My Escapade

I walked into work with a new draft of my article. Well, the first official draft of my article. I called it the first official one because none of the others had enough effort put into them. The second date with Jaxin had been my turning point.

“Walker!” Mr. Cranford bellowed from the doorway of his office.

I turned and smiled at him. “Yessir?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Look at you! Not even jumping! Maybe you’re ready for my team. Let’s see if that article’s ready, first.” He beckoned for me to join him in the office. I quickly followed. “Let’s see what ya got, Walker,” he told me as he sat down on his chair and put his glasses on.

I handed the draft over. “It’s just a draft,” I babbled, “and I’m not quite finished yet.”

Mr. Cranford held up a finger to shush me as he read. I fell back into the chair wordlessly. When he was done, he looked up at me. “Well, Walker, this is good. What’s the problem?”

“Sir?”

“Why’s it just a draft?”

“Well, Sir, I was planning on revealing my true identity to Jaxin. Breaking his heart and all. Putting it into the finished product, and that’s it.”

Mr. Cranford sat back in his chair. He pursed his lips, thinking. “Not a bad idea, Walker.” He handed me the draft. “Back to work.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I stood up and smiled.

“Oh, and Walker?” He called out as I reached the door.

“Sir?” I asked, opening the door.

“If it’s any consolation, he sounds like an ass.”

I laughed and walked out of the office.

I let Ethan read the draft, and he congratulated me once he was done. “This is front-page worthy,” he praised. “And Jaxin’s such an ass.”

I laughed. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

“What’s next?” Ethan asked, grabbing his milkshake and taking a sip.

“I’m going to invite him over tomorrow. Then, I’m going to reveal myself and stomp his heart. BAM!” I smiled.

Ethan stared at me. “You need more time.”

“What?”

“Rory, you need to drag him in more. If he’s busy, go on a date with someone else. Make him jealous. If not… I dunno. Tell him you love him or whatever. Or let him tell you first. You need to go on more dates with him.”

I stared at Ethan. “… fuck.”

“Or do that.”

“Ethan!” I yelled in horror.

“I was just sayin’! Calm down!” Ethan took another sip of his milkshake, eyes wide.

I crossed my arms and let out an, “Ugh,” as I looked away.

I had to admit, what Ethan was saying had a ring of truth to it. So I proceeded to go on more dates with Jaxin. It ended up on MTV that we were dating, and then everyone was talking about it. We went to a fair, and when we got on roller coasters, there were people taking pictures of us. It made me extremely uncomfortable. I never liked having pictures taken of me.

We went to pools, parties, parks, stuff that normal people do. With a bunch of stalkers with cameras thrown in. But we weren’t normal, Jaxin and I, not at all. Jaxin was famous, and I was an undercover heartbreaker. Not exactly a conventional couple.

As our “relationship” had gone on, I didn’t know exactly what to think of my feelings for Jaxin. Dating him was something I’d always wanted, and here I had it, but it didn’t feel right. There were sparks, sure, but they weren’t as grand as I had always imagined they would be. I didn’t like to think of it. I didn’t think I was in love with him, but I knew I felt something. Three months of our “relationship” passed before Ethan and I agreed that it was time to do the heartbreaking.

It was a Saturday that Jaxin was coming over for dinner. I was making spaghetti and meatballs because it was the only thing I knew he liked that I actually knew how to make. I had made sure to hide my high school yearbooks and photo albums from when I was little. I left the pictures of my family up, but took the ones that I was in down. I even cleaned my bedroom out of any evidence of my deceit.

When Jaxin came over, I really couldn’t help but think how handsome he looked. I felt bad for what I was going to do, but all the same, I needed to. I needed this job. I needed a closure. I needed revenge.

I needed to move on.

“Hey,” he greeted me, giving me a kiss.

“Hi,” I said, shutting the door as he walked inside.

“I find it funny that we’ve been going out for almost five months, and I still haven’t seen the inside of this place,” Jaxin commented.

