The car ride home was beyond awkward. I should have known better than to subject Cin to our dad. He’d done exactly as I had expected him too and now Cin was paying the price. I don’t know what in the hell had ever made me think that he would accept us and actually be happy for us. What a prick. “Growing up, he alienated a good number of friends,” I told in Cin in what I hoped was a light voice. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “He’s an asshole.”

But Cin’s face, by the looks of it, was worrying about it – was worrying about it a lot. I couldn’t handle the way she looked right then.

“Seriously,” I told her. “This doesn’t change anything.”

But if that were the case, then why was she so silent back there?

Jake made a few attempts at conversation, but Cin wasn’t having it. All she said was, “I think it’s time for me to go home.”

I drove her home without arguing. That encounter with Dad sure had rattled me. To think what he’d said to Cin, it had made me actually want to punch him in the jaw. Who was he to judge us and our relationship, when his own had ended in an epically vicious divorce?

Once we pulled up to Cin’s building, she opened her car door immediately.

“No goodbye kiss?” Jake said.

Face a tense mask, Cin leaned in, delivering one closed-lipped peck to Jake then leaning over to do the same to me. And then, before I could think of anything else to convince her to stay, she’d left.

I couldn’t get driving after that. Part of me, stupid enough, actually thought she might double back. I thought she might come back and talk about this how we needed to.

But all we did was sit there, until finally Jake asked, “We going?”

I drove the car all the way back to our place in silence. Clearly Jake wasn’t in a talking mood right now either, and I could hardly blame him. What was there really to say? “Shitty that our Dad’s a total asshole and might’ve ruined things with the first girl either of us have cared for in a long-ass time?” No. That wasn’t the case, anyway. I wouldn’t let it be.

That night, I retreated to my room with a bag of Reese’s Pieces and my camera. Stuffing my face made me feel a bit better, although taking pictures didn’t do much, other than reveal how badly I needed to clean up my room. Instead, I collapsed into bed and fell into an unsatisfying sleep.

After at least four hours of annoying tossing and turning, I decided more food was in order. Inside the kitchen, I laughed. In the dark, standing in front of the fridge, staring into its lighted contents like the cure for cancer might be the food there, was Jake.

“You too?” I asked him.

He grabbed a block of cheese and nodded, letting the fridge door fall shut. “Already tried calling her a couple times.” He undid the cheese wrapper and ripped off a bite with his teeth. “I’m freaking out.”

“Me too,” I paused, not sure whether to reveal my confession, whether Jake would just laugh at me. “Right now, I just want her here. Just to hold her. Be around her.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, and right when I thought he was going to make a quip, he said, “Me too.”

We went over to the couch, Jake eating his block of cheese, passing it for me to take a bite too every so often.

“Part of me wants to go there right now,” Jake admitted. “Middle of the night be damned.”

I shook my head. “After the dinner she had with Dad, Cin definitely needs her space. What would we say when we went there anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “We like you a lot and want to be with you no matter what anyone says?”

“Maybe,” I said. I leaned back into the couch, wracking my brain. Just telling her how we felt wouldn’t be enough, I sensed. We needed to convince her, convince her that this was going to work.

Not to mention that I wanted to make it up to her too, provide her with the nice dinner she should’ve had. I stayed leaned back like that for a few minutes before I sat back up again.

“I know what we have to do,” I told Jake.