The Truth About Jack (Entangled Crush)

by Gehrman, Jody

  She seems to sense my discomfort and backs off a little. “You’re at a crossroads. It’s confusing, having so many options.”

  “It doesn’t really feel like I have options,” I say.

  “You do, though. And it’s good to have choices.”

  I bite my lip. “I’m sorry if I was rude to you before.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “No, really. I guess I’m just extra protective of my dad.”

  She grins. “I think that’s sweet.”

  I recall what Jack told me at the beach when I said how nice it would be to have a normal family. We don’t get to choose that stuff. We just make do with what we get. He’s right. There’s no point in wishing for some idealized version of “normal” when we have perfectly good versions of “not normal” to work with. Emily cares about my dad, and she’s kind, with a pretty, heart-shaped face that reminds me of an elf. That should be plenty for me to work with for now. Even if Dad and Emily don’t end up staying together, that doesn’t mean true love is a myth. They’re just two everyday people getting to know each other and trying to find happiness. What more can they do? What more can any of us do?

  Suddenly I’m overwhelmed by a powerful urge to see Jack. As much as I thought I needed a boy-free day, right now I crave his eyes, his voice, his heat. He’s so incredibly warm—like he walks around in this nimbus of solar energy.

  “Tell me more about this boy you met,” Emily asks as if reading my mind.

  “He plays the piano really well,” I say, getting an idea. “In fact, he’s playing tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jack

  Joaquin and I sit on the veranda outside Pinot Noir. He’s got his guitar, trying to master a Muddy Waters song with an especially tricky bridge. I’m brooding. What’s the point of denying it? I’ve been brooding all day—brooding and moping; it’s hard to say which is worse. We’re both working at the restaurant tonight. Our shift starts in ten minutes. He just started bussing, making a little extra cash to put away for college, and I like how it gives us more chances to hang out. Joaquin and I are so different, but I dig him. He’s cocky and flippant and even a little arrogant at times, but I kind of like that about him. I could use a little Joaquin mojo right now.

  “I’ve decided.” I lean forward in the Adirondack chair and slap my knees as he pauses between riffs. “I’m telling her.”

  He shakes his head. “Not a good idea.”

  “Dakota’s smart. If I don’t volunteer the truth, she’ll probably figure it out.”

  “She’s not going to figure it out!” His voice rises in frustration. “That’s ridiculous and paranoid.”

  It’s obvious I’ve tried his patience today. I don’t mean to—it’s just that when I sink my teeth into a moral dilemma like this, it’s almost impossible for me to think about anything else.

  I know I should drop it, but I keep talking. “She got jerked around by that douche-bag who slept with her friend. What she needs from me is complete honesty.”

  Joaquin stops playing the guitar and glares at me. “Go ahead then. Pretend I’m her.”

  “You’re a cool guy and everything, but I don’t really feel that way about you.”

  He shoves me. “You know what I mean! Pretend I’m her, and tell me exactly what you’re going to say. Like a rehearsal.”

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Dakota, I have something to confess.”

  He bats his eyelashes and responds in a ridiculous falsetto. “Yes, lover boy?”

  I roll my eyes. He’s obviously not taking this seriously. It’s not a bad idea, though. I try to imagine I’m really talking to Dakota. “I’m Alejandro. We’re the same person.” I lick my lips; my mouth feels dry even rehearsing this speech. “I saw you that day at the beach, watched you toss the bottle into the ocean. Only it didn’t go out to sea like you thought. It washed up on shore right after you left. I read your note and decided I had to meet you. Except I was so sure you wouldn’t be interested in the real me that I pretended to be someone I thought you’d like better.”

  Joaquin holds my gaze for a long moment. “Okay, that shit right there, that’s just weak. She’s going to drop you in a heartbeat.”

  “He’s right,” a voice behind us says. “It is weak.”

  Joaquin and I both spin around, startled. There’s Dakota in a white sundress, looking beautiful.

  And extremely pissed.

  I stand up so quickly I bang my knee on the table. It hurts like a mother but I swallow the urge to cry out. “Hi! God. You surprised me. What are you doing here?”

  “Overhearing something I’m not supposed to, apparently.” Her fierce eyes bore into mine.

  “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.” I run my fingers through my hair. The lukewarm dread sitting in my stomach all day now feels like an iceberg melting into my veins. “But I was planning to—”

  “Sounds to me like it’s all a big joke. Like I’m just a prank, a dare or something. Is that what I am?”

  “No!” I glance at Joaquin, but he looks as horrified as I feel. “Not at all. Of course not!”

  Joaquin takes a step toward her. “You don’t know me, but—”

  “And I don’t want to know you!” she spits out.

  “Hey, take it easy.” He holds his hands up like she’s a tiger who might pounce at any moment. “I think you misunderstood.”

  She plants her fists on her hips. Light, gossamer strands of her hair lift in the wind, and she looks like a vengeful goddess deciding some poor mortal’s fate. “Oh, I don’t think so. I think I’m actually getting a clear picture here for the first time.”

  I take a step toward her but she recoils. My voice sounds shaky as I take another stab at explaining. “I didn’t think you’d like the real me—”

  “Maybe I don’t if you’re a liar.”

