Opposite of Always(51)

And, well—

Need I tell you how that ends?

“I want to know, Kate. Why him? Why not me?”

“Because Xander’s been there. He was the first guy who stuck around when things got hard. Is he an asshole sometimes? Absolutely! But he’s a known quantity. I know who he is. And I know if push comes to shove, he’ll be there for me.”

“I want to be there for you even when push isn’t shoving, Kate.”

“Stop being nice to me.”

“I’m miles beyond that.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I can never love you, Jack. I just can’t, and I never wanted to hur—”

But I’m already jumping off the bed. “Just stop,” I say. It’s too much. All of it. Everything.

I fling open the door, only narrowly avoid four people who all look like different versions of Kate, people I have to assume are her family.

“Excuse me,” I say, brushing past them.

The girl in the group smiles at me. “Jack,” she asks, saying my name like she’s said it before. Like it’s been said to her plenty of times.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Hi. I’m Kira. Kate’s sister.”

“Nice to meet you,” I manage to get out, tears welling up in places they don’t belong, namely my eyes. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

I don’t wait for her to ask me where or why.

I run down the hallway, back into the waiting room.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say to Franny and Jillian.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Jillian asks.

“Jack,” Franny calls after me.

But I’m already outside.

I’m already sucking cool night air.

I’m already wiping stupid tears from my stupid eyes and telling my stupid heart to pull it together. She’s not for us, I tell my stupid heart. Get over her already.

But I can tell it doesn’t believe me.





Life as We Know It


Naturally, thereafter, life sucks.

Everything is gray now. And not shiny chrome gray. Dull, monochromatic gray. I am the very image of the moping, love-angsted teenager. I wear the same jeans for several days as an outward symbol of my pain.

But no one bats an eye when you wear the same denim for a week.

So in a more obvious outward symbol of my pain I wear the same shirt.

And not just a flannel or solid-color shirt—those would be too easy to chalk up. Yes, you wore two red flannel shirts on back-to-back days, but maybe today’s flannel has a white hatch that’s slightly different from yesterday’s eggshell hatch? No, to proclaim your heartache you must go all in—which is why I’m wearing a shirt that is unmistakably unique.

A white T-shirt with a giant decal smack-dab in the middle.

A birthday present from Grandma Charlie two years ago—featuring a giant bottlenose dolphin, who’s smiling for no apparent reason, and who’s spouting an impressive amount of water from his blowhole, a spiraling tower of water atop which a grinning yellow rubber ducky floats.

You heard right. Creepy dolphin, blowhole, scary rubber ducky. All on the same shirt. Boo-yah!

Like I said, there’s no question whether I’m wearing the same shirt.

You know I am.

Boy does that get everyone’s attention.

And yes, in the way you’d expect. Molly Hendricks stands up in art class and says, “Jesus, Jack, please tell me you own like fifteen of the same shirt. Or that your parents are getting a divorce and you’re staying at your dad’s crappy apartment and he didn’t have quarters for the unit washing machine.”

“Wow, Molly, that was a very rude yet decently composed joke,” Ms. Haggerty, the art teacher, concedes. After class Ms. Haggerty pulls me aside.

“Jack, is everything okay at home?”

“Home is fine.” But my heart is another thing entirely.

Even the JV basketball team gets in on the fun. “Rubber ducky, you’re the one, you make my bath time lots of fun, rubber ducky, I’m awfully fond of you . . . rub a dub dub . . . ,” they croon while we stand in line for Mystery Meat Monday in the cafeteria.

At least the jokes are funny. I even laugh, especially at the Sesame Street serenade, although only for a second, because laughter goes against the broken heart melodrama that I am in the middle of suffering. My friends, on the other hand, fail to see the humor.

“Jack, you smell terrible, man,” Franny says on the drive home.

Jillian doesn’t pull her punches either. “If you show up outside in that shirt tomorrow, Jack, you’ll have to find another ride.”

But then she frowns and reaches across the car seat to pinch my cheek. There are times when Jillian is downright motherly; these are the times when I can see into her crystal ball and know that she will be an amazing environmental activist/doctor/Supreme Court judge, yes, but she will still find time to bake the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for her kids, and she will help them with their homework, even when it’s new math, and she’ll be front and center at their terrible, terrible choir concerts. And most importantly, when the entire world’s chorus is singing in perfect harmony about how much they suck, she will be there to always remind them of her love, of their immeasurable worth.