Garret

by Allie Everhart

  I still want to be more than friends with Jade and I know she feels the same way. We have major chemistry going on. Like seriously intense chemistry that we try to ignore when we’re together but it’s nearly impossible when we’re this attracted to each other. I used to think if I was friends with a girl, I wouldn’t be as attracted to her. I’m not sure why. But with Jade, being friends with her has made me even more attracted to her. So I would love to take this beyond just a friendship, but I don’t think Jade’s ready to take that next step.

  It’s now the second to last Saturday of October, and I invited Jade to my room for a movie night. We’ve been going out to movies the past few Saturdays, but tonight it’s cold and rainy and I’d rather snuggle up with Jade than go out in the shitty weather.

  “What are we watching?” Jade asks as she gets a couple sodas from my fridge.

  “A sports movie.” I show her the cover, which has a football player on it.

  “Ugh. Really? Do I get a say in this?”

  “It’s a good movie. And it’s football season. It’s the perfect time to watch it.”

  “All right. Give it here.” She takes the movie from me. “The delivery guy’s probably downstairs. You should go get the food.”

  I come back with the Chinese food we ordered and we sit together in my giant bean bag chair. The movie starts and I see a cartoon dog in a detective uniform.

  I groan. “No freaking way I’m watching this again.”

  “But, Garret, you love this one. It’s your favorite.” Jade gives me her sweetest smile, but it’s not gonna work. I’m not watching this again.

  I get up and sort through my movies in the cardboard box, trying to find the sports movie. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it fell into the heating vent.”

  I stop and look at her. “The what? Jade, what did you do with it?”

  She eats her Chinese food, her eyes on her chopsticks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I take the food carton from her and place it on the table. I kneel over her, my arms at her sides, trapping her in place. “Where’s the movie, Jade?”

  “It’s in the box.”

  I smile. “It’s not in the box. I just looked.”

  She smiles back. “Maybe under the bed?”

  I check. “Nope. Try again.”

  “I really can’t remember.” She’s such a bad liar.

  I tickle her, which I’ve never done before so I wasn’t sure if she was ticklish. Turns out she’s very ticklish. She’s laughing and squirming and trying to get away from me.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you.” She’s so out of breath from laughing she can barely talk.

  I keep tickling her. “I’m waiting.”

  “The box. I swear.”

  “I already looked in there.”

  “Just let me up.”

  I move to the side and Jade goes over to the box, reaching behind it.

  She holds up the movie. “It was sitting on the floor next to the box.” She sits beside me again, still out of breath, and hands me the movie. “Here.”

  “See? Was that so hard? A simple answer would have been so much easier.”

  “Yeah. But not as fun.” She gives me a smile but it’s not her normal smile. It’s a flirty smile. Is she saying she wants to do more than watch a movie tonight? I’m not sure, so I pretend I didn’t notice the flirty smile.

  “You want your food back now?” I ask.

  “No. I need a minute to breathe. That was a workout.”

  Jade hears the cartoon dogs howling from the TV and starts laughing.

  I reach over and grab the remote and click the TV off. I toss the remote aside and hover over her again, my arms blocking her on both sides. “Jade, are you making fun of my movie?”

  “No.” She laughs as she says it. “I love it.”

  I try to remain serious. “Jade?”

  “Garret?” she says, mocking my serious tone.

  “You’re a real pain in the ass sometimes.”

  “Just sometimes? I’ll have to work on that.”

  My face is right above hers and, damn, I really want to kiss her. When our eyes meet, I hold her gaze and wait to see if she’ll make a move. I know she wants to kiss me, but once again, she hesitates.

  I can’t keep waiting. I have to kiss her.

  I lean down and press my lips to hers, then wait to see what she’ll do. She presses her lips back against mine and that’s all the answer I need.

  I shift onto my back, my hands gripping her hips and pulling her over me. She straddles me and my heart pumps harder in my chest. I reach my hand behind her head and bring her face to mine and kiss her like I’ve wanted to for weeks. She parts her lips and I take the kiss deeper, my tongue doing the things I learned she liked when I gave her that birthday kiss.

  I put my other hand on her lower back and pull her into me. She rubs against the front of my jeans, and shit, that feels good. I got hard as soon as she kissed me but having her rub against me like this is making it throb. I want to be with her like that so freaking bad. In fact, I’ve had some pretty intense dreams about it.

  But I can’t do that with her. She’s not ready for that. After the incident at the pool, I don’t want to push her too far. I have no idea how much experience she’s had with guys, but it doesn’t seem like much. We’ve been hanging out together all these weeks, our attraction to each other off the charts, and she’s waited until now to kiss me. It’s like she was afraid to kiss me, thinking it would lead to a place she’s not ready to go.

