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Jordan
The wind whips around me, and I hunch forward on the bus stop bench. I try to contain all the thoughts swirling through my mind, all the feelings that are choking them out. Nothing helps. Nothing stops them, and I feel defeated and broken. I can’t close my eyes because I see her face, her smoothness, her freckles like webs of stars across her cheeks. I see her weakness now. What I thought was a confidence thing and lack of experience has been completely turned upside down. It’s not that she’s weak, it’s that she’s strong, and I see the toll it takes on her through those bars that lock her eyes.
A sense of shame tears through me, and I run my hand through my hair, in an attempt to get it out of my head. My phone rings, and I take it out of my pocket, setting it next to me on the bench. It’s Hector, and I don’t want to talk to anyone.
He calls three times before I start to think that something is wrong.
“Dude, I don’t really want to talk right now,” I say, skipping the pleasantries of a hello. His breath is thick and heavy in the phone, and it suffocates me.
“Where are you?”
“At the bus stop a couple blocks from my place. Is something wrong?” I ask, thinking of Evan, but Hector has already hung up. I stare at my phone in one hand and grip the pen hanging around my neck in the other. The urge to get up and run jabs me in the spine, but I fight it. The need to know if Evan is okay keeps me still. Each second that passes I feel the world close in around me, the shadows moving closer, swallowing me in darkness. My heart speeds up, and my gut turns in on itself. I have no idea why I feel this way until Hector’s thick frame appears around the corner, the streetlight casting deep, gray anger across his features.
I stand up, feeling like I may need to defend myself. He shoves me backward, and I stumble.
“What the hell, man?” I stop the stumble, but the world still feels like it’s shrinking. Hector slams a piece of paper into my chest, and the shrinking world suddenly explodes outward, making me dizzy. I already know what it is.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it,” Hector says, stepping right up to me. “Accidentally.”
His gaze challenges me, and it drags me through my memories to when we were kids. Hector swings first and asks questions later. He’s fierce and loyal and was a great asset to someone like me in middle school—someone weak and emotional, who saves cats and dates bitches, and writes instead of fights his way out of problems.
“Accidentally?” I’m not sure what else to say. I know he wants me to challenge him.
“A scholarship, Jordan?” He rips the paper away from me and holds it in my face as if I’ve never read it before. “A goddamn scholarship. Were you ever going to tell us?”
His jaw juts out, and his chest puffs, and I do the same thing.
Defend yourself, Jordan, I think but don’t move. I can’t bring myself to, like I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I did the interview but chickened out and didn’t actually enroll.
“Right.” Hector says with condescension. “Fine. Keep hiding. Keep ignoring the people who love you. Keep running away from what’s good for you and going back to her.”
“Annie has nothing to do with this,” I say and regret it immediately. Hector crumples the paper and drops it at my feet. He tosses his hands out to the side.
“Of course you defend her.”
“I’m not defending her. I didn’t even tell her.” I feel a small ball of anger gaining heat deep in my chest. I don’t want to talk about Annie. I want to put Annie in the drawer with London and forget about her.
“But she’s the reason you didn’t go. She’s the reason you told me you didn’t get in. Admit it.” He jabs his finger into my chest, but I don’t say anything. “This isn’t even about London, man. Not really. It’s about your addiction to that toxic girl, and you don’t even see that she’s destroying you. Whether you’re with her or not, she’s killing you.”
My head falls, and I memorize the crack the sidewalk as the sound of a bus whooshes past us, flooding my ears with welcomed distraction.
“You want to know why I really sent your work to Holloway?” Hector’s voice is softer now but still tight with anger. “I think you’re brilliant, man. I’m wicked jealous of your skill with the pen, but that’s not why I sent it. That’s not why I went behind your back. I wanted you to see that you had a future without Annie. That the world is so much bigger than her. That in a few months you’re graduating and you can leave here. I wanted you to go to London, to get away from her. We all thought if we got you away from her for even a few months, you’d see her for what she is, what she’s doing to you.”
My head snaps up, and for the first time since Dad went to jail I feel like I could cry. The expression on Hector’s face is twisted with fear and anger and pity and so many other things that I have to turn away. I may be emotional for a guy, but I still can’t handle this kind of direct face to face. I stretch my hands up and grip behind my head. I catch sight of the stars and think of Evan. I think of how big the world is. I hear her smooth beautiful voice telling me stories of galaxies far away, and I get it.
“We are the ones who love you, man.” Hector doesn’t make eye contact with me. “It pisses me off that you deny it. That you don’t even care.”
My phone rings in my pocket, and I use it to distract myself from telling Hector what I know I should tell him. That he’s right. That I get it. That I love him, too. That I know he’s trying to help.
My heart contracts in my chest, and Hector’s jaw sets again, and he shrugs.
