Kiss Her Once for Me (50)

“You… you left it here,” Jack starts, but I’m already lifting the scarf from the drawer. It’s heavier than it should be, and something falls out of the folds of the scarf Meredith knitted for me. It’s a copy of Fun Home, and it lands on the floor with an ominous thunk.

Jack Kim-Prescott keeps the copy of Fun Home she bought on Christmas Eve wrapped up in my scarf. “Why do you have this?” I ask again, because I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.

Jack says nothing, and I pick the book up off the floor. I hold Fun Home between my hands. The spine is still crisp, and it looks unread, but there is a small bookmark sticking out from the middle. I open to the page, and there, holding a spot, is the drawing I did of Jack’s hand in Powell’s coffee shop.

“Elle—”

“Why do you have a drawer of my things?”

“Well, technically, only the scarf is yours,” she says casually, “because I bought the book, and you gave me the drawing.”

“Semantics.” I shake the book in her direction, trying to understand. “Why did you keep these things?”

“Why wouldn’t I keep them?” Jack asks.

Because it didn’t mean anything. Because what we had that day hadn’t meant a damn thing to her, so why does she have a drawer of mementos in the same way I have a file folder of art? I look up, and Jack has set the tote back down. She’s leaning against the table with that same indifferent slouch from our first meeting in Powell’s, but now, the indifference feels more rehearsed than genuine. She looks like someone who is trying very hard to look like she doesn’t care.

“Can we not do this?” Jack asks, flicking her chin to get her hair out of her face. She needs a bobby pin. Or someone who is always next to her, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Not do what?”

Jack shrugs one shoulder. Had her indifference always been this poorly playacted, and I just hadn’t been able to see past her carefully crafted coolness? “It’s embarrassing, Elle,” Jack spits out.

“I don’t get it. Embarrassing how?”

Jack straightens. “Look, you ghosted while I was in the shower, okay? And it’s fine. It’s whatever. I thought our day together meant something else, but it hadn’t, and that’s whatever.”

I shake my head. No. No, that’s not what happened….

“It was a one-night stand, and that’s chill,” she says, but there’s nothing “chill” about her now, about the way she’s pushing out her words in a frantic rush. Like it meant something then and it means something now and she’s trying so hard to protect herself.

But that’s not right. Because I was the one who thought it meant something. I was the one who had my heart broken. Not Jack.

“And now you’re engaged to my brother, of all people,” Jack is rambling, “and there is no point rehashing the past or what happened or why you left. So, yeah. It’s embarrassing that I kept your stupid scarf.”

The stupid scarf in question is draped over my right arm, and I set down Fun Home so I can take the scarf in both hands. I’d been in such a hurry to leave that morning, crying and grabbing my things from around the Airstream, that I’d forgotten the scarf. I’d taken it off before we slept together, set it down on the kitchen counter next to the flour. Now the scarf smells like her.

“That isn’t how it happened,” I finally say. I can’t look up at Jack as my fingers wind deeper into the yarn. “That… that isn’t what happened that morning. I—I didn’t ghost you. I left because…”

“Because why?” Jack asks when I trail off. She takes a step forward, and in the crampedness of the Airstream, one step brings her so close to me, I can smell the whisky eggnog, the past slamming into the present, and it’s all too much. “Why did you leave that morning? What did I do wrong?”

Jack’s voice cracks over the question, and there’s no shield of indifference to keep her safe. There’s nothing to keep me safe, either. Jack cares, but that’s not what happened between us. That’s not the story I’ve been telling myself for the past year. That isn’t the version of events I immortalized in my webcomic.

“Never mind,” Jack says suddenly, putting space between us again. “We shouldn’t… you’re engaged to my brother, and I can’t—”

Jack grabs the tote of gingerbread house supplies, and before I can open my mouth to speak, she’s back outside in the snow. I’m left behind in the Airstream, in this perfectly preserved time capsule of one of the worst days of my life, trying to put all the pieces together.

There’s a scarf in my hands and a drawer of my things and Jack cares, and none of that aligns with the version of events from that morning. I’ve relived that morning a hundred times. I remember every detail—how Jack and I fell apart as quickly as we came together. And for once, the failure had nothing to do with me.





A Webcomic

By Oliverartssometimes

Episode 10: The Missus

(Christmas Day, 10:02 a.m.) Uploaded: February 25, 2022

“Honesty game: how long have you been watching me sleep?”

She stretches her arms up over her head in a massive morning yawn.

“Not long,” I say.