To Be Alone With You

When Garrett told me that Josselyn had gone to San Francisco, I was mad.

When Garrett told me that John had gone after Josselyn, I was furious.

And when Josselyn told me that we needed to talk, I was sick to my stomach.

“Hey,” she greeted later that afternoon, leaned in my doorway in jeans and a hoodie, finally embracing the colder weather. The morale I had built up faltered at the sight of her, the anger I was harboring toward her and John melting if only for just a moment. She was so hard to be mad at. I didn’t know how John did it for four years.

“I hear you had a visitor in San Francisco,” I said in response, turning my sight away from her and instead to fiddling with the guitar in my lap.

“Who told you I went to San Francisco?” she asked, the surprise evident in her voice.

“Garrett.”

She scoffed, unable to help herself. “Of course.” I knew about her and Garrett’s relationship. He’d had yet to forgive her for breaking John’s heart all those years ago. That was the thing about Garrett. His loyalty sometimes held him back.

“So?” I pressed.

“Well, exactly,” she responded, and suddenly she was in front of me, pulling the guitar from my lap and setting it down next to the window. “So? If John came to visit me in California, that was his choice. What does it have to do with you?”

The words were between us before I realized their weight. “He got a leg up with you. That’s not fair.”

“Not fair?” she jeered, exasperated as she sat on the bed across from me. “Kennedy, how many times do I have to tell you. I’m not your prize to be won. This isn’t a competition. I’m capable of making my own choices and maybe there isn’t even a choice to be made.”

I recoiled a bit. I was only hurting myself when I talked like that. Of course I cared about her, of course I wanted to be with her. But something was wrong between us ever since that day she left to live with her mom.

“I owe you an explanation, Ken,” she breathed, casting her gaze down. “Whether or not you deserve it… I guess that remains to be seen. But I do owe it to you.”

I bit at my lower lip so hard it nearly drew blood. “I suppose that’s fair.” I had yelled at her unabashedly that night, tearing down any progress I’d made with her. I didn’t deserve it. I really didn’t. But that was the kind of person Josselyn was to give it to me anyway.

“The full story,” she clarified, her eyes flickering up to mine. “Just like you wanted. From the beginning.”

I nodded. “From the beginning.”

So she started. “My senior year of high school, I met John at the library,” she explained. “We went to different schools, so I’d never met him before. It was raining. He was a suave asshole. Nothing has really changed.”

That managed to squeeze a chuckle from my lips.

“He kept me waiting three days after we met until he asked me on a date. And after that day, we were inseparable. We were for the next year. We had our ups and downs like anyone, but we were young and in love. And that’s all that mattered. We both got into ASU, and even though I knew he wasn’t destined for college, I still encouraged him to go. And he wasn’t happy. And when he wasn’t happy, I wasn’t happy.

“I tried to make it work. It was hard – I was doing a thousand different things, working and writing… I joined a sorority, I eventually joined the newspaper staff… And John laid in bed or went to band practice and let himself be miserable. I guess it was my happiness that made him miserable, too.”

“You grew into different people,” I muttered, the situation finally becoming clear to me.

Josselyn nodded. “Different people with different goals, different things that made them happy. I found myself at school and John felt lost. And it took a toll on us. We fought a lot, my friends were telling me he was no good for me, telling him he was no good for me… it was just a bad situation.”

I grunted in as non-committal of a way possible. The jury was yet to be out on whether or not I thought John was good for her. I was still trying to convince myself that this was actually happening – that after all this time, I was finally getting some answers.

“Then what?” I asked after she’d been stuck in a pause for a while, her gaze cast out the window to a place I couldn’t seem to see.

She shook her head, coming back to me again. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve re-lived these moments a lot the last few days, trying to figure it all out. It’s been overwhelming.”

“Tell me about it,” I replied bitterly. She glowered at me for a moment but continued.

“I was offered an internship at The New Yorker the same day that John found out they were going to be able to do the California tour,” she sighed sadly, crossing her arms across her stomach as though she were in pain. “He wanted me to go, and even though I wasn’t sure… I went because I thought it would fix us. But I realized pretty quickly that I’d made a mistake.”

I sat and stared at her for a moment, surprised at her words. I hadn’t realized that things had gotten so bad for her at the end of her and John – I’d only ever heard his side, only ever seen the demon in the angel I so desperately found myself believing in. On my bed that afternoon, I found myself putting the pieces together. From Josselyn’s side.

“I’m not proud of how I handled the situation but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” she stated firmly, this time looking into my eyes with a fiery assurance. “That night I left the van when he was sleeping and left only a note behind saying I was sorry and packed my bags for New York.”

I couldn’t help but let a little gasp out. “That’s… cold.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t understand. It needed to be done. The way I did it was cowardly, but I needed to do it. The rest is between me and John.”

That was it. It was as easy as that. All those questions that haunted me about the beautiful Josselyn Clarisse Stevens were finally answered, gone in a puff of smoke. She ran away for her problems and finally, she’d come back and faced them.

“I couldn’t have done it without you Ken,” she murmured, her voice low. “For what it’s worth, you made all the difference. Without you, I never would have fixed all the things I’d broken. I needed you.”

We stared at each other for a while, our resolves wavering a bit in the late light. She looked so beautiful sitting just across from me – I wanted so badly to just reach out my arms and take her in them, but I could sense the change between us. Between the both of us.

“I just can’t keep on doing this Joss,” I muttered, my gaze struggling to stay on her. “I can’t keep going like this. You need to choose.”

There was a long silence between us before she finally lifted her head to me, a small, sad smile on her face. “I’ve already chosen, Ken. You and I both know that.”

“You choose John?” I asked incredulously.

“No,” she murmured. “I choose myself. Things can’t work out with us not because of me and John, or you and John, or all three of us. It’s because I’m not the girl you want me to be. You’ve been trying to fit me in this mold of this dream girl you’ve built me up to be but the fact is, I don’t fit it.”

“But Josselyn,” I pleaded, trying to convince her otherwise. She had to be wrong. I’d waited all this time to get her in my life; it couldn’t be ending this way.

“You know it’s true, though,” she argued. “I’m not the housewife that will make you breakfast and stay at home while you go on your adventures. I’m on my own adventure right now. There’s just no way we could make this work.”

I nodded, in shock but aware. She was right.

“But I don’t want this to affect the band,” she continued. “I need you and John to stay friends. I need The Maine to stay together. Because I’m not worth you guys breaking up.”

It was my turn to give her a sad smile. “If there’s anything worth breaking up over, it’s you,” I replied wryly. “But I understand. And agree. Those guys are way too important to me. And I’m going to be able to write some kick ass songs after all this.”

Her grin turned wider. “Well, unfortunately it wouldn’t be the first Maine song about me,” she joked good-naturedly, reaching to give my hand a squeeze.

“What will you do?” I asked. “Go back to New York? Find work now that Rick is gone?”

And finally, she was beaming. “I think I’ll go to San Francisco.”

“And John?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

“We’ll see.”

She stood and pulled me to her then. I took her in my arms and buried my face in those long, raven curls for the last time, feeling the loss of her already. She’d been gone for a while by then and I knew it, but holding her for those last few moments was letting go of a dream I’d dreamed for a long time. And with her cheek pressed to my chest, I promised myself I’d be okay. Because I knew she’d be okay.

We all were going to be okay.