by Allie Martin
“What?” I say as steady as I can, even though every part of me, inside and out, shakes vehemently.
“Jordie, don’t be like that,” Annie says through her choking sobs.
“Be like what?” I sit hard on the bus bench. I shoot a glare at Hector, hoping it conveys my message to get lost.
“I need to talk to you,” Annie says and stops my protest before it starts. “Where are you? It’s important.”
Everything I feel and everything I am leaks out of my body until I’m left with nothing. The brick I colored black at The Aftershock makes me think I might be psychic or some shit. Everything made of nothing—that’s how I feel.
“Whatever, Annie. I’m a couple blocks from home; meet me there.” I hit end before she can say anything and hang my head between my knees, sucking in air that does nothing to calm me.
"Jordie..." Hector's voice is softer now, but he's still pissed at me. I hold up my hand but don't lift my head.
"Don't, dude. Just... Don't. You've done enough." I get up as if I were an old, decrepit man and walk past Hector without making eye contact.
I scan my phone, and through the tangled mess in my mind, I am distinctly disappointed that Evan didn’t text me. I can't believe after all of this, the only thing I can slow my mind enough to focus on is Evan. She called after me when I walked away from her, but that was it.
That was it.
I don’t want this to be it. This isn’t how I want to remember her.
Especially if she...
I stop so fast on the street my shoes squeak.
Dies.
My fingers are texting Natalie before my brain catches up, and then I stand there. Staring. The word tumbles down the tunnel from my mind, and my lungs claw in a breath. My teeth and tongue are ready to shape the air into a sound with the vibration of vocal cords.
But I can’t do it.
I can’t say it, only think it. I don’t even know if I could write it.
The dinging sound of my cell phone jolts through me even though I’m looking at the screen. I swipe my phone with my thumb.
Natalie: At ur place
I shove my phone in my pocket and rub my hands over my face roughly before another thing hits me.
Annie is meeting me at my place. Evan is already there.
Shit.
2:43 AM
Hector doesn’t follow me as I tear through the thick night air. I'm completely out of breath by the time I shove my key into the tarnished lock on the front door of my apartment building. Paint crumbles beneath my fingers as I push it open, but the chill that runs the length of me is proof I'm too late.
Annie appears around the corner, and my hand falls from the keys. The only sound is my heavy breath and her clacking high heels against the pavement like the countdown to my self-destruction. Her straightened hair hangs stiffly around her shoulders, and the leather coat I got her for her seventeenth birthday still fits her perfectly. Her eyes are swollen and bare of makeup, and I hate that it digs at my gut.
"Where's your boy toy? Waiting around the corner?" I can't help the venom that infects each word as it leaves my tongue. Annie stops walking. Her arms wrap around her stomach like they always do when she’s protecting herself. She tries to wrap herself up and fold up into space to avoid talking to me, but I was always trying to get her to talk. It was my mission. My goal was to open her up. Even now I’m not sure if I ever actually got through to her.
"He's gone." She steps up to me under the light, and I fight to not move hair from her face. I win, and the strand stays stuck to her tear streaked cheek.
"Oh." I feel the confidence leave with the air from my lungs.
"I think I made—"
I raise my hand to stop her. "Wow, Annabeth. This has to be a record for you."
The tears cling to her lashes again, and she blinks up to stop them. I cross the sidewalk to lean against Lane’s SUV parked on the street. I place my hands on the hood and crush my eyes shut. Nothing I do helps the tension that tightens around every muscle. I hear her heels clap like thunder in my mind, and I shake my head. Short bursts of air puff from my nose, and she places her hand on my back.
"Jordan, you have to understand that I love you," she says, and I hear it. I hear the emptiness in that word that Evan hates so much.
