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Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

Eighteen.

“Oh, my God,” I groaned as I walked through the door to Marissa’s apartment. “You guys are the fucking best.” I hung my coat on the rack, sitting myself across from the pair of them as they began to open their pizza boxes. I had called as soon as I finished my conversation with John, telling the pair I was on my way back and had already been promised pizza upon my return. I heard Alex closing the door behind me, feeling Jack and Marissa’s eyes on me.
Alex and I had made yet more awkward small talk on the way home. The two of us had closed off again the moment John called me, me realising how close I was to making irreparable damage to my relationship with John and Alex doing exactly what we both knew he would and closing his mouth so as not to say something petty. I only half appreciated that.
I glanced up at our friends, seeing Jack suppressing a scowl as he looked between us and I shifted uncomfortably.
“Dude, I thought you went home hours ago,” Jack said to Alex, bypassing all greetings. I looked at Marissa, imploring her to get her boyfriend off the attack. She gave me another look in return, all but telling me what I was asking was impossible.
“I, uh, I ran into Holly on the way back,” he shrugged. “She was, uh—” My eyes moved swiftly from Marissa to Alex, widening as he was about to tell them about Chase. I didn’t want to have to be chaperoned about the town while I was here. He knew by telling them that was what he would accomplish. He was looking at me as he fumbled over his words, catching my eye. “She was down by Yorktowne, so we went to the park.” If it hadn’t have looked so obvious, I would have let out the large breath I was holding, instead I leaned back in my chair and let the breath out slowly. Jack looked between us again, his suspicions not dampened.
“Crap, we were gonna go tomorrow,” Marissa interrupted, trying to steer the conversation for me. “I figured we’d go out for the day and go some of the places we used to.”
“I totally beat you to it,” I laughed, reaching for a slice of pizza, trying to seem casual, though my gut was telling me I couldn’t stomach any of this. “I left my mom’s early and figured I’d walk back, take in the sights.”
“You’re such a little spoil sport, Rae.” I stuck my tongue out at her jokingly, receiving the same back from her. I made a point of not looking at Jack as he continued to look between Alex and I suspiciously. I didn’t want to know what was going on his head, but I felt like I was to blame.
By 10pm, Alex had returned home, but Jack was still scowling. Marissa and I had pointedly ignored it, turning the TV on as she poured us a glass of wine each and we continued to talk. Jack occasionally gave us his input, but never more than a few words. It felt like the day we returned from Vegas again, when he acted like I had done something wrong but wouldn’t admit he was annoyed. I didn’t like this Jack. Honestly, I could feel my mood souring the more I drank, but I continued to sip at my glass, knowing that it would probably give me enough courage to call him out. I felt like we’d hardly spoken the last couple of days, despite being around each other almost constantly. I thought my speaking with Alex again would allow me to form a bond with Jack again at the very least.
“Alright,” Marissa sighed. “I think I’m gonna call it a night. I need to get up early to grab some books for class.”
“Nerd,” I snorted.
“Fuck off, Jasey,” she laughed. “I’m bailing on classes for a week, I need to do something while I’m away.” I felt myself smirking and opened my mouth to respond to her. “Don’t you dare say ‘do Jack’. I will kill you.”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed back. “I won’t say it.”
I loved being back here with Marissa. It felt like we were 18 again and I was making dirty jokes at her expense. I hardly ever did this anymore. I’d made a couple of crass jokes at the guys over the last couple of years, but they always seemed so shocked when I did that I hardly allowed myself to do so. It’s not like they were uptight, they just didn’t expect it from me. I wasn’t the quiet one in our group. God, that was weird. Cockeysville once knew me as the queen of the party scene, and Tempe hardly knew me as anything at all, except the chick who hung out with John Oh.
“Night, guys,” she said, planting a small kiss on Jack’s cheek as we said our goodnights to her. “Don’t be up too late. I’d say ‘don’t be too loud’, but we all know that wouldn’t happen.” Jack and I chuckled lightly as she left, shutting her bedroom door behind her.
I clung to my glass of wine as an awkward silence settled between Jack and I, the TV the only noise in the room. I pulled my feet up onto the sofa, curling up under the blanket I’d snagged earlier in the night. I glanced at the TV, waiting for Jack to start a conversation. The minutes ticked by, the silence thickening and I sighed.
“What?” I asked, turning from the TV back to my old friend, the scowl still firmly on his face.
“Nothing,” he replied simply. I rolled my eyes, not believing it for a second.
“You’ve had your panties in a twist since I walked in tonight. Don’t bullshit me, Barakat.”
“I just didn’t think you and Alex would be so pally again so soon,” he shrugged, attempting nonchalance. I raised my eyebrows at him. As if that was all there was. So what if Alex and I were friends again? That was no reason for annoyance. He should be happy. We could go back to what we used to be like. Jack, Marissa and me, joking and happy. That’s all I wanted. I missed my friends. I didn’t want to have to fight so hard to make them understand. I wanted him to get me like he always had. He hadn’t always agreed with me, but he had always understood. I missed that.
