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She smiled wryly and met his gaze head on. “Isn’t it?”
They were forty-five minutes late for their dinner reservation thanks to Jack’s insistence on make-up sex—sex to which Amelie happily obliged. Well, truth be told, they did twice. Once to make up. And once more for good measure.
Of course, Jack had slept with others, he thought to himself in the cab on the way to the restaurant. He was a freshman in college, for goodness sake. He just hadn’t expected her to. Still, out of all of the girls he had been with, not a one compared to her, not even remotely. His fraternity brothers liked to say that pussy was pussy. But Jack never saw it that way. To Jack, sex with other girls was just ok, never quite fulfilling. Kind of like an appetizer before the main course. All fluff, but little substance. Sex with Amelie, on the other hand, set him on fire. Not only was she the main course, she was dessert, too.
At dinner, they played catch up and made small talk. When their food came, Amelie cut into her steak and informed Jack all about some documentary she had watched on animal cruelty and how she’d since become a strict vegetarian. However, just this once, she said she was willing to make an exception seeing that this particular restaurant’s specialty was their world-renowned filets. As he listened to her go on and on about the specifics of exactly how and which methods were used to slaughter animals used for consumption—his own dinner suddenly became a whole lot less appealing. She, on the other hand, was devouring hers. “So, how’s Princeton treating you these days?” she finally asked.
“Can’t complain… School’s good. Work is good. You know… I was thinking. You really should come up when you graduate in the fall. There are lots of good schools out there for you to choose from.”
Amelie glanced at the floor and then back at Jack. “Yeah. Well… about that. Remember how I said I had big news?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “It’s just that I’ve been a little distracted ever since… anyway, what’s up?”
She straightened her back in the chair. “I just received my acceptance letter to one of the top photography schools i
n the world, Jack! Can you believe it? I could not be more excited!” she squealed. “Like I could seriously die today and be happy just knowing I got in!”
“Wow. That’s great! Is it the one you mentioned before… what was the name of it?” Jack asked as he moved the food around his plate with his fork.
She swallowed and shook her head. “No. This one’s abroad. In France, actually.
Jack furrowed his brow. “Oh.”
Amelie was so excited she practically levitated off the chair. “Yeah.”
Jack cocked his head to the side. “So it’s a four year program?”
She nodded.
“But you’re going to wait for the school you wanted, right? Your first choice… God! For the life of me, I can’t recall the name of it...”
She shifted. “Actually, I’m not. I’ve accepted… early. I leave just after the New Year.”
Jack placed his napkin on the table and leaned back in his chair. Amelie watched his face grow red, his jaw tighten. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “So that’s what this is? This little trip of yours? It’s a hey, Jack! Guess what? Fucking see you later, sayonara… trip.”
Amelie was caught off guard by his anger. “Jack. No. It isn’t like that at all. I… I thought you’d be happy for me.”
He stood and slid his chair in. “Then you’re obviously crazier than I fucking thought.”
TEN
That Christmas, Jack and Amelie spent five amazing days together in The City by the Bay. When they weren’t busy staying holed up in their hotel room, they’d hop on The Bart and putter around San Francisco, taking it all in. It was somewhere around Chinatown that Jack recalled his anger begun to fade. Over lunch in Union Square, he told her how much he’d missed her, how he’d thought of her every day. It was on a bench under The Golden Gate where Jack told her he loved her for the first time.
“Jack. Don’t,” she’d pleaded.
He shrugged. “But I do.”
Amelie let it go, or so it seemed. She picked up her camera, removed the lens cap, and pointed it at the water. Click. Click. Click. “Yeah, but you know that a relationship between us could never work, don’t you?”
Jack should have been angry then, he thought. Instead, he was amused, curious. “And why do you say that,” he asked.
She turned to him then and placed her hand on his thigh. “We’d suffocate each other, Jack. This…” She pointed back and forth between the two of them. “It would consume us, if we let it. You have your dreams. And I have mine. Those dreams… Jack… I’m not sure they fit together so well, you know. One of us would want more, the other less and… it would just end up a mess.”
“But we haven’t even tried. So, I guess we don’t really know then, do we?”
“I know, Jack.” She hesitated. “And I don’t want to ruin what we have. I don’t want this to feel like work.”
Jack smiled. “What percentage would you say you’re certain of that? Ninety percent? Eighty-five percent?”