"No, I don’t understand. A few hours ago you didn't love me." I refuse to look at her. My arm shakes, and I have to shove off the car, turning my back to her. I speak to the sky as if my voice will reverberate off the stars, making me sound stronger than I feel. “A few hours ago, he understood you. A few hours ago, I didn’t know what love was. A few hours ago I didn’t know how to make you happy. A few hours ago you left, Annie. A few months ago you left. A few years ago you left. Four years this shit has been going on. Four years of you saying you love me and then leaving. How I’m supposed to understand that?”
Annie growls low, and she grabs me around the waist. I pry her arms from me and back away, turning to face her.
"You make me crazy sometimes. I say things I don't mean." She steps toward me, and I move into the street needing distance.
“And sleep with guys you don't mean to?”
A scowl knits her brow, and she follows me, grabbing my sweater.
"That's not fair, Jordie. Tanner is the only other person I've slept with."
I swat her hands off me. I can’t get rid of her wherever I go. "Well, when you put it that way..."
There’s a quick flash of fear that passes across Annie's features before the anger settles in. She lunges at me, slapping me across the cheek. I step around her without a sound. I don’t deserve that after all she’s put me through.
“Jordan,” she gasps, gripping my wrist and spinning me to face her again. Tears flow down her face. I’m hit with multiple images in rapid succession. The same sadness on her face, as if she’s practiced in the art of manipulation. My stomach lurches as if I’ll throw up. I’ve never seen it before now. Time after time, she says my name like that. Like her world is crumbling, and I’m the last piece of solid ground. The desperation in her voice rings through my mind, bringing with it startling clarity. The word is said with the same intensity that my feelings are for her.
Desperation.
I see her crushing my heart with no regard then dragging me back in, making me believe that I was in the wrong. That if I would have fought a little harder, she wouldn’t have left in the first place.
“No, Annie,” I say, but I feel the strength being sucked from my words. “This is killing me.” I cover my face, and she grabs my wrists.
“I love you. I love you and I need you and tonight I thought I’d lost—” She stops mid-sentence and her façade falls away, showing only a glimpse of the cold and ugly truth. My hands instantly go into the air, and I swear long and loud, suddenly needing to kick something again.
“You thought you lost me?” My voice carries down the street and echoes off the brick and steel and glass that make up the city. “Are you insane?”
“I... I meant... when I saw... when I heard that...” I’ve never seen Annie like this. I’ve never seen her this scared, this exposed, and I feel like the girl standing in front of me is a stranger. I feel nothing for this girl. Whatever it is that stitched us together pulls and rips as I slowly detach myself from her.
“When you saw me with Evan...” People always talk about these moments that happen over time but all at once. A crashing into reality. A split second when vision clears and they can see the truth of their lives in blinding focus. Until now I never truly knew what that meant.
Hearing Annie stutter out her excuses is a cathartic experience, with each bullshit word purging her poison from my soul and allowing me to see us the way the world sees us. The way Hector sees us. Toxic.
“Stop, Annie.” I hold my hand out. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Just tell me the truth. This is because of Evan, isn’t it?”
Her mouth falls open, and no answer is all the answer I’ll ever need. I sp
in and take my first step toward freedom.
Parting ways with Annie is always hard, but that's mostly because it’s usually her walking away.
"Jordan!" she yells after me, and it’s like dragging myself through a field of barbed wire to keep moving forward. I get about three steps toward Lane’s car, toward my home before she catches me.
She grips my wrist and spins me around. Her lips are on mine before I can do anything. Her hands grab around my neck and her kiss is frantic. There's panic behind it, as if she knows she's losing me, losing me for real. The coldness that spreads through my body—my lack of reaction—as I feel her lips on mine is final piece I need to really do this.
I'm giving up.
I'm letting go.
I feel it in the emptiness of her kiss. The emptiness of her embrace. The emptiness of her love.
She ends the kiss and glances behind me for only a second before she smiles at me like we're back to normal. Like we're back to us. Like she doesn’t feel the rigidness of my body against her.
A frown pulls low over my eyes, and I turn to follow her gaze.
