Seventeen and Invincible

His name was Jackson. He had spent his entire life moving between the United States, Canada and pretty much every place in Europe. And he lived next door to me.

Jackson had graduated from high school the previous year and was attending a local university. Tired of his family’s constant matriculation, he opted to go to University and stay put here in Sendling, Munich. Why he would choose here instead of somewhere like Italy or France, I had no idea. All I knew was that I was glad.

Jackson was tall, well, taller than Garrett, standing at about six foot one. He had magnificent eyes that were a color somewhere between blue, grey and green. They seemed to be outlined in a color that resembled brown, but I couldn’t be entirely certain. The centers were flecked with green and gold, and I swear they had almost the same effect on me as Garrett’s eyes. His hair was a dirty blonde, almost gold. He was about as skinny as a toothpick and he had a smile that managed to light up the room.

I knew that Jackson was way out of my league, so I didn’t bother to even try anything at first. It was nice to just have someone to talk to anyway. His bedroom window was right across from mine and sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep, I could see his silhouette slinking across the room putting away laundry or retrieving a book from its shelf. It made me smile when I would see him pick up the acoustic guitar that rested in the corner of the room, because it reminded me a little bit of Garrett.

His name was Jackson and he was my distraction.

--------------------♥--------------------

I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t, because it took me by complete surprise when he kissed me. I mean, obviously, as it was about to happen, I saw it coming, but it wasn’t expected. There was nothing leading up to it.

We were sitting in my backyard and it was chilly, still unusually warm for this time of year in Germany. To me, of course, it felt like the ice age, as I was used to Arizona heat. A cold day there was a warm one here. We were talking about the mathematical chain rule and finding the first derivative. I had been writing something down in my notebook, and I looked up to see if we’d managed to arrive at the same solution.

I had imagined looking up to find him still staring down at his notebook paper, not stretched across the table, close enough for me to feel his hot breath on my cold skin. The small smirk that had begun to play on my lips was all the affirmation he needed to close the distance and press his lips against mine. I’d never heard of calculus being a turn on before.

At some point we became a couple, or as close to it as I would allow. I still had hope that when I returned to Arizona, Garrett would be waiting at the gate for me with a bouquet of red roses and a cheesy, dopey smile plastered on his face. I was still somehow hoping that he’d scoop me up into his arms and kiss me like he really loved me. Like that couple I had seen in the airport when I was leaving. I still had hope, so I kept Jackson at a distance.

It was something Jackson didn’t understand. He wanted to be close and make it past second base. He seemed to think that it would happen, that I would just give myself to him eventually. Maybe it was something lost in translation, but then again, he’d learned several languages, English being his native language, so that idea didn’t seem plausible. I tried to explain to him that I didn’t want to, and he would always, with impatience, nod and acknowledge the fact that, for the time being, he wasn’t getting anywhere with me.

I wouldn’t lie and say that the idea of having sex with him had never crossed my mind, because honestly, it had; it did, quiet often actually. But he wasn’t the one I really wanted to be with. The thoughts would plague me late at night as I watched through the window as he emerged from the bathroom in just a towel and when he’d take my hand as we walked through town. The thoughts clouded my judgment and at times left me leading him on, ending in my apologizing profusely for causing his, discomfort.

He was everything Garrett was and everything he wasn’t, but I didn’t feel the same way about him. Garrett made me smile and I knew everything about him, but there was still a hint of curiosity. When I’d kissed Garrett there was always a passion I couldn’t describe rushing through my veins. There was always a hint of curiosity on his lips, and I could taste it as if it were something tangible like salt. I can only assume that it was something we found on each other, which was why we continued when we knew it was wrong. There was always just a little bit more to learn, even though we’d known each other forever.

With Jackson there wasn’t love. It was pure lust and teenage angst. His lips held no mystery or flavor that I couldn’t identify. He used Mentadent toothpaste and his lips tasted like a combination of the mint in the toothpaste and the remaining flavor from his morning cup of coffee. It didn’t trigger passion and curiosity. It wasn’t right.

Jackson was the boy next door, but he wouldn’t be able to keep me in Germany. I was ready to leave the day I turned eighteen, and I hadn’t warned him.

On some level, he knew. He had to have felt it in the kisses. He had to have known he didn’t have my undivided attention. He had to have some clue that at the same time that our lips were moving together, I was planning out my history paper or conjugating French verbs. There was no way that he didn’t feel it. It was just too obvious.

--------------------♥--------------------

For the entire winter, he laced our fingers together, sitting in front of the fireplace. We would sip hot chocolate and I would try to pull the sleeves of my sweatshirts over my wrists and hands because he couldn’t find out. Jackson didn’t understand and he wouldn’t know what to do when he saw the scars and the few fresh cuts.

Throughout the entire spring, he would pull me into his side, laughing with me and picking flowers to put in my hair. He would spend the evenings whispering sweet nothings in my ear and telling me that he thought I was beautiful. Spring nights we would lie in the grass until the sun rose the next morning and one of us had a class to go to.

Summer began and he held me closer at night, toying with the hem of my shirt or dress. He would play with my hair and tell me that he loved me. June nights, he would sit under the tree in my front yard with his acoustic guitar and sing to me until the neighbors complained. But all the while I’d smile. His fingers would move across the strings, changing chords and notes and the sounds would calm me.

Surprisingly, Molly approved of him, but that could also have had something to do with the overall improvement in our mother-daughter relationship. What she didn’t approve of was the fact that I was breaking his heart to heal mine, as she told me. I nodded along as she said it because I knew that for once in my lifetime, she was actually right. As a result, she agreed that I could go back to Tempe and start college in the fall. She smiled weakly, helping me pack my things. She waved me off as Jackson threw my suitcase in the trunk of his car and drove me to the airport.

He pleaded for me to stay. He held my hand and kissed me slowly, but I told him the truth. I’d told him that I never really loved him and that I was sorry, and with a nod and a last kiss, he took a few steps and turned around walking away. I would be going back to the only place where I really belonged and it couldn’t have felt better.