To Be Alone With You

I finished out my freshman year with a 4.0 and a hole in my heart, longing to go to New York for my dream internship but deciding instead to stay by John’s side. He was too excited to notice the difference in my mood, running about and getting everything together before the guys would hit the road. I sat and watched from the back seat as he threw in the last of his bags and crawled across me in the van, Garrett eyeing me skeptically.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this, Joss?” he asked as he started the car. “It’s a big decision.”

I smiled weakly. “I’m fine, Garrett,” I assured him. “Just drive.”

But I was far from fine, in fact, I was anything but. The sunset had begun to set on the horizon, the same way I felt the sun was already setting on my career. I had turned down one of the biggest names in the business for an adventure with my boyfriend. How would that look to future employers? All I could think of was how I must appear – flighty and weak – and how no one could ever hire me after such a seemingly weightless decision.

John was asleep in hours once the sky grew dark, and my hands were growing antsy. We were nearly to the border by then, so close to California I could nearly taste it. But I was panicking. Panicking and unable to keep it together.

So when Garrett pulled off the highway to get gas, I took one last look at John. His lips curled at the corners, so happy to be pursuing his dream, so happy to not be where I was happiest now. He looked peaceful. He looked well.

Well enough without me, I decided. So with shaking hands, I scribbled a goodbye. So with shaking hands, I ran and never looked back.



We walked to the harbor, out to a bench at the end of Pier 40, the masts of the yachts at dock like spires against the darkened horizon. The city glowed behind us, the lights never ceasing, the outline of the ballpark still aglow with the rows of fluorescent bulbs. We didn’t hold hands, we didn’t touch, we didn’t even speak. We just started walking and finally stopped on this bench, the cold wind whipping at our faces like we’d done something wrong.

But in my heart I knew what we’d done wasn’t wrong. In fact, everything finally felt right. John’s lips made everything fall into place for me, just blocks down from Wired, the promise of a new future tingling on my skin. Everything finally felt good again. Aside from one missing piece of the puzzle.

Our gazes locked out over the sea, catching glimpses of Oakland just across the channel. California truly was a beautiful place, I’d decided. Along with a multitude of other decisions. But I could see myself in California. I could see myself just a short plane ride from my mom again, I could see myself without the pressures of the big city, of the East coast in general, I could see myself in the rolling hills of San Francisco. And scarily, and perhaps a little hastily, I could see myself with John. But not until that last piece could fit into the puzzle.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked finally, the melody of the waves lapping around us broken by his voice.

I sighed, shaking my head. “You’re going to hate me for ruining the moment.”

John laughed. “Try me.”

I was quiet for a moment, trying to plan out all the things I thought I’d had more time to develop. I wasn’t thinking we’d have this conversation until I returned to Tempe, before John changed all those plans entirely. I managed to choke some of it out on the plane, having just a gasp of time before being thrown into a whole new world again. But before I went forward with any of that, I needed to begin with John.

“You’ve been so great,” I hummed softly, keeping my eyes on the water. “Forgiving me without any sort of explanation, that is. Letting go of everything. Seeing past all of the issues we still have between us.”

I could feel him shift uncomfortably next to me. “I realized that I may never find out,” he explained cautiously, pulling a cigarette carton from his pocket. “You seemed to have put it past you and if I wanted to be with you, I needed to put it past me too. So once I figured out all the different things I was feeling, I kind of just put it past me.”

A small quiver went through my pulse. “I didn’t mean to make you get over it,” I mumbled, feeling guilty. “No one should ever just have to deal with things.”

I glanced over to him just in time to see him shrug. “You had no problem with making me just deal with it for four years,” he countered, still a little bitterly. “But for some reason, seeing you again made me realize there must have been a reason. You’ve always had a reason.”

“I’d like to tell you that reason right now,” I replied.

There was another long silence between us, John fumbling awkwardly with the package of cigarettes as he tried to maneuver one into his mouth. “John,” I sighed. He knew I didn’t like it when he smoked.

“Listen,” he stated, a little shake audible in his voice. “I’ve been waiting for this for four years and my nerves are going fucking crazy. So I’m gonna smoke a cigarette or two to calm myself down. We can talk about habits later, alright?”

I exhaled slowly. “Alright.”

Again, silence. I didn’t know where to start. There were a million places I could pick up and start explaining from – the day I got my letter from ASU, the first time we met Anna, one of the millions of times I felt a disconnect between us.

“That day, when you told me you were going on tour with the guys and that you wanted me to come with, I was coming to tell you that I’d been offered an internship with The New Yorker,” I began, again looking away from him. “I was going to accept it. But then I saw how happy you were, and how badly you wanted me there with you, and I thought maybe it would be a chance to fix everything that was so broken with us.”

