Regretting You

by Hoover, Colleen

  “I think yesterday was the second-worst day of your life. Today still has a chance of looking up.”

  I take another sip and grab his hand, squeezing it, sliding my fingers through his.

  “What happened after I left? Did she ground you?”

  I laugh at that. “No. And she won’t.”

  “You snuck me into your room last night. Not sure how you can get out of that one, even if it is your birthday.”

  “My mother is a liar, a cheat, and a very bad example for me. I decided this morning I’m no longer following her rules. I’ll be better off just raising myself.”

  Miller squeezes my hand. I can tell he doesn’t like what I’m saying, but he doesn’t talk me out of feeling this way. Maybe he thinks I just need time to calm down, but time won’t help. I’m done with her.

  “What’d Lexie say when you told her what happened?”

  I glance at him, raising an eyebrow. “Lexie?”

  He nods, sipping his coffee.

  “Shit! Lexie!” I crank my car. “I forgot to pick her up.”

  Miller laughs. “Well, in your defense, you’ve had an eventful morning.” He leans in and kisses me. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  I kiss him back. “Okay.”

  He grabs the door handle and goes to get out of the car. I squeeze his arm, needing to say one more thing. When he falls back into his seat and looks at me, I lift my hand to the side of his head, not knowing what words to use to convey how sorry I am for last night. I stare at him, my heart full of remorse, but I seem to have forgotten how to verbalize anything at this point.

  Miller leans forward and presses his forehead to mine. I close my eyes, and he remains there for a moment. He brings his hand up to the back of my neck and caresses it. “It’s okay, Clara,” he whispers. “I promise.” His lips briefly meet my forehead before he gets out of my car and closes the door.

  I am fully aware of what an asshole move that was last night. I’m still mortified by it. So much so I already know I’m not telling Lexie what happened between Miller and me. I’ll never tell anyone. And I hope someday we’ll have a redo of that moment, because I certainly did a great job of ruining it.

  I was so early to school that when I finally made it to Lexie’s house, she didn’t even know I had forgotten her. She walked out of her house with a wrapped gift and a Mylar balloon that said “Get Well Soon” on it.

  She does that a lot. Waits until the last minute until it’s too late to find the appropriate card, or balloon, or wrapping paper. Half the stuff she gives me is normally wrapped in Christmas paper, no matter what time of year it is.

  I still can’t believe my mother forgot my birthday. At least Miller and Lexie remembered.

  Even though I’ve only been seventeen for a few hours, I’m proud of my newfound maturity. When I walked into Jonah’s classroom half an hour ago, I made it all the way to my seat without punching him. Even when he told me good morning. Even when his voice cracked as he said it. I didn’t even make eye contact with him.

  He’s been lecturing for about twenty minutes now, and I haven’t done a single thing I’ve fantasized about doing during the twenty minutes I’ve been in his class. I’ve wanted to scream at him, call him an adulterer, tell the entire class about his affair with my mother, hack the intercom system to tell the whole school.

  But I haven’t done any of those things, and I’m proud of myself for it. I’ve remained extremely calm and composed, and as long as I keep my eyes off him, I think I might be able to make it through the entire class and escape without a confrontation.

  Seventeen looks good on me. I’m practically an adult now, thank God, because I can’t rely on my mother to raise me anymore.

  Lexie: Efren is growing on me. I’ll have my first Friday off since we’ve been talking and he just asked if I wanted to go on a date.

  I smile when I get her text.

  Me: What’d you say to him?

  Lexie: I told him no.

  Me: Why?

  Lexie: Kidding. I actually said yes. I’m shocked. He’s so short. But he’s kind of mean to me, so it makes up for all the many things he lacks.

  She’s the pickiest person I know when it comes to guys. I’m honestly very surprised she agreed to go out with him. Relieved, but surprised.

  I start to type out a text to her when Jonah says, “Clara, please put your phone away.”

  My chest heaves at the sound of his voice. It makes my skin crawl. “I’ll put it away when I’m finished with my text.”

  I hear a couple of people gasp in the room, like I just cussed at him or something. I continue typing my response to Lexie.

  I need to ask administration if I can switch classes. There’s no way I can look at Jonah for the rest of the year. I don’t want to be in the same room as him, the same house as him, the same town as him, the same world as him.

  “Clara.” He says my name with a gentleness, almost as if it’s a plea not to make a scene. He can’t allow me to text when no one else is allowed to have their phones out. I understand his awkward predicament, not wanting to call me out but being forced to. I should feel bad, but I don’t. I kind of like that he’s uncomfortable right now. He deserves a dose of how I’ve felt since I saw his hands pawing at my mother while his tongue was in her throat.

  God, I can’t get it out of my head no matter how hard I try.

  I lift my eyes and look at him for the first time since walking into his classroom. Jonah is standing at the front of his desk, leaning against it, his feet crossed at the ankles. He’s in teacher mode. Normally I would respect that, but right now, all I see when I look at him is the man who cheated on my aunt Jenny. With my mother.

  When he nods his head toward my phone with a pleading expression, silently asking me to put it away again, all I see is red. I grip my phone in my right hand, and I hurl it toward the trash can near the classroom door. My phone crashes against the wall and falls to the floor in pieces.

