I don't ever tell you
How I really feel
Cause I can't find the words to
Say what I mean
And nothing's ever easy
That's what they say
I know I'm not your only
But I'll still be a fool
Cause I'm a fool for you
Just a Little Bit of your Heart- Ariana Grande
"Jensen Cane," This is the response I get when I answer my ringing phone about a week later as I'm editing one of my videos so that I can upload it later tonight.
"Um. Wells?" I say to my English friend. "What's up?"
"I have some really cool news," He tells me. "Are you sitting?"
Now, I'm getting extremely curious. "Yeah, I'm sitting. What is it?"
"Heather's been conversing with me about a trip that she wants to take to come over here to London for the summer," He starts to explain. "And she's also told me that you want to tag along?"
"That's correct," I confirm. "What's the news part though?"
"You're impatient," He teases me.
"Well, now you've got me all curious and I want to know what it is," I defend myself, laughing a little bit as I step away from the computer to take a break while I have this conversation with Wells. I've been working on the video all day (Elliot's busy with Cara) so a little break won't hurt.
"Sure, well we've also been in contact with a few other American YouTubers, and we're thinking about renting out this huge flat down the road from here so that you can all stay together and we'll all be really close. It could even be a thing, like Sumer of YouTubers or something with a title way more creative than that. Anyway, if you all share the rent, it's really affordable and the flat is really nice," He explains to me and by the end, my jaw is hanging on the ground. "So what do you think?"
"That sounds amazing," I babble, kind of shocked that this is turning into a real thing. I know that Heather mentioned London but I didn't really take it seriously but now that Wells is telling me about sharing an apartment with a bunch of people so that we can afford it, it feels more real. I have a lot of money saved up from my YouTube channel with ads and selling t-shirts and stuff like that so I can afford it most likely and I really want to spend my summer in London. "I can't believe that this is actually happening."
"Well, you should believe it because it's happening, So far, we've got Heather, Randal, Joseppi, Maria, Tasha, and Aiden. So with you, that makes seven and if we get one more, we can get two of the apartments because they're four bedrooms each. Do you want to bring Elliot or something?"
"I'm not sure, I'll ask him," I say, still reeling from this news because it still feels so surreal. Me. In London for a whole summer. Three whole entire months. That sounds so incredible. I mean, I love it here and I love my parents and everything but I want to get out of here, to explore the world some more and I think that London is a great way to start.
"Okay, cool. We haven't figured out all of the details yet, but once we get everything worked out, I'll let you know. It's just a baby idea right now but I just wanted to let you in on it," He explains to me.
"Right, this is so great. Wow, I can't believe this. I have to go tell my mom," I rant to him, still trying to picture myself going to London- not even just London, but I'll be flying without my parents, probably completely by myself. That's both terrifying and exciting to me because I've never done that before.
"Sure, little squirt. Talk to you later," He says with a laugh, making fun of my age even though I'm only three years younger than him which really isn't that much.
"Shut up," I say back as my defense before hanging up the phone and then sprinting downstairs where my mother is outside on the back porch with Margaret as Katy and Sara are jumping on the trampoline.
"Mom, guess what?" I shriek, going outside to catch her attention.
"Jensen, hey, what is it?" She wonders, looking up at me curiously as she's sipping on a can of pop.
"Wells is putting together a trip to London for a bunch of American YouTubers and do you know who's an American YouTuber?"
"Um. You are?"
"I am! And so he invited me to go to London for the summer. London. How amazing is that? I'll have to go shopping for London clothes and I'll have to get my hair cut so that I look like I belong in London, you know? I can't believe that this is really happening," I gush in excitement.
"That does sound like a lot of fun," My mom confirms with a nod. "Have you talked to your father about that though? He never was keen on you wanting to leave the country without adult supervision, especially at such a young age, Jen. It's a big deal."
"I know that, but I'm eighteen, and I can afford it with the money that I've made from YouTube, so it'll be fine. I can handle it."
"Congratulations, Jensen," Margaret grins at me. "Josh and I went to London for our five year anniversary way back when, and it is absolutely gorgeous. And you'll know people that live there so they can show you all of the cool places to go."
"Right? This is so great. Mom, come on, can't you at least pretend to be excited about this? I'll send loads of pictures," I say, nudging her shoulder with my own.
