Page 23 of Tell Me I'm Enough

I wish we had the fireworks everyone talks about when you fall in love with someone, but I really just don’t think it’s possible for me to feel much of anything. I’m just so numb these days. Sex is what we’re good at. It’s the only thing that makes me feel alive. And I do love Jackie.

I think.

She’s sweet, she’s kind, she actually pushes me to be better, and I appreciate her for that, even if I don’t know how to be that great of a boyfriend back.

She’s the only girl I’ve been with since the painful embarrassment that Delilah was, and I appreciate her for how she’s helped.

I still get sick seeing Delilah around school, tucked under Danny’s arm…exactly where she wanted to be the whole time.

At least Jackie has more self-respect than that. She doesn’t sleep around, and she would never hurt or embarrass me like that.

I don’t know what the future holds for us, with me going to Texas for college and her staying here for college, but we’ll make it work.

I’m sure we will.

* * *

“They really aren’t coming?” Jackie asks as she walks over to me, turning around for me to zip up her dress.

“No. But what does it matter? He’s never shown up for me. He’s never missed a single T-ball game for the boys, yet only shows up for the recruitment day when it comes to me.”

She turns around and pushes her long, wavy brunette hair back behind her shoulders, then leans up on her tiptoes and kisses me.

“Their loss. Do they know how hot you look in your uniform on that field?” she teases, running her hands down my button-up shirt before looking back up at me. “And in this suit and tie.”

I squint down at her. “Don’t go boosting my head up unless you want me to undo the zipper on that dress again.”

“After graduation,” she promises with a wink.

We finish getting ready, and as I’m pulling out my box of ties from the closet, I pull down a box that feels heavier than just ties. When I open it up, I realize it’s the box my mom left for me…the one with letters for every special occasion in my life.

I sink down onto the floor with my back against the closet island and just hold it in my arms. I almost forgot about this. I only pull it down on my birthdays to open the cards she wrote for me. They’re birthday cards for 100 birthdays in there. I laugh every time I see them. I hope I get to see 100 so I can read them all.

I flip through them until I see the one for my high school graduation day, and pull it out, just staring at it. I don’t know if I should read it before or after the ceremony since I know it’ll make me cry. Everything I read from her makes me cry.

“Babe! Are you ready?” Jackie asks, pausing when she walks into my closet and sees me on the floor.

“What’s that?”

I look up at her, feeling so empty without my mom here to watch me walk across that stage today.

“Letters from my mom…”

She sits down beside me and looks over at the letter in my hand that says,‘High school graduation day.’”

“Are you gonna read it now?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know…”

“I think you should,” she tells me, putting her hand over mine.

“I don’t know if I want to get emotional before the ceremony.”

“Maybe it’ll help you be able to picture her out there watching you.”

I’ll be doing that anyway. I do it all the time. I just pretend she’s still here, still going through life with me. Every time I see a stupid butterfly, I feel like a little boy all over again, chasing the ghost of my dead mother.

I go to open the seal, and Jackie starts to stand up. “I’ll give you some privacy—”