“Shock. And a little nausea.”
“Of course,” he said, his tone understanding. “You didn’t expect to see him right then. What did you feel when the shock wore off?”
“I’m not sure it has yet,” I said.
“Do you feel happy that you saw him?”
“No . . .”
“Do you feel sad?”
“That’s not it, exactly,” I said, frustrated with myself.
“Do you maybe feel confused because when you saw him, you felt neither happy nor sad? That you felt nothing at all?”
I let that sink in. “Yes, that’s more what it is. After I got over the surprise, it was kind of . . . I mean, I was embarrassed but not . . .” I trailed off, clueless about how to explain my state of mind.
“Hurt? You weren’t hurt?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t it. It’s like you said. I felt nothing. Not mad or anything. Maybe conspicuous, but that’s it.”
“Ah.” He fell silent, eating his sandwich and letting me think. After a while, he asked, “Was this the kind of nothing that feels like being numb?”
I poked around inside and tugged at my unraveling confusion. “No, not numbness,” I pronounced. “It’s just . . . nothing.”
The realization stunned me. It was so simple and so obvious. My inevitable confrontation with Jason in my imagination had always been fraught with emotion; in my other favorite version, I would stand there triumphant while he groveled and confessed his idiocy. I would say something cutting like, “Too bad I outgrew you years ago,” and walk away, leaving him crushed in my wake.
In reality, I hadn’t felt triumph or humiliation or anger. Or anything. It wasn’t numbness. It was indifference. I remember reading once that indifference, not hate, was the true opposite of love. Somewhere along the way, any real emotion for Jason had sort of . . . faded. And with that realization, a couple of things snapped into perfect focus.
I poked around inside my brain again, testing my new theory.
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Dang.
Chapter 38
SEVEN HOURS LATER I sat squished between my mom and Sandy on the couch, fighting to keep the blanket we shared from slipping over my head again. My dad reclined in his favorite armchair with a tattered copy of Don Quixote in his hands. We pursued the less refined entertainment of watching a Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie. Tonight’s special starred Denise Richards as a terminally ill mother whose house burns down, car blows up, and kids get kidnapped, and when it can’t get any worse, she attracts a psycho stalker. But a handsome doctor, played by Lorenzo Llamas, discovers a cure for her illness, rescues her kids, fights the stalker, and proposes, and everyone goes to live in his McMansion with a convenient extra Mercedes in the driveway to replace her exploded car.
At least, I assumed it ended that way. I only got as far as the doctor showing up before I caught myself in a yawn. Guessing the ending, I slid off the sofa.
“Are you going to bed already?” Sandy asked. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”
“I got almost no sleep last night, and I want to wake up super early tomorrow.”
Her face was suddenly guarded. “You do? Why?”
“I want to be at the beach.”
“Oh.” She thought that over. “Is it pretty close?”
“Kinda, I guess. It’s about five miles.”
“Are you going to drive?” she asked.
“What’s with the twenty questions? Yes, I’m going to drive.”
“I wanted to borrow your car.”
Even my dad put Don Quixote down to stare at her this time.
“At six in the morning?” I asked.
“Um, yes. There’s a yoga place I looked up online. They do daybreak yoga, and I thought I’d try it, that’s all.” She flushed.
“Oh. Well, I’m not sure how long I’m going to be at the beach, so why don’t you drop me off, and I’ll call you when I’m done,” I offered.
“Sure.” She sank back into the couch and turned her attention to Denise Richards and her poorly done pancake makeup intended to mimic grave illness. Lorenzo Llamas in a doctor’s coat soon snagged my mom’s attention.
I headed upstairs and changed into sweats with my high school’s logo across the chest and down the leg. I’d found them sitting in the bottom drawer of my old dresser, overlooked in my move to BYU and grad school. My mom had stuck a sachet in there, and the sweatshirt smelled vaguely of lilacs. Taking a few minutes to give credit where credit was due for today’s realizations, I said a prayer of thanks and set the alarm on my cell phone before tumbling into bed, exhausted.
It went off about five minutes later, or it seemed that way when I cracked my eye open to check the display. But it said 5:50 a.m., which meant I had gotten a full night’s sleep. Stifling a groan, I rolled out of bed and dragged my feet down the hall to knock on Sandy’s door. I had barely lifted my hand when she opened it, already dressed in turquoise yoga pants and a crisp white hoodie.
“I hate you,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I can wait while you get dressed.”
I looked down at my San Luis Obispo High sweats. “I’m dressed.”
“Right. You look . . . warm,” she said. “But I have a cute sweater you can borrow instead if you want.”
I glared at her.
She sighed. “Okay, no sweater. Let’s go.”
When we slid into my car, I took the passenger’s seat. I figured she’d remember the route better if she drove it herself, so I gave her the directions to the beach. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait in the car until you’re done with . . . whatever?” she asked, eyeing the gray dawn as we pulled into the parking lot.
