Chapter 24 #2
However, I was so practiced at numbing my feelings around my family—in their presence, when I thought about them, when I recalled my childhood—that my surprise was short-lived. It was like looking at them and my past through a microscope; they were an unfortunate science experiment.
“Jem.” I lifted my hands from my lap and pressed my palms to my chest. “I can’t forgive you if you’re not sorry.”
Her green eyes narrowed into slits. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Her head bobbed in a small movement, and her voice was quiet. “I’m not sorry. I’d do it again. And if you had another rich boyfriend who I thought I could get money from, I’d sleep with him too.”
Her words made me flinch. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
Her raspy voice was closer when she next spoke. “We’re not so different, you know.”
I didn’t open my eyes at this ridiculous statement; instead, I leaned further into the couch and willed her gone.
She continued. “I don’t think Jon is a guy who is as faithful as his options. He thinks you’re it; you’re the one. You don’t seem to care that he cheated on you, and you don’t give a shit about him.”
I huffed at this. “One minute you say he’s an asshole for cheating on me, and the next minute you’re telling me I’m the bad guy for not caring enough that he cheated on me. Jem, I broke up with him.”
“Yeah, but you don’t seem too depressed about it.”
I opened my eyes, but I was slumped so deeply into the sofa that my gaze made it no higher than the edge of the coffee table. “This isn’t going to work. I’m still not going to ask Jon for the money.”
Jem’s face was unsurprisingly void of emotion.
“You are just like me, Janie. You left Jon, an annoyingly nice guy who you dated for years, and who loves you more than anything, and now you feel nothing but relief; am I right? You’re relieved that you don’t have to be bothered about taking his feelings into account anymore.
You have the means to save your baby sister from certain death, and you can’t even muster enough pretend sentiment to try.
You’re incapable of feeling any depth of emotion, Janie, just like me—and just like mom. ”
I met her gaze calmly, even though her words met their intended target with swift precision.
Jem’s overly simplified assessment of the Jon situation was very close to my current view of reality, but I wasn’t yet finished sorting through all the reasons why that relationship ended.
It was true; I hadn’t been as attached to Jon as he may have been to me.
It was also true that I was feeling mostly relief about the end of the relationship.
However, he cheated on me, then tried to lie about it, and then had me fired. Those were all his decisions.
I knew that I wasn’t blameless, but I was not the first girl in the history of forever to stay with a guy because he was ideal on paper. For the love of Thor! He was my first boyfriend. I was allowed to make mistakes.
The other charge, about not having enough pretend sentiment to save Jem, was the one that made me furious. That fury reassured me that I was capable of emotional depth.
I hated her.
I shifted my gaze from hers, and when I spoke, I spoke to the room.
“You can stay here if you want. I usually sleep on the couch, but you can have it.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and I knew she was debating whether to push me further. To my surprise, she didn’t.
“Where will you sleep?”
I inhaled, then released, a deep breath. “Elizabeth is at the hospital for a shift, so I’ll sleep in her bed.”
“You’re still friends with Elizabeth?”
I nodded, hesitated, and then lifted my eyes to hers. Her expression was unchanged, still inflexible, but her eyes moved between mine with a touch of approaching interest. It was a subtle yet rare demonstration of feeling.
Jem swallowed, licked her lips. “That’s good. She seems to care about you.”
“She does.” For reasons I couldn’t immediately understand, Jem’s words made my eyes sting, so I blinked.
Jem twisted her lips to the side and let her arms fall from her chest. With a small sigh, she walked to the entryway and picked up a black leather jacket.
“I can’t wear this anymore. You can keep it or whatever.
Get rid of it. I don’t care.” She tossed it to me on the couch and I automatically caught it; it smelled like her: cigarettes, clean soap, and violence.
Memories careened over and through me so suddenly that I had to grip the jacket to steady myself.
I loved her once.
When she was little, maybe three or four years old, I used to give her piggyback rides around our neighborhood, or pull her in a wagon behind my bike. She liked everything fast.
She started to smoke when she was eleven. There was nobody to tell her no, even though I tried. She laughed at me then. Growing up in the same house, I often felt she was laughing at me. It didn’t anger me. It made me sad.
The stinging in my eyes intensified. I bit then pulled my top lip between my teeth. I couldn’t speak; there was a giant knot in my throat. I watched her as she picked up my brown wool coat from the rack and pulled it over her shoulders.
“I’m taking this.”
My mouth hitched to the side and I leaned back against the couch, her black leather jacket still on my lap.
“That’s fine,” I responded, even though I knew she wasn’t asking my permission.
“I’m leaving. I don’t know if…” Jem fingered the middle button of my coat, her eyes rigid but intense. She buttoned the coat.
When she didn’t continue, I cleared my throat and found my voice. “Where will you go?”
Jem shrugged and shook her head; she stuffed her hands into the fur-lined pockets of my jacket. “I don’t know.”
Without pausing, without a wave or a smile or a goodbye, Jem turned and left.
My door made a soft, final click as she closed it.