“Yeah. Shayna’s covering for me,” she says, and turns to watch the passing trees and snow-covered hills out the passenger window.
“Hey, I’m really sorry again, about bringing you into all this. But I’m glad—I’m glad you were here.” I clear my throat.
“It’s fine,” she says, cutting me off. “It was no big deal.”
“Yeah, but . . .” I search for words, the right ones, but they don’t come.
“Really. It’s fine,” she repeats with finality.
And I wonder if I’ve been misreading her this entire time. The glances, the flushed cheeks, the palpable tension in the air between us. Did I make it all up? Have I been so blinded by my own attraction that I imagined Jubilee’s? And then I remember Ellie’s words in the hospital, stuck in my mind like a pebble in a shoe: “emotionally clueless.” But, being in her room, touching her cheek with my gloved hand, her collarbone, her perfectly round breast—I know, I know she felt it, too.
But then what? We’ve never talked about it. About any of those moments, except for that night in the library when she referenced some abstract treatment that she may or may not get. And I think of what Connie said—how I always want what I can’t have. And maybe I need to face the reality of this situation—I want Jubilee and I can’t have her. And maybe Jubilee’s just a step ahead of me and has already figured that out.
When we finally get back to Lincoln, I offer to swing by a drugstore, get her some soup or medicine—it seems like her cold is better, but I feel guilty for not even asking. “I just want to get home,” she says.
I nod. “It’s just that I promised you ramen,” I say, hoping for a smile. “I don’t like to go back on my promises.”
She doesn’t respond. The rest of the ride we pass in silence.
I pull into her driveway and put the gearshift in park. She reaches for the door handle and before I know what I’m doing, I touch her coat sleeve. She jerks her arm like my hand is the mouth of a king cobra.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her eyes on me for the first time since we left New Hampshire.
“Nothing. I don’t— I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” I take a deep breath, trying to rein in the desperation encircling me like a vine. I exhale. “See you tomorrow?”
“No,” she says.
“What?” My brow rises, then drops, as directionless and confused as I feel.
“I don’t need a ride anymore.”
“Sure you do. It’s still co—”
“I’m not some damsel in distress that you have to save!” she says, and it’s like all air suddenly leaves the car in a whoosh. “I don’t need you to get me soup, I don’t need you to fix my car, I don’t need you to drive me home! I was fine before you came and I’ll be fine now.”
I sit there, my body suspended in time, too stunned to move, to respond.
She looks down at her gloved hands in her lap and when she speaks again her voice is small. “You’ve done more than enough. Thank you.”
And then, the door opens, and just like that, she’s gone.
I remain still, unaware of how much time is passing, until I hear Aja’s voice from the backseat. “Eric?”
I glance in the rearview mirror, meeting his eyes, which are as round and wide as mine.
“Can I still go to the library?” he asks, his voice trembly.
“I don’t know, bud,” I say, putting the car in reverse and slowly backing out of Jubilee’s driveway. “I don’t think so.”
twenty-five
JUBILEE
I DIDN’T SLEEP AT all that night—or the next. How could I, when all I could hear were my words replaying like a scratched record in my head and all I could see was Eric’s hurt face just staring at me from the front seat of his car?
Exhausted, I slowly move through my Monday morning routine, washing my face, pulling on my thermal underwear. I get a pang in my heart remembering Eric’s response that night in the library when I told him I was wearing it: Are you trying to seduce me? And I wonder how many more moments I’ll have to go through like this; how many memories I’ve created of him; how completely he’s invaded my life in such a short time.
I contemplate calling in sick to work, but I need the distraction.
The day is long and feels as though the world is conspiring to remind me of all that has gone wrong. The pillow golfer, Michael, who has never said four words to me, suddenly wants to know where Louise is. “She on some kind of sabbatical? I haven’t seen her for a while,” he says. I notice that standing up, instead of hunched over a computer screen, he’s not unattractive. If you passed him on the street, you’d have no idea he spends his entire day in the library sitting on a pillow.
“Fired,” I reply. “City council cut funding.” He stares at me, his brown eyes searching mine, and I’m convinced he’s wondering what everyone else is: why it wasn’t me.
“Well that’s a bummer,” he says. I make a noncommittal sound and look back down at the books I’m sorting, hoping he’ll take the hint.
“Ah, that’s a great book,” he says, pointing to the one in my right hand. I look down at it. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I’ve never read it.
“Really?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him, surprised that he reads. Surprised that he does anything but play that stupid golf computer game.
“Really,” he says, a sadness in his eyes. “It was my dad’s favorite.” I look down at it again, and when I look back up, he’s gone.
At four thirty, the door opens and out of the corner of my eye I see Aja. I turn toward him, but realize it’s just a boy, same small frame, but with dull brown curly hair instead of Aja’s shiny jet black. And that’s what almost breaks me. I was so mad at Eric, so eager to disentangle him from my life, I wasn’t thinking about Aja. What must he think of me? I almost call Eric, tell him it’s fine for Aja to still come to the library, but in the end, I can’t bring myself to do it. As much as I’ll miss Aja, it’s better this way. A clean break.
