Maybe I should have set you loose. Been my own unicycle or whatever. But that wasn’t the way of us. And in truth, I liked feeling needed. I liked being the one you depended on, no matter what. The one you always returned to.
I played the part that was asked of me, from the start.
“So tell us about this girlfriend. Meghan,” I said the first night we hung at campfire with him and Nitin.
You shot me a look, but it was all for show. You had asked me to bring her up. You wanted to know more about her, but you didn’t want to be the one to ask.
“Randy! That’s Jackson’s private business,” you said. You blew out your flaming marshmallow and pulled off its charred-to-carbon skin.
“Sorry,” I offered.
“No, that’s okay. I don’t mind talking about her,” he said.
I looked to you for direction. You accepted the package of graham crackers from Nitin and focused on crafting your s’more. I took that as a sign to continue.
“How long have you guys been together?” I asked.
“Since the end of freshman year,” he said. “I’d had an enormous crush on her for months, but she barely noticed I existed. I did all this stuff to try to get her attention, but none of it ever worked. She just thought I was some nerdy doofus.”
“I mean, she’s not exactly wrong on that,” you said.
Jackson smirked. “Says the girl who had a whole Tumblr devoted to the Supernatural fandom.”
(Was that true? If you did, I haven’t been able to find it.) You shrugged and sucked marshmallow goo off your fingers. Jackson watched.
“So what happened? What changed her mind?” Nitin asked. He looked as invested in the story as you looked indifferent to it.
“About a month before the end of school, we got paired up for a World History project. We had to spend all this time together working on our presentation, and like halfway through the week she kind of narrowed her eyes at me and said, ‘You know, you’re a lot smarter than you usually act. If you were more like this on a regular basis, I might even give you a chance.’”
“Wow,” Nitin said. (Prediction: It will take Nitin years to make a move on whoever he falls for—like, the person will have given up on their crush and assumed he’s not interested, because he’ll be so polite and shy and also miss all that person’s signals. But once they finally get together, it will be true love forever and he’ll be the king of grand romantic gestures for the rest of their natural lives. And possibly all of eternity as a ghost. Doesn’t he seem like the type?)
“We’ve been together ever since,” Jackson said. “She’s amazing.”
Your face displayed exactly zero reaction, but I noticed a slight twitch in your hand, like the declaration made your fingers jumpy. You took a bite of s’more. The marshmallow oozed out the sides.
“Sounds serious,” I said, slowly rotating my stick to keep its marshmallow toasting evenly. Nitin caught my eye and smiled.
“Yeah.” Jackson stared into the flames, looking contemplative. He didn’t seem to notice his marshmallow was on fire. “In a way, this summer feels like . . . I dunno. Like my last chance at freedom or something. Not that Meghan isn’t fun. But we got serious really fast. This is the longest we’ve been apart, by far. It’s weird. Weird but good.” The remains of his marshmallow slid off and hit the ground.
If you weren’t into him, we’d have talked smack later—or possibly then—about him acting like his clearly awesome girlfriend was the rain on his parade. But you were into him. Your eyes shone triumphant.
“What’s she doing this summer?” Nitin asked.
Jackson kicked some dirt over his fallen marshmallow. Someone probably stepped on it later and made their sandals a sticky mess. “She’s in Italy. Her cousins have a place on the Amalfi Coast. So she’s not sitting around missing me, either.”
“Wow,” Nitin repeated.
You didn’t look impressed. “Oh, Italy. Everyone’s so into it, but France is a million times better. Have you been to Paris?” you asked. We all shook our heads. “Best place in the world,” you declared.
I knew for a fact you had never left the country—you’d barely left the state—but I didn’t let on. This show was not for me.
“I might go there for college,” you continued. “Whenever I’m in France, it just feels like the place where I belong.”
“You speak French?” Nitin asked. He was such a gullible sweetheart.
“Mais oui,” you replied.
“Oh là là,” I said.
Nitin smiled, but Jackson seemed bored now that we weren’t talking about him. He stood and wiped his hands on his shorts. “My butt cheeks are falling asleep on this log. You wanna walk?” he asked, looking at you.
You glanced at me to see if I minded. I kept my face as neutral as yours had been before. So you did what you wanted.
“Sure.” You reached out a hand to let him pull you up beside him. Nitin and I watched as you disappeared together into the dark.
Jackson had wanted a carefree summer, and at first you were a huge part of that. At first you were his freedom. But soon you became a threat to it. He couldn’t be free if you and he were attached.
So you pretended you weren’t. You went along with it being a fling. But it wasn’t. He knew that.
It wasn’t just a fling for him, either. And he couldn’t handle that at all. It contradicted everything he’d been trying to prove.
I think Jackson Back Home was a devoted boyfriend who worked hard to live up to Meghan’s standards, because being a good boyfriend didn’t come naturally to him. She was way above his level, and he knew it, so he constantly hustled to prove himself worthy. It was exhausting. He was scared to fail and lose her, but he was also tired. He wanted a summer of just being a selfish prick. Which meant not becoming a good boyfriend to you.
He wanted you to be hot and fun and accommodating and easy, and keep your needs and emotions to yourself. Those were the terms. And for some reason, you accepted them. You bottled yourself up in front of him, and only let things spill over in jokes, or with me.
I hated the mess he made of you. Hated how precisely he slid the knife up under your ribs to slice you open with a gesture, a comment. Hated that you handed him the weapon to do so in the first place. You kept pretending you were down with whatever, that it was no big deal and just a game to you too—which meant you couldn’t ever ask him to stop.
Even when you bickered or pouted or sort of fought back, you were playing the part he wanted you to play. The part of the girl who could have had anyone, but lost her shit over him.
I think Jackson loved the drama. That’s why he was into you in waves, his attention flooding in and out like high tide and low. Running his hands all over you, then remembering he had a girlfriend and acting like that was your fault, when in truth what he wanted was for you to beg and assure him she didn’t matter.
He wanted you to pull him back, be irresistible, so his giving in and cheating again could be blamed on you. After all, you knew he was taken. It wasn’t his fault you kept throwing yourself at him like that, swearing you understood it could never be something real. Listening to him go on and on about how much he loved her, while he was touching you. Reassuring him he was a good person because he felt tortured by his betrayal. Agreeing that what you had together existed in a separate universe from him and her. It wasn’t cheating—it was fate, and it would only last the summer.