(show him what you really think)
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James wouldn't stop shooting me concerned glances all throughout the drive.
I tried to ignore him, to focus all my attention on the road, doing my best to keep track of the traffic pattern. However, that wasn't an easy feat considering I could feel the weight of his worried gaze on me. He'd been like this ever since he'd been debriefed on the situation, made aware of what exactly was waiting for me at home. I suppose I understood his apprehension. He'd seen me fall apart from just the mention of my father; who knew what I'd do when I was face-to-face with the guy?
Still, it was annoying, and it only made the drive more insufferable than it already was.
"I can feel you looking at me, you know," I said, sparing a quick glance in his direction. "Driving is kinda hard to do when you have someone looking at you like you're about to Hulk out or some shit like that."
"Can you blame me?" he responded, crossing his arms. "I mean, you tell me that you're going to visit your dad—you know, the guy who you say is the reason for your trust issues and all that—and practically beg me to come along because you're not sure you can face him on your own. What do you expect? For me to act like this is just a normal visit home? I can't do that. I'm worried about you."
"I did not beg," I told him, pointedly ignoring the rest of what he said. I appreciated that he cared, I really did. The knowledge that there would be someone on my side regardless of what went down this weekend filled me with a sense of warmth: the kind of warmth that traveled through my veins, slowly spreading through my body until it was all I felt.
I was still new to this whole letting-people-be-there-for-you thing though, so despite how James' concern made me feel, it was difficult for me to find a way to voice my gratitude.
James lightly elbowed me. "You know what I meant."
I rolled my eyes, glancing quickly in the rearview mirror before changing lines. The drive was already pretty long—anything more than thirty minutes constituted as "long" in my book—so my patience was practically nonexistent, especially when it came to the people on the highway that stuck to the speed limit, as if they were purposefully trying to make the trip drag on for longer than it needed to.
As we passed the car that had been slowing everyone down, I noticed the driver was a grandma. Figures.
"Oh, hey. I forgot to ask. How'd your calculus test go?"
As soon as James brought up calculus, a shudder involuntarily worked its way down my spine. It was a little worrying how just the mere mention of the subject could evoke such a response from me. "Well... it wasn't terrible," I informed him. "I walked in there thinking that it'd be so bad I'd feel compelled to drop out, but that wasn't the case at all."
"That's awesome!" James exclaimed, a grin spreading across his face.
"You didn't let me finish," I said. "I don't feel like I need to drop out, but I definitely do think a change of major is in order."
He scoffed. "You're so dramatic. I'm sure you did just fine."
The faith he had in me was nice, but I really didn't think that my performance on the exam was all that great. Sure, I had a decent grasp of most of the material—and by decent grasp, I mean a very basic understanding—but that only helped with the simple problems. So, when I reached the challenge problems the professor threw in to make students like me suffer, I was lost. I didn't have a definitive idea of what my exam grade was, but I figured it was somewhere around the low C range. A slight improvement from last semester, but definitely nothing to write home about.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. How did lab go this morning?" I was desperate to change the subject. There were already a million things to be stressed about this weekend; the last thing either of us needed was to add something else to the list.
James shrugged. "It wasn't bad. Boring, but that's to be expected. Although, it was a little weird when I left class today and saw Chuck waiting for me outside of the classroom. Apparently, he thought I'd skip again this week, so he wanted to check that I actually showed up to class."
My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I processed his words. What the hell? "That's actually so messed up. I know I say that about pretty much everything he does, but this really takes the cake."
"I understand where he's coming from, though," James mused. "I mean, think about it. Last week, I skipped to go hang out at a bar with a bunch of dudes—"
"—who are your friends," I interjected. "It's not like you were out with a bunch of random guys who don't know about Chuck and would try and make a move. They're people you know. Chuck can't possibly be this mad at you for spending time with friends. That'd make him the biggest prick alive, not that he hasn't already secured that title for himself."
I wanted to grab James by the shoulders and shake him until some sense got knocked into him. He couldn't possibly be justifying Chuck's ridiculous actions. How could he? He hadn't done anything wrong. Sure, he went out and didn't inform his boyfriend about it, but did that warrant surveillance?
"Look, I know that you're not his biggest fan, but just put yourself in his shoes for a second. Pretend that you're him."
