How to Love

“Veronica,” Jake said tiredly. “I can literally hear you worrying. Stop.”

It was the night before our last day of classes, and both Jake and I had our five hundred point presentations due for psych in the morning. Jake, ever the model of composure and confidence, was absolutely fine with this fact. I, on the other hand, was ready to throw up. In an effort to calm me down, Jake had offered to spend the night and practice my speech with me. We’d done that approximately five or six times, but it had done nothing to calm my nerves. We’d decided to try to go to bed early, but the closer it got to morning, the more anxious and nervous I was getting.

“I’m not doing anything,” I protested

“I know,” Jake said. “You’re quiet. Silent. I can’t even hear you breathing which is what’s worrying me.”

“Sorry I’m not a mouth-breather.” I kicked him beneath the covers, earning a smile from him.

“Neither am I.” He kicked me back, though not quite as hard.

“You are when you’re sleeping,” I told him. “As soon as you fall asleep, you start breathing out of your mouth and then sometimes you snore really loud.” The last time Jake had slept over, he’d been extremely tired and started snoring so obnoxiously that I’d taken my stuff and went to sleep on the floor of the family room near my dad.

“Yeah, and you moan,” Jake said, pausing for a second as if to contemplate this. “Although that’s more sexually frustrating than anything else, really.”

I kicked him again, chuckling. “Such a smartass.”

“I’m just trying to get you to relax a little,” he replied. “Partially.”

I laughed again. “Let me just tell you, though: your snoring is not a turn-on.”

He shook his head like he was deeply disappointed in this revelation. “Some women just have no taste, apparently.” He pulled me closer to him, laying my head on his chest and then resting his chin on top of it. He reached towards the table on his side of the bed and grabbed the remote, flipping the TV on. “It doesn’t seem like you’re gonna be getting much sleep tonight so maybe it’s time to try out that C-SPAN cure of yours.”

“I’m not sure that even that can fix this,” I said with an eye roll. “I’m more than a little strung out.”

“Well, there are other ways of getting you to relax,” he said, running one hand along my stomach and using the other to push my hair to one side so he could kiss my neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him, smirking coyly. “Getting my nails done is pretty relaxing, but the nail place is closed.” By some stroke of luck, Liz had apologized to me about our fight, citing pregnancy hormones and a long day as her reasoning. In an effort to make it up to me, she’d taken me to get my nails done for the first time, and it proved to be insanely relaxing, so needless to say she was more than forgiven.

Jake sighed overdramatically. “I give up. We’ll just watch old men talk about politics.”

I tilted my head to kiss him. “I’m kidding, Jake.”

“Nope, sorry,” he resisted, smiling. “The moment’s gone. You lost your chance.”

“Shut up,” I said, laughing a little. “You’re so full of shit, you know that?”

“Of course,” he said, shifting to kiss my neck again. I let out what I considered to be a quiet moan since that was one of my soft spots. This was met with a knock from the other side of the wall.

“I can hear you,” Andrea announced from her room.

Jake sighed loudly, more than a little agitated. “Cock-blocked again.”

“Evidently, we’ll be settling on C-SPAN,” I replied, rolling my eyes. This was just another thing that annoyed me about Andrea living at the funeral home: there was no way to get any alone time with Jake. She seemed to be making it her personal mission to prevent any kind of relations between us and since I wasn’t wonderfully comfortable about sharing his bed with him under his grandmother’s roof, we’d been at a standstill on that issue. Truth be told, it was getting old fast.

We didn’t talk much more after that, falling asleep pretty quickly to the drone of monotone-voiced men. Morning still felt like it came too soon and the nausea attributed to my presentation returned. I skipped out on breakfast, though Jake was more than happy to eat my share of Dad’s scrambled eggs as well as his own. We drove to school together in Jake’s car and managed to arrive on time.

Class started and the instructor wrote down the order of presentations on the board. Naturally, though to my dismay, my name was listed first with Jake’s third.

“At least you can get it done and over with,” he attempted to comfort me, noting the sick expression that I could feel returning to my face. “Then you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Just pretend that we’re in your room practicing it. You know what you’re talking about, trust me. If you get nervous, just look at me.”

I nodded and thanked him, trying to keep that in mind as I set up my presentation. Finally, I was ready to start and throughout my presentation, I tried to keep my voice steady. Anytime I started to falter, I looked over to Jake who was always ready with an encouraging smile or a thumbs up. Eleven minutes later, I was finally done and I felt the nausea in my stomach die. I took my seat feeling much better.

“God job,” Jake congratulated me, taking my hand and squeezing it under the table.

“I thought we agreed on no handholding,” I teased him, remembering the first day of class. It had only been about four months, but it felt like the time had sped right by.

