Me You Us

by Aaron Karo

  She glances at her wrist and sighs overdramatically. She’s not even wearing a watch. “Ugh. One minute.”

  I take a deep breath. “Jak. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I kept secrets from you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I really, truly am. Everything I did I did with good intentions. You know that. You know me.”

  Her face doesn’t change.

  “Words.”

  “Words are all I’ve got right now, Jak. But I swear to God, I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to make it up to you.”

  “If this whole Galgorithm thing was such a big part of your life,” she asks, “then why did you keep it from me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me everything that you were really doing? Why did you have to have this stupid alter ego I didn’t know about?”

  “Everything just spiraled out of control. I should have told you.”

  “That’s not good enough, Shane. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s so dumb.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I want to know what happened with Adam.”

  I suddenly can’t find the words.

  “What did you do?” she asks.

  “Umm,” I mumble.

  Why am I so eloquent in my head!

  A car zooms by and momentarily distracts us.

  Jak resumes her focus on me.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Jak, I can explain.”

  I tread carefully, knowing that whatever I say next I cannot unsay. Once this is out of the bag, nothing will ever be the same.

  “Why did you hurt me like that, Shane?”

  “Because I love you.”

  I have to catch my breath. I said it. I did it.

  Jak looks more confused than anything.

  “What?”

  “I love you,” I repeat. “I told Adam I had feelings for you, and that’s why he got weird. The truth is I love you. I’m in love with you, Jak.”

  “Like . . . you love me love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  This is not as romantic as I envisioned it.

  “No! It’s not a joke. I love everything about you. Your legs, your brain, your eyelashes with the split ends. Everything. That’s why I got involved between you and Adam.”

  Jak doesn’t say anything. I take some solace in the fact that her expression has morphed from angry to befuddled. It’s a start, I guess.

  “Where is this coming from?” she asks finally.

  “I don’t know, Jak. Where does it ever come from? All I know is that I love you and that’s why I did the stupid things I did.”

  “How long have you felt this way?”

  “When we were in the bathtub together, after the party. That’s when I first started to know. But a part of me thinks it was always there. Maybe even from the beginning. From the first bathtub.”

  “No,” she says.

  “No what?”

  “No you’re not allowed to be in love with me, Shane. We’re best friends.”

  “I can’t help what I feel, Jak. The question is, do you feel the same way? Because I think you do.”

  I’m looking for any change in her eyes, her breathing, anything.

  “Shane, after what we just went through, how could you possibly ask me something like that? Our friendship is hanging by a thread.”

  “I need to know.”

  “I told you, years ago, after Voldemort, that we could never be together. You were a train wreck. I can’t go through that with you.”

  I shake my head. “I never got to tell you,” I say. “I saw Voldemort that day I found you hiding out in the gym. The day everything went down. . . .”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. At the mall. Even she thinks we should be together.”

  “Why should I care what that skank thinks?”

  Though it’s not helping my argument right now, it does warm my heart to know that Jak is still defending my honor after all these years.

  “Even the kids at school think we should be together,” I say. “They call us #Shak.”

  “Shane, I don’t care what other people think.”

  The phrase “I don’t care what other people think” gets thrown around a lot. But Jak actually means it. She walks the walk. It’s another thing that, although it’s working against me now, I truly admire about her.

  “Jak, you never answered my question. Do you feel the same way?”

  “No,” she says, finally. “I don’t.”

  She looks down at the ground so that she doesn’t have to face me.

  It can’t be. Pressure builds in my sinuses and I feel like my head is gonna implode.

  “You just don’t want me to be mad at you anymore,” she says. “That’s all this is.”

  “That’s not true!”

  I’m still trying to search Jak’s face for any clue that she might be holding back. But she has no tell. I’m starting to feel nauseous.

  “Well,” I manage, “are you still mad at me?”

  She shrugs.

  “Jak, you said you thought we had something special. We do have something special. It’s just more special than friendship. It’s even better.”

  “We’re going away to college in a few months.”

  “I know,” I say. “And why do you think we like never talk about that?”

  “You’re with Tristen.”

  “It’s over.”

  No reaction.

  “You can come up with a million reasons why we shouldn’t be together, Jak. But there’s only one reason why we should: We love each other.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Shane.”

  “Tell me you love me too.”

  She shakes her head no. Is she telling me no? Or is she trying to convince herself?

  She looks away once more.

  “I don’t. Not in that way,” she says.

  I stare at her. Try to make sense of what’s going on in that big brain of hers. It’s the worst possible outcome for me, but I think she’s telling the truth.

  I’m devastated. I feel sick. I sit down on the curb and hang my head between my knees. I can see Jak’s white Chucks shuffling in the street in front of me.

  After a moment she sits next to me on the curb.

  After another moment she asks, “Are you okay?”

  Her voice is steady. Her tone is concerned. She might even still be a little annoyed with me. But she’s not mad.

  “No, I’m not okay,” I say. “I’m in love with you. Don’t you understand that? I’m opening up to you.”

