Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Fiona
The cafeteria at Rosewood High was loud enough to make thinking difficult.
Trays clattered, voices overlapped, and somebody at the table behind us laughed so hard I heard it over everything else.
I sat near the windows at our usual table, picking at the sandwich I’d packed that morning while Melanie demolished a slice of pizza across from me.
“You’re doing it again,” Melanie said, pointing at me with a greasy napkin.
“Doing what?”
“Checking your phone every thirty seconds.” She leaned forward, her dark eyes narrowing. “Who are you texting?”
“No one.”
“Liar.” Melanie grinned. “You’ve been glued to that thing for weeks. Is it a guy?”
Heat crept up my neck. “It’s just a friend.”
“A friend you can’t stop smiling at?” Melanie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”
I didn’t answer.
How exactly did I explain Jasper?
I barely knew him.
Yet somehow, he’d worked his way into the beginning and end of nearly every day since.
That sounded a little insane even inside my own head.
“How’s work?” I asked.
Melanie let me have the obvious change of subject. “Boring. My mom’s been on my case about college applications again. Apparently, I need to ‘think about my future’ instead of working at the diner forever.” She rolled her eyes. “What about you? Still scooping ice cream for the masses?”
“Still scooping.”
“Any weird customers lately?”
I thought about the guy last week who’d asked for a sample of every flavor before ordering a small vanilla cone. “Define weird.”
Melanie laughed. “Fair point.”
My phone buzzed on the table, and I told myself not to look even though my hand was already reaching for it.
Jasper: New game.
Me: We’re still doing twenty questions?
Jasper: Better version. This or that.
Me: Go ahead.
Jasper: Sunrise or sunset?
That should’ve been an easy question.
It wasn’t.
Sunrise came with expectations. Another day to get right. Another chance to prove I deserved everything I’d been given.
Sunset felt different.
By then, whatever I’d managed or failed to manage was done. Nobody expected anything else from me until morning.
Me: Sunset
Jasper: Why?
Me: Sunrise feels like pressure. Sunset feels like permission to stop.
I hit send, then immediately wished I could pull it back. That was more truth than a stupid game required.
Jasper: That answer was too thoughtful for this game.
I smiled. At least he hadn’t asked me to explain it. Jasper seemed to understand me better than most people did.
Me: Your turn.
Jasper: Sunrise.
Me: Why?
Jasper: Feels like getting another chance to get it right.
I read the message again. Then once more.
Another chance to get what right? Jasper had this way of giving me answers that somehow revealed less than the questions.
Me: That was also too thoughtful.
Jasper: We’re both failing.
Me: Next.
Jasper: Texting or talking?
Easy.
Me: Texting.
Jasper: Liar.
I blinked at the word. My defenses rose as I typed out the next message.
Me: I like having time to think.
Jasper: You answer me pretty fast for someone who needs time to think.
Well. That was rude.
Mostly because he was right.
Our messages had started simple. How was your day? What are you doing? Did you make it home?
Somehow those little conversations had stretched into hours. And lately, I didn’t need much time to think before answering him at all.
Me: That’s different.
Jasper: How?
Me: I don’t know.
That was the annoying part.
I really didn’t.
Talking to Jasper through a screen felt easier than talking to almost anyone face-to-face. I didn’t have to wonder whether he was waiting for me to stop so he could talk. I never felt like I’d said too much.
More than once, I’d caught myself reaching for my phone because something stupid happened and he was the first person I wanted to tell.
I refused to think about what that meant.
Jasper: Interesting.
Me: Your answer?
Jasper: Phone call.
Me: Why?
Jasper: I prefer hearing reactions I didn’t have to imagine.
My stomach flipped. That answer definitely had something underneath it. Or at least I wanted it to.
Me: That sounded suspicious
Jasper: Cake or pie?
Me: Coward
I shook my head; I could practically hear him laughing.
Jasper: Pie.
Me: Wrong
Jasper: We can’t build a friendship on this kind of disagreement.
Friendship.
My eyes stopped on the word.
There it was.
The nice, safe little box I kept insisting we belonged in.
Apparently, I didn’t like seeing Jasper put us there nearly as much as I liked doing it myself.
Me: We’ll survive
Jasper: Confident.
Me: Accurate
“Earth to Fiona.”
I looked up to find Melanie staring at me with her arms crossed.
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Smiling at your phone like it just proposed.” Melanie leaned back in her chair. “Seriously, who is this guy?”
“I told you. A friend.”
Her eyes narrowed in my direction. “Friends don’t make you blush.”
“I’m not blushing.”
