Broken Together

by Cassie Beebe

  “Callie,” Jenna said, widening her smile a bit more than was natural. “Nice to meet you.”

  Callie’s expression was still somber when she replied, “Yeah, you, too.” Then, she turned back around and busied herself with counting out the exact change for her ticket.

  Jacob and Angela exchanged a glance, and he looked back at Jenna to ask if everything was alright.

  “Hey, I have to go to the bathroom,” she said before he could ask, handing him some cash. “Could you get my ticket for me?”

  “Uh… yeah, sure,” he answered.

  “Thanks,” she said, quickly slipping away toward the ladies’ room.

  Callie received her ticket from the young man behind the counter and promptly moved over to the snack line. Angela got her ticket quickly to join her, and Jacob watched as they whispered to each other.

  By the time Jacob joined them, Angela’s expression mirrored the flat look of discomfort on Callie’s face. He wasn’t exactly a pro at handling female drama, but something told him he shouldn’t ask.

  Angela confirmed that decision, when she put on a bright grin upon his approach and changed the subject. “Hey, if I get popcorn, will you guys eat some?”

  “Sure, but don’t get a giant one. We never eat it all,” Callie replied, turning back to face the rest of the line in front of her.

  The remainder of their wait in line was spent in uncomfortable silence. Angela tried to fake a peppy attitude and chat about the movie, but Callie clearly wasn’t in the mood, and Jacob was too distracted trying to figure out what the heck was going on to focus on Angela’s questions. Did Callie and Jenna have some kind of rivalry he didn’t know about? Was it a mistake to bring her here?

  His foot tapped on its own accord against the tile floor of the lobby, and he shoved his hands in his pockets to stop from fidgeting. The last thing he wanted was to cause a rift between him and the only two friends he had in Ohio. If befriending Jenna was going to shove a wedge between him and Callie, maybe it wasn’t worth it.

  Once they had retrieved their snacks, the girls headed into the theater, and Jacob stayed behind to wait for Jenna by the bathrooms. He was just beginning to wonder if she had snuck out of the building when he wasn’t looking, when she stepped out of the bathroom.

  “Hey,” he said, standing up from the wall he was leaning against and passing her the ticket and her change.

  “Thanks,” she said, shoving the cash in her pocket and starting toward the ticket booth without another word.

  He followed her into the theater, scanning the rows and finding Angela and Callie in their usual spot, a few rows from the back. He took a seat beside Callie, and Jenna sat on his other side.

  The tension spilling off of the women on either side of him was palpable, and he was quite literally stuck in the middle of it all. They were all focused on the screen, but even as the movie progressed, the strain between them never fully waned. By the end of the film, Jacob still wasn’t sure if it was a romance or an action flick. All he knew was that his shoulders finally relaxed when the credits started rolling, and by how quick everyone was on their feet, he had a feeling he wasn’t the only one who was anxious to get out of there.

  Callie pulled out her phone the minute they were out of the theater. “Oh, shoot,” she said with a not-so-convincing grimace. “I just remembered I have a study group tonight, so I gotta head back.”

  Angela’s eyebrows furrowed for a second, but when Callie gave her a look, she said, “Oh, that’s right, I forgot about that,” in true best-friend style. “We should go. But hey, it was nice to meet you,” she added to Jenna with an almost-convincing smile.

  Jenna returned the expression. “Yeah, you, too,” she said, tugging uncomfortably on her jacket sleeves. “I’ll see ya around.”

  “Bye, Jacob,” Callie waved over her shoulder, already heading for the door. Angela hesitated for a moment, then followed with a wave of her own.

  “See ya,” Jacob replied.

  Jenna let out a sigh once the girls were out of sight. “So… should we go, too?”

  Curiosity was burning, but Jacob just nodded and followed her back to the car. They were silent as they settled into their seats and Jenna jiggled the key in the ignition, coaxing the old beast to a roaring start. It was a bit of a drive back to campus, and the silence was growing more uncomfortable by the second, so Jacob’s mouth took over and blurted out what was obviously looming on both of their minds.

