Chapter 31
The next week passed unbelievably slowly. There was no time marching on for me, on the contrary, time was behaving like a sulky teenager and dragging its feet towards the Saturday night when all the nonsense of the past two months was going to come to a head. My stomach was constantly tied in knots as I grappled with writing the speech. I knew that Jack would have to listen to me, that he couldn't run away if I was speaking to everyone and not just him, but it had to be right and that was proving to be more of a challenge then any piece of schoolwork I’d ever attempted.
Around this battle other issues flowed, such as beginning to study for exams, trying to keep my friendship with Simone alive and stopping myself from killing Matt. Because, you see, after our good long conversation on the Friday, Matt became unbearable. He slouched around the flat in a filthy mood, refusing to help with chores, refusing to explain what his problem was, basically refusing everything. As far as I could determine through his sulks, Matt was ripping himself apart trying to figure out whether he should forgive Jack or not. It seemed to me that the answer was obvious, but I guess I just had to accept that boys are slower than girls and he needed time to sort things out in his head.
Despite knowing what he was going through, I've never exactly been known as someone who has a particularly long temper and I got fed up with his behaviour after all of two hours. Suffice it to say the relationship between Matt and me was pretty tenuous.
Simone was proving much easier to deal with. As promised, she’d called and we’d had a good long talk, just like we used to before we turned our backs on each other. Upon my telling her of my grand idea for the anniversary party, she had embarked on a campaign to find me the perfect dress. All throughout the day I could expect calls from her bombarding me with questions such as 'corset or empire waist?' or 'teal green or emerald green' until I was tempted just to turn my darn phone off. But I never did. Fashion was her thing and I'd have been an idiot not to take advantage of that. Not to mention, it was the first tentative step towards getting our friendship back on track and, although I was still hurt and confused by her decision to turn to Micky, I was more than willing to travel down the path to renew our friendship.
Things with Adam were easier as well. Lectures with him became fun again and it wasn't long before I was able to spend an evening with him on the very couch I'd thrown myself at him on without a hint of weirdness. Continuing with this theme of forgiveness and friendship I invited Haley out to the movies with me one night and had a surprisingly good time. We may have had different tastes and opinions on a lot of things but when she finally relaxed around me it also turned out there were plenty of things that we were in agreement on and this made all the difference.
As the week progressed and I began to reconnect with my other friends, I realised that my problems with Jack had overshadowed everything else in my life. By having a firm plan about what to do with regards to him I was less edgy and prickly with other people, which I, and probably they as well, was very pleased about.
This is not to say that everything was suddenly coming up roses. I wasn't suddenly all bouncy and full of life or anything sickening like that. In fact, as I was expending all my energy into fixing relationships with people and figuring out how to win Jack back, I was lethargic and anxious most of the time. My skin went pale and kind of pasty while my hair became lank and droopy. I wasn't exactly a pretty picture which was another reason I was so glad Simone was going to such effort to make sure I looked nice on the night itself; the Saturday which had been affectionately named J-day by all involved.
My parents, never ones to be left out, got in on the preparation act. Every phone conversation with them was a buzz of discussions and planning about the night; when the speech should be made, where I was going to stand, who was going to be in charge to make sure that Jack was present and listening, and so on. Maybe it wasn't the traditional way these things were supposed to work, ie the off-the-cuff speech and the effortless falling into each other's arms, but I did like that everyone I cared about was involved in letting me tell Jack how I felt about him. It was what was going to happen after the speech that truly scared me. I didn't know if I could take another dismissal from Jack so soon after my previous ones, and I was scared shitless of hurting him even more.
Although I had promised to myself that I would let Jack be so he could sort out his feelings, by Wednesday the nerves got to be too much and, before I could stop myself, I found my hand picking up the phone and dialling Tommo's number. I couldn't call Jack's mobile as I knew he would take one look at the caller ID and refuse to answer. Maybe this way I could take him unawares.
"Hello?"
My heart sank as I recognised Tommo's voice on the other end of the line, but I rallied to be able to say in a friendly-enough tone, "Hey Tommo, how's things?"
"Talia!" His voice was a sort of manly shriek. "Hi! Fine! Me, that is and, you know, everything. How are you? I mean you and Matt, I mean-"
"Tommo? Take a deep breath for me," I said calmingly wondering what on Earth his problem was, he was usually so chilled.
He laughed uneasily and then said, in his normal voice, "Sorry about that, you took me a bit by surprise is all. So how are things really? I mean with Matt home and everything?"
I couldn't figure out why he was so keen to know but I replied that things were fine, that we were slowly but surely getting ourselves back to the way things had been before. Before he could ask any more questions I hurriedly continued, "Listen, is Jack there? Because I really need to talk to him, I have some pretty important stuff I want to say."
"Oh." Tommo faltered and then he said in a loud, clear voice, "So Matt’s home and things are getting better between the two of you? Things are good? That's great. And you want to talk to Jack? Because you have some important stuff you want to say to him?"
"Tommo, why are you repeating everything I'm…oh." I sighed. "Just put Jack on the phone, please," I said tiredly.
There was a short pause and then Tommo said awkwardly, "I can't he's in the shower…no I mean he's out…but I don't know where."
I laughed a short laugh which contained absolutely no humour in it whatsoever.
"Fine, could you just tell him that I'm sorry and that…nothing, forget it, just that I hope that he's alright and sorry again."
"No worries, Talia. And, hey, I'm sorry too, you know, about all this stuff. I hope it works out."
"Me too." I smiled slightly at his sweetness, but my smile slid away quickly as I remembered Jack was standing just at the other end of the line but refusing to speak to me. Honestly, who was being immature now?
I hung up the phone and redoubled my efforts to keep myself busy until Saturday, it looked like it truly did all come down to J-day.
So Much to Learn Page 57