Chapter Thirty-Six
102 days until graduation
I didn’t sleep last night.
Not because I didn’t try to, but because every time I did, all I could imagine was Jameson sleeping on a plane while on his way home to London.
I don’t even want to think about how he must be fine—how he still feels his metaphorical heart beating after breaking mine so horribly. Yet, it’s the only thing I can focus on.
So, I didn’t wake up for school this morning. I got out of bed, and it was miserable.
I feel noticeably different as I get ready, but I only realize how terrible I look when I glance in the mirror. The bags under my eyes are a clear sign I haven’t slept, and the tear stains on my cheeks make me look even more despondent.
Jameson is taking up all of my being, metaphorically, literally, and in every sense of the word. Every thought of him I have are like cuts on the palm of my hand, noticeable in every aspect while slowly bleeding me dry.
Death by a thousand cuts, one that Jameson is causing.
I wash my face, attempting to look better than I feel and trying to wash away the feeling of dread I have over going to school without Jameson being there. I go through the motions for the rest of my morning, not even paying attention to the mundane tasks I’ve completed until Gwen, and I are in the car driving to school.
“Are you okay?” She asks from the passenger seat. “Jameson left kinda fast last night.”
I shrug as I flick my blinker on. It’s rare that Gwen and I have heart-to-hearts like these, and it would be completely out of character for me to spill my heart out to her now. “He left and went back to London; he was there to say goodbye.”
Gwen practically rocket-launches back into her chair. “He went back to London?”
“Yeah,” I utter, trying to keep my composure. Sure, I might hold my shit together while going through the motions of my normal day, but I didn’t consider how difficult it would be to talk about Jameson. “Listen, Gwen, I don’t really want to talk about it just yet.”
“This is a good thing though, right?” She asks, not dropping the subject. “You get to be Valedictorian all by yourself now.”
“It’s not really about that anymore, Gwen.” I turn into the middle school parking lot.
Gwen unbuckles her seatbelt. “You know that night at Taylor’s diner?” She suddenly asks as I pull my car into a parking spot so we can talk before she goes in.
“Yes.” I’m not sure where this conversation is going, but I am partially nervous it’s going to take a turn for something deeper.
“It was Mae’s idea to meet up with those boys. I didn’t want to do it at first,” she explains. “She was convinced that each of them would like one of us, but that wasn’t how it worked.”
“They didn’t like you guys?” I ask, urging her to expand.
“All three of them were only talking to me,” Gwen whispers softly, like she feels guilty.
“Did that make Mae upset?” She has still been going to the Callaghan’s house every day after school, so I can’t imagine it caused a large bridge between them.
“Not at me.” Gwen pauses. “But the boys asked me to go with them, and when I said no, they got mad.”
“What happened when they got mad?” I unbuckle my seatbelt so I can turn more toward her.
“One of them grabbed me by the wrist, thinking I would still go with them.” Her eyes are welling, like she didn’t really want to tell me but felt like she should. “I said I wouldn’t go, so they left us there.”
I place one of my hands on her cheek, wiping her tears with my thumb. “Did they hurt you?”
“No.” She shakes her head quickly. “Mae just got upset, which made all of us cry. Plus, I realized after they left that we should have never agreed to meet up with them. It was really, really stupid.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “But there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as no one got hurt; it just means you’ll learn from it.”
“I think Mae just wants someone to notice her.” Gwen tells me. “She’s so worried everyone is forgetting about her.”
All I can do is nod at her confession. I knew Mae has been feeling left out recently, considering Logan and the rest of us are much older and don’t have as much in common with the younger girls anymore, but I had no idea she would go to these extremes to feel included.
I’m about to ask another question when I hear the warning bell from inside the middle school ring. “Oh shit, you gotta go, Gwen.”
She gets out of the car, running toward the door, and I back out of the parking spot to start driving toward the high school.I let out a long sigh, putting my seat belt back on as I use my knee to steer.
It’s already been a rough morning, but I have a feeling it’s going to be an even rougher day.
Stepping into Fairwood High knowing that Jameson is not here sends a pang through my chest—one I never thought I’d feel.
It doesn’t feel right, walking through the halls knowing I’m technically classified as Valedictorian. I have no one to compete against anymore, and the thought makes tears fill the back of my eyes.
Jameson’s spot was supposed to be next to me, walking in the halls, as Valedictorian, and now it’s not. His spot next to me in my life has been vacated, and it feels wrong.
