Regretting You

by Hoover, Colleen

  “Good.” He rolls back on top of me and starts kissing me again.

  Suffice it to say, we don’t get anything done on the project, but he also stays true to his word and doesn’t even attempt to remove my bra.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MORGAN

  I wake up to the sound of my phone vibrating on my nightstand. I look over at the window, but the sun hasn’t even fully risen yet.

  No one calls me this early.

  I reach over and pick up my phone and see Jonah’s name at the top of the screen. I drop the phone on the nightstand and fall back onto my pillow.

  We haven’t spoken in over a week. Not since the night we almost kissed. He’s texted twice, asking how I’m doing. I didn’t respond to either text.

  It’s hard, because I want to separate myself from him, but at the same time, I want to spend time with Elijah. It sucks that Jonah and Elijah are a package deal.

  I’m hoping we can work out some kind of visitation schedule. It would be even better if we didn’t have to go to each other’s houses to exchange Elijah. We could Uber Elijah back and forth.

  That thought makes me laugh. Ubering babies from house to house. I wonder if there’s a minimum age limit for Uber passengers.

  My phone pings. A text. I swing my arm back to my nightstand and pull my phone to my face. I sit up in bed when I see how many missed calls and texts I have from Jonah.

  I throw the covers off and stand up, urgently pressing the screen to call him back. He answers on the first ring. “Morgan?”

  “Is Elijah okay?”

  Jonah sighs with relief at the sound of my voice. “I’m sorry to even ask you, but he’s been up all night with a fever, so I can’t take him to day care. But I can’t call in to work today. It’s state testing day for the freshmen, and after school lets out, I have two conferences sch—”

  “Of course.” My hand is on my chest. My heart is pounding. I thought it was something worse. “Of course. Bring him over.”

  Jonah’s voice is softer. Less panicked. “I won’t be able to pick him up until after six.”

  “It’s fine. I miss him.”

  I spend the next twenty minutes in the kitchen cooking. Jonah sounded so stressed on the phone, and if Elijah was up all night with a fever, that means Jonah is going to need some energy today. I used to do this for Chris. I’d make breakfast burritos packed with protein and send a bag with him on his busiest days.

  I might also be making Jonah breakfast as somewhat of an apology. I feel like I was too harsh on him last week. Maybe I’ve been too harsh on him since he came back into our lives. Either way, burritos will make it better.

  I’m also hoping this is a step forward. Maybe we can work out some sort of deal to where Elijah can be a huge part of my life, and Jonah and I can build an actual friendship. I stay up most nights thinking about what he said to me in the driveway, and while it did have a profound impact on the resentment I’ve been holding toward him, I also realize that the feelings he was talking about were in the past.

  We were teenagers back then. We were different people. He wasn’t saying that he still felt that way. He was simply saying he used to feel that way.

  He’s been back in our lives for several months now, and nothing outside of that near kiss has indicated he still has those same feelings, so whatever he thought he felt for me when we were teenagers is something he obviously worked through during the years he was away. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have slept with Jenny when they ran into each other last year. And he wouldn’t have moved in with her or agreed to marry her if he still had feelings for me.

  That gives me hope that a friendship between us might actually work.

  I’m stuffing the burritos into a bag when there’s a knock at the door. I let Jonah in, but I pause for a second when I take him in. He’s dressed up today. He’s wearing a black long-sleeved dress shirt with a black-and-silver tie. He shaved his stubble and finally got a haircut. He looks younger. I start to comment on how nice he looks but think better of it.

  Elijah is fussing in the car seat, so I unbuckle him and take him out of it. He’s warm when I pull him to my chest. “Poor thing.” He sounds congested. “Are you giving him anything?”

  Jonah nods and pulls a couple of prescription bottles out of the diaper bag. “I took him to the ER around midnight. They gave me these, said to rotate them every four hours.” He holds one of them up. “Give him this one in two hours.” He sets the diaper bag down. “I packed extra clothes and rags. You might need them today.”

