“I’m fine,” Jacob repeated, still staring at the door Felix had dragged Hec out of.
This was when he noticed the whole group had gone silent. Jacob turned to them, alarmed. Things had been going great. He had only wanted to escape a little bit, and he’d even been making them laugh. These conversations were easier when he imagined what he would say to Felix, just a lot politer.
“What?” Jacob asked.
The guy from before coughed awkwardly. “You’re, like… crying.”
“I’mwhat?” Jacob raised a hand to his face, absolutely baffled to find it wet. He pulled his hand back, staring at the salty tears all over his palm.
Jacob never cried. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time it happened. A movie in middle school, maybe? He remembered desperately trying to hide his tears in the dark of a movie theater, even though Felix was crying right beside him.
“Shit,” Jacob said, wiping his cheeks. “Sorry. I’m… I’m gonna go.”
“Wait, it’s fine,” said the guy, who had the wide-eyed expression of somebody who didnotthink it was fine and would rather Jacob leave as fast as possible.
So Jacob turned and high-tailed it out of The Last Call, only remembering that he was holding his beer when he reached to wipe his face and banged the bottle right into his nose. He threw the beer bottle away and rubbed his stinging nose, cursing. He wanted to throw up. He’d had half a beer, why did he want to throw up all of a sudden? Why was hecrying? Was he coming down with something? Some weird stress-induced sickness that caused crying and nausea and got set off by watching his best friend stick his tongue down some jackass’s throat?
He wiped furiously at his face, still muttering swear words. He was so busy trying to scrub the tears away he didn’t notice Shane Turner until he’d tripped over him.
Shane was sitting underneath a tree in the quad, bent over a notebook. Jacob only noticed this as he stumbled over Shane’s boots and toppled stupidly into the grass.
“Holy shit,” Shane yelled, dropping the phone he’d been using to light his notebook. Then he noticed Jacob’s face and paused. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Jacob croaked, pushing himself up on wobbly arms. He had grass in his mouth and he was still sobbing like a little bitch.
“Ooookay.” Shane shoved his phone and notebook away and approached Jacob cautiously. “Are you sure? You look… hurt.”
“I said I’m fine,” Jacob snapped. He climbed to his feet, brushing his jeans off angrily. What the hell was wrong with him? He wanted to call his parents. Wait, no, he wanted to never tell his parents about this, what the fuck was he thinking? His parents could never know about any of this. Even about the crying. They were always uncomfortable with it. Once he’d walked in on his mom crying and she’d knocked over a lamp in her haste to hide it, then she berated him for making her break it. He’d been left cleaning it up, all the while insisting that he hadn’t seen anything.
Shane crossed his arms tight over his threadbare shirt far too thin for the cool weather. It made Jacob wonder what the hell Nate was doing, not taking care of his boyfriend. Jacob sometimes left his own jackets at Felix’s place just so Felix would layer up.
“Sure,” Shane said slowly. He rocked awkwardly from foot to foot, staring around the empty quad like he was hoping someone else would take care of this situation for him. When no oneappeared, he continued: “Look, I don’t know you that well. But is this because of Felix?”
“No!” Jacob wiped his face, groaning angrily when the tears didn’t stop. “This is… I don’t know what this is. Why would I cry over Felix?”
“So nothing happened with Felix?”
“No,” Jacob blurted. “I mean—no, nothing happened. He just went home with that asshole, Hec.”
“Right,” Shane said. But Jacob was already talking over him.
“But I’m not crying over that. Why would I? Felix fucks everyone. Even me, apparently.” Jacob sniffed, shocked at the bitterness in his tone. He was fine with Felix having sex with people. He was sex-positive, or whatever. He was just a prude. And didn’t want to catch something because Felix went home with some guy who didn’t take sexual health seriously.
He turned away from Shane, who called after him: “Have you tried telling him not to do that?”
“Do what?” Jacob’s voice cracked again. “I don’t care. I mean, I care about myhealth.ObviouslyI think it’s stupid to have sex with some fuckhead who doesn’t get tested! Especially if we’re… if we…” Jacob’s throat closed up. He thumped his chest in alarm. Was he having an allergic reaction? This didn’tfeellike he’d eaten pine nuts. This felt like he wanted to scream and vomit and pass out.
“You could try it,” Shane said, still holding himself like he wanted to flee into the distance but was valiantly holding himself back. “Like, if you went to him right now and told him you wanted to watch a movie, he’d leave that guy so fast. He cares about you more than anyone.”
Jacob’s spine tingled. He felt strange, beyond all the nausea and inexplicable weeping. Like he was on the verge of a realization. He’d felt it a few times, especially since he left forcollege. But it was never as powerful as this. This felt like the sort of thing he couldn’t ignore until he forgot about it.
“Sure,” Jacob said, barely aware what he was agreeing to. He ran his shaky hands down his face again, grimacing at the wetness. “Fuck. Sorry I snapped at you.”
“It’s fine,” Shane said dismissively. “Kinda expected it.”
Jacob stopped. He’d been about to walk off. But those words stopped him in his tracks.
“You what?” he asked, confused.
