And after stomping on my heart, Jemma slept with Adam Jennings that same night.
Still, I was the moron who showed up for her. I went to Harvard that day and tried to rescue her from her made-up terror.
But that was it. I couldn’t chase her anymore. I literally had some sense knocked into me.
“I just want things to go back to the way they were.”
I slip out of her reach and lean against the back of the sofa. “We both know that’s not going to happen, Jem.”
Jemma reaches back and ties her long hair back into a knot on top of her head. I remember falling asleep with that hair on my arm, on my chest. Breathing in the citrus scent and loving the way her warm body fit against mine. But now I look at her and see nothing but regret. I see someone who has held me back and beat me down in her own way. And I just can’t do it anymore.
“Because of her? Upstairs?”
I shake my head. “No. Because of me, Jemma.”
***
“You doing okay?”
Lena is pressed up against the balcony railing with her back to me and she jumps a little when I ask.
“Oh, hey. Yeah, I’m fine,” she says. Not even trying to change her tone to cover the lie. “Is everything okay with you? Is she—”
“Jemma’s gone,” I say. I pull my coat on and zip it up. It’s getting colder.
“Is she alright?” she asks. “She seemed pretty worked up.” I think she honestly cares. Not necessarily about Jemma in particular, but about other people in general.
I blow out a long breath. “Honestly, she’s…she’s a mess.”
“That’s no way to talk about someone who you’ve loved.”
I lean into the bar next to her. The view is spectacular up here. The old buildings tucked behind skyscrapers are revealed in the moonlight. I love that this city doesn’t tear down every brownstone or historic building in sight and, instead, builds around them. I love that they care about preserving something that’s beautiful in its own way, and not just try to replace it with something newer and shinier.
“That may be. But it’s the way you can talk about someone who broke your heart,” I say.
Lena’s eyebrows squish together and she frowns.
“But she’s been chasing you—it doesn’t add up—” Lena says, trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle that will never make sense.
Because Jemma and I are two different puzzles entirely, and we could never make the pieces go together, no matter how hard either one of us tried. I see that now. I hope she finally does, too.
“Never mind,” Lena says. “I guess it doesn’t have to. It’s not my business.”
The cold wind of the night is starting to kick up.
“But, just—you’re okay, right? Because you seem…like maybe you’re not,” she says.
“Eh, I guess we all have our dark corners.” Except just as I say it, I know it’s probably not true. Lena doesn’t have any darkness to her.
I rub my hands together to try to warm them up, and even in the dark, I can see the red tip of Lena’s nose.
I’m not surprised that she doesn’t protest when I say, “We’d better get going.”
This entire night has been one big clusterfuck. I should have just stayed in my garage, done what I could on the car without the damn part and ignored Lena’s knocks.
No.
As fucked up as the night has been, I can’t imagine not having gotten to know her, even a little bit.
We take the flight of stairs down into the train station, our arms brushing together, but we don’t make any other contact. Whatever tiny connection Lena and I had is now broken.
“You still have your ticket?” I ask, as we near the turnstile. I pull my Charlie Card out of my back pocket.
“Yeah,” Lena says, reaching into the pocket of the coat she’s wearing. “Don’t worry, I’ll change as soon as I can get into my house and get these back to you—or your mom. Whatever.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Alright,” is all she says.
She looks back down at the ground as we walk and I hate that because of me, that spark she had earlier is not even a tiny flicker now.
We each swipe our cards and push through the turnstile one at a time.
“Trains over here,” I jerk my head to the left. “Should be here any second.”
The crowd of people is thick even though it’s late, but I make my way to an open space. I fight the urge to reach behind me to offer a hand to Lena as we near the front of the crowd.
The rumbling train pulls up just as we get to the yellow line painted on the ground near the tracks. “Perfect timing,” she says, yawning deeply.
“Tired?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Her tiny shoulders rise and then fall. “It’s been a long day.”
“That it has.”
I wish I had something better to say. I wish I knew the thing to say that would get us back to the moment at the diner before we started talking about Jemma. But I guess time is a bitch like that. No matter how hard you wish you could recapture a feeling, it will never quite be the same.
No matter what I say or do from here on out, Lena will never look at me the way she did for those few minutes before her damn pie came. And that feels like a real kick in the ass that I just don’t need right now.
I stand and hang on to the pole, while Lena takes one of the few open seats.
“You can sit,” Lena motions to the open seat across from her.
“Nah,” I say. “I’ll save it for someone else. I’m good.”
“You’ve got to be tired of standing,” Lena says.
“I’ll be alright.” The train starts moving and I grip onto the bar. “We’ll be home soon and I’ll get you into your house,.”
And then I laugh. I can’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
“It’s not funny, really,” I say, burying my face in my hands to stifle the delirious laughter. “It’s just…I’m such an idiot. I couldn’t take the time to get you into the house because I was dead set on getting that damn valve cover tonight. Now we’re headed back with no part anyway.” I look up at the ceiling of the train and pinch the space between my eyes feeling like a grade A-asshole. “You know Lena, there are a few things I would have done differently tonight if I had a shot at it.”
