Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts (29 page)

“I thought I did.” This is what happens when you lie. You stop making sense, and impossibilities pile on improbabilities. “Weird. Anyway, I figured I’d just check to see if you were home, but since you’re busy—hey, Cathy—I’ll just go back and tell him you can’t come right now. No worries.”

“But you said he’s really upset about something?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay, really. I’ll just deal with it.”

He turns to Cathy. “Would you be okay if I just run over and come back as soon as I can? I know it’s rude, but—”

“Oh god, of course you should go.” Man, she’s sweet. Her large bony face is radiant with generosity and a genuine desire to help out. “I’m also happy to come with you if you think I could help in any way.”

I say quickly, “I think—given how Dad is tonight—maybe it should just be family.” Then I remember Jacob isn’t actually family. “You know what I mean.”

“I completely understand,” says Cathy.

I flash her a forced smile. “But seriously, Jacob, you don’t have to—”

“Come on.” He grabs some keys from a little table near the door. As he shifts, I get a glimpse of the apartment. It’s small and dark, and the few bits of furniture in it are ratty looking. Then Jacob’s back in the doorway, blocking the view. “Let’s go.”

Oh god, what a
mess
.

I say good-bye to Cathy and apologize to her for interrupting.

“Are you kidding me? It’s so totally fine. Take your time, both of you. I’ve got a book in my bag. I’m happy to curl up and read. Sounds kind of nice actually.”

“Thanks.” Jacob smiles at her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Oh, and Keats?” she says. “Do you want to join us for dinner afterward?”

“I’ll probably stay with my dad,” I say faintly. “But thanks.”

“Well, there’s plenty of food if you change your mind.” She waves us out the door and then closes it behind us. His casa is her casa apparently.

We walk down the stairs in silence. Once we’re on the street, Jacob says, “We better drive separately. I’ll meet you over there,” and starts to head toward his car, which is parked in one of the two driveway spaces. I’d say that meant he was lucky except it probably means he’s stayed in these student apartments the longest of anyone there, which doesn’t seem particularly lucky at all. Just sad.

“Wait.” I can’t let him go all the way to my father’s. I wonder who’d be more confused once he got there, Jacob or Dad. “I need to tell you something first.”

“What is it?”

“Come here.” I don’t want to be where Cathy can look out of a window and see us, so I lead him around the corner.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

I turn and face him. “I lied,” I whisper.

“What?”

I’m so embarrassed I want to crawl under the nearest house foundation. “I lied. I didn’t come here because of my dad. As far as I know, he’s fine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I came to see you. To talk to you. But then Cathy was there, and you asked me if it was about my father, and I didn’t know what to say.”

He takes a step back and runs his fingers through his hair. “I am so confused. So your father wasn’t asking for me tonight?” I shake my head. “Why did we just go through all that then? Why didn’t you—” He stops. His eyes narrow. “What’s going on, Keats?”

 I wish it were dark out so he couldn’t see my face, but it’s May and the sun is taking forever to disappear completely. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“You lied about trying to call me first, didn’t you?”

I nod, my face turning hot with shame.

He crosses his arms. “Why’d you come over then?”

I wish he’d show some sign of softening toward me. It would make this so much easier. But his look is hard, his body language is hard, his expression is hard.

I swallow hard. “I wanted you to know that I broke up with Tom.”

He registers this with a slight raise of his eyebrows, but the rest of his expression doesn’t change. His face stays stony, his eyes cold, his voice flat. “I’m sorry. I know what a long relationship that was. It can’t have been easy.”

“No, not easy. But it was what I needed to do.”

“Then I’m happy for you.”

I don’t know what else to say. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be overwhelmed with joy at the news.

I thought he was waiting for me, hoping I’d come to him. I thought he wanted me and the only thing keeping us apart was my loyalty to Tom. I thought all his previous anger was simply frustrated desire.

Apparently I was wrong.

“I’ve moved back in with my mom,” I say because the silence is going on too long. “For now, anyway. I don’t know what I’ll do when the house gets sold.”

“Your father might like the company.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Another pause. He glances up the street. “I should go back up to Cathy, but I don’t know what to tell her.”