  “No, that’s what I’m—I wanted to tell you the—”

  “Trust no one. That’s my new motto.” She shoots me one last furious look. Then she turns on her heel and strides across the parking lot to her car.

  …

  Dakota

  Stomping to my yurt, tears blurring my vision, I’m way too absorbed in my own anger and confusion to notice my surroundings. When something moves in the apple orchard ahead, it takes me longer than usual to register that it’s a person. There’s River, half hidden in the long grass, sitting under an apple tree. I’m too off balance to do anything but gape.

  She stands, rising from the veil of grass with her usual queenly bearing. Our eyes lock for a long moment. The wind blows her vivid magenta bob this way and that. I notice she’s added a couple blue streaks. It’s one of her many attention-seeking ploys—to be so striking, so colorful, nobody will ever forget her.

  “You’re mad,” she says, by way of greeting. “I can tell.”

  “Oh, yeah? Brilliant deduction. What tipped you off?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. My tone is bitter—hateful, even.

  She picks at the bark of the apple tree, shrinking visibly. “Can we talk?”

  “Go ahead. Talk.”

  “Come on.” Her head tilts to the side, her eyes imploring. “Let’s have some tea or something. We need to work this out.”

  “Do we?” I stare her down. “I work things out with friends, and friends don’t stab each other in the back. Friends don’t steal each other’s boyfriends.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m what you’ve got, like it or not.” A little of her old bravado rises to the surface, breaking through her uncharacteristic meekness. It’s almost a relief. Without her cocky attitude, her take-it-or-leave-it bluntness, I hardly recognize her.

  It’s not exactly what I want to hear, but she does have a point. River’s not only my best friend; she’s pretty much my only friend, and she knows it.

  Dammit.

  I jerk my head in the direction of my yurt. She follows.

  As I’m putting on the kettle, she settles herself in my favorite green vel
vet chair, leaving me the ratty armchair across from it. It’s so like her—always claiming the best for herself, not a shred of humility or consideration, even now. Man, this day’s really kicking my butt. First the big reveal with Jack, now this. My brain feels too crowded, like a hoarder’s attic, stuffed with so much junk I don’t even know where to begin sorting it all out.

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat it.” River slips off her shoes and curls her feet under her. “I messed up. You have every right to be pissed.”

  “At least we agree on something.” The ice in my voice is unmistakable.

  “I can’t go back and change it. What’s done is done.”

  I lean against the counter, arms folded, still keeping my distance. “Get out of my chair.”

  “What?” She looks so startled, I almost laugh.

  “That’s my chair. Sit in the other one.”

  She blinks at me, confused. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. Move!”

  “What the hell difference does it make?”

  “You always take whatever you want. Ever since we were little. I’m sick of it.” My voice rises until I’m almost yelling.

  She looks completely floored. I’ve never spoken to her like this. For as long as I can remember, it’s been me bowing down to her. All hail the great and mighty River. She got to choose what games we played when we were little. She got first pick when we lined up for food. She got to decide which music was cool, which clothes were lame, which movies we should see. The idea of me telling her what to do is utterly foreign to both of us. I’m the docile little lapdog suddenly rearing up with a vicious growl.

  I stare her down, heart pounding. Finally, with an annoyed little huff, she gets up and moves to the other chair.

  A small victory.

  The kettle sings one high-pitched, cranky note. I brew us a pot of chai, even though I know she prefers English Breakfast. Too bad. I hand her a cup in silence and settle into the green chair. Then I blow on my chai to cool it and give her a long, stony look, daring her to begin.

  She tries a tentative smile. “You’ve changed.”

  I just watch her silently. Ice has crusted over my heart.

  “What do you want me to say?” she demands, exasperated. “We were both drunk and we’d been hanging out a lot and it just…happened.”

  “Cody said it was one kiss.”

  Her eyes go wide. “You talked to him?”

  “He says you came on to him and he stopped it, but not soon enough.”

  She lets out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Yeah, I guess he would say that, huh?”

  “Are you saying he’s lying?”

  “No.” She sighs, raking her fingers through her hair. Her bangs stand up at a funny angle. I notice she’s got dark roots. Her neck has gone all red and splotchy, the way it does before she starts to cry. “I’m just saying we all remember things differently, especially after four or five margaritas.”

  All at once I explode out of my chair. I pace the room like a caged tiger. My body hums with adrenaline, and I can’t sit still. “He was my first boyfriend! The first guy I ever kissed. You should have known to stay away.”

  “I like him!” Tears roll down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to but I do.”

  I face her, suddenly cold again. “Do you want to be with him?”

  She looks around helplessly. “If things were different? Yeah. But not if it means losing my friendship with you.”

  “Damage is already done there. You might as well take what you want, just like you always do.” I can’t help twisting the knife a little more. It’s so unlike me, but right now I don’t feel an ounce of mercy. “Oh, except he’s not interested, is he? He wants me back.”

  “He said that?”

  “He begged me.” I say it slowly, enunciating each word.