“And I was pretty sure we put a stop to that policy a long time ago,” he replied, winking.

The rest of class went by pretty quickly, and as expected, Jake got through his presentation flawlessly. With the conclusion of class, we headed out to his car, celebrating the fact that the semester was finally over.

“I feel about eight thousand times better,” I told him on the ride back to the FH.

“Yeah, same here,” Jake agreed, and then his eyes seemed to light up all of a sudden. “I just had the most awesome idea.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he told me, smiling coyly. “Listen, I’m gonna drop you off and pick you up again in about an hour.” He eyed me quickly in my jeans. “Probably you’ll want to put some shorts on or something. We’ll be outside for the rest of the day, and it’s hot as hell.”

“Now I’m a little nervous about what you’ve got planned,” I admitted, glancing at him suspiciously.

“Oh, and tell your dad that you’re gonna be out past your curfew, but only by like an hour or so.”

“See, now I’m really curious,” I persisted. “Do I get any kind of hint as to what we’re doing? Because my dad’s gonna ask and I need something to tell him.”

“Just tell him that we’re having a stress relief day,” he instructed, then shaking his head and adding, “ Actually I’ll just call him when you get upstairs. It’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, stretching the word out.

“It’ll be awesome,” he assured me, pulling into the parking lot and under the canopy. “I’ll be back in an hour. Remember, cool clothing, and you might want to pull your hair back.”

I agreed and hopped out of the car, waving good-bye as I went inside. By the time I got upstairs, my dad was already on the phone talking to Jake and was nodding and agreeing. They hung up a few moments later and after my dad asked about my presentation, he sent me off to go get changed and relax a little.

Exactly an hour later, I saw Jake’s car pull back into the parking lot. I said good-bye to my dad and went down stairs to meet Jake, expecting to see only him. Instead, I was met with two more familiar faces, Alexander and Clay.

Jake rolled down his window, smiling in almost an apologetic way. “Hey, do you mind sitting in the back with Clay? I tried to get your brother to give up the front seat, since I told him I’m not riding around with my girlfriend in the backseat because that’s fucking stupid,” he shot a glare at Alexander with that, “but he won’t budge.”

“I have longer legs than she does!” Alexander argued. “I need the room!”

Jake rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

“That’s fine,” I said and opened the door to slide in next to Clay, greeting him.

“So are we all set then?” Jake asked after I’d buckled in, all of us nodding. He turned his radio on and pulled out of the parking lot, making a left. His music was loud, and though I was used to and often liked the strange stuff he played in his car, Alexander and Clay had the opposite reaction.

“Jake, why do you always insist on playing this shit?” Clay asked, making a face as if he’d smelled something bad.

“Because it’s my car and I do what I want,” Jake replied. “Sorry Clay, but some of us actually like music produced after the nineteen-seventies.”

“Man, I could kill Devan for getting you into this stuff,” Clay commented.

“Who’s Devan?” I asked, curious. I thought my tone seemed neutral, but everyone else seemed to quiet.

“A girl I used to date,” Jake finally responded, and then added, “It was way back in sophomore year, though.”

“They dated for all of five seconds,” Clay jumped in, looking like he was sorry he’d said anything.

“Try four months,” Jake said, scoffing. “We were better friends than anything, to be honest. She’s married now, so we don’t hang out much, but we talk every now and then.” He looked in the rearview mirror like he was trying to gauge whether or not I was mad.

“Okay,” I said. “Was that pre-asshole phase or during-asshole phase?” I truthfully didn’t care much about this little revelation, but I asked mainly to get a time frame. When Jake talked about his past, he was often vague and private, making it very difficult sometimes to put all the pieces together. Also, after his whole admission of the Maria thing, there was very little he could say that would shock me.

“Pre-asshole,” he said. “Junior year was the beginning of my asshole phase.”

“And what a phase that was.” Clay rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” I said, ignoring him and letting the subject drop. “So when do I get to find out where we’re going?”

“Oh, shit, you didn’t tell her?” Alexander asked and laughed.

“No, I didn’t,” Jake said to him and then addressed me. “Cedar Point. Why?”

“Because the last time we went there, she had a panic attack when we got stuck on the lift hill of the Iron Dragon,” Alexander reminisced. “It was hilarious.”

“Gee, thanks,” I told him sarcastically, embarrassed at the memory. The summer before Mom had gotten sick, we’d all gone on a family vacation to Cedar Point for the weekend. I’d never been a big fan of roller coasters, but since the Iron Dragon was one of the smaller coasters there, I’d let Dad and Alexander convince me to go on. I’d sat next to Dad while Alexander sat behind us. I’d had fun for the first half of the ride, but when we got to the second lift hill, it stopped working and locked in place, leaving us hanging there for about fifteen minutes. I’d started hyperventilating and while Dad tried to calm me down, Alexander laughed at me.

