How to Love

Being in a relationship with Jake wasn’t that much different from simply being friends with him. We still hung out, worked on homework together (sometimes doing assignments from different classes for each other), and went out to dinner together. We continued mercilessly teasing each other about everything and generally just giving each other a hard time. The only major difference was that we kissed more often and shared a lot more moments of intimacy together. Neither one of us was big fans of PDA, so while we were at school or around other people, we kept our physical contact to a bare minimum, mostly just holding hands or hugging, occasionally kissing each other on the cheek. Mostly we saved anything else for behind closed doors when we were alone, which for the first week, didn’t happen that often.

The first Sunday after we’d gotten together, Jake and I went to the library together and then went back to the funeral home to watch Revolutionary Road. He fell asleep through part of it, but promptly woke up after I’d nudged him in the ribs. We met up with Liz and Matt for dinner afterwards, which was when we’d told them our news. Liz was a little peeved that I hadn’t told her immediately, though Matt was just happy that he’d won fifty bucks from both my dad and Alexander. Then they quickly started throwing advice at us about how their relationship lasted as long as it did.

Liz told us to keep our relationship as far away from any social networking sites as we possibly could and just take the relationship status question off of our Facebook pages completely. That way, she said, no one could creep on how our relationship was doing. That wasn’t a problem since neither one of us really used our Facebook pages anyway. Matt jumped in with telling us to keep doing things we’d normally do without the other person, like hanging out with separate friends. For example, Matt had his own friends that he liked to go paintballing with and Liz had me to hang out with. Even after we’d gotten back from dinner, Dad started in with his own relationship advice, which seemed more valid to me since my parents had met when they were sixteen and were together ever since their first English class together.

“Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to never go to bed mad,” he advised. “They’re full of shit. You try to duke things out before you go to bed, tensions rise, someone ends up sleeping on the couch, no one ever actually sleeps that well, and you end up dragging out ridiculous old fights. If you go to bed mad, when you wake up you probably won’t be pissed off anymore, or you might not even remember what you were ready to fight about. And if that’s not the case, then you probably have a clearer perspective on the situation and not as many emotions attached to it.”

“I think everyone you know is an expert on relationships,” Jake whispered to me as my dad had walked out of the room. I valued Liz and Matt’s advice, and it made a lot of sense, but anything my dad told us held more weight to me. My parents had been together for a total of twenty-five years. They’d been one of those fluke relationships, when you meet really young, fall in love, and get married. And even though everyone told them that they were too young to get married at eighteen and that their marriage would fail, they proved them wrong and were married for twenty-three years. In my mom’s last few months when we’d started getting close, she’d described to me the feeling she had the first time my dad ever looked at her, and how she felt that way everytime he looked at her after that. She said she felt invincible and beautiful, like she could take on anything and he’d be right there at her side. That was exactly how I felt with Jake.

When we returned to school on Monday, we didn’t do anything differently, nor did we change up our routine of doing homework together when our classes let out. Tuesday we’d gone out together and ran into Andrea and Dayna at some small coffee shop near the funeral home. The odds of that happening were slim, so I was a little surprised to see them, and not entirely enthused about running into Dayna again. We ended up all sitting together and talking for a while, which was when Jake told Dayna that he and I were dating now. Verbally, she took the news well, though she kept shooting daggers at me with her eyes the rest of the evening. When they were getting ready to leave and Dayna went to say good-bye to Jake, she tried to kiss him on the cheek and hug him, but he ducked out of it and gave her a side-hug instead, which she was not pleased about. Andrea made another obligatory virgin joke, and then they left.

“So I don’t think she took that well,” Jake sighed as we walked back, lacing his fingers through mine. “I don’t understand why she’s so hostile towards you.”

“She probably likes you,” I told him. I tried not to sound jealous when I said this, but more nonchalant. I knew I had nothing to worry about, though it still sort of bothered me that they’d lost their virginities to each other. It was pointless to even think about since it wasn’t like I could ask him to take it back or anything.

“Yeah, right.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it’s that.”

“It seems like it,” I said. “Why else would she unnecessarily hate me?”

“She doesn’t hate you,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “I think she’s just jealous that we’re hanging out so much, that’s all. She’s used to just being able to call me up to hang out whenever. I’m one of her only friends.”

“She was just hanging out with Andrea,” I reminded him. “It’s not like she’s entirely friendless.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, sighing a little. “I’ve just been the one to be there for her after all the shit she went through.” I wanted to ask what kind of shit he was talking about, but I figured it was none of my business. Besides, I wasn’t even entirely sure that I wanted to know. I didn’t need to pry after his next comment. “Her family’s kind of fucked up. And her brother’s a complete creep.”

