Something Real

by Jessica Roe

  He looks shamefaced for just a moment.

  “I'll take you,” pipes up another voice. Christen steps out from behind Reid, looking embarrassed as he glances between us. Reid and I were so caught up in one another that I have no idea how long he's been stood there. “Sorry, I wasn't eavesdropping. I just came out to make sure you guys were okay and not. . .killing each other or anything. Plus I'm like, designated driver tonight, I guess.”

  “A ride would be great,” I accept quietly.

  Hooking his arms behind his head, Reid spins in a circle and swears harshly when he realizes what I already have – our friendship is done. Ruined. Obliterated. He kicks at a nearby chain fence, the noise rattling through the night. Finally he turns to Christen. “Make sure she gets home safe.”

  “I'll take you too, bro. You shouldn't be driving right now.”

  “I'll walk,” Reid bites out. Without looking at me once, he tosses Christen his bike keys for safekeeping and stalks away.

  I watch him go in almost a trance, wondering if this is the last time I'll ever see him again. It can't be, right? I know what I said but. . .we can't just be done, can we?

  “My uh. . .my car's just there.” Christen looks super awkward as he gestures to the car Reid had me pressed against just minutes before. He's probably worried I'm about to cry all over him.

  For a long moment I wonder whether I should really be getting into a car with a guy I've just met, no matter how nice he is, but then I realize that Reid wouldn't have allowed it if he'd thought it was a bad idea. No matter how much he probably hates me right now, he would never let me get into a car with somebody he didn't trust. He isn't, and never would be, that kind of guy.

  Oh God.

  What have I lost?

  Christen opens the door for me like a gentleman and I sit and buckle up automatically, still dazed by everything that's happened. Where did everything go wrong? The evening started out so perfectly.

  Christen comes around the other side and climbs in but doesn't start the car. Instead, he rests his hands on the wheel, silent for a while as he mulls over his thoughts. “That's not him. You know that, right?” he asks eventually.

  “Huh?” His words barely registered with me. I'm trying desperately to hold in sobs and my big fat tears until I'm all alone in bed tonight. I briefly consider telling Christen to drive me to Blair's place until I remember that Silver was taking her out tonight. I know they'd drop any plans right away if I called them, but I'm trying to be less selfish these days. Besides, I'm not sure I could face seeing them so happy and in love, not right now.

  “Reid,” Christen explains. “He's not normally like that. He hasn't partied with Gal and his crowd in years. I actually have no idea why he decided to show up tonight.”

  I could probably jump in with an explanation here, but I won't.

  “And you were right about the drug thing,” he continues. “It's so fucking stupid. I don't know why we still hang with Gal when he's messing around with that shit. It's just, you know someone as long as we've all known each other and it becomes habit, you know?”

  I think about my high school boyfriend, Vic, and how I kept hanging on to him even after he started fooling around with idiotic stuff like drugs. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “But so you know, Reid would never have gone there. He's worked to hard to get away from all that. Honestly, most of those guys wouldn't go there. Not Walt or Fábia, even if they were giving you a hard time. Usually when the four of us hang we just go grab a beer or two at a bar, play some pool, listen to good music. Nothing like the shit we used to get up to when we were dumb ass kids.”

  I glance over at Christen curiously. He's watching me back with his big blue eyes, so earnest, like he needs me to believe him. “Why are you telling me this?”

  He shrugs. “I've known Reid longer than anyone. We grew up together. I used to save his ass from the dickshit kids at school who picked on him for being smart, long before he beefed up and got tough enough to save himself. When his pa died he lost himself, was never really happy again after that. Not until you. He talks a lot about you.” He laughs at that. “To the point where I end up wanting to bang my head against a wall – no offense. I just don't want you to give up on him is all. Don't judge him based on tonight.”

  It's sweet that he cares so much about his friend, but he doesn't know, he doesn't understand. He can't. Reid isn't the problem here. I am. “It's complicated,” is all I say.

