Living with Jackie Chan (30 page)

I pour us some coffee, and we eat mostly in silence. All through breakfast, I wait for her to bring up what happened last night, but she doesn’t. So I don’t, either.

“I guess I should probably go home,” she says when she eats the last bit of egg.

“You can stay here,” I tell her. “You know Larry wouldn’t mind.”

She nods. “I should just get going.”

I wish she would say something about
Britt.
About us. About anything. But instead she stands up to go, so I help her gather her stuff, and we take the elevator to her floor.

The apartment is empty and has that stale smell of neglect. It reminds me of back home. How the house smelled stale and gross. And how it made me feel the same way I feel now. And how Stella looks. Alone. Empty. Sad.

“You’re not staying here,” I tell her when we get to her room.

She puts her hands on her hips. “Oh, really?”

“Sorry. That came out wrong. What I mean is —” What
do
I mean? “It’s just that this place — if you want to escape it for a while, you can hang out with me at Larry’s. I don’t want to tell you what to do. But it’s a lot less depressing down there. Plus, I’ll cook for you.”

She sighs and looks around her room, hesitating. She peers down into her wastebasket where the photo of Britt is.

“What about him?” she asks.

“What
about
him?”

“What if he comes back?”

“What if he does? We’re just friends, right?”

“Right,” she says.

We pass our days at Larry’s watching movies and eating mostly takeout. Each night, I take Stella back upstairs. Sometimes her mom’s there with Calvin, and sometimes she stays at his place. Those nights, Stella comes back down and crashes in Larry’s room.

I take Stella to her doctor’s appointment, and the doctor tells her she’s all better but to take it easy. She teaches Stella some exercises to do and tells me to make sure Stella does them. So we go back to Larry’s and alternate between doing the exercises, watching movies, and trying to cook our own meals since we ran out of takeout money. Pretty soon, Stella’s walking without a limp and we’ve spent almost the entire week together.

And that’s when things start to get weird.

Every time I look up, I can tell she’s been watching me. And I start to feel self-conscious. And then I start to avoid her. And then she starts acting cranky. And then finally, one night when a TV show we’ve been watching ends and I jump up to bring a glass into the kitchen, she grabs my arm before I can get away.

“Stop avoiding me,” she says. “If you want me to go home, I will.”

“What? No. Why would you say that?”

She stares at me.

“Sorry. I just . . .” I hesitate.

“. . . don’t like me in
that
way. And you’re afraid that’s how I like you.”

“No!”

She raises her right eyebrow like,
Oh, really?

“It’s not that,” I tell her. Suddenly it feels really, really hot in here. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

She fiddles with her new class ring, as if it’s more of a nuisance than something she’s glad to have. “Then why are we acting so weird around each other?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Why are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe we should stop?”

She smirks. “Maybe we should.”

“OK, so that settles that.”

I feel her watching me as I get up for real this time. She follows me into the kitchen and stands behind me while I do the dishes.

“I could, you know,” she says.

I turn off the water and make myself look busy wiping my hands on a dish towel, even though inside my heart is racing. “Could what?”

She blushes. “Like you.”

I stare at her.

“What?” she asks.

“Why?” I ask.

“Seriously?”

I set the towel on the counter. “Yeah.”

“Because you’re
nice,
for one thing. And we have fun together. And we both kick ass at karate, and we like the same movies. And we both appear to have a history of dysfunctional home lives, and we’re both trying to escape or move on or whatever.” She takes a deep breath. “And we’ve been together for almost a whole week and you’ve been a perfect gentlemen. And — you’re cute.”

Now I’m the one blushing. “Really?” I ask.

“Shut up. I’m not saying I
do
like you. I’m just saying I could.”

“Well, you know, I could like you, too.
Could.
”

She smiles. “Really?”

“Are we already that old couple that repeats everything the other one says?”

“Maybe.”

Wait. Did I just call us a couple? “Only . . .” I start, but I don’t know what to say.

“You’re scared,” she tells me. “Because of whatever happened last year.”

“Well . . . yeah.” I walk over to the kitchen table and sit down.

“I’m not her,” she says, sitting across from me.

“I know.”

“No, I mean, you had one bad experience, but that doesn’t mean every experience will be bad now, or that you can’t have a new one.”

“I know.”

“Then what?”

“It all feels so unfinished.”

“You still love her?”

“No! I never did. I know that makes me an asshole. It was just this one-time thing, though. It was stupid. And then — well, you know what happened.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Right. Larry didn’t tell you?”

“Nope.”

I sigh. The one time Larry can keep his mouth shut.

“Maybe
you
should tell me,” she says.

Yeah. Maybe I should.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I ask. “Because what can be heard cannot be unheard.”

She smiles and pretends to glance around. “Is that you, Larry?”

“Seriously, though,” I say.

“Seriously.” She smiles again, and I wonder if she’ll still look like this — like she cares about me — after I tell her the truth.

“She got pregnant,” I say quickly, before I can chicken out.

“Oh.”

She reaches over and puts her hand on my arm.

“That’s hard,” she says. “No wonder you had all those issues with Benny. Oh, Josh. I’m so sorry.”

My eyes start to sting. I close them and shake my head. She’s the first person to say what I truly feel. Yeah. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard.

“Last year, I spent the whole time wondering what was going to happen to the baby. But I never talked to her — Ellie — because I felt so bad about it. About how it happened. Because —” I don’t want to tell her, but I know I have to. It’s the bigger truth that’s haunted me all year. I know that now.

“Because what?”