  “You took him to the emergency room? Have you even slept?”

  As if the thought of it is a trigger, Jonah yawns, covering his mouth with a fist. He shakes his head. “I’ll be okay. I might have time to make a Starbucks run.” He opens the living room door to leave.

  “Wait.” I go to the kitchen and grab the sack of breakfast burritos, running them back to him before he escapes. “I made these for you. Breakfast burritos. Sounds like you’re about to have a long day.”

  Jonah looks at me with a soft appreciation as he takes it from me. “Thank you.” There’s a little bit of surprise in his voice, and I try not to let that please me, but it does. It feels good to do something nice for him. I’ve been so hard on him for so long.

  “I’ll text you with updates on Elijah. Don’t worry. He’s in good hands.”

  Jonah smiles. “I don’t doubt that for a second. See you tonight.”

  As soon as he leaves, Clara walks around the corner, dressed for school. She sees Elijah in my arms and lights up, holding her arms out in front of her. “Gimme.”

  I hand him to her. “He’s sick. Don’t kiss him—you might catch it.”

  She cradles him against her chest and kisses his forehead anyway. “Sick babies need all the kisses they can get.”

  She’s right. When Clara was a baby, the sicker she was, the more I coddled her and kissed her and just wanted to take all her aches and pains away. God, I miss those days.

  I’m sure sometime in the near future, I’ll miss these days. I feel like Clara and I are an impossible pair this year, but I know I’ll miss it after she moves out and starts a life of her own. I’ll miss it all—the arguments, the silent treatments, the groundings, the rebellious behavior.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Clara asks.

  I smile and pull her in for a hug. She’s holding Elijah, so she can’t reciprocate the hug, but it’s enough that she isn’t pulling away. I kiss the side of her head. “I love you.”

  When I pull back, she’s looking at me with a cautious expression. But then she smiles and says, “Love you, too, Mom.”

  She goes to the couch to sit with Elijah.

  “I made breakfast burritos. Left you some on the counter.”

  Clara perks up. “Bacon or sausage?”

  “Both.”

  “Yes,” she whispers. She gives her attention back to Elijah. “I love you, buddy, but I have breakfast to eat.”

  I shoot Jonah a text around ten to let him know Elijah’s fever has gone down a little. He responds at noon.

  Jonah: Is he sleeping at all?

  Me: Not really. I bet he’ll crash once his fever finally breaks, though.

  Jonah: Hopefully he waits until I’m ready to crash. This has been the longest day and it’s only noon. The breakfast was a godsend. Thanks for that.

  Me: I have a roast in the crockpot. Clara and I won’t eat it all, so I can send some home with you when you pick up Elijah.

  Jonah: Perfect. Thanks again.

  Two hours later, I get another text from Jonah.

  Jonah: Is he asleep yet?

  Me: He took a fifteen minute nap. Still has fever, but he’s not as fussy as he was.

  Then, a text from Clara.

  Clara: Miller and I need to work on our project after school. We’ll be at Starbucks.

  Me: What project? This is the first I’m hearing about a project with Miller.

  Clara: Jonah partnered us
up for the UIL film submission. We have less than 4 months to finish.

  I text Jonah.

  Me: You partnered Clara up with Miller Adams on the film project?

  Jonah: Yes. Is that an issue?

  Me: I’m assuming in more ways than one, considering he introduced her to drugs. And Chris already told her to stay away from him.

  Jonah: Miller isn’t as bad as you seem to think he is. Chris didn’t even know the kid, so his opinion doesn’t count.

  Me: I’ve formed my own opinion of the kid. He talked Clara into leaving her father’s funeral. He got her high. And according to a voice mail I received from the school, they both had detention last week due to PDA. She never did any of this before he was in the picture. And even if he’s not the cause of her actions, I’d still rather her be with someone who would talk her OUT of doing those things, rather than be the type of teenage boy to encourage her behavior.

