Felix
Since we have practice the next morning, I crash at Gabby’s instead of driving all the way out to Valencia. Will’s home, so my communication with Gabby is limited to her questioning looks when his back is turned, which I answer mostly with shrugs. I know she’s going to interrogate me at her first opportunity, and it’s not like I mind.
Gabby and Will have just gone to bed when Jenna calls. I curl up in the dark on Sarah’s mod sofa, under Gabby’s fuzzy throw. “Hey, beautiful,” I say.
“Hey,” she says, with a smile in her voice. “You know, you left a special someone here. I think she misses you already.”
I chuckle. I’d realized about halfway to Gabby’s that I’d left my cello behind when Ty and I fled for the hospital. I’d been seriously tempted to turn around right there and head back to Jenna’s to get it, but I know that would have been way more about seeing Jenna again than any need to play some late-night Rachmaninoff.
“Yeah, well, I miss her already, too,” I say, softly.
“I assured her I’d bring her with me to practice tomorrow and she could see you again then. She very reluctantly supposed she could live with that,” Jenna says, the smile still teasing in her voice.
I smile back. “Yeah, I reluctantly suppose I can, too,” I say. “So how’s Ty?”
“He’s fine. All the way home he couldn’t stop talking about what a good time he had.”
“I bet Alec loved that.”
Jenna groans. “There was that.”
Suddenly I remember Ty’s touching game. “Um, so when he was stuck in there, I was trying to explain to him how to move his hand up to grab the Cheetos. We were basically playing Simon Says, you know? Move your hand up to your waist. Now to your shoulder. Now to your face. Right?”
“Okay.” She doesn’t sound like she’s heard this before, which gives me hope I’ve gotten there first.
“So then Ty is like, ‘This is a fun game! I’m touching myself in all the places!’”
Jenna laughs. Also a good sign.
“And without even thinking about it, I’m like, ‘Don’t tell your mom we played that.’ And then I realize now he’s going to tell you we played that game and I said not to tell you—”
“Yeah,” Jenna says. “He’s not supposed to keep secrets from me. It’s a rule.”
“I figured,” I say. “I thought of that as soon as it came out of my mouth. Sorry.”
“I’m just sad Ty didn’t tell me this first.”
“Yeah, well. I’m sure it’s coming.”
Jenna is silent, and I wonder if she’s biting back the same joke I withheld last night.
“I think Ty wants to move into your cello case,” she says. “In typical Ty fashion, he seems to have learned nothing from this experience.”
I laugh. “They cut the latch off. It’s of no use to me. But I’d still be afraid he’d find a way to get himself locked in it again.” I have an idea. “Unless I could find some way to brace it open. Then he could squish in there to his heart’s content.”
“He would love that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Frankly, I have no more idea how to permanently brace open a cello case than how to sail around the world. I’m pretty sure one involves brackets and the other boats, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. “Though I hear he’d much rather have a popemobile.”
Jenna laughs. “Ah, yes. I really need to show him pictures of the actual popemobile, but I don’t want to crush his dreams.”
I don’t dare tell her about Superpope. I promised, and besides, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. “So the pope thing. Are you Catholic?”
“Ooooh,” Jenna says. “That’s right. We haven’t talked about politics or religion.”
“Well, I know you don’t like the news.”
“I don’t. But honestly, I’m not that political. Too much fighting and yelling. It stresses me out.”
“I used to be conservative,” I say. “I grew up in Brentwood.”
“Wow,” Jenna says. “Rich boy.”
“Ha. Yes. That was before my parents went bankrupt and got divorced. But I grew up near a lot of people who have millions, and don’t want the government moving around said millions. But then I moved to New York where people believe polar opposite things, and now I’ve landed somewhere in the middle.” I pause. “But you didn’t answer my question about being Catholic. I just wondered, what with the pope references and Ty’s school uniform—”
Jenna’s laugh cuts me off. “It’s not a school uniform. He’s not even in school right now, since it’s summer break. He just has this thing where whenever he leaves the house, he likes to, as he puts it, ‘look like a grown-up.’ Even though it’s not like any adult we know dresses that way. It’s so weird.”
I grin. Somehow I can totally see this about Ty. “And super cute.”
“Definitely that, too,” Jenna says. “Anyway, we’re not Catholic. You?”
“Atheist. Or at least, I was.”
“Really?” Jenna says. “Not anymore?”
I immediately regret bringing this up. The truth is, I was the staunchest atheist around until I started the program. The steps are all about putting your faith in God, giving up control over your own life and asking him to fix you. When I was in rehab the first time, I tried to get out of doing the work by saying I didn’t believe in God, and one of the therapists gave me the version designed for atheists. It was all about believing the actual steps have power over your life, and yielding control over to them.
