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He met her response with a shrug. She waited for him to push her into getting in, but he didn’t. He was just messing around in the pool. It was like he didn’t even realize that she was still there. Stacy walked back over to him and threw her arms around his neck. The simmering anger in Amy’s stomach intensified almost to the boiling point.
She took a deep breath and tried to shake off the feeling. The feeling wasn’t actually anger, though; that had been painfully clear when it had seared through her. She tried to avoid the truth. She tried to avoid what the feeling churning away in her stomach really was, but she couldn’t. Every time that Stacy touched John, she felt it again. It was impossible to ignore. She was jealous.
She got up and walked off from the pool without saying another word. Of course it was impossible to ignore, she consoled herself. Stacy and John had been right in front of her face. She just needed to put some space between them. She reached the stairs and almost ran up them, so she could put the almost-soundproof door between herself and them.
The door closed and the sound of Stacy’s voice cut off midsentence. It was satisfying. Not as satisfying as slapping her mouth shut, but almost. Amy headed over to the kitchen and sat down at the breakfast bar. Had she really just been feeling jealous over Stacy and John? No, that couldn’t be right. It was probably just what they had together, she told herself. It was probably just the fact that she’d never actually had a boyfriend, but John had clearly had a long string of girlfriends.
“How come you just disappeared?” John’s voice followed his footsteps into the kitchen.
Amy turned to the door, surprised by the sudden interruption to her thoughts. “I just wanted to come in.” She shrugged. She couldn’t tell John the truth. She couldn’t tell him that seeing Stacy with him was bothering her. He’d get the wrong idea from that. He’d think that it was because of her feelings towards him. What was she thinking, her feelings towards him? Her cheeks blushed at the idea that John might be able to read her thoughts.
“Oh, it’s just, you just sort of stood up and walked off. I thought maybe I’d annoyed you or something?”
“Why would you have annoyed me?” Amy asked, instead of asking him about the weight remark he’d made or how he could possibly think that bringing a girlfriend home would be a good idea.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It just kind of felt like that, I guess.”
“Well, everything’s cool,” Amy lied with a tight smile pulling her lips up.
“Are you sure?” John’s eyes lingered on hers. “You know, if something is bothering you, you can tell me.” He sounded genuine. He sounded so earnest that Amy found herself looking at the guy she’d once known for a second, instead of the guy that had come home.
She shook her head. “I think we’re a little past sharing secrets with each other.”
“I guess you might be right,” he agreed without even trying to argue. “Seems kind of sad, though, that we were once so close and now we’re like, I don’t know, strangers.”
What was happening? Amy felt like she was getting whiplash with the way his moods were swinging from left to right. “Well, I guess that’s what happens when you spend eight years apart.” It was her turn to shrug. “You become strangers.”
The sound of the back door opening told Amy that their conversation was coming to a swift end. “The offer stands,” John told her before turning to Stacy, who was just walking up behind him. “I thought I told you I’d come back to the pool?” he asked her quietly as Amy watched them.
“I know, baby, but there was this really big bug and it kept flying around me, and…I don’t know, I just freaked, I guess.”
“You came in over a really big bug?” Amy could hear the mockery in John’s tone. “Well, I better go out and make sure you’re protected from it.” He tickled her ribs and she giggled.
“You two have fun then,” Amy called after them, because neither had turned to say goodbye. She waited for them to leave before she thought over what had just happened.
********
Chapter 6
John
The awkward exchange in the kitchen had been the last interaction he’d had with Amy. It had been over twenty-four hours and he hadn’t even heard her footsteps in the house. She was avoiding him. That was obvious. Sure, the house was big, but it would be impossible to not run into anybody unless you were trying to.
John couldn’t worry about it, though. His dad was due home that day. He hadn’t spoken to his dad in over a year. He hadn’t seen his dad in nearly eight years. He wasn’t even sure what to expect. He wasn’t sure whether the memory he had of his dad was right, or if it had been manipulated through the time they’d spent apart.
