“He’s got one thing going for him,” Jack murmured in my ear. “He’s always had a talent for getting people to do what he wants.”
“Must run in the family,” I said after a moment’s hesitation.
Before he could respond, the nurse called me over the speaker. She sent me to a doctor’s office down the hall, and twenty minutes later, my hand was wrapped in bandages like a boxing glove and I had a tube of ointment and a bottle of pills stapled into a paper bag. All that over a stupid cut. I wanted to complain, but what was the point? At least it was my left hand, so it wouldn’t interrupt my schoolwork.
The doctor had made a nasty comment about how I should be more careful in the kitchen, like I was a dumb girl and had cut myself on purpose. He went on about nerve damage, and what if I’d severed a tendon, and so on, and when I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I told him, “Look, doctor, I don’t need any advice. Accidents happen. And I’d like to go home.”
This only angered him, and he started talking about infections and tetanus and staph and how dangerous it can be if it gets into your bloodstream. He sounded a little bit psycho and wouldn’t shut up about my antibiotics. When I decided to storm out, Jack stopped me and said, “Don’t worry, doctor, she’ll do as you say.”
“Excuse me,” I tried to respond, but he stopped me: “Jen, you’ll do it and that’s that.”
Carefully, Jack went back over every one of the instructions I’d received as I took my seat in his car and stared at my bandaged hand. It would take two weeks before I could use it again. It was sealed with Steri-Strips, which would come off in ten days, but for caution’s sake, the doctor wanted me to keep my hand wrapped longer. Two whole weeks! That felt like forever.
On the way home, Mike was in a bad mood because the girl he had flirted with had told him to leave her alone. When we parked, he stomped off to the elevator, crossed his arms, and rode it up before Jack even took off his seatbelt.
Jack helped me out of the car, and I told him, “I guess at least I’ll have a cool scar to show my grandkids.” I thought that would make him grin. But his expression was hostile, and I didn’t know why. Did he need me to thank him? Was he mad that I wasn’t taking things seriously? I didn’t know, and that made the ride in the elevator uncomfortable. All I could think of to say was, “Thank you for taking me to the hospital. And for worrying about me. I’m really grateful, I swear.”
Jack didn’t look at me, and I decided not to press it. Whatever it was, he’d talk when he was ready. When we reached the apartment, he stopped and turned, leaning against the door. I tried to reach past him, and he grabbed my hand to stop me.
“I need to tell you something,” he said, his voice quaking with anger. “What you said to me the other day, how I supposedly cope with things by bringing girls home… I don’t know where you got that from, but that isn’t me, OK? I’m not my brother. I’m not Mike. I would never try to hook up with some random chick just because I thought she might be looking at me.”
“OK,” I responded. “I mean, I said it in the heat of the moment, like…”
“I hope that isn’t what you think I did all year, just fuck every person who came past. Please tell me you don’t.”
I didn’t think that, but if I was being honest with myself, I didn’tnotthink it, either. I remembered what Lana and Naya had told me about the person he used to be. That wasn’t the real Jack, I believed in my heart. But what if I was wrong?
“I don’t know,” I answered. “To tell the truth, I’ve tried really hard not to think about what you were doing. It just hurt too bad.”
Jack looked perplexed, and his eyes roved my face as if trying to find an answer to something. I think he was shocked that I could even imagine he’d ever hook up with someone.
“You honestly think after that our breakup I’d feel like hooking up with anyone?”
“I don’t know, Jack…when we’re mad, we do things we wouldn’t normally do.”
He shook his head. “All that time, I wanted exactly one thing: For you to walk through my door again. To just magically reappear.”
That sincerity—without drugs or alcohol to give him courage—caught me totally off guard. His body didn’t move, but in his heart, I felt he’d taken a big step toward me. And then he clarified, because I didn’t say anything in response, “Let me give it to you straight: I didn’t sleep with anyone since you left. And I didn’t want to. Ever.”
I could see in his eyes he wanted a response. And thankfully, I wasn’t afraid to give it to him. “Me neither. No kisses, no sex, nothing. I just couldn’t.”
“Not even with Monty?”
I was shocked he’d even ask that, but then I remembered I had used Monty as an excuse when I’d decided to leave. It was the only thing I could come up with that I thought would keep Jack away. Looking back, I saw how stupid I’d been, and I wished I’d made up something better. Jack’s nerves were showing, and I knew I needed to reassure him before he exploded.
“Never. Of course not,” I said.
Jack paused, took a deep breath, and walked inside. I followed behind him. Naya, Sue, and Mike were standing at the bar while Will was portioning out our chicken with vegetables, which they’d somehow managed to cook. It didn’t even look bad, especially given the disaster that had preceded it.
Sue smiled. “I guess it wasn’t fatal?”
Mike must have told the story to everyone. I held up my bandaged hand and tried to flip a bird as Will explained that he’d taken the liberty of popping our meal into the oven. I told him I adored him, and he said, “For one day, at least, we won’t have fast food. That’s already an accomplishment, Jenna.”
“It’s good that you took the wheel,” I replied. “If my two helpers had stuck around here any longer, it would have turned into a massacre.”
Spencer and Shannon freaked out when I told them about my cut the next day. Spencer reminded me what a klutz I’d always been and warned me to stay away from sharp objects, and Shannon worried about whether the hospital near school was good enough. But when I told them how jealous Jack was and how he was acting like a little child, I got them to laugh it off—and it really was ridiculous. They both informed me of all the goings-on back at home, none of which were particularly interesting. I was weirded out when I looked at the cut and didn’t want to put the ointment on it myself. I asked Naya to, but she nearly fainted when she saw the wound, so in the end, Sue came to the rescue.
“This is nothing,” she said, smearing the ointment all over it. “It probably doesn’t even hurt.”
