I’m sure you thought you meant it. But I loved you so much, thought you were so amazing, I knew, knew, that you couldn’t feel about me the way I felt about you.”
“Then you were an idiot,” I said.
“I never said I wasn’t.” He poked irritably at the entertainment screen. “How do I change this?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Something from this century.”
I read off a list of channel names until he found something he liked.
“Obviously, I was an idiot. I was scared, so I ran away. From you, from school. I took your father’s check, cashed it, and disappeared into the streets of Los Angeles like a goddamn cliché.” With those words, he slammed his hand on the steering wheel.
“God, Jake.” I reached for him, touching his arm.
“I think I knew all along that you hadn’t been making out with Ryan,” he confessed. “But I needed you to be the bad guy. I needed to be the victim, so I could justify doing what I wanted to do.”
“Leave.”
I nodded. “And be, well, bad. I wasn’t stealing from Bob, I was taking what he owed me for kicking me out.”
“And be angry with me?”
“Well, you did start dating Ryan.”
“I did,” I confess. “But it was months later, after you’d gone dark.”
“Self-fulfilling prophecy. I know.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “God, I’m so sorry. I was such an asshole. I’m still an asshole.”
“Probably. But it’s not like I expected you not to be. You’ve been an asshole since you turned fourteen.”
“What was I before then?”
“A tiny brat with a big mouth.” I grinned. “But I kind of liked it.”
“So, if I apologize and truly, sincerely mean it, will you forgive me for running away? And staying away?”
I held up a hand to stop him. “It’s not that easy,” I said. “I still need to know two things.”
“Truth or dare?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Just truth.”
“Okay.”
I wish he didn’t look so good. He was wearing the same tight jeans he’d worn yesterday, the same sweater but with a white T-shirt under it. His hair had dried in messy waves and spikes and he was wearing his glasses. Apparently, I was a sucker for the glasses. Who knew?
Despite what I’d said, it would be so easy to let him back in my life. Easy to let him off the hook and say ‘don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’ All it would take is me closing my eyes completely to the question of his past and Carson Grieves. God knew I’d never been one to question Ryan too closely.
No. I deserved more. We deserved more. I was tired of lying to myself, of accepting what was given to me. If I was going to have some future with Jake, I had to be brave enough to face the truth.
“You said you wanted me to see all of you, right?”
“I did. But I’m scared. It's incredibly painful to realize that I did this to myself. It's like I stormed out of here and I stopped growing emotionally at seventeen. Parts of me anyway.”
“I totally get it,” I said. “Ever since I’ve been back, I’ve been feeling like I have gone back in time. Like, in my head, I’m seventeen-year-old Eric. The past has this hold on me. Did you ever just want a do-over? A chance to go back and change some things?”
Jake shook his head yes and no. “Partially. I guess. I wish I had just talked to you that Christmas. Or any time after that. You know I don't have any actual friends. I've never had a real relationship. I keep myself separate from everybody else. I like to think it's because I'm smarter. And I am actually extremely cynical about humanity in general. But when it comes to you and my family, it’s nothing but fear. I'm afraid to get hurt. I'm a big fucking coward.”
“It's not as if I'm brave. I can't even break up with Ryan. I’m afraid of being alone. Afraid of not being good enough. It's like when you left I didn't know what else to do. I just took the path of least resistance. I lost my way. I want to go back before my mom died. I tried to keep everything the same as it was. But it doesn't work. Time marches on, doesn't it? And we're not those people and I can never get that time back.”
“I’m tired of letting fear make my decisions for me,” Jake said.