Stupid Love

by Cindy Miles

  Dad shuffled through my bag of medicines, and I was quite glad he’d come to his own conclusion as to why I kept them under my bed. In seconds he was pushing two pills into my palm, and had a glass of water ready. I quickly took them, then resumed my position, pushing my skull as hard as I could into the pillows, the side of the arm, and was as still as I could be after that. I drifted off to sleep.

  When my eyes blinked open a while later, Dad hadn’t moved. He was perched exactly where Jace had been the night he’d witnessed my Allergic Headache—on the floor, right beside me. Max’s eyes were on mine. Inspecting. Watching.

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Dad, you didn’t have to stay on the floor,” I said, and pushed up.

  “Dr. Cates needs to know,” he said quietly. “This can’t go on, Mem.”

  “Dad, he already knows,” I insisted. “He expected the headaches. That’s why I have medicine.”

  Max Thibodeaux’s solemn look held my gaze. “You’re playin’ with fire, Memory—”

  “Dad, please,” I interrupted, and stood. I held my hand down to his, and he shook his head. Took my hand. Stood. I smiled. “I’m okay,” I said. “I just got hot in the shop is all. Now let’s get supper started. Jace is joining us, yeah.”

  “You have to tell him, Memory Catherine,” he warned. “You’re not being fair.”

  Guilt had begun to visit me more and more after that. I knew I wasn’t fooling Max Thibodeaux, though. Not anymore. Not at all. But his words struck something inside of me—that, combined with my hibernating fear, bubbled up inside of me. I knew it was going to be almost impossible to hide my headaches from Jace and my friends. So I did the next best thing.

  I began to pull back. Withdraw. Avoid. At All Costs.

  At school, I hurried through my classes and, instead of meeting Claire and the gang in the quad for lunch, I’d make excuses. I’d leave campus and go home to eat, or I’d go to the library and hole up until my next class.

  “Again, Mem?” Claire said as she waited for me after class. “What’s going on with you?”

  I pasted a smile to my face. “Nothing, Peeshwank. I’m just on back-orders, so instead of working on my papers due I’ve been out in the shop.” I gave her a hug and kissed her on the cheek. “Besides, the only way for me to even get any food is if I go home and eat. Crisco gobbles it up.”

  “Well, I miss you, is all,” Claire said, and she tilted her head and looked at me behind a big pair of tortoise shell sun glasses. She hugged me, and felt my shoulders with her little hands. “Mem, are you losing weight? I swear I can feel your shoulder bones.”

  I laughed it off. “Peeshwank, please,” I argued, and glanced down at the baggy sweater I wore over my boyfriend jeans and Converses. “As if I couldn’t stand to lose a few anyway.”

  “Lose what?” Sugar said, suddenly joining us.

  “Mem’s not eating with us again,” Claire tattled.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Memory,” Sugar argued. “What’s the deal?”

  I gave a laugh, and hoped it was convincing. “Nothing at all! I have a back-order is all. And I’m behind on my final project for Behavioral Anthropology.” I winked. “Dr. Malcolm is a beast. I just need to catch up, Sugar Booger.” I eyed Claire. “And Jesus don’t like tattle-tails, Peeshwank.”

  That was just the beginning of my avoidances. Crisco wanted to zip the gorge again, and I’d ducked out of that, too.

  “What the fuck, Mem?” Crisco argued on a day I’d caved and gone to lunch in the quad. “What gives?”

  “Yeah, Thibs,” Bentley chimed in. “Since when are you not up for a zip?”

  Conner elbowed me. “You turnin’ yella?” he grinned. “Bad enough you spend all your time with the tow truck guy instead of with us.”

  That particular day I’d already felt another headache coming on, and it had made me a bit irritable. That, and my guilt for scamming my best friends clawed at me. I looked at Bentley. “Since graduation is less than two months away, Bent,” I said, eyeing Conner, “this is it, guys. Life isn’t always fun and games. Time to grow up, is all.”

  I grabbed my backpack and walked away, and felt six pairs of eyes blazing into my back, since I’d shocked them with a mouthy departure. Crisco ran up to me, grasped me by the arm.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Don’t be mad, Memory. We were just kidding you.”

  My heart cramped a little then, and I grasped my old friend’s hand. “I’m not mad, Richard. I guess…I’m a little scared, is all.”