  It just confirms my original thought that she’s a virgin, which means I need to take things slow. I would never want her to feel like I’m pressuring her to lose her virginity. She needs to decide when to do that and who to do it with. Maybe she’ll decide I’m not the one. But I hope not. I can’t even think about her being with some other guy. I don’t know who this person would be, but I want to beat his face in just thinking about him with Jade.

  We’re still kissing and she’s still grinding her hips into me. She takes my hand from her back and brings it around to the side of her shirt, slipping it under the fabric. I feel her soft skin and I want so damn bad to move my hand up to her breast, but I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to screw up and take it too far and have her scream at me and push me away like she did that day in the pool.

  Jade breaks from the kiss. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not saying to go all the way, but we can do more than this.”

  “I didn’t think I should after what happened, you know, the last time.”

  She glances down. “Oh. Well, don’t worry about that. I’m fine.”

  I take my hand away from her waist and place it on the side of her face. “Something happened that night in the pool and it scared me. I felt like I hurt you or something. You started screaming and kicking me.”

  “I wasn’t screaming.”

  “Yes, you were.” I say it softly because I can tell she’s embarrassed about it. She won’t even look at me. “You said that you weren’t me. I didn’t know what it meant, but I assumed you were mad at me for touching you.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you. Or about you. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then who were you talking to?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Then tell me what happened that night. And why it happened again when I found you in my room that morning. You got so freaked out when I joked about leaving the TV on.”

  She pulls away and sits next to me. “I don’t want to talk about it. It won’t happen again, okay?”

  I turn to look at her and see tears running down her face.

  “Shit!” I pull her into my arms and hold her against my chest. “Jade, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I was just trying to understand.”

  I feel her shaking in my arms as she cries silent tears. Fuck. What did I do? Why is she crying?

  Her face is
now buried in my shirt, her body curled up against me. I can feel her pain and it hurts me to know I caused it. But I don’t even know what I did.

  “Jade, talk to me.”

  She won’t say anything so I just hold her tighter and don’t let go. After a few minutes I feel her body relax and her shaky breaths become steady again.

  “Are you okay?” I lift her chin up. Her eyes are red but she’s no longer crying.

  “Yes. I’m fine.” She sits up and wipes her tear-stained cheeks. “Sorry I messed up your shirt.”

  She’s looking at my chest and I glance down and see the wet patch left from her tears.

  “I don’t give a shit about the shirt. And you’re not fine. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” She sounds angry. “Just forget it.”

  “We’re friends, Jade, and I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  “Like what? Crying? I’m not allowed to cry?”

  “It’s more than that. It’s something else. There’s something you’re not telling me. Just talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

  “You can’t help, Garret. This is just something I have to deal with alone.”

  She sounds so sad when she says it. I know she doesn’t want to deal with this alone and yet she forces herself to. She refuses to let anyone help her. Even me. Even after all this time we’ve spent together.

  I can’t seem to make Jade talk to me. I told her about my mom and my fake friends and my dad’s control over me and my drinking. I’ve told her things I’ve never told anyone else. But she still won’t open up to me. I don’t know why, but even if she won’t tell me anything, I can at least be here for her.

  I bring her back into my arms and take the blanket that’s next to the chair and lay it over us. Her eyes are closed and I lean down and kiss her forehead and we just sit quietly as I lightly rub her back.

  I look at her lying in my arms and realize I can’t deny it anymore. I’ve tried to for weeks but I can’t keep doing it because it’s how I feel.

  I love Jade.

  I love her and it scares the shit out of me. I kept trying to tell myself I didn’t love her. I’ve never been in love before so how the hell would I know what it feels like? I kept telling myself it was just a physical attraction or this playing hard to get thing she does that makes me feel this way.

  But it’s so much more than that. Jade consumes my thoughts. She’s taken hold of my heart. I care about her more than anything. I care what happens to her. I want to keep her safe. I want to make her happy. I want to make her smile. I want to get rid of all this pain she has inside her or at least help her get past it.

  That’s how I know I love her. And it’s confirmed when I think about how much she’s changed me the past few months. I like who I am when I’m with her. I like that I’m no longer drinking so much and that my life is more than just parties and fake friends. I was numb before I met her, just trying to get through each day. But now the numbness has been replaced by the feelings Jade brings out in me. Not just my feelings about her, but my feelings about my life and where I’m taking it. She makes me want to fight to get out of this life that’s been scripted for me and to make a life of my own. A real life. A life with her in it. Because I can’t imagine my life without her.

  After a long period of silence, I hear Jade softly talking.

  “It was my mother.”

  “What?” I brush the hair off her face. “Did you say something?”

  “My mom,” she says. “I was talking to my mom.”

  I’m not sure I heard her right. I think she said she was talking to her mom but that doesn’t make sense.

  So I cautiously ask, “Didn’t your mom die?”

  “Yes, but sometimes I still hear her.”

  “You mean like in your head.”

  “Yes. It started after she died.”

  “I hear my mom in my head sometimes, too. It’s just the memory of her.”