By the time I was ready to do the work, I’d come around to thinking maybe I didn’t know everything about the way the universe worked, and I’d rather believe in God than believe that words some guy wrote down have magical powers to keep me sober.
“I guess I’m agnostic now,” I say. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I’d like to believe there’s such a thing as absolution and forgiveness.”
“I get that,” Jenna says quietly. “I grew up Mormon,”
“Really?” I say. “I had a Mormon friend in high school. He had a hard time even looking at girls.” At the time I teased him that he’d promised himself to Jesus, but I think the truth might have been that he was just shy.
“I don’t remember much about it. We stopped going and joined a Methodist church, and around the time I was in high school and started to rebel, my mom joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses and decided my soul would be saved by not celebrating Christmas or my birthday.”
“I take it that didn’t go over well.”
“Ha. No. But that didn’t last long, either,” she says. “As for me, I’m not sure exactly what I believe, but I definitely believe in God. I have to think Rachel still exists somewhere.”
My whole body tenses. I know what she means, but I don’t know how to explain without telling her everything. I need to tell her about the drugs. I know I do. But the idea of having to tell her about other things makes me want to put a needle in my arm.
Especially about Katy.
“I want that to be true,” I say.
“I think it is. It has to be.”
I try to shake off the dark memories. “These last few days have me thinking that, too. I’ve never believed in fate before. But then I met you, and well—here we are. So the universe can’t be random. There’s no way I’m that lucky, and I sure haven’t earned the karma.”
Jenna makes a soft humming noise that lets me know she likes this idea.
“If something like this can happen,” I say, “who knows what else is out there.”
Jenna is quiet for a moment. “What is it you want to be forgiven for?”
I close my eyes and draw the blanket up around my chin. There it is. A direct question. I can’t lie to her, but I can’t tell her the whole story, either. I don’t know why, but I know it in my bones. I want to believe it isn’t because I already know that’ll be the end.
“I knew a girl who overdosed,” I say. “I was there when it happened.”
“Oh, god, I’m so sorry.”
I’m not the one she should be sorry for. Katy is the one who’s dead.
“So, yeah,” I say. “I want to believe there’s an afterlife, even though I never did before.”
“That makes sense,” Jenna says. She pauses for a moment. “Were you in love with her?”
There’s the same hint of jealousy in her voice I must have had when I asked if she was in love with Alec. “No,” I say. “It wasn’t like that at all.” I know I should tell her the rest of the story, but the idea of the way she might react—with silence, or with anger—it’s too much. Maybe Cecily is right. Maybe I need this too much, maybe I’m putting my sobriety at risk by depending on her approval, and her affection and attention.
But I also can’t hang up. I can’t walk away. Jenna is too important to me. The stakes are too high.
And that’s when I’m sure what that third thing is. The thing I couldn’t bring myself to admit when I was telling Gabby about it after the hotel, even though it was already true then, and part of me knew it.
I’m in love with Jenna. I fell in love with her over sushi on our date-that-wasn’t-a-date, or maybe I was somehow already there before I even walked into that restaurant. Either way, the situation scares the hell out of me.
I’m in love with a woman I may not be able to be with—to even touch—for four years. I’m in love with a woman who doesn’t know the full truth about my past, and who might want nothing to do with me if she did.
I’m glad Jenna speaks next, because the full force of admitting this to myself robs me of any words of my own.
“I’ve thought that I’d like to give Ty the opportunity to be a part of a faith community,” Jenna says, “but I don’t know. It’s a lot of work, trying to find one that fits.”
I hold my breath, though I’m glad to be back on a slightly safer topic. “Here’s another embarrassing truth. I’ve never actually been to church.”
“Really? Never?”
“Nope.” I’ve now attended an alarming number of meetings held in churches, but never a church service itself. “My parents aren’t religious. They never took us, and I sure as hell wasn’t going by myself. But I wouldn’t mind trying it, now.”
Jenna sighs. “I guess we can put that on the list of things we can do in four years.”
I groan. “That is the worst.”
There’s a long pause, and then Jenna says quietly, “You talk about wanting to be forgiven—there’s more, you know.”
For a panicked moment, I think she’s calling me on leaving out the rest of the story, but she continues speaking. “About my past. I was scared to say it last time, worried it might be too much . . .”
“You can tell me anything.” I mean it.
“It wasn’t just random guys at parties. I had boyfriends, too. I dated the last one for about six months. I finally ended it with him after Rachel died.”
I’m guessing it’s not the fact she had a previous relationship back in her wilder days that she expects me to be upset about, so I wait for her to finish.
“He—he wasn’t a good guy,” she says.
