She’s completely right.She was atotaldick about it, from the moment I casually mentioned I was meeting with a recruiter to the moment I shipped off to basic training.
It baffled me.Other guys who were joining up, and there were plenty at our high school, had girlfriends who were proud of them, who got t-shirts that said shit like “proud Army girlfriend” and bragged about it.But any time I so much as mentioned the Marines around Clementine, she’d go totally silent.
In retrospect, it was a huge, flashing neon warning sign.But at the time I was so head-over-heels that I ignored it.
“Yeah, kind of,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.
She looks at me and starts laughing, the corners of her eyes crinkling.I can’t help but smile.
“No, I was awful,” she says.“I...”
She trails off, pushing her hair behind her ear, and looks out the window again.
“I was really jealous because I felt like you loved the Marines more than me, and I know that sounds dumb, but back then I felt like youwantedto be halfway across the world instead of where I was and I couldn’t understand how you could say you loved me but wantthat,” she says, the words tumbling out of her in a rush.
“That wasn’t it at all,” I say.
“I know thatnow,” she says.“NowI understand that you can love a person and still want to do something else important, and it doesn’t diminish anything.But I didn’t then, and I couldn’t stand the idea of you liking anything better than you liked me.”
She laughs a little, shaking her head.
“God, that sounds dumb when I say it out loud,” she says.
“Is it my turn to confess?”I ask.
“Go for it,” Clementine says.
I pull one knee closer to my chest and drape my wrist onto it, staring at the dark windows across the cabin.
“I picked all those fights with you because I was jealous,” I say.
My heart tightens in my chest, just admitting this to her.It took me ages to admit it to myself, even, and here I am, saying it out loud.
“You were jealous?”she asks, frowning.
I just look at her.
“I wasinsanelyjealous,” I say.“You were off at college, meeting all these new people and learning new things and moving on with your life, and meanwhile someone was still shouting at me to get up in the morning, telling me when I could eat, when I could shit, where to go, what to do.”
I swallow.Clementine just blinks, like this has never occurred to her before.
“And I feltdumb,” I say.“I was totally sure that you were meeting all these smart, interesting people and any minute you’d realize you were still dating some small-town moron from high school and you’d dump me.So I picked fights with you.”
“Because that’s a great way to keep a girlfriend around,” she murmurs, teasing me.
“I didn’t say it was smart,” I say.“I said it was what I did.”
“Well, thank Godnowwe’re mature, grown adults who can discuss their feelings calmly and rationally,” she says.
I can tell there’s more, so I stay quiet.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Clementine finally says.“I should have...I don’t know.Not freaked out.”
“I shouldn’t have put Mandy on my shoulders to reach that shelf,” I say.“I wasn’t trying to hit on her, but she sort of suggested it, and then was teasing me that I couldn’t, and...”
Clementine just looks at me.
“And you had to prove yourself to a cute girl, even if you weren’t interested?”she says.
