Shooting Love in Real Time.

“Marissa, I don’t know what to do,” I whined. It was now Sunday evening, and we were hanging out at the 24 hour coffee shop near the highway. It was the first time we’d really spoken since Thanksgiving. She came over the following day to see how I was, as promised, but she’d brought Jack along and I still felt like his loyalties lay with Alex a little more than they did with me, so I didn’t dare to say anything then. Instead, I had waited until today and stolen her away from Jack for a catch up.
“Explain it to me again. I don’t understand where this came from.” And so I explained for the third time exactly what had happened on Thursday night. She nodded along, still trying to fathom what was going on the same way as I had. I explained to her exactly what I had said to him, including missing out the part about when I told Alex I still loved him. I had tried to not tell her about what had happened in the kitchen of her house, but the story didn’t make any sense without it. Besides, I’d made her promise that it didn’t go any further than us unless Alex brought the subject up first. “And now you think he’s going to do something drastic?”
“Well, kinda, yeah! What else does ‘you’re going to regret this’ mean? It’s not anything good.”
“I guess not, but-“ A squeal from behind us cut her off, making us both stare at each other wide eyed.
“Oh, my God! It’s Jasey Rae and Marissa Jones!” We turned around to face the person calling us, knowing who it was going to be before we did.
“Hey, Jodie, it’s been a while,” I smiled, forcing myself not to act the way the eighteen-year-old inside me wanted to act. I hadn’t seen her since before the night of Alex’s record celebrations. And, to be perfectly honest, I can’t say I wanted to see her. She sat herself down at the spare seat opposite Marissa and I.
“How have you guys been?! I’d heard you moved away, Jasey!” I felt as if that was a jab, but she barely stopped for breath before continuing. “But you, Marissa! I hear you’re still with Jack Barakat. What’s that like? Is he still the same dweeb he was in High School?” She laughed to herself. So that’s what this was. She wanted to know what was going on and who was still with who.
“Yeah, Jack and I bought a house not so long ago opposite Jasey and Alex. We’re doing fine,” Marissa replied, a lot more civilly than I would have been.
“Really? Like I said, I didn’t even know you’d come back, Jasey.”
“Yeah, you’ve been back, what? Two years in January?” Marissa asked, trying to stop me from saying something that may backfire on me. While Alex and I weren’t together, and I didn’t want to stop him from doing whatever he wanted and seeing whoever he wanted, I felt like Jodie Stephenson may have been a step too far. If I let slip now that Alex and I weren’t together after Marissa had set me up so perfectly, I may yet live to regret it.
“Well, Alex finished the house two years ago tomorrow, so after I packed up and everything I would say, yeah, January.” I smiled at Jodie again, watching a brief look of surprise cross her face. “What are you up to these days?”
“Oh, nothing special! I work as a PA in a computing firm in Baltimore. The hours are long so I don’t get out and socialise as much as I used to. I’ve barely seen anyone from school in the last year or so since I started there!” I nodded along, false smile still plastered on my face. “And how’s Alex? I’ve been keeping track and it looks like they’re all doing well!”
“Yeah, they’re touring quite a lot lately. We’re so proud of them,” Marissa replied for me.
Jodie continued to spew mindless drivel at us for another ten minutes or so, getting no information of use from either Marissa or myself, before abruptly standing up to leave.
“Well, I guess I’d better be going,” she told us. “It was lovely seeing you both again. Oh, and Jasey, I did just want to say how sorry I was about the little trick I pulled in school. You know what it was like.” I snorted into my now cold coffee.
“’Little trick’? You slept with my boyfriend, Jodie.”
“Oh, darling, no! He wouldn’t have me. Is that what he told you? I mean, I kissed him, sure, but he pushed me off and walked away. I left that note for him to find to see how he’d react. What was it? Something like ‘I had fun last night, I hope you did too?’ I’m not sure. But nothing happened: he passed out drunk in the bed and left the note as a bit of fun.”
My stomach dropped to the floor. Was she serious? Did she deliberately do this, knowing it would split us up, when Alex had done absolutely nothing wrong? Did I seriously flip out and move across the country over a joke? The biggest trauma of my teenage years, something that had haunted both me and Alex for years, and it was nothing?
“It was nice seeing you, Jodie. We’ll pass your greetings on to the guys,” Marissa told her, knowing exactly what was going through my head.
“Marissa, what the hell did I do?” I asked, staring at her wide eyed once Jodie had gone.
“You did exactly what you should have done in the situation. He told you he’d cheated and you bailed. Anyone would have left him over that, Jase, it’s not your fault.”
“But it is my fault. He never said he had, only that he thought he had. I moved across the country over this.” I gasped for air, panicking and thinking over that night again. I beat myself up for this for years, for allowing this to happen. I broke Alex’s heart and held it over his head for years.
He did nothing wrong.
What the hell did I do?