  His lips press together in a thin line as he contemplates. Finally, with a defeated sigh, he nods and starts the car.

  Days without Reid pass by in an unforgiving humdrum of heartache, self-loathing and emptiness. Days without Reid, I've discovered, mean nothing. Just nothing. It's as simple as that.

  We don't text, we don't call, we don't see each other, not even accidentally. It's like he's completely vanished, like he was never really in my life to begin with. I spend a stupid amount of time scrolling through selfies of the two of us on my phone, reminding myself that he was real, that he wasn't a dream I imagined up for myself because my life was so dull and void of color before. I bring up his number at least two dozen times a day, my thumb hovering indecisively over the call button until I chicken out every single time. I should probably just delete it, delete the number and delete the photos, delete the temptation. But I won't. I know I won't.

  I miss him more than I've ever missed anyone, more than I've ever missed anything. I miss him more than I missed my parents when I first came away to college. I miss him more than my gigantic closet full of designer clothes back home. I miss him more than my friends from high school. I miss him more than my unlimited access to Daddy's credit card.

  Feeling this way is just miserable. Mostly I mope, which pisses Dahlia and Blair off because apparently they don't have the capacity for sympathy in their puny little brains.

  “You know what you need to do, right?” Dahlia asks me. I don't, but I have a feeling she'll tell me anyway. “You need to get off your fat ass and go boink the crap outta that boy before your vagina shrivels up and drops off.” She yanks a brush through my hair as she talks. It's been three days since I last brushed it and she said she was sick of looking at my ugly head. And that was her being nice.

  She's right though, I should probably start making an effort again. The girls at college who used to hate me are now looking like they want to adopt and initiate me into their little world of ironic loafers. That's probably the saddest thing about my whole situation. Actually, the saddest thing was the other day when I looked longingly at their gross loafers and briefly thought a pair might be kind of nice, way more comfortable than my heels.

  It was definitely a low point.

  Blair is slightly less mean than Dahlia. She says it's because she's my sister so she has to be nice, but really I think it's because she knows what it feels like to be without the man she loves.

  Not that I love Reid. That's not what I'm saying.

  It's not.

  But Blair would never admit that's the reason, because that would also mean admitting she has girly emotions and she is not a girly emotion kind of gal.

  She throws a spring roll and it bounces off Dahlia's forehead, dropping to the floor and rolling under my dorm room bed. I briefly consider fishing it out before I forget, but I lack motivation. I'm sure I'll remember later. You know, when it starts to stink the room out and stuff.

  “You know she won't,” Blair counters Dahlia. “She's too-”

  “If you say lame or predictable,” I warn. “I'll kick you in the lady junk. Hard.”

  A slow smirk spreads across her face as she purposefully crosses one leg over the other. I can't be too mad at her. I can't be too mad at anyone who brings me Chinese food.

  Ibbie, on the other hand, is much nicer than the evil duo. She stops by later when Blair and Dahlia have abandoned me for a Starbucks fix, armed with so much chocolate I'm genuinely sure she's robbed a candy store. Yeah, that girl knows what it's all about.

>   Back in high school I didn't even like Ibbie – she was just another one of my sister's annoying friends, the loud girl who started talking and then Never. Ever. Stopped. But since she and Blair went to the same college and remained besties, she became an unavoidable part of my life. She grew on me after a while. Like mold on cheese. Except in that scenario I would be the cheese, which just. . .no. Ew.

  Still, even Ibbie's endless chatter and a mountain of chocolate can't make me feel better.

  “Blair and Dahlia think I'm an idiot,” I complain, sprawled across my bed while she lays on her stomach on Dahlia's, her eyes glued to a grainy copy of The Notebook playing on my tiny pink TV set. According to Ibbie, The Notebook is the only thing that's going to get me through the heartbreak. According to me, Ryan Gosling's abs are the only thing that's going to get me through anything.

