I understand where she’s coming from, but it’s still constricting. And since I wanted to stay with Jake, I limited the time I spent with him, even though my body physically ached with the need to be near him sometimes. Cheesy as it might sound, that’s the best way I can explain it. I thought I had done a pretty good job of disguising just how obsessed I was with him and how deliciously he had taken over my life.
But Mom started watching me, exactly the way I knew she would. She looked for anything that would provide evidence that Jake was breaking my heart, making me sad, keeping me up too late, stopping me from pursuing my interests, hogging me from other friends or any other trumped up charge. In her mind, she filed any shred of evidence away to digest later.
If I woke up with dark circles under my eyes because Jake and I had an amazing conversation on the phone the night before, Mom narrowed her eyes and made a mental check. If I arranged to go out with Kelsie and she cancelled, and I went out with Jake instead, Mom noted it and frowned. Tiny charges, little details grew and compounded until Mom had, in her mind, a real reason to orchestrate a campaign against Jake, or at least against me being so wrapped around him.
Mom was a huge proponent of dating lots of different people, keeping your options open, and focusing on yourself. All sound good in theory. Until you meet someone like Jake Kelly and have to think about living without hearing his sweet laugh or smelling the clean, minty smell of him or feeling his arms tight around you. Thinking about it made my heart skip and surge.
This was love.
And my mom was no fool. She wasn’t about to drive a wedge between us by harping on Jake or voicing her neurotic concerns. My mother was too brilliant for that kind of novice work.
“It’s part of a program with the college, honey.” Mom took out a pamphlet and handed it to me eagerly. “They want to give the professors a chance to scout prospective study abroad locations before they choose them, so we’re allowed to bring any family and check out the museums, local universities…oh, it’s going to be so incredible.” She hugged me again, and I took a deep breath.
“Mom, this sounds so great.” I swallowed hard and prepared for the worst. “So, when do we go?”
“We leave the day after tomorrow! We’ll be gone for a full week, just past your winter break. I’ve already cleared it at your schools if you need some jet-lag recovery time on the way back, so don’t worry about that.” She put an arm around me and squeezed me close.
“Mom?” I dug deep and willed up some courage to argue on Jake‘s behalf. She looked at me, and the look was new-knife sharp. I swallowed back my arguments like the weak coward I sometimes was. “I have to pack right now. What’s Paris like in December?”
“Chilly.” The flinty light was gone from her eyes. She took both my hands in hers. “Go ahead and get packing, honey.”
“Thank you, Mom. So much.” I modulated my voice carefully to keep it happy, and I hugged her again. “This will be amazing.”
And I hoped that by saying it, I would force myself to mean it. Because as I walked quickly to my recently redone room, I felt the itchy pain of tears pricking behind my eyes. I tried not to think too hard about the fact that I would miss New Year’s Eve with Jake. It would have been my first ever romantic New Year’s kiss.
In my room, with its robin-egg blue wall and poppy-covered bed, the Chagall and Cassatt on the wall, the paper lamps and the books piled everywhere, I popped my iPod onto its dock and put on some happy packing music, even though I wanted to scroll through my specially made teen angst mix and let it envelope me in something suitably dreary. I started to put piles of clothes here and there and took out my brand new pink leather traveling bag, the one I had unwrapped this morning and hugged Thorsten for. I didn’t feel any ill will towards Fa. He was a puppet in Mom’s very capable hands, no doubt about that.
I didn’t feel any ill will at all, not really. I picked up the picture of me and Mom in front of the big tree in Rockefeller Square. We’re both really pink cheeked and nosed with cute hats on, our arms around each other. I knew what my mom was feeling stemmed from a lot of really deep emotions and events that all proved the one thing I’ve known my entire life — my mom loves me so fiercely, it’s scary.
Mom had me when she was barely out of high school. The guy, my father, left her high and dry. He was her boyfriend and as far as I can tell, she thought this guy was the love of her life. I knew that she thought what Jake and I had was very similar to what she once imagined she had with my biological father, before he stomped on all of her dreams and left her high and dry. It took her a long time to get her life back on track after him. I know it’s the ghost of that experience that makes her uber protective.
Mom never told me much about the whole thing with my father, but I knew there was a lot of resentment on her part towards my grandparents. She felt like they should have been looking out for her more, making sure she was on the right track, that she had the right back up.
It was what she was doing for me right now, or at least what she thought she was doing for me. So I couldn’t be upset.
But I was.
And I had to do the one thing that I really, really didn’t want to do. Especially on Christmas day, knowing the kinds of Christmases Jake has experienced every year before. But every second that I put off packing and moped, every second that I chickened out about calling him was one second that I took away from our time together, and I couldn’t do that.
I was always a good packer. Thorsten, Mom and I traveled a lot, so I knew how to roll my clothes, how to pick things that will layer well and that will move from casual to fancy easily. I knew how to make a little bag of accessories that would dress everything up. I had a special tiny cross-over purse with a wide zippered strap to keep my passport and anything else important in. First I’d laid out what I wanted to take on my bed, then I pared through and took out what I know I didn’t really want to bring. Once there was a new, smaller pile, I rolled it and put it all in. Only when all that was done did I pick up the phone and turn my music up a little bit. I packed so fast that I had time to call Jake and give him a little bit of a heads up before he got here.
