Track 1
October – JAKE
“MR. COOPER?”
My eyes go wide, and my brows shoot up. I look left, then right, scanning the tiered lecture hall for any sign of what I’ve missed while blanking out. Again.
I clear my throat. “Yeah?” When he shoots me an eyebrow-hiked glare, I readjust my tone. “Yes, Mr. Stanley?”
I fix my attention on the white-haired old man standing at the bottom of the expansive room.
He reminds me of Mr. Feeny so much, I half expect Cory Matthews and Sean Hunter to walk through the door any minute.
His sagging, aged skin settles into a permanent scowl.
Mr. Stanley moves his wire-rimmed glasses down the bridge of his nose.
He’s clad in yet another plaid wool suit, even though it’s nearly eighty-five degrees today.
“Do you know where we are, Mr. Cooper?”
Damn, he even sounds like Feeny.
“Yes,” I lie. I have no fucking idea where we are, but I can bet my shitty little life it’s exactly where we were the last time I took this class.
Fucking ridiculous. I was supposed to have graduated already; be months into my career by now.
Instead, I’m retaking a class I’ve already completed—all because I missed one exam that was a big percentage of my overall grade, big fucking deal.
Feeny Number Two could’ve let me make it up like the rest of my professors, rather than screwing me sideways.
I had a plan. I had everything lined up perfectly—the school, the job, the girl.
I was supposed to graduate in May and sail off into the sunset by June. I was already working my way through a paid internship, and I knew I was getting the job by the fall. Life was perfect. I had no doubt in my mind that success was in my line of sight, waiting for me. Waiting for us.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The moment I opened that door, the air cracked, the tension thick and weighted. Painfully brutal. I’m pretty sure my soul left my body and hovered overhead, watching my shit show of a life crumble to the ground.
My jaw tightens, teeth grinding as the crushing memory replays.
“Hey, man, I’m E.” He held his hand out to me and I stared at it, dumbfounded. The ringing in my ears, deafening.
“What the hell is going on, Sydney?” My heart cracked with each syllable. My mind raced to piece the last few years of my life back together, running in every direction before it landed on her, while she just stood there—trembling.
“I’m so sorry, Jake… I’ve made terrible mistakes… I didn’t mean for all of this…”
I let out a heavy breath.
Fuckkk.
There are moments when life strikes you down and leaves you cold to the bone. Walking into my apartment to find my girlfriend in tears over a guy that wasn’t me was one of them.
The shock in her gaze and the way she froze like stone, as if she was caught red-handed, was a jagged knife in my chest. That one look at her told me more than I wanted to know.
And him—his apologetic energy was a punch in the gut, and the way it somehow held…
ownership over her made it even worse. The saddened, yet relieved way she spoke when she showed up in California to “talk.” She was so certain.
So fucking sure. It was like looking at a different person entirely.
Those beautiful brown doe eyes of hers were no longer questioning and wary, like I’d always known them to be.
She had this new light to her that was bright and confident.
The kind that said she finally knew what she wanted, knew exactly who she was supposed to be, and where she belonged—and it wasn’t with me.
The worst part was that I couldn’t even be mad at her for it. I’d only ever wanted her to be sure, to be happy. I just thought I’d be the one to give it to her.
That’s what kills me the most—how I could never spark that light in her, no matter how desperately I tried. No matter how supportive or understanding or fucking helpful I tried to be, she was never that certain about anything with me.
I never asked for the details. I never wanted to know what happened with him or why what we had wasn’t enough. Maybe it was pride. Maybe I just didn’t want to know. Who cared about the details? The fact was that we were over.
It took me a while, but I finally figured out the role I played in Sydney’s life.
It was nothing like what my blind ass thought.
See, I was the filler. The bandage she pressed over the wounds she refused to show.
She hid everything so well, I didn’t realize it was a disguise.
And it worked, because I never asked questions.
Truth is, I don’t think I ever knew who she really was.
I never knew her pain, her joy, her dreams, or the person she wanted to become.
I only knew what little she let me see. And like a starving child, I ran toward every crumb she tossed my way, my eyes closed to everything else.
I stayed in California far longer than I planned. What started out as a snowboarding trip with the boys became a drunken, sulking mess of self-depreciation.
I missed three finals, two of which I was able to make up over the summer, but Professor Stanley here is a stickler.
It could be because he’s also my advisor.
He swears he has a duty to help me reach my fullest potential—whatever the hell that means.
He demanded an in-person meeting when I got back, which is when he told me making up his final wasn’t an option.
Instead, I’d be missing graduation and retaking his entire fucking course this fall.
So here I am.
Annoying as it is, I don’t regret not returning on time.
I couldn’t come back to Texas after everything that happened.
I needed time and space to clear my head.
I didn’t want to be in the place that was once ours without her.
I didn’t want to feel the ache of her absence or the pain of my failure in the space we once called home.
Avoiding it while I drowned my liver was a way better option in my opinion.
My boy, Brian, was the first person I spoke to about the breakup, but even then, I only shared the facts—Sydney left, fell for some other guy, someone she knew from her childhood. Yeah, I’m good. It’s whatever. I’ll figure it out.
