“You don’t get to tell me what to do. I have been waiting to be the man you always wanted me to be, and you to go to Zach! I’m done.”
“Good!”
“Now you can watch me walk away!”
“Go!” she yells.
I walk home and slam the door. I swipe Jack off the counter and look at the other two. “Fucking imposters.” I take him upstairs with me.
Fuck it all!
I lie on my bed and swallow down some Jack.
TWENTY-ONE
COLLIN SAYS SO
Iwatch him walk away, and it hurts so badly. He gave me no other choice, no olive branch for friendship held out this time.
I look up into the early evening sky and want to smile for Collin, like he asked me to in his last letter, but I can’t.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him.
“You all right?”
I look toward the house, shake my head, and the tears began to fall.
Jade hurries out and hugs me.
“Why is he doing this?” Jade starts to reply, but I continue, “I didn’t fuck Zach. I didn’t kiss him. I didn’t do anything but talk with him! Why does he think that, Jade?”
“You really want my opinion, or do you just need to vent?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Tell me what you need me to do right now, because nothing I have said has done anything but cause you more pain, and I don’t want that for you. Like you convincing yourself that you and Lucas can be fuck buddies—”
“Jade, that’s—”
“No, you listen to me. I thought you were ready. I watched you go through the stages of grief, Tessa. I watched you isolate yourself, get angry, bargaining in your mind with which loss would have been worse—Collin’s or Harper’s—then you became depressed, and then I thought finally you had accepted it. I thought when we went and got our manicures, pedicures, and waxed, you were ready. I have been beating myself up about it, but reality is, that wasn’t my call. Now your guilt is killing you. Then denial about Lucas—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know that. You weren’t ready. I never took into consideration that my time with Tommy, as wonderful as it was, was so short and I was so much younger. I sat the other night, looking at Ryan, and thought,what would I do without him?The answer? I have no idea. He’s been my world for so long. He gets me, and he still loves me.”
We both laugh.
“Tessa, Lucas hurt you a long time ago, but you hurt him, too. He thinks you were with Zach because that’s what you did when you were younger. When you hurt, you moved on quickly to someone who made you feel …”
“I did not,” I argue.
“You did, and in his eyes, you’re doing it now, so he’s hurt.”
“So, you’re saying that his bullshit back then was my fault, Jade? Because it wasn’t. He—”
“Tessa, you were both so young. Both still growing, both—”
“Fine.”