The picture in my head shifts, and suddenly I think I see what she’s getting at. “He hurt you.”
“I let him.”
I dig my fingers into my hair and pull tight. “No,” I say. “God, if some guy hurt you, that isn’t your fault.”
“Not like that, exactly,” she says. “He was into . . . choking, you know? At first he just wanted me to do it to him, but then he wanted me to try it. I know some people are into that, but to me it was—I didn’t like it. It hurt and I was so afraid, but I said yes anyway. Over and over again. And the awful things he used to say to me, that he would call me while he was—” She cuts off, and my gut twists. “I used to go home with these bruises on my neck,” she continues, “and my dad would threaten to call the police, but Mom would talk him out of it, tell him that if he did, I wouldn’t come home again, and they were right. And I kept going back, even though I knew my parents were worried sick about me. Even though I had a son at home. I kept going back to this guy.”
I hold my breath. She’s so much braver than I am, and I wish I had the guts to tell her everything about my own past, but I’m not going to interrupt this, not going to make it about me now. I get the sense she’s testing me, seeing how I’ll react, seeing if she can trust me. “Jenna,” I say. “It doesn’t change how I feel about you. Not even a little.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “How can it not?”
“Because I know what it’s like to wish you could change the past.”
“What would you change?” she asks. “Would you want to stay at Juilliard?”
“No,” I say. “I’d drop out like a normal person, without getting mixed up with drugs. I’d go back home, and figure things out from there. Maybe I’d start auditioning, work my ass off and try to make it without doing school first. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t do drugs, and I wouldn’t hurt my family. I’d face my problems instead of self-destructing.”
“Wouldn’t that have been nice,” she says softly, and I know she’s not talking about me.
A question occurs to me that I’m pretty sure I know the answer to, but need to ask anyway. “Alec,” I say. “He . . . never hurt you like that, did he? Or made you do anything you were uncomfortable with?”
“No,” she says quickly. “Alec’s a good guy. He can be a jerk sometimes, but nothing like that. He always treated me really well, showed me I deserved way more than those other guys. It was my first actually functional relationship.” She lets out a little breath like a laugh. “You know, until it stopped functioning.”
I wonder if I should be jealous of Alec for being the one to show her a healthy relationship, but honestly, I’m not. I’m just glad he did.
“What’s it like now?” I ask. “Pretending with Alec?”
“It doesn’t bring the feelings back.”
I’m grateful as hell for that, but that wasn’t what I meant. “I mean, are you miserable? Is it still fun, because it’s kissing?”
She thinks about that. “I imagine it’s like being an actress. Your co-star is hot, but you don’t feel anything for them.”
“That makes sense.” I wish I could get the image of them kissing out of my head, but sadly, Google is full of animated gifs.
“It bothers you.”
“Yes,” I say. “But really because I’m not even allowed to hold your hand. I just want to be with you, and I can’t.”
“Mmm,” Jenna says. “And what would you do if you were here?”
My whole body sizzles, and it takes me a second to respond. “What would you want me to do?”
I can hear her shifting, sense the way her body is stretching out. “Everything,” she says.
My body catches fire. Last night we stayed on the phone until neither of us could put two words together. For the last hour or so, we’d barely been capable of more than murmurs, lost in fatigue and each other. We’d whispered each other’s names, and though neither of us had admitted it, from the cadence of her breathing I was pretty sure she was doing the same thing I was. “You want me to tell you about it?”
Her voice goes husky. “Yes, please. In detail.”
I settle in beneath the blanket. “Are we allowed to do this?”
Jenna hesitates. “It’s not technically against the rules. And with the grief Alec’s given me, I’m going with the strict interpretation.” A sly edge creeps into her voice. “Besides, if we’re not, what was last night?”
“Mmm,” I say. “You did that, too, huh?”
She draws a deep breath. “You want to hear the details?”
“God, do I.” I check to make sure Gabby’s door is closed.
Jenna whispers to me the details of her hands running up and down her body, and I wish more than anything in the world I was there, that it was mine instead. I remember that moment in the hotel, when we kissed and kissed, and I thought, this is the moment I want to disappear into and never emerge. My body is reacting now in the same way it did then, and any doubts I had about the Suboxone keeping me from getting it up are long gone. Hell, all we’re doing is talking, and I don’t remember feeling anything close to this kind of elation ever before in my life. I’ve felt stupid, wanting more out of sex, wanting to feel this cataclysmic emotional shift when I crawl into bed with a woman. We’re not even touching, now—not each other, anyway—and we haven’t done anything more in real life than kiss, but I feel it with her, this connection I’ve always wanted, always needed, and felt incompetent to ever find.
And now, even if I can’t be there with her, I know. Even after such a short time, I love her, and it’s real.