At first, I decide I’ll stay here. Right here. I’ll just pass out and hope I never wake up. Because I don’t have any fight in me to chase them, only to see them reconcile and walk away into their perfect little world. What was I thinking? She could never love me. I was a distraction, a bandage to cover whatever temporary wound he’d left, but now that he’s back…
No
. The voice is adamant and loud, which is surprising. Usually the voices encourage me to give up, but this one continues to repeat only that one word.
No
. No, she won’t walk away, at least not without an explanation. No, I won’t just back down that easily. It may not have been much time, but whatever we had was real. Even if she was using me as a means to forget him, she felt something. I know she did. It wasn’t just the sex, although there was definitely some intimacy the last few times that I’ve never experienced with anyone else.
There was something more, too. When we were studying for exams, I’d look up and catch her looking at me. When we fell asleep together, I waited until she was asleep and she sometimes whispered my name in her dreams. Even when we’d see each other after classes, she would smile in a way that made me feel like the entire world was just extra space – and that she and I were at the center of it.
No way. Fuck him. Whatever they had, it’s not what they have anymore. And I am not walking away from her.
I run down the stairs and push out into the night. I can see her across the quad, but I can’t see him. I don’t slow down and I cross the grass as fast as I can. He shows up from out of fucking nowhere at the exact same time.
“Princess, what the hell is happening?” I ask.
The guy turns to me. “She’s not your fucking princess,” he spits and then turns his attention to Lily. I barely listen to him, but I make out the word “loser.” Because that’s all I will ever be to people like him.
People like Lily
. There’s the asshole voice again. But it isn’t true. She isn’t that girl. She doesn’t believe that. I know she doesn’t.
“Shut up,” she says. “You don’t even know him. I fucked up, not him.”
“Don’t bother defending me,” I tell her. “I don’t care what some asshole thinks.” He glares at me but it means nothing anymore. I’ve seen that same fucking glare a million times in my life. From my dad, from his lawyers, and from every fucking carbon copy of this asshole looking at me right now. I’m sure he’s had it all. Fuck him for judging me.
“He’s not an asshole. He’s just hurt,” Lily says and her face is heartbreaking. I don’t understand.
“What is going on?” he asks and I want to know the same thing.
She looks at me and takes a deep breath. “I thought Derek and I were over. I guess it wasn’t clear. He’s my boyfriend.”
“You still have a boyfriend?”
No. This can’t be happening
. How can she possibly have a boyfriend? I picture her lips on mine, still feeling the way her hand would brush my cheek as she kissed me. I imagine lying on top of her, our bodies rocking together, as I was buried deep inside of her. I picture falling asleep with her cradled in my arms. All of these things – and she has a fucking boyfriend?
“I didn’t know we were still together when you and I…” She lets her voice trail off and Derek, I guess his name is, looks between the two of us. Recognition flashes in his eyes.
“What did you do, Lily?”
“Jack and I have been together lately,” she tries to explain.
“And what? You
love
him? It’s been a week!” He’s looking at her like she’s a fool, but I’m the one who feels foolish right now.
“I know it’s only been a week, but I have feelings for him,” she says.
“Do you? Because you’re telling me you have a boyfriend right now,” I point out.
“It’s complicated. I care about you both,” she argues and looks at both of us with longing.
“Lily, I came up here to take you away for our anniversary. Let’s just go and we can deal with this. Alone. It’s been a week. There is nothing in a week that can make up for the past year.” He takes her arm and I see the way they look at each other, the way he holds her next to him as if they fit together perfectly. A year? They were together a
year
? I can’t win against that.
“Yeah, go, princess. I should have known I’d never be right for you,” I tell her, but she stops me.
“No, don’t go,” she cries out.
“He’s right. You have a history. Don’t make this worse than it needs to be.”
“Lily, what do you want?
Who
do you want?” Derek asks and she looks back and forth between us again several times, breaking free from his hold on her. She starts to sob and I want to hold her, to tell her it’s okay, but it’s not going to happen.
“I want you both to leave me alone. That’s what I want,” she snaps. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I can’t do this right now.”
