“I’ll get them,” I say as I pick them up. “Here.” I hand them to her, then take my seat.
“So you’re in this class?” she asks, as she stuffs the pens in her backpack. She sounds as angry as she did the other day.
It just proves this could never work. Her and me. She obviously holds a grudge and she’s too stubborn to give me a second chance.
“That’s why I’m here.” I keep my eyes on the front of the room. Maybe I should be friendlier to her, but her angry tone kind of pissed me off. That, and the fact that she acts so annoyed that I’m in this class. Like I’m not allowed to be here if she is? I don’t know. It just pissed me off.
The professor starts talking, rambling on about the syllabus. And then he takes attendance. Seriously? We’re in college. Is this really necessary?
“Jade Taylor.” He calls out Jade’s name but she doesn’t respond. I glance over and see her staring at me. And not at my face. She’s staring at my body.
“Jade Taylor,” the professor says. She still doesn’t respond so I slide my leg over and nudge her foot.
It startles her and she whips her head back to the front of the room.
“Jade? Jade Taylor?” The professor says it again.
She raises her hand. “Yes. Sorry, I’m here.” The professor calls off more names. “Thanks,” Jade whispers to me.
I give her a slight smile, but it’s not for the thanks she gave me. I’m smiling because I caught her checking me out. Even if she hates me for lying to her, she’s still attracted to me. And that makes me smile.
Right before class ends the professor hands out notebooks to each of us and tells us we have to write something in them at least three times a week. We can write about anything we want. It’s just a way to force us to write. It’s a stupid assignment. I already did something just like this in high school. But it’s easy and he’s not grading them so I guess it could be worse.
As he passes the notebooks to the last row, he says, “Inside your notebooks, you will find a list of your classmates. You have each been paired with someone. This person is expected to read your journal each week and add a short comment after each post offering suggestions or just general thoughts. And you will do the same in their journal.” He goes back to the front of the room. “You should begin writing in these this week. That’s it for today. I’ll see you all next Tuesday.”
I open my notebook to see who my partner is. And, of course, the name listed next to mine is Jade Taylor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I put my laptop away. “Guess we’re partners.”
Jade holds up the paper with the list of names. “Did you do this?”
“Do what?” I zip my backpack and get up from my desk.
“Did you tell him to make us partners?”
I shake my head, fighting an eye roll. “No, Jade. I would never force you to read my stupid English journal.” I walk out of the room, angry that she accused me of that. Like I have that kind of influence. She probably thinks my dad paid the professor to make us partners.
“Hold on.” She follows me out of the building. “So what’s the plan? Do you want to exchange notebooks on a certain day or how do you want to do this?”
I stop walking and turn to face her. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
“Maybe we could meet on Saturday and go over them.” She seems nervous, her eyes darting everywhere but in my direction.
“You want to meet?” I cock my head, checking her face to see if maybe she’s kidding. “I thought you just wanted to exchange them.”
“I think we should meet.” She still won’t look at me. “That way if we have questions, we don’t have to email or call each other. Could you meet on Saturday?”
“Yeah, but it has to be in the morning. I’ll be gone in the afternoon and won’t be back until Sunday.”
“Then let’s say 9. Stop by my room and we’ll go outside.”
“That’s kind of early for a Saturday, but okay.” I take off across the open quad.
I’m not sure what to think of that. Why would Jade want to meet when we could just exchange notebooks? She lives right downstairs. It’s not like it’s difficult to do the exchange.
On Friday at econ class, Decker tries to talk me into going to a party later. I don’t want to go because I’m trying not to drink. But he calls and texts me the rest of the day, asking me to go, so I finally just agree to it. I don’t have anything else to do.
I get there at 9. It’s another house party off campus and the place is packed. Decker goes to get a beer but I don’t get one.
I’ve gone this entire week without alcohol and it scares me how much I miss it. How much I crave it. It makes me think that maybe I really was an alcoholic. Or maybe I still am, because right now I would love to get drunk. Not just a little drunk, but totally wasted. This has been a shitty week, fighting with my dad, fighting with Katherine, losing Jade. And some shots of vodka are sounding pretty damn good right now.
“Are you getting anything?” Decker asks, holding his beer.
“I don’t know.” I have that jittery, anxious feeling I get whenever I need a drink. His beer looks really good. But it’s not enough. If I’m drinking, I’m getting the hard stuff. I eye the bottles of vodka on the table in the back of the room that’s being used as a temporary bar.
“I’ll be right back.” I head straight to the bar, but stop when I see the back of a girl. She has long, dark brown hair, just like Jade. But Jade wouldn’t show up here, would she?
I step behind the girl and tap her shoulder. “Hey.”
She turns around. “What?”
“Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” I go to the bar, feeling even more on edge. That girl reminded me of Jade and now my mind is replaying that scene at my house of her finding out I lied. Why didn’t I just tell her who I was? Maybe if I had, we’d still be friends.
