Page 148 of Jesse's Girl

I must lie there in a devastated trance for some time because, eventually, I let myself close my eyes.

I should apologize.

The thought dances lightly—too lightly—through my mind.

I should talk to him before he leaves. Tell him I love his stupid face.

But my limbs feel leaden and my phone’s on silent somewhere in the carnage of my discarded belongings. The idea of swimming my way back to the land of the living escapes my clumsy mental clutches.

I already miss him.

I imagine his arm around my waist—the warm, familiar weight of it—before the hazy molasses I’m drowning in finally delivers the knockout punch and I drift to sleep.

33

JESSE

It’s my last night here and everything’s fucked. I’d known it was gonna hurt. Of course it was gonna hurt. But, like all pain, you can’t really grasp it—can’t feel it—until it’s happening and you realize how wildly unprepared you were.

The cab pulls up to our apartment—no, Ada’s apartment now—and I exhale, unclipping my seatbelt and pushing out into the darkness. The door feels like it weighs hundreds of pounds. When I straighten, Marcus has climbed out on the other side of the car. He leans in the open window, talking quietly to Renee, who’s still in the back seat.

“See you at home, okay?” is all I catch.

When I’d tried to give him Ada’s key, he’d refused to take it, saying I had to give it back to her myself. I’d had no fight left in me to argue.

The cab pulls away and he walks toward me, slinging an arm over my shoulder and pulling me toward the backyard. “Come on.”

I don’t even question him staying behind; I’ve been a wreck since Ada locked herself in that bathroom and I haven’t exactly been able to hide it. Numb and exhausted, I shuffle along beside him. I have to head to the airport in a few hours and I’m a heartbroken, useless shell of a person.

Fuck. Why did I think going to this wedding the night before my flight was a good idea?

My chest tightens at the memory of Ada shoving me away and telling me not to say goodbye.

Marcus pulls out what he affectionately refers to as the tetanus chairs and gestures for me to sit across from him.

I slump down with enough force that something in the chair pops, but I’m too tired to care whether it’ll give out. If it collapses, it’ll be the least painful thing to happen to me in the last few hours. I lean forward and rest my head in my hands, letting out a muffled groan.

A few beats pass before Marcus speaks. “So, is this for real, or what?”

I lift my head just enough to meet his eyes in the darkness. “What?”

“You and Ada. Is it the real deal?”

There’s a twisting sensation behind my sternum. Long seconds tick past as I look at my best friend with a swirling mixture of pain and regret. He’d warned me from the jump that this was a bad idea. I slowly nod.

“You love her?”

I drop my head back into my hands and drag them over my face. “Yesh,” I groan against my palms, then suck in a quick breath and sit back in the chair, trying to wake myself up. “I do. I love her.” Saying it out loud almost hurts. “And I didn’t even have the balls to tell her.”

He inhales slowly and nods, peering around the yard, then slouches back in his seat. “So, on a scale from one to bag of trash, how bad are you feeling right now?”

I exhale. “Well, it feels like there’s a small car sitting on my chest, knowing I have to leave in…”—I check my phone, then pinch the bridge of my nose—“fuck… just under three-and-a-half hours.”.

“Shit, man.”

“And she doesn’t even wanna see me again before I—” I cut myself off, the knot in my throat making it difficult to speak. I run a hand over my jaw. “I fucked this all up.”

“Maybe. But Ada talks a big game. You know that as much as I do.”