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20. Jade

20

JADE

“O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?” Act III, Scene II

Three words. Eight letters.

It takes so little to ruin something so good.

I hold completely still, eyes squeezed shut, until Ian’s soft snores hit my ears. His arm around me relaxes, and I peel it off me, lying on my back to stare at the same ceiling I stared at for hundreds of nights as a child and a teenager while falling asleep.

Did he want me to hear him? Was he hoping I’d say it back?

He knows I don’t do love. He knows I don’t do feelings. I’ve said that for as long as I can remember, and I have definitely said it to him. So why the hell would he go and say something like that to me?

In high school, the girl I dated for long enough to meet my mom, her name was Melanie. We were together for six months, which is practically forever in high school. We were each other’s firsts for a lot of things, and she knew I wasn’t big on the touchy-feely stuff. She said she was cool with keeping it casual. So when she took me on a picnic date one bright, gorgeous Saturday in the spring of our junior year, I found it a little weird. She’d set up this picnic, all my favorite snacks, and she’d snuck some champagne from her parents’ basement fridge. We usually just watched movies and hooked up in her basement or played video games or card games and ate pizza. We held hands at school, and I went to her softball games and she came to my theater rehearsals sometimes, but it wasn’t anything serious.

Until it was.

It was fun until she told me she loved me.

I literally ran.

I got up, I told her it was over, and I drove home. I blocked her number, and we never spoke again.

I kept my relationships casual after that, until Anna and Greg, and with them I stayed past the point I should have. I could smell the declaration of love from a mile away. In Anna’s not-yet-unpacked apartment, after the whole summer apart, she spoke first over a glass of boxed wine. She told Greg she loved him, and then time slowed as she turned to me and said it too. Greg enthusiastically said it back, and they kissed, and by the time they broke apart, I was standing, setting my glass in the sink, ready to walk out the door. Their faces sank as I told them I did not feel the same, and I hoped they would be happy.

I still haven’t spoken a word to them.

The instinct to run is there even now. My legs buzz with the desire to take me elsewhere, except I don’t have anywhere to go. This is my home, and it’s Ian’s car that would take me anywhere. My stomach churns, a mixture of fear and dread and worse: the tiniest glimmer of recognition.

Because even as I broke my own heart leaving Melanie, Greg, and Anna, even as I crushed whatever future they dreamed up for us, I knew how I felt about them. I cared deeply about them. Maybe it was love, maybe it wasn’t, but I knew how all those relationships were going to end, and I did all of us a favor by getting out when I did. Maybe we were all hurt for a little while, but it saved us a lot more hurt in the long run.

And here I am again, facing down another declaration of love, heart hammering in my chest because I know why I want to run. It’s the same reason I’ve wanted to run in the past.

It’s not that I can’t love or that I’ve never felt love the way I like to brag about. It’s that I’ve never chosen to be an active participant.

I knew even at a young age that a lasting, committed love was for an elite few, and the rest of us would end up with broken hearts. As if it were genetic, I knew I wouldn’t be in that elite group. I knew if I fell in love, I’d get my heart smashed to bits. So I decided I would never let myself get to that point.

It was in this bed, in fact, that eleven-year-old Jade vowed she’d never end up like her mother, because she wouldn’t let anyone hurt her like they’d hurt her mom. I decided then I was never going to fall in love. And if I got too close to it, I would run first. I’d get out before they could.

I don’t know if I loved Melanie or Greg or Anna, but I know Ian’s words have struck too deep a chord in my own soul not to be true. Maybe that’s why the sex felt so different; why it felt more like a colliding of souls than just a couple horny young adults. It’s why I can barely think of anything but him when he’s not around, and when he is, why the world feels a little brighter. Maybe it’s why, when I think about how Anastasia has a crush on him, I feel a little nauseated. Why I didn’t kick him out immediately yesterday when he appeared in the bathroom doorway?

Was it desperation, or was it because I knew deep down inside that Ian is safe? That Ian can be trusted. That Ian will not break my heart.

But it doesn’t matter if I can trust Ian or not.

It’s love I don’t trust. Look where it’s gotten my mother.

And I am nothing if not loyal to myself, so it doesn’t matter how Ian feels, and it doesn’t matter how I feel.

I will not end up like my mother.

I will not fall in love.