The term “facts” is obviously a stretch considering I’m not okay. Not even close.
When I eventually made my way back to Austin, the first thing I did was move out of my apartment. I didn’t even break the lease, I just left, paid the last two months, and said fuck it.
Brian connected me with some lacrosse guy named Nate who had a room for rent. Brian only sort of hung out with him. That should’ve been warning enough, but I wasn’t in the position to be picky. I’m still not.
Nate might be a total tool bag, but he’s decent. I’ll never know how he’s making it as a finance major, but I guess when your dad donates boatloads of cash to the school of your choosing, you can still get a degree with mediocre effort and a barely-there schedule.
He’s at Overly’s Bar at least three times a week, a different girl shooting tequila with him each night.
He’s actually the reason I quit working there and started bartending at Donn’s.
It’s even more rustic with its shellacked wooden bar top and cracked red leather stools, but at least there’s always live music and a jazz band occasionally.
Plus, the less drunken college idiots I see, the better.
It’s not that I don’t like Nate. I just…
don’t like anyone right now, and I’m sure as hell not looking to bond with my drunkard, entitled manwhore of a roommate.
He’s always talking excitedly about “what we’re getting into tomorrow,” as if I have any interest in seeing tomorrow. Shit, I don’t even want to see today.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to move on—I have.
I’ve done everything to the brink of exhaustion just to forget.
I run twice as long and push myself three times as hard.
I get drunk with friends more nights than I can count, waking up without remembering how I got home, pounding headaches and nausea constantly turning my stomach into an angry sea of swirling disgust.
I tried the random hook up thing, too, just to feel anything for someone else. I ended up buried in guilt for touching a woman who wanted more than I was interested in giving.
I did every cliché, every socially approved step to move on, and none of it worked.
Every morning, I still wake up with the same hollowness inside. A lifeless reality that has been deduced down to a bedroom too small, a window too bright, and an aching, empty brokenness where my heart used to be.
The only thing that’s been even remotely helpful is the boxing gym I came across once I moved into Nate’s industrial apartment. The trainers showed me around, showed me what to do, and I’ve been going there ever since.
There’s something comforting about balling every ugly thought and emotion into my fist and driving it into a punching bag over and over until the world becomes a blur. Training until my muscles ache and plead for mercy, sweat rolling off me like it’s cleansing the disdain from my veins.
It’s an addictive kind of suffering, one I wish I’d found sooner. It would’ve been helpful when my dad ran off to Chicago to start a new life with his childhood best friend, Leslie, when I was eleven.
And it definitely would have helped when my mom hightailed it back to Connecticut a few years later, leaving me to finish high school unparented.
For them, as long as they could throw money at the problem—the problem being me—everything was right in the world.
I’ll never forget all the sad looks my teachers would give me, like I was a fucking orphan; some unwanted puppy left by the dumpster in the rain.
I forced smiles and worked extra hard just to prove I didn’t need anyone.
That they didn’t have to feel sorry for me because I was fine on my own, cooking dinners for myself and getting to school on time at the age of fourteen.
I wanted everyone to believe they could do what they needed to, because I’d be alright.
But I wasn’t. I was fucking alone. I was heartbroken.
But I pushed through and worried about keeping everyone else content.
And then I did the same with Sydney. And like a fucking idiot, I’m back to being heartbroken and alone.
Nate keeps telling me I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t chill out with the training and isolation, but what’s the point of having a mind if all it’s doing is running me into the ground?
Fuck having a mind. Fuck having thoughts.
Fuck memories and dreams and everything that makes them.
All I know is I’m here today, whether I want to be or not, and I couldn’t care less about what happens tomorrow.
I guess that’s what happens when your heart is ripped out of your chest. You stop dreaming about the future and start clawing your way through the present, just trying not to drown. You stop chasing sunsets and settle into the dark, praying the sun doesn’t rise.
Everyone’s out here looking for beginnings, but I’m still choking on an ending I never saw coming.
“Mr. Cooper!”
Damn, this guy really has a hard-on for me today. There are thirty other students in here, move the hell on already!
I swallow my frustration before opening my mouth. “What?” It comes out more aggravated than I intend, and I know there’ll be a “See me after class” coming shortly. I can’t fucking win.
“Sorry, Mr. Stanley,” the girl on my right interrupts. “It’s my fault. I asked Mr. Cooper for his notes from last week. I should’ve waited until after class. I apologize for the distraction.” She glances at me quickly before offering our professor a remorseful smile.
I barely look her way. I wonder what caused her to lie for me.
Had she been watching me, sensing the low-humming storm that I’m drowning in?
Did she observe my doomsday aura from across the aisle and want to throw me a rope to save me?
Or does she just want to get the hell out of here as fast as the rest of us?
“Very well, then,” he responds before turning back to the whiteboard. “As I was saying…”
He falls back into the mundane rhythm of his droning lecture as I return to my downward spiral of thoughts.
The ones that keep the pain alive and the wound freshly salted.
The ones that whisper my mistakes back to me on repeat and have me swearing I will never be stupid enough to look for love again. Or anything like it.