Up on the fifth floor I see a dim light coming from my living room window, but more importantly, I see the green of her sweater.
Anger hooks me as it drags me down into its thorny grip. More shocking is that the hatred that rips through me disappears as fast as it came. In its place is emptiness. I feel nothing.
In this moment I can't remember why I love her. I can't remember why I ever loved her.
Numbness spreads through my limbs.
Slowly I turn and walk back to the door, unlocking it, closing Annie outside. Closing her outside of myself. Pushing her emptiness from my soul. My forehead hits the door as my exhausted body slumps forward. My phone beeps, and I read the message without removing my forehead from the wood.
Natalie: Evan wants to go back to the hotel. Are you showing up or not, Jordan?
The twisting, turning staircase that I've walked up a million times stands before me, but tonight it seems like it goes straight up into the sky. With a deep breath stored in my lungs, I take the stairs two at a time.
April 20 • 3:08 AM
Evan
"I need to go to sleep, Natalie." I let frustration seep into my words, but I don't tell her why. I don't tell her I saw Jordan kissing his ex in the street, and it hurt more than Lane cutting stitches from my flesh. I don't tell her I feel like a complete idiot for agreeing to this, and an even bigger idiot for getting caught up in it. For letting myself think there was something behind his touch—the way he ran his fingers across the freckles on my nose.
I spin around, and Nat still hasn't moved. "Seriously. I want to go."
Lane watches me from the kitchen table, and he has the same eyes as Jordan. Sarah cups her hands around a mug of tea next to him.
I shut my eyes and practice my yoga breathing. "Now," I say, as loud thudding steps echo through my head. I don't even have time to hide the envelope in my hands from that London school before Jordan slams the door open.
Nat jumps and spins to face him, but his focus is on me. With this overwhelming fearful determination, he only sees me.
He doesn't bother to shut the door behind him, but moves straight for me, taking my hand. I have no choice but to follow. He leads me down a small dim hallway to a doorway at the end, and I'm plunged into darkness. My thoughts are dizzy, and I jump at the sound of him shutting the door.
"What the hell?" I say as I'm hit with light. My hand shoots up to shield my eyes. My other hand presses over my newly bandaged collarbone. When I adjust to the light and scan his room, it’s exactly what I would expect of an eighteen-year-old guy’s room (I’ve never been in a guys room before, so I don’t know exactly where these expectations come from). There are clothes everywhere, bare walls, TV, Xbox, a dresser with a dusty mirror, more clothes on a big bed.
“I’m sorry, Evan,” he says, his eyes sincere. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry.”
“Jordan—” I start, and he squeezes my hands to silence me.
"People in love tell each other everything, right?" He asks the question the same way I asked the doctor if I was going to die the first time I had a seizure—like he already knows the answer. “They don’t lie to each other, right?”
"I..." But I can't finish that thought. How would I know? "Jordan, what are you talking about?”
“You said the word love was empty, and I didn’t believe you. I said that you were wrong. I said you would feel the word by the end of the night. But you weren’t wrong. I was. It’s not a word, Evan. It doesn’t have a meaning.”
He’s so sad that I can’t stop myself from reaching out to him and touching his face. He grabs my wrist and puts my hand over his mouth, his hot breath sending contradictory chills up my arm. “I don’t understand,” I say. “What doesn’t have a meaning?”
“Love. There is no meaning. It is empty," he says against my palm.
He takes my other hand and puts it on his face, leaning into it, and my heart vibrates with nerves. My stomach rolls, and I feel like I do when Dad drives too fast over a hill. My entire body feels like it’s defying gravity for less than a second. All from his touch. One fast touch and I feel like I’m falling.
But Jordan isn’t my happily ever after, and the falling feeling turns from good to bad way too fast. I see him walking away from me at the diner and it hurts. How can it hurt if I knew it would happen? If I've known him for only eight hours?
“You said this was over." My voice is a whisper, and my hands fall from his face.
