Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

It took two weeks to arrange for a truck, sort out a convenient time to drive across the country twice with Marissa and agree with my landlord that he was happy to take the keys from me. It hadn’t been a fun two weeks, I won’t lie, but it kept me out of my bedroom at my parents’ house, the only interruption to my Marissa time was the two days directly following Jack’s return, however I spent those days buying boxes to keep in the van and packing peanuts and working on my stupid college application so I didn’t end up in another string of dead end jobs like I had the last two years.
I hadn’t talked to anyone from tour except Jack since their return. Jack had come over to see how I was doing with Marissa as we restarted our ‘road trip’ planning and prep after he’d monopolised her for his two days. Of course, because it was Jack and I, it descended fairly quickly into immaturity and riling each other up and taking everything way too far and laughing way too hard about it.
Aside from Jack, I hadn’t heard a peep. I’d seen Alex from my window as he came in one day, and I glanced at his house as I was going in one day to see him at his window, but we hadn’t interacted. I didn’t expect any sort of reaching out from John and I didn’t dare to contact him first either, but I also hadn’t heard from the other boys and I was beginning to miss them all sorely.
Marissa and I had allocated a full two days to packing up all my shit between us, taking my couch and heavy non-essentials first and literally leaving a mattress on the floor and the kitchen intact for us to live off, before embarking on the rest.
“Hey, why am I hidden in your bottom drawer?” She scowled at me unexpectedly on the first day, showing me a frame of the two of us at around 14 on the beach one summer.
“Not sure,” I shrugged. “I imagine it was to stop me calling you when I dropped out of college. Once something is in that drawer, it doesn’t come out. That’s where I put my memories to die.” She raised an eyebrow at my overdramatic attitude, before continuing to pull it out, finding a page from an old notepad that Alex had written on, Jack’s old Green Day shirt I’d accidentally packed and a number of other things I had forgotten I had.
“Christ, Jasey,” she breathed.
“I told you so,” I replied, continuing with my own task. I was here to get this done and nothing more.
“You are going to say goodbye to the guys before you go tomorrow, right?” She asked me, hesitating, unsure if I was going to get pissed off at the implication.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I feel like I should, but I’m also kinda scared they don’t want to see me, you know? I know it’s a dick move to go and not say bye, I haven’t learned that little, but I’m still scared to reach out.”
“You don’t know if you don’t try, Jasey.” I rolled my eyes, my own way of admitting she was right, before I pulled my phone from my pocket.
Hey, so I’m back in town for a couple days to pack up. I’m moving back home, but I’d love to see you all before I go. I leave the day after tomorrow x’
I fired the text off to Jared, Garrett, Kennedy and Pat, leaving John off the list but knowing they’d tell him anyway. If he deserved anything, he deserved his own personal goodbye, but I felt like it was intruding upon his time to himself. But, then again, did he not also deserve the chance to say goodbye? I didn’t want to come across as ignoring him specifically if I was contacting everyone else.
“Marissa?” I asked, hesitantly. She looked up at me expectantly and I swallowed a little. “Do I text him?” She sighed, sitting back from the drawer she was emptying and pondering my question. I was glad she was struggling with this too, as it meant I wasn’t overthinking unnecessarily.
“I think you should,” she told me slowly. “I know you think he deserves time, and you’re right, but messaging him once to say you’re leaving isn’t going to intrude too much, is it? Two seconds of his life proves you’re still trying.”
’Hi, ignore me if this is too soon, but I’m currently packing up my place to move home. I’d like to say goodbye, if I can? I leave the day after tomorrow, around noon. Even if I don’t see you, I’ll miss you.’
I deleted the message about ten times, starting and restarting and hoping it came out better the next time, but it never did and, in the end, I had to just press send and hope I didn’t overstep too much. I held back from asking Marissa to check over my wording, knowing I needed to have much more faith in myself and allowing myself not to dwell. John would do whatever he wanted to, either reply or not, show up or not, and I could do nothing to control that. I was beginning to realise that there was very little in life I could control, the actions of others’ being the one big thing I seemed desperate to control throughout my life.
I was so over it. I was so done with my own shit, with living in my head and second guessing every move I had ever made and every relationship I’d ever had, and what was the point? Where had it gotten me? Lonely, that’s where it had gotten me.
“I’m terrified,” I admitted, every revelation I had crashing over me one after another, all the emotions I’d trained myself not to feel, still conflicting under the surface and yet somehow I was beginning to name them. “I told him I loved him and he told me I didn’t and that’s telling me I really never knew him at all, so how will I know what he’s going to do from here? Why do I care? Why can’t I pack up and leave and act like this never happened?”
“Because it did happen and you did love him and you can’t erase that, just like you couldn’t erase Alex. I just think that maybe this time you’ll embrace it and grow.”
“And I’ll have you.”
“And you’ll have me.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “Enough about me and all of my bullshit, tell me about you and Jack.” She rolled her eyes at me, letting out a laugh.
“You know about me and Jack. You were either there for it or I’ve told you about it.”
“What an absolute lie,” I laughed back at her. “I’ve been gone nearly 3 years and you have definitely only told me six months of it. My life is boring now, my love life is over and I am the most selfish friend in the world, so: tell. Me. Everything.”

Notes

Happy New Year all.