Does Sophia know, I wonder? Her letter said she knows he works, but has he told her he escorts? He obviously gives the money he makes to the hospital for Sophia’s bills, which makes me think her parents aren’t in the picture at all, and I know for a fact government funding for sick minors is tight. He’s so good at being…well…good. He’s done this escorting thing for a long time. If Sophia knew where the money was coming from, I’m sure she’d make him stop. But he can’t afford to stop, can he? Her sickness is bad, and according to Avery, only getting worse. Jack wants to provide her with the best care. He really likes her. Loves her.
The food arrives, and they eat and talk. My own food comes shortly after and I shovel noodles into my mouth while watching them. Kayla’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. Jack is being patient and humorous and gentle, everything Kayla wants him to be. He’s mirroring her. It’s not the real him, but she’s so in love with it she can’t see that.
It’s sad.
Maybe that’s why Jack’s eyes look a little sad.
Or maybe he’s thinking of Sophia, how much he wishes it was her across the table instead.
After dinner, they order dessert. Jack gets up to use the bathroom, and shoots a meaningful glance at me. He wants me to follow. I wait a few minutes, then get up and slink behind the mottled glass so Kayla can’t see me. I push the door to the men’s room open, praying no one sees. Jack leans on the sink, arms folded over his chest and all wisps of the gentleness he had been with Kayla gone. It’s back to cold Jackass.
“So?” He asks.
“It’s good.” I nod. “You’re doing good. It’s a little disturbing how good you’re doing, actually.”
“I told you not to doubt me.”
“Never did. I just know you don’t respect people.”
“I do. If they pay me.”
I laugh. “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.”
“And you’re not? I’ve never met a more stubborn, jaded, cynical girl in my life.”
“It’s true. I’m very special.”
He scoffs, but something in his eyes eases. For a split second, he’s the gentle, patient Jack as he says;
“You are.”
And then he’s leaning in, mint and shaving cream and coconut milk from whatever he ate, and he brushes his thumb over my stunned lips. He looks up into my eyes, and freezes, like he realizes what he’s doing. He pulls away.
“What the – ” He murmurs, looking at his hands like they don’t belong to him. “Forget what I just did. Just – just forget it. You had something on your lip.”
I watch in miraculous horror as Jack Hunter, Ice Prince of East Summit High, turns a soft shade of red, his cheeks blossoming with it.
“Are you…are you blushing?” I whisper.
“No! Can’t you feel the air temperature? It’s ridiculously hot!” He snaps. “I’m leaving and finishing the job. Stay and watch if you want, I don’t care.”
He’s angry. And it’s not cold anger – it’s hot and instant and boils up and over his icy eyes and marble-perfect lips. He shoves out the door and stalks back to the table. I wait a few minutes, and then go back to mine. He’s smiling again, but his face is still a little red, and his laughter is louder and more savage than it was. Kayla doesn’t seem to mind, though. They go through almond ice cream with some kind of cookie in it. Kayla tries to feed him, but he refuses and shoots a look at my table that says ‘if you make me eat that from her fingers it will cost more’. I shake my head and he goes back to politely rejecting it.
Save for the little tantrum he threw in the bathroom, (Jack Hunter! Tantrum! The words are opposites!) everything’s been going great. Kayla hasn’t cried or ran away once. And as Jack pays the bill and offers Kayla his arm and she laces hers in his, I get the distinct feeling it’s been the best night of her life. I pay my bill and wait, watching them out the window. They stand on the sidewalk, immersed in the golden glow of a lamppost above. Kayla is leaning into his arm, and she looks up and asks him something. He goes still, pauses, and then leans down to kiss her. It’s slow and soft, and she melts into him. They look perfect – two beautiful people on a date, kissing beautifully. Usually people look like pigs half-mashed into each other, all slobber and tongue, but Jack and Kayla are too pretty for that. It looks like a movie. It looks like they’ll walk off into the sunset to live happily ever after.
And I feel…jealous?
I put my napkin around my throat and experimentally pull. It would be a great noose. Feeling jealous of love? Since when did that happen? When did I even care about it at all? I don’t. It’s a false promise, a fool’s gold tale, something that doesn’t happen to people like me. And yet here I am, jealous. Not of Jack, no. Of Kayla. I’m jealous of the sweet love that shines in her eyes. She can still feel love. She still thinks it’s some wonderful, ascendant, pure thing. Even if it’s naïve, it’s still a better way to look at it than the poisonous, to-be-avoided-at-all-costs bog I see love as.
I’m not fourteen anymore. I can’t go back to that pure love vision. It’s gone. Forever.
I’m jealous of Kayla, and how she’s never been hurt.
Sure, Jackass has insulted her a few times with his extreme, tell-it-like-it-is rationality. Maybe Avery told her he’s got a sick girlfriend in the hospital, and that hurt her. But she hasn’t been torn apart from the inside out. She hasn’t been laughed at, pulled at, pushed into.
She’s still pure.
I let the napkin drop from my neck and slap my hand over my mouth to stop the sudden rise of vomit in my throat. It hurts. The wound is open and it’s hurting again, and I have to get home. I have to find a dark room and curl up there and try to forget. I stagger out of the door, the bell over it tinkling behind me. I only hear it faintly. Everything is blurry and I can’t breathe. I try to inhale but fire bursts in my lungs, rips through my body. I’m shivering. Maybe I’m dying. That’d kinda suck to die over nothing at all. To die over something as stupid and idiotic as love. Here Lies A Stupid Little Girl, Who Collapsed Into A Casual Ball Of Panic And Pitiful Sobs At The Idea Of Love. P.S. Cupid Won This Round, Sucka. That would be my gravestone, and pigeons would poop on it and teenagers would have sex on it, and when the world floods from global warming it’ll flood and my pathetic fetal-position bones will float up and I’ll wander as a ghost and wail in couples’ ears -
“ - You,” A voice cuts through my nausea. “Are you alright?”
I look up. A blurry Jack hovers over me.
I gracefully vomit on his shoes.
***
It takes me a casual ten minutes of puking in front of my mortal enemy to realize he’s helped me into his car and actually what I’m puking off of isn’t a curb but the passenger side of his black sedan. He sits in the driver’s seat and taps on his phone the entire time. When there’s a brief pause in my retching, he looks up.
“Are you done?” He asks.
I immediately try to bolt out of the car and run to my own so I can shove my head into the exhaust pipe and mercifully die, but he pulls my shirt and yanks me back in.
“Just let me die!” I wail.
“Not quite yet. I have uses for you.”
“You’re so creepy! You’re so creepy and I’m so vomity and I mildly hate everything in this conceivable universe!”
“Kayla included?”
I stop wailing to glower at him. “Since I just paid you two hundred moolah to make her happy, obviously no, she is the one thing I do not hate. Her and like, pastries. And small kittens. But everything else can roast in Satan’s left armpit!” I whip my head around wildly. “Speaking of, where is she?”