I look away from her, but then realize I have to say it to her face. Slowly, I raise my eyes to meet hers. “Because I used her, Stell. I
used
her. And I feel so bad.” My throat starts to close up again and I force myself to swallow. To
not
cry.

“What do you mean, you used her?”

I take a deep breath. “I heard she was an easy lay — sorry — but, yeah. That. And I was a pathetic virgin. And all these assholes on my soccer team wouldn’t get off my back about it. And I just wanted to get it over with. So one night at a party, she was flirting with me, and I thought, ‘This is my chance.’ So I took her out to my van, and we did it.”

I pause, because it’s all coming out so fast. But I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to stop, because I know I have to tell Stella the whole truth. Even if it means she’ll never talk to me again.

She waits.

“It was a mistake,” I say. “I knew even when it was happening that I should stop. But I didn’t. She just let me take advantage of her. And when it was over, I left her out there. She looked at me like I had just ruined her life, but like she wasn’t surprised, you know? Almost as if she expected it. Like she knew I would be an asshole just like all the other guys she hooked up with. But the disappointment on her face — I can’t forget it. I went back to the party and tried to pretend it never happened. I didn’t talk to her again.”

I turn away and take another deep breath.

“A few months later, I heard she was pregnant. I told Caleb to tell her best friend that I would pay for an abortion, but she didn’t want any help from me. And then she changed her mind, anyway. Last June, she had the baby. I went to the hospital when I heard she’d gone into labor to see if I could see the baby, you know? I just had to see for myself. Because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I heard a rumor that she planned to give the baby up for adoption, but I didn’t want to ask her myself. I felt like I’d hurt her enough already. And I was too scared. So I went there and tried to see him. I think I did, but I’m not even sure, because I didn’t want her to know I was there. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I don’t know if the baby I saw was mine. He was the only one people weren’t ogling at through the glass. And he didn’t have a name on his plastic bassinet. So I imagined it was him. But I have no idea if it really was. Then I left. And it was over. Except it wasn’t. Because I can’t stop thinking about him. And I can’t stop thinking about Ellie and what I did to her. I thought if I came here, I could escape it all. I could focus on school and then just leave for college and never come back. But I was wrong. I’ll never escape.”

As the final words leave me, I feel this huge surge in my chest. Like some big, I don’t know,
thing
was clogging my lungs, and now I can breathe normally again. I wait for Stella to say something, but she keeps playing with her ring.

“That’s it,” I finally say, hoping to nudge her to respond. “That’s everything.”

She slides her chair closer to me and puts her hand on mine. The way she looks at me, like she really cares, makes my chest hurt.

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her. It feels like the truest thing I’ve said in a long time.

“I think you do,” she says.

“I do?” I ask. Because really, I don’t.

“You have to talk to her.”

What? That’s not the answer I was expecting. But as soon as I hear it, I know she’s right.

“But I don’t know what to say to her.”

“The truth would be a good place to start. Maybe you should tell her what you just told me.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can. I’ll go with you, if you want.” She squeezes my hand tighter. “I owe you. You stood by me. Now I’ll stand by you. You have to do this, Josh.”

I know she’s right. I can feel the truth in her fingers curled around mine.

I nod.

“Come here,” she says. We both stand, and she holds her arms out. So I go to her, and she wraps her arms around me and holds tight. “You’re not a bad person, Josh,” she says into my chest. My heart. “I know you think you are, but you’re not. You did one bad thing. Now you need to make it right. For you, and for her. And even for the baby. I know you can do this.”

“I can’t believe you don’t hate me,” I say.

She squeezes harder. “Well, I don’t. So believe it.”

Slowly, I let my own arms do what I realize they’ve been wanting to do since the minute I saw her. I let them wrap around her and hold her. I feel her warmth against my chest. Her hair against my face. And I breathe and breathe and fill the new space inside me with this. With Stella. With hope.

The morning of my last day, I wake up at eight o’clock. Way too early. I quietly wander around the apartment, picking up and straightening and fluffing pillows, for God’s sake. But when everything’s all tidied up, I realize it looks like I’ve never been here. Like this whole year was just a dream. So I try to mess things up again. Just a little.

I go back to my room and take it in one last time. Clover jumps up on what used to be my bed, but which I’ve folded back into a couch. She picks at the cushion with her claws and looks up at me, as if she disapproves. I hold out my fingers to her and she comes and rubs her head against them.

“I’m gonna miss you,” I say.

I turn to look at Larry’s
Karate Kid
poster and feel a familiar pain in the back of my throat. “Take care of him,” I tell Clover.

But I know she doesn’t need to. He has Arielle now. He’s happy.

I turn out the light and go to the kitchen to make my last breakfast. I sit at the table and remember all the ways Larry greeted me every morning. I remember the taste of his disgusting breakfast drinks. The rank smell of his deodorant. But mostly, I just remember sitting here with him, feeling like I belonged. Loved. Feeling almost normal.

“This is it, huh?” Larry asks. I jump. Normally I can hear or smell Larry approaching.

“Hey!” I say, standing up to greet him. “Welcome home! You guys got in late last night.” I heard them arrive at around one, trying their hardest not to wake me up. “How was the honeymoon?”

I can actually see the joy seep back into him as he pictures the trip.

“It was incredible,” he says. He wiggles his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

“Please. No details,” I tell him.

He winks.

“So, well, I guess this is good-bye,” I say. I bend down and give Clover, who followed me into the kitchen, one last pat. When I turn back around, Larry has tears in his eyes. He steps forward and hugs me. I realize he feels smaller than the day I arrived. But it’s not because he shrank. It’s because I’ve grown.