Off Book

21. Jade

21

JADE

“The story shall be changed . . .” Act II, Scene I

“He said what?” Jessie asks, her eyes wide, mouth agape. Both she and Mac stop mid-bite to look at me like deer in the headlights.

“Yeah . . .” I say, picking through my fries for the smallest, crunchiest one. It’s my night for Roommate Night, and I chose takeout from our favorite Greek restaurant and a night in at the apartment. After half a week at home with my mom and having to jump right into rehearsals and homework catchup when I got back to school, I needed an evening of doing nothing with my best friend. And her tagalong.

“And you said . . .?” Mac prompts.

“I didn’t say anything,” I say, picking through my fries, avoiding eye contact.

“Hold on a second—did you fake being asleep?” Jessie asks.

I grimace, letting my silence answer the question.

“Jade!” Jessie slaps my hand.

“What was I supposed to do? Say ‘thank you’? Obviously not. It’s better that he thinks I didn’t hear him.”

There’s a brief silence while we all chew our food. Mac and Jessie exchange a very readable glance.

“Oh my god, just say it,” I say.

“Did you start avoiding him after he said that?” Jessie asks, but less like she’s curious and more like she knows the answer already, and there’s only one right answer.

“No.” It comes out more defensive than I mean for it to.

Jessie raises her eyebrows at me.

“We left on Wednesday. We saw each other at rehearsal on Thursday and Friday night. Outside of rehearsal, we just haven’t had a ton of time to see each other, but I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“It’s Sunday,” Mac says.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

I ignore the look Jessie and Mac give each other, finishing my gyro by licking my fingers clean of the tzatziki sauce on them. I hate the way these two know me. Especially Jessie. She knows I’m skirting the truth. Of course I’ve been avoiding Ian as much as possible. I don’t know how to be around him right now. It feels too vulnerable. I’m liable to say words I don’t mean. We just need to get through the performance at the end of the week, and then I can deal with it.

My phone dings. A text from Ian.

Happy performance week 3 thinking of you. Have fun at roomie night.

I’ve gotten daily texts from him since Wednesday. I usually respond, but today, all I have in me is a deep sigh. I set my phone back down, screen-side down.

“So what happens after your performance this week? It’s on Friday, right?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, it’s Friday, but I don’t know,” I say, because it’s the truth. “We probably just . . . go about our lives. It’s not like we’re together.”

“I bet he’s going to have a DTR with you,” Jessie says.

“DTR?” Mac asks.

“‘Define the relationship,’” I say, picking out another crispy fry. “And that’s fine. But he’s going to be disappointed, because I’m not the relationship type, and everything he did last week for me and my mom was amazing, but it doesn’t make him my boyfriend. And the sex was great, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

I choke on a morsel of French fry, or maybe my own words, and have to take a sip of my Diet Coke just to keep talking. It’s a fucking lie, and choking like that is the karma I deserve.

“He’ll be disappointed for, like, a week and then move on,” I say once I’ve recovered.

“I don’t know . . .” Mac says, eyeing Jessie. “Guys don’t just say ‘I love you’ casually.”

“I’m sorry, but he was a virgin up until a week ago,” I say. “Saying ‘I love you’ after the first time you have sex is such an ‘I just had sex for the first time’ thing to do.”

“Okay, even if that is true, you said it yourself—he showed up for you and your mom in a big way. Actions speak louder than words. Are his actions not screaming how he feels about you?” Jessie argues.

I don’t understand why my friends seem to be taking Ian’s side in all this. I didn’t tell them about this moment between me and Ian for them to gang up on me and tell me why he’s so fucking perfect and point out all my flaws. After the past week and a half, I don’t have the energy for this.

“It doesn’t matter how into me he is,” I say with authority. “We’re deeply incompatible, and I think he keeps forgetting that.” I eye Jessie and Mac pointedly.

Apparently, Ian’s not the only one who keeps forgetting I don’t want a boyfriend.

