Broken Together

by Cassie Beebe

  “Yeah, sure. That sounds good,” Jacob replied.

  “Cool,” Callie answered, jotting down that plan on a sticky note as a reminder.

  “Alright, so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Jacob said, zipping up his backpack and hooking it on his shoulder.

  Callie stared at him in bewilderment for a moment.

  “For… job searching?” he prodded.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, remembering their proposed plans. “Yeah, totally! What time do you wanna head out?”

  “Hm… I’m not sure,” he mused, trying to remember if there was any protocol on what time of day to drop off resumés. “I guess the earlier the better?”

  “Okay,” she nodded. “Well, I’m usually up and ready by, like, eight, if that works for you.”

  Ordinarily, Jacob would be trying to figure out how he would spend the several hours in between when he woke up naturally at five and when he would have to meet up with her, but college had turned him into a later, heavier sleeper. He wasn’t sure if it was the change in environment, the hefty mental work load, or simply the draining nature of having to be around such young, vibrant people 24/7, but something about his new life in Ohio made him crave his bed at the end of a long day more than he ever had in his life. His mornings had shifted from trying to force himself to rest longer to having to drag himself out of bed.

  But Callie was being a gracious friend in lending him her time and her car, so if she wanted to meet at eight, he would grab a strong cup of coffee and meet her at eight.

  “Eight sounds perfect,” he agreed. “See ya then.”

  “See ya,” she waved, still organizing her notes from their study session neatly into her binder as he headed for the stairs.

  The next morning, Jacob awoke in a confused haze. He knew something had woken him, because he was far too groggy to have woken naturally, but his alarm was silent. Focusing his ears, he heard the harsh buzz of his new cellphone vibrating on the desk across the room.

  He grunted as he forced his feet onto the floor and stumbled across the dim room, slightly lit by the morning sunshine streaming through the closed blinds. He opened the phone and read Callie’s name on the bright screen as his eyes protested. He glanced at the clock, but it was still about an hour before they were supposed to meet.

  “Hello?” he said through a yawn into the receiver.

  “Hey. Sorry, did I wake you?” she asked.

  “That’s alright,” he replied, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What’s up?”

  “Well… I’m sorry to do this, but the bookstore just called, and they need someone to come in this morning,” she explained. “I mean… I could say no,” she offered, sounding guilty, “but honestly, I could really use the hours.”

  “No,” Jacob protested, trying to mask the disappointment in his voice. “No, of course not. You should go to work. I can figure out another ride,” he tacked on for her benefit, but he didn’t know how he would. The public transportation system in the small town was a joke, and not much was close enough to walk to. He mentally added “used car” to the ever-growing list of things he needed to buy, although he wasn’t sure how he could accomplish that without first getting a job.

  He sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” Callie said again, guilt clear in her voice. “You know, actually…,” she trailed off, thinking.

  “What?” Jacob asked.

  “Well, I mean, I’m just gonna be on campus all day, so I guess if you wanted, you could take my car,” she suggested. “I won’t need it ‘til tomorrow.”

  Jacob’s mood was lifted by the idea. “Are you sure?” he reluctantly asked, not sure if he wanted to give her the option of changing her mind.

  “Yeah, totally!” Callie beamed, happy to have something positive to offer in spite of having to cancel their plans. “Just come down to the bookstore and I’ll give you the keys.”

  “Okay, will do. Thanks,” Jacob replied, snapping the phone shut.

  He looked at the clock again. It was earlier than he had planned to start his day, but since he was up, he figured he might as well get ready. He had stopped by a department store the previous night, after his study session with Callie, and picked up a pair of black slacks and a dark red button-down shirt. He fished them out of the plastic bag, pulling off the tags before putting them on. He fidgeted with the shirt in the mirror, trying to decide between tucking it in or leaving it be. Tucked would be the more professional way to go, but without a belt it looked odd, so he untucked it and smoothed out the wrinkles.

  He fingered through his light brown hair, the edges tickling his ears and nearly falling below his eyebrows. A haircut was certainly not in his budget. He wondered if he could track down a friend with clippers do it for free. Angela’s boyfriend, maybe?

  Due to the early hour, he wasn’t quite hungry yet, so instead of heading to the cafeteria, he opened up his locker in the shared dorm kitchen and grabbed a protein bar from the collection of groceries he had picked up, along with his new clothes, at the store the night before. The cafeteria was well-stocked, but it was only open until 10pm, and on late homework nights he often found himself craving a midnight snack.

  After a quick stop at the library to print out several copies of his disappointingly bare resumé, he made his way to the bookstore.

  The bell on the door announced his entrance, and Callie peeked out from behind a bookshelf. It was still early, so the shop was empty. She had several cardboard boxes of books, t-shirts, and various university memorabilia strewn about the floor as she organized and stocked the new inventory.

  “Hey!” she greeted brightly upon his entrance, stepping lithely over and around the boxes to get to the front counter. She grabbed her keys from beside the cash register, slid the car key off the ring, and passed it over to him. “It’s the blue one right outside. I drove it over so you wouldn’t have to search for it in the parking lot,” she said.