John nodded softly, surely already aware of where this was going.

“So I thought I would try, for us,” I continued. “Because there was a part of me that still loved you then, even though Anna tried her hardest to convince me you were no good for me. Even though you didn’t approve of my dedication to school.”

“I just thought you spent too much time studying and not enough doing things that made you happy,” he countered in an entirely non-aggressive way.

“But I was doing things that made me happy,” I insisted softly. “You were the one who was unhappy in school. College is where I found myself, John. When I wasn’t a twin, or just your girlfriend. I was a sister. I was a writer. I was me. But I couldn’t be happy because you weren’t you. And I thought that maybe if I went with you on tour it would have fixed things. To see you happy again. For us to be happy again.”

“You could have gone to New York, I would have supported you,” he pressed, taking a long drag off his cigarette. I couldn’t bear to look at him.

“You know it would have been the end of us, John, there’s no use in lying about it now,” I muttered, kicking my feet against the wooden planks of the pier below us. “It was, anyway.”

“It was?”

I nodded and proceeded to tell him the story of that night. How Garrett stopped the van to get gas and how I snuck out when he went inside to pay. How I called my mom from the bathroom and she came and got me and we both cried all the way home, her for seeing my pain ripped wide. How two days later, I was on a plane to New York, and later running coffee for one of the biggest publications in the city.

All the while John nodded, soaking it all in. Knowing then what had happened and took it in stride. He puffed solitarily on his cigarette, and then on another, stealing glances at me with his sad, green eyes.

“I knew you never really wanted to go to college,” I breathed. “And that was my fault, for pushing you into something you didn’t want to do. I should have known better. But you were so in love with me and I took advantage of that so we could be together.

“When you pushed me into something I didn’t want to do, I had the bravery to get out. I had the bravery to leave but I was a coward in doing it without telling you. I didn’t know how. I was so afraid to leave you, I was afraid that I would lose my nerve if I told you in person. So I ran instead. I saw how miserable you were not doing what you wanted to do, and I didn’t want to be that same way. So I went to New York.”

He was quiet for a while, finally glancing at me with soft eyes. “You would have loved California.”

“I do now.”

He reached for my hand, taking it in solidarity. I was amazed. In just a few short months, he learned how to forgive. He had forgiven. He took my faults and my strengths and accepted them for what they were. And at the end of the terrible story, he was still holding my hand.

“I wish I could say I wish I did it differently, John,” I hummed, squeezing his hand. “But I did what was best for me, and you did what was best for you. We weren’t right for each other then. We needed to go on separate paths for a while to figure ourselves out and achieve our dreams, and look at us now. We have accomplished so much and our paths happened to cross again.”

My breath was beginning to solidify in the cold night air.

“I believe that it’s some sort of fate for us to be together,” I continued gingerly. “Even if it wasn’t then. The only part I truly regret is that letter.”

John pulled his billfold then from his pocket, peeling out a piece of paper. My heart seized in my chest when I realized what it had to be. It was dirty and worn, the edges torn a little from apparent use. The material was practically falling apart at the seams. And when he unfolded it, I saw my handwriting, and I knew.

John,





Tears formed in my eyes entirely against my will. “You kept this?”

John nodded sadly. “I never stopped loving you, and I’m not sure I ever will,” he recited from memory, only this time to me. “But someday came, and I found it in myself to forgive you.”

And in a moment of overwhelming emotion, I threw myself on him, sobbing into a kiss of regret and happiness all at the same time. My entire body shook as I kissed him, my hands cupping at his stubble-ridden cheeks, his lips kissing mine in return. His arms went around my waist, pulling me closer to him, embracing me finally when we pulled apart.

Something about him appeared to change, like things were lighter again. I felt lighter again. We’d reached a turning point, John and I. Everything was out in the open. He still forgave me after knowing the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And that had to be sign that we both had grown up enough to be together again. We both learned how to give again, how to be selfish again. How to be again.

“I guess there’s just one last part I don’t understand,” he muttered into the wind after a moment. “That night we played the show in Tempe, the night that I saw you in the crowd… what were you doing there?”

My heart clutched in my chest once more. That was certainly a part I had forgotten to tell him, one that I had hoped I’d never have to talk about again. Immediately, I was brought back to that night, and the events of the day before it, and felt weak and entirely powerless. Tears welled in my eyes before I was able to choke out a response.

“I was there because of Casey’s funeral.”

I could see all the breath leave John’s lungs all at once, in one fluid exhale of shock. “What?” he breathed, his voice transparent.

“Casey’s dead, John,” I cried, a sob breaking in my voice. “Casey’s dead and it’s all my fault.”