  I’m distraught. I knew this was a risk. But bracing for it doesn’t change how terrible this is.

  “I’m sorry, Shane. I can’t change how I feel. Besides, this is exactly what I was worried about. One of us getting hurt. And things getting weird.”

  “I promise that won’t happen,” I say, to no avail.

  I’m trying not to hyperventilate.

  “I would be disappointed if I were you too,” Jak says. “I’m the bomb.”

  This finally manages to elicit an involuntary grin out of me.

  I look at her. My feelings haven’t changed. I still want her more than anything. Maybe I don’t blame her for rejecting me. Maybe I’m just glad she’s talking to me again. If she hasn’t forgiven me outright, she’s at least softened her stance. And I have to be grateful for that. If and how we move forward from here, though, is anyone’s guess.

  “Come on, Incredible Sulk,” she says. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She stands up, using my shoulder for balance. Her touch sends shivers down my extremities.

  She walks over to her car, then stops and turns to me.

  There are three little words that I’m praying for her to utter.

  “Are you coming?”

  Those aren’t them.

  Jak is soldiering on. I can’t believe this is happening.

  I rise
from the curb unsteadily and start to walk to the car, but not before glancing at all the hearts on the tree on the corner, and trying to accept that Jak and I will never share one.

  40

  I WAS A REALLY CUTE little kid. Jak, not so much.

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop, staring at a scanned version of the picture of me and Jak in the bathtub as babies. I’m freakin’ adorable. Jak’s nose is scrunched up and her face is already sour like she hates the world. I smile every time I look at the picture. But now there is an undercurrent of sadness. It reminds me that this is as far as our relationship will ever go.

  I search for #Shak on Twitter. There are a lot of posts about Shakira. Those hips don’t lie. But if I scroll back far enough, I find a handful of tweets from Reed and his friends that reference me and Jak. Most of them are in the vein of “get a room.” But taken together they paint a poignant picture of how outsiders view us: essentially, star-crossed lovers in total denial. Some are from years ago. I kick myself for being so blind. But I also realize that without Jak as a willing participant, the whole thing is futile anyway.

  My one saving grace is that Jak is no longer giving me the cold shoulder. Our friendship is far from mended—she’s still peeved at my duplicity, and my proclamation of love has not served to make things any less awkward—but at least we’re communicating again. I wish that fact would do more to mitigate the excruciating pain I feel about getting rejected by her. What is the lesson I’m supposed to take away from all this? That when you finally let down your guard, shed your armor, and put yourself out there, you get screwed six ways to Sunday? I don’t imagine you’ll ever see that on a motivational poster of a kitten.

  I stare blankly at my computer screen for a while, letting my mind wander into dark and depressing places, but snap out of it when I hear my parents arguing in the living room downstairs. They get into tiffs here and there, but they’re not loud and vociferous like some of the other parents I’ve witnessed, so it’s kind of disconcerting to hear them go at it.

  Mom and Dad are on Facebook, so eventually they found out about the Galgorithm scandal. But I stridently downplayed it and was able to convince them that it wasn’t that big a deal. Parents never want to believe that their kids are ever in any real trouble, and so I fed them the narrative that the whole escapade was just a bad joke gone too far, and that it had blown over (which at least has a morsel of truthiness to it). I haven’t told them anything about the situation with Jak.

  I hear even louder shouting coming from downstairs, and now I’m starting to get a little nervous. Maybe the tenor of their arguments has been getting a bit more vitriolic over the past few months. What’s gonna happen when I go away to college and I’m not here to keep an eye on things? I’m still not over the fact that Hedgehog and Balloon are finished. If there is even a hint of a crack in my parents’ marriage, I’m just gonna give up.

  I wander downstairs to discover that the shouting isn’t coming from the living room, but the basement, which is one floor below that. I find my parents on their hands and knees, digging through a storage closet in the back of the room.

  “Peter, I’m telling you, it’s not in that box. I already looked in that box!”

  “Did you really look, though?” my dad responds. “’Cause I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s where it is.”

  “Yes, I’m sure, and I don’t appreciate that tone.”

  “Well, we’ve been at this for twenty minutes now, ­Kathryn, so I really don’t know what kind of tone you expect!”

  “Guys!” I interject. “What’s going on?”

  Mom pulls her head out from the closet.

  “Oh, hi, honey!” she says.

  She actually doesn’t seem to be that upset at all.

  “Dad and I were feeling a bit nostalgic, so we’re looking for that album we recorded together in college.”

  “Found it!” Dad says, emerging from the closet triumphantly clutching a CD.

  “And was it in the box that I already looked in?” Mom asks.

  “Nope,” Dad says sheepishly. “You were right. I was wrong. Don’t get too used to hearing me say that.”

  They smile at each other. All is not lost.

  My dad also digs out an old stereo with a CD player. We set it up on top of a nearby dresser and pop in the album.