  “Oh, wow, thanks,” he replied, looking over his shoulder, out the window, at the lone car parked along the curb.

  “I also jotted down some of the places I was thinking might be hiring,” she added, pulling out a scrap of paper from her back pocket. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to look up directions,” she said with a frown.

  Jacob chuckled. “Callie, you’ve done more than enough,” he reassured her, looking over the list of business names. “Seriously. This is great, thank you,” he smiled.

  She grinned back at him and gave him a shrug. “It’s no problem, really.”

  “So, should I come back here when I’m done, or…?” he pondered, gesturing to the car key in his hand.

  “Oh, no, that’s okay,” she waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t need it ‘til tomorrow night. You can just park it over by the dorms and give me the key back in Bio tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I guess I should get going, then,” he said, appraising the long list of businesses, wondering if he would have time to make it to all of them. “Thanks again,” he repeated with a wave.

  “Good luck!” Callie called as he ducked out the door.

  Jacob hopped into the small car, pushing the seat back to make room for his long legs. It had been a while since he had driven a car, but he got his bearings quickly. Adjusting the mirrors and making sure he knew where all of the important buttons and switches were located, he silently thanked his past self for decided to renew his driver’s license when he arrived in Cottonwood. He had almost dismissed the chore as pointless, given that he didn’t have a car yet, but he figured he would get the task out of the way for when he was able to scrounge up enough cash to snag an old beater off of Craigslist.

  A vibrant tune sang through the speakers when he turned on the ignition, and he switched it off to focus. He thought about stopping by the library again to search for map of the city, but it was a small town, so he decided to just wander until he saw a “now hiring” sign or found his way to one of the names on Callie’s list.

  It took up all of the morning and after
noon, but he made it through most of Callie’s list, plus a few other places with signs out front along the way. The process went about as well as Jacob expected it would, although he was more confident than he had anticipated. Or at least, he appeared to be, which in the end is all that really matters.

  Everyone he had spoken to was nice and polite. They all accepted his resumé with a smile, and some – the more well-dressed employees, likely managers – asked him a few questions about himself. What type of a job he was looking for, what would make him qualified for the position, how flexible was his class schedule, etc. It was only when he had to fill out their official applications that his palms began to sweat and the pit in his stomach rumbled uncomfortably.

  Resumés he could handle, and conversations with managers had become relatively comfortable. He had researched how to make a blank resumé appear more impressive, what kinds of questions to ask a potential employer to show them you were listening and eager to learn. But there was nothing that could prepare him for that little white check box, that mocking little box that he couldn’t help but feel was sure to seal his fate.

  And after the fateful question – the question whose answer would be sure to elicit a tight smile and a polite “thank you for coming in,” along with a goodbye handshake and a nod to the door – there always followed a measly three blank lines, as if that would ever be enough.

  Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

  Two little white boxes, one before “YES,” one before “NO.” And three – sometimes two – blank lines labeled “If yes, please explain.”

  Jacob did not care to explain. Not with three lines with which to do so. Three pages would hardly even be enough. So, he always left it blank, although he wasn’t sure which would be less well-received – the truth in three, pitifully summed-up lines, or pleading the fifth. He took his chances with the latter, given the lack of time to come up with a detailed response.

  After around the sixth “YES” box he had to check, he realized it was probably for the best that Callie had to bow out of their plans, as he wouldn’t have been the best company. He spent most of the drive from one place to another pumping himself up for the next conversation, reminding himself of how well the last one had gone and trying to convince himself that perhaps his charm and firm handshake would make up for that little white box and all that it represented.

  As he made it to one of the last few businesses on Callie’s list, he checked the clock on the dashboard. It read 4:45pm, and with a sudden growl in his gut, he realized how hungry he was. He wanted to finish off the list before heading back to campus, but he didn’t want to spend the money on eating out, so he settled for grabbing a cheap snack at a nearby grocery store.

  It wasn’t a store they had in New York, so nothing was in the right place. He racked his brain for what would satisfy his hunger best for a few hours until he could head back to campus and have a proper dinner. The first non-freezer aisle he came to was filled with rows and rows of candy, so he snatched a more substantial, peanut-filled bar for the moment. It would do, in a pinch, if he couldn’t find anything else.

  Rounding the corner to the next aisle, he looked down to appraise his candy bar, wondering if he should just settle for that and get back to his list, rather than wasting more time wandering the aisles of the unfamiliar store. He looked up just in time to slam hard into a woman coming from the opposite direction.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed at the force of the impact. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching down to pick up a few items that had fallen out of her hand-held basket.

  “No, that’s totally fine, it was my fault!” she corrected, gesturing to her phone that she had been texting with during the moment of collision.

  Looking up from the floor to return her items to the basket, their eyes connected and he recognized them instantly. Wide and icy blue, he would know those eyes anywhere. His empty stomach twisted into a knot and he swallowed the dryness in his throat to speak.

  “Sarah?”

  THEY STARED AT EACH other in silence for a long moment, her eyes wide with bewilderment and his mind racing with all of the questions he never he thought he would get a chance to ask, awoken from their coma by the hope of opportunity.

