Broken Together

by Cassie Beebe

  “Huh,” he muttered, going over it again, and Jenna sighed in defeat when he was unable to immediately pinpoint the issue.

  After two more times reading over the equation in the book and the one copied into Jenna’s notebook, the mistake jumped out at him.

  “Oh,” he said, shaking his head at himself for taking so long to see such a simple blunder. “Right here you added when you were supposed to subtract,” he showed her, pointing with the end of his pen. “Threw the rest of the equation out of whack.”

  Jenna eagerly pulled her notebook back to see for herself, and she stared at the page in disbelief for a long moment. “You’re kidding me,” she said.

  “It’s actually a good thing,” Jacob encouraged. “I mean, technically you got the process right. It was just a clerical error. Even the best mathematicians make clerical errors.”

  She shook her head at the page. After a moment, she couldn’t help but laugh, and with a sarcastic tone she replied, “Even you?”

  He looked at her with wide, innocent eyes. “Who, me? Never,” he said with a cocky grin.

  She laughed again, shoulders relaxing. “Thanks for that. I was about to go insane.”

  “About to?” Jacob teased and she smirked.

  “Anyway,” she said as she re-wrote the equation correctly in her notebook and began going through the steps again. “What are you working on? Anything I can help with, return the favor?”

  “Nah, it’s just job applications,” Jacob answered, flipping through the loose pages in front of him. He had already filled out everything he could. Turns out, when you have no references or previous employers, applications are pretty quick.

  He sighed at the stack, already hopeless about his prospects. “Do you need help with anything else?” he deflected, eager to take his mind off of his own problems.

  Jenna finished the equation in her notebook and bit her lip as she glanced over at her stack of textbooks and assignments. “Well… I mean, I don’t want to distract you from your work,” she said.

  “Actually, this is all I had to do tonight, and I’m done,” Jacob fibbed. He had no desire to head back to his room and try to explain his entire history of crime in one brief paragraph to hand over to his future employers. “I’m all yours.”

  Pursing her lips, she considered his offer. A long enough moment passed that he thought she might reject his help, sending him back to his room to meet his fate with no more excuses. But after a minute of consideration, she asked, “How are you at philosophy?”

  PROFESSOR SHAEFER DRONED ON about microorganisms, and Jacob’s eyelids fluttered shut for the twentieth time that hour. He had a long night with Jenna in the library the night before, and when his eyes weren’t drifting closed in class, he was busying his lethargic mind musing over their debate the previous evening to keep himself awake.

  At some point in the night, they had migrated from the quiet study area to the group study area, where tables and chairs were replaced with couches and bean-bags and people were free to discuss projects above a whisper.

  Jenna was trying to drudge through the heavy content of her philosophy class’ required reading, and in the midst of working through the symbolism of the story, they landed on the topic of free will.

  Jenna was of the mind that humans have free will, but Jacob had never been convinced of that theory.

  “I mean, I understand that it seems like we have free will,” he conceded as the debate carried on. “But I can’t separate my decisions from who I am as a person. And who I am as a person has been shaped by all kinds of different factors that were outside of my control.”

  Jenna opened her mouth to object, but he held up a hand.

  “Think about this,” he continued. “Let’s say a kid grows up with… I don’t know, really racist parents, or something. If he grows up to commit a hate crime, was that really done completely under his free will? I mean, sure, he chose to do whatever he did, but that choice was influenced by his parents and the way he was raised, which is outside of his own will.”

  She pursed her lips. “Okay. But then, what about personal responsibility?” she asked. “If we accept that free will doesn’t exist at all, then how could we ever justify putting someone in prison?”

  The mention of prison threw Jacob’s train of thought off its track.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, if only to make her talk while he re-gathered his thoughts.

  “I mean, if every decision we make is shaped by factors outside of our control, then what do we do with the man who commits the hate crime?” she asks, speaking more exuberantly now that he was flustered enough to let her get a word in. “How can we say he’s responsible for his actions? How can we put him in jail?”

  Jacob’s mind swirled, trying to think of a rebuttal, but he came up blank. “I guess we wouldn’t,” he admitted.

  “But we do. All the time,” Jenna replied, fired up by his lame retort. “So, clearly, we all instinctively believe that people are responsible for their own actions. Ergo, free will exists.” She punctuated her sentence with a triumphant smirk.

  “But…,” Jacob trailed off as the rebuttal came to him, unsure if he wanted to lead the conversation that direction. His mind warred between his desire to stay as far from the subject as possible and the desire to win the debate. In the end, his competitive nature won out. “But what about people who have mental disorders?”

  Jenna’s confidence visibly wavered.

  “Or people who were abused or have PTSD, or whatever,” he shrugged, trying to keep the subject hypothetical. Sometimes when they break the law, they don’t go to jail. They go to a mental facility instead. Do those people have free will? And if they do, then why not send them to prison?”

  He could see the wheels turning in Jenna’s mind as she chewed on her lip, her victorious grin fading into pursed lips.

