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I want the lights off more than anything right now.
If there’s anything I want more, it’s for you to go away. I spent so much of my time being loyal to you, even when we weren’t dating, because I thought we had our endgame plan. Look where that loyalty got me. I’m stuck here trying to figure out my next move. What I’ve now learned is, going forward, I have to be careful whom I trust with my heart. I have to be suspicious that someone will use the love I give and carry it over to someone else.
You did this to me.
History is nothing. It can be recycled or thrown away completely. It isn’t this sacred treasure chest I mistook it to be. We were something, but history isn’t enough to keep something alive forever. You’re not the best friend and love of my life I’ve spent this past month mourning, and missing long before that.
I don’t want to talk to you anymore.
Wednesday, December 14th, 2016
Whose dog is barking?
It takes a minute for everything to click, but I know I’m in Jackson’s bed where we had sex last night. Wow, I had sex with him while Chloe was in the room. There’s something wrong about that scenario. I don’t know, it’s like having sex in a room where a baby is sleeping, except there’s no way his dog slept through that. I’m facing the wall with the poster for The Goonies.
Another difference: there are no arms wrapped around me like whenever I woke up next to that asshole, Theo.
I slowly turn. Jackson is also at the very edge of the bed, an entire island of space between us. Neither of us had cuddling on the brain.
“Are you awake?” Jackson asks.
“Yeah,” I say, wishing I had a piece of gum. It sucks I can’t run out of here and hop on a plane to escape all of this, because my flight isn’t until this afternoon. But nothing about my life has been easy lately, and maybe that’s how it should be. I turn as Jackson is sitting up, and I register Jackson is dressed—completely different clothes than yesterday, thankfully. I’m still one hundred percent naked, so I cover up my entire body with the sheet I slept in, suddenly insecure of everything.
“I didn’t get any sleep last night. Maybe five minutes,” Jackson says. “Probably six minutes,” he corrects.
I slept. I know because the last thing I remember is turning away from the ceiling and squeezing my eyes shut after promising Theo I was done talking to him.
“It didn’t mean anything,” I spit out. It sounds harsher than I intend, but that’s me since Theo died, rough around the edges, and his betrayal has only made me sharper. It sucks for Jackson that the tip of my sword is at his throat—poor wording considering last night’s event—but Jackson isn’t at fault because he didn’t actually steal Theo away from me. Theo was simply over me. “Right?”
Jackson nods strongly, like the pirate bobblehead I put in Jackson’s car’s cup holder on our way back to his place the other night.
“You’re completely right. It was a weird day. Being back at that beach really twisted me.”
“We were vulnerable,” I say, which is a half lie. He was hurting because of how much he misses Theo, and I was trying to hurt Theo.
“Exactly.”
“I’m going to get dressed,” I say.
Jackson turns away. I had no problems being naked around Theo. It’s not as if Jackson has a six-pack, but I don’t feel that comfortable around him, sort of like when I was a kid and would keep my shirt on at the beach around my friends. I find my underwear on the floor next to my sad-looking condom. I get completely dressed in ten seconds and throw the condom in his trashcan. I tell Jackson to put Edward Scissorhands back on so I can see how it ends, while I go brush my teeth. But all I end up doing when I get to the bathroom is sitting on his mother’s shower bench and crying while the water in the sink
runs.
“I’m okay, Dad.”
“I’m not buying it,” Dad says. His bullshit detector has improved tenfold ever since it failed him on Monday morning when I flew out here.
I’ve been 90 percent honest about what Jackson and I have been up to the past couple of days, but he can tell something else went down besides watching movies and driving around town. I don’t know how to tell him Theo dicked me over and how I did something unforgivable in return.
“I know. Things aren’t awesome right now, okay? I promise I’ll tell you both everything when I get home tonight.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear.”
“How everything sucks?”
“No, honesty. We’ll both be at the airport ready to pick you up,” Dad says. “Don’t change your mind last minute and fly to some other country.”
I hear footsteps in the hallway, so I tell my dad I have to go and will text before I board. I hang up and sit down on the bed as Jackson, wearing nothing but boxers and a towel around his shoulders, enters the room. He doesn’t say anything to me. Last night has undone the friendship we’d started, but maybe once I get home and we have space between us again, we can salvage some of it.
