Chapter 6
Jasper
What in the actual fuck just happened? Arlo tears out of my driveway, tires squealing, and I rush inside to grab my phone. I dial his number, waiting for him to answer, and when he doesn’t, I try again.
Maybe it’s a bit dramatic of me, but goddamn, I just told the man I loved him, and he’s running from me.
It’s possible I shouldn’t have, but it’s been almost a fucking year. He says he can’t keep doing this, and the truth is, I’m not sure I can either.
Trying to swallow down my feelings is killing me. Watching him pull away every time I manage to get him a little closer is wearing me down. I want him in ways I’ve never wanted anyone or anything in my life.
You weren’t supposed to say it. You weren’t supposed to make it real.
Saying it or not saying it changes nothing. It’s still real. And I know he has to feel it. There’s no way he doesn’t. I don’t even know how to touch him anymore without my love pouring from my fingers into his skin. Without my lips spelling the words against his with every kiss.
I’d bet every dollar I have—my house, my life, everything—that he loves me too. Why else would he say that? But fuck, what is he so afraid of? Does he think I’m not in this? Does he think I can’t give him what he needs?
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t love me at all. My stomach churns at the thought, and I press a hand to it, then dial his number again.
I don’t even know where he lives. That makes me frown. How have we been doing this for almost a year, existing in the same friend group and hanging out together, and I don’t even know how to find him?
How much has he hidden from me, and why the fuck am I trying so hard to get him to let me in when it’s so clear he doesn’t want to?
I got greedy. That’s what it comes down to. Wanting him and loving him is the best thing to ever happen to me. It’s also the hardest thing to ever happen to me.
I want more. I want everything. I want to fall asleep with him at night and wake up with him in my arms. I want to come home to him after a long shift and have him here.
I want to cook dinner together and kiss him in public and hold his hand in front of our friends.
I want to be as outwardly happy as all of them.
I just…
I fucking want Arlo. In all the ways he gives me already and so many more.
I dial his number again, my eyes burning when it goes to voicemail.
The screen is blurry when I type out a text and send it to him.
Me
Baby boy, please come back. I’m sorry.
But the thing is, I’m not sorry. Not really. I’m sorry he ran. And I’m sorry that he didn’t want this to be real. But it is real. I can’t change that. And I don’t want to.
I text him again.
Me
Actually, I’m not sorry. I love you. I love you so much and I think you love me too and I wish you would just fucking let me.
I’m sorry that I told you, maybe. But not really. I’m not really sorry at all about that.
Fuck. I try calling him again, even though I know I shouldn’t. He still doesn’t answer.
The worst part is that I can’t even blame him. Not really. In some ways, we did have an unspoken rule, and I broke it.
I glance at my phone. There’s just… nothing. No call back. No read receipt. No bubbles like he’s typing. It’s silent. Like my house.
My coffee is cold, so I dump it in the sink, not even bothering to make another. My stomach is too torn up to even think about coffee now.
Fuck this entire fucking day. I’m going back to bed. My steps are heavy as I make my way to my bedroom.
It’s a mistake.
Arlo is everywhere in here. His scent is on my sheets. They’re all bunched up from this morning. His pillow is askew. He must have been gripping it during…
How can I not remember? It hasn’t even been an hour, and for some reason I can’t seem to remember how he was lying. Did he have his hands above his head? Was he wrapped around me? I can’t fucking remember.
I sit down on the edge of my bed, hand hovering over the pillow where he was lying.
“Fuck.”
I lie down, then roll onto my side, resting my hand on Arlo’s pillow.
“I’m not sorry,” I say to the empty room. “I’m not sorry, and I won’t take it back.”
It took three days, but I finally heard from Arlo.
The problem with having what’s essentially a breakup in your secret relationship is that you have no one to talk to. So I’m sitting in the parking lot of Silverpine Cemetery, ready to talk to probably the only person I can.
Arlo and I have gotten sloppy over the last few months. We’re more affectionate with one another in front of our friends. We touch more freely. We tease more openly. But they still don’t know.
They have their suspicions, I’m sure. Austin and Luca definitely do. But nothing is confirmed. Which really fucking sucks. Because now that my heart is a raw, aching pile of nothing in my chest, it would be nice to have my friends to talk to and to lean on.
But for some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to not let anyone know we were hooking up. That was fine, I think, in the beginning. But then things started shifting, and I started falling, and I swear to fucking God that Arlo was too, but… I guess not.
With a sigh, I glance down at the phone, reading his message over and over again.
Arlo
I can’t talk to you.
I thought that him saying ‘can’t’ and not ‘won’t’ or ‘don’t want to’ would make me feel better. All it does is make me feel even more hollow inside. Like watching him walk away opened my chest, exposing my heart, and this text scooped it out and knocked it to the floor.
