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“Stay with me,” I say. “Please?”
Asking him to stay like this humbles me in a way I wasn’t fully prepared for. But can I really be any more humbled than I already am? With everything Ian’s seen tonight, I’ve been laid bare. Exposed. Ian has seen my deepest shame, and he didn’t run screaming. He stayed and took care of the mess with me. It isn’t surprising, because this is who Ian is.
He has always been open and honest with me, and I’ve been hiding. Now he knows the truth. He knows it all, in fact. He’s seen into the darkest corners of my life—to the hidden places, the rooms I’ve kept secret.
And still, he’s in my bed, crawling under the covers and opening his arms to me. Still, he holds me when I lie next to him, the press of our bodies a comforting warmth. Still, he tucks me against him, promising without saying a word that he is safe.
That I am safe.
And I think I might believe him.
17
IAN
“So sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier grow . . .”Act III, Scene II
Before Jade, my life was like riding a train. Steady, predictable, with no discernible ups and downs. But since I was cast in the one-act, since Jade McKinney took up space in my life, the train has become a roller coaster.
I was sure things between me and Jade were ending earlier tonight. The way she talked to my dad was not okay. Sure, she was standing up for me, but I didn’t need to be rescued, and it was presumptuous, not to mention disrespectful. My dad responded the way he always did when one of us talked back growing up—with grace and humility—and he even told me he respects Jade for standing up to him in a way he doesn’t see with a lot of kids my age. He told me if Jade didn’t really care about me, she wouldn’t have done that.
I know he’s right, and I know she cares about me, and I know eventually I would have gotten over the way she was so rude to my dad. Even now, the sting of it has lessened. Maybe because Iunderstand now, in a way I didn’t three hours ago, that being the parent to your alcoholic mother might change the way you see and talk to other adults.
Lying in her childhood bed with her now, her warm body curled against mine, I’m rewriting my whole understanding of Jade. Her lack of respect for her parents, her fierce independence, her resistance to opening up to people. Jade’s walls are high because that is how she’s kept herself safe. And I understand wanting to be safe.
I’ve been playing it safe forever. On the one hand, I like the well-worn paths of familiarity. It’s like always ordering the same thing when I go to a particular restaurant: I already know I like the dish, so why take a risk on something new? On the other hand, I’ve never really had the confidence to do the things that scare me, so even when I wanted to branch out or face my fears, my self-doubt was like a critical, strict parent who wouldn’t allow me to do anything.
Which is completely the opposite of what my parents were like: supportive, encouraging, giving me the space to do or be anything I wanted. But something about all that freedom, even with their hands to hold, was too overwhelming.
College has made me a lot more confident of a person than I was in high school. The sheer fact of being without my normal support system close by and having to put myself around new people and situations forced me to trust myself and say yes to things I’d normally say no to. I think if freshman-year Ian could see senior-year Ian, he’d be really proud of himself.
Of course, any version of me prior to the one I was on September 17, when I met Jade for the first time, would not have believed I’d go into Jade’s house tonight after she explicitly told me not to.
But it didn’t feel like a choice. She told me not to go in, and then I sat in my car and couldn’t ignore the feeling inside methat leaving was the wrong thing to do. There was no waffling. There was no need to call anyone else for their opinion. The part of me that wanted to heed Jade’s words and leave was so small I practically bulldozed it on the way back into the house.
My hands shook as I opened the door, and I had to clutch the banister on my way up the stairs so my legs wouldn’t give out on me. But the look on Jade’s face when she turned and saw me banished any doubts that might have remained.
With one of my arms trapped under Jade’s neck, I slide my free hand down her arm just to feel her soft skin against my hand. Intertwining our fingers, I squeeze her against me.
I know Jade isn’t mine, but it’s been hard for me to stop feeling like she is since that moment in the stage manager’s booth. Maybe that’s what drove me back inside tonight. Maybe it was something in the way she insisted she could do this alone that tipped me off. Whatever it was, I want to bottle up the boldness I found in myself tonight and drink it another day when I’m drowning in doubt.
I dip my head, placing a soft kiss on her shoulder. My lips meet fabric, but I don’t care. It’s enough to just be this close to her, breathing in her earthy jasmine scent. I bury my nose against her neck, kissing the exposed skin. I shouldn’t disturb her while she’s asleep, but it’s hard to resist.
“I’m awake, you know,” Jade says, her voice scratchy, like she was on the edge of sleep.
“Can’t sleep?” My face feels warm from being caught.
“I can’t stop thinking about tonight. I just keep playing the moment I found my mom over and over again on a loop.”
Like a hammer to the chest, her words shatter my heart. I’ve never wished I had the magical ability to help someone fall asleep as much as I do right now.
“But I also keep thinking about the moment you walked in,” she whispers. “I wish I knew how to thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for thanks. I did it because I lo—” I clear my throat, catching myself before I say the words, hoping she didn’t pick up on what I almost put down. “I care about you.”
I wait, hoping she won’t call me out for what I almost just said, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Or if she does, she mercifully says nothing.
“Is it always like this after a breakup?” I ask, opening the door in case she wants to talk. Maybe talking out what’s on her mind will help her fall asleep.