“You can tell her I lied if you want.”

“Thank you,” he says politely. “But she’ll want to know why. And I don’t have an answer for that.”

“You know why,” I say almost angrily. “You can pretend you don’t, but you do.”

He uncrosses his arms and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. Not entirely. I’m gathering it has something to do with your being bored or lonely and thinking I’d come running when you called. Something like that?”

“No.” Although he’s not actually wrong, is he? Except it’s more than that. “It’s more than that,” I say.

“Time for another round of torturing Jacob?” he suggests. His tone is lighthearted, but his expression isn’t. “The game that never grows old?”

I put my hand on his arm. “I’ve never meant to torture you. If I have, I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”

He looks at my hand on his arm, like it’s something he’s never seen before, something foreign and a little repellant. I remove it. He says slowly, “I’m not sure you’re capable of understanding this, Keats. But that night at your dad’s…What happened there mattered to me. A lot. But you made it instantly clear it didn’t matter to you.” He shakes his head. “No, it was even worse than that—you couldn’t look at me afterward. You couldn’t even
look
at me. Do you know what that felt like?” He stops for a moment, his jaw tightening. He’s fighting for control. He gets it. His voice is calm as he says, “And now you’re here because you’re feeling lonely? What’s that phrase again?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice
—”

“Yeah, I know the saying.” This is painful. He hates me. “It wasn’t deliberate. What I did. I was a mess. You know how upset I was, how guilty I felt—”

“It must have been very hard for you.” His voice drips with sarcasm. Whatever happened to good ol’ Jacob? He’s gone.

I killed him.

“I said I was sorry.” I catch my lip under my teeth to hold it steady—it’s trembling.

“I appreciate your apology. It’s a little late, and it doesn’t change anything, but I appreciate it.” He uses the same tone my father does when he talks to Tom: polite contempt. He glances at his watch. “I’m going to go back. I’ll think of something to say to Cathy. Maybe I’ll just tell her your dad called and told me not to bother coming over. What’s one more lie?” He starts to move away.

“Do you like her?” I ask in a small voice.

He whips around. “And that’s another thing,” he says harshly. “You fix me up with someone else. Knowing how I felt about you. You were so eager to get rid of me, in such a rush to make sure I wouldn’t bother you again, that you instantly threw someone else at me. Thanks for that, Keats. Did you think you hadn’t crushed me enough? Just making sure the job was complete?”

“That’s not fair. I fixed you two up before we…before all this. Remember? At my birthday party?”

“You gave her my e-mail just last week.”

“Because she asked me for it. I didn’t want to. I swear. I thought it was the right thing to do.” I hug my arms to my chest. My face feels like it’s on fire but the rest of me is freezing. “It hurt to think of you two going out. That was part of what made me realize that I had to leave Tom. I was jealous at the thought of you and Cathy being alone together. I knew that wasn’t right, that I shouldn’t be feeling that way about someone who wasn’t Tom.”

He steps closer. His voice lowers. “So it hurts to know I’m going back to spend the evening with her? Maybe even the night?”

“Yes,” I say. “A lot.”

“Good,” he says softly and walks away.

19.

S
omehow I make it to my car and get inside of it. I fold down over the steering wheel and think I’m going to cry, but I don’t. I just stay like that, frozen, feeling sick to my stomach. I ache all over. My teeth keep chattering. It’s like I have the flu but I know I’m not really sick.

I’m not sick. I’m an idiot.

Every memory makes me cringe. How I treated Tom, how I treated Jacob, how I’ve hurt them both, how I’m continuing to hurt them both.

No. Right now I’m only hurting Tom. Jacob’s fine.

But the truth is that even my remorse is selfish. I wouldn’t care who I had or hadn’t hurt if I were alone with Jacob in his apartment right now.

It’s only because I’m all by myself that I’m guilt ridden and sad and regretful.

I’m not just an idiot—I’m a selfish idiot.