  I can’t believe I just did that.

  Apparently, no one else in the class can believe it either. There’s a collective gasp. I think one of those gasps is mine.

  Jonah stands up straighter and walks to the classroom door. He opens it and points out into the hallway. I snatch up my backpack and push myself out of the desk. I march to the door, more than ready to leave this room. I glare at him as I pass through the doorway. I’m sure he’s about to walk me to the office, so it doesn’t surprise me when he closes the door to his classroom and follows me.

  “Clara, stop.”

  I don’t. I’m not listening to him. Or my mother. I’m done listening to the remaining adults in my life. I feel it might be counterproductive to my mental health.

  I feel Jonah’s hand grip my upper arm, and the fact that he’s trying to stop me and have a conversation with me infuriates me. I yank myself from his grip and spin around. I don’t know what’s about to come out of my mouth, but I can feel the anger raging its way up my throat like a rapid.

  Right before I can lash out at him, he closes the gap between us and wraps his arms around me, pressing my face against his chest.

  What the hell?

  I try to push against him, but he doesn’t let go. He just squeezes me tighter.

  His hug enrages me, but it also causes me to lose focus for a moment. I wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting to be sent to the office or suspended or expelled, but I certainly wasn’t expecting a hug.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  I try one more time to push him away, but I don’t try very hard because he’s wearing the same kind of shirt my dad was wearing the last time he hugged me goodbye. A soft white button-up shirt that feels nice against my skin. My cheek is pressed against one of the plastic buttons, and I squeeze my eyes shut, not knowing what to do, because even though I hate Jonah right now, his hug reminds me of my dad.

  He even smells like my dad a little. Like fresh-cut grass in a thunderstorm. When his hug doesn’t ease up at all, I start
to cry. Even Jonah’s hand against the back of my head feels just like my dad’s. I hate myself for this, but I lean into him and let him hug me while I cry. I miss my dad so much. I feel more sadness than anger right now, so I let Jonah hug me because it feels better than fighting.

  I miss him so much.

  I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know how I went from throwing my phone across the room to sobbing against his chest, but I’m just glad he’s not dragging me to the office. He waits until I’ve calmed down a little, and then he presses his cheek to the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry, Clara. We both are.”

  I don’t know how truthful he’s being, but even if he is sorry, I don’t think it’s going to change anything. He should be sorry. Being sorry is the least he could do to right his wrong.

  I just can’t understand this level of betrayal. I can’t understand how my mother can walk around one minute, supposedly full of grief because she lost her soul mate, but then the next minute, her tongue is down his best friend’s throat.

  “It’s like neither of you even cared about them.”

  Maybe I wouldn’t be this mad if I had walked in on my mother kissing a random stranger. But Jonah isn’t a stranger. He’s Jonah. He’s Jenny’s Jonah.

  He pulls back, dropping his hands to my shoulders. “Of course we care about them. What you saw . . . that had nothing to do with them.”

  I pull away from his hands. “It had everything to do with them.”

  Jonah sighs, folding his arms over his chest. He really does look remorseful. A small part of me wants to stop being so angry, just so he won’t have that look on his face anymore.

  “Your mom and I . . . we just . . . I don’t know. I can’t explain what happened last night. And honestly, I don’t want to. That’s for you and your mother to discuss.” He takes a step forward. “But that’s the thing, Clara. You need to discuss it with her. You can’t lock yourself in your bedroom forever. I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, but promise me you’ll talk to her about this.”

  I nod, but only because he seems so sincere about it. Not because I’m actually going to talk to my mother about it.

  I don’t feel quite as angry with Jonah as I am with my mother, because this really isn’t even his fault. I feel like 90 percent of my anger is placed on my mother. Jonah and Jenny weren’t even married. They hadn’t even been dating that long. And my dad isn’t Jonah’s brother, so his betrayal and my mother’s betrayal are on two different levels. Two different continents.

  Jonah should feel guilty, but my mother should feel like scum.

  I look up at the ceiling and run my hands down my face. I drop them to my hips. “I can’t believe I threw my phone.”

  “It’s your birthday. You get a free outburst. Just don’t tell the other students.”

  I’m surprised, but I actually find it in me to laugh at that. Then I sigh heavily. “It sure doesn’t feel like my birthday.”

  It’s hard for today to feel like my birthday when my own mother forgot about it. Guess that means our traditional birthday dinners are over for good.

  Jonah points to the classroom door. “I have to get back in there. Go wait out the rest of this period in your car. I at least need the class to think I punished you.”

  I nod and take a step away from him. He walks back toward his classroom, and part of me wants to tell him thank you, but I have a feeling I’d immediately regret that. I don’t really have anything to thank him for. If we’re keeping score, he still owes me about a million free passes.

  The next three class periods sail by without a single assault. Progress.

  I haven’t seen Miller since first thing this morning, and it’s kind of killing me. We usually text each other throughout the day, but my phone is probably at the bottom of Jonah’s wastebasket. When I finally make it to the cafeteria for lunch, I can see the relief spread across Miller’s face when I approach the table. He scoots over and puts space between him and Efren.