But if that’s really true, I can’t explain why, for the next week, every time the door opens, my heart quickens in my chest, thumping with hope that it’s one of them coming in. Eric or Aja.
By the end of January, I’ve finally given up, resigned myself to the fact that it’s really over—whatever it was—and I finally stop watching the door, stop hoping that Eric will burst in like some kind of Hollywood paramour.
And that’s when he comes in.
Not Eric.
But Donovan.
I blink three times when I see him, trying to make sense of him in this space, of him in a suit, of him at all. Donovan only exists to me as a boy in a courtyard, wearing an obnoxious sideways trucker hat and a pair of lips that gave me my first and only kiss, an arrogant teen who nearly killed me, all for a bet.
Time slows as he walks toward me, and I wonder in quick succession first if he’ll recognize me, and then if I have time to run off to the back room and hide. A plan that might work if only my feet would just move.
“Jubilee,” he says, answering my first question in his maple-syrup voice. It’s deeper, but I’d recognize it anywhere. He stops in front of the desk, and I feel his eyes crawling from the top of my head down to the gloves on my hands. It takes every ounce of willpower to remain still and unbothered by his inspection.
“Madison told me you were working here,” he says, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I had to come see it for myself. Sorry it took me so long to stop by.”
Only Donovan would think that after all this time, I was waiting to see him, that his presence is desired by everyone.
“You look good,” he says, and the remark catches me off guard, especially because he’s dropped the theatrics. It’s not slick and slimy, the way he says it, although remembering what Madison said about his extracurricular activities, I’m sure he’s got complimenting women down to a science.
“Thank you,” I say, although I realize with great relief that even though the heart fluttering in my throat suggest
s otherwise, I don’t care what he thinks. Not anymore.
I want to return the compliment, but really, he looks the same. Just an older, more filled-out version of the boy in the courtyard. And his pants are properly fitted to his waist, rather than slung low to advertise the Hollister logo on the boxers he wore in high school.
“Anyway, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to say I’m so glad she could do all this for you,” he says.
“Who?” I ask, wondering if I’ve missed part of the conversation we’re apparently having.
“Madison,” he says.
Oh, right. I guess he knows she helped me get the job.
“God, for years, she felt so guilty.”
I tilt my head, now sure I’ve missed something. “Wait—what are you talking about?”
“The bet,” he says, as if that clarifies everything. “You know, how it was all her idea. Man, when she heard you had actually died—I don’t know who started that crazy rumor— I thought she was going to lose it.” He laughs. “Anyway, that was all so long ago. Water under the bridge, right?”
My body goes cold. Madison? That doesn’t even make sense—Donovan was her boyfriend. Why would she want him to kiss me? But then, other things start to click into place. Like how eager she was to help me when I ran into her at the gas station. And how easily I got this job, when Louise said it had been sitting open for four months—wait, Louise.
My eyes jerk up to Donovan. “Why did Louise get fired?”
“Who’s Louise?”
“She was a librarian here. They fired her a few weeks ago.”
“Oh. Right. That might technically be my fault. I didn’t know her name, though. Madison called me all in a tizzy saying the funds were low and the director was going to fire you, but she couldn’t let that happen, that you really needed the job. The bank donates ten grand to the library foundation every year, so I just made a call and said if you got fired, we would be withholding the check. I wasn’t sure if it would work—I mean, ten Gs isn’t that much money, you know? But it did.” He shrugs. “Was the least I could do.”
I stare at him, unable to conceal my shock. “You . . . are really . . . something,” I say slowly.
“Well, thank you.” He flashes a smile and tugs on his jacket lapel.
“I mean Madison said you were an asshole, but you really, really are.”
His smile vanishes. “Hey, no need for name-calling. I was trying to do you a favor.”
“Yeah? Just like kissing the high school pariah was such a favor? Listen, next time you want to perform one of your amazing grand gestures, leave me out of it.”
“Jubilee.” His voice softens. “I’m sorry. Look, I was a little shit back then. I know that. But I never meant—I didn’t know.”
His eyelashes point toward the ground and he puts on a convincing show of looking chagrined. “You were never a pariah,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to lean forward to make out what he’s saying. “Not to me.” He takes a breath. Exhales. “Madison overheard me saying that I thought you were . . . hot, or whatever. Beautiful. And she was pissed. Jealous. I think that was her idea of revenge or something. I never should have gone along with it.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.” I try to infuse force into my words but find I can only lace their outer edges with anger, like a lazy crocheter. I suddenly have no fight left. My head is swirling with all this new information and old memories, but mostly sorrow at how cruel high schoolers—and adults—can be. Or no, maybe adults are even crueler. The acts of a flippant, immature twelfth grader, I can forgive—but this? The knowledge that she’s befriended me out of some obligation, that she’s been lying to me this entire time, is somehow more painful than her original sin.
