Living Backwards

by Tracy Sweeney

  I was so unprepared. I had never intended to tell anyone that I had a history with Luke. Once I did, I was sure that Megan would want to know why I kept it from her and why he was so angry. I didn’t have good answers for either question. The further away from his condo we got, though, the easier it became for me to calm myself down. As she navigated her way back downtown, I composed myself, ready to come clean.

  “Luke hates me.”

  “Jillian,” she began cautiously, “was there ever anything going on with you and Luke?”

  I wasn’t surprised by her question. If she ever had any suspicions, I had most likely confirmed them. Instead of launching into an elaborate explanation, I just looked up at her through sore, bloodshot eyes and nodded slowly. While I expected a litany of questions, Megan pulled out her cellphone instead.

  “Change of plans, Danielle,” she began. I glared over at her, still angry that Danielle’s battery had conveniently run low. I wasn’t stupid. I had been the target of her matchmaking compulsion many times before. She just messed with the wrong people this time around. “Meet us at the apartment in fifteen. This can’t wait until lunch.”

  She ended the call, placing the phone back in her purse.

  “She was trying to set me up with Luke, wasn’t she?” I asked, bitterly.

  “Honey, try to remember that she only wanted to do something for you because you do so much for her,” she explained.

  “So she stranded me with him?!” I exclaimed. “And you were okay with this? I can’t believe—”

  “Jillian, Danielle ran into Ann-Marie Matthews last month.”

  It only took a moment to place the name. It wasn’t like it had been very long for me. I remembered the look on her face when she and her boyfriend stumbled upon me and Luke grinding against each other behind the gym. I also remembered thinking that she was a whore, as my own leg sat perched upon Luke’s hip. We should’ve formed a club.

  “And you knew?” I asked, suddenly feeling angry. “Why didn’t either of you say anything?”

  “Danielle also ran into Luke, and she thought he acted strange when she mentioned your name,” she replied, uncomfortably. “She thought if we just forced you two together, you’d work out whatever went wrong.”

  “You realize that’s like the plot of a bad Lifetime movie, right?” I sneered, incredulous.

  “Jillian, I’m sorry, really,” she replied, seeming genuinely upset. “I would never have agreed to it if I knew you’d be this upset.”

  “If you had asked me, I would have told you yesterday that I thought he hated my guts. Thanks to you guys, I now have confirmation on that.”

  “In our defense,” she replied. “We had no idea how involved you were in high school.”

  “I understand that,” I said, frustrated by the conversation. “But that’s why you don’t go around making decisions for people without consulting them!”

  The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I even realized what I had said. Just like the decision I had made for Luke. I was a hypocrite, and suddenly, I was sobbing again.

  “Oh sweetie, what the hell went on with you two?” she asked sympathetically. I was in no shape to give her the gory details though.

  “Can we wait until Danielle’s with us?” I managed to reply. “I promise I’ll tell you everything.” Except the parts that can get me committed.

  When we rounded the bend heading to our building, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Danielle, sitting on our front steps, wearing a purple track suit and baseball cap. She never left the house with a hair out of place, but in times of crisis, she dropped everything. I already found myself feeling marginally less angry with her.

  I wiped at the tears along my cheeks and ran my fingertips along my bottom lashes. I shuffled out of the car, unsure as to how this conversation would go. I wasn’t proud of what I had done, even though I felt it was for the best. I only hoped they’d see that.

  As soon as Danielle caught sight of my red, splotchy face, she gasped, cupping her hands over her mouth. She launched herself off of the steps, embracing me tightly.

  “I’m so sorry, Jillian,” she said sadly. “I never would have…if I had known…shit,” she muttered, frustrated.

  “Why don’t we all go inside so we can talk?” Megan suggested, motioning to the door.

  “Good idea,” I replied, as Danielle weaved her arm through mine and walked with me up the stairs.

  When we got to the apartment, I crashed onto the couch, closing my eyes and trying to decide where to start.

  “How did I not know this?” Danielle began, sitting in the chair across from me. “How did we,” she added, motioning with her finger between herself and Meg, “not know about this?”

  I was slow to respond, still trying to form the right way to explain that I fell in love with a boy in less than three weeks.

  “We hung out a lot,” I said, making it sound more casual than it was.

  “Jillian, this,” Meg replied, pointing at me, “does not happen when two people hang out.”

  “He’s the reason you left early for New York, isn’t he?” Danielle asked pointedly.

  My eyes shot up, surprised that she made that connection so quickly. For someone who hadn’t caught on before, she was piecing the puzzle together rather well. I groaned, knowing that the conversation was about to take a turn.

  “Luke wanted to come with me to New York,” I said, focusing on a discoloration on the carpet. I didn’t want to see their faces when they realized how serious things had been. “I left without telling him.”

  When no one responded, I glanced up in their direction. Danielle was shaking her head slowly in disbelief.

  “I couldn’t let him give up a life here to follow me across the country,” I explained, my voice sounding hoarse. “He wouldn’t have had anything. No education. No job.”

  “He would’ve had you.” I looked over to Danielle, her expression grave and disapproving.

  “He would’ve resented me,” I countered. “Maybe more than he does now.”

