Chapter 27 Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Aweek later, I sat curled up on an armchair in Silvia and Tim’s Upper East Side apartment, wrapped in a Barbie-pink, faux fur blanket.
Rather than remain on campus alone or, God forbid, stay with my parents.
I was crashing on an air mattress in my old bedroom—Tim’s new office.
Silvia and Tim sat on the sofa across from me, sipping mugs of hot cocoa spiked with Baileys.
“So, he just turned his cheek? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I confirmed and took a long drink from my own mug. Despite the fact that we had already discussed my situation-ship with Jack several times, the topic had resurfaced during the second round of Irish cream.
“And he hasn’t talked to you since?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the p. “Not even a text. He’s been straight ghosting me since Friday.”
It was currently the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Every day that passed without a text or call had my anxiety ratcheting up another notch. No matter how many times I thought about it, I just couldn’t understand Jack’s drastic change in behavior. No theory made sense.
Silvia’s brow furrowed as she glanced over to Tim, having some kind of unspoken conversation.
Turning back to me, she asked, “And you’re sure nothing happened? Take us through it again.”
“From the beginning,” Tim added with an encouraging nod.
I sighed heavily, feeling the mental exhaustion from the roots of my hair down into my bones. But I sat up a little straighter, adjusting the blanket over my lap.
“I stayed over at his place Thursday night,” I began, “which was totally normal for us. We stayed up pretty late since it was our last night before break, you know. So, then we slept in too, and we didn’t do our usual run together.”
“That sounds fine,” Silvia said. “He couldn’t have been mad about the run.”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. He still went out for his run while I went to get ready for class. And then he brought me coffee after first period, like he’s been doing. The morning was totally normal.”
“So, then when did you notice something was off?”
I scrunched up my face and pressed my fingertips to my temple as if doing so would dislodge the answer through sheer force of will.
“The trip to the train station was super weird. Alan picked us up from Brookside. He dropped me off, and then he and Jack carpooled upstate.”
“Were they both weird, or just Jack?”
“Just Jack. He barely said two words to me. And then there was the goodbye… Alan gave me a nice hug, but Jack—I’ve gotten more passionate farewells from my dentist.”
Silvia hummed. “I don’t know, babes. Something must have happened during the day.”
“I know, but what?” If I were capable of crying, this would be the time for it.
My head ached, and my skin felt too tight. I had taken for granted how fucking good it had been to be with Jack for the last few weeks. The contrast between then and now was all the more infuriating for being so damn confusing.
“Babes, the only way to find out is to talk to him.”
I groaned and dropped my head back. “Easier said than done when he’s fucking ghosting all of my texts.”
“Have you called him?”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Call? No. What would I even say? I can’t just be like ‘why are you mad at me?’ That’s insane.”
“Why not?” Silvia and Tim were staring at me with matching expressions. I suddenly felt like a student caught texting in class.
“Well, I—”
Silvia’s mug clacked as she set it on the table. She gave me a pointed look. “Mel, you’re both adults. You’ve been in a relationship for weeks.”
“It’s not a relationship—”
She held a finger up. “Shush. I’m speaking. It’s regular, monogamous sex, and you literally will not stop talking about him. That’s a relationship. You need to call him—not text—and ask him what’s going on.”
I crossed my arms and sank back into the cushions.
“Don’t sulk, you know I’m right.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“You’re not not sulking.”
I huffed an exasperated breath. Silvia was right about one thing—I had to do something, anything. I couldn’t keep going like this.
My stomach had been in tight knots for days, and I was jumping out of my skin every time my phone buzzed with a new notification.
I nearly threw it across the apartment after the third message from Lyft one afternoon.
If this kept up, by the end of the week I was going to dissolve into a puddle of anxious goo.
“I’ll call him tomorrow,” I said. “I can wish him a happy Thanksgiving.”
Silvia placed a hand on my knee and squeezed gently. “Call him now. You don’t need an excuse to call your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, too exhausted to care how petulant I sounded. Silvia was right, and it rankled me.