  “So… you’ve met Callie?”

  She gave him a wry smirk.

  “Oh, you caught that, did you?” she teased.

  “Well, I’m pretty observant,” Jacob replied sarcastically.

  She chuckled for a moment before her smile faded. “Yeah, we met once,” she answered simply as she stopped at a red light.

  Jacob stared at her, waiting for further explanation. When it didn’t come, he prodded, “I feel like there’s a story there.”

  She chewed on her lip as she stared at the road. “We met one morning, about a year ago,” she started. With a quick glance to gauge his reaction, she added, “in... her boyfriend’s dorm room.”

  Confused by her suggestive tone, Jacob asked, “What were you doing in....”

  His question trailed off when Jenna’s face scrunched into a guilty grimace.

  “Oh,” he said, piecing together the implied details. “Yikes.”

  “Yeah,” Jenna muttered. “And, for the record, he told me he was single, so I didn’t know he had a girlfriend,” she added quickly.

  “I figured,” Jacob reassured.

  Jenna raised her eyebrows. “That’s kind of you.”

  Thinking over the evening, Jacob wondered, again, if inviting Jenna to the movie was a bad idea. “This must have been really awkward. I’m sorry,” he offered with an apologetic grin.

  “Oh, please, it’s not your fault,” she dismissed.

  Remembering Callie’s coldness toward Jenna, Jacob replied, “Well, it sounds like it wasn’t really your fault either.”

  “No,” she agreed with a look of understanding. “No, it really wasn’t. She’s pissed at the wrong person. But I’ve been there, and I was pissed at the wrong person too, so I get it.”

  “Wait,” Jacob interjected, his interest peaked. “You’ve… been cheated on?”

  “Twice, actually,” she answered plainly. “It took the second time for me to realize that I was pissed at the wrong person the first time,” she scoffed, shaking her head at herself.

  Jacob shook his head, too. His mind wandered back to Sarah, and his irritation started to rise. “I don’t get why people do that,” he said. “I mean, if you don’t want to be with someone, why can’t you just man up and tell them the truth instead of leading them on?”

  She gave him an agreeing nod, but didn’t say anything. The longer the silence dragged on, the more he stewed in his frustration.

  “I mean seriously, how hard would it be to just say ‘I’m not interested in you anymore, I’ve moved on, and I’m engaged to someone else’?”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could feel Jenna’s eyes on him, appraising him as they pulled up to another red light.

  “Or...,” he began, trying to pass his irritation off as hypothetical, “or ‘I’m seeing someone,’ or whatever.”

  They sat in silence for a moment as Jenna stared at him and he tried to avoid her questioning gaze. The light changed, and she placed her eyes back on the road.

  “I just...,” Jacob started. “I just don’t get it, I guess. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

  “Yeah,” she shook her head, giving him a small, sympathetic grin. “I don’t get it either.”

  Jacob nodded, meeting her gaze for a moment before turning his eyes back to the window. He cleared his throat and decided it would probably be best to keep his mouth shut for the remainder of their drive. He gazed idly out the window at the passing cars, hoping in vain that Jenna hadn’t detected how personally the topic had afflicted
him. The drive went on in silence for several minutes before she spoke again.

  “So, who’s the girl?” she asked.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “There’s no girl.”

  “So, what, she cheated on you or something?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” he said.

  She smirked. “Oh, so there is a girl?”

  He opened his mouth instinctively to object, but nothing came out. He sighed, and she peeked at him, waiting patiently for elaboration. “It’s just this girl I used to know,” he shrugged.

  “And… you two were… what exactly?” she inquired.

  He huffed a breath and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Nothing, really.”

  Jenna let out a small chuckle, and Jacob looked at her. She turned her smirk to him and he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “Well, I mean, you can’t really cheat on someone you weren’t dating,” she said.

