Chapter 43
Heartbreaking Schedule
Emily
“Little German...”
Jon stood in front of me with a bouquet of handpicked daisies that looked equally as sad as him. His shoulders were bowed in his stupid leather jacket, and his eyes were swollen and red, but I knew he wasn’t on anything. They were missing that shimmer that came with the high.
“I’m ready to talk now,” he said.
I knew I’d told him I would be waiting, but it wasn’t relief that overcame me but anger. We had lost weeks. Weeks, and now we only had a few more left.
“If you still want to talk... I understand if I overdid it this time.” He lowered the flowers.
“Jon...” I slid his new notebook into his shopping bag. He had sent me through hell and back. I couldn’t just ignore that.
“Go, ahead,” Natalia said from her cash. “Don’t worry, I’ll come up with an excuse if the boss shows up.”
“No.” It came out wobbly. I cleared my throat. “If Jon wants to talk, he has to wait until I’m done my shift.”
I handed him his bag. He had made me wait for weeks; now it was his turn to wait.
“Okay,” he said, and slouched away through the glass doors. I stared after him, and when he looked back over his shoulder my heart seemed to start up again.
“What the heck?” said Natalia. “For weeks he’s all you can think about, and now you’re sending him away?”
I nodded, taking a shaky breath.
A slow smile spread across her face. “I’m so proud of you!” She leaped out from behind the cash and embraced me. “Make him work for it, baby!”
That wasn’t it, though. It wasn’t a power play. It was a matter of respect. Caroline, Paul—even Jon himself—they were right. I couldn’t let him call the shots in every moment of my life. I had to start looking after myself first. I had to be fineon my own.
The feeling of empowerment faded to torture over the next few hours of my shift. My mind couldn’t stop churning out different scenarios for our impending talk.
#1: I relapsed, and I couldn’t tell you.
#2: I’m here to officially end it.
And the one I feared the most, #3: I meant everything I said, but now I miss you so I changed my mind.
Panic set in when I didn’t find him waiting in the parking lot after my shift. As I scoured the parking lot, the weight of his absence hit me, and I struggled to hold back tears. He hadn’t even bothered to wait a few hours. I guess I’d better ask Gena to pick me up after all.
“Little German?” Jon’s voice came from right behind me. I turned to find him holding the wilted daisies, now accompanied by a pint of cookie dough ice cream.
“I didn’t want it to melt so I waited until I saw you leaving the cash. I hope you didn’t think I had left.”
I let out a loud sob, because now, finally... I felt relief. But not the type I had expected.
Jon set down the daisies and ice cream and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” he said, holding me tightly. When I had my breath under control again, I stepped back, wiping my face.
“C-can I have them?” I pointed at the flowers and ice cream on the pavement.
“Oh! Yeah!”
Jon handed them to me. I took a moment to smell the daisies before cradling them in my arms like a baby. Sitting down on the sidewalk, I cracked open the ice cream and dug into it with a plastic spoon Jon had brought. It felt good to have something to occupy my hands. Jon sat down beside me, and after a few bites, I offered him a spoonful. He smiled, allowing me to feed him. We ate in silence until the entire bucket was gone, but the expected endorphins never kicked in.
“I called my father and Richard,” I blurted. I’d wanted to tell him this since it happened—and I needed to compose myself before we talked about what we actually had to get through.
“What did they say?” Jon asked, a hint of surprise and admiration in his voice.
I pressed my feet together. “Well, my father was an asshole, but Richard actually listened.”
Jon’s mouth parted, and he gazed at me with interest. “I don’t even know what I should ask about first.”
I gave a tired smile. My father’s reaction had barely hurt me. It stuck with me, yes, but I had reached a point of acceptance that he wouldn’t be a big part of my life anymore. I guess I had always felt it, but now I knew for sure. Richard, on the other hand, was my mother’s boyfriend, and based on our conversation, probably soon to be more.
“Richard told me his perspective. He admitted that he isn’t doing the best job, but he’s had a hard time fitting into our family dynamic. My mother always tried to keep him out of any parenting, and it hurt him.”
I sighed. He wasn’t jealous of me and Lucas spending time with Mama; he was jealous that he didn’t get to spend time with us himself. There were still plenty of things we had to work on, but when I told him how I felt living with him, he actually listened. “He never had kids in his life and he didn’t know how to treat us right. He wants to do better, though, and I think I actually believe him.”