  “Jesus Christ, you were in love with him,” Megan gasped softly, her eyes wide with shock. I didn’t say anything at first. I didn’t need to. When I looked up at her, she knew.

  “And now he hates me.”

  I didn’t want to elaborate anymore. I didn’t want to plead my case. I just wanted to go back to staring at that spot on the carpet. Instead, I relayed the entire story of my night with Luke—from the car ride over to the showroom, to our showdown in his condo. Every bit was as painful as the first time around, although I conveniently left out the part where I told him I had been in love with him. When I was done, I wanted the ground to swallow me up—anything to escape the inevitable inquisition.

  “So, we need a plan,” Danielle announced.

  “What?” I asked, confused by her change in tone.

  “To fix this,” she explained, as if it were obvious.

  “Were you even listening? He. Hates. Me,” I replied, punctuating my words for effect.

  “No, he doesn’t,” she replied.

  “He doesn’t?” Meg asked, looking at Danielle with as much shock as I was.

  “No. Were you even listening?” she asked, looking between Meg and me.

  “Apparently not,” she replied, sarcastically.

  “Guys don’t get angry like that, Jillian, if they don’t care anymore,” Danielle explained. “And they sure the hell don’t invite the ones they hate to their houses for sleepovers.”

  “He was being nice, Danielle, when my friend stranded me,” I countered, feeling annoyed.

  “If Mike Wakefield was locked out of his car at the reunion, would you have brought him back to your apartment to sleep on the couch?” she asked, smugly. I threw up a little in my mouth. Hell no.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” she replied. “But he took you to his house, let you sleep in his clothes, in his bed. And instead of saying ‘Don’t worry about it, Jillian, it was a long time ago’, he says
that you leaving wasn’t what was best for him. That’s huge.”

  “She’s got a point,” Meg replied thoughtfully. “I dated Sean Myers for a year before he broke up with me for some slutty sophomore with big boobs. I would have dumped his ass at the nearest HoJo faster than he could say ‘push-up bra’.”

  “That’s all well and good,” I complained. “But I still had a chance to say my peace and he wouldn’t listen. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “You’re probably right,” Danielle began somberly. “But there’s something we can do.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Meg muttered. “Theatrical much?”

  “Can it, Meg,” she retorted, not even looking in her direction. Instead, she focused on me, smiling with a glimmer in her eye. “Saturday night, we’re going to his bar.”

  I stifled a groan. “If I go with you, there needs to be some ground rules,” I warned her. “I dress myself. My keys stay in my bag. There will be no body shots or dropping anything like it’s hot. Understood?”

  “Done and done,” she answered happily. “We don’t need any of that, although I’d dress you cuter.”

  “I dress myself fine,” I growled, thinking back to the skinny jean incident.

  “Whatever,” she sighed, dramatically.

  Meg sat down next to me, giving me a one-armed squeeze.

  “We’ll fix this,” she added, “and if Luke is still too Brooding-Leather-Jacket-Boy to get it, he’s not worth it.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, with a half-smile.

  I just wish I believed that.

  Later, after Megan had returned to Nate’s, and Danielle had gone off to work, I puttered around my room, attempting to clear my mind of all the drama. I was about to sit down at my computer and begin research on an article when I decided to log onto Facebook. Then it all happened at once. My heart began to race, my hands started to shake, and I was positive that I was going to vomit. I reread the alert five, ten, maybe a dozen times. I still didn’t believe what it said.

  Luke Chambers accepted your friend request.

  CHAPTER 22

  Luke

  When Grace would feel stressed out, she’d bake cookies—dozens and dozens of cookies. I wondered if the neighbors ever caught on or noticed that when a deadline loomed or a book was about to hit the shelves, they received a plate of snickerdoodles from her for no apparent reason.

  Carter played chess. He liked to lose himself in a game, shutting out any outside variables plaguing him. He claimed that it centered him, giving him the focus he needed to tackle the problem. Well, unless he was losing to me. That usually made it worse.

  Jonas was the polar opposite. After a tough week, Jonas would hit the gym, choose a particularly intimidating sparring partner and proceed to beat the crap out of him. He took me with him once—years ago—and I’d left with a black eye. I didn’t find that very relaxing.

  There was some merit to Jonas’ approach, though. While I didn’t feel like getting the shit kicked out of me, jumping on a treadmill—letting the aggression out during a run—worked wonders.

  Less than a week ago, Jillian stood in my living room, shouting at me, saying things—things I just didn’t want to hear. I didn’t know what she expected me to say. I didn’t know how she expected me to react. I wasn’t even sure I believed her because if it were true, why would she have left? Wouldn’t she have tried to contact me sooner? You don’t treat the people that you allegedly love that way. At least, I didn’t.

  I was so worked up that I barely functioned the entire day. There was a part of me that wanted to tell her to go to hell so I’d never have to deal with her bullshit again. Then there was another part that wanted to touch her, and wouldn’t stop thinking about that Friend Request. In the end, the part that was a pushover won out when I logged onto Facebook and accepted it.