Winnie and Eloise are the first people I notice in the halls. They’re standing by our lockers, and they both notice me immediately.
“I’m fine.” I tell them as I approach. I can see the looks in their eyes, and the two of them don’t wear the look of sympathy often. Especially for me. “Stop looking at me like my dog died or something. I’m not some situation that you need to handle.”
“Have you looked in the mirror this morning?” Eloise asks, making Winnie elbow her in the side. “No offense, Gen, but you look like your dog died.”
“She’s lying.” Winnie tries to amend.
“No, she’s not.” I hear Logan’s voice from behind me before he wraps his arm around my shoulder in a hug. “I’m sorry, Gen,” he says like he knows how upset I must be.
“Stop it.” I shrug him away, my eyes burning. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it is. He was never going to stay, I knew that.”
“We all knew he wasn’t going to stay, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be upset because he left unexpectedly.” His voice is sincere, almost like he has the same rock in his stomach as I do.
“I will not wallow,” I snap.
Luke walks up behind Eloise, pushing her into the center of our circle right as she goes to say something. “How about I fly to London and beat Jameson’s ass?”
Eloise turns around. “I’m going to beat yourass if you push me one more time.”
I can’t keep hearing them talk about Jameson like this. As if he tried to hurt me. Because he didn’t.
He left because it was what was best for him, and while it hurt me in the process, I truly don’t think he thought that far through his decision to leave.
I wish I would have known sooner, maybe to prepare a farewell speech, or so we could have dinner together one more time.The idea of Jameson and I having some type of drawn-out goodbye causes tears to fill my eyes, and to my horror, that’s when everyone locks their eyes on me.
“Gen—” Logan tries to say.
“I just need to go home.” I take in a deep breath, trying to regulate my thoughts while everyone stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“You haven’t missed a day of school since you had pneumonia last year,” Winnie says.
At this moment, I don’t care about my perfect attendance. All I know is that I won’t get through the day like this. And yes, maybe I’m having an emotional breakdown, but I’m too in my head to care.
“Well, what better of a day to break my streak than the day after I finally win Valedictorian.” The words sound wrong as they leave my mouth.
Every other day of the year, I have come to school with one goal, and that was to win. But now, that goal doesn’t matter because I’ve won.
It shouldn’t have been this easy for me to win, but I did, because Jameson’s gone.
I don’t stay to listen to any of my friends’ rebuttals before I’m walking back toward the stairs and out the front door of Fairwood High.
I knew today would be rough. What I didn’t realize until I walked into school was I didn’t want to know what it felt like to be there with Jameson no longer there.
Most importantly, I conclude that I would rather win with him a thousand times than win without him once.
Yet, if it took Jameson leaving for me to figure that out, then maybe I don’t want to win at all.
Wallowing in self-pity is something I rarely partake in , but lying under the covers of my bed hours after I got home from ditching school is all I’m allowing myself to indulge in.
I fight the tears fogging my eyes as I squeeze my phone in the palm of my hand. I’ve been debating whether to call Jameson—to beg him to come back, to stay this time.
But I refuse to be the girl who misses a boy who will never miss her back.
Yet here I am, laying in my bed, wishing Jameson Beaumont wasn’t imprinted on my heart—the metaphorical one, at least. Wondering if he’s feeling the same way.
I keep flipping through the channels on the TV, trying to find something—anything—to distract myself from the reality of the only person I’ve ever had a true competition with leaving.
I should have known this was going to happen. It was inevitable Jameson was going to leave. What wasn’t expected is that I didn’t hate him when he did. Jameson’s time in Fairwood was borrowed, it was never meant to last. He was always supposed to leave.
Maybe that’s what hurts the worst, knowing he was never destined to stay.
Jameson’s metaphorical heart was never going to have room for me.
“Genevieve?” I hear my mother’s voice from outside of my room. “Your friends are here with dinner.”
“Hey, Gen,” Eloise says through the door. “Is it okay if we come in?”
I sit up in bed, wiping my face to make sure I don’t look like a total wreck before quietly responding, “Yeah.”
The door opens, revealing Eloise, Winnie, Luke, and Logan. Eloise is holding paper bags from the diner, which are no doubt filled with all types of junk foods, and Logan is holding a drink carrier with five cups in it.
“You guys can come in, you know,” I say after none of them attempt to move from the hallway. “I’m okay, I think I just need time to process.”
