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“Everything,” I finish.
“Can we start with that day?” He turns to finally face me, his blue eyes finding the reason in mine. Like he wants to break me down in the gentlest way possible and build me back up again. “The night before I left?”
I’m glad he decided to get some of the tension out of the way before we started this conversation. Tension that I thought was only anger or fear but it was really frustration, of a different kind, and I’m thankful at how well he was able to read what we both wanted and needed. It makes it easier for my brain to settle down, but it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to look him in his eyes.
But when I think about what I want to start with, everything starts running a marathon in my head and I can’t seem to focus on a single thought. So I try my best to grasp onto something, anything to start us off but the first thing that comes to mind and travels to my mouth is…
“I hurt myself.” I blurt it out, and I immediately know that I am not ready to tell that story so I need to backtrack. I can tell his face twists with confusion and maybe even a bit of anger so I try to change my wording. “I mean I hurt my own feelings,” I say, which isn’t necessarily a lie.
“I gave myself this false hope about certain things and when I got let down, it really tore me up inside. It started with one thing then led to another.” I itch to run my fingers over the raised lines, but I don’t want to risk Jax seeing. I can’t tell him about that part right now. I just can’t.
“Hollis, I’m so sorry.” He lowers his eyes and lets them wander over me.
“I struggled with depression, anxiety, and probably some other mental shit I couldn’t explain,” I chuckle darkly. “But it caused me to forget who I was for a while. It ruined me.” My admission sounds exactly like it is…sad and depressing and probably a little pathetic but mental issues don’t seem to hold a ton of logic when it comes to people who don’t experience them. Some people will never understand the actual pain and internal illness that is associated with not knowing who you are or what’s wrong with you. So any time I want to talk to someone about my problems, I always take the risk of getting confusing looks or even people rolling their eyes or calling me some kind of freak, that’s why I never opened up to many others.
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but what does that have to do with me?” He asks the question with concern warping his tone. I can tell he’s getting scared for me to admit that it evendoeshave anything to do with him or that maybe he’s annoyed at the anticlimactic excuse I just gave him. But this was always going to be the hardest part, telling him that he left me heartbroken which led me down a path of self-destruction.
He turns his whole body to me when I don’t answer him at first, giving me his full and undivided attention as he places the palm of his hand against mine and wraps his fingers around my hand. We look up at each other and I provide him with a weak smile.
“What caused this?” he asks.
The last few months, I’ve had a clearer mind to think and I talked some things over with Jae. It made me realize that maybe his intention wasn’t to make me feel so small this whole time. She gave me the idea that maybe I was the one with the big understanding and I just took it a little too personal. But nonetheless, it happened and I have to be honest with him about how that night really made me feel.
He squeezes my hand.
“You,” I admit.
He dips his head as if he was expecting me to say exactly that. Like he’s been picking up the hints I’ve been so cryptically dropping, keeping him in the shadows like a bitch but providing just enough light to keep him guessing.
“Hollis.” His quiet whisper sounds broken, but I have to finish while I have the courage.
“That night, at the party, I was going to confess something to you. I had worked so hard the prior weeks trying to build up the courage to figure out how I was going to tell you. But I knew you were leaving, and I didn’t know how you were going to react. I had a feeling it was going to be my last chance.” He looks up at me and I see the ocean in his eyes starting to cloud over.
“When that bottle landed on you, it felt silly and stupid. Because I was fourteen playing a dumb kissing game when I knew I only wanted to spend that night with you. Not Jae or anyone else there. But then it landed on you, and I knew it was my sign to finally tell you what I’d been dying to tell you. You assured me that we could do whatever I wanted, and it made me feel better about going into that closet with you. I was so young, I wasn’t even really sure if what I wanted was real or not, but I had to try because I didn’t want to ignore those feelings.” Jax gives my hand another small squeeze as he listens to everything I have to say, not interrupting though I can see that he’s trying really hard not to speak up and defend himself. Pain glistens in his eyes just like mine did that night.
“I thought you might have felt the same way, so I took the chance and…” I trail off. Thinking about that day, though it was so long ago, I still feel the way that it broke me. And sometimes I do think about how silly it is that a situation like that made me feel so many bad things in the following years.
“You really did try to kiss me,” he whispers, almost as if it’s a realization.
“Yes, and you turned me down.”
“No, Hollis.” He shakes his head. “Fuck. No. That’s not how that happened.” Jax sounds defensive and upset, and I don’t know if he’s trying to tell me that I got the situation all wrong or if my feelings weren’t valid.
“So, I’m delusional?” It’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I try to get him to let up on the hold he has of my hand, feeling the tightness of pressure clamping down in my chest. I know my defenses are kicking in without me giving the okay. Sometimes, I shut down and have to stand up for myself but I know that accusing him of making me out to be a tad crazy isn’t the way to do it.
“No, that’s not what I said.” He tries to hang on to my hand, but I manage to pull it away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get worked up,” I remark, hoping I can calm myself back down.
“Hollis, I was trying to protect you.” Jax scooches in closer to me and I don’t know if I want to welcome his body any closer than it already is.
“By rejecting me in front of half of the people we went to school with?” I ask in a hushed tone if only to not feel so much anger but to get him to see how I felt like he did the very opposite.
Remembering the faces of everyone when we walked out of that closet is something that haunted me for the entirety of my freshman year. And now, I think that maybe I misconstrued their expressions and that maybe I took it personally because I was feeling the embarrassment myself so I was projecting, but I didn’t know that at the time.
And the one person I wanted to help comfort me through that was the person who left me that way.
“Is that really what you think happened?”