“I’m tired of it, man. You do what you want. Answer it. But remember everything that’s happened so far tonight. Remember there are actual cool girls out there. Smart, funny ones who are truly worth the effort..." He gestures toward my phone, and I’ve never felt more confused.
“Annie, I seriously am not even—”
A loud sob cuts through the phone, and my stomach doesn’t drop, it disappears altogether. My foot gains a mind of its own and all my frustration about Annie, about Hector—about Evan—goes into kicking the bus stop bench. I pull the phone away from my ear and crush it to my chest. Over and over I kick the bench and curse the worst words I know. Hector seems to get my silence now. All over his face the anger begins to dissipate, but he doesn't leave. I wish he would leave. Hector's eyes and Annie's sobs are not helping me, only further clouding my mind, and my emotions can't tell what they are crashing into.
When I’m finally calm enough to deal with even a fraction of what’s going on in my head, I put the phone back to my ear.
“What?” I say as steady as I can, even though every part of me, inside and out, shakes vehemently.
“Jordie, don’t be like that,” Annie says through her choking sobs.
“Be like what?” I sit hard on the bus bench. I shoot a glare at Hector, hoping it conveys my message to get lost.
“I need to talk to you,” Annie says and stops my protest before it starts. “Where are you? It’s important.”
Everything I feel and everything I am leaks out of my body until I’m left with nothing. The brick I colored black at The Aftershock makes me think I might be psychic or some shit. Everything made of nothing—that’s how I feel.
“Whatever, Annie. I’m a couple blocks from home; meet me there.” I hit end before she can say anything and hang my head between my knees, sucking in air that does nothing to calm me.
"Jordie..." Hector's voice is softer now, but he's still pissed at me. I hold up my hand but don't lift my head.
"Don't, dude. Just... Don't. You've done enough." I get up as if I were an old, decrepit man and walk past Hector without making eye contact.
I scan my phone, and through the tangled mess in my mind, I am distinctly disappointed that Evan didn’t text me. I can't believe after all of this, the only thing I can slow my mind enough to focus on is Evan. She called after me when I walked away from her, but that was it.
That was it.
I don’t want this to be it. This isn’t how I want to remember her.
Especially if she...
I stop so fast on the street my shoes squeak.
Dies.
My fingers are texting Natalie before my brain catches up, and then I stand there. Staring. The word tumbles down the tunnel from my mind, and my lungs claw in a breath. My teeth and tongue are ready to shape the air into a sound with the vibration of vocal cords.
But I can’t do it.
I can’t say it, only think it. I don’t even know if I could write it.
The dinging sound of my cell phone jolts through me even though I’m looking at the screen. I swipe my phone with my thumb.
Natalie: At ur place
I shove my phone in my pocket and rub my hands over my face roughly before another thing hits me.
Annie is meeting me at my place. Evan is already there.
Shit.
2:43 AM
Hector doesn’t follow me as I tear through the thick night air. I'm completely out of breath by the time I shove my key into the tarnished lock on the front door of my apartment building. Paint crumbles beneath my fingers as I push it open, but the chill that runs the length of me is proof I'm too late.
Annie appears around the corner, and my hand falls from the keys. The only sound is my heavy breath and her clacking high heels against the pavement like the countdown to my self-destruction. Her straightened hair hangs stiffly around her shoulders, and the leather coat I got her for her seventeenth birthday still fits her perfectly. Her eyes are swollen and bare of makeup, and I hate that it digs at my gut.
"Where's your boy toy? Waiting around the corner?" I can't help the venom that infects each word as it leaves my tongue. Annie stops walking. Her arms wrap around her stomach like they always do when she’s protecting herself. She tries to wrap herself up and fold up into space to avoid talking to me, but I was always trying to get her to talk. It was my mission. My goal was to open her up. Even now I’m not sure if I ever actually got through to her.
"He's gone." She steps up to me under the light, and I fight to not move hair from her face. I win, and the strand stays stuck to her tear streaked cheek.
"Oh." I feel the confidence leave with the air from my lungs.
"I think I made—"
I raise my hand to stop her. "Wow, Annabeth. This has to be a record for you."
The tears cling to her lashes again, and she blinks up to stop them. I cross the sidewalk to lean against Lane’s SUV parked on the street. I place my hands on the hood and crush my eyes shut. Nothing I do helps the tension that tightens around every muscle. I hear her heels clap like thunder in my mind, and I shake my head. Short bursts of air puff from my nose, and she places her hand on my back.
"Jordan, you have to understand that I love you," she says, and I hear it. I hear the emptiness in that word that Evan hates so much.