“Sorry to bail, but I think I’m gonna retire early,” I say.

Crumbling up the remaining fries in the wrapper from my gyro, I toss it in the trash. I close my bedroom door and flop onto my bed, turning my phone to silent.

The problem with living with your best friend and her boyfriend is that when things like this inevitably happen, there are really not a lot of options for getting space. I have to pretend like I don’t hear them talking through the paper-thin apartment walls. I toss my arm over my face to block out the light and pretend like it blocks out the sound too.

As frustrated as I am that Jessie and Mac can read me, I’m equally as frustrated that they don’t seem to understand the situation the way I do. Ian and I were always headed toward an inevitable end, with or without his confession. It’s not about the “I love you”—it’s about wanting different things; wanting different lives. He wants to be a husband, and I want to be free.

It can’t have been more than three minutes before there’s a knock on my door. It opens and closes again, and I peek out from under my arm to see Jessie.

“Want some company?” she asks, not waiting for me to answer before she climbs up on the bed with me and lies down.

I move to adjust for her. Tempted as I am to kick her out, it’s almost Thanksgiving, which means this semester is almost over. Which means the year is almost over. Which means I won’t get to make room for her forever.

Two people on a twin bed is cozy, but Jessie and I always talk like this, sharing space while we chat. Freshman year, we’d stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking and giggling every night. I’ve never had a friend I was close to like this, which is why I don’t like to think or talk about a future that doesn’t include platonic cuddling and talking about our lives.

But I assume she’s here to talk about Ian. And feelings. Jessie always wants me to talk about my feelings.

“Mac and I talked,” Jessie says.

“Oh yeah? Are you setting a wedding date?” I’m being sarcastic, but Jessie blushes. I guess she’s not here to talk about Ian.

“No, we talked about grad school. We’re applying to all the same places, and only the ones where I can get a full ride. Mac said he didn’t see a future without me in it and his dreams are my dreams, so he wants to go to grad school together.”

“He said that? Word for word?”

She nods, biting her bottom lip to fight the smile. Her eyes are bright; her skin is practically glowing. This girl is so in love.

I fake throwing up, and Jessie giggles, slapping me playfully.

“You two are so gross, and I love it for you,” I say.

“What about you? You haven’t given me a straight answer about postgrad once. You said something about regional theaters, but not much else,” she says, calling me out again for the second time tonight.

And for the millionth time, Jessie is opening a door for me to talk about my mom. This time, she doesn’t know it’s about my mom, but it is. I can’t think about auditioning for regional theaters with Mom still behaving the way she is. I’d feel a lot better if she’d go to AA, but we never got to have that conversation when I was at home.

Jessie has probably pieced together that my mom is an alcoholic, knowing the few things she does know. But maybe I should tell her everything. Letting Ian see the truth about my mom and sharing that burden was more freeing than I thought it would be. I would never have done it willingly, and it showed me that as scary as vulnerability is, it can be worth it.

“It’s, um . . . it’s complicated. Because of my mom,” I say, waiting for the courage to say the rest, but it never comes. “Because she’s an alcoholic.”

“Oh, Jade,” Jessie says, the words more of a sad sigh than anything. She reaches into the space between us and takes one of my hands in hers.

Jessie isn’t really the touchy-feely type, and neither am I, so I know this gesture is doing the talking for her because she doesn’t have the words.

But she doesn’t need them. The kindness in her eyes, the empathy pouring off her in waves—I feel all of that, and the comfort of it mingles with the sheer terror of being seen right now. It gives me the courage to go on.

“She’s always in and out of relationships, and when she gets dumped, she goes on these benders. I know I’ve told you a little about this, but it’s bad. She’s a danger to herself, and my grandma and I have to take care of her. I do want to maybe apply to some regional theaters for the summer to do makeup and costumes, but I also don’t want to be too far from home. I don’t trust her.”

“That’s really hard,” Jessie says.