“You’re totally blushing.”
I shoved my phone into my pocket, which probably did nothing to strengthen my argument. “Can we talk about something else?”
Melanie grinned. “Fine. But I’m bringing this up again later.”
“Great.”
“Oh, speaking of which...” Melanie grabbed her water bottle. “You need a better answer.”
“For what?”
“When customers ask if you have a boyfriend.”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with saying no?”
“It invites more questions. Trust me.” Melanie took a sip. “Last week, some guy asked me out after I said I was single. I had to pretend my shift was ending just to get away from him.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was. So you need a line. Something that shuts it down without being rude.”
I pulled my phone back out.
Me: Melanie says I need a better answer when customers ask if I have a boyfriend.
Jasper: What do you say now?
Me: No.
Jasper: Brutally honest.
Me: She says it invites more questions.
Jasper: Tell them you’re emotionally unavailable.
I snorted.
Me: That sounds dramatic
Jasper: Tell them your heart belongs to someone far away.
My breath caught.
I read the message again.
Someone far away.
Surely he knew exactly how that sounded.
Me: That sounds worse
Jasper: Effective, though.
Me: Whose heart are we talking about?
Jasper: Hypothetical heart.
Of course.
Me: Convenient
Jasper: You could say your brothers are violent.
Me: They’re not.
Jasper: Frank is.
He wasn’t wrong. Frank was a big teddy bear right up until someone hurt a person he loved.
My thumb hovered over the keypad.
There was something I wondered about. More than wondered if I was being honest. I’d just never quite worked up the nerve to ask.
Until now.
Me: What would you say if someone asked whether you had a girlfriend?
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
My stomach tightened.
Jasper: Depends who’s asking.
Me: Me.
Jasper: I’d ask why you wanted to know.
I smiled despite the fear churning in my gut.
Me: For research
Jasper: Ah. Important research.
Me: Exactly
Jasper: Then no.
I went still.
No.
No joke attached to it.
No clever evasion.
No depends or maybe or why do you care?
Just no.
Me: That was surprisingly simple
Jasper: Disappointed?
Was I?
Not even a little.
That realization was probably more important than his answer.
Me: Curious
Jasper: That’s more interesting.
“So?” Melanie asked. “What’s he saying?”
I locked my phone. “He suggested I tell people my brothers are violent.”
Melanie laughed. “Is he wrong?”
“Georgie’s protective. That’s different.”
“Protective is one word for it.” Melanie stood, grabbing her tray. “Come on. We’ve got five minutes before the bell.”
I followed her toward the trash cans as I thought about what Jasper said.
He didn’t have a girlfriend. That was all he’d actually told me.
Anything I attached to it after that belonged to me, not him.
Unfortunately, my imagination had plenty of suggestions that made the rest of the day pass without me retaining much of it.
Mrs. Patterson talked about The Great Gatsby. I took notes.
History happened. I took more notes.
If anyone had asked me what either teacher said, I would’ve been screwed.
The only thing in my head was one stupid word.
No.
Jasper didn’t have a girlfriend.
I opened my locker and switched books, trying not to think about what that admission changed.
Technically, it changed absolutely nothing.
He was still in Nebraska. I was still in Virginia. He was still thirty-one. I was still eighteen.
And we were still...
Friends.
I shut my locker harder than necessary.
“You okay?”
I looked up to find Nash standing beside me.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“You sure? You’ve been weird all day.”
“I’m not weird.”
“You walked past me in the hallway earlier and didn’t even say hi.”
I winced. “Sorry. I’ve just been... distracted.”
“By what?”
Jasper Francis Alexander DuBois.
Apparently.
“Nothing important.”
Nash didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. “You coming to the clubhouse this weekend?”
“Probably.”
“Cool. See you then.”
He headed down the hall, and I leaned my forehead against the cool metal of the locker.
Six weeks ago, Jasper had been a man I’d just met.
Now Nash could tell when I’d been talking to him just by looking at my face.
Melanie could too.
That probably should’ve bothered me more.
I pulled my phone out.
No new messages.
Disappointment came fast enough to be embarrassing.
I stared at the blank screen for another second before locking it.
This was exactly why I needed to be careful.
Joseph had taught me how easy it was to mistake wanting something for having it. I’d thought he liked me because I wanted him to. Maybe I’d filled in blanks that had never been there.
I didn’t want to do that again.
Not with Jasper.
Especially not with Jasper.
Because this time, I already knew the fall would be worse.
I put the phone back in my pocket and headed to my last class.
It stayed there almost the entire way.
Almost.