Love, Love, Love

by Deborah Reber

“It doesn’t matter what I promised! You should have kept your big mouth shut!”

  Emmett was pissed, but he lowered his voice and spoke to me in an almost-too-calm voice. “Of course. You’re right. I should have just lied to him, right? I mean, what’s the big deal? What’s one more lie on top of everything you did?”

  I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. “You’re twisting everything around! You know I didn’t mean to do this.”

  “Oh, so your lying to Julian for the past few weeks has been one big accident?” There was nothing I hated more than being the target of Emmett’s sarcastic cuts. “But then again, who am I to talk? I’ve been acting out a charade too. In fact, I’ve been lying to you for years.”

  I stopped seething long enough to turn toward Emmett.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Emmett looked away and put his hands on his hips, hanging his head. He stood like this for a minute before turning around to face me.

  “I’m talking about the fact that I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember,” Emmett said. “That’s right, Janna. All this time you’ve been pretending to be another person just so someone would like you, I’ve been pretending to be your best friend even though I wanted us to be something more.”

  My heart ached at hearing the words come from his mouth. I felt the anger in my body soften. He looked so vulnerable.

  “Emm,” I said softly. I reached out to grab his hand, but he yanked it away.

  “Crazy, isn’t it? Of course, now that I’ve told you what I’ve been hiding for so long, I don’t think it’s even true anymore. I mean, had I known you had the potential to be so selfish and self-absorbed, there’s no way I ever would have fallen for you in the first place.” His eyes were red, his voice shaky.

  Okay, that one hurt. “Emm,” I tried again.

  “I think Julian had the right idea. I’ve had enough of the new Janna.” Emmett walked away without another word. And just like that, I was alone. Despite the thousands of people milling about, there I was, standing on scattered pine needles underneath a fir tree, more alone than I’d ever been in my life.

  To be honest, I don’t remember much of the walk home from the Regatta. I was a giant, twisted-up ball of emotions, and my mind was frantically trying to make sense of everything that had just happened. I was so utterly exhausted by the time I got home that I may as well have just returned to base camp after summitting Mount Everest.

  Thank God my family was at the boat show in Lake Union, so I had the house all to myself. Having to interact with anyone right now would be tantamount to torture. I went up to my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, pulled down my blinds, and crawled into bed. My eyes were swollen and red, and my brain had gone into a sleeping mode of sorts, not unlike the way a computer does after a few minutes of sitting idle. But that was fine with me. I didn’t want to think anymore. I just wanted to shut out the world and sleep. Thankfully, my body didn’t put up a fight.

  I’m not sure how long I slept before my mom came into my room. I vaguely remember her trying to rouse me from bed, but I was so out of it, she must have decided I was sick or something. After a few minutes of sitting on the edge of my bed, she put the back of her hand on my forehead as if checking for a fever and then quietly slipped out of my room.

  The next time I woke up it was still daylight, but my stomach was growling with hunger. Confused, I sat up to look at the clock: 9:43 a.m. Holy crap. It was morning? Next to my clock was a glass of water and a plate with some crackers on it, a sign that my mom really did think I was ill. No need to correct her—at least this way she’d keep my brother at bay and give me some space. I got out of bed and peeked into the hallway to assess the family status. I wasn’t ready to face the world yet.

  The house was still, so I tiptoed down the stairs, carefully skipping the middle step that creaked loudly, and quietly made my way to the kitchen. I breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed the car wasn’t in the driveway and found a note from my mom saying they’d gone to Henry’s baseball game in Columbia City.

  I poured myself a giant bowl of granola and padded into the living room, where I spent the next four hours sprawled on the couch watching HGTV, QVC, and fly-fishing, which was about as deep as I could go with my TV programming today. God forbid I inadvertently stumble upon Ella Enchanted or some other romantic comedy I’d seen a zillion times. I would be reduced to a pile of soggy tissues in a matter of minutes.

