Track 14
JAKE
TWO WEEKS. She’s avoided me for two whole weeks.
She hasn’t been at the library. The café. She hasn’t stopped at Donn’s with Lia on her usual days off. She’s even switched to the online option for Professor Stanley’s class for the remainder of the semester.
It all fell apart so quickly. One minute we were complete strangers, and the next, she was this light I looked for like the morning star. One minute she was telling me about her life, and the next, she was shoving me out of it.
I know what she’s trying to do, but she doesn’t understand that I need her. And that she needs me. She needs someone to be there for her. To help her pick up the pieces the way she helped me gather mine. I feel like I’m grasping at straws here, and I’m losing my mind.
I ran into Lia a week after Alana told me she couldn’t see me anymore, and the memory still plays on my mind.
“How is she?” I asked worriedly.
“She’s good,” she said, but it was a lie. I could tell in the way her voice unnaturally hiked up at the end. I eyed her knowingly, and it only took a moment before she gave in.
“Ugh, fine,” she groaned. “She’s not great ,but she’s hanging in there.”
I released a frustrated breath, my gaze bouncing around as I bit my lip. “What did she say?”
“Honestly, Jake,” she sighed. “She said nothing.” She shook her face slowly, worry etched between her brows.
“She hasn’t said anything. She claims she’s too busy to leave her place, and when we do hang out, she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Whatever this is, it’s not good for her.
But Jake…” She brought herself into my aimless gaze, forcing my eyes to meet hers.
“She really needs to deal with it her way. I don’t know much about her life before here, but I do know she has her own way of handling things, and it’s best to just let her be. ”
My jaw tensed as I gritted my teeth. Hopelessness trickled over me like rain, knowing there was nothing I could do to bring the shine back to my light. Because she didn’t want me to.
Lia tilted her head, her eyes filled with compassion. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I almost yell. I take a deep, cleansing breath to compose myself. “Nothing happened. Or, at least, I don’t know what happened. Everything was fine, and we were friends. We were…” I lace my fingers above my head, resting them on the top of my cap.
I think of the night we spent together. I think of the kiss, of the way it felt to hold her until the morning. Like finding the place you were meant for. But I don’t tell Lia any of that, because she’s not my friend to tell. “We were talking. And then we just weren’t. And I have no idea why.”
Except now, I think I do. I think I know exactly what happened.
She opened up when she didn’t mean to, and it scared the absolute hell out of her.
I know the fear that’s born when you realize the walls you’ve carefully placed are no longer standing as strong.
I understand how scary it is when you notice the confines of friendship feel like restraints that don’t belong there.
I know because I was there just before her.
Maybe for different reasons, but I was there.
I was afraid, and she understood. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.
I’ve given her space. I’ve given her time. I’ve given her silence when all I want is to be with her. Talk with her. See her.
I’ve only texted her once these past few weeks, the day after I ran into Lia.
I couldn’t ignore the pull. I wanted to show her she could have space and we could still be us.
It doesn’t have to be goodbye, no matter what her life outside of Austin is like.
Her past doesn’t have to change our present.
She could have both if she wanted.
I pull out my phone and reread the messages.
ME: I gather you’re not looking to talk to me right now, which is fine. Totally acceptable. We are still very much not talking.
She didn’t answer, but I expected as much. I kept going, anyway.
ME: However, as a person who is accepting of our non-talking terms, I still find it imperative to report that I watched Titanic today and did, in fact, hold myself together.
She responded a few minutes later, and a surge of excitement hit my chest at the small victory.
ALANA: I have to agree. This was of high-level importance to report. Also, said report sounds like a lie.
I smiled at my phone like an idiot when I first read her reply. The words were simple, but they were all I needed—an opening.
ME: It may be a slight stretch of the truth, but I held myself together enough to talk about it with Nate. You know, Jack did try to climb onto the door, but it almost flipped over, which is why he shamelessly settled for hypothermia.
ALANA: Lol, so you agree with the rest of the world that there was room for two?
ME: Undoubtedly, yes. But not at her expense.
ALANA: *Gasp* Jake Cooper, have you turned into a romantic on me?
ME: Now who’s stretching the truth?