"No, I don’t understand. A few hours ago you didn't love me." I refuse to look at her. My arm shakes, and I have to shove off the car, turning my back to her. I speak to the sky as if my voice will reverberate off the stars, making me sound stronger than I feel. “A few hours ago, he understood you. A few hours ago, I didn’t know what love was. A few hours ago I didn’t know how to make you happy. A few hours ago you left, Annie. A few months ago you left. A few years ago you left. Four years this shit has been going on. Four years of you saying you love me and then leaving. How I’m supposed to understand that?”
Annie growls low, and she grabs me around the waist. I pry her arms from me and back away, turning to face her.
"You make me crazy sometimes. I say things I don't mean." She steps toward me, and I move into the street needing distance.
“And sleep with guys you don't mean to?”
A scowl knits her brow, and she follows me, grabbing my sweater.
"That's not fair, Jordie. Tanner is the only other person I've slept with."
I swat her hands off me. I can’t get rid of her wherever I go. "Well, when you put it that way..."
There’s a quick flash of fear that passes across Annie's features before the anger settles in. She lunges at me, slapping me across the cheek. I step around her without a sound. I don’t deserve that after all she’s put me through.
“Jordan,” she gasps, gripping my wrist and spinning me to face her again. Tears flow down her face. I’m hit with multiple images in rapid succession. The same sadness on her face, as if she’s practiced in the art of manipulation. My stomach lurches as if I’ll throw up. I’ve never seen it before now. Time after time, she says my name like that. Like her world is crumbling, and I’m the last piece of solid ground. The desperation in her voice rings through my mind, bringing with it startling clarity. The word is said with the same intensity that my feelings are for her.
Desperation.
I see her crushing my heart with no regard then dragging me back in, making me believe that I was in the wrong. That if I would have fought a little harder, she wouldn’t have left in the first place.
“No, Annie,” I say, but I feel the strength being sucked from my words. “This is killing me.” I cover my face, and she grabs my wrists.
“I love you. I love you and I need you and tonight I thought I’d lost—” She stops mid-sentence and her façade falls away, showing only a glimpse of the cold and ugly truth. My hands instantly go into the air, and I swear long and loud, suddenly needing to kick something again.
“You thought you lost me?” My voice carries down the street and echoes off the brick and steel and glass that make up the city. “Are you insane?”
“I... I meant... when I saw... when I heard that...” I’ve never seen Annie like this. I’ve never seen her this scared, this exposed, and I feel like the girl standing in front of me is a stranger. I feel nothing for this girl. Whatever it is that stitched us together pulls and rips as I slowly detach myself from her.
“When you saw me with Evan...” People always talk about these moments that happen over time but all at once. A crashing into reality. A split second when vision clears and they can see the truth of their lives in blinding focus. Until now I never truly knew what that meant.
Hearing Annie stutter out her excuses is a cathartic experience, with each bullshit word purging her poison from my soul and allowing me to see us the way the world sees us. The way Hector sees us. Toxic.
“Stop, Annie.” I hold my hand out. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Just tell me the truth. This is because of Evan, isn’t it?”
Her mouth falls open, and no answer is all the answer I’ll ever need. I spin and take my first step toward freedom.
Parting ways with Annie is always hard, but that's mostly because it’s usually her walking away.
"Jordan!" she yells after me, and it’s like dragging myself through a field of barbed wire to keep moving forward. I get about three steps toward Lane’s car, toward my home before she catches me.
She grips my wrist and spins me around. Her lips are on mine before I can do anything. Her hands grab around my neck and her kiss is frantic. There's panic behind it, as if she knows she's losing me, losing me for real. The coldness that spreads through my body—my lack of reaction—as I feel her lips on mine is final piece I need to really do this.
I'm giving up.
I'm letting go.
I feel it in the emptiness of her kiss. The emptiness of her embrace. The emptiness of her love.
She ends the kiss and glances behind me for only a second before she smiles at me like we're back to normal. Like we're back to us. Like she doesn’t feel the rigidness of my body against her.
A frown pulls low over my eyes, and I turn to follow her gaze.
Up on the fifth floor I see a dim light coming from my living room window, but more importantly, I see the green of her sweater.
Anger hooks me as it drags me down into its thorny grip. More shocking is that the hatred that rips through me disappears as fast as it came. In its place is emptiness. I feel nothing.
In this moment I can't remember why I love her. I can't remember why I ever loved her.
Numbness spreads through my limbs.
Slowly I turn and walk back to the door, unlocking it, closing Annie outside. Closing her outside of myself. Pushing her emptiness from my soul. My forehead hits the door as my exhausted body slumps forward. My phone beeps, and I read the message without removing my forehead from the wood.
Natalie: Evan wants to go back to the hotel. Are you showing up or not, Jordan?
The twisting, turning staircase that I've walked up a million times stands before me, but tonight it seems like it goes straight up into the sky. With a deep breath stored in my lungs, I take the stairs two at a time.