“Yep. Only beachcombers come out this time of year in the morning, and they’re harmless,” I said. “Go do your yoga.”
She looked relieved and didn’t argue when I shut the door and headed for the trail winding down to the tide line. I didn’t look back when I heard her pull away.
At the water’s edge, I found a spot out of the reach of the receding tide and sat down. I wished I had remembered to bring a blanket for the chilly sand, but again, early morning? Not my thing. Reaching into the pouch on the front of my sweatshirt, I pulled out the rock I had lugged all the way from my fireplace mantel in Seattle. I rubbed my finger over the marker on the front, feeling the heft of its solid weight in the cup of my hand. I had intended to give it back to the Pacific ever since we’d embarked on this crazy road trip, but my motive for why had changed since my epiphany in the kitchen yesterday afternoon.
At first, tossing the rock back into the water was supposed to be a defiant thing, a big “In your face!” to Jason and Ben and every other guy who had strung a girl along. But seeing Jason had changed his part in it. I couldn’t stay angry at a guy who was so clearly with the right person for him. It even reassured me that two people could find their perfect fit so well, the way he and Stacie had.
By the time my dad had eaten his Sunday sandwich, Ben’s role had changed too. When I’d sat there with my dad yesterday, thinking about how love and indifference are opposites, I also had to acknowledge my anger at Ben. And my hurt. And someone you’re indifferent toward can’t hurt and anger you like that. But someone you . . . love . . .
Well, someone you love can.
And in that moment, I had to accept that Ben had breached my defenses in record time; he had wiggled under and through all my most creative relationship repellents and insinuated himself somewhere in my heart, inside the walls. So I had run a thousand miles and found myself face to face with the guy I used to love and now felt nothing for before I finally figured out that the guy I loved now was probably not going to speak to me again since I’d kicked him out of my house and ignored almost two dozen phone calls.
I had intended to chuck my rock as far as I could, feeling vindicated about the emotional lockdown I’d maintained for four years. But if Jason felt for Stacie even half of what
I did for Ben, I couldn’t begrudge him one molecule of his happiness or the choice that day on the beach that had led him to it.
I examined the rock and thought about what Jason had said so long ago, about feeling like he was being worn down and letting life happen around him. I understood now. I knew as I fingered its smooth curves that if I stayed in the emotional hidey-hole I’d created for myself, eventually I would wear away too. Into a lifeless lump without any interesting planes or angles or texture.
Lurching to my feet, I stood and flung the rock as far as I could, watching it sail through the air and land with a plop in the trough of a wave. I sat back down and considered what to do next. Call Ben? Jump in the car and race a thousand miles back to his house? Sandy might kill me if I tried to drag her back so soon. But I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to think through a careful plan. I wanted to make things right, to make Ben see that Carie was crazy for letting him go, and that I’d staked my claim in her absence. And that I would tolerate absolutely no claim jumping.
I jerked my phone out of the hoodie pocket to see if it was too early to call Ben. I wasn’t sure what I would say, but I wanted to hear his voice, to find some way to apologize. The sky had lightened enough for me to see, even without the screen light, that it was at least an hour too early to wake him up. In fifteen more minutes, the sun would be above the horizon, and normal people would begin to stir. But I should wait.
I dialed my voicemail, picking up Ben’s messages for the first time. The first few dated from Friday night. Ben sounded stressed as he offered several variations of, “Hey, Jessie. I need to talk to you. That was Carie, but it’s not what it looks like. Call me back, please.” The time signatures on the voicemail switched to Saturday morning.
“Jessie, call me,” Ben’s voice pleaded. “I hate that you’re upset. I hate that you’re mad at me. I can make this better. Call me.” Five of those came in a three-hour period.
There were several from Saturday afternoon, tapering off toward the evening. The messages picked up again yesterday, cajoling, pleading. “Jessie, call me. Carie’s gone, and she’s not coming back. I’m not getting back together with her, and I never was. She wanted to talk, and I owed her that much, but I needed her to see my face when I told her we were completely through. She’s already gone, Jessie. Call me.”
Several more like that followed, laced throughout the day.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb me. But the anxiety in his voice gave me hope that maybe all was not lost; maybe he wouldn’t kick me to the curb when he saw me again. I dropped my head onto my folded arms, holding onto my bent knees. I checked the time again. I would wait until 7:30 to call him but not a second longer.
I listened to the last few voicemails, each getting shorter and sounding more terse. “Jess, call me. I am not going away. We need to talk,” and “Jessie, I will sic Sandy on you and disrupt your ice cream supply if you don’t call me back soon.” I smiled at that one, but the smile faded when I got to the last voicemail. He said only, “I’m done calling, Jess.”
A tear slipped down my nose and formed a perfect circle when it plopped to the sand below. I sat with the phone pressed against my ear, hitting replay again and again on that last message when the chirp of a text message startled me. I lifted my head to look at the screen.
Jess, I love you, I read. It was Ben’s number.