  “This is more than a memory. It’s like she’s still alive, screaming at me. Telling me what a horrible person I am and how I’m going to screw everything up, just like she did. And I can’t make it stop.”

  So that’s what this is about. I knew Jade’s mom was messed up, but I didn’t realize how much of an effect she had on Jade. I’ve never met anyone who had a traumatic childhood like Jade had, so I don’t really understand it. I can’t even imagine it.

  “Look at me, Jade.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “You can make it stop. You’re incredibly strong. You’re stronger than anyone I know. Look what you came from and look what you did with your life. You don’t have to listen to her. You can shut her out.”

  “I can’t. I’ve tried.” She sounds hopeless, like she’s truly given up. Like she’s done everything possible to get rid of those voices but they’re still there. Probably because she won’t let anyone help her.

  “Then I’ll work on it with you.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know. Let me think about it and get back to you.”

  I must’ve said it funny because she smiles.

  But I’m not smiling. I’m pissed. Pissed at her mom and whatever she did to Jade to make her this way. “Can I ask you something about your mom?”

  Jade nods.

  “Did she hurt you? Like physically hurt you?”

  “Sometimes. If I made her mad. So I learned not to make her mad. Or I’d get out of the house when she started to get angry. She got angry a lot.”

  I figured Jade’s mom was abusive, but I wasn’t sure what kind of abuse. The emotional abuse is bad enough. I was hoping there wasn’t physical abuse, too. But I kind of assumed there was when I saw Jade cower like she did when I told her she left the TV on that morning I found her in my room.

  “I’m sorry, Jade. I know that doesn’t help, but I don’t know what else to say.”

  “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. Like you said, I’m strong. I got through the hell of living with her all those years. And I’ll get over whatever’s going on now. I don’t know why I broke down like that. It’s just that I really like you and when you wouldn’t even touch me it was like she was here again, controlling my life. Taking away everything I want. I keep trying to move on and pretend that she never existed, but I guess I need to try harder.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. You’re trying to run from the past when maybe you need to face it.”

  “No, thanks. I lived it. I don’t need to remember it.”

  “But dealing with the past can help you move forward. At least it did for me.” I pause because I’ve never told anyone this, but I think Jade needs to hear it. “When my mom died, I refused to accept it. I kept thinking she would just come home one day. I’d wait at school, looking for her car to pick me up. I had dreams that she was still alive. Finally my dad made me see a counselor and after talking to the guy I realized that I couldn’t say goodbye to my mom until I faced the fact that I was so damn pissed at her for leaving me. I hated her for it. And I hated myself for feeling that way. Because it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want to leave. Eventually I figured out that I wasn’t angry at her at all. I was angry that the plane crash even happened and that everything changed from that point forward. Once I accepted that, I could finally move on.” I notice Jade seems distracted, like her mind is elsewhere. “You don’t want to hear this, do you?”

  “I do want to hear it. And I’ve been listening to everything you said. But your situation is different than mine.”

  “Yeah, but what I’m trying to tell you is that to get past this you can’t keep running from it. You have to deal with it.”

  “I’m not running from it! I just don’t want to think about it!” She yells it at me. Maybe I pushed her too far.

  “It was just an idea, Jade. I was just trying to help.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’ll think about it, okay?” She moves her hand over my chest, smoothing my shirt. “Garret
, will you do something for me?”

  “Of course.” I take her hand off my shirt and hold it in mine.

  “Don’t treat me differently now that I’ve told you this. I’m not fragile. I’m not going to break. And I need you to promise you won’t tell anyone what I told you tonight. Only you and Ryan know this about me. I haven’t even told Frank.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Good.” She smiles. “Now can we watch a movie and eat our cold Chinese food?”

  I lean over and kiss her cheek.

  “What was that for?”

  “For trusting me enough to tell me.” I stand up and get her food from the table and hand it to her. “Okay, we’re watching the football movie. I might even make you watch it twice after you hid it like that.”

  We return to our just-friends status and remain there the rest of the night. It was a big deal for Jade to share that with me and it didn’t feel right to go back to making out after that.

  The next day we go to the pancake house, like we do every Sunday. Then the week continues and we go back to being just friends.

  I feel like I need to slow things down again and let Jade decide when to continue what we started last Saturday night. She hasn’t said another word about her mom or the voices she hears in her head and I haven’t asked. I’m hoping she’ll tell me more, but I know pushing her to do so won’t work. She needs to tell me herself when she’s ready.

  On Wednesday night, I get a call from my dad. I haven’t talked to him for weeks. If he’s calling, he probably wants something. I consider not answering, but then I do.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Garret, have you seen Jade around?”

  My pulse quickens. Did someone tell him something? Shit.

  “No,” I lie. “I mean, she lives in my building so yeah, I see her sometimes, but I don’t talk to her.”

  “So you’ve seen her recently? Like within the past day or two?” He sounds strange, like nervous or something.