that, but the entire conversation was such a slap in the face.
I was so sure he wanted what I did, and then to have Reeve make nice with that journalist—it was another reminder of his priorities.
I can’t believe I was working up the nerve to tell him I loved him.
I thought he’d call me after our argument, and when he didn’t, my stubbornness and I decided we should leave him alone at least until the game was over.
Hurt as I am, I don’t want what happened between us weighing on him when he needs to focus on football.
But the game ended an hour ago—I watched every second he was on the field—and I’m still waiting to hear from him.
“It’s not like you guys broke up,” Lenni points out, bringing me a plate loaded with fancy cheeses, crackers, grapes, and a little cube of honeycomb. Madison has an obsession with charcuterie boards. “You had a miscommunication.”
“Yeah, he communicated very clearly that if we want to be together, I’ll make the sacrifices and he’ll keep living out his dreams.”
“So?” Lenni says. “You told me you wouldn’t give up Spain for him.”
“I was close, though. Meanwhile Reeve won’t even consider long distance. I was totally wrong about where his head was.”
My phone pings with a text, and I slide it out of the pocket of my yoga pants. “Shit.” Reeve’s name appears on the screen, and suddenly my heart is beating like I just ran a marathon. I sit up quickly.
Reeve: Thursday night was fucked up.
Jade: Yeah.
Reeve: You didn’t need to run out like that. We were in the middle of something.
Jade: Sorry. I pretty much said what I needed to though.
Reeve: Well I didn’t.
Reeve: I wasn’t trying to give you an ultimatum.
Jade: But are you?
Reeve: We need to talk when I’m back. In person.
God, this asshole. Dragging my heart around and he still can’t give me a simple answer to a simple question. I toss my phone onto the carpet and stare straight ahead.
“Was that him?” Madison asks cautiously.
“Yeah, but nothing new. He can’t just be straightforward with me.”
Lenni sits next to me and helps herself to my untouched plate. “Then be straightforward with him. If you’re willing to stay here and be with him, you have to tell him that.”
“No, she definitely does not,” Madison argues. “You don’t show your cards until he shows his.”
“I already showed mine, and they shocked him. He doesn’t need to tell me he doesn’t see a future for us. The word girlfriend hasn’t changed a thing in his mind.”
“Okay, I know you’re wrong about that,” Lenni says. “Cam says Reeve hasn’t had a girlfriend since high school, and he’s had women falling at his feet since the day he arrived on campus. Besides, I’ve seen you two together. He’s so into you, Jade.”
I know she’s right. I feel the strength of our connection. I can picture his eyes when he looks at me, and I know it’s real. Some things can’t be faked. So why won’t he make any compromises for us?
My phone rings from the floor by Lenni’s feet, and my heart jumps. Even when I don’t know what I’d say, I always want it to be him. Madison raises her eyebrows. “The devil himself?”
Lenni reaches down to find the phone, then makes a face. “It’s Sam.”
“Ugh.” I sag with disappointment.
“The other devil,” Madison says.
Lenni silences the phone. “What does he want?”
“He’s called me a few times this week.”
“That’s random. What for?”
“I don’t know, I never answer. He just leaves these quick messages saying he wants to talk. Like he actually expects me to call him back.”
“Okay, we’re out of alcohol,” Madison announces, holding up an empty vodka bottle.
“Let’s go to a bar,” I suggest. I do my best thinking in loud, packed bars, the kind where everyone has to yell to be heard and eventually just gives up on talking.
“It’s not even dark out,” Lenni says, though it’s less a protest than a simple observation.
“It’ll be dark in the bar. Let’s go to the Phantom.
” I’m hit with the urge to get drunk in a crowd and chain-smoke a pack of cigarettes like I used to do freshman year when every single thing I did was done on a whim.
I want to run into Reeve and listen to him scold me for my bad choices and feel his strong hand around mine as he walks me home, and then I want to take off his clothes and kiss him until time stops and it’s just us.
I don’t want a future anymore, I want right now.
Fuck the future. Our future is the only thing that’s not perfect.
The Phantom isn’t as crowded as I’d like but is filling by the minute.
I buy two rounds of drinks up front for the three of us because I feel bad for being moody and dragging my friends out when I obviously didn’t come here to have a good time.
They don’t seem too burdened, though. Madison is in good spirits anywhere alcohol is available, and Lenni, a happy drunk, was two drinks deep before we left home.
A remix of an old love song comes on, and I slip into memories of me and Reeve, starting from that night I gave him a ride home from the restaurant.
He was the only person to make me feel like my Spain plan wasn’t some stupid pipe dream.
And now he’s the only person who’s made me wonder whether I want that dream anymore.
Every minute we’ve shared is etched indelibly into my brain, and I work to relive them all while I nurse my drink.
I search his words for clues to explain how we could have ended up here, in the same relationship but with two completely different views of what we are and where we’re going.
I remember playing this game after the breakup with Sam, and it quickly became so painfully obvious that I questioned my own memories.
It was like reading step-by-step directions on how to dismantle a relationship.
But if the clues are there in my relationship with Reeve, I can’t find them.
He made me his girlfriend in spite of our agreement that we had no interest in a relationship.
He told me that kissing me was the best thing he ever did.
I’m the one who holds back, not Reeve. He was never afraid to make me feel like I meant everything to him.
It all feels real. But somehow I still got it wrong.
I look around the bar, scanning the faces for familiar blue eyes and that chiseled jawline no male model will ever come close to topping, but of course Reeve’s not here; he’s probably on a plane somewhere over Indiana.
I think about that bestselling book my mom read over and over when I was a kid, the one about manifesting your desires just by thinking about them or some nonsense like that.
I wish I believed in it, because Reeve would already be here.
I know the right thing to do is let it lie; he made it clear this relationship will never leave the boundaries of our college years. But I’m drunk and overflowing with unspoken words, so I text him.
Jade: What are you doing?
It’s thirty minutes before he responds.
Reeve: On the plane. Landing pretty soon. You?
Jade: Come to the Phantom.
Reeve: I’m not drinking tonight. We should get together tomorrow.
Jade: You won’t come out and see me?
Reeve: Are you drunk?
Jade: No.
Jade: Sorta.
I watch three dots flicker on my screen as he types, but then they disappear.
Jade: Is that a no?
Reeve: Tomorrow. We need to talk and you need to be sober.
Talk. That’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to finish the conversation we had at the pizza place. I don’t want to hear his I like you, but . . . bullshit. I don’t want any of it. I want to be in his bed, where everything feels good and no one says the wrong thing and time feels endless.
Jade: Wrong and wrong.
Reeve: ??
Jade: I want to see you tonight. Don’t worry, I won’t talk.
The three dots flicker, then disappear for a few seconds before starting up again.
Reeve: Can you give me a ride home from work tomorrow? We can talk then.
Totally ignoring my request. Of course. Reeve always gets what he wants.
Jade: Yeah.
Reeve: Be safe.
A small, twisted laugh bubbles out of me. Be safe? I was until he came along. Now I don’t know what I am beyond confused and desperate for answers to tell me why my heart keeps getting it wrong.