My heart stopped for a moment. Okay, breathe, I ordered my lungs. I sat frozen, trying to decide what to do. The lap of the waves thrummed in rhythm with my heartbeats echoing loudly in my ears as blood rushed through my veins, trying to keep up with my pulse.
Breathe, I ordered again then jumped to my feet. I would call Sandy, get my car back, and pack it for an immediate return trip to Seattle. I whirled around toward the parking lot, ready to pace its length while I waited for her, when I saw my Accord already sitting there.
Ben leaned against the hood.
Chapter 39
I STOOD THERE MOTIONLESS. EVEN when Ben pushed off from the car and walked toward me, my only thought was, “My sweats are so ugly.” With him now strolling my way, hands in pockets, I could see Sandy sitting in the driver’s seat with a huge grin on her face. Her gentle wardrobe coaxing this morning made more sense.
I watched, mesmerized, until he stopped about four feet away.
Cocking his head to the side, he said, “Hi.”
Dazed, I answered, “I love you too.”
A crooked grin teased his lips.
I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “I meant, hi. And also, I love you.” Then I stared, having no idea what was going on.
He pulled an apple from his pocket and held it out to me. “Sandy said I might need to feed you before we could talk this morning. This was the only breakfast type thing in the airport vending machine.”
I took the apple from his hand and pulled it toward me in slow motion. I stared at it, perplexed, then tossed it over my shoulder and threw myself into his arms.
Laughing, he caught me and swung me around, but I couldn’t get any dizzier than his presence had already made me.
Setting me down, he leaned back far enough to ask, “You’re not mad?”
I stared at him, mute, and shook my head.
“Good. Then you probably won’t smack me for doing this.” And he lowered his lips to mine for a long kiss. A loud series of honks from my car broke it up.
I shifted to glare over his shoulder at my roommate banging on the horn. She stuck her head out the car window and grinned again. “Yuck!” she yelled.
“I’m going to kill her,” I said.
“Go easy on her,” he said. “She’s the one who helped me engineer this whole thing.”
“Come to think of it, how did you get here?”
He turned to wave at Sandy, who leaned the driver’s seat back as far as it would go and made herself comfortable. He slid his hand down to mine and took it in his own, tugging me back down toward the sand.
“I panicked when I couldn’t get you to return my phone calls,” he said. “I went by your place yesterday morning to see if I could catch you before church and see if you’d talk to me in person. When I got there, I found a note on the door from Sandy, telling me to call her.”
That explained her detour upstairs while my mom and I had waited for her so we could leave for church yesterday.
“So I called,” he continued, “and she told me where you guys were. I think she took pity on me because when I asked her what I had to do to get you to listen, she said to get on a plane because you couldn’t ignore me if I flew down to find you.”
“So you did. Just like that?”
“I called Sandy with the details yesterday afternoon and took the first flight out this morning. She said she’d pick me up and then beat you into submission if you didn’t listen. I guess I don’t need to call her over though?” There was a question in his voice.
“No, I guess not.” I smiled.
His face grew serious again. “Jessie, Carie came to—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I listened to the messages. All of them.”
He winced. “Yeah, there were a lot.”
“That’s good. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I know it looked bad,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting her until this week, and I meant to tell you on Saturday night that she was coming and why.”
“And what else were you going to tell me?” I asked, fishing shamelessly.
“That I love you.” He grinned. He leaned over for another kiss, which was interrupted after a few seconds by another honk.
I rolled my eyes. “She’s taking her chaperone duties too seriously,” I said.
“Do you forgive me for being an idiot?” he asked.
“It’s not your fault Carie surprised you,” I said.
“No, I mean about more than that. For being a jerk about your hours and not calling you or just accepting the time you could give.”
“I didn’t like it,” I
admitted. “But it’s probably the only way you could have made your point. I can be hardheaded.”
“You?” he gasped.
I butted him playfully with my shoulder. “I cut my hours back, you know.”
“You did? For me?”
I shook my head. “No. For me. It was the only way to get what I wanted.”
“Which is?”
“You,” I smiled. “I wish I would have known you were leaving Seattle so soon. How do you feel about packing the next four weeks with craziness?” I asked.
He took a deep breath. “What would you think about me picking up a permanent contract in Seattle?”
I turned to look him in the eye. “I think that sounds exactly right.”
“Good,” he smiled, “because I don’t think I could fit enough ‘I love yous’ into a month.”
And this time the horn went off for a long time.
About the Author
Melanie Jacobson is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she grew up in a rich tradition of storytellers. After graduating from Brigham Young University, she enjoyed a career in fashion retail before pursuing her true passion: teaching literature and writing. Realizing she was still missing something, Melanie tried Internet dating for a few years. She now considers herself a retired Internet dating expert after searching the World Wide Web to find her husband, who only lived forty-five minutes away. They live with their three children in Orange County, California.
OTHER BOOKS AND AUDIO BOOKS BY MELANIE JACOBSON
The List
Not My Type
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
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