I was going to kill my father. No jury would ever convict me. How could he do this? Invite Jason over. Then abandon me here like this. A plate of sandwiches in my hand. Like I was some kind of grocery store sample person.
My stomach was as tight as a ball, and my hands were shaking, I was so upset.
When we came home, and I saw Jason up on top of our roof, it brought back memories of him laying shingles for his father. That broad chest and those strong arms. My entire body had jumped into overdrive before I could remember that he wasn’t mine. He would never be mine.
Even now. Those eyes of his and that silly smile still melted my heart.
And, my mom. How could she do this to me? She knew what was going on. Yet, she forced me to take this food out here. Now, I couldn’t figure out a place to set the plate so I could get back inside.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said from the middle of nowhere.
My stomach clenched even tighter. What did he mean?
“Why?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my father. He shouldn’t have asked you to help.”
“Not that,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything.”
Now I was confused. Was he sorry for asking me to be his pretend girlfriend? Why? I’d agreed. He’d been right. I’d gotten instant social status. First, as his girlfriend, and then as the girl who let him go. I’d learned a million things about being in a relationship. The most important of which was to avoid the whole fake thing.
I knew that for the rest of my life, I’d never do anything I wasn’t really committed to.
I still couldn’t believe I was standing here with a plate of sandwiches talking to Jason. “I don’t understand,” I said, as I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then, why do I feel like I need to apologize?” he said with a shoulder shrug.
I gave a heavy sigh. The look of pain on his made me want to cry, and I refused to do that in front of him. Instead, I got mad. At him, at me, at the world.
“Listen, Jason,” I said, “I’m not some silly little girl. I knew what I was getting myself in for. And, everything happened exactly like you said it would. No muss, no fuss, in and out.”
He frowned and looked at me for a long moment. His eyes stared into mine, as if he was trying to understand the meaning of life.
“Then, why do I feel like I lost the most important thing that is ever going to happen to me?”
My mind froze. Came to an instant stop.
What was he saying?
I looked back at him, as I tried to fathom what he was talking about.
He gave another shoulder shrug and turned to finish the lights.
“Hey,” I said, as I reached out to pull him around to face me. “What did you mean by that?” I asked.
He looked at me grimaced. “It doesn’t really matter. Forget it. You lived up to your end of the deal.”
“No,” I said. I refused to let this end there. We always did that. Let that wall of awkward keep us from talking. Really talking.
“No,” I said again. “What did you mean by that? That you felt like you lost something.”
He smiled sadly, “Just that the day you broke up with me. I was thinking of seeing if we could maybe change the arrangement. But, you caught me in time. Reminded me that it was only pretend.”
“Well, that was what we agreed to, remember?” I said, as my heart began to race. “It was you who didn’t want a girlfriend, who wanted pretend.”
“I know,” he said, as he nodded his head. “But, at the time, I was an idiot.”
The silence between us grew, as I tried to understand what he was saying.
“Jason,” I said in exasperation, “just tell me what you want to tell me.”
He looked at me for a long moment. I stopped breathing while I waited.
“I wanted to stop pretending,” he said with a small smile.
“Well, we did that,” I answered. “When we broke up.”
“No, No,” he said. “Not that. I wanted us to be real. I wanted the world to see the true us. I wanted you to feel towards me the way I had come to feel towards you. I was going to ask you that day if you wanted to maybe change it to real girlfriend boyfriend vice pretend. I wanted to have my favorite love. The one I was meant to have.”
My heart stopped. Did he mean it?
“But ... I thought ...” the words refused to come.
He gave me another sad shrug, then turned back to finish the lights.
My world spun. Then, he turned away from me.
No, not anymore, I thought. I pulled him back around and threw my arms around his neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. The deepest, longest, most wonderful kiss a girl ever had. I tried to tell him how much I loved him with that kiss.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me against him. The world spun, the universe floated, and my life had meaning.
As we pulled away from each other only a little, he smiled down at me and said, “I take it that is a yes?”
“Yes, yes, Yes,” I said, as I started to kiss him again.
At some point, I think I heard my father come back outside. At least he had enough sense to go back into the house. It really wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing in this world was getting me out of Jason’s arms. Not today. Not ever.