"I am excited for you, Jen, but I'm your mother- I'm worried about you too. Is Elliot going with you?"
"Probably not. I mean, I'm going to ask him but he'll probably want to spend all of his time with Cara anyway," I explain with a shrug with forced nonchalance. I have been getting better about dealing with Elliot and Cara. They are a cute couple and it's not like I'm completely in love with Elliot. I don't feel broken every time that he talks about her now and when he gets all excited about how much he likes her, I'm a lot happier for him than I used to be.
"Are they getting serious?" My mom wonders curiously, changing the subject from London to Elliot probably so that she doesn't have to think about me going all the way around the world without an adult. It probably makes her feel old when she thinks of her oldest child going out on her own.
"Yeah, I guess. It's only been a few weeks but he seems to really like her and Cara's awesome. So awesome, she's really nice," I explain to my mom with a nod. It still hurts though, to pretend like it doesn't bother me at all. I'm getting better, but it's going to be a slow process, I can tell.
"I like her, she does seem really nice," She nods in agreement. "And since you two obviously were never going to give in to our peer pressure to at least go on one little date, I suppose that dating other people is a good consolation."
"Yeah, it's about time that you gave up that delusion," I refute with a slightly forced laugh. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about that so I'm going to go call Elliot and let him know what's up too."
"Okay, but when your father gets home, you're the one that gets to tell him this awesome news because I'm sure as hell not doing it," My mom warns me as I go back into the house to call Elliot. He might still be with Cara but if he is, I'll just leave a message because he usually doesn't answer his phone when he's with her.
I grab a snack from the kitchen on my way back up to my room and I'm trotting up the stairs as I'm dialing his number.
"Hello?" He answers the phone relatively quickly, which makes me believe that he isn't with Cara anymore.
"Hey, are you busy?" I ask him. "Because I have some pretty great news."
"Oh, hey, Jen, no I'm not busy, why? What is it?" He wonders curiously on the other end.
I kick my door shut behind me and sit back down at my desk so that I can IM Heather to tell her that I've talked to Wells about the London trip. "I just got off of the phone with Wells, and he said that this trip to London can be a real thing."
"Really? That's awesome," He enthuses.
"Yeah, it's so great. We're going to rent an apartment for all three months of summer with a bunch of other American YouTubers," I explain to him, still feeling incredibly excited about the whole idea.
"Wow, all summer? It's going to suck to not have you around for three whole months, you know," He tells me but he's obviously not that torn up about it because he still seems pretty happy.
"Well, the thing is that they said that you can come too," I add quickly. "You don't have to, but it's just a thought. I mean, since it's going to be a YouTube gathering and you're a pretty huge part of my channel, I thought that it would be appropriate for you to get an invitation as well."
"That's very generous of you," He says with a chuckle. "But do you think that Cara would be able to go too?"
"Cara?" I wonder, feeling my chest deflate a little bit. "Um, no, there's only room for one more person. But you haven't even been dating that long, you think that it'd be okay to invite her on a three month vacation to London?"
"I don't know. I mean, once summer rolls around, we'll have been together for a lot longer than just a few weeks, you know. But I understand. I don't think that I'd be able to go though. It's not just Cara, but my parents would definitely say no considering it's my last summer home before I leave for college. I'm actually surprised that your parents are letting you go too."
"I didn't exactly ask them," I admit sheepishly. "I kind of just told my mom that I'm going- I'm eighteen, I can afford it, so yeah. I'm definitely going. I'll send you postcards though. Especially that cheesy one where I'm holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa with my foot."
"That's in Italy, Jensen," Elliot tells me with a small laugh.
"Well, then I'll improvise with Big Ben or something," I refute. "And there's the London Eye too, which will be so much fun. My dad's going to freak but he'll get over it. This is so incredible. I can't believe this. Holy cow."
"I'm excited for you," He says, obviously amused at how much I'm freaking out right now. It's February now so there's still a while before summer happens in June but I can't help but feel like I'm on top of the world right now because I'm just so excited. A whole summer not only in London, but with Heather and all of my YouTube friends. Granted, I'm going to miss Elliot so much, it's going to be a blast.
"Okay, but anyway, how was your date with Cara?" I wonder, trying to change the conversation so that I can calm down. I feel like I'm ready to jump on a plane right now and go to London right now. Who needs to graduate high school when you can go to London? Not me, that's for sure.