“I’m not a fan of roller coasters either,” Clay said. “We can just ride the little stuff.”

“No,” Jake disagreed. “This will be therapeutic for both of you then, facing your fears and whatnot.” He caught my eye in the mirror again. “And you’ve looked like you’ve wanted to scream for the last two weeks, so this is a perfectly socially acceptable way of doing that.” I must have looked incredibly wary of this. “It’s fine, I promise.”

The rest of the ride, Alexander and Clay tried to talk over Jake’s music, though he just kept turning it up, so they finally gave up. When we finally arrived, I was surprised to see barely any cars in the parking lot.

“Wow.” Alexander whistled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place less crowded.” Everytime we’d ever gone to Cedar Point as kids, it had always been crawling with people which was the main reason Dad never liked to make the hour and a half voyage.

“It opened early this year,” Jake said. “I don’t think anyone’s quite figured that out. Plus a lot of people are at work or school.”

“Yay for being unemployed,” Clay muttered, making me stifle a laugh.

We all walked to the entrance and Alexander bought his ticket with his military discount. Jake had bought tickets for me and Clay at his bank since they were slightly discounted there, though they were still almost fifty bucks each. We walked into the park and got our picture taken by the stupid park people and then moved on to try to figure out what to ride first.

“My vote is for the scrambler,” Clay announced. We took a seat underneath one of the trees, passing around some of Alexander’s sun lotion. It was abnormally hot and sunny for early May, but it was a nice reprieve from the months of snow that we’d had.

“No,” Alexander immediately vetoed, barely looking up from slathering his calves with sun screen. “We have to go on the Millennium Force. Go big or go home.”

“Okay, compromise,” Jake intervened, taking the bottle from Alexander and rubbing the lotion on his arms. “We should just go on the new one, the Gatekeeper.”

“How is that a compromise?” Clay argued. “It’s still a roller coaster! Guys, I’m still trying to work my way off of the Iron Dragon, okay?”

“It’s not that big of a roller coaster,” Jake answered.

“It has loops and my feet dangle,” Clay continued to disagree. “I do not like that shit. Veronica, back me up on this.”

“Don’t drag me into this.” I threw up my hands in surrender. “I was just planning on holding the bag while you guys rode stuff.”

“What? No.” Jake shook his head. “Did you miss the whole talk about this being therapeutic? We all ride or no one goes on. That’s just the way it works.”

Clay started to argue again, but I interrupted him. “Okay, how about this: we just alternate between big rides and small rides. Then everyone’s happy.”

“I can live with that,” Alexander said, Jake nodding in agreement. Finally Clay also relented and we got in line for the Gatekeeper. I spent the entire time in line mumbling about how I was probably going to die on the ride and that my family had better get an impressive settlement from Cedar Point if that happened. When I wasn’t busy doing that, I was watching the train make its way up the lift hill.

“One, two, three, four….” I counted, staring at the coaster.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Alexander demanded after the third time I did this.

“I’m trying to count how many seconds it takes for the train to reach the top,” I explained. Jake shot me a curious look, so I continued. “The worst part for me is usually the lift hill because heights freak me out, but I figured I might not want to vomit as much if I can just time how long it takes to get to the top and keep my eyes shut for however many seconds it’ll take.”

“What if I just talk to you and distract you?” Alexander suggested.

“No,” I told him. “All you’re gonna say is, ‘Hey, remember when we got stuck on that lift hill last time? Ha-ha, that was so funny.’ No. I’m not putting up with that for twenty-eight seconds.”

Finally we made it to the front of the line. Alexander and Clay took a seat behind Jake and me, who continued to assure me that I would not die on the ride and that I’d probably actually like it if I gave it a chance. Before I had a chance to change my mind, we were strapped into the seat and were beginning our ascent up the lift hill.

“I feel like I’ve probably said the words ‘just relax’ to you more times in the last twenty-four hours than I have to anyone else, ever,” Jake commented about halfway up the lift hill.

“You’re making me lose my place,” I crabbed, frowning harder as I tried to remember how far along I’d been in my countdown before he’d interrupted.

“Don’t bother counting anymore, we’re like three seconds away from the top,” he said. Before I had time to react to this, we were dropping down the hill, followed by a series of corkscrews and loops, followed by more sharp turns and hills. I was quite positive that I had never screamed so much in my life, but by the time we got off the ride, I was laughing and smiling. Jake had a satisfied smirk on his face as we pulled into the station. “Didn’t I tell you that you were going to love it?”

We all got our safety straps off and hopped off of the coaster, though Clay looked very dazed and confused as we made our way to the exit.

“Are you okay, buddy?” Jake asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder while Alexander muttered something under his breath about Clay being a pussy.

