Chapter 26
NOW
July
Iwoke up to Jackson at the front door with breakfast in tow. We sat cross-legged on the floor of the family room, eating in silence together. We didn't acknowledge what happened while painting, and I was grateful, since I was still trying to erase it from my memory.
Instead, my focus was on the goal for the day. I still wasn’t ready to open the door to my old bedroom, and I purposely took an exorbitantly long time to finish my food.
“You ready?” Jackson asked as we put the empty takeout boxes in a plastic bag.
I thought for a second. “It’s just weird. What if we open the door and nothing is touched? Like, what does that mean?” I had already peeked in my mom’s old bedroom last night, finding it as completely empty as the day she left us.
Jackson chewed on a fingernail as he thought about it. “Just like the locks not changing . . . Maybe he thought you’d come back.”
Something about that possibility made me want to cry.
I threw my head back and stared at the cracked ceiling.
“But like, what would that mean? That he cared? I know Peter was an asshole, but he was still my brother. He had his demons; he was fucked up from our mom and his dad. I don’t think he ever meant to take it out on me.
I don’t know, I have all these complicated feelings.
Like, what does that say about me, that I might not actually hate him?
” I covered my face with my hands, willing the tears not to fall.
Jackson reached forward and tapped my arm to make me look at him. “It means you’re still the best person I know. Being able to forgive people is your best quality.”
Did I forgive Jackson, too? I forgave him time and time again when we were younger.
It was hard not to, when he was so sweet to me.
I could fall in love with him again, now.
I knew I could. But he was engaged, so what did that make me?
A piece of shit with feelings I shouldn’t be letting myself feel.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Alright, let’s do this.”
Jackson followed me down the hall, and I shook out my hands nervously before turning the knob and opening the door.
Just like the rest of the house, my bedroom was exactly as I expected—a mess. But nothing had been touched.
My comforter was still in a messy heap from the last time I slept on it, and my dresser drawers were left open haphazardly from when I scrambled to pull belongings out ten years ago. My old work polo with “Delvecchios’ Restaurant” printed on it was still on the floor.
“He really didn’t touch anything,” I said as I sat down on the bed.
I took a moment to let my gaze drift around the room before finally noticing the one thing Peter had touched.
My yearbook sat on my bedside table, covered by a thin layer of dust. I distinctly remembered leaving it by the door after graduation.
Tears pricked at my eyes as I imagined Peter placing it here, making sure it was within easy reach for when I came home.
I blinked the emotion away quickly, before Jackson could see it.
Jackson leaned against my dresser as he crossed his arms. “Well, should we start with the dresser?”
“Might as well.”
He left to go get a trash bag. I never had many clothes to begin with, so after Jackson threw on a random playlist, we went through the first two drawers relatively quickly. “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift played at a low volume as we filled the bag.
Jackson broke out into laughter, and he turned around with a pair of navy-blue boxer briefs in his hands. “Hmmm, looks like you had a pair of my underwear, too.”
I snatched them out of his hands, stuffing them in the trash bag. “Stop, you know that wasn’t a sex thing.” My cheeks were so hot they hurt.
Jackson reached for the bag and I moved it away. “You shouldn’t get rid of those; you might start your period and need them again,” he teased as he fought me for the bag.
A laugh escaped me, and I pressed a hand to his chest. “I would appreciate if you wiped that from your memory. Do you know how horrifying that was for sixteen-year-old me? It still haunts me.”
Jackson lunged for the bag again, this time getting an arm inside and retrieving the boxers. He threw them in my face and I yelped.
I removed them from my face and shoved them under the comforter on the bed. “Okay, you’ve lost dresser privileges.” I sat back on the bed as he picked up the Delvecchios’ polo from the floor. He pressed it to his nose and grimaced.
“This smells like rotten marinara sauce,” Jackson said with a gag.
“It hasn’t been washed in ten years—that thing is an antique. Toss,” I said as I batted a hand at it.
“We don’t make them like this anymore. The font is different now,” Jackson added as he traced the letters.
I stared at the shirt as he folded it and placed it delicately in the trash bag.
I tied my hair up into a ponytail, thinking about how many times I’d worn that exact shirt.
And then I remembered the last time I wore it.
My last shift with Jackson. He had worn this shirt that night, too—his skin had touched it.
I put my fingers over one of my eyes as I shut them, internally shaking my head at myself. Why was I doing this to myself? “Who Knew” by P!nk began to play, and I almost groaned at how ironic it was.
