Jamie
I turn on my heel as I feel the tears coming and begin running down the garden pathway towards the street. I can hear Patrick calling my name, but I don't turn around and I don't stop running. I just wanna get away from this house, and all of the people in it. I wanna go home and cry to myself and cuddle Benji.
As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk I start jogging down the street, with tears falling down my cheeks slowly. I have no idea if Patrick is following me, I kind of doubt it though, if he were he'd have caught up to me by now. God, I hope he's okay. Shaun did get a couple of punches in. Shit, I didn't even check if he was okay. I should go back.
I stop dead in my tracks and lean against a tree to catch my breath. God, I'm out of shape. Okay, breathing is slowing a little now, good.
I turn around and see Patrick walking towards me. So he did follow me. I start walking towards him.
We stop in front of each other, and we both say "Are you okay?" at the same time. I wait for him to answer first, I'm not the one who got punched.
"I'm fine. What about you?" He says after a pause. There's no anger in his tone of voice anymore.
"I'm fine too." I reply. "Sorry for the outburst back there, it's been a weird day."
"Its been a weird few days." He says quietly.
We both just stare at each other for a few seconds. There's so much we need to talk about, and we both know it. But right now, we're both lost for words. Patrick breaks the silence.
"Shaun's face is a mess, but he still has all his teeth, unfortunately. He's gonna tell his dad some drunk guy picked a fight with him for no reason."
I frown at him. Shaun actually agreed not to tell people he fought Patrick? I'm a little surprised.
"Its like you said, he doesn't want people knowing I got the better of him."
He pulls a black beanie out of his back pocket and throws it onto his head. I study his face properly and see that he has a cut on his right cheek and his skin is a little broken just below on his chin. It's definitely gonna bruise later.
"What are you gonna tell people?"
"Same thing, I guess. Jay and Joel will probably put two and two together though, they know I went to the party and they know I hate that guy. I don't really care what they think, though. He had it coming."
"He did have it coming." I agree.
"He shouldn't have said all that stuff about you, and he sure as hell shouldn't have tried to kiss you against your will. But at least you can see him for what he really is now. You should stay away from him." He looks down at the ground. Thinking about me and Shaun is not his favourite thing to do.
"I already was staying away from him. Well, besides going to that party. But I only went because I thought you were there. With Amanda..." Now I look at the ground.
"You know I don't like Amanda." He says, before sighing and rubbing his chin. It's gotta hurt. "I was never gonna touch her tonight, I was just trying to piss you off earlier after I saw Shaun kissing you."
I know that. We don't need to keep talking about it. And I'm so tired. I can't keep thinking about all of this shit, not tonight, anyway.
"But I know now, I had no right to feel pissed off anyway. You and me. We're not..." He gestures between the two of us before shrugging his shoulders in defeat. I know what he means. We aren't together, so I can kiss whoever I want. And so can he. But... I don't want that. What the fuck do I want?
"Noah's gonna be back in town tomorrow too." He rubs his forehead, "So I think I should stay away. I don't wanna confused you anymore than I think I already have."
He's not wrong. I am very confused. But I don't want him to stay away from me. What the hell does that mean anyway?
"You can't stay away from me tomorrow, it's Thursday, we're playing at the Grill Open Mic Night for the first time in ages. And Jay and Joel are gonna wanna rehearse at my place beforehand too, like we always do. What are you talking about?!" I sound a little desperate. I can't describe how this feels other than... Like a breakup.
"I know." He looks away from me, and he's frowning. He doesn't wanna do this, I know he doesn't. But he's doing it. "I'll make up some excuse. You guys can do an acoustic set for a change or something, that would be different, people might like it..."
"No!" I am frantic now. What the fuck is he saying?! "How can you even say that? What the hell, Patrick!? We don't perform without you, or anyone else, we're a four-piece, always! I can't believe you're even considering this!"
My hands are pulling at my hair and my eyes are darting around at the road in front of me. I cannot comprehend what he's doing! He's gonna miss a Grill performance because he doesn't wanna be around me!? And then what? He comes around less and less until finally he tells us he wants to quit the band? Ohmygod, is that what's going on here!? This is what I've been worried about these past few days and it's actually happening. I can't breathe.
His hands are on my shoulders, pulling me around to face him. I don't wanna look at him. I wanna get away from him. I'm crying again, and I can't deal with this, I just can't.
"Jamie, calm down! Please!" He sounds worried, yeah well, come join me up here! I'm fucking worried!