To even imagine a world in which I was Chuck was enough to induce decades worth of nightmares. "I just want you to know that years from now, when I'm in therapy and my shrink is trying to figure out why I'm so fucked up, they'll trace it back to this exact moment: the moment that I pretend to be that asshole."
My words were met with a roll of James' eyes. Unsurprising.
"Just do it. Imagine how you'd feel if your significant other was off at the bar and told you absolutely nothing about it," he prompted. "Imagine waking up the next morning to seeing videos of whoever you're with literally serenading their friend—the friend who you think they're hooking up with behind your back. Wouldn't you do the same?"
I still couldn't seem to wrap my head around the fact that he was trying to advocate for Chuck in this situation; it was obvious that his boyfriend was going the extra mile, turning a small understanding into a colossal problem that would plague them for weeks to come.
"Well, first I wouldn't think that they're hooking up with their best friend," I responded immediately. "I mean, if they'd known their friend for a while... if anything romantic was going to happen, it would have happened already."
"Okay, but just pretend."
"Fine. But, even if I looked at things from his point of view, I wouldn't go as far as he is. Sure, I'd be upset that they didn't tell me, but if we'd been dating for as long as you guys have, I'd trust them," I reasoned. "And if they're singing with their friend—so what? People tend to do stupid shit when they're drunk. Unless they're cheating, there's literally no problem with stuff like this. The fact that Chuck doesn't seem to recognize that is messed up. He's a grown man. He should know how to control his irrational jealousy."
James slumped in his seat. He'd been hopeful, thinking that all it would take was this weird exercise, and suddenly, Chuck's motives would make sense to me and I'd be cool with all the ridiculous shit he pulled. What he didn't realize was that it'd be a cold day in hell before that ever happened. "You just don't get it," he huffed.
"Get what?" I snapped. "If anything, you don't get it. You're too close to this to see things objectively."
My anger never acted up like this around James—or anyone, really. Except Chuck, of course. It was a little worrying to see how riled up I got from just a simple conversation about him. All this time, I thought the asshole was bringing out the worst in James, but now, it seemed to extend to me too.
In an attempt to calm myself down, I took a few deep breaths. This conversation would be polarizing; it was important that we continued it in a rational manner, while I was calm and level-headed and not on the verge of another explosion.
James, however, didn't follow my example. Growing up, he'd always been quick to anger; the second he sensed an argument in the making, his temper flared up. And this conversation? It was most definitely veering towards argument territory.
"Please, tell me what shit you've noticed with all this insight of yours," he ground out, voice stiff with irritation.
If I could turn to look at him, I was certain I'd be met with that icy glare of his, the one that had been directed at hundreds of people, but rarely ever me. However, my gaze needed to remain on the road, despite my desire to meet that look head-on and show him that I wasn't going to back down—that my belief in what I was saying was firm, unshakeable.
"Alright, fine. I've noticed that he treats you horribly. You're not a person to him, you're his property," I said, my voice steadily rising with anger, despite my best efforts to stay calm. "Why else do you think he hates when you go off and do stuff without him? Because he views you as his, and his alone, so anything that you do has to include him."
I paused, giving James time to absorb my words, hoping that at least something that'd been said would seep into his thick skull, burrowing there unlike the majority of my words, which seemed to bounce right off him. "And the worst part about it is that you let him. You sit there and take it, as if you deserve it, even though you don't. You don't deserve a single bit of the crap he puts you through."
My words seemed to have struck a chord within him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a lone tear sliding down his cheek. It hurt to know that I was the reason for that. Not Chuck, but me.
That didn't mean I'd stop, though. All of this needed to be said. It was imperative that James realized how I truly felt about the situation; all this time, I'd been walking on eggshells around him, not wanting to hurt his feelings. I'd been playing it safe, determined to give him as much time as he needed to realize that Chuck wasn't worth any of this.
Clearly, that hadn't proven to be a good strategy, so now it was time for some tough love.
"He doesn't respect you at all, James. Yes, he used to make you happy, but does that mean you should just overlook every bad thing he does?" I continued. "You're my best friend. Do you think I want to see you treated like that?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," James responded, his voice coming out a breathy whisper. All his defenses were down, and his voice was losing the edge it'd had earlier. It seemed as if his anger had fled, leaving him really, truly vulnerable. "You're wrong about this."