  Jonah: I don’t think that kind of teenage boy exists in real life.

  Morgan: You’re not making me feel better about this.

  I wait for his response, but I don’t get one.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to keep Elijah awake so that he’ll sleep for Jonah tonight, but once six o’clock hits, there’s no hope left. He’s out cold. His tiny body is limp in my arms, deep in sleep as I place him in his bassinet. His fever finally broke a couple of hours ago, so I think the worst is over, but I have a feeling after Elijah sleeps for a few hours, he’ll be up all night with Jonah. Maybe I should offer to keep him for the night so Jonah can rest.

  I pull out my phone to text Jonah those exact words when he knocks on the front door. I look down at Elijah, and the sound doesn’t even make him flinch. When I open the front door, I whisper, “He just fell asleep.”

  Jonah is no longer wearing a tie. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his hair is messier than it was this morning. He looks even better than he did this morning, despite the exhaustion consuming him. Why am I even having these thoughts?

  I motion for him to come to the kitchen so I can make him a plate of food to take with him. I pull Tupperware from the cabinet.

  “Have you already eaten?” Jonah asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll just eat here, then.” He opens the cabinet next to me, where I keep the plates, and he removes two of them. I replace the Tupperware in the cabinet and take a plate from him.

  This is good. This is casual. Friends eat food together.

  We both make our plates and take a seat at the table. As normal as it is for two people to eat a meal together, Jonah and I have never done so without Chris and Jenny. That part seems off. Like there are two huge gaping holes sucking the comfort out of the meal.

  “This is really good,” Jonah says, taking another bite. “So were your burritos.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is everything you cook this good?”

  I nod confidently. “I’m a great cook. Chris hated going out to eat because he said restaurants never compared to what he got at home.”

  “How was he not fat?” Jonah shakes his head. “I’d get so fat eating this every day.”

  “He worked out twice a day. You know that.”

  It feels weird talking about Chris like we don’t hate him, but I like it. Eventually, I’d like to remember all the good memories without the shadow of the bad ones. We had a lot of good memories together.

  “Where’s Clara?”

  I point my fork at him. “With that boy. All your fault.”

  Jonah laughs. “He’s still one of my favorite students. I don’t care what you think of him.”

  “What kind of student is Clara?”

  “Great,” he says.

  “No, for real. Don’t tell me what I want to hear. I want to know what she’s like when she’s not around me.”

  Jonah regards me quietly for a moment. “She’s good, Morgan. Really good. Always turns her homework in on time. Makes good grades. Doesn’t act up in class. And she’s funny. I like her sarcasm.” He smiles. “She gets that from you.”

  “She is a lot like I was at that age.”

  “She’s a lot like you are now. You haven’t changed.”

  I release a half-hearted laugh. “Okay.”

  He looks at me with a little too much seriousness. “You haven’t. At all.”

  I look down at my plate and mindlessly scoot food around. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment. It’s kind of pathetic that I’m still the same person I was at seventeen. No education. No work experience. Not a single thing to put on my résumé.”

  Jonah stares at me a moment, then looks down at his plate, poking his fork into a carrot. “I wasn’t talking about your résumé. I’m talking about everything else. Your humor, your compassion, your levelheadedness, your confidence, your discipline.” He pauses for a quick breath, then says, “Your smile.” He shoves the bite of food into his mouth.

  I look down, completely losing the smile he’s referring to, because I felt that. Everything he just said. Every compliment felt like darts stabbing at my heart. It makes me sigh. I lose my appetite. I stand up and toss the remaining food from my plate into the trash can.

  I rinse the plate off in the sink. My chest is constricted. My hands are shaking. I don’t like that I’m having a physical reaction to his presence, but friends don’t say those things to friends while having the look in their eyes that Jonah just had.

  He still has feelings for me.

  I don’t know how to process that because it fills me with so many more questions. Jonah brings his empty plate to the sink and rinses it under the water. I pull my hands back and grip the counter, staring into the sink.