"Don't cry." He says more softly. I can't help it though! My worst nightmare is unfolding in front of me. Without The Middle, what do I have? My friends, my dad, school. All good things, but not The Middle. It's my passion, my career, my future. The fucking air I breathe. I can't let it go. My heart is literally breaking right now. I wish I'd never slept with him. I wish he'd never told me how he felt about me. I wish I could go back to December (Taylor Swift references right now, really!?) and do all of this again, the right way! But I can't. This is my reality.
He knows what I'm thinking. I can see it in his eyes when I finally look up at him. He looks sad. Because he knows The Middle is over? Probably. Fuck!
"How could you do this!?" I pound my fist against his chest in anger as the tears continue to fall down my cheeks, I know I'm not hurting him, but I want him to know I want to. I want to hurt him like he's hurting me!
"Jamie, it's only for tomorrow, not forever." He says softly, pulling me in to hug me against his chest. I don't want to hug him, but I'm so emotional right now, I just let him hold me as I try to stop crying into his shirt.
"This has all been too much. You need space. We both do. And Noah's gonna be back... I just don't want you to feel overwhelmed, that's all. It'll be easier for you if I'm not around." He's speaking so softly, it calms me down a little. I feel his fingers running through my hair slowly. It feels nice. I feel secure all of a sudden, and I manage to stop crying.
"After tomorrow, everything will be normal. I promise. If you and the guys wanna jam at your place on Friday night and order take out and watch movies, I'm there. I swear." He whispers into my ear.
"I'm sorry." I say after a moment, my voice a little shaky from all the crying.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. You thought I was talking about ditching you guys for good, didn't you? That will never happen. Never." He assures me.
I nod my head against his chest, afraid to speak again in case I still sound like an emotional wreck.
"Come on, Jay would probably get his dad to order a hit on me if I tried to quit the band."
I laugh and look up at him. He give me a small smile and wipes the last of my tears from both of my cheeks. I take a step back from him and sigh.
"I can always count on you to make me laugh." I say with a weak smile.
"Good." He replies. "Now come on, let's get the fuck out of here. Your poor dog has probably smashed your patio doors to get outside to the bathroom."
I nudge him playfully and laugh shakily as we begin walking down the street. I feel relieved. Things were far too intense tonight. I cannot wait to get home and get some sleep.
***
The following morning, I'm doing some laundry and cleaning around the house. It's something I've neglected for a while. The place isn't too bad, but I haven't vacuumed or dusted in a while. It's a good decision, keeping busy helps keep my mind off of everything.
Patrick walked me home last night. He came in to say hi to Benji. He let me clean the blood off of his face, then he left. I wanted him to stay with me, but I didn't ask him to, and he didn't offer. He said he wanted to keep his distance today, and waking up together wouldn't have been a good start for that. So he went home.
Jay and Joel are taking Erin and Sarah back to New York today. They came over not long ago to say goodbye. They'd expected Patrick to be here, but he's been quiet in our group chat, so I just said I hadn't heard from him. I told them Shaun's party was uneventful, but I did tell them about Shaun kissing me. We're all in agreement now: he is a jerk. I have no idea how Jay and Joel are gonna react when they find out Patrick was in a fight, I didn't mention it to them, and Joel said he was already out when Joel and Sarah woke up this morning. Sarah was a little bummed he didn't say goodbye to her, and unsurprisingly Joel seemed a little suspicious. But I played it cool. This does not concern Joel, and I fully intend to have some serious words with him later. When? I have no idea. But it's gonna happen.
They wished me luck for my talk with Noah today, and like clockwork, Noah finally texted me to tell me he'd be leaving the City with Zach and Kim later this afternoon. Great, nice to hear from you dude. I haven't replied yet, I don't know if I will. He knows where I live, and it's Thursday so he knows I'll be at the Grill tonight. I'll see how the day plays out, I guess.
The one thing I know for sure is, I am not gonna see Patrick today. And I have a weird feeling about that in my gut. I think I miss him? Even though it's barely been 12 hours since I last saw him. But it's how I feel. I'm probably a little nervous for later, when Jay and Joel get back and discover that Patrick's not playing with us tonight. He hasn't told them in our group chat yet. I guess he's gonna wait until they get in touch with him to ask where he is when he doesn't show up at my house for rehearsal. We'll see.
After I've finished cleaning, I take Benji out for a walk and make plans to meet up with Aubrey at Symposium afterwards. She and John got back into town about a half hour ago, and she's excited to see me and hear all about what I've been up to over the holidays. Fuck me, I don't know what I'm gonna tell her. She'll probably focus on my argument and upcoming reunion with Noah, which is fine by me. It's not the focus of my thoughts right now anyway, so I guess talking about Noah will be a good distraction from the boy I am thinking about...