  “Ugh, this class makes my brain hurt,” she whined, shutting the book and tossing it aside. “I’m totally gonna fail. Let’s move on to something more concrete,” she said, picking up her World Civilizations textbook.

  Jacob barely made it through his classes without crashing, but dinner gave him a small second wind. After the procrastination of the previous night, he decided to man up and use his extra burst of energy to tackle the rest of his job applications.

  Two hours later, he found himself lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling for the millionth time and tapping his pen on his chest, applications littered all around him. The more he tried to articulate his past in words, the angrier he became at the question itself. He sat up, picked up one of the papers beside him and stared at the culprit.

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

  Then he stared at the measly two blank lines after the question, as if that would even begin to scratch the surface. He had already written out draft after draft of his explanation, tossing each one when it stretched longer than a paragraph. He wondered if it would send a better or worse message if he continued onto the back of the application. Or maybe he could staple on another few pages.

  And why should he have to answer the question, anyway? It’s not like it would affect his job performance. It’s not as if flipping burgers or folding clothes is complicated enough to require the most sane and sober-minded employees for the task. And besides, he was sober-minded. There was even an argument to be made for his sanity, at that point.

  It wasn’t fair. How could he ever be expected to explain a lifetime of abuse and trauma in two little lines? With his frustration reaching an all-time high, he gathered up all of the papers, slipped on his shoes, grabbed his wallet and keys and walked out the door.

  If two lines was all he was going to get, then they weren’t going to get anything. Something in the back of his mind told him it was a stupid decision, but he was too exhausted to care. He was leaving the question blank again, and that was that.

  He decided to return the applications right away, before he could stress over the decision and
change his mind, dooming him to another evening living in the past, wrestling with every memory of the man he used to be and making himself sick over the idea of anyone seeing that side of him now.

  There was a part of him that thought that if he checked the “yes” box and left the explanation blank, they would assume the worst. But another, more somber part of him reminded himself that whatever they would assume couldn’t possibly be worse than the truth.

  By the time he rolled into bed that night, it was well after midnight. Due to his series of snap decisions, he didn’t plan his course well enough to drop off the restaurant applications before they closed, so he still had a few left to return. When he got back to his dorm, he shoved them into his desk drawer, out of sight and soon-to-be out of mind.

  It took a long time for his mind to settle enough for sleep, even with the help of his medication. Every time the subject of his past came up, it was like opening the floodgates. He wanted to leave everything in New York behind him, but he was beginning to realize that wasn’t going to be as easy as he once thought. No matter how much he changed, what kind of a person he was now, his past was still his. He wasn’t a new man. He was the same man, living a new life, and no amount of running or hiding was going to change that.

  He grumbled unintelligibly to himself in the darkness, his mind worked up into such a tangled mess of self-doubt and shame that sleep was an impossible hope. He thought back to all the late nights bumming with Rodney and his crew of delinquents in an abandoned motel, living off of two hours of sleep each night. When the loud moans of Rodney’s many rotating companions weren’t keeping him awake, it was his obsession with getting justice for Maggie that did him in. He used to slip away in the middle of the night, walk the back alleys of the streets of New York, just to try to get away from the noise, both from the city and his own mind.

  With that memory, he pulled himself out of his bed, slipped on his shoes without socks, and escaped into the lobby. He was headed for the front door, hoping some fresh air would clear his mind enough to get a few hours of rest before class the next morning, but he stopped short when he saw that the kitchen light was on. He was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to walk past the kitchen and have to deal with people right now or simply head back to his room and hope exhaustion would finally take him under, when Jenna stepped out of the kitchen and turned off the light behind her.

  He was standing in the middle of the room, weighing his options, when she wandered into the lobby. When she saw him, she muttered an expletive, and jumped so high the food on her plate slid off onto the floor.

  “Sorry,” Jacob replied, hurrying to pick up whatever it was she dropped. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “What the hell are you doing standing in the dark like a murderer?” she demanded in a loud whisper as she bent down to pick up her food. “Geez, you gave me a heart attack.”

  He laughed. “Sorry.”

  He bent down to pick up the circle of bread. He turned it over in his hand, frowning at the sandwich. “Seriously?” he turned his look of disgust to Jenna.

  “What’s wrong with PB&J pockets?” she asked, ripping the sandwich from his hand. “Aside from the fact that this one fell onto the disgusting floor that never gets cleaned.” She made a gagging face as she plopped it back onto her paper plate.

  “Those things are a culinary crime,” he said. “Why don’t you just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich yourself?”

  “Because I like to put them in the toaster,” she explained. After a second thought, she muttered, “I mean, I guess I could just… toast the bread beforehand.”

  “Or you could fry it. It’s better that way, anyway,” Jacob said.

  “Fry it?” she raised an eyebrow.

  His jaw dropped. “Wait… you’ve never had a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich before?” he demanded with wide eyes.

  “Um… no?”

  “Oh my gosh,” he shook his head. “Come on.”

