Did you jump? Those three words poke at me, internally, repeating again and again, until they are permanently there, tattooed on the inside of my skin. It’s funny how words can do that.
I stop at your house and stare at your duplex from the street, like a creepo. Lights are shining from your living room. I feel this weird urge to touch your truck.
I should have told you that you were my first. It was wrong to keep that from you. If I’d told you, maybe you wouldn’t think I’d go with anyone. My mind has been circling around this thought like a wolf. It won’t leave me alone. You’d be here if I told you that one little thing. Right?
The streetlight shines above me, casts my shadow alongside the truck’s shadow, like we’re friends. I think of all the times you leaned me against this truck and kissed me at night, in the school parking lot, in front of my house, out in Bear Lake. We’ve had so many firsts with your truck. First date. First kiss. First time you saved me. First time you said, “I love you.”
You said it too early. Maybe the first month? Before our first time. My whole heart stopped. It was like you’d said, “I hate you.” It wasn’t normal for me to hear this or to say it back—I don’t remember my mom or dad ever saying it to me. The only person who ever did was Steph. And she’s like a sister. I was physically incapable of saying the words back to you, but not because I didn’t feel it. Instead, I said I love your dimple, and you said, “It’s okay if you don’t say it. I’m going to keep saying it to you.” And you did. You said it right after we “made love”—you said, “I love you so much. You’re my everything.”
It’s a lot of pressure to be someone’s everything.
Finally, after Christmas, I said it. You made such a big deal of it. You yelled, “Yes!” and pumped your fist in the air. I was nervous to say it again. But I did. You don’t know what a goddamn act of courage it was every time I said it. Then you told me you were leaving for college, that you got the scholarship, that they might be starting you, that pro teams wanted to draft you too. I could see your future, a future without me. Baby, I’m sorry. I got scared.
I think of all the times I stuffed those words back inside of myself over the last few months, how everything would have been different if I hadn’t.
I stuffed another word inside myself too. I should have called you the day after our fight and said I was a jerk. But I was ashamed about that word I’d called you. I couldn’t face it. It made me sick. And I thought if I apologized about it, and you didn’t even think anything, then it would be worse. So I think that’s why I avoided you. Isn’t that shitty? If I’d just said sorry, we’d be together right now.
Your screen door opens. Raffa is standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” she demands.
She steps forward. The screen door bangs shut behind her. Her cheeks are flushed and she looks sick, like when she had pneumonia. Her eyes are dark with anger.
“Raffa—”
She marches across the grass in her bare feet and glares at me. Looks like she wants to hit me.
“You broke up with him and then you were dancing with that guy at the mall. People told me all about it. And he was crying, did you know that? I came out to help him clean his truck, and he told me to go away. He said he wanted to be alone, but he was crying. And it was your fault!”
I can’t even speak. I think of all the times you and I were cuddled up on the sofa, watching a ball game, eating popcorn, and she’d come over and plunk right between us, wiggling her body to spread us apart, and how we’d both laugh because we didn’t mind. It’s true. I didn’t mind. Seriously, I liked including her in our cuddle. I always wanted a little sister.
“Why are you even here?” she demands.
“I just want to be close to him.”
She wraps her arms around herself. Her hair is glistening in the light.
“And I wanted to see you,” I say.
She stares down at her bare feet with the chipped pink nail polish and then looks up at me, says, softly, “Why would you do that to him?”
“That other guy is a friend. I swear. He’s gay—he’s out, he likes guys, Chris knows this. I don’t know why he acted like that. He was bummed out.”
“He wasn’t just bummed out.”
“He didn’t do anything to himself. He would never.”
She won’t look at me.
“Someone has his phone, Raffa. They’ve been calling me.”
“I saw the news,” she says. “I saw what you told them.”
“Yeah?”
Her face flushes and her nostrils flare. “Chris told me he fell.”
“He didn’t fall, Raffa.”
“He wouldn’t lie to me.”
“I—He—” What can I say to that? Yes, he would lie. Yes, he did lie.
Raffa’s glaring at me again. “You didn’t even love him.” Didn’t? Sweet Raffa, with the beautiful tinkling laughter, your little bird, she’s given up.
“I do love him,” I say.
The screen door opens and your mom is standing there, illuminated by the light coming from the hall. “Raffa, honey, come on inside.”
Raffa turns away from me and marches past your mom. Your mom walks toward me in her brown slippers. “Did you tell her about those boys?”
My heart beats faster. “I’m sorry, I—She heard about it on the news.” Is your mom going to tell me to stay away from Raffa? It would kill me. Seriously.
She stops a few feet away, takes a long, slow breath in and out. “This isn’t easy for her,” she says.
“I know.”
“How you holding up?” she asks. I swear, your mom is the kindest person I’ve ever met.
“I’m okay.”
“I heard you were searching for Chris all day in the rain.”
I nod.
“Thank you,” she says.
What does she expect? “Yeah,” I fumble, “of course.”
“You must be tired.”
My lip quivers and my eyes fill up. Baby, I’m trying to keep it together. The last thing your mom needs is to try to make me feel better.
“Give yourself a break, Jessie. If he’s meant to come home,” she says, “he’ll come home. You try to get some sleep now, okay?”
“Okay.” I’m being dismissed, so I say good-bye and turn away from her, and Raffa, and the truck and the house, and you. And I walk the three blocks to my house pushing good old Ella. With each step, I think of Raffa’s words: You didn’t even love him. It’s a drumbeat moving to the rhythm of my feet. You didn’t even love him, you didn’t even love him, you didn’t even love him.
Maybe she’s right, maybe I don’t love you enough, maybe I don’t know how to love, maybe there’s some defect inside me that keeps me from loving like other people love.
I should have written you a love letter. It would have made you so happy.