I felt kind of bad after hearing that. I was blessed to come from a family who all looked out for each other. And with the way Jake had said that last part, I didn’t think my suspicions were that far of a leap from the truth. “Why don’t you hang out with her tomorrow or something?”

He paused. “You actually want me to hang out with her?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “What, is that so hard to believe?”

“Sort of,” he chuckled. “It doesn’t seem like you like her all that much either.” He smirked at me. “Actually, you seem kind of jealous.”

“Given your history together, is that so off-base?” I asked him. He contemplated that and shrugged, allowing me to continue. “And I don’t dislike her, I’m just not wonderfully comfortable with her. But she was your friend way before you and I even met, so I’m not going to tell her you can’t hang out with her or anything. If you want to, go ahead.”

“This still feels like a trap,” he said cautiously.

“Relax,” I laughed. “It’s not a trap. I’m not gonna tell you who you can and can’t talk to. I mean, if you told me that I couldn’t talk to Liz or something, I’d probably laugh in your face and tell you to take a hike. Dayna’s your friend, and like Matt said, you should keep being friends with people you’re close to. I trust you.”

“Thanks.” He bent down to kiss the top of my head, gently squeezing my hand as he did so. “I appreciate that.”

So Jake ended up hanging out with Dayna on Wednesday night. To busy myself, I re-organized the office and vacuumed the family room, which my dad complained about since he was trying to watch the news and drink his wine. When I was finished doing that, I wiped down the bar in the family room, which my great-grandparents had used often after the funeral home was first built since they used to entertain company pretty often. It was around ten when I was done with that, so I retreated to my room to fiddle around with my Netflix. I ended up watching a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, which took my mind off of Jake and Dayna for a while.

Jake had told me that they were just going to a movie and probably grab something to eat after. This was something platonic and simple, something I’d do with either one of my brothers or Liz. But the more I thought about it, I couldn’t stop picturing her sliding her hand up his thigh during the movie. She didn’t seem to be wonderfully respectful of his physical boundaries, and while I doubted that would happen, I knew Jake would put a stop to it if it did. Still, the thought was maddening, so I decided to call Liz.

When I was done explaining everything to Liz, adding my thoughts about how ridiculous I knew I was being, she finally commented. “A little jealousy’s fine, Veronica. It just shows you care. But the minute you start power-calling him, accusing him of shit, or God forbid follow him somewhere, then you’re being insane.”

I laughed. “It’s not that bad. I trust him. He’s been honest with me up until this point. I don’t think that will change anytime soon.”

“I don’t think so either,” Liz said. “So just don’t let your mind wander that far. Just stop with, ‘If she tries anything, he won’t give into it,’ and be done with it. That’s all.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Thank you for listening to me complain.”

“Hey, you listen to me complain about Matt all the time,” she replied. “Although we complain about everyone all the time, so that’s not like any of this is new.”

I laughed, and we said good-bye and hung up. I stayed up a little later to see if Jake would call me before I went to bed, and luckily he did right before I was ready to give up for the evening and just go to bed.

“So how was it?” I asked him after we’d said hello.

“It was okay.” He sounded disinterested. “The movie kind of sucked and the service we had at Steak N Shake was terrible. We were two of the only people in there and they stuck us in the corner and forgot about us.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” I scoffed. “What’d you go see?”

He told me the name of some movie I hadn’t heard of and went on to describe the ridiculously cliché plot. We talked a little more after that and then he said good-night, allowing me to go to sleep feeling better than I’d been feeling most of the night.

Jake worked an afternoon viewing for us on Thursday and after that, went to take his grandma to get her hair done, which he was not wonderfully thrilled about but had agreed to do weeks in advance. After he left, I hung out at the FH for a little bit and then Matt decided that he and Liz wanted me to come over, so they picked me up in his car and we went to Matt’s place. I’d only been there a few times, but it was surprisingly clean. We watched TV and joked around for a little while, and then Jake texted me and asked what I was up to. I told him I was with Matt and Liz, and they told me to invite him over, so he showed up about ten minutes later. We hung out for a little while longer and then Matt got a text from his friend asking him to get a beer. He asked Jake to come along with him, and he agreed.

“We’ll be back around eleven,” Matt told Liz, kissing her cheek. He started to put his coat on and then decided to hook up his Super Nintendo for us to play while he was gone. Jake kissed me good-bye as well and they were off. As soon as the door shut after them, Liz spoke up.