“Why?” Jon asked, a question I had asked myself.
“Despite everything, he never actually left. Even that one time when he did break up with Mama, he came back after two weeks,” I said. Jon nodded. “Plus, him and Lucas apparently talked a lot these last few months. They’re trying to work past their issues. He even offered Lucas to move back in.” I swallowed, and Jon grabbed my hand in reassurance. I let him, for now. “He didn’t, though. But I called Lucas and asked him if it was true, and he confirmed it.”
For the first time in my life, I was furious at my brother. He’d kept me in the dark. Apparently, he wanted me to focus on my exchange year and not worry about them. When I got back, that was going to change. I wasn’t a little girl who fell apart at every little thing anymore. I was stronger now. I could feel it within me.
I looked up at Jon. “Things have actually gotten better.” I smiled, and I realized I was actually a tiny bit excited about going back.
“That sounds great,” Jon said, giving me his little kid’s smile I so adored. His lashes framed his brown eyes, and the sunset gleamed in them, making me go weak. “Really, you deserve to feel safe at home.”
I cleared my throat and took my hand out of his. Yes, Germany was still my home, but that one sentence showed that nothing had changed in Jon’s mind.
“So, you wanted to talk?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Jon stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out two slips of paper. “I understand if you don’t want to go anymore, and I know I should do this way better than in a Walmart parking lot, but... I would love to take you to prom.”
I just stared as he held out the tickets. “You’re going to graduate?” was the first thing that slipped out of my mouth.
“Yeah...” He swallowed. “So, what do you say? I know it’s not the promposal you wished for, but I wasn’t sure if you would even talk to me, so I didn’t know what to do.”
“Jon...” I stood up, panic washing over me again. He was giving me what I wanted, but at what price? “I’d love nothing more than to go to prom with you, but we can’t just skip the tough conversations and do the fun parts.”
“I know, but I’ll explain everything... soon.”
“When? Before or after you fuck me at prom?”
I cringed at my own choice of words. Jon sighed, reaching for my hands. “I was hoping we could talk after Saturday night.”
I recoiled. “For god’s sake, Jon!”
“Hear me out!” he pleaded, grabbing my hands again. “Please...”
I bit my cheek until I tasted iron. “Fine. Talk.”
“You were absolutely right. Something happened to me, and I wasn’t ready to talk to you about it, but I’m ready now. All I want is one last perfect night. I beg you, Emily. Give me this one night.”
I shook my head, a wave of fear coursing through my veins. “Why can’t we have a perfect night after you tell me?”
The question hung heavy in the air as Jon’s gaze shifted to the asphalt below.
“I can’t tell you... not yet.”
My lower lip quivered. He was here, willing to give me what I wanted, but at the cost of withholding something from me.
Jon cupped my cheeks, his eyes momentarily fixing on my lips before meeting my gaze.
“I’ve written it all down. Every single day for the last few weeks. Hell, this entire year. You can read everything. And then I’ll tell it to you again in my own voice. Just please, go to prom with me first.”
I gazed into his imploring eyes, my own watering so much that I only got a blurry view of his beautiful face. “And what then? You’ll break my heart on schedule?”
“That sounds more like you than me.” He offered a weak smile but I didn’t feel like smiling. He tried again. “If I wanted to break your heart, I wouldn’t be standing here, Little German.”
He rested his forehead on mine, and we both breathed in. I closed my eyes, inhaling his smoky scent, feeling his warm hands on my skin. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t deny the strength of the love I had for him. The kind that made me impulsive, ridiculous. The kind that had me throw away a perfect high school romance. And yet I would trade any perfect ending for the moments I had shared with Jon.
But that’s all they would ever be. Fleeting moments, with suffering as the consequence. I was just starting to feel fine without him—for the first time in weeks!—and nothing had changed. He wasn’t ready to give me what I needed.
“I can’t, Jon... Not without answers,” I said, and his smile dropped.
I got up, feeling like I might fall down again. I held tight onto the flowers. “Thank you for the daisies, but being with you now... I wonder how long it’ll take until you change your mind again.”
“But—”
“No,” I said. “No, Jon... You mean everything to me, but you were right. I can’t hinge my happiness on you. I need to be fine on my own.”
I turned around and walked away.