“Babe, what are you thinking about the party tomorrow?” Stacy asked him over breakfast. “Do you think we’ll be able to make it?” she asked, looking down at her phone. “I’ve had, like, a thousand messages asking whether or not I’m going to be there. I don’t know what to tell them all.”
John frowned at Stacy. “What party?”
“You know,” she sighed, putting her phone down on the table. “The one that’s on campus; I told you about it the other day.”
“Oh.” John nodded. “Right, yeah, I think I remember.”
“So?” She leaned forward. “Are we going?”
“I don’t know.” John shrugged. “I told you, I need to talk to my dad.”
“Yeah, but he’s coming home today,” Stacy reminded him. He didn’t need reminding. He hadn’t forgotten. It had been on his mind since the moment he’d woken up that morning. “So, you can talk to him when he gets back and then we can set off tonight, right?”
“Maybe.” John nodded. “It depends on how long my talk takes.”
“John,” Stacy said sharply. John looked at her with surprise. She wasn’t the kind of girl who dove straight into direct confrontation. She was more the type of girl who would send an angry text message. “I want to go to this party. I don’t see why I should miss it just because you need to talk to your dad.”
She was right. It was unfair to ask her to miss out. It wasn’t even like they’d been dating for that long. “Well, why don’t you go on your own?” he suggested.
“I don’t want to go on my own,” she pouted quickly. “I want to go with my boyfriend.”
Was that what she thought they were? Did she think they were serious? John thought back over every conversation they’d ever had. He’d given her no signs to suggest that they were serious. Well, no signs other than inviting her back to his dad’s house. That wasn’t about her, though; he’d just wanted to avoid Amy. “Stacy,” John started, but then he stopped. Did he really want to have that kind of talk, when his dad was due home?
“What?” she asked when he’d left her name hanging in the air for too long.
“I’ll do my best,” he sighed. “I can’t promise anything, though.”
“You’re leaving tonight?” Amy walked into the kitchen. It was clear that she’d heard most of the conversation and she didn’t look happy. “Why did you even bother coming back?”
John wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t been expecting Amy to be upset over the news. ?
?I told you, I need to speak to Dad.” He met her eyes from across the room.
“You could have called him.”
“It’s not really an over-the-phone kind of conversation.” John shrugged.
Amy laughed. “You know, when dad called and said you were coming back, I was actually excited.” She was wearing hurt and disbelief in her eyes with a surprising familiarity. “I thought, wow, I’m going to see him. Finally, I’m going to get to see the guy who used to be my best friend. I thought that we could catch up, get to know each other again. I thought you were coming back to see us all. I thought that maybe, just maybe, you still cared.”
“I do care,” John cut in, before she had a chance to say anything else. Her eyes had started to sparkle with tears, which she was holding tightly onto. He could hear the way her words were cutting up her chest, because she wasn’t taking any breaths as she spoke.
“Don’t you dare.” Amy shook her head. “You came back here and treated me like a stranger. You’re going to leave as soon as Dad comes back. How can you stand there and lie like that? How can you stand there and say that you care? You have no idea what’s happened to me over these last eight years. You have no idea how unhappy I’ve been or how lonely I’ve been. You just automatically think that you’ve got it worse, but guess what, John?”
“What?” he asked weakly, because he had no defense for what she was saying.
“You didn’t. You didn’t have it worse. In fact, you probably had a lucky escape. So, why don’t you take your self-pity and shove off.”
John stood perfectly still. He was afraid any sudden movement might start Amy on another tangent again. He couldn’t deal with that. He couldn’t deal with listening to all the reasons as to why she hated him. He couldn’t deal with knowing that she was right about all of them too. He’d spent years resenting her because he’d been sent away, then he’d come back and he hadn’t even asked her how she was. He was a jerk. He was probably the biggest jerk there was. He didn’t blame her for hating him, even if he couldn’t stand to hear about all the reasons why.