  She clutches her T-shirt like I just punched her in the stomach. Good. Let her feel what it’s like to get the wind knocked out of her. Let her gasp with shock at the damage your best friend can inflict. She’s crying for real now, not sobbing but pretty close. She covers her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking.

  Just like that, the urge to hurt her drains out of me.

  How is this helping?

  I take a deep breath and sit down. My chai’s getting cold, but I feel too sick to my stomach to take a sip. For a long moment, neither of us says anything. There’s only the sound of her ragged breathing and the wind pushing against the canvas walls of my yurt in moody gusts.

  I get up and forage in my chest of drawers until I find an old bandanna.

  As I toss it to her, she looks up in surprise, her eyes red and splotchy. “Thanks.”

  She uses it to dry her face and blow her nose.

  “I’m not getting back with him,” I say at last. “I don’t trust him.”

  She bites her lip. After another long pause, she says in a soft, apologetic voice I’ve never heard her use, “You’re like a sister to me, Ducky. You know that, right?”

  I just nod. A thousand memories threaten to flood my icy resolve—finger painting with mud down by the swimming hole, playing with plastic ponies at the beach, making up secret code names, putting on makeup for the first time. She said it: this is what I’ve got, like it or not. I can try to cut her out of my life, amputate her like an infected limb, but our lives are so intertwined, it’s almost impossible. We’re like sisters. We share the same memories, the same home, the same eccentric past. Where in this huge, crazy world would I ever find someone to replace her?

  “Guys come and go, but friendships like ours? That’s sacred. Irreplaceable.” This is so completely out of character for River. She’s the least sentimental person I’ve ever met. I can see by the tension in her face just how hard it is for her to humble herself—just how much it costs her to be deferential rather than brash.

  I stare at my lap, annoyed by the lump forming in my throat. “It might take me a while to get over this.”

  “I know.” She leans forward and puts her hand over mine. “I get that. I’ll be patient.”

  “Yeah?” I breathe out a little laugh and raise my eyes to hers. “Aren’t you always saying patience is overrated?”

  “I’ll make an exception this time,” she says, “for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jack

  Moonlight pours through the windows of the conservatory. I’m pounding on the keys so feverishly I’ve worked up a sweat. It’s two o’clock in the morning, but I can’t sleep.

  I’ve been in here for three hours, pouring all my angst into a new composition. It has a dark, brooding melody that says exactly what I want to say. I tried my hand at love and failed miserably. I met the quirkiest, smartest, most beautiful girl in the world and I lost her because I didn’t have the confidence to tell her how I feel, to show her who I am. Each note is laced with Dakota—that smile that’s like winning the smile lottery, her funny way of stomping down the beach like a little general on her way to the front lines, her beautiful glittery hand-drawn fireworks. As my fingers caress the keys, she’s there with me, but so is the loss of her. The darkness in the melody is my darkness, the gaping hole Will’s death left in the center of my heart. I’m terrified my best friend died because I was a half-assed friend—too caught up in Lucy to see the private hell he’d fallen into. How do you make up for that? Now I’ve tried to open up again, but I did it in such a backward way that I’ve screwed it up. I’ve trampled my connection with Dakota before it even had a chance to blossom. Maybe I’m too damaged for real love. Maybe some people just aren’t built for that brand of joy.

  When I look up from the keys and see Gran, I’m so lost in the music and my morbid, self-defeating thoughts I almost scream like a girl. Unlike Mother, she doesn’t have any qualms about interrupting while I’m playing. She stands over me, pulling her robe tight, her hair loose around her shoulders. I don’t recall ever seeing her hair down before; the wispy white strands look ghostly in the moonlight.

  I stop mid-phra
se. Whatever she sees in my face must be completely pathetic, because she reaches out and smooths my hair away from my forehead, her eyes full of compassion.

  That simple gesture breaks me. I can feel tears stinging my eyes.

  “What is it, darling?” She sits beside me on the piano bench, one arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

  Nobody in my family touches me except Gran. Tonight I feel so raw, so fragile, I can barely stand it. I can’t seem to get any words out. After a few moments I manage to get past the threat of tears, thank God, but my throat still feels too tight to speak.

  “Love can be cruel.” She rubs my back, tracing slow circles. “I know. I know.”

  She goes on just sitting with me for a long time. Only an occasional groaning pipe in the house’s mysterious innards breaks the silence. When I finally feel more composed, I tell her about what happened today with Dakota. She listens with wide eyes. Now and then her gaze seems to turn inward; I wonder what memories my story elicits, what private sorrow it stirs.

  I shake my head. “The worst part is that I’d pretty much decided to tell her. Not that she would have forgiven me, but now I don’t stand a chance.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” She squints at me, considering. “What does this girl need right now? What does she want?”

  I make a sound of disbelief. “You’re not suggesting I bribe—?”

  “In her life, I mean—not necessarily a physical thing, but emotionally, what’s she looking for?”

  I search the ceiling, thinking. I recall the long walks we’ve taken, our endless, meandering talks. I know she feels alone, with nobody to turn to. When River and Cody hooked up, they severed two of her most important connections. Her old dream of studying at RISD seems tainted and stale now; she needs new discoveries, an open vista. She needs new dreams to dream, new miracles to hope for.