  I managed to resist looking at her profile for a day. I knew that if there were pictures of her with some guy, I’d be pissed. I knew I had no right to be, and that pissed me off even more. Then I’d inevitably get mad at myself for wanting to kill the fictional guy. No good was going to come of looking at Jillian’s Facebook page.

  My sound reasoning was shot to shit when I logged onto Facebook the very next day and saw something Jillian wrote to Danielle pop up. She asked Danielle what time “everyone” would be getting together on Saturday night. It felt so wrong to pry—like I was eavesdropping on a conversation that I shouldn’t. This was exactly the reason why I was against joining Facebook in the first place. Inevitably, my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know where they were going, and if the “everybody” Jillian mentioned involved another guy because clearly I was brain damaged. Apparently, running into Jillian had turned me into a creepy stalker.

  Clicking on her profile, the small picture of Jillian sitting between Danielle and Megan was enlarged so that I could see the little details that were unnoticeable from the main page. Her hair was draped over one side and her head was tilted, resting slightly on Megan’s shoulder. She was wearing red and she was beautiful.

  Feeling conflicted, but obviously not enough to stop, I scrolled down, reading a message from Suzanne Santin Hentschel asking Jillian to have drinks with her. When I started wondering where they’d be going, I logged off abruptly and jumped on the treadmill instead. I wish I could have pinpointed the moment I decided it was okay to spy on people.

  The next day, as if she knew I had been looking at her profile, Jillian sent me a private message. I hesitated just a moment before opening it up, nervous about what I’d find. I couldn’t imagine what she wanted, worrying that she could tell I had been lurking. Facebook was complicated—you never knew. My whole body tensed as I started to read.

  Luke,

  I hate the way we left things on Sunday. It was never my intention to upset you. I just want you to know that I meant everything I said. While I know it wasn’t the best way to handle the situation, I truly felt I was doing what was right. I loved you too much to watch you throw away your future.

  Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever done.

  I regret that I’ve caused you pain, and I regret that I didn’t handle it better. I regret that I don’t know you now, and I want to know you again. But what I regret most of all is that I never told you how I felt when I had the chance. For that, I have the most regret…and probably always will.

  Jillian

  I must have read her message three times before storming over to the treadmill and running until my body practically gave out. I had clocked more hours on that machine in the past week than I had in all the time I’d owned it. My body ached, my head hurt and my chest felt tight. I had literally spent the entire week running from her, and my legs felt like Jell-O.

  By Friday, I was barely functioning. Even though I had spent my entire week thinking of her, I had yet to respond to her email. Never in my life had I ever felt so conflicted. No matter how much I thought it through, I’d always come back to the same thing.

  I would never have left her.

  Frustrated, I sent a text to Carter, asking if he could meet me at the diner for lunch the following day. I didn’t want to explain everything that had happened with Jillian, but I needed some perspective. I’d seem to have lost mine, and he always had a way of setting me straight.

  Although I was expected at the bar, I took a quick detour and drove to The Rusted Nail instead. I knew Danielle would be there, tearing the place up. She had blown in on Monday and begun her renovation. Fixtures were ripped from the wall, countertops were demolished, and tables were thrown in the trash. It was a disaster, but Danielle seemed to be in control of the situation so I tried to relax and let her do her job.

  I decided on a new name for the restaurant, and I wanted to speak to Danielle about the marquee. As I moved past the carpenters installing the new front door, I heard her voice from inside.

  “You need to stop worrying about it so much,” she said. “Trust me. I know what I�
��m doing.”

  I could only image the poor person she was terrorizing. As I scanned the room full of workers installing lights and painting the walls, I didn’t find Danielle lecturing one of the contractors. She was lecturing Jillian.

  “That’s what you always say and look at what happened last time,” she shot back.

  Danielle looked as though she was about to respond when she noticed me approaching. Jillian followed her gaze, staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Luke!” Danielle exclaimed. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I added, glancing briefly over at Jillian.

  “Oh, no, no. I was just telling Jillian that she needed to trust me. This…article she’s writing about the renovation…it’s going to be fantastic.”

  “Article?” I asked, because this was the first I had heard about Jillian writing anything.

  “Of course, silly. That’s how we work. I do a fantastic remodel. Jillian takes pretty pictures and then writes an amazing piece about it. The magazine picks it up and my phone starts to ring. It’s a beautiful thing,” she explained. “And you dropped by at such a good time. The fabric for the upholstery is on its way. I asked for a rush delivery and the kid at the fabric store kind of has a thing for me, so I think it should be here any minute.”

  “That’s great,” I replied, a little overwhelmed by all of the information. I didn’t really care about looking at the rolls of fabric. She had given me some swatches. I picked a few I liked. After Danielle vetoed the majority of them, we decided on a striped print with oranges, tans and browns. Danielle claimed the dark wood would make it “pop”. Who was I to argue?

  “Jillian’s going to take some photos of the rolls of fabric leaning against the old leather booths in the corner. It’ll be a great ‘before’ shot.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, having nothing of value to add to the conversation. Jillian hadn’t spoken either, making the tension I was feeling seem that much worse.

  “Excuse me,” one of the workers interrupted. “Some guy is out front with a delivery for you.”