Before I can say anything else, all four of them are sitting on my bed, surrounding me. Winnie claps her hands and says, “Okay, let’s eat.” She sounds like she’s trying to be enthusiastic but falls short.
All four of them reach for their food, and for a moment, I get a flash of what my life used to look like.Before Jameson got here, before I thought I was losing my title of Valedictorian.
Before I fell in love with him.
“I’m sure he’ll be back,” Logan says quietly. “I don’t think he really wanted to leave anyway.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t have to say that, Gen.” Luke places a hand on my knee. “We know you miss him; you don’t have to pretend there was nothing going on between you two before he left.”
They’re our best friends, of course they figured out something was going on between us.
“We need to find something else to talk about,” I say, grabbing a handful of fries.
Normally, I would not be caught dead eating food within the confines of my bed, but today calls for a bit of rule bending.
“You’re right.” Eloise nods strongly. “Fuck Jameson Beaumont!” She cheers, taking a bite of her burger.
I wince. “I meant something else entirely.”
“Why don’t we talk about the girl Luke was with during the ski-trip?” Logan grins, like he knows something that we don’t.
“What?” I look around, gauging everyone’s reactions. They are all acting as if this is old news. “Who?”
“Just you wait,” Winnie says under her breath.
“Her name is Valerie, she goes to NYU,” Luke admits.
“Oh, my God.” I almost laugh. “Valerie Mason?”
Luke looks at me like I’m a mind-reader. “How the hell do you all already know her name?” He looks between Winnie, Eloise, and I.
“Because we’re friends with her, you moron.” Eloise smacks him in the shoulder.
“Is Valerie the girl you were talking about in the lobby on the first night?”
“I didn’t know you knew her!” Luke grits through his teeth. “And you weren’t even there to save me when she showed up!”
I blink a few times, barely able to comprehend the fact that the girlLuke was telling me about in the lobby the first night of the ski-trip is my best friend. “How do you even know Valerie?”
“I snuck into her lab over the summer, and I got an email a few weeks later—a very threatening email—warning me off her lab. Then, I got another email with similar threats the morning we got to New York, so it was safe to say I was scared for my life.”
“She knew you’d be in New York because she’s friends with us,” I realize. “All she needed to know was what school you went to, and she would have connected it from there.”
“Yeah, I figured that out when she showed up at my hotel room, and you weren’t there to save me.” He points his gaze at me as if I’ve committed some type of royal betrayal.
“Valerie is not that scary.” I can’t even make the lie sound believable.
“No, she’s absolutely terrifying,” Winnie says.
“That’s what I thought when she showed up at my hotel room at nine o’clock at night,” Luke replies under his breath, just loud enough to where we could all hear him.
“I cannot believe this,” I gasp. “That’s why she was asking me about you!”
“She asked about me?” Luke looks thrilled.
“Woah.” I hold a hand up. “I thought you were terrified of her.”
“Well, I was until I invited her into my hotel room and we–” He cuts himself off.
“And you had sex.” Logan fills in the blanks after a moment of silence.
“Oh, my God!” Winnie puts a hand over her face, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
I’m still baffled at this entire situation. Luke, the Luke I”ve known my entire life, coincidentally snuck into one of my best friends’ lab, then got threatened by her over email, and then had sex with her.
Unbelievable.
“It wasn’t like that,” Luke sighs.
“I don’t care to know what it was like.” I grimace. “Let’s put a cork in that conversation before I have an aneurysm thinking about my two best friends coincidentally meeting and fraternizing.”
“I found out today that Briar Hart is dating Noah Sommers,” Winnie interjects.
Eloise is quick to follow, “How about we talk about the reason we’re here in the first place?”
“How about we don’t?” I state, already knowing where this is going.
“We’ve given you time to mope, and now we are looking for resolutions,” she continues anyway. “You have to go to school tomorrow, and even though it sucks that Jameson left, there’s nothing we can do to change it.”
“It’s okay to be upset, but it’s not okay to make it your life”s mission to be miserable over a boy,” Logan says in agreement.
“Exactly!” Eloise gives Logan a high five.
“Listen,” I sigh. “I understand I shouldn’t be sitting around waiting for him to come back when he was the one that left, but if he ever came back, I would be with him all over again.” The confession feels like a weight being lifted off my chest.
“It sounds like you’re in love with him,” Winnie says.
I don’t deny it. “There’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“Maybe you should call him,” Luke suggests.
I consider it for a moment. Maybe I should call him, but I know I won’t.