Derek reminds her that he loves her, but she isn’t listening. She turns to me and says, “You don’t even know me yet. Derek and I weren’t even done and I made a huge mistake rushing into something with you, Jack. Being with you wasn’t a mistake. In fact, it was the best week I’ve had, but it’s only a week and I need to face that. You don’t even want a relationship.”
“Right,” I answer, because I can’t tell her now. And the worst part is that I feel it deeper than I even thought I did. I can feel my pores crying out for her. I’m so in love with this girl that it could kill me, but I cannot tell her anymore. She keeps talking, about needing time, about figuring herself out, but I don’t hear anything but pain. Why was I so fucking stupid? She could never love me. I’m a worthless piece of shit who’s never earned love from anyone except for one stupid, equally broken girl.
I watch Lily walk away. I don’t know if Derek follows, because I can’t see anything but black. Miles of black reach out ahead of me and I somehow manage to text Alana, begging her to come see me, and then I make it up to my room. Digging out the first bottle I touch from under my bed, I drink half of it. I can’t even place the taste and the label is swimming. There are tears, but I can barely feel them. I feel nothing but the crushing weight of hopelessness and I sink onto the floor, hugging the bottle to me and falling asleep.
Chapter 20
“Wake the fuck up,” Alana says and kicks me. The light comes from behind her so she’s nothing but a silhouetted ghost. I try to make her come into focus but my eyes are on fire. There are two shapes in the room and I squint, trying to distinguish whom they belong to.
“We’ll be fine now. Thanks,” Alana says and one of the shapes grows more distant. Suddenly the shape is gone and I hear the door close.
Alana leans down and shakes me. “Get up, get your shit together, and tell me what happened.”
I vaguely remember a text telling her that I needed her, but why did I need her? Something about Lily. Princess…
And there it is. The entire shitstorm that was the evening bursts again around me, like fireworks that refuse to fucking die. I keep seeing Lily’s sad eyes and then watching her walk away. I know that walk. People don’t walk away like that and come back. I let out a huge sob that sounds more like a wheeze.
“Tell me, Jack.”
“Princess. Derek. Boyfriend. Over.” I’m slurring and I don’t know how to feel. There is so much pain, but there’s also an incredibly comforting numbness from how much it hurts.
She pushes me upward until I’m sitting against my desk. I lift my knees to my chest and bury my face in them. She can’t see this. I can’t breathe through the wracking agony that’s stealing the air from my lungs. Alana just sits next to me, wraps her arm around my shoulders, and waits.
I reach into the drawer next to me and take out a plastic butter knife. I think it’s from the takeout I got with Lily. Was that just yesterday? I bend it hard until it snaps and I take the sharper piece, digging it into the flesh of my palm. Alana watches me, but doesn’t interfere. I can’t kill myself with a plastic butter knife and things could be worse.
I dig and dig until a small drop of blood forms and then I drop the stupid fucking thing. The blood bubbles and I just stare at it.
“Feel better?” Alana asks. “That was dumb.”
I don’t say anything. I just keep staring at my palm. I had hoped that the physical pain would divert my focus from what is twisting inside, but now I’m heartbroken
and
my fucking hand stings. Great.
I picture Lily for a brief moment and my breathing picks back up until I can’t see straight. I put my head down between my knees again, since I’m not getting enough oxygen. The heaving sobs have turned to hyperventilation. I punch the hard, cold floor of my dorm room over and over, but soon I have to stop in order to avoid passing out. Alana rubs slow circles along my back.
“Breathe, Jack. Just breathe.”
It’s easier said than done. What the fuck was I thinking? What kind of moron am I? The breathing gives way to laughter and I completely lose it, sliding down my desk until I’m prone on the floor, still laughing. How fucking stupid. As if I was going to go in there and declare my love for her and be welcomed in to her life. I’m a worthless waste of space; I don’t belong in anyone’s life.