  “You are an idiot,” she assures me cheerfully, without taking her eyes away from the screen. “A hunky chunk of man wants your booty and your soul and you threw him away like yesterday's milk. Can't get any more idiotic than that. I'm just too nice to say it.” She cocks her head to one side. “Apart from just then when I said it.”

  “Thanks,” I reply dryly.

  She shrugs. “You're still aces to me.”

  I bury my face underneath my pillow. If I close my eyes I can almost pretend I smell Reid on it still, but it's all in my imagination.

  There's only one person in the whole world who's going to make me feel better and I'm too much of a dumbo to call him.

  And after the movie is finished, when I tell Ibbie I really need caffeine and we end up at the little coffee shop just down the street from where Reid works, she doesn't even give me grief. Not with her mouth, anyway – though her eyes are a whole other story. It takes me two and a half hours to finish a single cup of coffee, and when Ibbie doesn't complain once, I realize that she's not only Blair's friend anymore, she's mine too.

  Later that night when Dahlia is snoring her gorgeous face off and I'm staring up at the ceiling, wide awake because I seem to have lost the ability to sleep, my phone buzzes with a text. My heart immediately begins to race because I already know with every fiber of my being who it is. I already know because there's only one person who would text me at 1 am.

  I scramble for my phone, almost falling out of bed in my haste as I snatch it up with needy hands. The message is simple. As soon as I read the words, tears well up in my eyes because I know that I don't have the courage to reply and I hate myself for that.

  It's short, honest, sweet.

  It breaks my heart.

  I miss you.

  Damn him.

  I miss you too, I type, and my thumb hovers indecisively over the send button.

  But I don't press. Of course I don't press.

  Eventually I start brushing my own hair again. I even wash it, but only because Dahlia threatened to hack it all of while I was sleeping if I didn't. Also I caught a look at myself in a mirror. Not gonna lie, there was intense shrieking.

  “Why am I here again?” I nag Blair in my whiniest voice because I know how much it pisses her off.

  She nudges me with her shopping cart. It's early evening so the store is pretty busy. “Because I hate grocery shopping and I shouldn't have to suffer it alone.”

  She's lying. The only reason she's making me tag along is because she's worried about me. All I do these days is go to class and study, and apparently that's a bad thing now – in high school I had the opposite problem. But Blair thinks I'm not getting out enough, which means getting dragged along while she runs errands.

  She stops in the aisle and debates for a moment before knocking a box of Lucky Charms into the cart. Silver wrote her a grocery list which I'm pretty sure was filled with healthy items – I can just see the corner of it where it was abandoned beneath a giant pack of M&Ms. She said it was his own fault for sending her. There will probably be arguing when she arrives home with all this junk. Then some serious making out. Then sex. That's usually how they do things.

  Blair's cell rings. She rolls her eyes as she pulls it out. “It's like he's psychic or something,” she mutters before answering. “Hey, babe. . . Of course I'm following the list you wrote. . . No, I'm not buying junk again. . . Lying? I would never lie to you. . . Hold up, I'm losing signal. Wait just a sec.” She turns to me, silent laughter shining in her eyes. “Watch the cart, would you? I'm just gonna run outside and lie to him some more.” Silver's tinny voice explodes from her phone so he obviously heard her, but from the way she's grinning as she saunters away, I'm certain she meant him to. “I know, baby. When I get home you'll just have to punish me. Really hard. . .”

  Ew. Just ew.

  Bored, I turn back to the shelves and run my fingers across the cereal boxes, tapping my nails against the cardboard as I contemplate switching all of Blair's junk food with healthy stuff. It would really piss her off, and that would definitely cheer me up.

  Just as I'm deciding it's totally worth the hassle, I hear a voice behind me.

  “Jemma?” Just one word, and it sends shivers racing right down my spine.

  I spin, stupidly banging my elbow into the cart. Reid's voice does all kinds of things to my heart, but it's nothing at all compared to actually seeing him again. Seeing him, right here in front of me. And it's not even a dream. I think. If it were a dream I'd probably be doing something smart like stripping him naked and attaching him to me with chains and handcuffs and all manner of kinky toys, instead of standing here, gawking. Idiotically. Incredibly idiotically. With my mouth open and everything.

