He sat next to me. “Hey.”
“Hi, buddy. How’re you doing?”
“I’m… Not great.” His whole body sighed, and he looked as though he was deciding whether to tell me something. “Gia and I broke up.”
“What?” I blurted a little too loudly, garnering the eyeballs of several campers before lowering my voice. “How did she go from having a migraine to breaking up with you?” That must have been a really nasty migraine.
“Actually, I broke up with her.”
Oh.
Wait.
What?
How did I proceed when my best friend dropped a bomb like that?
Jack had been making plans. He talked about Gia like she was his world. There were times I’d seen them together when I was filled with this longing feeling, as if something in my life was missing. Like maybe I wanted… More. But if they couldn’t make it, who could?
“Are you making s’mores?” he asked me as if the four components of a s’more in my hands weren’t a dead giveaway and like he hadn’t just flipped my world upside down.
“Yeah, you want me to make you one?” I asked, keeping my tone calm and sweet like a parent offering their kid a Fruit Roll-Up after a particularly bad day at school. When he didn’t respond, I loaded up a stick and stuck it in the pit, making sure to keep it along the outskirts so it didn’t catch fire, the way he liked. “You wanna talk about it?” I tried.
“I’m a little shell-shocked.” He didn’t continue, so I didn’t pry.
I pulled his marshmallow out and built a s’more for him. He ate it as if it were an obligation. I’d never seen him like this.
Jack didn’t operate by putting up facades. He was a lighthearted guy. He was the one everyone went to when they needed cheering up, not the other way around. This was new territory, and it was almost as if he didn’t know how to be this way either. The only time I’d seen him down was when he’d been sick with the flu, and even then, he’d still made cracks about how he sounded like a foghorn every time he rasped, which made him laugh and cough harder.
We sat in a comfortable silence, watching people with their craft cocktails, talking and laughing as if it was a normal Monday night and someone’s world wasn’t falling apart around them. I truly didn’t know how to proceed. I thought their relationship was going in a completely different direction, and the fact that he was the one to end it… It felt wrong, ominous.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I shoved a marshmallow in my mouth. “One.” Then I shoved three more in, struggling to get out a “Four.”
Jack rolled his eyes. Chubby Bunny always worked with him, and it was going to work now. I counted three more and put them in my mouth.
“I don’t want to play that stupid game with you,” he said, waiting a beat before shoving five in his mouth.
I held up seven fingers and barely spewed out a “Chubby bunny” to prove I could still talk.
He topped me with eight, easily pulling off the same thing, but I was a competitive loser, no matter how many times he’d proven himself the victor. I added two more and spewed a barely audible “Chubby bunny” causing a muffled laugh to break through. The only thing keeping the spit in my mouth was the wall of marshmallows, probably on the verge of blocking my airway. Then a marshmallow plopped into my lap. I stared down at my legs as though it might have come from somewhere that wasn’t my mouth.
Jack gave me a poor excuse for a laugh before raising his hands in victory, said “Chubby bunny” one more time, and popped one more in his mouth to be a jackass. Then he started chewing, his jaw looking like overstretched elastic.
There were no real winners in Chubby Bunny. Not when everyone ended up looking like an idiot.
Once he was finished chewing, he looked at me with a smile he couldn’t conceal. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. He was grateful for his amazing, brilliant, gorgeous best friend. He was in awe at my ability to bring joy to others, and my humility—my greatest characteristic.
He took my hand and squeezed, looking into the fire. I chewed quickly, prepared to ask him what happened, maybe about the logistics of her being here when they were no longer together, but he changed the subject.
“How are things going with Jamie?” Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about his situation. Choosing to question my soft spot wasn’t my preference, however. I’d call him a jerk if he wasn’t so heartbroken. And why was he heartbroken if he’d broken up with her?
“There is no me and Jamie.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s too bad.”
“You know I have a difficult relationship with him,” I reminded him. “We broke up, remember?”
