“Do you know anyone who’s in love beside your own parents?” I asked.
Jo shrugged. “In real life?”
“What other life is there?”
She looked at me, then at her hands. Her fingers ran over her comforter. “Books, TV. So many lives.”
I wanted to correct her, to make sure she didn’t actually think that words in a book from the inside of an author’s mind or actors on a screen in our living room were the same thing as reality. I thought she had to know better; she was just being her whimsical, artsy self.
“Oh, Jo, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” I sighed. I loved her, so I would be gentle with her, but she was a child. She was smart about some things for sure, but she knew nothing about relationships. It worried me. Imagining Jo as a mother to a newborn was like imagining Shia King wearing a crisp black suit in a courtroom.
“I disagree, Meg.” Jo picked at her nails, not looking at me.
I made a little noise of annoyance. “Okay.” I laughed a little. Sometimes she thought that she knew everything. “That doesn’t mean you’re right. You haven’t had any experience dating at all.”
Jo sighed and her hands lifted from her lap and she ran her open fingers over the front of her hair. When we were young, Jo had the worst cowlick right in the front, just next to her middle part. At sixteen it was still there, but slightly less noticeable, her hair was so thick.
“Do we have to keep talking about this?”
“What?” My insides felt like I was hollow. Hollow and anxious at the mention of John’s name. I felt pathetic and confused. “My boyfriend who is supposed to here in a few hours just broke up with me via email!” My voice rose and my throat burned.
I stared at my phone by Jo’s lap. It hadn’t gone off in a while, but somehow I could still hear the email notification echoing in the silence in my room.
My chest rose and fell—and Jo wasn’t even trying to comfort me. She was just sitting there with her eyes slowly moving around the room and her hands calmly folded on her lap. Oblivious and righteous.
“Just go, Jo.” I sighed.
I didn’t know what else to say to her, and I knew better than to think Jo would say any of the things I needed to hear.
Where was Beth?
20
I was done crying by the time I settled on the couch between Beth and Amy. Meredith made comfort food for us, and I sat there with a blanket pulled up to my chin and a bowl of mac and cheese on my lap. My feet were stretched out on Amy’s lap, and she was almost asleep. It wasn’t even eight yet but I was ready to go to bed, too. Jo was sitting on the floor with her laptop on her legs, and I wasn’t mad at her anymore. I couldn’t blame her for not caring about something she didn’t understand.
Selfishly, I wished for someone to break her heart, but then I took it right back. I wouldn’t wish that on her. I changed the name in my head and wished into the universe that Bell Gardiner would have her heart broken. I didn’t take that back.
“There’s a car in the driveway,” Meredith said. She leaned over and pulled back the thick curtain covering the front window.
I took another bite of noodles and cheese and waited for the headlights to disappear in the window. Since we lived in a cul-de-sac, people often used our driveway to turn around.
I heard a car door shut, and Meredith used her legs to push in the footrest of Dad’s recliner.
“It’s a man,” she said.
My first thought was that my dad was home early to surprise us, but that wasn’t likely; he knew how much Meredith hated surprises.
“Who is it?” Beth asked.
“I can’t tell . . . it looks like John—”
I shot up from the couch and ran to the window, bowl in my hand and all. I saw John Brooke walking up my yard, wearing his uniform and a serious expression across his familiar face.
“What is he doing here!” My voice came out as a screech, and Beth was by my side in an instant.
Amy’s face twisted in horror. “Oh, no! Meg, he’s here and you’re wearing that.”
I looked down. My flower-print shorts and pink tank top couldn’t have been further from what I had planned on wearing when I saw him again. Why the hell was he here? Wasn’t his string of emails enough?
Beth took the bowl of mac and cheese from me just as his knuckles started tapping on the front door.
“Don’t let him in!” I shouted into the panic filling the room.
“That son of a—” Meredith started.
“Why not? Maybe he—” Jo started, too.
I couldn’t think straight. Why did I take my makeup off? My eyes had to be swollen. Why was he here?
“Yes or no, Meg?” Meredith asked when she was on her feet.
I thought about it for a second. Should I say my piece to John Brooke? Should I let him have it for breaking up with me over email, then showing up to my house?
He knocked again.
“Let him in,” I said, hating that I looked like shit.
Jo was a statue, sitting on the floor still, typing away.
My mouth tasted like truffle, and I knew I smelled like a mushroom and looked like hell. My fingers smoothed over my hair as Meredith opened the front door.
“Hey, Meredith, how are you?” John’s voice was so deep.
Meredith turned to look at me, and John stepped into the light. He was wearing his West Point uniform, and his hair was cropped shorter than I’d ever seen it. His blue eyes found me, and I couldn’t help the cry that ripped through my lungs and splattered all over the floor. John’s face fell and he moved toward me, his hat in his hands.
I turned around and rushed down the hallway to my room and slammed the door behind me. Heavy footsteps pounded toward me, and a soft knock touched the door, but John opened it before I could respond.
“Hey,” he said shakily.
I stared at him in all his West Point glory. His entire body seemed to have grown from the last time I’d laid eyes on him. The gold buttons on his gray uniform were so shiny. He looked so polished, and I . . . well, I looked like a damn mess.
“What do you want, John?” I hoped that I sounded intimidating and in control, not like a nineteen-year-old who’d just spent the last two hours crying over a boy.
Except John didn’t look like a boy anymore. He looked like a man.
“What? Meg, what’s going on?”
I ignored the voice in my head telling me to look in the mirror on my vanity. Seeing my mess of a self would only make things worse.
“What’s going on?” I laughed. “You tell me, John. What the hell is going on? Why did you even come here?”
His reddish-blond brows pulled together over his light eyes, and he took a step backward, toward my door.
“Go ahead and leave if you want to!” I yelled at him, all sense of sanity going out the window closest to me.
“What the hell? You knew I was coming. We had plans, remember?”
“Yes! We did. But you’re confused, remember? You must be so confused that you forgot to email me and say you’re coming after all!”
I felt my legs getting weaker the louder my voice went. I sat down at the edge of my bed and put my head in my hands.
“Meg.” John’s voice was soft. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came to pick you up so we could go to the Quarter for the weekend. I just got in, picked up my car, and came here.”
I looked up at him. What?
Was he lying? I looked at the clear confusion on his face and the tiny movement in his shaking hands. I didn’t know what to make of this.
“Are you trying to tell me that you changed your mind?”
John walked toward me, and I flinched when he grabbed my hands. He dropped them. He knelt in front of me and I focused on the structure of his gray uniform, the brown stitching, the high collar reaching up under his neck. His face was red, it always was a little, but he really did look confused.