  “I never said she cheated on me,” he replied.

  She looked at him for a brief moment, and her smirk faded as she read his eyes.

  “Oh,” she said, turning her attention back to the road.

  Jacob waited for more, but she kept her eyes on the road. “What?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “No, what?” he demanded.

  She glanced at him. “You’re in love with her,” she stated confidently. He took a deep breath as he turned away from her gaze, blushing in the darkness of the car. “So... I will respectfully keep my thoughts to myself,” she added.

  They were entering the parking lot of the school, and he kept his gaze safely out the window as she pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. They both sat, unmoving, in the darkness for a long moment.

  “I don’t want to be,” Jacob muttered at the window, mostly to himself.

  “Then don’t be,” she answered, like it was that simple. After another moment, she asked, “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  He ran a hand across the back of his neck, stopping when his fingers ran over the chain of his necklace. He returned his hand to his lap. “Couple weeks ago.”

  Jenna thought about that for a moment. “Ah,” she said. “So ends the mystery of ‘sad kitchen boy.’”

  Jacob let out a chuckle, meeting her gaze again. She was smiling warmly, leaving the intense conversation behind, for which he was grateful.

  “Well, thanks for inviting me tonight,” she said, leaning between their seats to grab her purse from the back and giving Jacob a pleasant whiff of her coconut shampoo. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such a...,” she paused, searching for an appropriate term, “PG Saturday night.”

  Jacob laughed. “I hope we weren’t too boring for you.”

  “No,” Jenna interjected with a wide grin. “It was actually fun. I had a great time. I mean, aside from the whole girl drama thing.”

  “Well, you’re always welcome,” he offered.

  Her smile faded into a thoughtful grin as she answered, “I’m not sure your friends would agree with that. But thanks.”

  He gave her a nod. “So, are you going back to your room?” he asked, pushing the car door open. “I could walk you.”

  “No, that’s okay.” She stepped out onto the asphalt. “I actually have some work to do in the library, tonight. Kinda been trying to get my life together, lately. Again,” she rolled her eyes.

  He smiled. “Aren’t we all,” he said as they met at the back of the car, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Um... I guess I’ll see you around, then,” he said.

  “Yeah, definitely,” she answered, pulling her sleeves down tightly and crossing her arms over her purse strap. “See ya,” she said with a wave, backing up toward the library.

  “Yeah,” he replied, watching her as she turned around and put in her earphones as she walked off. “See ya.”

  WHEN JACOB’S POCKET CAUGHT on the handle of his bathroom cabinet the next day and ripped a hole in his jeans, he was confronted again with how severely he needed a job. Whenever the subject arose in his mind, he couldn’t help but curse all of the lovely tales of kind, helpful parole officers he had heard over the years, coming to the aid of their parolees and taking their rehabilitation so seriously. Some would even go so far as to offer letters of recommendation to potential employers, to help provide a good impression.

  After he had spent a good twenty minutes lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and sulking over his poor luck in parole officer assignment, he got up with a grunt, picking himself up by his bootstraps and preparing to conquer the task.

  That day, Jacob was going to go out and get himself a job.

  He looked at himself in the mirror one last time before he left, and frowned at the new hole in his pants. As if he needed any more factors working against him. But given that his one pair of black slacks had been balled up in a pile of dirty clothes on his bathroom floor for a while, collecting wrinkles, he decided he had no better options and headed for the bus stop anyway.

  The bus took him closer into town, and from there he walked the streets, stopping at any grocery store, restaurant, fast-foot joint, and local shop that had a “hiring” sign in the window. Many of the bigger chains had switched to online-applications, but he was still able to get a good stack of paper forms to fill out, as well, deciding to take them back to campus so he would have more time to tackle the tough questions. He even had time to check in again with some of the places he had already applied, which the managers on duty seemed to appreciate. It took the better part of the day, but he was determined to make the most of his day off. He stayed out until the growling in his stomach became too distracting to continue, at which point he grabbed a quick bite at a local fast-food place, then made his way back to the campus library to start filling out the applications he had acquired.