Her head jerks back a little. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I say.
I wish I would’ve said ‘fuck the part’ the minute I saw her. I wish I would’ve just hung out with her and gotten to know the real Lena.
I wish I wouldn’t have dragged her into the ugliness of my world.
But I can’t tell her the truth, so instead I say, “I wish I would’ve paid that guy at the parts store to ship it to me, instead of going back to my place for sure.”
Paul couldn’t spring for Styrofoam, he wasn’t going to FedEx my stuff to me. Mostly, I just wish that I wouldn’t have been such a prick at Harvard.
I wish I would have taken her out for a proper meal, not at a diner, since she never gets into the city.
I wish I would’ve taken the time to bring her over to the North End and prove to her that our pizza tops New York pizza.
I wish that I would have taken her Wally’s Cafe so she could hear some of the best jazz in the city. I wonder if she’s ever even heard live music before.
Instead, I acted like a dick, and to top it off, I’m getting her home way later than promised.
For nothing.
I can go back to Babci’s garage and get on with my punishment. I may have royally screwed things up for Lena.
“Anyway, close your eyes if you need. We’ll be home soon,” I say, because me getting her home is about the only thing that’ll make things better between Lena and I.
But Lena’s eyes are trained on the man sitting across from her on the train. He’s wearing a thin, gray sweater over a shredded white t-shirt. The brown pants he has on have dirt down the sides like a kid wh
o’s been playing ball outside and practicing sliding home. But somehow, I doubt this man’s story is that wholesome. His eyes are closed and he’s slipping down in the plastic seat in slow motion.
Lena looks back to me, wide eyed.
“It’s fine,” I say.
It isn’t, I hate seeing people like this on the T. I hate seeing everyone avert their eyes in the face of someone who may need help.
But I guess I’m also a little more jaded than Lena, because I also recognize that it’s just part of life here.
We make one stop and most of the train empties out, so I sit down next to Lena.
Her posture is rigid, and she’s blinking rapidly. She’s worried.
“He’s alright,” I say. I pat her hand and hope it doesn’t come off as patronizing.
He’s not alright, though. The man with more than a little gray in his overgrown, coarse beard and probably a full day’s worth of stories to tell someone if they’d take the time to listen continues to slip down the seat until he’s lying on the floor in a contorted position, one leg and the opposite arm bent under him.
It’s then that I smell the thick, briny scent of whiskey.
“He’s just drunk,” I say. “He’ll catch a catnap on the floor and wake up ready for round two.”
Lena leans in and asks through clenched teeth, “How will he get off at his stop if he’s asleep? What if he doesn’t wake up? What if no one helps him?”
“Fine,” I say, standing up. I take my coat off and toss it onto my seat before I kneel down next to the man.
“Sir?” I call. Everyone left on the train is staring at me. They’re all thinking the same thing that I am: that this is a lost cause. All this man wants is more booze, and waking him up is only going to make him angry. But Lena’s wide eyes tell me to press on.
“Sir, are you okay?” I shake his shoulder a little and say, “Hey, man, can I help you up?”
But he doesn’t move.
“He could be diabetic or something,” Lena says.
“Could be,” I say. “But one thing he is for sure is drunk.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Lena says.
“I’m familiar with the smell of Wild Turkey,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“You are?” she asks.
This girl is determined to make me do the right thing.
I try to shake him again and that’s when I see the liquid pooling around my boot. Perfect way to end a perfect night. Being peed on by a drunk man.
We stop once more and two people actually step over the man, who is now soaked in his own urine, on their way off the train.
I throw my hands up. “I don’t know what you want me to do for him, Lena. I can’t make him wake up.”
“Is there a problem back here?” A woman in a black transit uniform comes to the open door and asks.
“This man needs help,” Lena says.
The woman stomps toward the man, bends down and swats at his arm. She’s even less concerned than I am. “Sir, you need to get up now,” she yells. Even if this man were dead I think he’d hear her in the afterlife. “I’ve got two more stops and then I’m going home. I’m not staying here all night babysitting you.”
She pokes at him again and this time he opens his eyes. Barely.
“You’ve got to get off my train, sir,” she bellows again before barking orders into her walkie talkie.
“Come on,” I say, extending an arm to the man.
He takes it, but pulling him up is like pulling an anchor off the ocean floor by hand. All dead weight. I manage to help him/drag him off of the train and lean him up against a cement pillar.
Somewhere down in the station a street musician is playing the violin. The sad, slow music echoes off the stone walls.
I look around at the drunk man, slumped against the pillar, at Lena looking equal parts concerned and terrified, at the transit worker pacing back and forth angrily.
This has to be one of the saddest scenes in the city tonight.
“You alright?” I ask.
“There’s a vending machine over there, I’m going to grab him a water,” Lena says.
“My coat’s still on the train. There’s cash in the pocket,” I tell her.
The man is starting to come to a little now that he’s sitting up.
“Where’s Vivienne?” he asks.