I tell her stories from my childhood of taking care of my mom, explaining how I’ve always been the parent. Jessie nods at all the right times, squeezing my hand, making the right noises of acknowledgment. I tell her about the bathtub and fill in all the details I didn’t give her and Mac earlier. I was vague then, just saying Ian helped with my mom, but I tell Jessie everything now. I talk until my throat is sore and my soul is scraped clean and there are tears glistening in Jessie’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Jade,” she says, her voice twisted with sadness. She pulls me in for a hug, and for a few minutes we just lie there, half-cuddling, half-hugging, all the stories and truths I just told lingering in the air between us. “I’m so glad you told me.”

“Me too,” I say. And I am. But I sort of hoped confessing would also alleviate some of the discomfort of the whole situation. It hasn’t. All the same feelings are still there. All the anger and anxiety and worry about what will happen and what I should do. I thought by sharing those feelings, they would feel less potent. But nothing has changed.

We break the hug, and I lie on my back, facing the ceiling. Jessie stays on her side, facing me.

“I’m at a loss, Jessie. I’ve tried to talk to her about AA, but she doesn’t think she has a problem. It doesn’t matter that she’s lost jobs because of this, that her mother can’t enjoy retirement because of her, that I’m the parent in our relationship . . . She doesn’t see any of that. It’s so selfish.”

“It is really selfish. And you know, you’re allowed to be ‘selfish’ too,” Jessie says. She puts air quotes when she says the word selfish the second time.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re allowed to have your own life, and I know you’re worried about your mom, but by putting your life on hold, you might be overprotecting her. It sounds like she gets to behave the way she does because you’ve been the safety net. You’re allowed to make plans for your future. You’re allowed to not go home every time she goes through a breakup. I know right now that probably sounds really scary, and I’m not saying just stop going home now, but I don’t know if anyone has ever told you that you get to live your own life.”

My eyes are full by the time Jessie stops talking, and tears leak from the corners. Of course people have told me that. I’m just shit at taking advice.

“There are support groups, something like Children of Alcoholics or Adult Children . . . I’m blanking right now?—”

“Adult Children of Alcoholics,” I say, nodding. I know the organization.

“Yes! You know them?”

“I went to Al-Anon with my grandma sometimes back home, and they had information about it. My grandma said I should look for a group when I went to school, and I just . . . never did.”

Once I got to school, it felt less urgent. I was only at home with my mom in the summer and winter breaks, and I didn’t go home for every breakup if my grandma was there. Maybe once or twice during the school year, and so it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Even now, the idea of going to a group support therapy thing doesn’t sound all that appealing. Telling Jessie was one thing—I’ve known and loved her for years. But these strangers don’t know me, and while everyone at Al-Anon was lovely, I don’t know if I’m ready to start spilling my guts to a group.

And more than that, I’m angry that I have to be the one to go get help; that I’m the one looking at a support group while my mom gets to continue to make poor life choices. I’m the one who has to take the time and energy to get help.

But I don’t know how to explain all of that.

“I’m just . . . really tired of being the adult,” I say instead.

She gives me a tight, empathetic smile.

“How are you a responsible person all the time? Aren’t you tired?” I ask.

“Exhausted,” she says with a smirk. She knows I’m shifting the tone of the conversation—that I’m pushing us to familiar ground. She goes without a fight.

“Hey. You love our dynamic. Me, the wild child. You, the responsible rule-follower,” I say.

“I was born to be the Mom Friend.”

“You’re doing a damn good job. Now, can I have a snack?”

“Sure, sweetie. Let me check my purse.”

My heart feels too big for my chest, like any moment it could crack open and the contents of it—gratitude and deep love for my friend—might burst all over us, covering us and the room in nineties-TV-style slime.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you everything,” I say.

“You don’t ever have to apologize for protecting yourself.”

I open one of my hands between us, and she puts her hand in mine. And then, like a thief that thinks I won’t notice its presence, sadness sneaks in. This time, instead of banishing it like I always do, I embrace it.