“That,” Clay started dramatically, “was…fucking…awesome!”

We all laughed at him and went through the little gift shop, buying the photos that they took on the ride and sticking them in the backpack Jake had bought. We spent the rest of the day trying all the rest of the roller coasters except for the largest one, the Top Thrill Dragster. Alexander said he didn’t blame us on that one since it took him about five years to work up to that one. Most of the rides went uneventfully, though I freaked out a little while we were in line for the Millennium Force since I was sure I was going to have an aneurysm on the three-hundred foot tall ride.

After hitting everything two or three times, it was about ten-thirty and the park was closing. We bought all the stupid ride pictures and went back to buy a few t-shirts and pick up the photo they’d taken of us upon our arrival to the park.

“I’m so impressed with you right now,” Alexander said to me on the walk back to the car. “I managed to get you on the second tallest coaster there and you didn’t cry. Dad’s gonna be so happy.”

“Ha-ha,” I fake-laughed along with him. “One day I’m gonna be able to tell Dad that you’re not a douche bag, but today just doesn’t seem to be that day.”

“I have to do something, I can’t make the virgin jokes anymore,” Alexander said, shooting Jake a mildly nasty glance. “Thanks a lot for that, Jake.”

Jake looked like he wanted to respond, but then shook his head, obviously deciding that it was probably better not to. We piled into the car the same way we had when we’d driven there and went in search of somewhere to eat. After driving around for forty-five minutes and arguing about where we’d finally stop, we ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings. After getting a table, we all went to our respective bathrooms after holding at all day. While in the stall, I learned that “Jessica P. is a slut” among other local gossip.

We enjoyed goofing around at dinner and then started to head back home. The drive back was much calmer and Jake kept his music pretty quiet, no one bothering to dispute it this time. I felt myself drifting off in the back seat and about an hour later, Jake was turning around to whack Clay’s knee.

“Hey Romeo, wake the fuck up,” he was saying. This woke me up before Clay, and I was surprised to find that as I’d slept I’d slumped over onto Clay’s shoulder and he’d done the same to me. When Clay continued to sleep and mouth-breathe, Jake leaned farther into the back seat and tweaked his neck.

Clay woke up panicked. “What the hell was that for?!”

“For Snorlax-ing it up in the backseat with my girlfriend,” Jake replied. “And also we’re at your house, so it’s time to hop out, my friend.”

Clay wiped at his eyes and then opened the car door, thanking Jake for his Cedar Point ticket and for driving. We all said good-bye to him and then went through the same routine with Alexander about five minutes later at his place. As Alexander got out, I climbed into the front seat next to Jake. We waved good-bye to Alexander and then pulled back out onto the road, heading back to the funeral home.

“So you and Clay looked pretty comfy in the back,” Jake commented as we reached the bottom of the hill on Alexander’s street.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Oh come on, you’re not seriously jealous are you?”

“Possibly the tiniest bit,” he admitted. “Alexander mentioned to me one time that you used to like Clay, so I guess that’s only a little bit natural.”

“Used to is the key term here,” I said, laughing a little. “Can you seriously see me going out with Clay? I can guarantee you that he’d be dragging me to sports events every weekend, plus he and I usually have very little to talk about.”

“I like going to sports games,” Jake pointed out.

“Yeah, but you never make me go,” I said. “You just go with your friends. Although if you asked me to go, then I probably would. I might be bored out of my mind, but if it made you happy I’d do it. Just like how I sit through all of your different Gordon Ramsay obsessions.”

“I thought you liked Gordon Ramsay.” Jake frowned, throwing a glance my way as he pulled up at a red light.

“I do,” I told him. “Just unlike you, I can’t watch the video of him making scrambled eggs five thousand times in a row. The egg turns out the same everytime, and he still burns the toast.”

“I’m perfecting it,” he insisted. “And you definitely didn’t complain when I made those eggs for you a few weeks ago.”

“I’m not saying anything about the quality of the eggs!” I argued. “How the hell did we get from your jealousy about Clay to debating eggs?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure,” Jake said after a momentary pause. “But let’s just leave it at me being over it because I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. We were both quiet for a few minutes before Jake started talking again.

“Did the Devan comment that Clay made make you jealous?” he asked.

“Will it make you feel better if I say yes?” I countered, grinning a little.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Then yes, it made me ridiculously jealous,” I teased, resting my hand on his knee.

Jake glanced down at my hand and then smirked to himself. “I think I might just like you being jealous.”

“What time did you say you’d have me back by?” I asked him, checking the clock on his dashboard.

“One-thirty,” he replied. “Why?”

“Because it’s only one now,” I said. “Pull over. I think we’ve got some business we have to take care of.”