Always Us (We Were Us Series Book 2) (18 page)

“You needed to make out with her for research?” I quipped.

“No,” he half laughed, half sighed. “Jenna, you weren’t here. Mentally or physically. You were dealing with a lot. Your mom, the deposition, Josh. Did you know she’s been getting dizzy spells?”

“Yes, I did. She said she was fine,” I was suddenly worried.

“She is fine.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“That’s the problem,” he huffed. “Nothing is a big deal to you. You blow everything off.”

I’d had enough of his berating. I didn’t need this. I’d come here to break up and I think he’d succeeded effectively. I needed to leave with some dignity so I stood up and walked to the door.

“Goodbye, Andrew.” I thought I’d slam the door, but I closed it quietly and stumbled up the stairs. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I made it to my car and just sat there out in front of his house. I couldn’t bring myself to leave. My heart, which had already been stomped on had just been dragged around and left alone in the corner to die a slow death.

I leaned back and looked at the roof of the car. A small bit of the upholstery was peeling near the sun visor. I reached up to pull it, but I let my arm fall with a thud into my lap. I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. It was just as well. I came here to break up with Andrew and he’d beaten me to it.

A knock on the passenger’s side window startled me from my thoughts. It was Michelle.

“Can I get in?” her face was full of worry and sadness.

I pushed a button and unlocked the already unlocked doors so she’d know it was okay to open the door.

“Hi,” she said as if she were afraid of my reaction.

“Hi.” I didn’t look at her, but stared out of the windshield.

“I was sitting on the front porch. Andrew drove me here so I couldn’t really just leave,” she said.

The house Andrew lived in was in an older neighborhood. Houses of every shape and color lined each side of the old brick street, most had huge front porches for sitting on in the summer time. I loved it and always pictured myself in a neighborhood similar to this one when I grew up and got married someday. I was never fond of the new neighborhoods where all of the house looked the same and were set in rows of one of three color combinations. Where was the creativity in that?

“I’m sorry,” she started.

“Yeah, me too,” I cut her off. I didn’t want to hear her apologize for essentially stealing my boyfriend.

“What are you sorry for?”

Everything Andrew had said to me was true. He was right about my neglectful attitude. And Michelle was right. She’d told me to stop being selfish and that the world didn’t revolve around me. But for so long, the world revolved around my mother and her needs. I wanted just once, just for a little while for the world to revolve around me. To know what that felt like.

And now I knew.

It sucked.

I hated the way I felt right now. I was a loser, a poser, the worst person in the world and it had all been told to me by the person I’d thought I was falling in love with. Andrew’s words had stung. They’d hurt. But it hadn’t made them any less true.

“Jenna, what’s wrong.”

I looked over at her, holding tears in my eyes so I could get through my apology before the spilled.

“Michelle, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about this past summer and this last semester. I treated you like crap for no reason. I pushed you away when I should have held you close,” the tears were free flowing now. “All I could think about was myself and what I wanted and who I wanted, with total disregard for anyone else. I left Josh in Riverview and ignored him. I blew him off when he came to see me. Then I run back to him when his mom was sick, and changed my mind about him, again. I came here to break up with Andrew and I had this whole speech thought out that was totally centered on how he wasn’t working for me anymore and then you were there and I wasn’t even mad, I wasn’t. Everything just made sense. It clicked. You and Andrew are supposed to be together.” I sniffed and wiped my flooded face.

Michelle did nothing for a full minute but stare at me. I shifted my eyes from her face to the back seat to the window behind her. It was getting uncomfortable. Then she leaned forward, causing me to lean back instinctively.

“Don’t do that,” She scoffed and pulled me into an embrace. She folded her arms around my neck and buried her face in my hair. I did the same. “Don’t be sorry. For anything. We have weird circumstances. Our lives lend themselves to drama. We can’t help it.”

She let go of me and leaned back into her seat. She wiped a few stray tears away.

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied.

“You are Jenna Mitchell. Your mother was terrible, you lived in a shabby little house miles below your potential. You got shuttled around at a pivotal point in your life. You overcome so much and yet you still beat yourself up over stupid stuff. You don’t need a boy, whether it’s Josh or Andrew. You just need yourself. And me, of course.” She paused her speech to look me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t help but laugh. I know she was trying to be serious, but her eyes crossed a little and we both cracked a laugh.

“You need to let Josh go, forgive him, and move on.” She started up again. “Let Andrew go too He’s obviously not the one for you, and I’m not just saying that because I like him or anything. But seriously.”