I need that drink and I need it fast, but people are pouring shots and now I have to wait. I swipe through my phone, not really looking at anything. Finally some guy sets the vodka bottle down. I shove my phone in my pocket and grab a red plastic cup and fill it with five or six shots of vodka. Maybe seven. I don’t really know how much is in there. I can’t tell when it’s in a plastic cup.
“What are you doing?” Decker appears next to me.
“I’m getting a drink.” I gulp some of it down. It heats my chest and that anxious feeling dies down a little.
“I thought you weren’t drinking.”
“Now you’re monitoring my alcohol intake?” I take another drink. “Last week you yelled at me for not drinking and now you’re yelling at me because I am? Make up your damn mind, Dek.”
“I’m not yelling at you. But if you really want Jade back, this isn’t the way to do it.”
“I’m not trying to get her back. She’s not interested. She made that very clear.” I go to take a drink but he yanks the cup from me. “What the fuck? Give it back.” I reach for it but he hides it behind him.
“What’s going on with you, Garret? You always go after what you want. You never give up. And I’ve always admired you for that because I give up on everything. But now you’re acting like me. Just giving up.”
“Give me my drink back.” I shoot him a look that says I’ll hurt him if he doesn’t. I never would, but with Decker, the look is all you need to scare him.
He gives me the drink but I no longer want it. He’s right. I don’t want to give up on Jade. I really don’t. I miss her. I miss her a lot. And it’s freaking annoying as hell. I never get hung up on a girl. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Ever. And that alone tells me what I need to do.
I set my cup on the table. “I’ll see you later.” I walk toward the door.
Decker follows. “Where are you going?”
I keep walking. “I’m going after what I want.”
I hear him laughing. “Now that’s the Kensington I know.”
As soon as I get back to my room, I take ou
t the notebook we got in English yesterday and open it to the first page. I still haven’t written in it because I didn’t know what to write. But now I do.
I’m going to write to the girl who’s consumed my thoughts since the day I met her. The girl who has the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. The girl I want to help get past whatever pain she’s struggling with, but trying so hard to hide. And the girl who has somehow managed to get into my heart and make me feel something real for the first time since my mom died.
Saturday morning, I go down to Jade’s room with my notebook. I showered but I didn’t have time to shave.
She answers the door wearing cut-off denim shorts and a white tank top. She looks cute as ever and if she wasn’t mad at me, I’d pick her up in my arms and hug her. I’ve decided the girl needs more hugs. I don’t think she got many growing up.
“Do you still want to go outside?” I ask her. “I don’t mind the heat, but if you do, we can stay here.”
She takes a moment to answer. “Um, no. Let’s go outside. I have an old blanket to sit on.”
She grabs the blanket and her notebook and we go outside and down the hill to the edge of campus by the track. She picks a spot under a maple tree and sets the blanket out over the ground. It’s really hot out but at least there’s a breeze and the tree provides some shade. We take a seat on the blanket, facing each other.
“So we just exchange books and make our notes, right?” I say.
“Yeah. I only made one entry so far.”
“Me too.” I hand her my notebook and she gives me hers. I thought I’d be nervous having her read what I wrote, but I’m not. I want Jade to know how I feel. I was completely honest and if she rejects me, then at least I tried.
I watch as she opens my notebook to the first page. This is what I wrote.
Sept. 12. I met a girl last week who is the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I helped her move in and ever since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. The next day I saw her out on the track. She started insulting me right away and for some reason I didn’t mind it. I asked the girl to lunch that day, and after lunch I asked her to dinner because I didn’t get enough of her at lunch. Later we went to a party. I’ve never left a party sober, but that night I did. Because of her. It felt good leaving with my mind still intact, still able to walk straight. I wasn’t ready to let her go, so I took her for ice cream. I spent the whole day with this girl and then at night, I lay awake thinking about her, wanting to see her again.
I should have told her who I was on that first day we met. But I didn’t. I should have told her the next day, or the day after that. But I didn’t because I didn’t want anything to change between us. Every moment with her was so real and so perfect. I didn’t want it to end. But now it has. And I miss her. All I can say is that I’m sorry. But I know sometimes that’s just not enough.
I open Jade’s notebook and this is what it says.
I don’t always understand people. Well, truthfully, I don’t understand them because I don’t trust them. I always assume people are lying because nobody wants to hear the truth. They say they do, but they really don’t. But sometimes people need to hear the truth, even if they won’t like it.
I met someone the other day. And after knowing him just a short while, I felt like I understood him. And that he understood me. I can’t explain what this feels like exactly. There aren’t really words to describe it. But I liked the feeling because for the first time in my life I felt like I made a real connection with someone. I started to trust this person, which doesn’t make sense because I’ve only trusted two people in my entire life. But then I found out that he lied to me and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t trust him or anyone ever again. But I want to be able to trust people, especially him. So I wish this person would tell me why he lied so I could trust him again. And so I could understand him again. And so that maybe we could be friends.