About am hour later, I'm walking into Symposium and am immediately greeted by an enthusiastic Aubrey. I smile for the first time today when I see her happily rushing over to me.
"Hey girl! Happy New Year to your face!" She cries, running up to me and pulling me into a hug. I smile again, I have missed her, and I am really happy to see her today.
"Happy New Year to your face too." I laugh, then she tells me to hurry up and order so I can sit down and we can start catching up. I order my usual latte, and join Aubrey at her table.
"So, how was Ohio? How's John?" I ask her as I pull out a chair and sit down across from her.
"Ugh, same old, same old. Ohio doesn't change, you know that! But it was good to see some old friends on New Year's Eve. Everyone was totally surprised that John and I are together now, but I knew they would be! Our parents are thrilled though, which is all I was bothered about anyway. It was great, but I wanna hear about you! What's the North Bridge goss? Tell me everything!"
She beams at me expectantly as she sips her cappuccino, and this is exactly how I thought this conversation would go. She texted me plenty of updates about Ohio, and I didn't really tell her much about what was going on here.
"Calm down, we'll get to that. But what about John? Where is he?" I ask her, I kind of expected him to be here too. I'm glad he's not.
"Oh he's in his dorm obsessively arranging all of his school books and unpacking, bla bla, you know what he's like!" She laughs. I do know what he's like, and I'm not surprised he's back in 'school mode' already.
"He'll be at the Grill tonight, you'll see him then. Now come on, spill!"
I laugh and begin telling Aubrey about what I've been up to. You know, besides how Patrick admitted he's had feelings for me pretty much since the first moment he met me, and how I sexually assaulted him in the back of a cab then slept with him three times the next day. Oh, and how Noah made out with some girl in New York and he hasn't told me about it, and how he told me I'm not his girlfriend and pretty much told me were in some kind of open relationship or something. Oh, and how Shaun Campbell kissed me last night before getting into a fist fight with Patrick. Yeah, I don't bother telling her any of that. How awesome am I at this whole gossip thing? But I do tell her I'm gonna meet Noah tonight so that we can talk.
"Do you think he's gonna ask you out? You know, properly, at last!?" She asks. She doesn't sound excited about it though, I note.
I shake my head. "No, absolutely not. We had an argument about that actually, on New Year's Eve."
"Go on..." She sips her coffee and awaits further detail.
"I'll tell you everything after I've talked to him." I reply diplomatically.
"Oh, so this could be...another type of talk?" She asks, eyebrows raised in curiosity.
She means a 'break up talk', and I consider this. I guess it could be. It probably will be. After I tell Noah I slept with someone else, who knows what he'll want to do? But what do I want to do? That's the million dollar question I've been avoiding asking myself.
"Yeah. I don't know what I want anymore. Honestly, I think that kinda says it all, you know?" I tell her.
"Whoa! So you're actually thinking of breaking it off with him!? Why? What happened!?" She doesn't sound surprised, more worried.
"Well, I haven't seen him in weeks, and after we argued on New Year's Eve..." I slept with Patrick. "I don't know. Things changed." Yeah things changed. I slept with Patrick..
"I thought you and Noah were the real deal. And I was sure you guys were gonna be good after the Snow Ball. You never know, I guess." She doesn't seem surprised at all by this news. She looks thoughtful.
"No, you don't." I say, looking down into my latte. You never know one of your best friends could totally change your world with one kiss, either.
"Kim hasn't seen much of Noah in the City. She's not really sure what he's been up to most of the holidays. But, she did say Zach isn't too happy with him." Aubrey looks at me with pity in her eyes, and I know what's coming. "She doesn't know for sure, but Zach thinks he may have been fooling around with someone. I'm sorry, Jamie. And that's not confirmed, but I thought you should know. I mean, we saw how he was with girls before, when you were seeing Shaun Campbell. And Zach knows him really well. If Zach thinks he's been fooling around with someone, well. I guess there's a strong chance he has been."
I glance down into my mug again. I really don't know what to say. I'm not surprised, I already knew he made out with someone in New York. What else has been going on though? I guess I'll found out tonight.
"Thanks for telling me, Aubrey. I'll find out what's going on when I talk to him tonight." I tell her.
"Are you okay?" She asks me tentatively.
Am I?
"I will be." I answer. And god, I hope I'm right.