Deep down, I’d assumed that because Jacob had wanted me so much before and for so long, he’d still want me, and I’d be making a simple substitution: Tom out, Jacob in. It hadn’t even occurred to me that maybe Jacob wasn’t sitting around waiting for me to change my mind, that maybe he’d gotten over me, that I’d
helped
him get over me by hurting him so deeply. Nothing like a little hatred to burn away affection.

But still…

I wonder.

What if I got out of the car now? What if I screwed up my courage and went back to Jacob’s place?

Cathy invited me to dinner once already. If I came to the door, she’d tell me to come in and join them, and in front of her, Jacob would have to say, “Yes, please stay,” even if he didn’t want me to.

He’d have to.

And if I had dinner with them . . .

I’m funnier than Cathy. I can make Jacob laugh so hard he can’t breathe—I’ve done it a million times. I’m prettier, too—I mean, I know it’s not nice even to think stuff like that, but I am. It’s just the truth. And Jacob and I have a past together. I could keep reminding him of that. I could remind him of all the times we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving together or rolled our eyes at something together or fled from my father’s temper together.

We’ve done a lot together.

I hurt him, and he’s mad at me…but the only reason I was able to hurt him so deeply was because he
liked
me so much. How hard would it be to get past all that hurt and get him to like me again?

I’m prettier and funnier and sexier than Cathy. If I force a contest, I’ll win. The only thing she has going for her is that she’s nicer than I am.

And that’s when I stop myself.

She is. Nicer than I am. Maybe not in any major global sense. I’m not killing puppies or anything. But if you just look at us from Jacob’s perspective…

There’s this girl who seduced him, knowing he had had a thing for her for a very long time, and who then instantly—almost angrily—rejected him. Not just rejected him—made it clear that sleeping with him was the biggest mistake of her life.

And then there’s this gentle, innocent girl from the Midwest who thinks he’s cute and smart and wants to get to know him better and who doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.

If he were my real brother, not my pretend one, which one would I be urging him to go after? The girl who’s already hurt him once or the one who’d never hurt him?

Even if I’m right, even if I could bully and provoke and tease him into choosing me over Cathy, the bigger question is
Should I?

And I know the answer to that one.

* * *

I hear a honk and jump in my seat. Someone’s trying to get out of the driveway that my car is blocking. Admittedly I’m only over by those couple of inches, but the guy is honking and glaring at me like I’ve bricked him into a dungeon for all eternity.

I wearily sit up and start the car and drive away from the curb.

Only…where do I go now?

My mother’s?

I picture my arrival there: It’s dark and the house is chilly because that house is always chilly, except in the middle of summer when it’s briefly sticky and hot. The only light that’s on is the one in Milton’s room, but his door is closed. I let myself in, maybe eat a cracker or two in the empty kitchen, maybe watch some TV by myself, then eventually find my way up the stairs to Hopkins’s room, where the bed is lumpy and the sheets are old and every object in it reproaches me for not being as brilliant as she is. My mom’s either lost in a book or still out on her date with some guy who actually likes her, who thinks she’s wonderful.

No one thinks I’m wonderful.

No, that’s not entirely true. I stop at a light, and as it switches to green, it’s like something also switches on in my head.

I could go back to
my
apartment—the one that I’ve lived in for the last four years. The one that’s warm and clean and bright. The one that belongs to a guy who thinks I’m the center of the universe, who’ll run to the door when he hears me come in, who’ll throw his arms around me and beg me never to leave again.

I picture that homecoming now: the lit-up warmth of the apartment, the way Tom would drag me into the living room and kiss me over and over again, and then just collapse with me on the sofa and hold me against his chest and tell me he’s never been so scared in his life, that I can’t ever do this to him again. We’d have sex, and it would be more exciting than it’s been in years because of the fear in his heart and the relief in mine.

We’d go out to dinner. I’d feel safe and relaxed, and the food would taste better than anything’s tasted in the last forty-eight hours. He’d constantly be petting me, rubbing my shoulders, my knee, my arm, checking to make sure I’m really there, that I’ve come back to him. And then we’d go back to our apartment with its big comfortable bed, and we’d watch TV all curled up together until it was time to sleep. And I would sleep soundly again, back in my own bed, with his familiar weight next to me.