  He grinned and gave me a playful punch in the arm, and took my double-meaning statement as he saw fit. “Aw, Mem, we’re all a little scared, maybe,” he said. “Graduation is…final. Ya know? Time to grow up! Get jobs, get married and have mortgages and kids, right?” He gave me a hug. “We’ll always be friends, though. Right?”

  I stared into Crisco’s sun-shaded eyes and smiled back. “You are my Benny the Jet Rodriguez. For-eh-ver.”

  “And you’re my Smalls.” He laughed. “And don’t call me Richard.” I smiled, punched his arm, and I left. One more day avoided.

  With Jace, though—now, that was a lot harder. Sure, I’d known my friends longer than I’d known Jace, but the feelings that had taken root inside of my heart for him made our relationship way, way different. The guilt stronger. The pain of letting go way more difficult.

  I’d started avoiding Jace in small ways at first. Ways that probably most guys wouldn’t even notice. I didn’t make random stops at his garage while he was working. I started making excuses as to why he couldn’t stop by after work. Always a paper to finish, a project to complete, or else Dr. Malcolm would give me a poor grade and it might kill my chance for graduation. I even backed out of supper at Jasper’s a couple of times, letting my dad be the fall guy. At first, Jace seemed okay. He didn’t seem to mind, or notice. Then, he did, and I knew it. I could see it in his eyes, or hear it in his voice. All of it became so heavy on my heart; juggling the lies and avoiding Jace, my friends, Jasper. Slowly, a dark shroud began to drape over me, and it was affecting my personality, and I was withdrawing not only from everyone but from myself, as well.

  I knew what was coming. I knew what I had to do.

  I’d kind of known all along.

  “Hey,” I said into the phone. “Are you up for some breakfast for supper?” It was nine thirty, and I’d just left work and was starved. For food and for Memory. I’d barely seen her all week.

  “Mais, not tonight, I’m sorry,” she said in that sexy Acadiana drawl. “I’m back-ordered now and I really need to get these braces welded together tonight. Plus I’m wrapping up Jessup’s windmill. Rain check?”

  I ran a hand over my brow. “This is the rain check.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Double-rain check, then? I really have to get this done.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I caved. “I’ll—”

  “Okay, ‘night Jace,” she said.

  “’Night, Memory.”

  She’d already hung up the phone.

  My appetite slipped then and, despite the late hour I needed to run off some steam. My gut told me something had changed between us. Memory wasn’t acting like herself, and I’d noticed the slow change ever since the concert. How could that perfect night, where we’d had so much damn fun just being together, have turned south? I’d always known Memory was different than other women. She wasn’t the clingy, silly, immature girl so many her age were. But I didn’t want to appear like some fucking lovesick pup, so I pretended everything was cool, and that the excuses she kept piling up on every offer of a chance to see her didn’t bother me.

  But they did. Hell yeah, they did.

  And I knew I was in love with her.

  Not just in crazy—in love. She made me feel…alive. She made me laugh. And the way she touched me, kissed me—Christ, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It went deeper than mind-blowing sex. Way deeper. I hadn’t told her that yet—my feelings. It just wasn’t the right time. We were still too new, and yet t
he subtle changes in her enthusiasm, the cancellations of dates? I’d call, she wouldn’t answer. I’d text, she wouldn’t answer until the next day. Usually when something hit me in my gut, I needed to pay attention to it. My thoughts had begun to run in a direction that I hated. Literally fucking hated. But I couldn’t stop them from digging into my brain. I couldn’t stop feeling like something was wrong.

  Had she met someone else? Were the rumors true after all? I hated the doubt, but it was there, gnawing at me. It pissed me the hell off.

  I kicked out of my work clothes, pulled on a pair black running shorts, a long-sleeved thermal, and a skully, dug my Nikes out of the closet and left.

  Beneath the glow of the streetlights I made my way to campus, my feet pounding the sidewalk as I built up speed. The air was cool, and the smell of rain hung thick, heavy, with that certain earthy scent that accompanied it. Heat lightning flashed, but I kept running. I didn’t care if it rained or didn’t rain. I wasn’t going to stop until some of this shit was out of my head.