“But I think I really love Josh. I feel better when I’m with him. He balances me.”

“Really?” She didn’t seem convinced.

“Yeah. I don’t know. There is just this feeling I get when I’m with him. Christmas break changed us.”

“Then forgive him, let him go, and see if he comes back again. But, don’t hang onto the negative. Remember the positive. You’re nineteen. You don’t need to settle down. We have the world to see, remember?”

I smiled at her. Of course, she was right. I didn’t need to make life altering decisions right now. I didn’t need to marry anyone or settle down right away. I just needed to be me. I had nothing tying me down to anywhere. When the time was right, I’d tell her that Josh was moving to Brookhaven next fall. I had forgiven him and he’d already come back to me. But that still didn’t mean permanent decisions needed to be made today. 

“Let’s go somewhere, like travel or something,” I said.

“Usually travel involves going somewhere,” Michelle quipped

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Let’s make plans!” She hopped up and clapped.

“Yay!” I matched her enthusiasm.

After weeks of turmoil between us with the drama at the apartment and with Andrew, I was glad we were finally on good terms again. Along with my resolve to focus on school, I vowed to myself to make time for my relationships. All of them.

“Let’s never fight again,” she said.

“Never,” I replied and we hugged again.

“Now what?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “So you and Andrew?”

She gave me a side glance before responding. “Yeah. He’s nice and we have the coma connection.”

“Yeah,” I looked away from her.

“Are you okay with that?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed.

To be honest, I wasn’t completely okay with it. Andrew was like my best friend. Even though we didn’t know it at the time, we’d helped each other through some major stuff. We were the anonymousness that we needed to get over our pasts.

And while he more easily got over his, I hung on to an unrequited hope. My past didn’t ruin anything that Andrew and I could have become, we just were never meant to be.

“I knew you liked him.”

“Liked. I don’t anymore. I mean I do still like him, he’s my friend. But we aren’t meant to be together in that way.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine, really. I’m not upset by it,” I smiled at her.

I watched Andrew as he walked up to the car behind Michelle. He knocked and it startled her so she let out a short yelp before she rolled down the window.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked looking between the two of us.

“Talking,” Michelle and I said at the same time.

Andrew laughed then asked “about what?”

“You,” we said in unison again.

“Stop doing that,” he chuckled.

“Sorry,” we said together and we all burst out in laughter.

“I take it you two have made up?”

“There was nothing to make up for. We’re friends and sometimes bad things happen. It doesn’t mean we stop being friends,” Michelle said. I just smiled in agreement.

“Good,” Andrew said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Six weeks later, I was sitting with Michelle on the ugly couch. I’d finally given up on the brown slip cover and removed it completely. It was a Saturday and we were just lounging around in our pajamas waiting for something interesting on Netflix to pop up. There was nothing.

We had been debating the merits of Gilmore Girls versus One Tree Hill and decided that neither of those would satisfy our unknown need. So we sat in silence as Michelle flipped through the programs.

My thoughts wondered. The last six weeks had been crazy. I’d come back to school after being in Riverview. It was a bigger adjustment than I thought it would be. Getting back into the grove of school while thinking about Josh all alone in Riverview was tough. I wanted to be there with him while he packed up the rest of the house and got it ready to sell. But I settled for nightly phone calls that I actually answered.

School wasn’t the hardest part. It was Andrew. I saw him every day. Even though we’d ended things amicably, it was still hard to see him. It was even harder to see him happy with Michelle. I still thought about all the ‘what ifs’ with him. What if I’d been able to have sex with him? What if it had been good? What if that is what turned our relationship into something more?

Then it would have just been about sex.

I’d answered my own questions. What Josh and I had was so much more than that. So much more than just physical attraction. Josh had been there for me at my darkest, and I was there for him as well. We had a history, we had a future. I realized that once I’d stopped being an idiot.

My phone rang. The caller ID was a Riverview number so I thought it was Josh, but when I answered, a woman on the other end told me that she was from the lawyer’s office that was handling the case with the mayor.

I clicked the
speaker phone
button so Michelle could hear too. It was about her dad, so she had the right to know.

“Ms. Mitchell, I just wanted to inform you that Mayor Banks will be spending six weeks in the county jail. After that time, he will continue his house arrest and probationary period in Riverview. After one year’s time he will be free. He will no longer be able to hold a public office.”