"It was fun," He confirms, laughing a little bit.
"You two seem to be moving kind of fast," I say as an observation. It's only been a few weeks but he just said that he'd be willing to go to London with her for three months, which is kind of a big deal. That worries me because Elliot's never really done the relationship thing so I worry that he's just going for it head first like a naïve little puppy, which makes him prone to heartache. And I know better than most that heartache is not a fun thing to experience.
"Yeah, I guess," Elliot says and I can basically hear him shrug through the phone as he tries to sound nonchalant about it. "I can't help it though, because she's so great and wonderful and I can think of about a bazillion other adjectives to describe her but that'd take a lot of time. Anyway, yeah, I really like her and... I don't know, maybe I love her."
"You don't love her," I negate his declaration very quickly.
"How do you know?"
"Because you're still in the honeymoon phase, where everything that she does is perfect and adorable and you're high on the romance. It's not real love until you realize her flaws and then you're okay with them. Have you found any flaws yet?"
"Nope. She's completely perfect," Elliot insists.
"That's exactly my point," I say with a small laugh. "Elliot, you can't know if you're in love or not until after the honeymoon phase, when all of the cutesy stuff starts to wear off."
"How do you know?" He questions me. "Couldn't it be one of those 'love at first sight' things? What's so wrong with that?"
"Love at first sight doesn't exist," I explain. "Look, El, I just don't want you to get hurt is all. If you give her your entire heart right now and things don't go as planned, you're going to get seriously hurt. You obviously don't have to listen to me and I guess it's not really my business but I just think that you should go a little slower and maybe not throw the word 'love' around just yet. It's only been a few weeks."
"Haven't you ever read Romeo and Juliet?" He counters again.
"I have," I confirm, spinning around in my chair a few times before I respond to Heather's IM back to me about London. "I read the whole thing, including the part where they both die at the end."
"Don't be so pessimistic, Jensen," Elliot tells me with an easy laugh. "You don't have to worry about me."
"I do have to worry about you," I insist. "You're so naïve when it comes to things like this and I have to look out for you."
"Have you ever been in love?" He wonders out of the blue and I think that I stop breathing for a moment. That question really takes the breath right out of my lungs. "I mean like really, really in love?"
"I love you," I remind him breathlessly and for a moment, I can't really believe that I just said that but I know that he won't take it the way that I sincerely mean it.
"I don't mean it like that, I mean romantically. I know that you've had boyfriends, but have you really ever been in love?" He asks me, doing just as I knew he would and remaining oblivious to emotions. I guess that's a good thing with this type of thing because it's really easy to hide this from him considering he's so easy to fool when it comes to this.
"Right," I say with a small sigh. "Well, no, I haven't then, I guess. I still know that it's too early to start saying that you love her."
"I appreciate your concern, Jen, but I'm not worried, I can handle it," He assures me, which makes me even more worried about him because he's just so confident in this relationship and although I really like Cara and I'm sure that their relationship will last, I'm still not feeling as confident about it as Elliot is. And that's my completely unbiased opinion. "Maybe when you find somebody that makes you feel like Cara makes me feel, you'll understand."
I roll my eyes at him, thankful that he can't actually see me. "You sound like a total sap."
"I know, isn't it great?"
"It's sappy," I decide. "And just because I've never really been in love doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm talking about- I still have common sense. But you do whatever you want to do, you're clearly too stubborn to listen to me anyway."
"Alright, we can agree to disagree," He decides and I go along with that because I don't know how else to convince Elliot that he's going too fast with Cara. And I mean, if he's happy then I guess I'm happy too. It's not that I'm upset about the relationship because of my sad crush on Elliot because I'm not that petty, but as his best friend, he's just worrying me right now is all.
"Right," I sigh in a mumbling voice. "So let's talk about the next video, because I have a really great idea."
As I'm discussing filming and stuff with Elliot, I'm instant messaging Heather online and she sends me a picture of her new bikini that she bought just for this trip to London. It's not on her because that'd be a little weird, but it's spread out on her bed and she's apparently already bought a lot of stuff for it- Wells had told her about the idea a few days ago but he told her not to tell me so that he could surprise me with it.
After a while of conversing with both Elliot and Heather, I hear the front door open and close downstairs, which probably means that my dad is home. And that means that I have to go downstairs and break the news to him that I'm growing up and that I'm going to London this summer. I don't want to have to pull the 'I'm eighteen' card because that sounds like such a childish thing to say but I feel like it's the only way that I'm going to get him to accept the idea of me flying across the world by myself.