I shouldn’t text him back, but I can’t resist.
Me
We can go back to how things were before.
The ‘before I told you I love you’ goes unsaid. But can we really? I don’t think I can. I love him. I’m so goddamn in love with him. I’ve said it. I’ve put it out there. It exists. Is ‘going back to how things were’ even an option?
Can I actually shove all my feelings back inside and leave them there? Would it even be fair to him—or me—to try?
Fuck if I know.
My phone buzzes, and I brace myself as I look at it.
Arlo
We can’t. You and I both know that.
There’s nothing I can say right now. Not to him. So I toss the phone into the passenger seat and get out of the car.
I haven’t been here for a while. I used to visit all the time. When the days were hard. Or when I needed a break. When I just needed someone to talk to.
I’ve been failing Sarah my entire life. Why should now be any different?
The path to her grave is as familiar to me as my own hand, so my feet carry me there without much thought, and I sit down in the grass in front of her headstone.
There are new flowers sitting on the top, so someone must have been here recently. My mom, if I had to guess.
“Hey, Sarah.”
I brush a blade of grass off her name.
Sarah Tate
Loving daughter and sister
Born April 13, 1993, died February 19, 2005
“It’s been a long time since I’ve visited. I’m sorry. Seems I have a lot to be sorry for these days.”
The flowers on top of her grave are pretty, her favorite shade of yellow.
“I know I kinda suck in the big brother department these days, but I was hoping I could talk to you for a while.”
Leaning back in the grass, I settle against her gravestone. Despite our five-year age gap, Sarah and I were the best of friends growing up. She wanted to be wherever I was.
I wanted that too. For a while. And then I got older, and suddenly, hanging out with my preteen sister sounded like the worst thing in the world. God, what I wouldn’t give to have another afternoon of her trying to play tag along with me.
There’s something profoundly devastating about losing a sibling.
They’re the only people in the world who know what it’s like to grow up in your house.
They have the same funny stories from family dinners.
They hold the secret to Mom’s special Christmas cookies.
You share memories and annoyances and eye rolls when your parents are being too much.
And if you’re a big brother, like I was, you get all the special stuff. You get to tease them and roast them, but you also get to keep them safe from monsters and be a shelter when it’s storming in the middle of the night and they’re afraid.
You get to be their protector. The person who hypes them up during their first prom, taking too many pictures and threatening their date.
You get to be an uncle to what are, no doubt, the coolest kids in existence.
You get to help keep family traditions alive and carry the grief of losing grandparents.
At least, I’d imagine that’s how it works.
If your little sister isn’t dead.
If it isn’t your fault.
I sigh, wiping at my eyes. God, rehashing these feelings isn’t why I came here today.
“Do you think it’s weird if I talk to you about boy problems? I know you’re not a kid anymore. Hell, you’re not anything anymore. But if you were alive, you’d be thirty-two, which means you’d definitely be old enough to listen to me ramble about boy problems.”
My lips curve into a smile despite myself. “You’d probably tease me about calling it ‘boy problems’ too, wouldn’t you?”
Sarah was the first person I came out as bisexual to.
It wasn’t like I had a lot of options back then.
She probably didn’t even really know what I was talking about, as young as she was.
But I knew I couldn’t tell my mom, and even though Silverpine is a lot better and a lot more accepting of queer people now, it wasn’t always that way.
Or at least it didn’t feel like it back then.
Who knows, though? I sure as shit wasn’t going to come out to anyone else back then.
Hell, even now, I haven’t explicitly told anyone in my friend group my sexuality, though I’m sure Luca’s knew it means at the very least they’ve figured it out. It didn’t seem like it mattered.
And now, I’m just Arlo’s. So it matters even less.
Hell, I’m not even that.
“Fuck.” I’m getting off track. “I met someone. Someone I’m serious about. It’s the worst thing ever, though, I think.”
I stare up at the sky. “I love him. I didn’t think it was possible to love someone as much as I love him. And get this,” I say, tilting my head toward her tombstone. “I told him, and he just… ran. Ran right the fuck away from me.”
Letting out a pained laugh, I shake my head. “I figure I’m not that big of a prize, but for him to just run? Fuck, Sar, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
I lose track of time as I pour my heart out to my baby sister. I talk until my throat gets hoarse.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out when I’m finally done purging all my feelings. “I’m sorry I failed you. If I could go back and change it, I would. You have to know that.”
Pushing to my feet, I press a kiss to my fingertips and rest them on the top of her stone. “I love you, Sarah.”
The only answer I get is a breeze that I could almost swear smells like her vanilla body spray.