Chapter 25
twenty-five
SASHA
Fifty-two days.
That’s how long it’s been since Johnny Davis left my bedroom.
It feels like it’s been longer than that.
Loneliness greeted me like an old friend the second he walked out my front door. It was weirdly familiar, but not the kind of familiar I want.
I got comfortable with the idea of him sticking around.
That was really dumb of me.
After a couple of days, Claire reached out, asking if I wanted to get coffee. I told her no. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out with the girl my... whatever he was, ditched me for.
Only two other people ended up texting me, Lucas and Steph. Lucas was acting like nothing happened, like he had no idea that Johnny and I ended, and it was kind of nice. He was just being a friend, my friend.
Steph apologized for the breakup —if you could even call it that— and told me it didn’t change anything for her. Her words were appreciated, but I needed some time to process.
Staying friends with these people felt like a betrayal, they were his friends first, and after the way we left things, it felt wrong to keep them in my life.
But they’re nothing if not persistent.
They wore me down.
The ache to be seen and loved won. I craved affection more than I craved to do the right thing, because leaving them behind would have been the right thing.
Two weeks after everything happened, I met Claire and Steph on campus. It was weird at first, but only for a second, and then it felt like nothing had happened at all. They didn’t mention the breakup, didn’t ask any questions, and I wasn’t going to provide any answers.
It’s almost like Johnny and I never met.
He was gone from my life without a trace.
But he wasn’t. He was —and still is— everywhere.
He’s in my bedroom, I feel him there every time I lay in bed or sit in my bay window.
He’s on campus, both literally and figuratively. I see flashes of him in class, but he sits on the opposite side of the hall now. I think of him every time I pass that stupid bench, knowing exactly how I felt the first time he spoke to me.
I forgot how much it fucking sucks not having him in my life.
But he made his choice.
And I’m tired of being walked all over.
I’m important too.
His number still sits on my phone, our conversations saved in a chat I don’t think will ever be used again.
I re-read our conversations, trying to figure out why I would let someone who made me feel so good just walk out of my life. But every time he posts a picture of himself with Claire on social media… I remember.
Claire slides into the booth next to me at Estellas, Steph taking a seat across from us.
I don’t smile much, but I find myself grinning from ear to ear whenever they’re around. They help me forget, and for a short period of time, I can just be myself without the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I’m in a bubble when I’m with them.
“I already ordered for us at the counter,” Claire tells me, “they’ll bring it over when it’s ready.”
“Orange slushies?” I ask.
Steph chuckles, “I don’t think Claire knows there’s anything else on the menu.”
For a while, I blamed Claire for what happened, but I slowly realized that it’s not her fault. She’s with Lucas, so insanely in love with him that I can’t imagine she has any feelings for Johnny, that she views him as anything more than just friends.
She isn’t the one who asked him to go find her that night. Lucas called in a panic, and Johnny ran out the door without question.
“It’s the only thing worth ordering!” Claire protests.
Steph rolls her eyes, but reaches across the table to grab my hands. It’s like a switch flips every time she looks at me, she becomes softer, she looks at me like a child looks at their favourite toy. “How have you been, Sash? Ready for finals?”
How have I been doing? Not great.
We both know she isn’t asking about life though, she’s trying to ask about how I’ve been doing since the break-up without directly asking how I’ve been doing since the break-up.
On the school side of things… also not great.
There’s still a couple weeks before we finish off for the year, and in turn finish off our lives at Livler. It’s weird to think that in a few short weeks, I’ll be a college graduate… with no idea what I’m going to do.
Okay, so maybe that’s not completely true. I know I want to go into game design, but actually going out and making that happen feels a little daunting.
The internship I applied for last year would have been a great way to get my foot in the door, but now I have nothing.
No experience.
No connections.
“I’m okay,” I tell her honestly. “Still trying to figure everything out, and slowly melting my brain with all the studying, but it’s not that bad.”
She smiles at that.
The older waitress drops off our drinks, but before I have a chance to take a sip, the question that’s been burning my lips finally breaks free.
“How’s Johnny?”
Claire chokes on her slushy.
Steph’s eyes grow wide.
They both look at each other for a second, probably trying to figure out how to answer that question. I haven’t so much as spoken his name to them since everything happened, so I can imagine that this feels a little out of left field to them.
This whole thing could have meant less to him than I thought, so maybe things aren’t so bad for him and he’s out there having the time of his life.
But…
Claire stirs her straw slowly, staring at it so she doesn’t have to look at me. “He’s keeping himself distracted, championships are coming up.”
“That’s good,” I tell her half-heartedly.
Is it bad that I wanted to hear how horribly he’s doing?
If things are bad for him, much like they’re bad for me, then it means that what we had was real, that it wasn’t all in my head or just another fling to him.
But he’s doing okay, and that’s a good thing.
It’s good that he’s focused on hockey.
My phone buzzes on the table, and without trying to, my heart pounds in my chest at the thought that it might be him… but it’s not.