  He headed for the kitchen, and Jenna followed behind.

  “What’s happening?” she asked with confusion, watching him bustle around the room.

  “You’re having your first fried PB&J,” he said, searching the back of the community cabinet. “Do you have any bread? Or… peanut butter? Or jelly, or butter?”

  “WHAT’S THE VERDICT?”

  Jenna chewed with a thoughtful expression, savoring the bite for a long moment before swallowing. “This is the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’ve ever had.”

  “Right?” Jacob concurred, taking another bite of his own. “Those pocket things suck. I used to eat them all the time, and it was torture.”

  “Why did you eat them all the time if you hated them so much?” Jenna asked.

  Jacob thought back to his lack of options at Bellevue. It was either a crustless, white bread pocket of dry peanut butter and way too much jelly or waiting until dinner. “Don’t change the subject. The real question is why you haven’t had a fried PB&J until now.”

  “I told you, I’ve never even heard of them,” she shook her head. “I guess you’re just more culinary savvy than me.”

  Jacob snorted. “Well duh. I knew that the night we met. That spaghetti was…,” he paused, taking note of her raised eyebrow and the sassy cock of her head.

  “Yes?” she challenged.

  “Was… exactly what I needed to not starve to death that night,” he smirked. “And for that, I’m very grateful.”

  “Uh-huh,” she rolled her eyes and laughed. “It’s okay, I know I’m a terrible cook. One of the many wifely duties I’m not cut out for,” she mused, ripping off another piece of sandwich and popping it into her mouth.

  The mention of “wifely duties” brought to Jacob’s mind, for the first time, the realization that he might, by most of society’s standards, actually be somewhat close to maybe being “husband material.”

  For one, he had the cooking down, and he had always done his best to be a good father-figure-of-sorts for Maggie. If one could look past a few murdered skeletons in his closet, he might actually have a chance.

  Jenna looked up at him, and he realized in the midst of his musings, he had been staring at her. He quickly looked down at her fuzzy flippers.

  He thought about all the times he couldn’t sleep in the past, whether it was his parents fighting, worrying about his father and what to do with Maggie, trying not to listen to Rodney and whatever companion he had over that night, or simply staring at the ceiling, caught up in his own self-hatred. The two things that always seemed to ease his mind were cooking and nature, both of which were out of the question while he was living at Bellevue. Those sleepless nights remained sleepless, with little hope to remedy the situation without medication. But he didn’t need pills right now. All he needed was the stars.

  “Do you wanna go for a walk?” he asked.

  She looked up from her sandwich, chewing as she considered the offer. “Lead the way.”

  Jacob would never get used to the stars in Ohio. Of course, they were the same stars as the ones in New York, but with the clear skies, you could see twice as many of them. He breathed in the musty air as they stood alongside the river. Jenna leaned over the railing of the small bridge, looking down at the water, but Jacob propped his back against the rails and stared up at the sky.

  They had been standing like that for a while, taking in the chirping crickets and croaking frogs that were still quiet enough not to drown out the flowing water beneath them.

  “Beautiful night,” Jacob noted in a soft voice, in an effort not to interrupt the peaceful silence.

  “Mm,” Jenna agreed with a contented sigh.

  He appraised her pajamas – ratty sweat pants and a band tee – and wondered what ailed her mind to keep her up at night, looking at stars with him.

  “Do you ever sleep?” he asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Neither did you,” she
shrugged with a challenging smirk.

  A smile tugged at his lips. He considered that for a moment, noting her stubbornness. It seemed to be a give and take with her, and he wasn’t sure how much he was willing to give. But there was something mysterious about her that drew him in, made him want to uncover her secrets.

  “Fair enough,” he decided. “I’m up because I had a shit day, reliving the past and wallowing in self-pity over all the mistakes I’ve made,” he offered. “Your turn.”

  Her smirk froze for a moment, still there but not quite genuine anymore. She stared at him for a long minute, and he held her gaze, waiting.

  “I don’t sleep much anymore,” she said, turning away again.

  He waited for more, but it seemed that was all she was going to give. He nodded. “Anymore,” he repeated, not exactly a question because he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.

  “Yep,” Jenna replied, picking at the splinters in the wood railing.

  Her tough exterior was going up again. He could see that, now. The change in her eyes, the way they softened in those moments when she let her guard down, and how quickly they went cold again when she put it back up.

  “Plus, my roommate’s boyfriend is a controlling dick, and he comes by every morning at 6am to make sure she isn’t late to her classes,” she rolled her eyes.

  “Wow. Seriously?”

  “Yep,” she replied, popping her lips hard on the “p” and continuing her rant. “It used to piss me off, but I decided to make the most of the unwanted human alarm clock and start jogging.”

  “Really?” he asked, trying to picture her as an athlete.

  She made a face. “Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, jogging is the worst, but at least it’s better than starting every day being the one-woman audience of a couple constantly on the verge of either a nasty break-up or passionate make-up sex.”