Jade:Yeah.
Reeve:You didn’t need to run out like that. We were in the middle of something.
Jade:Sorry. I pretty much said what I needed to though.
Reeve:Well I didn’t.
Reeve:I wasn’t trying to give you an ultimatum.
Jade:But are you?
Reeve:We need to talk when I’m back. In person.
God, this asshole. Dragging my heart around and he still can’t give me a simple answer to a simple question. I toss my phone onto the carpet and stare straight ahead.
“Was that him?” Madison asks cautiously.
“Yeah, but nothing new. He can’t just be straightforward with me.”
Lenni sits next to me and helps herself to my untouchedplate. “Then be straightforward with him. If you’re willing to stay here and be with him, you have to tell him that.”
“No, she definitely does not,” Madison argues. “You don’t show your cards until he shows his.”
“I already showed mine, and they shocked him. He doesn’t need to tell me he doesn’t see a future for us. The wordgirlfriendhasn’t changed a thing in his mind.”
“Okay, I know you’re wrong about that,” Lenni says. “Cam says Reeve hasn’t had a girlfriend since high school, and he’s had women falling at his feet since the day he arrived on campus. Besides, I’ve seen you two together. He’s so into you, Jade.”
I know she’s right. I feel the strength of our connection. I can picture his eyes when he looks at me, and I know it’s real. Some things can’t be faked. So why won’t he make any compromises for us?
My phone rings from the floor by Lenni’s feet, and my heart jumps. Even when I don’t know what I’d say, I always want it to be him. Madison raises her eyebrows. “The devil himself?”
Lenni reaches down to find the phone, then makes a face. “It’s Sam.”
“Ugh.” I sag with disappointment.
“The other devil,” Madison says.
Lenni silences the phone. “What does he want?”
“He’s called me a few times this week.”
“That’s random. What for?”
“I don’t know, I never answer. He just leaves these quick messages saying he wants to talk. Like he actually expects me to call him back.”
“Okay, we’re out of alcohol,” Madison announces, holding up an empty vodka bottle.
“Let’s go to a bar,” I suggest. I do my best thinking in loud,packed bars, the kind where everyone has to yell to be heard and eventually just gives up on talking.
“It’s not even dark out,” Lenni says, though it’s less a protest than a simple observation.
“It’ll be dark in the bar. Let’s go to the Phantom.” I’m hit with the urge to get drunk in a crowd and chain-smoke a pack of cigarettes like I used to do freshman year when every single thing I did was done on a whim. I want to run into Reeve and listen to him scold me for my bad choices and feel his strong hand around mine as he walks me home, and then I want to take off his clothes and kiss him until time stops and it’s just us. I don’t want a future anymore, I want right now. Fuck the future. Our future is the only thing that’s not perfect.
The Phantom isn’t as crowdedas I’d like but is filling by the minute. I buy two rounds of drinks up front for the three of us because I feel bad for being moody and dragging my friends out when I obviously didn’t come here to have a good time. They don’t seem too burdened, though. Madison is in good spirits anywhere alcohol is available, and Lenni, a happy drunk, was two drinks deep before we left home.
A remix of an old love song comes on, and I slip into memories of me and Reeve, starting from that night I gave him a ride home from the restaurant. He was the only person to make me feel like my Spain plan wasn’t some stupid pipe dream. And now he’s the only person who’s made me wonder whether I want that dream anymore. Every minute we’ve shared is etched indelibly into my brain, and I work to relive them all while I nurse my drink. I search his words for clues to explain how we could have ended up here, in the same relationship but withtwo completely different views of what we are and where we’re going.
I remember playing this game after the breakup with Sam, and it quickly became so painfully obvious that I questioned my own memories. It was like reading step-by-step directions on how to dismantle a relationship. But if the clues are there in my relationship with Reeve, I can’t find them. He made me his girlfriend in spite of our agreement that we had no interest in a relationship. He told me that kissing me was the best thing he ever did. I’m the one who holds back, not Reeve. He was never afraid to make me feel like I meant everything to him. It all feels real. But somehow I still got it wrong.
