Opposite of Always(13)

And I don’t know what to say to this, because Jillian knows that that’s not true. She knows this more than anyone. She knows because I’ve told her, because she’s had a front-row seat to Jack’s Heartbreak for the last three years. Heck, she’s had a backstage pass, too. How many times have I confessed to her how lonely I’ve felt—and now she’s pretending that I’m Casanova in disguise. What gives? Sure, I’ve had a couple of girlfriends, but nothing that lasted. I was too busy wanting someone who I couldn’t have. Who never wanted me back.

“It’s like you don’t realize how great you are, Jack. Because you are. You’re smart and funny and corny, but in a non-annoying, mostly endearing way.”

“‘Endearing’? That sounds like a great-grandmother compliment. Gee, Jack, you’re so mostly endearing.”

“I’m being serious here. Can’t you ever just be serious for one goddamn minute?”

“Whoa,” I say. I throw up my hands in surrender. “What’s happening right now?”

She reaches up to adjust her rearview mirror. “Nothing,” Jillian says. “Nothing at all.”

“Is this about Kate?”

She scoffs. “Do you even know her last name?”

She turns up the radio. I almost turn it back down, but I stop myself, because I’m not sure why she’s upset, how the conversation turned so quickly. One moment we’re planning our collegiate lives together, and the next she can’t even look at me. And for a split second I let my mind drift there— But I sweep the thought aside, because if a planet where Jillian likes Jack like that exists, humans have yet to set foot on it.

I lean into my seat, try to lose myself in the music, in the road streaming by. Jillian’s foot is heavier than usual, and we make great time.

I retrieve my bag from the back seat. “See you in the morning,” I say.

“Right,” she says. She already has the car in reverse before I can shut the door. “Back to our fabulous high school lives.”

“Text me and let me know you made it home safely.”

She nods and backs out of the driveway.

I barely have my key in the door before my parents yank me into the house and blister me with questions. When I’ve finally satisfied them, and munched on Mom’s dinner, I settle into my bed and unlock my phone. There’s a message from Franny—Welcome back, man—but no one else.

Thanks, bro, I reply. Good to be back.

A part of me feels bad for Franny, maybe even guilty, and I don’t entirely understand those feelings because I haven’t done anything wrong. Not exactly, anyway. Maybe I had been contemplating it. You know, the whole confess my undying love to Jillian thing. But I hadn’t followed through. And lack of bad-idea-follow-through counts for something, right?

I open my text string with Jillian and start typing.

ME: Hey, you made it home okay, J??

A second later I see those three dots like she’s typing me a message back, but in the end, nothing. She never replies.

And who knows—maybe her silence says everything.





Overthinking Overthinking


I spend the next three days waiting for a text, an email, a call from Kate, anything. I refresh my email (just junk), send a few test texts to make sure my phone is working (it is), check the ancient house phone caller ID even though there’s no way Kate has our house number (I don’t even know it), but nothing. Whoever said silence is deafening must’ve been waiting for Kate to contact him, too.

And the extra layer of icing spread thick atop my Loser City cake?

Jillian’s award-winning, one-woman I’m super annoyed with Jack show is still playing in theaters everywhere. And there appears to be no end in sight.

I turn to Franny for insight. But he’s no help. “She’s been strange ever since you guys got back. Did something happen up there?”

The worst part is Jillian is everywhere I turn. We have four classes together plus study hall. She gives Franny and me a ride to and from school. Which means I get to fully absorb the depths of her silent treatment. It’s easily the loudest nonaudible sound I’ve ever heard.

I beg her to talk to me. But not a peep.

When she pulls curbside at my house, I thank her over and over again for the ride, and I make sure to stuff a healthy wad of gas money in her ashtray, only to later find those same crumpled bills stuffed in the front zippered pocket of my backpack.

Most of my texts to her go unanswered. And the ones that don’t are measly monosyllabic replies. The usual stop texting me, you asshole suspects: Yes.

IDK.

Maybe.

Nope.

Finally, I show up to her house with her favorite triple chocolate chunk cookies and our mutual guilty pleasure flick, Adventures in Babysitting.

Jillian opens the door just wide enough to poke her head out. She looks anything but happy to see me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to see you,” I say. When she doesn’t budge, I hold up the cookies. “I come in peace.”

“It’s not a good time, man,” she says, moving to close the door.

“Jack, is that you?” a voice from within the house says. “Jillian, let Jack inside.”

“Mom,” Jillian protests.

The door swings open, and there’s nothing but darkness inside the house, until Ms. Anderson steps into the frame, wearing a teal robe, her dark hair pulled up, the flicker of a burning candle in her hand. “I don’t think Jack’s afraid of the dark, are you, Jack?”