It’s never him anymore
Lu
We still on for 6?
Yeah.
I’m with your girlfriend and Steph right now, so I’ll text you when they release me.
Don’t let them bully you!
And tell Steph she’s on the hook for that beer she drank last night!
Remind her that whoever drinks the last one, buys the new pack.
“Lucas says you owe them a pack of beer,” I snort.
She throws her hands up, “that rule is so fucking dumb. I don’t even live there!”
“And yet you drank their last beer without a second thought,” Claire giggles into her cup.
Steph kicks her from under the table, “girlfriend laws, dude. I can drink what I want in my boyfriend’s house, and not have to adhere to any of their insane rules.”
Me
Good luck trying to get it out of her, she declared girlfriend laws.
Lu
That’s bullshit! She’s here all the time!
It’s like one brick wall talking to another brick wall with those two.
“You and Lucas have gotten really close recently,” Claire states.
I can’t read the look on her face, whether she’s upset about that or not. Even if she was, I can’t say I would blame her.
But the thought of her getting upset with me hanging out with her boyfriend makes me feel sick to my stomach. I don’t want her to be angry with me, but when she hung out with Johnny, I would fucking spiral.
I’m a hypocrite.
And a loser.
I hesitate, “is that… okay?”
She smiles, “I think it’s good for both of you.”
“He’s been less dickish lately.” Steph takes a sip of her slushy, “being friends with you has really changed the ways of Lucas St. James.”
Being friends with me couldn’t have changed him that much. I think he’s always been this way, just chose to never show it. He’s a good guy, genuinely fun to hang out with, I can’t imagine him any other way.
“He’s been taking me out on drives,” I admit. “I’m slowly working up the courage to drive myself, but I’m just not there yet.”
It’s like exposure therapy. We never actually go anywhere, we usually drive around aimlessly before he drops me back off at my parents.
We do a lot of talking, and through all that talking, we’ve learned a lot about one another.
He’s told me about his childhood, and the reason why he hates Nathan so much. I had no idea the things Nathan was doing to him at school. My brother and I went to a private school, so we never actually got to see that side of him.
His dad was a piece of shit, all the stories he has of watching his mom cover her bruises with makeup make me want to puke. I can’t believe he had to watch all that at such a young age.
He told me all about how he and Claire got together, including the moment when he realized he was falling in love with her.
Their story is messy, but there are parts to it that are ridiculously cute.
He took her stargazing for gods sake.
Lucas opened up, and because he showed me his scars, I showed him mine.
He knows things about me that most people don’t.
I told him the story behind my rose tattoo on my shoulder.
No one other than Jurian knows about that.
Well, except for Lucas.
Two weeks ago
“I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” Lucas tells me, turning off my street.
“What would you get?”
He shrugs, “no idea yet.”
These drives have been nice, I never feel like there’s any pressure to talk about anything. There’s been a couple times when neither of us feel like talking at all, so we don’t. We drive in complete silence.
“Are there any of your tattoos that you regret?” He asks, running a hand through his sandy blond hair.
I lean against the door, pulling my legs up into the seat so I can face him. “Not regret, but I definitely have ones that I wish I didn’t have to get.”
He looks at me curiously, “what do you mean have to?”
Closing my eyes, I remember the day I got my shoulder done.
“I can’t really remember a time in my life when I wasn’t in the background.
I grew up feeling invisible, and by the time I got to high school, I realized that I actually was.
No one remembered me. I was like a stranger no matter how many times I would introduce myself to people, and I started to feel really lonely because of it. ”
Friends were hard to come by, so I clung to Jurian and Nathan like my life depended on it.
“I wanted to be seen, wanted to feel like I was important, so I started getting tattoos. For a little while, someone had to be wholly focused on me, they had to see me.”
Lucas frowns, “that sounds really sad.”
“It was.”
After a while, I started to think that if I looked scary enough —covered myself in tattoos— that people would either have to see me, or I could convince myself that the reason why no one wanted to be near me was because I looked intimidating.
I was eighteen when I thought that.
Flowers and pretty little daggers aren’t exactly intimidating.
But I was a kid. Let a kid think what a kid wants to think.
“I got my rose tattoo,” god, I can’t believe I’m telling someone this, “because that summer I was supposed to go and work at a summer camp, I was so excited to work with little kids, but when I showed up… the coordinators had no idea who I was. They actually forgot about one of their councillors and gave the job to someone else.”
Lucas’s jaw drops, his head whipping towards me. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” I laugh. “So instead, I drove three hours back into the city and went straight to the nearest tattoo shop. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I let the artist do whatever.”
“And they had to focus on you, you felt seen after feeling invisible.”
I nod, “yeah.”
“Lucas told me about that. I didn’t want to bring it up because it felt like something just for the two of you, but I’m happy you’re pushing yourself.” Claire’s head leans on mine, “Are you going to try and sort things out with Johnny?”
Steph smiles sadly, “he really misses you.”
“I miss him too sometimes, but I don’t think we’re ever going to figure our shit out.”