  “Jacob?” she finally muttered, a confused crease wrinkling her forehead as she appraised him. “How… what are you doing here?” she asked, looking around the room as if to double-check that she was, indeed, in a grocery store in Cottonwood, Ohio.

  He made a conscious effort to focus his thoughts on her question, tearing his mind away from all of the pressing inquiries vying for his attention.

  “Um… well, I kind of live here,” he shrugged, chuckling a bit at the absurdity of the chance encounter.

  Sarah’s eyebrows pulled together more deeply, her gaze far away as she tried to make sense of the situation.

  “Oh,” Jacob interjected, realizing the likely source of her confusion. After all, he was supposed to be locked away in a hospital in New York, for all she knew. “I was released early,” he added in a lower voice, although the store wasn’t busy and nobody was close enough to be listening in. “About a month ago.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said as understanding lit her face. The confused wrinkles in her forehead smoothed into semi-permanent surprise as she stared blankly at him. After a moment, she let out a chuckle of her own and shook her head. “I’m sorry I’m staring, I’m just… really surprised to see you here.”

  He smiled. “Well, I could say the same. What are you doing here?” he asked. “Do you not live in New York anymore?” he added with a twinge of hope that this encounter might not be their last.

  “Oh, no, I was just in town for the weekend,” she explained, finally broken free enough from her stupor to finish replacing the fallen items into her basket.

  Jacob nodded, his smile depleting a bit.

  “My mom’s selling her house and moving out to the city, so we came down to help her with the moving process,” she explained, glancing distractedly back at the text message she had been in the middle of composing when they bumped into each other.

  Time stood still for a lingering minute. The word “we” echoed uncomfortably in Jacob’s ear, but it wasn’t that detail that captured his attention most and made everything else fade into the background. No, what brought a sinking feeling to his gut, like the sudden drop of a roller coaster that left his stomach behind, as she lifted up her phone with her left hand, was the shimmering diamond that sparkled brightly off of her ring finger.

  He was frozen for a moment, staring at her hand as his heart pounded harder in his chest, and Sarah shifted uncomfortably in the silence.

  “Um,” she began, anxiously twisting the broken handle of her basket. “So… how are you?” she asked. Not in the passing, casual way your waiter might ask before taking your order, but with sincerity.

  He missed the question, his mind still flooded with new questions that he was trying to ignore.

  Who is it? Is that why she never came to see me? I don’t want to know who it is. What’s the difference between a wedding ring and an engagement ring, again? Is it Mike? It’s probably Mike.

  Jacob blinked long and hard, shaking himself out of his reverie and turning his attention back to her face.

  “Good,” he responded a few beats too late. He nodded, trying to collect himself enough to say more. “I’m good,” he finished.

  Sarah stared at him for a moment, waiting, but he didn’t elaborate.

  “That’s… good,” she replied with a forced, polite smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t find the words. There was too much to be said, and instead of one of the dozens of questions or declarations that swirled in his mind coming forward to start things off, they all tangled together until his thoughts were nothing but a jumbled mess. The only thing that remained was the nervous nausea in his stomach and his rapid pulse pumping hotly in his veins.

  “Well… I should probably get going,�
� Sarah stated awkwardly.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jacob agreed. “Me, too.”

  “Oh… okay,” she reluctantly accepted as they headed to the front of the store together. He thought he heard her let out a small sigh, and he wondered if she had merely been making an excuse to walk away from him.

  The uncomfortable silence remained as they stepped in front of the only register that was open. Jacob gestured for her to go first, and she obliged with a polite smile. It was the kind of smile you give to a stranger for being courteous, and his chest tightened at the distance of it.

  Sarah and the clerk made friendly conversation while Jacob looked through the selection of beverages in the cooler by the register, happy to have something to pretend to be keeping his mind on while the woman behind the counter scanned Sarah’s items.

  “Do you have a rewards card with us, honey?” the elderly woman asked, ready to punch in Sarah’s information.

  Sarah replied with the negative, and the woman tapped a few buttons with her long, freshly manicured nails before instructing Sarah to swipe her card.

  Jacob placed his candy bar and bottle of water on the conveyer belt as the clerk handed Sarah her receipt with her bagged items, and his adrenaline kicked into high gear as he anticipated her departure.

  He desperately tried to think of something to say, something to keep her there a little longer, but none of the thoughts that came to his mind were easy questions with quick, simple answers. What was on his heart required a leisurely meal, or at the very least a deep conversation over a cup of coffee. None of what he wanted to say was something you blurt out in the grocery line.

  Sarah paused as she picked up her bags, turning back to Jacob. “Well, it was nice to see you again, Jacob,” she said with a more genuine smile, this time.

  “Yeah, absolutely,” he agreed with a mirroring expression.

  “Take care.”

  She gave him a small wave before she turned for the door, and as she walked away, he could almost tangibly feel the moment slipping out of his grasp. The nervous anxiety in his chest faded, instantly replaced by a regretful longing, and he opened his mouth, her name on the tip of his tongue.