But it was true. I had turned into a romantic on her. I had turned into a romantic because of her. Because of how she softened the rough edges of the world. She rewrote the way I felt about life without ever trying. She just existed in my orbit.
When I watched the movie, it hit me harder than it ever had before.
Not because of the ship or the spectacle or the tragedy I knew was real, but because for the first time in my life, I felt it.
I understood it. The way love strips you down to your most honest self.
The way it makes sacrifice not feel like loss but instinct.
The quiet, unflinching certainty of choosing someone else’s safety, again and again, without ever needing to be asked.
I finally understood the lengths you’d go to. The things you’d give up. The way you’d step aside, let the cold take you out, let the whole world end, if it meant the person you loved got to keep breathing.
If given the chance, I’d do it all for her.
Every sacrifice. Every impossible choice.
Without hesitation.
A few moments passed, and I waited for her to say something. Anything to keep the conversation going. If she did, I’d know she didn’t really want to let us go the way she was forcing herself to. That she didn’t want to end what we had, even if she couldn’t see any way to keep it.
I know she didn’t trust that I could handle it all, but I could. I wanted to. More than I wanted to breathe.
When she messaged me a few minutes after that last message, my heart literally soared.
ALANA: So how sad were you—on a scale of 1 to 10? I’m thinking solid 7, and that you asked Nate to cuddle after.
I smiled with relief. It was just enough to know there was still hope. That it wasn’t actually the end.
ME: I’ll see your 7, and I’ll raise you a 9. And no, we did not cuddle, but I did ask him to hold my hand, which helped. A lot.
ALANA: Actually laughing out loud.
It was the perfect exchange. Our teasing banter. Our inside jokes. The way something in me awoke and tilted my lips into a smile. It was all there, and I couldn’t let it go.
ME: Believe it when I see it. Come to Donn’s later.
Three little bubbles popped up before they vanished without a trace.
My hope plummeted, spiking once more when those three bubbles resurfaced.
My heart pounded hard as I waited, hoping, praying I’d get a tiny bit more of her light again—the one I agonizingly waited seven days to see.
But it leveled out quickly, like the flatline of a heart monitor reporting cardiac arrest, because her response never came.
Time of death, 5:07 p.m.
I contemplated texting her a few days after that to redirect the friendship back to its original origin—Stanley’s class project—but I decided against it.
I figured it might be better to keep my portion of the work captive, if only as a means of ransom.
If I held onto it long enough, she’d have to reach out eventually, right?
Except knowing her, she’d probably just buckle down and rob herself of any free time as she attempted to complete my assigned portion herself.
I hoped I’d have a chance to get to her before then.
When Professor Stanley handed out a last minute outline for the final and claimed he wouldn’t be uploading it for virtual students—they’d have to see him in person during office hours—I took it as a saving grace.
I showed up at her door right after class, outline in hand, knowing she’d still be home for at least another hour before her last class of the day.
I released a shaky breath before I knocked swiftly and listened as the muffled footsteps grew closer. The lock snapped open and the knob jiggled with its turn. And then frosted eyes widened at the sight of me. A flare of warmth passed in them but was immediately replaced with guarded walls.
“Hi,” I breathe, trying to tame the wild way my heart was racing just at the sight of her.
“Hey.” She takes a reluctant step back, widening the entrance to let me in.
“I brought you Stanley’s outline,” I say as I walk through the door. I place my excuse down on the counter before turning around.
“I figured you would.” She closes the door behind her and crosses her arms in front of her. Her eyes are trained on me, sad and longing. So many words try to claw their way out my throat. It’s a struggle not to say everything I want to.
“You didn’t leave.” It’s another small victory, the idea that she knew there was a chance I’d come by, and she chose to stay.
She tucks her bottom lip in between her teeth, her gaze falling to my feet before rising up again.
“Are you gonna talk to me?”
“What do you want me to say, Jake?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t hide the edge to my tone well. It’s hard to hide my feelings around her. “Maybe explain to me what’s going on? Why you’re suddenly avoiding me like I’m the plague.”
“You’re not…” She lets out a frustrated breath, tucking her hair behind her ears. “It’s not you, okay? It’s me, and it’s…”
“It’s what?”