  I only got up from the couch three times—once to use the bathroom, once to see if we had any Annie’s Macaroni & Cheese in the house (we didn’t), and once because my cell rang. Well, that last time I didn’t so much get up from the couch as I bolted. Despite my better judgment, I was hoping against hope that it was Julian calling to say he’d forgiven me and could he come over right now to patch things up. Of course it wasn’t Julian. It was just Molly. In fact, I realized she’d called me more than a half-dozen times since yesterday afternoon, a fact that made me roll my eyes with annoyance. Even if she hadn’t been the one to actually tell Julian the truth, as far as I was concerned, things between us were exactly where we’d left off after our fight last week. My guess? She probably found some sick pleasure in my public outing. Or maybe she was happy she wasn’t alone now in having been dumped.

  After watching three couples increase the value of their homes through kitchen renovations, learning the proper line casting method when fly-fishing for striped bass, and seeing the potted plant that doubles as a litter box fly off the shelves for the low, low price of $39.95, I decided I’d better head back upstairs, since the ’rents and sib would probably be home any minute. I wasn’t sure how long they’d buy my whole sick act, but I was more than willing to find out.

  I lay down in bed, trying in vain to read a novel I’d gotten for Christmas, but I kept scanning the same sentence over and over again, so I tossed the book on the floor and closed my eyes. What the hell. Might as well sleep the rest of the day away, right? It was better than dwelling on the sorry state of affairs my life had become.

  A minute after I closed my eyes, there was a light tapping on my door. I assumed it was my mom, since I thought I’d heard the car pull up into the driveway a few minutes earlier.

  “Come in,” I said, doing my best deathbed impression.

  The door cracked open and a hand slid through it. The hand was holding something white, and was waving it back and forth to draw my attention.

  “Peace, peace! I come in peace!”

  Molly.

  “Will you accept my peace offering?” Molly pushed the door open wider, and she timidly poked her head into the room. She looked as sheepish as I’d ever seen her. Humility … a new look for her. She wore it well. “I hope you don’t mind … I used the garden rock key to let myself in.”

  I slowly sat up in bed, not saying a word. I wasn’t ready to talk yet. But considering how alone in the universe I was feeling at this particular moment, I decided I might as well listen to what she had to say.

  Molly took my lack of objection as an invitation to enter my room and sit down on the bed. She put her hand on my leg and looked me square in the eye.

  “Look, Janna, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I was a total, selfish jerk to you last week. I was so upset about what Spence did to me that I couldn’t think about anything else.”

  Nice opening line. If apologizing were an Olympic sport, I’d say Molly’s performance thus far would have rated her a score in the high eights, low nines. But I still wasn’t ready to forgive and forget just yet. We Scorpios can be stubborn like that.

  “Of course you had the right to keep seeing Julian. I totally get it. I mean, I probably would have done the exact same thing myself.”

  Probably?

  “I think I thought it would be easier for me to deal with what Spence did if you were going through it with me, you know? And to be honest, over the past few weeks, you haven’t really been yourself. I mean, I know you were pretending to be from Hungary, but even when
you weren’t in character you’ve been kind of different, like more outgoing and stuff. I think I was weirded out that you were getting so much attention, since that’s the role I usually play. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

  Where was all this depth and insight coming from? Could it be that Molly was actually evolving?

  “But I get it,” she continued. “I was being a jerk and you were just sticking up for yourself. Which, by the way, you did pretty well, considering it’s never really been your thing. But then, yesterday, when I realized you actually thought I would have screwed you over by telling Julian, I got really freaked out. Because even if we’re fighting about something, I would never do something like that. Did you honestly think I would do something that awful?”

  I didn’t answer. But the truth was, now that I wasn’t in the heat of the moment, no, I didn’t.

  “Geez, Janna, I would die if I ever lost you as a friend. If you want to have a big personality or be more outgoing or wear questionable shoes … whatever … I can handle it!”

  Molly was wearing me down. I mean, she did seem really genuine, and on top of that, she’d addressed all of my gripes without me having to even say a word.