Donovan bobs his head and then leaves it hanging as if it’s connected to the ground by an invisible thread. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”
“I think you’ve done enough,” I say, but not unkindly. Our eyes meet, and even though he’s probably still a shit, I forgive him. I realize he just doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
ONE OF THE benefits of living alone is not having any witnesses to your most pathetic behavior. That evening, I ignore Madison’s three phone calls—two on my cell and one on my home phone (which I assume is her, though I suppose it could be a telemarketer wanting to discuss ice-cream flavors)—and have a full-on pity party. The attire? Eric’s Wharton sweatshirt, which no longer smells like him since I washed it, but I put the collar of it up to my nose anyway, inhaling the memory of him. Then I go to the kitchen and fry up a batch of French toast like I’m feeding a family of six, and take it to the couch. I turn on the TV, mushing bread into my mouth with one hand and flipping channels with the other, until I land on a documentary on the Montauk Project. I stop midchew, the aliens reminding me of Aja, and then I’m sobbing and snotting all over the place, my tears mixing with the cinnamon sugar coating my lips.
I miss him, more than I expected to. And I miss Eric, even though I hate myself for it. It’s so pitiful, so girlish, like I’m back in high school mooning over Donovan. And look what a waste that turned out to be. But mostly I hate that I feel more alone than I ever did in the nine years that I was actually alone.
I wish I had never left the house. Just let the money run out and starved to death when the food went too. They would have found me when the eviction became final—maybe I would have even made the New York Times again: “Girl Who Couldn’t Be Touched Dies Atop Obscene Number of Books.”
Depleted, I stretch out on the couch and pull Eric’s shirt collar up around my slimy nose again, taking comfort in the one small silver lining in this whole mess: at least I found out about Eric before I attempted the immunotherapy. I can’t believe I even thought about it. What if it had worked? Of course, it wouldn’t have in time for him. He’d have been long gone to New Hampshire. But in theory, if we had been able to touch, if I had felt the strength of his arms around me, the sharp stubble of his chin against my cheek, his dry, chapped lips on mine—instead of just imagined it—this would be so much worse. Wouldn’t it?
I clutch the sweatshirt material in my fist and squeeze, tighter and tighter, hoping the throbbing tension in my hand will lessen the searing pain of the illusive gaping hole in my chest.
But it doesn’t.
ON SUNDAY, I’M roused from sleep by a sharp rapping at the door. I know it’s Madison. I’ve been ignoring her calls for four days now and she came by the library yesterday while I was in the back room. I told Roger to tell her I wasn’t there.
“But I’ve just said, ‘She’s in the back room. I’ll go get her,’ ” he said.
“Tell her you were wrong.”
He rolled his eyes, but he did it.
I know I need to face her sometime, and I figure now’s as good a time as any. Better than making some scene in the library anyway.
I shuffle down the stairs and fling open the door to . . .
Eric. He takes me in, starting with my wide eyes, my jaw hanging from its hinges, and then lower.
“Nice shirt,” he says.
Crap. Please don’t let me be wearing his sweatshirt again. I look down and exhale with relief. It’s my MC Hammer hoodie that I bought off eBay a few years ago when I was in an ironic mood. It says, in big block letters: CAN’T TOUCH THIS.
“What are you doing here?”
He swipes his beanie off his head and holds it in front of him, so that he’s literally standing on my porch hat in hand. I don’t know why I find this funny.
“Aja and I . . . we’re moving back to New Hampshire. Next week.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
I shrug. “I figured.”
“Listen, I just . . . can I come in? I need to say some things.”
I stare at him, knowing it will be harder if I let him in, but also that not only do I want him to come in more than anything in this world, I want him to stay. I take my shoulder off the door and open it wider. “Fine,” I say, walking into
the den. He follows me, each step behind me increasing the speed of my heartbeat.
I sit in the armchair, leaving the couch as his only option. He sits. He studies the ashtray on the coffee table for a minute before he speaks. “Why are you so mad at me?”
The way he so calmly asks it bursts something wide open in me.
“You lied to me!”
His brow pops up at my outburst. “What? How?”
“You never told me! That you were leaving. I didn’t know! All these weeks—how could you not have told me?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think about it.”
I open my mouth, enraged, but he holds up a hand. “No. That’s not—I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I didn’t want to think about it.” And then he peers at me, as if he’s just now seeing me since I opened the door. “Wait—why do you even care?”
“What do you mean ‘why do I care?’ ”
“Exactly what I said.” I’m a bull’s-eye in his sights now. He’s not backing down.
I fidget under his stare. “I’ve just gotten really close to . . . Aja.”
“Mm,” he says, dropping his gaze. His shoulders follow suit. “That’s what I figured.”
I stifle a scream. “You’re so . . . impossible!”
His head jerks up. “Me? Me?! I’m . . .” He scoffs. “I don’t even—”
“What do you want me to say?” I yell, cutting him off. “That every time you look at me, touch me with those stupid gloves, it’s like I can’t catch my breath? That I’m desperate to feel your skin on mine, even if it kills me—literally? Is that what you want to hear?” I take a deep breath, an instant relief washing over me at the release, even though I simultaneously want to throw myself under the couch and hide. But it’s out there now, and I can’t take it back.
“Yes,” he says. “Because even though you’re quite possibly the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, and have obviously never learned how to use a comb on that crazy mane of yours, and you possess excessive amounts of inane and useless trivia, inexplicably all I want to do is touch you with my stupid gloves.”
Close Enough to Touch Page 29