“I don’t want a ‘friendship,’” he snipes.
I try not to laugh at how utterly predictable all of this is. Predictable and making me wish I hadn’t bothered with it. “That’s exactly why we broke up. That shows how little you really ever cared about me. Because if you don’t even want me as a friend, if I mean so little to you that it’s sex or nothing?—”
“It’s not like that!” He pulls up in front of my house, wheels screeching through the sleeping street, then cuts the engine and turns towards me. “Do you know how much it hurts? Seeing you kiss someone else?”
Cry me a fucking river.
“You never seemed to care how much it hurt me to see you kiss other people.”
He completely sidesteps the statement, obsessed only with his own feelings, hands waving around like he’s drawing me a diagram of how awful I’ve been. “You brought him to my show, and you kissed him right in front of me. How could you do that?”
“Can you even hear yourself?” I throw both hands up in frustration. “There is another me walking around, he’s trapped in my world, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to himin the next few weeks. He might die. He might slip into another universe and be gone forever. And what I have with August, it’s…” I cut off with a heavy breath of air, trying not to think over all the probable bad endings.
“It’s what?” he prompts, knee pushing into mine in his keenness for the answer.
“It’s special.” The explanations I try to sort through for that surprise statement start remixing my mind until all I can see are the differences between him and Jon. “He gets me. He understands me. On a level that not just you, but no one else ever will. And he’s so nice to me. And maybe that makes me pathetic, but I really like that. I really like that he just… he treats me with respect. Which you never did. Not in all the time we were together. It was always about you and you and you. You and your band, you and your needs, you and your fucking ego. And it still is, right now, with all this shit going on in my life. August doesn’t want anything from me. He doesn’t even want my help with his maths because he knows I can’t do it, but he’s happy just to be around me. And he tells me all about it, and I can just sit there with him and… and that is such a nice fucking feeling. To just be genuinely liked.”
“Iloveyou!” he argues, pitifully. “I dedicated a song to you tonight!”
“They’re not even your words, Jon!” That hits him right in the kidneys. Despite everything, I do still feel guilty for the attack, so I clarify, as gently as I can, “I loved the song. It was beautiful. And I loved the thought that maybe I could have that—that we could have something where I can still come see you. But you know what? It also made me realise I don’t want that in a relationship. I don’t want showboating, and dramatic declarations, and suicidal calls from New York at two a.m. I just want someone who wants me in the dull times. Who just wants to hang out with me. Who wants to be… wherever I am.”
August’s words tonight come back to me. That he does want to be wherever I am. The way he put up with that utter shit show—Jon making a fool of us both, Amber kissing me, almost bloody getting shot—and he’s still coming to see me tomorrow.
“I don’t want to hear your thoughts on it, Jon. I don’t want to know how you feel about it, or how my relationship affects you. I want you to say you’re happy for me. That you care about me enough to want good things for me.”
He shrugs and chuckles out a bitter laugh. “I can’t say that.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you could.”
“Because I won’t ever get over you,” he rounds on me. “I know you think August’s the love of your life?—”
“I never said that!”
“But you’re still leaving me for him!”
My groan fills the car, and I bury my head in my palms to try to gather my thoughts in a way that I can break down so he can understand. “I’m not leaving youforhim,” I explain slowly, trying my best to make it crystal clear. “I’m just leaving you. Ileftyou. It’s already done. And I’m not coming back, and it’s not because of August. You made me feel like shit. For years. But now I’ve seen what it’s like to be with someone who cares about me. Who’s respectful. Who’s kind and says nice things and builds up my confidence. Someone who’ll climb to the top of Primrose Hill and tell me I’m incredibly beautiful beneath the stars.”
“Motherfucker!” he cries. Which I ignore.
“So maybe it won’t be August who I end up with. Maybe it’ll be someone else, or maybe it won’t ever be anyone at all ever again. But I’m never going back to that. I’ve seen how a man should make me feel. I like it, and I like him, and I’m never accepting less than complete respect, not ever again.”
We’re both shocked at the words. He’s used to me falling in a heap for him, thanking him for giving me the time of day. It’sstark and to the point, and he stares down at the wheel for a long time.
So long that I eventually figure he has nothing left to say. “I’m gonna go.”
“No, wait.” His hand falls on my knee.
I don’t like it there, but I let it sit, waiting.
“I just want to say I’m sorry. For everything. I was thinking the same thing for a long time. That I hadn’t treated you right. That you deserve better. You do. You deserve the best.”
I never thought I’d hear those words from his lips. Not once.
Every reserve of love I have for Jon swells to the surface. I feel like I got away with a heist. The whole thing plays out in my mind in a fraction of a second, one bright, happy flash. Maybe in time I can keep this friendship. Keep him, and Shashi and Amber. Keep everything I had to walk away from to cut this tie. The nights out, the music, the lot. And maybe even August.
Then he takes my hand, squeezes it, and slaps the smile off my face with the words, “I want you to marry me, baby.”
This absolute prick!