  My heart, clearly deciding it can't take much more of my erratic behavior, yanks up its big girl panties and gallops right out of my chest, waving a little white flag of surrender as it goes.

  He looks. . .just like Reid. Dark and alluring and so very, very tempting, though the scruff on his face is longer and unkempt and there are rings under his eyes, like he's been having as much difficulty sleeping as I have. I want to believe it's because of me, even if that is a selfish thought. I won't take it back. He stands at the end of the aisle, basket in one hand, somehow managing to make even that look cool and sexy. His eyes glance upward for a beat, before landing back on me. He looks uneasy, as if he wishes he hadn't caught my attention.

  And I'm still gawking. Silently.

  Kill me now.

  “Hi,” I try to stutter out like the social retard I've clearly become, but my voice comes out thick. I clear my throat and try again.

  He steps closer. “How've you been?”

  “Good,” I lie, bobbing my head up and down. “You?”

  “Yeah. . .good. I've been good.” He says it in the same way I did, so I know he's lying too. That probably shouldn't make me feel better, but it does. He glances down at Blair's cart and raises his eyebrows, staring specifically at a giant bottle of baby oil. I don't even want to think about what my sister and ex-history teacher are planning to do with that. Just ick.

  It takes me a second to realize that he thinks this is my cart, and I blush deeply. “It's Blair's,” I blurt out, totally sounding like one of those people who take three bars of chocolate to the checkout counter and then tell the person serving them that it's for somebody else when they didn't even ask.

  He pokes at a packet of Twinkies with a small, sad smile, still looking down. “Those too?”

  “No,” I reply softly. “Those are mine.”

  We fall into another tense silence. Somehow, Twinkies have become the mascot for our Almost Kiss, and now they're just lying there in the cart, taunting us, all smug like. For a moment I convince myself that I'm never, ever going to eat them again. You know, on principle. Realistically I know I'll probably end up stuffing my face with them tonight and crying into their empty wrappers while Sia's, Big Girls Cry, plays on repeat in the background. Dahlia will slap me.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you,” he says, in that way people do when really what they mean is this-is-awkward-let-me-leave-don't-talk-to-me-argh!

&n
bsp; “Sure.” I smile politely. I almost say see you around, but that would be another lie.

  He holds up a stiff hand as he backs away, then glares down at the offending appendage like he's wondering what it thinks it's playing at, like it has a mind of its own.

  When he turns the corner and disappears, I slap my hands over my face and groan. Could I have acted any dumber? All I want to do right now is bang my head against a wall, but unfortunately there are none conveniently nearby.

  “Jemma!”

  I twirl, dropping my hands in surprise.

  Reid is back, and this time he's lost his awkwardness and uncertainty. He looks wild and determined and angry.

  I watch with parted lips as he strides towards me. Without a word, he drops his basket to the floor. People glance our way as it clatters loudly, but I don't pay them any attention because Reid's large, warm hands are cupping my cheeks. He pulls my face up and bends down to meet me, then his demanding lips are on mine and the whole wide world goes away.

  Reid's kisses are everything I expected them to be – hot and spine tingling and possessive – yet they're so much more. His lips are soft on mine for just a heartbeat, but when I open my mouth to him he presses harder against me with so much passion it would take my breath away if I wasn't already breathless.

  Kissing him back is the only thing I can do. I couldn't not kiss him back, there's not an inch of my body that would allow me to pull away from this man because I'm crazy for him. I'm completely and utterly crazy for him. If only I could admit that out loud.

  It's a second before I realize my hands are clutching him. Those bad boys must have a mind of their own because one of them has slipped up the back of his faded blue t-shirt to feel the ridges of his back and the other is clinging to his shoulder like it's the only thing keeping me standing. It most likely is, because my legs are jelly. My arms are jelly. All of me is jelly. That's what Reid does to me.