Jude’s furious. I can feel it.
“Don’t ever go near him again, okay? If you have any stuff there, I’ll replace it. Don’t ever go back. I’m so proud of you,” he says.
“Thanks.” I know I don’t need his approval, but it’s nice. “In the beginning, Nathan loved everything I wanted to love about myself, and then once he had me, he flipped it. Like, ‘This concludes the portion of our relationship where I care about you. We will now be focusing on me.’ Maybe it’s selfish to want more, but I’ve been done for so long.”
“I’m relieved to hear that, but you’re not even close to selfish, Lu. He let you down constantly, then made you feel guilty forfeelinglet down. That’s not love. That’s manipulation. You’re so easy to…” He trails off and takes a breath. “You’renot needy. What have I told you?”
I sigh dramatically. “Trust no one.”
He huffs out a strained laugh, and I’m ridiculously proud of my accomplishment. “The other thing, Punk.”
“If I park to the left of your 4Runner, Jace can’t shoot my butt with the Nerf gun.”
“Sage wisdom, but not that.” I imagine his eyes crinkling around the edges with a smile.
I miss that smile.
“Never feed Sammy after midnight.”
“I give a lot of really good advice, don’t I?” he says proudly. “But I want to hear you say it.”
I pause to be sure I can get the words out.
“I’m allowed to need people,” I say softly.
“Who are you allowed to need?” he prompts.
“You?”
“Has it ever been a question?”
“No, but you get stuck with me more than anyone.”
“Because I volunteer. Ilikebeing stuck with you.”
“Jude, I tried to save a relationship with someone who doesn’t even like me. And after the first three months, I didn’t like him either. But I kept trying. He’s not even someone I’d be friends with,and I stayed. What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. We don’t want to give up on people. It feels good when they tell us how driven, creative, and talented we are. Then one day they’re not happy and we don’t know what changed. So we try harder to please them, because deep down, we know who we are. We just haven’t chosen people who appreciate us.”
“And then we feel stupid wanting approval from people who make us feel like crap,” I add.
“Yeah. That sounds about right.”
“Is that what happened with Ashley?” I ask hesitantly. I feel bad about mentioning her, but I’ve always wondered what happened. I know he ended it, but it seemed like she was the one who was chronically unhappy. And aside from his little habit of cranking the tension up to ten, then snapping it with a wet willy in my ear, he’s about as perfect as I could imagine a guy to be.
“Pretty much. Every day was a test I couldn’t pass no matter how hard I tried, and I let it go on for years—on and off since high school.” He pauses. “I can get along with anyone, but that’s all I was doing—trying to get along. Sam said she wasn’t happy with herself, so she wanted me to be miserable too. Every time we broke up, she’d come back saying she wasn’t happy without me. But she was never happywithme. And I wasn’t either. She only wanted me when she exhausted all other sources of attention, and I didn’t like being the reason she was upset. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah,” I say solemnly.
“Turns out we’re allowed to want people who are good for us. Who knew?”
“I think I heard that somewhere recently.” I joke half-heartedly.
“I bet you did.” He laughs. “But when my dad died, Iwasmiserable. Even now, sometimes grief still sneaks up on me. Ashley showed up at the funeral, and I was an easy target. But as soon as we got back together, she expected me to put my family aside and drive to Knoxville every weekend. She didn’t want to be a part of my life. She wanted me to cater to her—and still complained when I did.”
“I’m so sorry. I was always afraid I did that—expecting attention when Nathan had life-altering things to deal with. Or from you anytime you changed your plans to help me.”
“No. Lu, no. Wanting the bare minimum from a person who claims to care about you is not trying to get attention. Needing help is not trying to get attention, and whoever put that in your head is a self-absorbed jackass. Sorry. I know—language.”
