To Be Alone With You

“You’re no good for her and we both know it,” Anna muttered lowly. You’re selfish and immature and are perfectly fine to walk all over her. You can’t just be happy for her, can you John?”

I opened my mouth several times in protest but couldn’t get anything out under her scathing glare. Josselyn’s sobs were evident from the hallway.

“You know what? She’s better off without you. I know you’re going to make up, she’s going to forgive you for forgetting about formal for your stupid band practice, but I wish she wouldn’t. You can be a real piece of shit, John, and I wish she saw it too.”



My phone was ringing in my pocket. It was two o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. No one was ever calling me in the afternoon on a Monday, not even the guys harassing me to let what happened with Kennedy go. What they didn’t understand was that I wasn’t mad at Kennedy anymore – I just wanted to make music and be happy again, that was all. He was the one holding a grudge like the little punk bitch he could be sometimes.

I tossed the Xbox controller on the ground, interrupting my game play of some zombie game I stole from my brother. That was all I’d been doing lately, other than fucking around with my guitar and praying that some stupid shred of inspiration would come to me. Other than sitting around waiting for Josselyn to call so I could talk to her.

Jesus, how the tables had turned. I sighed, reaching into my pocket to grab my phone before it stopped ringing. And much to my surprise, and maybe to my excitement, the caller ID read her name.

Josselyn Clarisse Stevens. The same name that used to make me want to gouge my own eyes out that now made me excited at the sight of it. I’d almost deleted it a thousand times, giving up the hope that one day she would ever call me – if she did, I would lose my resolve anyway and take her back. But something kept me from deleting it, and now I was somewhat glad that I hadn’t. At least now I could screen her calls if I wanted to, since we were back on talking terms. Not that I would even want to screen her calls anymore now that we were back on talking terms.

“What’s up?” I asked as casually as I could manage, slipping the phone beneath my shoulder in my ear to pick up the controller from the floor and restart my game.

“Um,” I heard her sigh, the line cracking a bit, like she was out in the wind. “I’m having kind of a weird day and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out.”

Those old instincts kicked in immediately, whatever protective nature I had left over for her taking over. “Are you okay?” I pressed, my finger resting on the play button.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she muttered, trying her best to sound her normal self. “I just really need some time with someone who doesn’t expect anything of me.”

So she admitted it, she was comfortable around me. My eyebrow quirked at this revelation and I pressed down on the button, triggering the game to begin.

“Okay,” I replied casually. “Let me take you out for real this time then. For Mexican on University?”

“At that place you like so much? How chivalrous,” she teased. I couldn’t help but laugh. She really could see right through me.

“If I recall correctly, you like it there too,” I countered, blasting through a couple of zombies on the way. “They have a picture of you on the wall.”

“They have a picture of us on the wall,” she reminded me.

It was true. We used to eat there all the time in college, before shit hit the fan and she let Anna Burns brainwash her into a pulp. We ate there enough that the manager wanted to hang our picture on the wall as best customers of the month, or something ridiculous like that. And the picture still hung there to the very day.

“You’re still in it, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sure, John… “she mused after a minute. “What if Kennedy finds out? He’s gonna murder you.”

I rolled my eyes. I was done with fighting with Kennedy over something that didn’t need to be fought over. He didn’t have Josselyn, he only thought he had her.

“Since when are you Kennedy’s girl?” I knew her weakness.

“Pick me up in an hour, then.”

And it wasn’t like I cared about them being together anyway, if that’s what she wanted. It had been four years. I needed to let it go, time and history and every stupid love song I ever listened to told me I needed to let it go. And having some sort of closure was helping me at least not see her as a shedevil, enough to want to spend time with her again.

“From Kennedy’s?” I questioned. “That’s bold.”

“Not from Kennedy’s, from my mom’s. I’m actually moving back in as we speak.”

I was speechless. She was moving out of Kennedy’s? What did that mean for them? What the fuck did that mean for us? Did it mean anything? I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all, did I?

“… oh,” was all I could manage.

“It’s still just temporary until I can find a new job,” Josselyn explained awkwardly. “But yeah. I guess just… call me or something when you’re on your way, okay? And choose something we haven’t done before. I think it’s time for us to start making some new memories, don’t you?”

I think it’s time for us to start making some new memories.

“I’ll see you then.”

I turned off the Xbox when we hung up and proceeded to stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to process what I’d just learned. Josselyn had moved out from Kennedy’s. Did that mean that they broke up, or did not breakup because they weren’t ever anything? Josselyn was back on speaking terms with her mom? Josselyn wanted to make new memories together?

I shook my head from its spin and instead turned my thoughts to a creative place to take her to dinner. She sounded stressed on the phone – I knew as well as the next person how stressful carting around heavy and important objects could be. It would bode well to do something fun, something to get her mind off things, something that she would like…

Pulling up to her childhood home was surreal. Nothing had visibly changed in the years that I had been away from it. I could have been pulling into her driveway like it was senior year again, Casey in the living room reading Vogue by the lamplight and Josselyn bounding down the sidewalk to meet me. Even her blue fixed gear was propped up against the porch banister. It was like walking though a time warp.