  He’s standing next to me, staring at me.

  I can’t look at him. I’m embarrassed that I even feel anything right now, but I do, and it’s confusing, because all I feel is jealousy. It’s a feeling that’s always been there, but it’s something I’ve never allowed myself to acknowledge. But the jealousy is there, and it’s loud, and it’s forcing me to confront it.

  “Why did you sleep with her last year?”

  As soon as the question passes my lips, I regret it. But since the day Jenny came home from Jonah’s father’s funeral and told me she’d had a one-night stand with him, I’ve been full of anger. It somehow felt as if Jonah had betrayed me, even though he didn’t belong to me.

  Jonah takes a step closer. Not close enough that we’re touching, but close enough that it feels like we are. “I don’t know. Maybe because she was there,” he says quietly. “Or maybe because you weren’t.”

  I cut my eyes to his. “I wouldn’t have slept with you, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. What I mean is that I was hurt that my father died and you weren’t there. Even though we didn’t keep in touch, you knew about the funeral because Jenny was there.” He sighs regretfully. “Maybe I did it hoping it would hurt you.”

  “That’s a terrible reason to sleep with someone.”

  He laughs unconvincingly. “Yeah, well, I don’t expect you to understand. You were never in my shoes. You didn’t have to stand on the sidelines and watch the girl you were in love with build a life with your best friend.”

  Those words leave me breathless.

  He breaks eye contact with me. “Jealousy can make a person do some shitty things, Morgan.” He stands up straight, sensing he’s worn out his welcome. “I should go.”

  “Yes.” My voice comes out raspy and coarse. I clear my throat. “You should.”

  He nods, disappointed that I’m agreeing with him. He taps the fridge twice with an open palm, then walks out of the kitchen.

  As soon as he’s no longer in the same room with me, I refill my lungs with air. His presence still lingers all around me as he gathers Elijah’s things. Before he lifts him out of the bassinet, he pauses and walks back to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway, the diaper bag draped over his shoulder.

  “Was it
mutual?”

  I shake my head a little, revealing my confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “How I felt about you. I could never tell. Sometimes I thought you felt the same way, but I knew you’d never admit it back then because of Jenny. But . . . I need to know. Did you feel what I felt?”

  The hammering in my chest is back. He’s never confronted me like this. I wasn’t expecting it. It’s hard to admit something out loud to someone else that you’ve only just admitted to yourself.

  Jonah drops the diaper bag to the floor and strides across the kitchen. He doesn’t stop until his body and his mouth are both pressed firmly against mine.

  It’s a shock to my system. I grip the counter behind me just as his hold tightens on my cheeks. I feel so much I’m afraid I might sink to the floor.

  I press my palms against his chest, fully prepared to push him away, but instead, I find myself pulling him closer with two fistfuls of his shirt.

  When he parts my lips with his and I feel his tongue slide against mine, I experience a full-body shiver. It’s so much all at once. It’s an awakening, but it’s also a death. It’s the realization that I’ve gone my whole life being kissed by the wrong man.

  Jonah gets the answer to his question by the way I respond to him. His feelings are definitely mutual. They always have been, no matter how much denial I’ve shoveled on top of that mutual attraction.

  My body conforms to his like I’m afraid something will wedge itself between us if I let go.

  And then, sadly, it does.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CLARA

  “Mom?”

  It’s the only word I can manage to say, but it’s powerful enough to put a five-foot divide between them. My mother turns away from me. Jonah looks down at his feet.

  I just stare at them in disbelief.

  I’m shaking my head, trying to convince myself that I didn’t just see that. My mother . . . kissing her dead sister’s fiancé. My mother . . . kissing her dead husband’s best friend.

  I take a step out of the doorway, as if the room is contaminated with betrayal and I’m afraid I might catch it. My mother takes a breath and then faces me, tears rimming her eyes. “Clara . . .”