  There were several people out as I ran through Winston’s campus. Students walking to dorms or the Greeks entertaining with cars piled up in the yard. I kept running, despite the raindrops beginning to fall, and my muscles started to burn, and my mind burned even worse, but I ran harder. Past the dorms. Past the fountain. Past the sports complex. I spoke to no one; no one spoke to me. By the time I’d rounded the campus and was headed back to my apartment, my lungs burned but I was in a steady rhythm—so steady that when I turned down my road and grew closer to my drive, I almost didn’t notice Memory’s Jeep parked on the other side of my truck. Just out of the arc of streetlight, she sat on my tailgate, in shadows. My heart did a nosedive, and I stopped just shy of her.

  “Hey,” I said, and picked up her hand, watched her slowly lift her head. “Come on, Memory. What’s wrong?”

  She was quiet; very much unlike Memory Thibodeaux. When she looked at me, those giant blue eyes looked like glass, laced with sorrow, and my stomach dropped.

  She eased off the tailgate and pulled her hand from mine. “Jace,” she began. Hesitant. Edgy. “I…I think we’re moving a little too fast,” she said. “We have moved too fast. For me, anyway. I just want to take a step back for a while, yeah? I guess…” She sighed softly, and averted her gaze and stared off into the dark. “It’s just too much right now.”

  Shock made me take a step back. I’d known something was up; something felt off. But I hadn’t counted on Memory breaking up with me. Not really, anyway. My hands went to my hips, and I ducked my head to catch her gaze. “Too…too much? What do you mean, Memory?” When she wouldn’t look at me, I grasped her chin and made her. “What do you mean? Talk to me.”

  Something flashed in her eyes. Something I’d not seen before. Panic? Fear? Regret? Memory was always so open, unpredictable in the best of ways. This, though? I couldn’t name it, but I felt it. I knew whatever she was going through was real to her.

  “This relationship, Jace. It’s just…too much for me to handle right now. I need some time.”

  I dropped my hand from her jaw and took a step back. “This relationship?” Anger and confusion rose inside of me. What the fuck? What had I done wrong? I wasn’t going to push, though. I knew how I felt. Knew my feelings. She now needed to figure hers out. Giving her space was the only option I had.

  “I’m sorry, Jace,” she said quietly. “I just can’t do this right now.”

  I nodded, tried to stay calm, to not overreact. To not be a dick. “Okay, Memory,” I said quietly. I looked at her, and her gaze found mine, and her eyes were raw, bare—exactly how I felt. “When you figure it out, when you think you can handle this, let me know.”

  I stood between her and the door of her Jeep, and when she brushed past me to climb in, I had to force myself not to grab onto her, pull her against me, shake her until she told me what the fuck I’d done to make her turn tail and run.

  Instead, she stopped, right beside me, grasped my hand in hers and squeezed. She didn’t say anything; no further words. Nothing else about how fucked up her life was and that I was fucking it up even more. Nothing at all. Didn’t even look at me. A squeeze, then she climbed in, started the engine, and backed out.

  I moved to the cab of my truck and watched her pull away. Without another glance in my direction. Without anything. I turned, let my forehead fall against the frame of my truck door, and closed my eyes. Emotions took me by complete surprise as they rose inside of me like smoke in a furnace, threatening to choke me.

  My heart was racing, and that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach sank lower, and I pushed off the truck with and swore, glanced toward the sky, and grasped the back of my neck.

  I’d thought what Memory and I had was different. Like some mystical thing some people waited forever for and never, ever got. Was I so wrong? Was I that fucking blind and stupid? Whatever we’d had…was it even real? Or was I one of Memory’s conquests? Land the older, serious, mature guy. Sack him and leave him. I’d resisted her in the beginning. Resisted the absolute hell out of her. Then I’d seen through that façade of good-time Betty. I’d seen inside of Memory Thibodeaux.

  Or had it all been smoke and glass?

  With another swear I started for the door, and once inside I knew I had to work off the steam rising in my body. I peeled my shirt over the top of my head and flung it, then went bare knuckles to the bag and let loose. I pummeled it, punched it, beat it until my fists were raw, my body poured sweat, but I still felt edgy. Out of breath, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat on the counter in my dark kitchen and drank Memory Thibodeaux out of my goddamned head.