“Merry Christmas, Brenna.” His voice was silky and deep on the phone, and I felt my mouth go dry at the sound of it. I loved that voice.
“Merry Christmas, Jake.” I smiled despite the bad news I was about to deliver.
“Did Santa leave you some good stuff?” Jake asked. He sounded happy, inexplicably.
I had been to his house early on Christmas Eve, before the candlelight service and Christmas caroling at my family’s church. He and his father bought a small, dry turkey and had two wilted vegetable sides and mashed potatoes; a veritable feast as far as the Kellys were concerned. We sat on the couch and ate off of plates that we balanced on our laps and watched It’s a Wonderful Life. Jake’s father barely spoke to me. He didn’t seem mean, just socially uncomfortable and eager for me to be gone. When the movie was over, he got up and announced that he was going out bowling. Jake and I had a few hours before I had to go home, so we snuggled in his room and talked and laughed under the blankets. His dad kept the house at sixty eight degrees in the winter, so snuggling was pretty much a necessity.
“I got a lot of great stuff.” I pawed through my bras and underwear, picking the nicest ones. This was a trip to Paris, after all. “Thorsten got me an awesome new design program for the computer. Um, did you get anything good?”
He laughed like I made a joke. “I got my socks, flashlight and fifty. I told you, babe, it’s what I get every year.”
“Well, I got you some good stuff.” I tried very hard not to get aggravated at Jake’s dad on the most peaceful day of the year. How could he be so cheap about his own son? And I didn’t mean cheap monetarily, although that was true, too. Jake was this vibrant, amazing guy, but his dad put no effort whatsoever into making things good or nice for him. It was just basic necessities as far as Jake’s dad was concerned, and he didn’t even stretch his
imagination much there.
“I can’t wait to see what you got me. I’m still trying to get over my birthday gift.”
I had custom made him a motocross jersey. Jake was really into dirtbikes, and when he raced during his last big amateur competition, I had taken a bunch of action shots of him. I transferred them to the computer, played with the images, and made them into really high quality iron-ons. I had the shirt ordered and put his last name and the images on it; it was pretty professional looking.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” I sat on my bed and unknotted a tangle of necklaces from my jewelry box. “It was just a shirt.”
“And the rest of the outfit to match, and a helmet that you custom designed. And the decals for my bike.” He sighed a happy, adorable sigh. “Don’t downplay it, Bren. It was awesome.”
“Well, it all had to match.” I moved onto my bracelets. “And it was cool that that big dirtbike magazine was at Digman’s when you won that race.”
“I can’t believe I got a spread.” Jake laughed. “It was your design. It was good luck.”
“I know I’m pretty great, but don’t you think it had something to do with the fact that you won the race?” I smiled at the memory, a little girly pride pricking me nicely. “Like by a mile.”
“By a couple yards,” he corrected humbly. Typical Jake. “Yeah, I guess. You just…” He stopped. “Alright, I didn’t want to get all mushy on you, but what the hell? I never had someone care about me the way you do. It makes me feel like I could do anything. Like you give me the confidence to do whatever I want. You don’t know how incredible it’s been for me to have you in my life.”
And now my heart felt like it was singing and tearing apart at the same time. How could I help but fall in love with a guy like this? Jake was the whole package, no question. We had plans for winter break. Since Jake turned seventeen this November, he’d been cutting some of his hours at Zinga’s, the farm where he worked. He’d been a full time employee when he needed to keep a farmer’s license, but since he’d gotten his regular license, he was able to scale back and spend more time with me. This break was supposed to be a chance for us to hang out as much as humanly possible. How was I going to tell him that we were going to have no time at all together?
“Jake, you don’t need me around to do all of that,” I pointed out. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’ve always had the talent and the drive. You just need to believe in your potential.”
It was an old speech on my part, and one I didn’t love making. I’ve never been great at pep talks in general, and I hated when people didn’t just admit what they’re good at. But in Jake’s case, I always made exception because I honestly got the feeling that he didn’t realize his full potential. So I tried to reassure him without rolling my eyes too much.
“You can have whatever theory you want.” I could hear his goofy grin over the phone. “I know that it’s all Brenna Blixen magic. I’m just glad you had some sort of mental breakdown and decided to date me.”
“Jake.” I giggled. It was easy to dismiss all of his humble talk when he had such a good sense of humor about the whole thing.
“So, what’s up with tonight? It’s gonna be dressy like Thanksgiving was, right?”
He had worn his blue button down to Thanksgiving. And my birthday dinner. And every other occasion he had had to come to my house for. Jake’s wardrobe was depressingly small, but I had remedied that.
“Look under your bed.” I bounced up and down on my bed, excited despite the impending bad news that I knew I had to tell him sooner rather than later.
“What?” I heard him put the phone down and move around in his bland, boring little room. He picked the phone back up. “Bren, what is all this? How did you get it here?”
“I snuck it in my big purse. You know the one. You make fun of it all the time.” I smiled with pride. “Open your presents up.”
