“Okay, so…” He lifted each menu. “Chinese or Italian?”
“Mmm. Chinese, definitely. They’re the only ones open on Thanksgiving Day,” I said.
“True,” he agreed.
I smiled again as he pulled out his phone and placed ourorder.
Forty minutes later, we were sitting on my couch eating pork fried rice out of Styrofoam containers and calling out every line we knew as Home Alone played on the TV, the room dimly lit by the small tree beside it.
My heart had never been so full.
I take a sip of my drink, ignoring Lia’s prodding as I place the memory back into the deep corner of my mind. My feelings for Jake are something I’ve shelved for good reason, and I need to keep it that way. Plus, Jake made it clear he’d like to be friends, and no matter how I feel, it really is for the best. My whole life is up in the air right now, and what I know is coming is more than enough to bear.
If Lia wants to press further, she doesn’t, allowing me the space I need to exist in the limbo I’m currently stuck in. She doesn’t know much of it—no one does really. All she knows is I need as little distractions as possible so I can make clear choices about a future that has no face, no picture, and no clarity. I don’t know what happens next exactly, but whatever of this life I’ll want to take with me after that degree hits my hand, none of it will fit into the reality that’s mine—the home I have no choice but to go back to.
The voicemail my dad left me this morning takes the place of the memory I tucked away—the one where he cursed me for abandoning him like my “no good” mother did, his voice raspy and tone jagged. It may sound harsh, but it was actually kind of him to refer to my mother so highly.
His favorite phrase for her is:that two timing whore that left you for dead. So the former was nearly a term of endearment. It’s never lost on me that he considers my mother leaving me alone with him the equivalent of being left for dead. I wonder if he’s ever realized that.
I probably shouldn’t have listened to it. It was barely ten in the morning, and he was already too wasted to form coherent sentences. It’s been over a year since I’ve heard from him, so I should have known better, but that hope—it’ll get you.
In hindsight, maybe it’s a good thing I hit play on that message, so now I can maintain a grip on my reality. Reliving that pain is a good reminder of what I’ve left behind and what I’ll never outrun, no matter how many miles I put between us.
I bottom out my drink, making a conscious decision to let the thoughts slip away.
Six nachos and three shots later, Lia is chatting it up with a new bartender—whose name is apparently Tyler—as if she’s known him for years.
When their flirty conversation turns into a full-on make out sesh, I take my cue and exit stage left. I know she’ll be leaving soon, and clearly not alone, so I walk to the bar, taking an empty seat at the edge and watch as Jake serves patron after patron. He offers his shining smile to nearly everyone he greets, kind and endearing, and I can’t help the sense of pride that fills me.
I’m proud to know a guy like him. Whether I’m worthy of him or not, it’s nice to have befriended someone so wholesome and real. To know that people like him still exist in the world. Someone who truly cares about how others feel and does his best to do right by everyone. And when he doesn’t, when he falls short like we all sometimes do, he actually takes accountability for it. He doesn’t leave you to wonder what you possibly did wrong that made him act differently. He just…owns it. Faces it head-on, even when it hurts.
He might have a lot going on, but he’s still true to who he is at his core, and there’s nothing but good there. It’s rare, that kind of honesty. The kind that doesn’t need to be dressed up or explained away. The kind that just is and gives purely, wholly.
Maybe that’s why it stings a little, realizing how easy it is to admire someone like him from afar, knowing I must hide the ache of never being able to have him—because it’s safer that way. It’s safer to love him quietly, to let my admiration and longing masquerade as friendship and innocent flirting. It’s safer to keep him at arm’s length, where he can stay perfect in my mind instead of messy and complicated in my reality.
The truth is I can’t afford to have him any other way, and I would never want him to carry the weight of my chaos or bear the burden of my storm. This version of friendship is the only choice we can have, because I’d never forgive myself for turning something pure into something tarnished and stained.
For a moment, though, I wonder what it’s like to be on the other side of that smile of his. To exist in the warmth of it and swim in the world that softens when it shines. To be the reason for it and let that fill me instead of the mess that’s there.
I let myself get lost in the thought of his lips against mine, as if that one kiss could absolve everything I’ve ever done wrong.
When his eyes find mine from across the bar, that familiar tug in my chest pulls tight, and I’m reminded exactly why I shouldn’t wonder at all. Thoughts become reality. It’s best not to feed the ones you know can’t be.
“Ready?” he asks after he serves his last round. He grabs his charcoal hoodie and slips it on. It’s not even close to closing time so I’m slightly thrown off.
“Um, yeah. One sec.” I scan the room for Lia, who’s no longer seated at our previous table. When I don’t see Tyler either, I check my phone for a text, and sure enough, there is one. It’s a kissy face emoji next to an eggplant and tongue. I’m not sure if she was telling me her next endeavor or was rooting for mine, but I laugh anyway, knowing that was her goodbye.
“What’s so funny?” Jake asks as he flips up the hinged bar top beside me and spins my barstool until I’m facing him. When I look up and meet his eyes, that warm downward grin meets the tiny spark brightening his hazel eyes, and my stomach drops like I just fell off a cliff.
I’m momentarily stunned by his beauty. His perfect shaped jaw. The bold outline of his kissable lips. I shake it off well enough to say, “Lia,” with a trace of a smile and a light giggle.
Jake’s smile deepens as if he’s pleased to see mine. As if the sound of my amusement is what placed his. I let myself believe maybe it is, so my heart can enjoy the affection its swelling with as I take his hand and hop off the barstool.
“Where are we going?” I ask when we don’t walk toward the door, but to the parquet dance floor set just below the second floor’s overhang.
“To loosen you up, Tin Man.” I smile and his expression shifts to something more playful when I look at him.
When we get to the center of the near empty space, he turns to face me, lifting our linked hands while placing his other on the small of my back. My left hand finds the top of his chest, hard and warm beneath it. I ignore the way my heart races as we begin to sway to Thomas Rhett’s “Make Me Wanna.”