Normally, I would have backed down at this point—if I even reached this point—and apologized for voicing my opinion. We would have moved on, "forgive and forget" and all that. But, I was tired of feeling like my thoughts on the matter were something to feel remorseful about, when I was doing nothing more than speaking the cold, hard truth. So, I forged on.
"I'm not. He walks all over you," I said, flexing my fingers. I'd been gripping onto the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles had been jutting out dangerously, threatening to push through the skin. "Sure, he has his moments where he makes you think that maybe, just maybe, he's changed, and things are going to go back to normal, but they never do, do they? That's your problem. You know the shit he's capable of, but you don't say a thing about it. You just let him treat you like shit, because you're holding on too tight to an idea: an idea of who he used to be, who you want him to be. Not who he is."
James let out a laugh. It was brief, as if he found something funny, but not in the traditional sense. Not the kind of laughter a joke would invoke, but the kind that was only brought about by irony. "You know, it's funny," he began, slowly dragging out each word as he spoke, "how you're sitting here and telling me all this, when this could literally be applied to the whole situation with your dad. Maybe you should learn to take your own advice before you get all preach-y on me."
My eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "What are you even talking about? This is completely different from the situation with my dad."
"Oh, really? You're telling me how Chuck treats me like shit, but I overlook it because I'm holding out hope that he'll be who I want him to be, correct? Isn't that exactly what you do with your dad every damn time? You know he'll leave—you said so yourself—and yet you buy into his bullshit whenever he visits. And who knows? You'll probably buy into it this time! That's why I'm here, isn't it? Cause you know the second you see him, you'll be like putty in his hands."
His words stunned me into silence.
I wasn't sure what exactly to say, especially once I realized how right he was. I'd been sitting on my high horse, thinking myself so much better than James due to my ability to see Chuck for who he really is—a cold-hearted asshole—when I was in the same exact situation with my dad: lacking the capability to separate what I wanted from reality.
Right or not, though, I didn't think it was fair that he was taking the situation with my dad and throwing it back in my face. I'd confided in James—trusted him in a way that I'd never trusted anyone before—and believed he wouldn't use my issues against me, and he'd done just that. He used my problems with my dad as leverage over me in an argument. How could I possibly forgive that?
I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially considering how good of a friend he'd been to me. Logically, I knew that he hadn't meant to do that. It was just something that'd been spoken in the heat of the moment: a result of the tense atmosphere and the need to hurt me like I'd hurt him. What he'd done wasn't intentional. That much was obvious.
But, trust wasn't something that came easily to me. So, despite knowing all that, my trust in him broke, just like that. Not completely—it hadn't been completely shattered, needing to be rebuilt from scratch; it was more like a crack in the foundation that had to be filled before it could return to its former state.
I spared a quick glance in James' direction, to see if he knew what he'd done, realized the implications of the words he'd just spoken. But, he hadn't. Instead, he was fixing me with his signature glare: face hardened, and eyes narrowed as he looked at me with pure, unadulterated anger.
Granted, I was sure his mind was in a frenzy at that moment. Harsh words had been exchanged between the two of us; he probably wouldn't understand what he'd said until later tonight, when we were on our own, and would likely be mulling the whole conversation over.
As the two of us sat there in silence, it dawned on me just how uncomfortable it was to be on the receiving end of James' anger. The two of us rarely fought, and when we did, it had never escalated this quickly. Our "arguments"—if you could even call them that—tended to be small misunderstandings that ended up resolved within minutes.
This one, however, felt different. It carried a note of finality with it, as if regardless of whether or not we were able to move past this—although I was certain we would; we were too close to let one argument completely decimate our friendship—we'd never forget what was said.
That was true. As soon as James' words had floated into the open space between us, they'd cut right through me like the jagged edge of a knife, permeating my skin and nestling deep inside me, where I was certain they would remain for some time. While our friendship would remain intact, there was no way the words we'd spoken would fade away, remaining strictly in the past.
No, we'd carry them with us, consciously or not, as a constant reminder of what transpired on this day. A reminder that, despite how close we were, we still harnessed the potential to hurt each other: a feat which, if you'd asked me just a couple of hours before, I wouldn't even have deemed a possibility.
* * *
Despite this chapter being completely unplanned, it's probably my favorite that I've written. I never intended on having James and Alex fight at any point throughout the course of this story, but it just happened while writing this chapter and it felt right. Besides, they're not best friends if they don't argue a little, right?
Please let me know what you thought, whether it be through a vote/comment!