And there she was, bounding down the sidewalk to my car. I ashed my cigarette before she reached the door because I knew she would only yell at me, throwing herself into the passengers seat right next to me with a wide smile. Her hair fell loosely around her shoulders, lips as dark red as ever, shoulders bare in a flowy white dress.

She looked, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

There was a moment of silence between us as we looked at each other, her somewhat appalled at my slack jawed expression and me, as aforementioned, a little slack jawed. She cleared her throat, waving a little bit in front of my eyes to bring me back.

“Sorry,” I muttered, pushing my Ray Bans up my nose. “It’s just a little crazy, being back here like this.”

She smiled softly. “I know,” she agreed, glancing from me to her front door. “Kinda feels like yesterday when you put it like this, huh?”

“Kinda, yeah,” I agreed, smiling back at her. “But we’re making new memories tonight, right?”

“Right!” she exclaimed brightly, though I caught sight of The Brothers Karamazov in her bag and couldn’t help but think back to when I read it for her all those years ago.

“I think you’re going to like what I have picked out,” I hummed smartly, pulling out of the driveway. It was a ways from her house to the restaurant, but the time went quickly with the way Josselyn sang along to the radio in her hilariously off-key voice.

We pulled into the parking lot of one of the sushi restaurants in down and sat right at the bar, watching the chefs prepare sushi as they went. Josselyn was mesmerized at the art of it all, so excited to be up close and personal with the food she was about to be eating.

“You didn’t know I liked sushi,” she stated as she sipped at a glass of sake while we waited for our rolls to arrive.

“I figured you can’t really live in New York and be a writer and not like sushi,” I stated with a shrug, not drinking because I would later have her safety in my hands on the ride home.

“I guess you’re right,” she hummed, her expression turning excited as the chef handed our rolls over the glass partition. “I do love a good Rainbow Roll.”

And with that, she popped the raw fish boldly into her mouth. I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that she was defying my correct assumption by liking it even more than I could have thought. Very Josselyn of her.

We shared some small talk while we ate, like how unseasonably warm the weather was, how songwriting was coming on my end, how my family was doing. It was strange, talking to Josselyn like nothing had ever happened – like we had never even dated in the first place. Like we were friends. The step we had skipped the first time around.

“I suppose I owe you an explanation for all this,” she finally said, picking at one of the last rolls. “Since you were so kind as to take me out, after all.”

I shrugged. “Only if you want to tell me.” And as curious as I was, I meant it.

Josselyn took a long swig of her sake before beginning. “I think I’m starting to go stir crazy here again, John,” she muttered, pushing her long hair back from her face. “Everything is starting to remind me of everything I wanted to run away from when I moved to New York, you know? That, or… well never mind about that. At any rate, I just couldn’t stay with Kennedy anymore. I was starting to be a burden, you know? And he was starting to hold me down, I think.”

She took another long gulp and swallowed hard.

“He was holding you down how so?” I asked, curiosity certainly piqued.

“I shouldn’t have said that, it wasn’t what I meant,” she muttered, pausing before starting again. “It’s just that… I don’t know. He was making me too comfortable. Turning me into a little housewife. Not that that’s a bad thing, because I think maybe someday I’ll want to try my hand at it. But right now, I really want to get back to writing – move back to the city… or a city, anyway, I don’t really know yet. And Kennedy was distracting me from that.”

I sighed internally. Not exactly the blowout I was hoping for. And then it registered with me that I was hoping for a blowout, and it almost felt like I’d socked myself in the gut.

“Well, that’s not a bad thing then,” I hummed. “You need to do what’s best for you.”

Josselyn took another long sip from her drink, finishing off the glass entirely – her second or third one, I’d actually lost track. She pressed her forehead into her hand, shaking it a little bit like she was trying to get a thought from her head, the way she often did. And then she rubbed at her temples with her forefingers, the way she often did.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” she muttered lowly before turning to me. “Kennedy and I kind of had a fight. Something just wasn’t feeling right and I panicked and then I moved out. I still haven’t really explained to him why. But he’s kind of freaking me out, John.”

So there was a blowout. I tried to keep a level head and give her the very best advice I could, as a friend who was concerned for her well-being. Because that’s what I was, right?

“Kennedy can be kind of an intense person,” I agreed, popping the last roll in my mouth and handing the waitress the bill. “He moves fast. And yeah, he is looking for a girl to settle down with. You just need to decide if you want to be that girl – and if going to your mom’s to figure that all out is what you need to do, then I think you did the right thing.”

All she could do was smile at me.

And she smiled at me the whole way home, riding in the passenger seat with the window down and Ryan Adams blasting through the stereo. The crickets chirped while I walked her to her front door, smiling back at her as she stopped in front of me with a funny look on her face.

“Hey John?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you decided to stop being mad at me.”

And she wrapped her arms around me, standing on her tip toes to loop them around my neck and pull my body close to hers. A strangely familiar electric current shot through my spine at her touch, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wrapped my arms back around her and we stayed like that for a while, hugging and breathing and being.

I wish that Kennedy hadn’t been watching with a bouquet of flowers outside his car across the street.