I said okay and awkwardly ended the phone call.

“Well, that’s it I guess,” I slammed my phone down on the couch and stalked into the kitchen. I wrenched the refrigerator door open, looking for nothing in particular.

“Jenna?” Michelle asked. “Are you okay?” she placed her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m fine. It’s fine. I’m just glad it’s over and I don’t have to think about it anymore.” I shut the fridge door and sat the the dining room table. Michelle joined me. “Maybe jail time will do him some good and he’ll come away from it a changed man.”

“Yeah maybe,” Michelle said thoughtfully.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Having a parent in jail was hard to grasp. A parent is someone you are supposed to able to look up to, a role model of acceptable behavior. But now, Michelle had to change her perspective. She had to create her own image of who her father is, of what she wanted in a father figure for her future children.

I’d decided a long time ago that I didn’t want to be anything like my mother. When I had children, I wanted them to know they were loved and wanted. I wanted to be a pillar in their lives that they could lean against, someone who they could trust and be proud of.

My heart ached for Michelle as I watched her wrestle with the answer to my question.

“I will be,” she said, finally.

“Yeah, we will be alright. And we have each other,” I smiled.

“I’m so glad I have you.” She reached over and hugged me.

The front door of the apartment opened and Lauren and Stefanie walked in. They’d been out shopping. Spring break was coming up and we’d decided to take a road trip, just us girls, to Florida. It would be a long drive, but we needed a vacation. We’d earned it. We pooled all of our money and I’d begged my dad for a little extra and booked a room for a week at a tiny beachside cottage. We’d be eating ramen noodles and drinking water the entire time, but we didn’t care. A week on the beach was worth the sacrifice.

“New bathing suits for us and flip flops for all!” Lauren exclaimed. She dumped the bag of shoes on the table between Michelle and I. Flip flops in every color spilled out everywhere.

“Awesome!” Michelle and I said in unison.

“This trip is going to be so amazing,” Stefanie said.

“I know. No school, no phones, no guys. Just us and the beach,” Lauren said.

“This month is going to take forever,” Lauren said and slumped down in the chair next to me.

“Yes, but if you don’t think about it so much, it won’t seem that long,” I said.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” she replied.

We all laughed and agreed that the next month would be a long one.

                                                                                    ***

As I watched my friends interact, I realized how lucky I really was. Growing up, I didn’t know what love was. I didn’t know how to receive it or give it. I had no friends until Michelle and Josh found me. They should me what true kindness was and even though I’d screwed up and pushed them away, they stuck around because that’s what friends do.

I owed them everything.

I would never be able to repay them and they never expected me to. I wasn’t even sure they knew to what extent they had saved me.

If it wasn’t for the two of them, I’d certainly have end up in the same place as my mother had. Broken, addicted to drugs, and incapable of love.

The girls laughed, pulling me from my thoughts, but I couldn’t catch on to the joke, so I continued my daydream.

Michelle and I had made plans to travel. We wanted to see everything. We’d initially planned a month of backpacking across Europe, but then decided we wanted to see India, China, and Japan. Soon, one month turned into three, then six.

Thanks to Michelle’s mom, we’d booked hotels in every major city along the way. She’d called it a graduation gift as long as we’d promised to actually graduate. Of course we would. The wait to take
this
trip would truly be a test of my patience.

Andrew and I were still on rocky terms. I’d come to terms with he and Michelle’s relationship, but he’s still not over what I did to him at Christmas time. I don’t know if he ever will be. He’d opened up to me about his mother and taken the big step to let me meet her and I’d completely disregarded his gesture. I’d apologized several times to no avail. Michelle advised me to just let it go and that he needed time.

Josh was still in Riverview. He’d been accepted to Brookhaven Community College so he’d decided to stay in Riverview until the house sold or until the beginning of summer. The lease was up on our apartment at the end of June so the girls and I needed to be out by then, or resign the lease. Lauren had decided to move in with her boyfriend Brandon so that just left Michelle, Stefanie, and me. After further discussions, Josh and I had decided that it would be best if he got an apartment on his own. I needed to stay with Michelle and Stef until we graduated. Plus, living with a boy was a huge commitment. One I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make quite yet.

At this moment in time, my life was perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything more than I already had. I was on a path of self-construction, not self-destruction. I had goals and a future. I had the best friends any girl could ask for, and a boy who loved her more than anything in the world.

I’d say that that was a pretty darn good start to this life