“They’re not coming back by eleven.” She shook her head, reaching for one of the controllers.

“They might,” I attempted to defend the guys.

“Please.” Liz rolled her eyes. “You know Matt. He has no concept of time whatsoever.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t argue with that. My dad, Alexander, and I were all notoriously on time for everything, while Matt took after my mother in that you could always count on him to be late, and usually by a large margin of time. “But Jake’s with him, so maybe they’ll be back by then.”

“I doubt it,” Liz said, shaking her head again. “I’ll bet you ten bucks that they’re not back by eleven.”

“Deal.” We shook on it and then put one of the game cartridges in the slot, which ended up being one of the many thousand Mario games. Liz picked Mario for her player, and I selected Luigi, so she ended up playing each of the different levels first. She was a better player than I was, so I spent a lot of that time trying to make her mess up, like telling her to jump when there were creatures above her that would kill her character. After about the third time, she learned her lesson and just started ignoring me. In return, Liz made fun of me everytime I’d accidentally kill myself on an easy level, like jumping and missing the next ledge. I never ended up completing a level on my own.

The time passed by faster than I had anticipated, but Liz seemed to be checking the clock every few minutes. Finally at eleven, she announced, “They’re not back yet. Pay up.”

I begrudgingly reached into my purse for my wallet and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “If they walk in in the next ten minutes, I want it back, though.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “They won’t be, though. I can promise you that.”

Again, Liz was right. By eleven-ten, they weren’t back. I didn’t see this as any reason to freak out, but Liz started getting antsy. She kept checking her phone in between us dying in the game, and after about another twenty minutes, she called Matt.

“He didn’t answer,” she said after about thirty seconds. “It went to voicemail.”

I shrugged. “They’re probably fine. Matt’s not that great about his phone anyway.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “It just makes me nervous when he’s late and I know he’s been drinking.”

“Well, Jake drove and he doesn’t really drink,” I told her in an attempt to comfort her. “Besides, Matt’s phone is probably in his pocket and he just didn’t hear it go off.”

“Yeah, probably.” She didn’t sound completely convinced. “Could you just try Jake and see if he answers?”

I agreed and dialed Jake’s number on my phone. I waited thirty seconds, listening to the phone ring. His phone also went straight to voicemail. I frowned, pressing the end button my phone. “He didn’t pick up either.”

“Still think they’re fine?” Liz asked as if she had just proven a point.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Obviously the bar they’re at is loud. Or they’re driving.”

“Honestly, all I see is visions of the car flipping over on the road,” Liz said bluntly.

“Jesus, Liz,” I complained. “Why do you have to immediately go there?” I wanted to tell Liz that I thought she was being hormonal, but I also didn’t want her to be mad at me, so I kept that to myself.

She ignored that. “Would you stay here until they get back? Please?”

“Sure,” I agreed. I was tired and wanted to go to bed since we had a big funeral in the morning, but I didn’t want to leave Liz by herself either. “It’s not like I can go anywhere anyway. I don’t have my car since you picked me up.”

“Well, you could call your dad and ask him to pick you up,” she suggested.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Yeah, because that would go over really well with him.” I didn’t say any more on the subject, but instead texted my dad to let him know that I’d be home late, though I didn’t know when, but I was safely at Matt’s apartment. He replied almost immediately thanking me for letting him know even though I’d just woke him up.

Liz and I got sick of playing Mario, so we tried a few more of Matt’s games and promptly decided that they were stupid. Around midnight, Liz tried Matt again, but the call went straight to voicemail. I was hoping I’d have better luck with Jake, but he didn’t answer either.

We gave up on the video games at that point and just flipped around between different late night talk shows while we waited to hear from one of them. Liz was getting more visibly anxious with every passing minute and I tried to keep my calm and assure her that things were fine. I didn’t doubt that they were, but several times Liz’s car crash scenario passed through my mind and I’d frown. Aside from that, I was mostly getting irritated since I wanted to go home and try to get some sleep for the morning. My dad would be gone on the funeral for most of the morning and Andrea couldn’t come in to clean, so I was in charge of cleaning in between the funeral and luncheon, answering phones, and trying to do extra paperwork.

Around twelve-thirty, Matt called Liz to tell her that they were on their way back and just had to stop for gas. They didn’t end up coming back until just slightly after one-thirty. Matt opened the door and came in first, Jake following behind him and they were laughing about something.

Liz glared at Matt as soon as she saw him. Clearly any worry that he could be dead had vanished and been replaced with annoyance. “I can smell you.”

Matt stopped laughing almost immediately. “I didn’t have that much. I was drinking Budweiser, it’s a heavier beer.”