  I woke up the next morning on the sofa in nothing but my boxer briefs and four empty bottles and my damp running clothes on the floor beside me. And then Memory was there, in my head, kicking through the fog of beer and reminding me of what had just happened between us. How I’d resisted but then finally relented and let a five-foot-eleven inch Cajun with a sketchy rep take my heart.

  Then stomp on it.

  It set my mood for the next couple of weeks, and the first to notice was my sister, and it didn’t take her long. She’d stopped by the garage after classes, and I’d been on the crawler under a car.

  “Hey, handsome.” She tugged on my work pants, and I rolled out. Her eyes were light and happy, and in all honesty it was hard to be in any sort of shitty mood when Olivia was around. She literally lit up a room.

  But the moment she laid eyes on me, they narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  I sat up and shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, Jace Samuel Beaumont,” she chided, and her long thick braid swung over her shoulder as she squatted down beside me. “Naughty, naughty. You know you can’t fib to your sister.” She tapped my nose. “I can see right through you.”

  I rested my forearms on my knees, then shook my head and looked at her.

  “It’s Memory, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I didn’t say anything. Only shrugged.

  Olivia’s eyes softened. “You almost done here?”

  I nodded. “I’m finished now.”

  She extended a hand and I took it, and she pulled, trying to hoist me up. “Well, then come on, big brother,” she said in that sweet voice she had. “I feel like pancakes.”

  “Damn, Beaumont,” Kirby said as he stepped out from the office. His eyes raked over Olivia. “How many women do you have, son?”

  Olivia giggled, but I walked up to Kirby and glared. “My sister.”

  “Oh,” he said, and gave Olivia a shy look. “Shit. Sorry ‘bout that.”

  “I’m finished with the alternator on that one,” I said, and inclined my head toward the Toyota I’d been working on. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Ride with me,” Olivia said, and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Old Blue misses you.”

  I gave a short laugh. “Old Blue should miss me,” I answered, and I ran my hand over the wheel well. “You’ll be passing her down to Seth soon, won’t y
ou?”

  “I don’t know,” Olivia said as she climbed in. I ran around to the passenger side and joined her. “I kinda like her. Plus, Seth has his own baby now.”

  I grinned, and it was the first real smile since Memory broke things off with me. “Yeah. Old, old Yeller.” Our youngest brother had bought a seventy-two Chevy big-block. And painted it yellow. Canary yellow. But he’d rebuilt the engine and it ran like butter, so the family custom of passing down Old Blue stopped with Olivia.

  On the way to Hattie’s Diner I felt Olivia’s occasional stare, and finally she sighed. “What happened with Memory, Jace?”

  I kept my stare out the window as we crept down Killian’s main street toward the diner. “Hell if I know, sis,” I answered. “Things were...damn near perfect.” I shook my head and looked at her. “I got nothing. No idea.”

  We pulled into Hattie’s, parked and started for the door, and Olivia looped her arm through mine. “Well, something had to have happened, Jace.”

  I thought about it as we ducked inside and took our usual corner booth in the back. The waitress met us at the table and grinned.

  “Same ole, same ole?” she asked.

  Olivia looked at me, and I nodded. “Yes, thank you.” When the waitress walked off, my sister caught my gaze. “Think, Jace. What led up to her breaking things off?”

  I laced my fingers together in front of me, staring at them, thinking. “I’d noticed that she was, I don’t know,” I heaved a sigh. “Starting to pull back. Cancelling dates. Not answering texts until the next day. Not answering my calls when before…” I rubbed my jaw and remembered how light and playful Memory’s voice always was. I looked at Olivia. “She just…backed off. Told me the relationship was moving too fast, and that it was too much for her to handle.” I shrugged. “Had no choice but to back off. Give her what she asked for. Told her to let me know when she figured things out.”

  Olivia’s green eyes were soft as she studied me. “Well, big brother, from experience I can tell you this. There’s something other than a fast-moving relationship bothering her. What that is”—she said, shrugging—“only she knows. But one thing I do know,” she added, and reached for my hand. “It’s not you. I saw the way she was with you, Jace. Saw that fire in her eyes every time she looked at you.” She shook her head again. “She’s fighting demons, brother. But they’re hers and she has to beat them before she can come to grips with you.”