Jackson went to open another drawer, but I stopped him. “I’m serious, you’re done,” I said from my spot on the bed.
He grinned at me before turning back around and grabbing my yearbook off the dresser, showing it to me before he leaned back. He flipped through the pages until he found my senior photo. “Honestly Addie, you look exactly the same.”
I grabbed the book from him, flipping it around so I could see my photo.
I hadn’t even smiled with teeth for it. I remembered waiting in line to get my photo taken; Sophie and Jackson were behind me, and I’d watched her kiss him on the mouth before I sat for the picture.
I couldn’t even make myself smile—I’d just raised my lips at each corner, even though the photographer told me to smile wider.
“You think I still look eighteen? That’s disturbing,” I said deadpan.
“No, I meant you’re still beautiful," he replied without missing a beat.
I couldn’t meet his eyes, and I ignored the compliment, even though my stomach couldn’t. It flipped about one hundred times.
I looked three rows down and found Jackson’s name.
I burst out laughing. “You do not look the same. You were deep in your emo phase.” His dark hair was in a heap of waves over his forehead, his stone-cold stare into the camera making him look pissed off.
I looked up at him now. “You know, I never knew what your forehead looked like until now.”
Jackson chuckled. “Now that you should burn.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “I was such a little asshole back then.”
I swallowed deeply without meeting his eyes. For every time Jackson did something to hurt me, there was always something selfless he’d do to redeem himself.
“You had your good moments too,” I whispered.
I heard him exhale, but he didn’t say anything as I continued to flip through the pages. I read through the signatures left from friends, until I realized that I had never read what Jackson had written. The night we wrote in each other’s yearbooks we were distracted, and I’d forgotten about it.
My eyes searched the page until I found Jackson’s handwriting, block letters in all caps in the bottom left-hand corner. “You’re my best friend, period. And I love you, period. -Jackson Delvecchio.”
I dragged my thumb over the words. It was real, everything that happened between us. All of it was real. And now it was gone, with no hope of getting it back.
“What’s wrong?” Jackson asked.
I don’t know why, but I shoved the yearbook into his hands. I leaned back against my wall, staring out the window. I wanted him to realize how much it hurt me that he’d never found me—that he never even tried. I was gone for ten years, and he had been completely fine with it.
I could tell when he found his handwriting, because he turned off the music and the room filled with silence. I couldn’t face him. I didn’t want to see his reaction to the words he wrote so long ago.
“Addie, can you look at me?” His voice was strained, like he was actually hurt, too.
I bit my lip hard to distract myself from the pain in my chest. I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I couldn’t.
“Hmm,” I said, continuing to look out the window.
“Addison . . .” That use of my full name pressed more salt into the wound.
I cut him off. “I’d prefer to finish my room by myself. Can you just go?”
“Are you upset? I meant what I wrote,” Jackson started to say, like he needed me to believe it. But why? It didn’t matter now. “I remember what you wrote in mine, too, Addie.” Now that was what almost broke me.
“I don’t care; it doesn’t matter. It’s history, all in the past. Now please, leave. Please, Jackson,” I begged. I was so close to crying.
His footsteps sounded down the hallway, and I got off the bed to follow him to the door so I could lock it behind him.
“Can I just . . . ask you one thing?” Jackson said from the doorway. I didn’t want to look at him, but he wouldn’t talk until I did.
I finally looked up at him, my throat aching from holding back my tears. “What, Jackson?”
His gaze dropped to his feet before he met my eyes again. “Did you at least miss me when you left?”
How could he ask me that? Wasn’t it obvious? He looked like a little kid standing there, waiting for a yes or no answer. No matter what I responded with, the answer would destroy us both.
I rubbed my finger under my nose, staring at him with glossy eyes. I wanted to be sassy and say, “What do you think?” But I didn’t have the energy to play this game.
“Of course I did.” I barely got the words out.
Jackson nodded, like he was processing this information. He reached in his back pocket and pressed something into my hand before turning to leave.
I waited until he pulled out of the driveway to look at what he put in my hands.
It was the photo from the restaurant—the picture from graduation that I had ripped in half on the Fourth of July and thrown away. There was a piece of tape holding it together. I choked on a sob, the tears free-falling now.
I went back to my room and put on the dirty polo from Delvecchios’ and Jackson’s old boxers. I laid down in my old bed and cried myself to sleep, holding the picture against my heart.