“I can still smell you,” she said. I couldn’t smell either one of them and I felt like she was exaggerating, but since becoming pregnant, Liz had what seemed to be a super-nose. “Where were you guys?”

“We had to follow Brian home from the bar,” Matt explained, referencing the friend they’d met up at the bar with. “He was a little shaky and he got nervous. Just wanted to make sure he’d make it home okay.”

Liz didn’t seem to like this reason very much, but she relented a little. “Well, now that you’re back, I can at least go to bed.” She got up off of the couch and started down the hallway. “See you later, Veronica.”

We all watched her head down the hallway and close the door to his bedroom behind her. Finally Matt spoke up. “Is she mad?”

I made a face at him and replied in a very sarcastic tone, “Yeah, she’s a little irritated.”

“It’s not like I go out all that much,” he covered for himself. I didn’t know whether that was true or not, but it was none of my business what went on between them.

“Well, she is hormonal,” Jake offered up, speaking for the first time since they’d come in.

“Goddamnit.” Matt frowned. “That’s my fault, too.” He sighed. “Well, I’ll let you guys out.” He opened the door for us and locked it after saying good-bye.

I didn’t say anything to Jake most of the way out to his car. I walked slightly ahead of him the whole way, and when we reached the car, I shut my door with a little too much force in a passive-aggressive manner.

“So what, are you mad at me, too?” Jake asked, his hands resting on the steering wheel.

I was quiet for a moment before answering. “A little bit, yeah.”

“Look, I’m sorry that we were a little late-” he started, but I cut him off.

“Two and a half hours is more than ‘a little late.’ ‘A little late’ is more like a half hour. I’d even be willing to give you forty-five minutes.” I frowned, crossing my arms. “Two and a half hours is excessive. What, you and Matt can’t answer your phones?”

“Well, Matt’s a dumbass,” Jake said, facing me now. “My phone was on silent in my pocket the whole time, so I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry we were late. But I don’t know what you want me to do about it now.”

“What I want right now is for you to take me home,” I told him, sighing a little and rubbing my forehead. “I’ve got a lot I need to do tomorrow morning.”

“Shit, I forgot about the funeral.” He looked guilty now, which was almost enough to make me stop being irritated. It was mostly crabbiness from being tired that fueled it now. “I really am sorry. I didn’t even think about it.”

“It’s fine,” I said, letting it drop. I didn’t want to waste time arguing, and it honestly wasn’t even that huge of a deal at this point. “If we get back in the next fifteen minutes, I can probably manage five hours.”

He started the car. “Do you mind if we stop somewhere really quick?”

“Seriously?” I asked incredulously, annoyance spiking again.

“It’s important,” he insisted. He pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road, flipping on the radio as he did so.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “But can you please make it as quick as possible?”

“I will do everything in my power to make this lightning fast,” he promised. He made the motion like he was crossing his heart, which made me smile slightly. “See, there it is.”

I smiled a little more. “I’m sorry I’m being a grump-ass. I’m just tired and Liz made me start thinking that you died in a car crash, so I got worried.”

“Do me a favor,” Jake said, pulling up under a red light. He leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips. “Don’t listen to Liz anymore, okay? Not about stuff like that, anyway.”

“Okay,” I agreed, nodding. “But for the record, I wasn’t worried the entire night like she was. Maybe just like five percent of the night.”

Jake gave me a face like he didn’t quite believe me, but he let it go and he continued to drive me back, pulling into Giant Eagle as his detour.

“Really?” I asked. “This couldn’t wait until after you dropped me off?”

“Nope,” Jake said, parking his car and hopping out. “Couldn’t wait.” He offered no more explanation and headed inside. He was back out again in slightly less than five minutes, carrying one small bag. Climbing back into the car, he handed the bag to me. “A peace offering.”

I looked inside the bag and found a package of chocolate cupcakes inside which made me smile again. “Thank you, but this wasn’t necessary. I was done being mad about ten minutes ago.”

Jake shrugged. “Just making sure. Cupcakes never hurt anybody.”

“If you think my affection can be bought with cupcakes,” I started, peeking into the bag again, “you’re completely right. If you end every fight like that, we’ll be golden.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t necessarily call that a fight. I’d call that more of a minor disagreement. It’s only a fight if someone starts yelling.”

“Valid,” I agreed, tearing off the sticky part keeping the cupcake lid shut. I popped open the top. “You want one of my peace offerings?”

“I thought you had to get back,” he said, hesitating.

I shrugged at him, smiling. “I can make an exception.”