“What’s wrong with me being friends with Alex?”
“Because you’re not friends.” I frowned, not sure what he thought was going on. Why would I fake like I was friends with Alex when it would be so easy to just ignore him? My life would have been so much simpler if we’d never spoken again. “Don’t look at me like that. You guys don’t know how to be friends. There’s always something going on. You’re the king and queen of fucking drama.”
“That’s what this is? You think I’m angling to have my heart broken again?” I scoffed. “I learned my lesson on that one, thanks.” It was a stupid argument. Did he think I wanted to go through that again? I missed Alex, but not in that stupid head-over-heels, need to have him way. I missed the guy I’d told everything to. That could be a solid base for a friendship. “And besides,” I added quickly, my biggest reason for not being with Alex dawning on me, “I have John. We’re happy. Why would I fuck that up for Alex?”
I knew a thousand reasons why I would fuck my relationship up for the sake of Alex, the biggest being my need to sabotage my own happiness, but I wasn’t going to admit anything of the sort to Jack.
“It doesn’t take much to know which of you two is more invested in that relationship,” he replied. I scowled. I didn’t need to be told I didn’t deserve John. I knew that in my fucking bones, I’d known it since the day we met. He was the good guy, the cheerful sweetheart who knew nothing of my self-destructive tendencies.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I seethed. “You don’t know shit about me and John.” And, just like that, it had turned into an actual fucking argument. He’d been angling for this since I’d asked him what was up, and now he’d pressed the right button. I knew that everyone knew John was more heavily invested in our relationship, it being newer for me than it was for him, my feelings still in their infancy and his bordering on love (judging from the things our friends said), but that didn’t mean I wanted to be reminded of it.
“No, I don’t,” he admitted. “But I do know you and Alex. You both play other people like a fucking fiddle, and you’re dragging Alex right back into it.”
“I’m deliberately not dragging Alex back into anything. I’m deliberately getting on with my own relationship and trying to make amends for the bullshit I’ve pulled in my life.”
“So, what part of you and him showing up together after dark seems like you getting on with your own relationship? If I asked John, he’d tell me he knew all about you two hanging out alone?” My stomach dropped. He wouldn’t dare fuck with my relationship like that, would he? I knew telling John I was wandering the streets of my hometown with my ex would hurt his feelings for no particular reason, so I’d not mentioned it. I didn’t want to upset him when there was no reason to.
“Why can’t I be friends with Alex, huh? What’s so wrong with that?”
“You cannot do this again, Jasey,” Jack groaned loudly, now more frustrated than pissed off, as if I wasn’t getting it. “This is fucking toxic and you know it. What part of you and Alex do you think will work? I love you, and I love him, but I can see the two of you playing your old fucking games and it’s bullshit.”
“Nothing happened!” I shouted back in return. “We went to the park, we talked. This isn’t the disaster you think it is!”
“You don’t see how he gets when you fight, when you saunter around with John as if nothing’s wrong. He still loves you. He never loved anyone before you and he hasn’t loved anyone since you. And all you’re gonna do when this is over is pack up and leave us all again.”
I hesitated. This no longer seemed like it was about Alex and I. Sure, he’d said Alex still loved me, which I doubted, but the focus of this argument seemed like a distraction. This seemed like Jack’s own insecurities, his protectiveness over Alex playing a factor, yes, but mostly it was him thinking I was going to run away and hurt everyone again. I knew he couldn’t be that forgiving. He hadn’t even been angry when he’d seen me, but now I was back in everyone’s life, it seemed like he was expecting me to leave at any moment.
“This isn’t about Alex.”
“What? Of course it’s about Alex,” he snapped.
“No, this is just about me. You think I’m going to go home with John and cut you out again.”
“Of course I do!” I was taken aback, not expecting him to admit it so quickly. “That’s what you do! You run away when things get tough and you never bothered to see how we felt.”
“I’m not going to leave again, Jack,” I assured him, speaking more softly than I had been. “I mean, I’m going back to Arizona when all of this is over, but you know where I am now. We’ll talk, I’ll visit you, you’ll visit me. We can be friends again.”
“I wish you’d leave now, before you fuck everything up again,” he snapped.
I wanted to cry. I’d apologised for leaving, for hurting everyone, and I thought he’d understood. I should have known I wasn’t his friend anymore. I was the girl who’d broken his best friend’s heart, who was now back and not sure what she wanted, no matter how much I insisted it was John. I needed to make my decision and stick to it, but that was irrelevant now. No matter who I chose, Jack would continue to feel hurt, to distrust me. The only thing I could do to counter that was to stay true to my word, to stay in contact with everyone until they trusted me again.
“All you do is stir up drama, you know that? We’ve been okay for years without you and now you’re back and Alex is acting like an asshole and you’re getting Marissa’s hopes up, and all the while you’re fucking about with John too. What made me become friends with you in school is fucking beyond me. You aren’t a nice person, Jasey.”