“It’s been such a mess; I didn’t want you to see it.”

He turned and smirked. “You think my apartment’s clean?”

I shook my head. “It’s a pigsty.”

“I invited you over, and you didn’t say anything about it.”

“I was very grossed out on the inside,” I teased him.

He laughed. “I bet you were. Show me around?”

I took him through the living room. I showed him my bedroom, where he winked at me upon seeing the bed, and the extra room that I used as a library, where he stared at the amount of books I had. I used it as a kind of office, too, so it had my work stuff in it, and I had to be careful to hide my stuff in a place I wouldn’t lose it. I had a stack of papers on the desk; all of my work stuff involving Jaxin was at the very bottom in case curiosity would happen to overtake him and he wanted to go through some of the boring papers at the top.

We ate dinner, and I had to admit, it was nice. I felt my palms grow sweaty. Who was I to publicly break the heart of the young man before me? I was just a girl after revenge. Petty, petty revenge. Before I even realized it, I had almost talked myself out of it. We finished eating and Jaxin helped me put the dishes in the sink. “Oh, hey,” Jaxin said as he scooted the chairs in, “can I use your computer really fast?”

I nodded. “Yeah, sure. But you’ll have to let me put in the password.”

He smiled and turned to go into the bedroom.

“Wrong room,” I called as I passed by. He turned around and followed me into the spare room. Jaxin sat down in the black rolling chair and I leaned over to type it in. “Here you go!” I chirped, then straightened up. In doing so, my elbow hit the pile of papers next to the computer. I turned and stared and horror. “Shit!”

Jaxin leaned down to help pick some up. “Here, let me—”

“No don’t touch it!” I screeched.

Jaxin recoiled, squinted at one of the papers, and picked it up. “Hey, that—”

I snatched it out of his hand. “It’s nothing.”

“What, nothing?” Jaxin demanded as he grabbed more papers from the floor and dashed to the bathroom.

I ran after him, yelling, “JAXIN DON’T READ IT. DON’T READ IT.” The door slammed shut in my face, and I stood there, waiting for the door to open. The door didn’t open for a minutes, and I sighed and slid down the wall next to the door, close to tears. Why had I written that stuff? Why did Jaxin have to see it? Would he hate me now?

I would hate me.

I held my tears in, thinking about how stupid I had been. Jaxin was reading all the things I had put into the article. Everything. After what seemed like an hour, but in reality was about five minutes, Jaxin opened the door. I scrambled to my feet to face the handsome boy in front of me. His eyes were watery, and his jaw was clenched. “Rory?” His voice cracked.

I nodded.

“How… how could you do this to me?” he asked.

“I wasn’t going to put it into the paper!” I put my hands up.

“Then why did you write it.”

“Well… I mean, I was going to do it. But then you came in and I just, I just couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry, Jaxin, I—”

“You betrayed me.” Hate filled his voice.

Anger burst within me. “You aren’t exactly the Angel of Goodness, Jaxin! You stole my song! You weren’t even my friend by the end of high school! Fame and glory and greed all went to your goddamn brain!”

He blinked. “Now, that’s not—”

“Not what?” I shot back. “Not true? Not fair? You think, Jaxin, that if the roles weren’t reversed, you wouldn’t have taken the chance to make me feel hurt like I had hurt you? It’s true, Jaxin, just face it. Just a taste of fame, and you were already turned into a monster,” I snarled.

“A monster?” he asked incredulously. “Me? No, Rory, you have it wrong. You’re the monster. No one can write this mean, horrible stuff about someone, string them along for months, and not be a monster. You, Rory Alison Walker, are a monster.” He shoved the papers at me and stormed away, stomping through the living room and kitchen and slamming the door shut.

I dragged myself to the bed and burst into tears.

I felt so alone, just as I had before I moved away from Warner Robins.

I hoped that the tears would bring a new beginning, just as last time had.