  He reached the top floor of the library and scanned the group of study tables available to him. People were spread out, some alone and some in groups, all either working silently or whispering to each other, heads crowded over books and poster boards.

  “Damn it!” a woman’s voice pierced through the silence, followed by a loudly aggravated sigh.

  Everybody’s eyes turned toward the sound, most of them squinting in offended glares at the interruption.

  Jenna peeked up at the faces all turned her way and cringed. “Sorry,” she whispered, furiously scrubbing her eraser across the page in front of her.

  People rolled their eyes and shook their heads, but Jacob chuckled under his breath.

  She peeked up again to see if anyone was still watching her, and as she scanned the room, her eyes landing on Jacob. He smiled and lifted his hand in a wave. She gave him a timid wave in response, and turned her attention back to her book.

  All the tables in the study area were occupied by at least one or two people, so he decided if he wasn’t going to sit alone, he might as well be with a familiar face.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked as he approached her table.

  “Sure,” she said, pulling her books closer to herself to give him room on the opposite side of the table.

  She was gnawing on her bottom lip, focusing hard on her textbook. She kept pushing her long bangs out of her eyes, only to have them fall back again, and he could see her patience with them beginning to wane. He took out a pen and got started on his applications.

  All was going well until the questions moved from “FIRST NAME” to “REFERENCES.” The anxiety in his chest rose as he scanned through the first application, looking for anything he wouldn’t have to leave blank. He chuckled darkly at the irony as he came across the one question he wished he could leave blank.

  Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If yes, please explain.

  He glanced up at Jenna, but she was still staring intently at her notebook, scrawling numbers and symbols on the page and paying him no attention. He quickly checked the “yes” box, but skipped over the l
ines for explanation. Maybe he would figure out a way to phrase that explanation later, when he could go through each application and fill them in all at once, repeating the same words over and over enough times until he would – he hoped – become immune to their sting.

  He had gotten through a few applications when Jenna slammed her pencil down on the table and said “mother!” At the last second, however, she remembered to use her inside voice, and the curse faded into a low snarl that only he could have heard. Her eyes were closed and she took in a deep, centering breath through her nose, her jaw clenched too tightly to allow for air intake.

  He was almost afraid to ask, but he did anyway. “Everything okay?”

  She rubbed her temples as she continued to breathe deeply with her eyes closed. She put on a serene voice, speaking each word slowly and deliberately. “I have the question. I have the answer. I have the equation,” the irritation began to seep back into her voice. “And I’m doing every damn thing the damn equation says to do, and for some damn reason it’s just not freaking… ugh!” she growled, dropping her head on top of her textbook.

  He stifled his chuckle at her dramatics. “I could take a look at it, if you want,” he offered.

  She glanced up from the table, peeking at him through her messy bangs. “You’ve taken this class?”

  “Well… no,” he admitted, peeking at the title of the textbook. “But I took AP Calculus in high school.”

  She stared at him through narrowed eyes that questioned his sanity, and with a tone that dripped with mild disgust she asked, “Why?”

  He laughed. “I like math,” he shrugged. “And I’m good at it.”

  She raised an eyebrow at the foreign concept. “Huh,” she muttered. “Well, have at it, then,” she pushed her study materials toward him.

  He flipped the book around and scanned the page to get a brief overview of the subject at hand.

  “Although, I’ve been staring at that thing for twenty freaking minutes now, and I still have no idea what I’m doing wrong.”

  The formula came back to him quickly, like riding a bike. He looked over her scribbled writings in her notebook, and his eyebrows pulled together, because she was right. She completed every step of the equation exactly as he would have done it, but her answer was nowhere close to the four options to choose from in the book.