“Jack, come on—”
“I’m going to bed,” he told me, standing up abruptly. “I can’t even fucking look at you anymore.” I didn’t say anything as he retreated to his bedroom, picking up my phone as soon as the door shut, allowing the tears to start falling as I dialled John’s number. I needed John to tell me I wasn’t the awful person Jack insisted I was, but how could he say anything I would believe when he only knew half of the story?
No. John knew me outside of all the drama I attracted. He saw through my bullshit and all my facades and just appreciated me for that.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he yawned.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, realising it was going on for 11pm now and he’d probably had a long day traipsing around New York. It dawned on me that I hadn’t even asked when we’d spoken earlier. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No, I’m awake,” he assured me. “What’s up?” I sniffled lightly, wiping away the tears that were continuing to spill down my cheeks.
“I miss you,” I whined. As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. I did miss him. I missed casual conversation and not having to explain myself. I missed the easy laughter and the smell of him. I missed his stupid crooked grin and the way he always smiled at me.
“Are you okay?” His voice took on a concerned tone and I began to hold back my sniffling, not wanting to concern him more than was necessary.
“I want to go home,” I told him. “I want to hang out in my stupid shitty apartment and wake up with you without four stupid spectators.”
“Welcome to my life,” he chuckled back to me, though I could still hear a small note of concern in his voice. I laughed quietly, knowing he had been wanting that far longer than I had. I didn’t know what had had me so confused about him.
“Am I an awful person?” I asked him quietly. Both the recollection of holding him at arm’s length for two years while he all but pined for me and Jack’s word causing another surge of aching through my chest.
“You’re not perfect,” he admitted. “But you’re not an awful person.”
“I’ve been awful to you for years,” I countered. “I put you in shitty situations with your girlfriends and all but made you choose me, without ever letting you in or giving you a chance.” I heard him sighing through the phone at my words. It hadn’t been my intention to dredge up bad memories, but I wanted to know this was real. I didn’t want another attack out of nowhere like I’d had with Jack. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost John too.
“You didn’t make me choose you. They could see you weren’t just a friend to me. If I’d wanted it to work with any of those girls, I would have made an effort to get over you. I didn’t. And not because I thought I had a chance, I stopped thinking that a long time ago.” I frowned at his words, not feeling any better about my actions.
“So, why didn’t you?”
“Because,” he sighed. “Because I love you, and you know that.” I was torn somewhere between my heart fluttering and my stomach turning. I did know he’d loved me, but I also knew I didn’t love him yet. This wasn’t a deeply rooted relationship for me. This was new, my feelings were new. “Don’t think I expect you to love me too. You asked a question and I answered it honestly. I know you’re not at ‘I love you’ yet.”
“But I think I will be, someday. Soon maybe.” I didn’t even think as I said it, the rolling nausea in my stomach disappearing as he reassured me, reminding me that this could be true. I just had to forget about Alex and suddenly that didn’t seem so hard.
“That’s all I need.”
“Come up tomorrow,” I said, suddenly. “I’m having dinner with my parents. My mom already thinks I should have brought you home.” I could feel his hesitation at my suggestion, knowing that this was always supposed to be my time with my family and friends. I knew he didn’t want to intrude. “I’m serious,” I added as the silence lengthened.
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t,” I assured him. “I’ll meet you in Baltimore when you get in and we can always have the guys detour the bus to pick us up and take us to Charlotte afterwards.” I didn’t want to suggest he stay here and drive up with Marissa and I, not knowing if Alex was to join us now or not. Me and Jack being in the car together was looking like it was going to be awkward enough, never mind throwing Alex and John into the small vehicle together too.
“Alright, just tell me what restaurant I’m going to and what time and I’ll be there.”

Notes

#buttholebarakat

Comments

@settle for me.
Two words. Character Development. SHES SO SHALLOW RIGHT NOW. I've met people like her and they make my blood boil and skin crawl.
I'm not one to talk about stories being too long... it's difficult.

@gamble with desire.
I'm not sure Jasey knows what she wants to be honest. :')

@aweirdkindofyellow
I always forget how much you dislike her. But, you'll have to see how this goes! I need to cut a load of stuff I already have written because it doesn't fit in a chapter in a way that makes sense and I don't want to go on too long. The first time I wrote this sequel it was like... 17 chapters long, and now I'll be lucky if I finish under 50.

Ooooh yay she’s hitching a ride with Alex! I’m not happy John hurt her by breaking up with her, but I’m kinda glad he did it because he’s just been weird this whole time. And Jasey really wants to be with Alex, I can tell!

@settle for me.
I'm scared that Holly will get back together with Alex. I'm scared that she will continue to be a brat. I'm scared that she only cares about herself.