But it was easier to be mad than to risk further rejection and embarrassment.
This was like the week after our first kiss all over again, but ten times—one hundred times—worse.
At least then I had sort of understood what had happened.
Now, we had spent so much time together—had slept together—and he was rejecting me all over again.
“Whatever he is, if you care about him at all, you should call him. Now.”
Tim was nodding in agreement.
The words felt like an ice pick to the chest. I did care about Jack.
It wasn’t just that I had grown used to the daily (and spectacular) orgasms. I adored his companionship—running with him, lesson planning, watching him cook.
Spending time with him was so easy and comfortable, almost the same way it had been living with Silvia, but somehow more so.
I tossed back the dregs of my cocoa and got to my feet.
“Where are you going?” asked Silvia with a mixture of concern and hope.
“I’m pulling on my big-girl panties,” I said as I pulled on my coat and slipped my feet into Tim’s big shoes since they were there next to the pink doormat.
“Attagirl,” Silvia called as the door closed behind me.
I could have made the call from inside, but I needed privacy. Fewer witnesses to my humiliation.
Unfortunately, I still had no idea what I was going to say when I stepped onto the sidewalk. The wind whipped around the corner of the building, and I pulled my hood up against the biting cold. I felt slightly sobered, but couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
His number was at the top of my contacts, second only to Silvia. My thumb hovered over the dial button. I wasn’t afraid to make phone calls. But I could feel the sting of imminent rejection cutting into me more fiercely than the wind.
“Fuck it,” I muttered and pressed dial.
The phone rang once. Twice. Five times, before going to voicemail.
“You have reached Jackson Cooper. I’m sorry I’m not able to take your call. Please leave your name, and I’ll give you a call back when I can. Thank you.”
Of course, he had the most generic outgoing message possible. I smiled to myself as the familiar husky timber of his voice rolled over me, but I hung up without leaving a message.
I missed him. Fuck me, I missed him so much it was physically painful.
I called him back, and after five more rings, listened to the outgoing message again. I let his voice soothe me like a balm for my soul. Or maybe a drug, lidocaine for my stinging nerves.
This time I left a message for him.
“Hey. I miss you.” Not a good start. Reel it in.
“I miss your face.” Not much of an improvement, but I could roll with it.
“I hope you’re having a good break with your family.
It’s really nice that you have a family.
” What the fuck was that? Was I drunk? “Anyway, call me back sometime. I miss you. Like—a lot. So much…”
I hung up before I could do any more damage and then leaned against the rough brick of the building exterior because my legs were no longer up to the task of holding me.
What the actual fuck was that? Never in my twenty-eight years had I ever done anything quite so embarrassing as that atrocious voicemail.
It’s really nice that you have a family.
What kind of insane comment was that to make? And had I really said I missed him three times?
If he didn’t call me back after listening to that, I wouldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to call myself back either. I was never going to hear from him again.
Groaning, I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I was so fucked.
Even my first serious boyfriend hadn’t managed to have this much of an impact on me.
In hindsight, I didn’t actually love Travis.
I said the L-word because he did, and I was pretty sure he only said it because he wanted a blow job.
I wasn’t upset when we broke up. I certainly wouldn’t have told him that I missed him three times in one voicemail.
I hadn’t said the L-word to anyone since. Silvia was the lone exception, but that love was sisterly and didn’t really count.
But that’s what this was, right? I was in love with Jack. That was the only explanation for why everything hurt so damn much.
“Are you all right, sugar?”
A croaking voice pulled me out of my spiral of self-pity. I looked up from the sidewalk to find a pair of brown eyes regarding me from under the brim of a knit cap, pulled low against the chill. They weren’t Jack’s eyes, but he was all I could see.
“Whoever he is, he’s not worth it,” the woman said kindly, before turning and heading off down the street.