  “Do you think you can forgive me?” Molly held up the white piece of paper that she’d been waving in the doorway earlier. It was an envelope with my name written on the outside in her mom’s handwriting. “Come on … what do you say? You and me? Paris? London? Madrid? You’re not going to miss out on the trip of a lifetime just because I can be such an insensitive dope, are you?”

  I gave a slight smile, the first one that had escaped my lips in more than twenty-four hours. I snatched the envelope out of her hand and opened it up to peek at the airline ticket safely ensconced inside.

  “I was really mad at you,” I said, softening. “You were being totally unfair.”

  “I know. I really am sorry, Janna. From now on, I’m going to be as loyal as one of the Three Musketeers, even if there are only two of us.”

  I felt a wave of relief. Making up with Molly was the first sign that things in my life might eventually go back to normal, or whatever normal looked like these days.

  “It’s okay, Molly. I accept your apology. And I’m sorry I accused you like that. I was clearly freaking out.” I felt lighter as soon as I said the words. “And by the way, I’m not interested in having a big personality or getting lots of attention. That kind of stuff just gets me in trouble.” I leaned over, and we shared a nice, long hug. But as we were about to pull apart, she gave me an extra squeeze for good measure and I burst into tears.

  Molly leaned back to look at me. “Oh, baby. What’s wrong? I thought we just made up?”

  I started crying even harder now, grabbing a tissue from the side of my bed and burying my face in it.

  “Oh. Julian,” she said.

  She was a quick study, that Molly.

  “And Emmett,” she added.

  “Yes,” I whimpered. “Everything’s so screwed up.”

  Never one to back down from a crisis, Molly swung into take-charge mode. She gently lifted the wet hair matted to my cheek and relocated it behind my ear before speaking. “Don’t worry, Janna. We’ll figure everything out, okay? I give you my word. I got you into this mess, and I promise you we’ll find a way to get you out of it, okay?”

  I let out a few last, desperate soblike gasps before reining in the tears.

  “Have you talked to Emm?” I asked quietly. I was almost afraid to know the answer.

  “Yeah. He called me last night.”

  “Did he tell you what he told me?”

  “You mean about him being in love with you? Yes. But, Jan, that wasn’t really news to me. Or probably anyone else, for that matter.”

  “Well, it was to me,” I said. “And now that he put the L word out there, nothing will ever be the same between us again. I mean, seriously. There’s no way we can ever go back to being the way we were! Plus, you should have seen how angry he was at me for everything that went down with Julian.” Mentioning Julian’s name made me hurt all over again, and I burst into a whole new set of tears. “And Julian totally hates me!” I sobbed.

  “Just slow down, Janna. Let’s take things one at a time, okay? Let’s start with Emmett. Things with Emmett are going to be fine. You just need to give him a chance to get over himself. I mean, he’s gotta be feeling superembarrassed and humiliated.”

  “And guilty, too, I hope,” I added.

  “Well, I don’t know about guilty, but he definitely feels bad. It really was an accident, you know.”

  “What exactly happened, then?” I wanted to know every little detail of Saturday’s events. Maybe I’d find some glimmer of hope in the retelling of the story.

  “Emmett said that Julian came up to him and started asking about you. And the whole time Julian was talking to him—I don’t know if it was because of something Julian said or what—Emmett totally assumed that you had already told Julian everything. And Emm was so surprised at how well Julian was handling the whole situation, that he said something like that. Something like, ‘Wow, so you’re really okay with Janna’s whole fake Hungarian act.’ Anyway, as soon as he saw the look on Julian’s face, he realized that Julian didn’t actually know the truth. But by then it was too late. Julian started asking him what he was talking about, and, well, you know Emmett. He can’t lie to save his life. So the truth just kinda came out.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Julian must have been so caught off guard. Not that there was a good way to find out you’ve been lied to, but if there was one, this wasn’t it.