"My dad just got here," I tell Elliot, IMing Heather to tell her that I'll be back soon and then I start walking out of my room toward the stairs to go down to the living room.
"Good luck with that," Elliot sings teasingly over the phone. "Let me know how this goes."
"Shut up, it'll be fine," I mumble, more to myself than to him. "I'll call you tomorrow."
I hang up and put my phone away in my jeans pocket as I trot down the stairs.
"Dad?" I call into the living room. I can hear him shuffling around in there, putting his briefcase down by the door and taking off his business jacket.
"Yeah, Jen, I'm in here," He tells me as I step off of the last step and walk toward him as he's doing his daily home-from-work routine.
"Hey," I say in a chirpy voice. "How was your day, Daddy?"
He sits down on the couch and loosens his tie as he lets out a tired groaning sigh. "It was fine. I have a troubling feeling that it's about to get a bit worse though. You're acting weird."
"I'm not acting weird," I deny, sitting down beside him on the couch with an innocent smile on my face. If I just remind him that I'm his oldest and best daughter, maybe he'll go easy on me for this one.
"What do you want, Jen?" He sees through my bullshit a lot easier than I was hoping he would, which isn't surprising because my dad is really good at seeing through my bullshit, which sucks.
"I can't just want to know how your day was without there being ulterior motives?" I defend even though we both know that there's something else that I need to talk about. My mom is still on the back porch with Margaret so we're alone in the house, which means that my mother definitely hasn't told him about London yet, which isn't a shock because she told me outside that she wouldn't tell him. I just wish that she had so that I wouldn't have to but I can tell by his attitude that he doesn't know yet.
"No, I don't think that you can," He says with a throaty chuckle. "Alright. Lay it on me, kiddo."
"It's good news," I assure him, just to calm him down a bit before I break it to him. My dad works a lot but even though he's gone most of the time, I think that I'm kind of a Daddy's Girl. I used to have him twisted around my pre-teen finger but now that I'm grown up, he's more of a protector than a giver. "I got a call from my friend, Wells, today. The one that lives in London."
"Continue," He urges me on, wisely sensing that there's more to the story than just a long distance phone call.
"He invited me to London for the summer," I say in a very quick wisp of words. Just rip it off like a Band-Aid, right?
"What?" Is his initial reaction.
"I-I mean, not just me. It's going to be a huge group of us going- Heather and a bunch of other YouTubers from the states, we're going to group together to rent an apartment and it's apparently a really nice apartment. Doesn't it sound awesome?"
"So you're telling me that you're going to be going to London for the whole summer without any adult supervision?"
"Well, technically, most of the people that I'll be staying with are adults," I pipe, as if that makes anything any better in this situation. "Come on, Dad, it'll be so much fun- it'll be such an adventure."
"How much will this cost me?" He asks, leaning his head against the couch behind him and closing his eyes as if he's the most stressed out person in the world.
"Not a lot, I don't think. I can pay the rent with my YouTube money but I wouldn't object to getting some spending money or something," I suggest, kind of surprised at how calm he's acting right now.
"And you're still going to college in the fall?"
I nod. "Of course, Dad. I'll come back before the semester starts. So you're okay with it?"
"Of course I'm not okay with it," He scoffs, opening his eyes again and looking over at me. "But I'm not going to fight it. Lord knows how useless that would be. I am going to need to speak to the guys that you'll be staying with though, just to make sure that you're in good hands. And you'll call home at least every other day. Is Elliot going?"
"Nope. I invited him but, you know, there's Cara."
"Right. There's Cara," My dad nods in agreement. "I think that a little time apart will be good for you and Elliot."
"Why do you think that?"
"Oh, I don't know," He sighs, leaning over and kissing my forehead before he stands up so that he can go greet his wife on the back porch. "It might be because you're not as good of an actress as you might think. Elliot is just a really oblivious dude."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I mumble, standing up myself so that I can hurry upstairs to end this conversation. I'm relieved that his reaction wasn't as stubborn and ridiculous as I was expecting it to be, but now my face is flaming red and I'm wondering if the only person on God's green earth that doesn't know about my stupid crush on Elliot is actually Elliot himself.