It was only then that I realized a few tears had streaked down my cheeks while I was wallowing. I wiped them away with disdain and blinked my eyes a few times to make sure there weren’t any other tears in there waiting to fall.
When I got back upstairs, would Silvia be able to tell that I had been crying? I prayed she would have the tact not to mention it.
***
Thanksgiving Day came and went in a blur. Silvia woke me and Tim up before dawn and dragged us down to 5th Avenue to watch the parade. We were all thoroughly frozen when we got home and dug into the rotisserie chicken and instant mashed potatoes with gusto.
I tried—and failed—not to think about what Jack was probably doing.
I imagined him in a large, bright kitchen next to an older woman with kind brown eyes and streaks of gray in her chestnut hair.
They would be basting a turkey and making gravy and cranberry sauce from scratch.
No cans, jars, or boxes for the Cooper kitchen.
Then, my traitorous mind wandered to my parents’ Thanksgiving. There would be no cans, jars, or boxes in the Burke kitchen either. Chef would prepare a multi-course feast from scratch, regardless of the fact that only two people would be enjoying it.
Afterward, my mother would instruct the staff to pack up all the leftovers—there were always more leftovers than food that had actually been eaten—and take them to the local shelter.
It never occurred to my parents that giving away their excess wasn’t generosity. It was patronizing. Or maybe it did occur to them, and they simply didn’t care.
I would rather eat day-old chicken and powdered astronaut potatoes with Silvia any day of the week, before going back to my parents’ table. There wasn’t enough money in the world for that. It didn’t occur to me until Friday that they hadn’t called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving.
***
On Saturday, I bid Silvia and Tim farewell and took the train back to Connecticut. The ride toward Newbury seemed much shorter than the ride away had felt. There was a heady feeling of anticipation at what—or who—I might find when I got back.
Jack still wasn’t responding to my texts, in spite of—or maybe because of—my needy voicemail. But Alan had agreed to pick me up from the train station. Perhaps Jack would be with him again.
I could see the scene in my mind’s eye.
The train door would open revealing Jack in a white Oxford shirt—with the top buttons undone, teasing a glimpse at his smooth chest. He would be holding a large bouquet of sunflowers and would smile his best, crooked smirk when his eyes fell on me.
I would drop my bag on the platform and run to him, jumping into his waiting arms, like a hydrogen atom drawn into a hydroxide ion. Then, he would kiss me passionately, while the other travelers cheered and wolf-whistled around us.
I would tell him I loved him, and he would tell me he loved me too.
He would wipe my tears and promise to never make me cry again.
We would live happily ever after: running around Cedar Lake, stealing kisses between classes, and laughing at each other’s bad jokes until we had side stitches.
But when the train pulled into Hampton Station, there was no one waiting for me on the platform. I found Alan sitting in his car in the parking lot, heater on full blast to fight off the winter chill.
“How was your holiday?” I asked when he pulled out onto the street.
“It was good. Quiet,” he replied, eyes on the road. “How was yours?”
“Good. It was nice to see Silvia.”
Alan hummed in response and kept his eyes on the road. Neither of us spoke for several minutes as we cruised back toward campus, skeletal brown trees whipping past us.
The silence was going to drive me insane.
“Did you see Jack over the break?”
Alan chewed on his lip but didn’t look at me. “Yeah, we hung out a bit.”
“Did he… say anything? About me?”
Alan sighed heavily. “Look, Mel, I like you a lot. But Jack’s my best friend, and I really don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
“I understand,” I said, but I couldn’t help but press. “I know he’s mad about something, but I really have no idea what. If you could tell me literally anything, I would…”
Alan gave me a hard look that was very un-Alan-like. “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Okay, so Jack definitely told him what was going on. And Alan was upset with me too. I racked my brain for the millionth time trying to figure out what I might have done, and for the millionth time, I came up empty.
“Do you think he’ll talk to me?”
Alan sighed again. “I don’t know.”
I bit my tongue to keep from screaming out my frustration, and we sat in silence for the remainder of the drive.