  “So, then what was it that Emmett pulled out of his wallet to show Julian?”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess Julian didn’t believe Emmett and he started getting annoyed and called Emm a liar. Which, as you know, is something Emm doesn’t take to very kindly. So, to prove he was telling the truth, he showed Julian a picture of the three of us at Disneyland together from that trip we took in eighth grade.”

  “Ugh.” I hung my head down in shame. I was busted, and how.

  “Yeah,” Molly said empathetically. “That kind of put the last nail in the coffin. And I think that’s when you came up to them and, well, you know the rest.”

  “I just can’t believe that it’s done, that Julian and I are over.” I stared out the window numbly.

  “I know this sucks. But today will be the worst day. Trust me, I’ve been through this before,” Molly said.

  I gave her a glare to let her know that what I’d had with Julian was not a little Molly-esque fling.

  “Okay, maybe not exactly this but, still, breakups that sucked. You’ll feel a little better tomorrow, and a little better the day after that. That’s the way it works. Anyway, maybe it’s not as bad as you think. Maybe you could write him an e-mail or something, apologizing and telling him how you feel?”

  I didn’t let Molly know that I’d already drafted nearly a dozen e-mails to Julian in my head, but hadn’t had the guts to follow through. How could I even begin to put into words how sorry I was?

  “I have an idea … why don’t we trash your fake Facebook profile and create a new and improved one for the real Janna?” Molly was trying to switch gears and refocus my attention. It was a classic distraction ploy, but I was too tapped out to protest. Molly booted up my computer and logged on to my Facebook account. I couldn’t help but notice that my fake profile had one fewer friend. Hard not to notice, really, considering it only had three friends to start with. I wasn’t surprised—who could blame Julian for unfriending me? He was probably trying to erase all evidence I had ever existed.

  “Say good-bye to Janna Ika Ilka!” Molly said as she clicked Delete Profile. And just like that, all digital traces of my alter ego were gone. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness. Yes, Janna Ika Ilka had seriously messed up my life, but there was a certain quality she’d brought to it that I was going to miss.

  Talk about having an identity crisis. As I sat there looking at the
new profile Molly had whipped up for me in no time, the one that was supposed to represent the real me, I had to wonder who the real me was and how she fit in to the world. Did Emmett love the real me or the me he had built up in his head? Did Julian love the fake me? Did he hate the real me? Or was there some part of the real me that he might be able to love someday, too?

  Only time would tell.

  When you’re a zombie, you can walk and talk and eat and sleep, but you don’t actually give a crap about any of these activities. Your face remains expressionless, your emotions buttoned up. You are the undead—going through the motions without actually feeling anything at all.

  The reason I know this so well is because that’s exactly how I felt the week after Operation Get Real blew up in my face. The only thing that got me through the day after Molly left my house was her promise that Monday would be better. But when Monday rolled around, I had a hard time distinguishing between levels of miserableness from the day before. Tuesday I felt maybe five-thousandths of a percent better, but that flipped to ten percent worse after getting up the nerve to send Julian a text message:

  Hi Julian. Are you okay? Can we talk? I’m so sorry.

  And getting this response:

  No. No. Whatever.

  By Wednesday, I was feeling mighty proud of myself because not only had I showered, but I also managed to look in the mirror before I left for school. What I saw in the reflection wasn’t very comforting, but that’s a whole other Oprah.

  I still hadn’t spoken to Emmett; actually, I hadn’t even seen him. I’m not sure if he was staying home sick or coming to school in disguise or what. I was, however, sensitive to the fact that he might be feeling embarrassed, so I gave him space and didn’t pelt him with phone calls and texts. But that didn’t mean I was going to let him out of my life without a fight, especially now that I understood the circumstances behind his telling Julian the truth. Actually, I felt terrible for being such a jerk to him. I should have known he would never do anything to purposefully hurt me.

  I decided to follow Molly’s advice (this was actually good advice) and try to get through this whole messed-up situation by tackling one thing at a time. And by Wednesday, I realized the issue I needed to tackle first was fixing my friendship with Emmett. So I waited until ten o’clock on the nose and dialed his number. And then the phone rang. And rang. And rang.