I open my eyes fully and the overhead light glares as I scream, the sound echoing through my room. I need to do something, to run away, to hurt someone, to hurt myself. I’m barely present as I grab Alana’s hand and lead her out of my room. The fucking freshman whose mother glared at me on move-in day pokes his head out of his room, probably to make sure I’m not dead or something, but I want to fucking punch him. I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. I just want Lily.
“Fuck you,” I spit at him, and he shuts his door. It’s childish and stupid, but fuck him. Let him go back to his room and call Mom and Dad. Let them talk about their happy fucking family. Let him go on Facebook and tell all his buddies from home about the fucking train wreck that lives across the hall.
I take the back way out of the dorm, down the fire stairs just like Lily did earlier tonight. The dark dankness of the stairwell mirrors my mood and I almost stop and toss myself down the last few flights. But then I picture that fucking freshman kid coming out here and seeing my dead bloody body. I wouldn’t even feel bad if he did; I just don’t want him telling someone on fucking Twitter about it or writing a blog about his feelings about the dead kid. Goddamn, I don’t want to be a blog post.
Alana doesn’t talk. She just follows me down the stairs, across the quad, and down to the parking lot. I didn’t grab my helmet, but I don’t care.
“I need to go for a ride,” I say.
“Jack, you are in no condition to be driving. Get in my car. I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but you’re not driving.”
I want to argue, because sitting in the car isn’t the same. However, for a split second, before I processed it, Alana sounded like Lily when she said my name. I look up at the night sky and I whisper a soft prayer to anything that might exist that the sky opens up right now and takes me.
Alana pushes me to her car and opens the passenger door. I’m not used to being looked after like this, but my body won’t move. If she walked away, I sincerely believe that I would sit here on the ground and wait to die. The idea of walking, of eating, of breathing – it all just feels hollow.
She gets in her side and turns on the heat. “Get your shit together,” she says. “It’s been a fucking week. You can’t lose yourself like this over a fucking week. What if whatever you’d hoped would happen
had
happened, and then a year went by and we were here? How the fuck would you survive it?”
“It’s not Lily,” I try to explain. “I know what it looks like, but it isn’t
just
her. I don’t know how to explain it. A few hours ago, I stood in the shower and I could actually
feel
tomorrow. I wanted there to be a tomorrow, and a next week, and a next year. I wanted to be present. I wanted to be alive.”
“And now you don’t? You don’t want to be alive because of a girl you fucked a few times?” She stops and looks at me. Her eyes are full of tears, but behind the tears is real, palpable anger. “Fuck you, Jack. Really. Fuck you.”
“Why?”
“You’re my best friend. You’re my
only
fucking friend. You call me all the time, needing me, and I run to you. I told you what it felt like to think I was going to lose you. And you just sit here and tell me it doesn’t fucking matter. That the last few years – all my sacrifices, all my putting you first – it means nothing because some girl fucked you a few times and got bored. You are such an asshole.” The tears come out full force now. I wish I could take Alana’s pain away, but like everything I do, I fucked this up. All I do is destroy and break.
“I
never
want to be alive,” I tell her. “I’ve learned how to get by, except for once in a while like the other night. But I never want to be here; I just don’t want to leave you behind. I don’t want you to feel like I do all the time.”
“What are
you saying?”
I shake my head and give in to the pain that’s been rising. I break down with Alana, both of us so damaged and so hurt and so fucking incapable of healing the other. “I love her. I fucking
love
her. And I was going to tell her tonight.”
Alana holds me and lets me fall apart. I don’t smoke, ask to go to the bar, or move to touch her. I want to show Lily. I want her to come back and I can say that I didn’t hide from how she made me feel. I want to go to her and tell her that I can be whole with her, that I don’t need to lose myself in dying. But then I realize that I can’t do that. She has her perfect boyfriend. She has someone who doesn’t need to make these kinds of declarations, because he’s whole to begin with.
“Where do you wanna go?” Alana asks after a little while. I can’t just sit here in her car forever and I swallow hard. My breathing has returned to a reasonably steady pace and I look out the window. The moon is low in the sky and I suddenly need to belong somewhere.
“Take me to see my mom,” I tell her.