  “You okay?” he asks as I take a seat. “Rumor has it you threw your phone at Mr. Sullivan.”

  “I might have hurled it in his general direction, but I was aiming for the trash can.”

  “Did you get detention?”

  “No. He took me out to the hallway and gave me a hug.”

  “Hold up,” Lexie says. “You threw your phone, and he hugged you?”

  “Don’t tell anyone. I had to pretend I got punished.”

  “I wish I had an Uncle Teacher,” Lexie says. “Unfair.”

  Miller presses his lips to my shoulder and then rests his chin there. “You okay, though?” he whispers.

  I nod because I want to be okay, but the truth is today sucks. Last night sucked. These past few months have sucked, and I can’t seem to catch a break. I can feel heat behind my eyes, and then Miller brings a hand up and squeezes the back of my neck. “It’s nice out. Wanna go for a drive in Nora?”

  That’s the only thing that could probably make me feel any sense of relief right now. “I would love that.”

  I’ve skipped a funeral with him, done drugs with him, gotten detention with him, snuck him into my bedroom, lost my virginity to him. In comparison, skipping half a day of school seems like an improvement in my behavior.

  Miller drove us to the city park. It edges a large pond—one my dad used to take me fishing at on days like this. Miller sits under a shade tree and spreads his legs, patting the ground between them. I sit down with my back against his chest, and he wraps his arms around me as I adjust myself until I’m comfortable.

  My head is leaning against his shoulder, and his cheek rests against the top of my head when he says, “What was your father like?”

  It hasn’t been that long, but I still feel like I have to jog my memory to answer his question. “He had such a great laugh. It was loud and filled up the entire room. Sometimes it would embarrass my mother in public because people would turn and look at us when he laughed. And he laughed at everything. He worked a lot, but I never held it against him. Probably because when we were together, he was actually present. Wanted to know about my day, would always tell me about his.” I sigh. “I miss that. I miss telling him about my day, even when there was nothing to tell.”

  “He sounds great.”

  I nod. “What about yours?”

  I feel a movement in Miller’s chest, like a silent, unconvincing laugh. “He’s not like your dad was. At all.”

  “Did he raise you?”

  I can feel Miller shake his head. “No. I spent time with him here and there growing up, but he was in and out of jail. Finally caught up to him when I was fifteen, and he got a longer sentence. He’ll be out in a couple of years, but I doubt I’ll have anything to do with him when he gets out. It had been a while since I’d seen him when he got arrested, anyway.”

  So that’s why my father made that comment about Miller’s dad, about the apple not falling far from the tree. My father was wrong, obviously.

  “Do you keep in touch at all?”

  “No,” Miller says. “I mean . . . I don’t hate him. I just realize some people are good at being parents and some people aren’t. I don’t take it personally. I’d just rather not have a relationship with him.”

  “And your mom?” I ask. “What was she like?”

  I feel him deflate a little before he says, “I don’t remember her very well, but I don’t have any negative memories of her.” He wraps one of his legs around my ankle. “You know, I think that’s where my love for photography came from. After she died . . . I had nothing to remember her by. She hated the camera, so there are very few pictures of her. Not much video. It wasn’t long after that when I asked Gramps for my first camera. I’ve had it in his face ever since.”

  “You could probably make an entire movie just of him.”

  Miller laughs. “I could. I might. Even if it’s just something I do for myself.”

  “So . . . what happens when he—”

  “I’ll be
okay,” he says with finality, like he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. I understand why. A father in prison, a dead mom, a grandpa with terminal cancer. I get it. I wouldn’t want to talk about it either.

  We sit in silence for a while before Miller says, “Crap. I keep forgetting.” He pushes me forward a little and then jogs back to his truck. He comes back with his camera and a tripod, then sets it up several feet away from us.

  He slips between me and the tree and resumes our position. “Don’t stare at it this time.”

  I’m staring at it when he says that, so I look out at the water. “Maybe we should just cancel the project.”

  “Why?”

  “My mind is all over the place. I’ve been in a perpetual bad mood.”

  “How bad do you want to be an actress, Clara?”

  “It’s the only thing I want to be.”

  “You’re in for a rude awakening if you think you’re gonna show up on set in a good mood every day.”

  I exhale. “I hate it when you’re right.”

  He laughs and kisses the side of my head. “You must really hate me, then.”

  I shake my head gently. “Not even a little bit.”

  It’s quiet again. Across the lake, there’s a man with two little boys. He’s teaching them how to fish. I watch him, wondering if he’s cheating on their mom.

  Then I feel the anger return because now I feel like I’m going to be looking for the worst in people for the rest of my life.

  I don’t want to talk about Aunt Jenny or my dad, or Mom and Jonah, but the words pour out of me anyway.

  “The way Jonah talked today . . . he really did sound remorseful. Like maybe their kiss was an accident or a onetime thing. I want to ask her about it, but I’m scared she’ll be honest and tell me it’s way more than that. I kind of think it is because I know they went to a hotel not even a week after the accident.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The app. Why else would they have been there if they weren’t already involved?”

  “Either way, you need to talk to her about it. There’s really no way around it.”