His dark features suck me in with a pain I recognize, and he shakes his head.
"No, hear me out, okay?" He puts his hands on my hips, walking me backward until my calves hit his bed. I sit hard on the soft mattress, and he drops to his knees in front of me. With him kneeling on the ground and me sitting up on his bed, it's the first time we are eye to eye.
"Love is an empty word," he continues. "But it’s empty for a reason.”
I frown at him, and he braces himself with his hands on my thighs. “I don’t follow...”
“It is empty, because you have to fill it. Every word has a definition. It has a distinct sound and meaning, but the word love is a feeling. It’s empty because everyone is different. Everyone has to decide what to fill it with.”
My jaw lowers as if I plan to say something, but I don't speak.
“But Annie,” I say. “I saw you. I saw you out there with her.”
Jordan’s chin falls to his chest, and he slumps down, resting his forehead on my knee. “I’m too tired to deal with all of this right now.”
It’s true. My whole body feels exhausted to the point of forced shutdown. Jordan’s back straightens, and he shifts closer to me, taking my hips and sliding me to the edge of the bed. In a jolt, my body wakes up to his touch, but I see him kissing her over and over in my head.
“Jordan.” I place my hands on his shoulders.
“To hell with Annie,” he says, his eyes flashing angry.
“But I saw...” I don’t want to say it.
“You saw her do what she always does. But I don’t want it anymore.” He takes my hand from his shoulder and turns it over. Faded from sweat and scratched up from gravel is the little black heart I drew at the concert. He removes his pen from around his neck, and he colors in the little empty shape. “I know what you meant now. I felt it out there with her, just now. The word was empty, Evan.”
He lightly traces the two faded words that surround the heart on my palm and goose bumps spring up my arm. Nothing’s changed.
He crosses out nothing and writes everything.
“Everything changed. The moment I met you.”
I’m swarmed with too many emotions to sort out at almost four in the morning.
“This is all pretend,” I whisper, and he cups my face in his hands.
“Is it?” He looks at me like he did the first time he saw me—like he understood something about me that even I did
n’t understand.
A knock at the door and Jordan drops his hands, moving away from me. I instantly feel colder without him close. Lonelier. Did he win the bet? Did I fill the word love up with Jordan’s beautiful words?
“Yup,” Jordan calls, and Nat pokes her head in the door with scared eyes. She hands me my cell phone.
“Your mom called.”
“What?” My voice is high-pitched, and my chest feels like it will explode.
“She called twice. You should probably call her back, EJ.”
“It’s four in the morning...”
“I know. That’s why you should probably call her back. Tell her you were sleeping or something.”
“But why would she call at four in the morning?” My brain’s not keeping up, or understanding anything, as I hold the phone.
“I don’t know...” Nat sighs, and the phone starts ringing.
I let it ring three times before I answer it.
“Hello?” I act sleepy. “Mom?”
“Evan, where are you?” Her voice is calm and even, and my heart evaporates from my chest.
“I’m in bed, Mom.” I don’t have to fake annoyance.
"I don't think you are."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm sitting in your hotel room right now, Evan. So unless you're in someone else's bed..."
All the air from my lungs leaks through my teeth, and I mouth the word busted to Nat. Jordan sits on floor with his knees up, his arms wrapped around them and his forehead resting on his clasped hands. Nat is awkwardly standing half-in, half-out of the door, picking at the wood with her fingernail.
I hang my head between my knees. I really didn’t think this night could get any crazier.
"Evan?" Mom sounds more Mom-like than I've ever heard her.
"I'm fine." I’m mumbling now.
"That not what I asked you."
"Technically, you didn't ask me anything."
"Watch your mouth." The snappiness in her tone sits me up.
"Really? Now is the time you decide to act like a real mother?"
“It’s four o’clock in the morning, Evan Leigh Jordans,” she shouts into the phone, her voice breaking. “You tell me where you are.”