I drop my head. “Always a woman, huh?” I mutter with a chuckle. Either that, or Vivienne is the name of his flask.
“You on or off?” the woman asks. “I’m pulling out now. Called the medics for this one.”
Lena comes rushing back with the cold bottle in hand. I toss it to the man, then turn to Lena.
“We’ve got to go,” I say, motioning to the train.
“We can’t just leave him here,” she says.
“There’s help coming, Lena,” I say. “Real help.”
“Okay, so we’ll wait with him. He shouldn’t be alone. What if he crawls onto the tracks—”
“Morbid much?” I shake my head. “This is the last train of the night. We have to go.”
“What do you mean it’s the last train? Don’t they run twenty-four-hours a day?”
I shake my head. “Not in the winter. Not this train.”
Lena folds her arms over her chest. “Well, then you’re free to go. I’m not leaving him here alone. We can wait with him until they come to help him.”
Like that’s even a fucking option. Like I’d walk away from her, leave her here alone.
The woman walks off to get back on the train and I take a step in closer to Lena.
“I don’t think you get it.” I grit my teeth, “If we don’t get back on that train now—and I mean like now-now, we don’t get home until morning.”
She looks over at the man, not acknowledging me in any way.
“Let me help you open that,” she says, walking over to the drunk to open his water for him.
“Fine,” I say, throwing my hands up. “You were the one so dead set on getting home. You were so worried about what your sister would think, and now—now we’re stuck in the city for the night.”
“Come on man, help me out. I wanna get white girl wasted!” the man calls over to me.
“Yeah, I don’t think you could handle white girl wasted,” I laugh, but my patience with this dude is seriously waning. Where the hell are the cops and medics?
I see Lena’s face go from sweet smiles to panicked as the man grabs onto her ankle and he tries to pull her down to him.
It takes me a split second to make it to her side and press my boot to his wrist. He releases his grip and Lena stumbles backward. I look over to make sure she’s righted herself and see the train pull away from the station.
“Touch her again, you sack of shit and I’ll end you,” I say.
Lena looks a little pale. She’s rocking back and forth on her heels and hugging herself tightly. Sticking around for the night to take care of this asshole must not seem like such a solid plan to her now.
“You okay?” I ask her, but she doesn’t respond. She just stares.
“Alright, alright,” a voice says behind me. I turn and there’s a cop and two medics with a full stretcher and all of their bulky gear. “I thought this was a medical call, not a domestic.”
“Just sitting with this drunk asshole until you guys got here,” I say.
“That was awful nice of you,” the cop says, not impressed. “You know him?”
“No, sir,” Lena says. Her face is calm, but her voice has a hitch to it that gives her nerves away.
“Alright then, you and your girlfriend go ahead. We’ve got it from here,” one of the medics says.
I wrap my arm around Lena and pull her in close to me. She sniffles a little and I can’t see her face, but dammit I hope she’s not about to cry.
“You okay, doll?” I ask. I kiss the top of her head. I don’t know if that’s the wrong thing to do right now, but I don’t want her to cry.
Her only response is a qui
ck nod.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I say.
We walk out onto the street and it feels like we’ve been on the train forever. The city is quieter now that the last trains have left for the night. Most people are where they need to be for the night.
I stop walking, turn to her and say. “We can fix this. We can go back to my mom’s apartment for the night.”
I watch a quick grimace fill her face, even though she tries to smooth it out before I see. She doesn’t need to hide her feelings for my benefit, I feel the same damn way.
“We can…We can call a car. I’ll get us a car service.”
Lena shakes her head. “It’s okay.”
“God dammit, I am so sorry, Lena. I should have made sure we stayed on the train—”
“It was my fault,” she shrugs. “Stupid, naive, Lena.” Her voice is a bitter singsong.
“Don’t,” I say. I reach over and tip her chin up so that she’s forced to look at me. “Don’t do that. You’re not stupid. You want to see the good in people, no harm there. Come on, let’s grab something warm to drink, then we’ll call for a car, okay?”
It’s going to cost me a fortune to get us a car service back to Gloucester tonight, but it’s worth it to know that Lena is home where she belongs: safe and warm.
She starts to laugh.
Like, really laugh. I want to join in, or at least ask what’s so goddamn funny, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know.
Still, she’s cackling like I haven’t heard out of her yet tonight.
“Are you—are you okay?” I finally ask, as she’s nearly doubled over.
“I am—” she says in between breaths. “I just—this is all so silly. I had this idea in my stupid head that we were going to have some grand adventure today when we got on the train—” she blots at her eyes, wiping the tears of laughter as her voice returns to normal. “And instead, it’s just been one big fail after another.”
“I said I’m sorry,” I say. “We’re going to get home.”
Lena straightens up and shakes her head with a smile. “The thing is, I don’t want to. Do you?”
“Don’t want to what? Go home? Lena, it’s late and—”
“That wasn’t what I asked,” She shakes her head and her ponytail slips down a little, looser from the long day. “I asked if you actually want to go home. Right now. Do you want to call this day a loss and get a car back to Gloucester, and then go sit in your grandmother’s house?”
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