  I hear a beautiful voice singing an a cappella rendition of “Motownphilly” by Boyz II Men. I’ve heard my mom hum around the house before, but never anything like this.

  “Mom, that’s you?”

  “There were a lot of talented gals in that a cappella group,” Dad says, “but your mom was the best. I remember that day like it was yesterday.”

  “It didn’t hurt to have you staring at me from the sound booth.”

  They make googly eyes at each other.

  “But even after all that, it still took you guys five years to get together?” I ask.

  “True love takes time,” Dad says.

  This gives me no comfort.

  Mom pauses the CD. “You sure everything is all right, honey? You’ve been moping around for weeks now.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s just that . . .”

  Should I say something? I don’t know. It’s so embarrassing talking to my parents.

  “Girl stuff or whatever,” I mutter. “I just wish I understood what they were thinking.” That’s about as much detail as I can bear to provide.

  My parents give each other a knowing look.

  “I’ve known your mother for more than two decades,” Dad says. “And I still have no clue what she’s thinking. I have no idea what she’s thinking right now.”

  “It’s true,” Mom chimes in.

  “Besides,” Dad continues, “why would you want to understand women? That’s half the fun. I love that your mother is so inscrutable.”

  Mom and Dad kiss.

  “Avocados, by the way,” Mom says.

  “What?” Dad says.

  “That’s what I was thinking about. I need to buy avocados.”

  “See,” Dad says. “Avocados. I never would have guessed that. The key to understanding women is not to try.”

  Hmm. Maybe my dad is the real Svengali.

  “Are you having gal problems?” he asks.

  “Dad, no one calls them gals.”

  “Yeah, Dad,” my mom says.

  “Whatever you call them,” Dad says, “Shane, just remember this: We all put our pants on one leg at a time.”

  “I know. Thanks, Dad. I’m not sure that applies here, though.”

  It may have taken them a while to figure it out, and they may claim to have no idea what the other is thinking, and the road may be rocky at times, but my parents have achieved the type of relationship that I can only dream of.

  It’s inspirational, but also depressing to think that I will never experience it myself.

  41

  I’VE BEEN FEELING unsettled about how I left things with Adam. Our little talk outside anime club unleashed a torrent of consequences that he and I never really discussed. I’m a bit uneasy about how it all went down. And since Jak has not returned my affections, I asked Adam if he could meet up so I could figure out how we got to this point in the first place.

  The courtyard in front of school is mostly deserted. In order to chat with Adam I had to wait until after ECX (Extracurricular Extreme, which is now officially a thing). All the normal students have long since gone home or are gathering at the baseball field behind the school for today’s consequential playoff game against Valley Hills.

  When Adam arrives, I notice that he has contacts in and is no longer wearing the Clark Kent glasses I picked out for him. Perhaps Rebecca, like Jak, thought he looked better au naturel.

  “Hey, man,” I say.

  “Hey, Shane,” he says as he joins me at one of the cement tables.

  “How’s Rebecca?” I ask.

  “She’s good. Really good. She’ll actually be out here in a minute.”

&nb
sp; “Oh. Okay.”

  Numbers one and two in the race for valedictorian, Adam and Rebecca took to each other almost immediately and are now inseparable.

  “I guess I better get right to it then,” I say. “When I told you that I thought I was having feelings for Jak . . .”

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “I never said you should stop seeing her.”

  “You didn’t have to. I knew what you meant.”

  “But how could you have known what I meant if I didn’t even know what I meant?”

  “Wait,” Adam says, “so you’re not in love with her?”

  I pause.

  “How do you know I’m in love with Jak?”

  “Well, at first I didn’t. Because I knew you guys were just friends and had never hooked up. Otherwise I never would have tried to flirt with her in the first place. But after we talked at anime club, I knew. That’s why I backed off.”

  “But I didn’t even know I was in love with her then!”

  “It didn’t really matter. If you were interested, I couldn’t get in your way. You’ve done so much for me. I could never do that to you.”

  “What about Jak?” I ask.

  “Listen, Jak is great. We had an awesome time together. But it was really, really short. Like a couple of dates. And then Rebecca came along. I felt bad about Jak, but to be honest, she didn’t really seem all that upset when we stopped hanging out, so I thought everything was cool between us. Why? Is she mad?”

  “No, not at you. More like confused. But I think that’s water under the bridge.”

  “And what about you two?” he says. “You’re in love with her. That’s awesome!”

  “Well, we’re kinda in a holding pattern.”

  “Not so awesome.”

  “There’s one more thing, Adam.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I knew that Rebecca and Harrison used to date and I didn’t tell you. I should have said something. I feel like I left you hanging out to dry.”

  “Hey, listen, if you had said something, I probably never would have even talked to Rebecca. Harrison terrifies me.”

  “But you and Rebecca are good?”

  “We’re great. I can’t believe everyone got all upset about the Galgorithm. It really works! And Rebecca couldn’t care less about the whole scandal thing. Basically, I owe you everything, Shane.”