the moment (though some might question their grasp on reality) and I want to be like them.
However, I can’t ignore the internet entirely, and I check in on my Facebook account to ensure no one’s posted a naked photo of me or something. Just some running pics and a few friend requests from teammates. When the screen switches to my newsfeed, a photo of Jace and Frankie laughing flashes before me. It’s a great shot, and whoever took it caught them unaware. I click on the photo, and then click on Jace’s page, curious to see if there are any other good photos of him on there.
I find about a dozen photos that were posted early this morning – like, at 3:00 – from Instagram. The hashtags tell me that it was the same party my teammates went to, the one hosted by the baseball team. And judging by the shots of him in various locations and taken by several different people, he didn’t just stop by for a quick minute. He told me he wanted to be alone when he left me last night, but did he really just want to get away from me?
My stomach twists with the betrayal. He lied to me. This is now the second time he’s gone out to party without me. I’m not his keeper, and he doesn’t have to bring me with him wherever he goes. But this is different. He’s going out without me because he doesn’t want me with him. If he wants to forget Annie and the pain she’s causing him, I can’t fault him for it, but if doing that means ditching me, I can’t deny how much that hurts. The small breakfast I ate is churning in my stomach, and I quickly shut my laptop before I feel even sicker.
Working out with my teammates, pushing my muscles on the weight machines until I can barely lift my arms, it helps a little. But when they all decide to go out again that night, I opt to go see Gran at our apartment. Of course, I try to get in touch with Jace, but he’s evasive.
Gran’s on a date with Wallace the cowboy when I get to the apartment, but when she returns home, she takes one look at me and starts making hot chocolate. When she hands me a mug and takes the seat beside me on the living room couch, I tell her everything. She knows Jace almost as well as I do, and from her expression as I relay the phone call from Monday, she already knows Annie left, relapsed, and got arrested. Gran and Jim are friends, and for all I know, Annie called both of them seeking bail after Jace hung up on her.
“After the phone call, he ended our date, dropped me off at my dorm, and told me he needed to be alone. But he went straight to a huge party on campus, hosted by a guy he doesn’t even like,” I add, though it’s mostly irrelevant to the fact that he lied to me. He wanted to escape being with me. It makes my whole body hurt, an emotional pain that runs deeper than the kind from a hard running workout.
I don’t know what I need from Gran right now. I don’t want her to get so mama bear on me that she can’t give me reliable advice. I guess I need her to do something to take away the pain, to tell me he didn’t mean it, that he’ll come back to me as soon as he’s processed this, and that it won’t take long.
“Baby girl, Jace has come a long way in talking ‘bout and facing how he feels, but ever since he was little, his first instinct is to push it down and bury it. Anything that hurts, even sometimes the good stuff, if it’s too good, he turns the other way. It doesn’t take a fancy doc to say it’s all ‘cause of his mom leavin’. You and me know that good and well.”
“But Gran, she left again . After coming back and getting to know him. After being sober and making a new life. This time, it’s like his dream came true, that she came back and wanted a real relationship with him, and she’s smashed it. If he buried how he felt about things before, now what?”
Gran looks truly sad, and I don’t know if it’s for me, Jace, or both of us. She takes my hands in hers. “I don’t know, baby girl. He’s come a long way with
However, I can’t ignore the internet entirely, and I check in on my Facebook account to ensure no one’s posted a naked photo of me or something. Just some running pics and a few friend requests from teammates. When the screen switches to my newsfeed, a photo of Jace and Frankie laughing flashes before me. It’s a great shot, and whoever took it caught them unaware. I click on the photo, and then click on Jace’s page, curious to see if there are any other good photos of him on there.
I find about a dozen photos that were posted early this morning – like, at 3:00 – from Instagram. The hashtags tell me that it was the same party my teammates went to, the one hosted by the baseball team. And judging by the shots of him in various locations and taken by several different people, he didn’t just stop by for a quick minute. He told me he wanted to be alone when he left me last night, but did he really just want to get away from me?
My stomach twists with the betrayal. He lied to me. This is now the second time he’s gone out to party without me. I’m not his keeper, and he doesn’t have to bring me with him wherever he goes. But this is different. He’s going out without me because he doesn’t want me with him. If he wants to forget Annie and the pain she’s causing him, I can’t fault him for it, but if doing that means ditching me, I can’t deny how much that hurts. The small breakfast I ate is churning in my stomach, and I quickly shut my laptop before I feel even sicker.
Working out with my teammates, pushing my muscles on the weight machines until I can barely lift my arms, it helps a little. But when they all decide to go out again that night, I opt to go see Gran at our apartment. Of course, I try to get in touch with Jace, but he’s evasive.
Gran’s on a date with Wallace the cowboy when I get to the apartment, but when she returns home, she takes one look at me and starts making hot chocolate. When she hands me a mug and takes the seat beside me on the living room couch, I tell her everything. She knows Jace almost as well as I do, and from her expression as I relay the phone call from Monday, she already knows Annie left, relapsed, and got arrested. Gran and Jim are friends, and for all I know, Annie called both of them seeking bail after Jace hung up on her.
“After the phone call, he ended our date, dropped me off at my dorm, and told me he needed to be alone. But he went straight to a huge party on campus, hosted by a guy he doesn’t even like,” I add, though it’s mostly irrelevant to the fact that he lied to me. He wanted to escape being with me. It makes my whole body hurt, an emotional pain that runs deeper than the kind from a hard running workout.
I don’t know what I need from Gran right now. I don’t want her to get so mama bear on me that she can’t give me reliable advice. I guess I need her to do something to take away the pain, to tell me he didn’t mean it, that he’ll come back to me as soon as he’s processed this, and that it won’t take long.
“Baby girl, Jace has come a long way in talking ‘bout and facing how he feels, but ever since he was little, his first instinct is to push it down and bury it. Anything that hurts, even sometimes the good stuff, if it’s too good, he turns the other way. It doesn’t take a fancy doc to say it’s all ‘cause of his mom leavin’. You and me know that good and well.”
“But Gran, she left again . After coming back and getting to know him. After being sober and making a new life. This time, it’s like his dream came true, that she came back and wanted a real relationship with him, and she’s smashed it. If he buried how he felt about things before, now what?”
Gran looks truly sad, and I don’t know if it’s for me, Jace, or both of us. She takes my hands in hers. “I don’t know, baby girl. He’s come a long way with
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