I heard him tear wrapping paper. “Wow. Um, these are from Banana Republic. That’s just a stupid amount of money to spend on clothes for me.”
“Jake. I love you in blue, but if I had to look at that button down one more time, I was going to rip it off of you.” I jumped up and ran my hand over the many, many gorgeous outfits hanging in my closet, and it was such a deeply satisfying feeling. I was well aware Jake probably didn’t feel it quite the same way, but there had to be some sense of happiness when he looked at his new clothes.
“Uh, you did. The last three times I wore it. I thought you were ripping it off of me because of how good I looked in it.”
“Shut up.” But I smiled from ear to ear. I loved that I found him so irresistible. “Do you like them? I kept the receipts, so you can take them back if you want.”
“No way. You have the better judgment in clothes and stuff. If you think I’m gonna look hot in this stuff, I’m wearing it. Not that you need any encouragement.”
“Haha.” I rolled my eyes. “At least you dropped the whole humble guy thing.”
“Well, I think you exaggerate about how smart and great I am. But as far as my hotness? There’s no debating that.” I heard him opening the packages. “You seriously just quadrupled my wardrobe.”
“Well, considering you had less than ten pieces of clothing in total, that wasn’t very hard to do.” I took a few pair of shoes out and assessed them. Shoes were always big space takers in luggage. As much as I loved going through my awesome clothes, I knew I needed to come out and tell Jake about Paris. But our conversation was so fun and sweet, I was greedy for a few more minutes.
“You spent a lot of money.” Now his voice had an edge of grumpiness to it.
“I made a killing at the last two Folly shows.” I designed shirts for a local band, Folly, and got a cut of the profits they made from the sales. It was only a small amount per shirt, but it added up quickly. Especially considering their fan base had been growing in the last few months after a couple of incredible shows.
“You should be saving that money. Aren’t you going to Ireland this summer?” he reminded me. “You’re going to need it, Brenna.”
I sighed. The Ireland trip was looming, and I was upbeat about my chances to get into the program, but not positive. Mom and Jake, on the other hand, had no doubts and talked about it as if it were already set in stone. “It’s not for sure.” I fell back on my bed, pushing clothes away with my elbows. “Rotary still has two rounds of interviews. I can’t be sure about it until the end of next month.”
“Yeah, like there’s any way they’re going to reject you,” he scoffed.
And that was why Jake was so amazing and so frustrating at the same time. He really did believe that I was pretty perfect. If I told him that I was going to quit school to be a model or a racecar driver or an astronaut, he would not have one negative thing to say. He would be supportive and wonderful and…Jake.
“So, speaking of Europe…” I started. And stopped.
“Yeah?” I heard his steady breathing, the happiness in his voice, and I didn’t want Paris. I wanted Jake! I wanted Jake all winter break. I wanted to drive around in his big blue truck with no particular place to go. I wanted him to take me ice skating. I wanted to eat out at our favorite Japanese place and go see late movies and talk on the phone all night. And if I worked on him long and hard, I knew I could get him to sneak over, in my window and sleep with me, spooned around me all night and into the gray morning.
“Jake, I got another big present today.” I sat up and pushed the bangs off of my forehead. He waited. “I got a ticket to Paris.”
“France?” Jake’s voice rang with more genuine enthusiasm than I’d been able to muster.
“Yes.” I was about to spill the details, but his excitement for me eclipsed my attempts.
“That’s perfect, babe. You‘ve wanted to go to forever.” Jake knew how much I wanted to see Paris. “You and Mom going?” It was weird to hear him call her ‘Mom,’ but also kind of cute. He didn’t do it to her face. When he talked to her it was always, strictly Mrs. Blixe
n. He just referred to her as ‘Mom’ with me.
“Yes.” I dragged the word out slowly.
“Cool.” He seemed actually cool with it. “When?”
“Day after tomorrow.” I rushed the words out, like ripping a Band-Aid off in one shot, and then I winced and waited. In the second of silence Jake took to collect his thoughts or quietly freak out or hang up on me, I added the clincher that was sure to break his heart. And mine. “And I‘ll stay all winter break.”
Jake let out a long sigh. I knew what he felt. I pictured a big, bright, shiny, red balloon that was suddenly punctured by a sharp needle. “It’s so good for you and Mom to do this together. I’ll be able to pick up more work at Zinga’s. Can I call you?” There was an almost unnoticeable shake to his words, but leave it to Jake to put the best possible spin on the situation.
“Jake, you can be a little less perfect about this.” I slumped back on my bed with relief. I prepared myself for a tantrum, because that was what I would have done. But Jake was on a different level when it came to cool and calm. He was like a saint. Or Buddha.
“I’m not gonna lie.” His voice sounded thick, like he was talking around a lump in his throat. “I’m gonna miss you so much. I was really excited about seeing a lot of you. A lot of you,” he added, his voice husky, and my body screamed for him.
Why? Why did the choice have to be between Paris and Jake? How evil could life be? Correction; how evil could Mom be? God, her love hurt.
“I’ll miss you so much.” I closed my eyes and let the hot tears fill right up to my lashes and drip out the sides of my eyes. “I almost don’t want to go.”
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