I finish reading it and realize we did the exact same thing. We each wrote what we felt, trying to explain ourselves. I thought Jade would write about her first days at Moorhurst or what Iowa is like or something generic like that. But instead, she wrote down how she felt, showing me yet another tiny piece of her true self. And it sounds like she feels the same way I do. Like we share some type of connection, an understanding of each other. Something that can’t be explained. It’s something I’ve never felt before and because of that, I know it’s rare and when you find it, you shouldn’t give it up.
She has her back to me and I wait for her to turn around, then say, “It’s good. A few run-on sentences but other than that, I like it.”
I comment on her English skills because I know if I talked about what she wrote, she’d be embarrassed and uncomfortable. I know it was hard for her to write that. It was hard for me to write what I wrote, too. But I’m glad I did. It was a risk, putting myself out there like that, but with risk comes reward. And I’m hoping that reward is getting Jade back in my life.
“I like yours, too,” she says. “It sounds like you really like this girl, whoever she is. But she sounds like too much work. You should just forget her and move on.”
“I don’t want to forget her. Or move on.” I set her notebook down and fix my eyes on hers. “I want to get to know her.”
She gazes down at the blanket. “Maybe she doesn’t want to get to know you.”
Damn, I hope that’s not true.
“Well, maybe you could talk to her and get her to change her mind. Convince her to hang out with me again. Maybe go on a run or watch a movie.”
“I might be able to convince her to do that.” Jade runs her finger along the blanket, outlining its circular pattern, her eyes following the motion. “But I think she needs to hear what’s really going on with you first. And why you lied.”
She’s still outlining the pattern but I wrap my hand around her wrist, forcing her to stop and look at me. And when she does, I let go of her wrist and hold her hand.
“Jade, I’m sorry. And I’m telling you again that I didn’t have some hidden agenda. I just didn’t want you judging me before you knew me. I assumed if you heard my name, you’d think I was just another spoiled trust fund kid and want nothing to do with me.”
She tenses up her hand so I tighten my grip on it. I’m not letting her go. Not yet. And I don’t think she wants me to. If she did, she wouldn’t have written those words in her notebook. But she naturally fights what she truly wants. I’m starting to understand that now.
Jade’s like a puzzle. I need to find all the pieces and somehow make them fit together, which I’m determined to do.
She relaxes her hand. “You know about my mom, Garret. And I didn’t want anyone here to know. I was counting on getting a fresh start and then I find out the person I want to hide my past from the most is the one who knows everything about it.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. You’re mad at me because I didn’t tell you about my family, but you didn’t want me to know anything about your family.”
“Because my family consisted of my mom. And she was crazy and then she killed herself. So, yeah, I really don’t want people knowing about my past. But you have no excuse. There’s no reason for you to hide the fact that you’re a Kensington.”
“Are you kidding? There’s a million reasons why I’d want to hide that from someone.” I rub the top of her hand with my thumb. “I really don’t know that much about your past, Jade. My dad told me that your mom had problems with alcohol and drugs. That’s it.”
“There’s not much else to tell.”
“What about your father? Do you ever see him?”
“I’m the product of a one night stand. He left that night and never came back.” She pauses, like she didn’t mean to tell me that.
But I want her to tell me that stuff. I want to know everything about her, including her past. I would never judge her for any of that.
“So what other stuff do I need to know about your family? Do they really have all these
dark secrets?”
And here they come. The questions I can’t answer.
I release her hand and sit back a little. “Yes. But I can’t tell you what those are. I’m sure I don’t even know half of them.”
“Well, what did you mean when you said they had rules? What are the rules?”
I have to tell her something. At least part of the truth. I can’t keep lying to her. If I do, she’ll never trust me.
“In families like mine, it’s all about appearances and connections and being seen with the right people.” I lie down and gaze up at the sky. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but—I’ve never had a real friend.”
“What do you mean?” She lies next to me, propped up on her side.
“My dad’s picked my friends for as long as I can remember. Like Blake. I hate the guy but his dad is Connecticut’s attorney general and has a lot of connections that could be useful to my family or the company.”
“So your dad’s forcing you to be friends with that jerk?”
“That’s how it works. Sometimes you get lucky and actually like the person. I like Decker, even though my dad made us be friends back in ninth grade.”
“You’re saying that your dad has picked every one of your friends?”
“Yes, and that’s why I didn’t want my family to know that we’re friends. Well, I guess that’s still up in the air until you decide. But I didn’t want them interfering if we did become friends. Or more than friends.”
“What are you saying? You can’t pick your dates either?”
I turn to face her. “No. That’s an even a bigger deal than the friends thing. I go to a lot of big events and I end up in photos in the society pages of newspapers or online gossip sites. That means I have to show up with the right girl. And that girl is picked for me. I never get to choose. Like today I have to take Courtney to this party and pretend she’s my girlfriend. I don’t even like Courtney as a friend, but we have to put on this show for the cameras.”
Garret Page 12
