Scared of Beautiful (17 page)

“You shouldn’t have,” I say, the words dripping with sarcasm.

Eventually it dawns on him that he is not welcome, and Bryce says goodbye. “We should hang out sometime,” he says, “and your friend can come to.” He winks at Jade as he turns to walk away.

“You’re not my type sweetie,” Jade answers.

“I’m everybody’s type,” Bryce retorts over his shoulder.

“My type doesn’t have a penis,” Jade calls back melodically. Bryce pretends not to hear, in the process nearly spilling his coffee down his shirt. Jade and I break into hysterics as he walks quickly out of the door.

As we shop, I fill Jade in on the copious sagas that make up my past life: why Bryce is an asshole, my virginity, Morgan. We also talk about my mother, and even my father. And for the first time, I feel as if I have unloaded the heaviness that usually clouds my head and weighs me down. Jade listens indiscriminately and without prejudice to everything I say. The few times I look towards her, there is no judgment in her eyes. Just understanding. I realize then that so much of my life has been filled with bullshit, and after drowning my sorrows with spending a small fortune on myself and Jade (which is difficult to do in Providence), we head back to the apartment. My decision is made. I’ll listen to Jackson, but I can’t fall so hard, so fast again. For anyone. Even if I wanted to believe him, something in me won’t give.

Jackson

Walking up to Maia’s apartment feels as though I’m walking down Death Row. I have no idea how this will go, and no idea what she will say. My heart beats erratically, as if it may just bound right out of my chest. Sticky sweat coats my palms as I clench and unclench my fists nervously. They’ve been this way since Jade called me to tell me that Maia finally agreed to talk to me.
Just tell her what happened. What’s the worst that can happen?
The chant plays over and over in my head. The more cynical part of my brain says that it can’t be worse than Maia thinking that you screwed a stripper, but it can if she tells you she never wants to see you again. Just before I reach the top step of the walk-up, my every instinct tells me to turn around and walk away, but I can’t. From the day I met her, I never could.

Just as I raise my hand to knock, I hear the sound of melodic laughter and happy chatter fill the hallway. Maia’s voice calms me instantly. Fuck the other drugs. She’s my drug. The only one I want. I should play it cool, lean against the wall, do something.
Damn it, my feet are rooted to the floor
. It had already taken me over an hour to choose a shirt to wear.
Stop being a bitch!

As they round the stairs to the landing, hauling with them the entire contents of a small boutique in shopping bags, I opt for standing still. Maia sees me first and freezes mid step on the penultimate stair. Jade ploughs into her and opens her mouth to curse, before realizing what caused her sudden halt. Without a word, Maia walks over and unlocks the door, barely looking in my direction.
I feel like a fool standing here.

“Come on,” Jade says gesturing me inside. The minute I enter the apartment, I see that Jade has had a hand in the decorating. Every piece of furniture is symmetrical, every little ornament perfectly placed. The keys even have their own small bowl on the hall table. Bitter anger rises in my throat. I was supposed to be doing this with Maia. And I would have, if not for fucking Emmanuel.

Jade drops her bags into the spare bedroom and quickly excuses herself to grab a coffee down the street. Maia pretends to busy herself in the kitchen, while I fidget nervously with my keys, still standing bolt upright next to the closed door. Neither of us speaks for what feels like days.

Thankfully, just before I lose the ability to stop myself from stabbing my own eyes out with my keys as a result of the sheer awkwardness of this moment, Maia turns to me. “Do you wanna sit down?” she asks nervously. I meet her eyes, and where I once saw absolute affection, I’m met with emptiness. Ice cold. I would give anything for her to look at me the way she did last week.

I stiffly sit on the couch, and Maia chooses the one opposite from me, I suspect because it’s also furthest from me. “I just want to explain, Maia, and hopefully say some of the things I didn’t before you left Georgia. I get that you may not believe me, but at least hear me out, please. Or at least try.” I sound like a punk, I feel like I’m begging for my life, and if she wasn’t so important to me, there’s no fucking way this would be happening.

“I promised Jade I’d talk to you,” she says flatly. I open my mouth to continue but before I do, she cuts me off. “But before you start, there is no us Jackson. There can’t be. Even if I believe you, I can’t trust you.”

I suddenly feel dejected, as though this conversation has very little purpose if that’s how she feels. But she needs to know. I need her to know.

“I spoke to Emmanuel, well, I knocked him out first, then spoke to him when he came to. He planted that photo, Maia. I was passed out. The joint was laced with something else, which is why I did pass out. He snapped the photo of me and Amber while I was incapacitated. He and the boys helped me to the car and we drove home. Emmanuel screwed Amber that night, not me. I wasn’t even conscious!”

My voice raises an octave or two at the end as I ramble out the rest of the story. “I refused the weed at first. Emmanuel had set me up to meet Amber before we even got there.” Maia’s eyes drop to the floor. That came out wrong “Without my knowledge. He hates the fact that I left to come here. He figured if he got rid of you, I might change my mind about Brown and come back home.” I take a breath, waiting apprehensively for what Maia will say about this total fuck up.

“So nothing happened with you and that girl. And Emmanuel planned this whole thing. I thought you were friends, why would he do that if you were happy?” Maia’s question is accusatory.

“We
were
friends,” I correct.

“Jackson, the way I felt back there, I can’t feel that way, and the way I feel…felt, about you. It’s a risk I don’t want to take.” Maia’s words are confident, but her voice breaks ever so slightly at the end of the sentence.

Without hesitation, I walk over and stand her up in front of me. “I promised you that I would try never to hurt you intentionally. And I did. I am so fucking sorry that this happened. You shouldn’t forgive me for making you feel the way you did. Hell, I don’t forgive myself. I would pull down every fucking star in the sky to prove to you that I love you. I would do just about anything to go back to last week. Tell me what you want me to do. What fixes this?”

I don’t care that I’m begging anymore, or that I’m pouring the whole contents of my soul into these words. My hand reaches up to wipe away the tears that stream down Maia’s face. I hate myself for making her cry, hate myself for the stupid decisions I made.

“No,” she whispers quietly without looking up. “Jackson you don’t understand. I’ll run every time there’s a problem, even a small one. I’ll hide behind myself and you deserve more than that.” Her eyes brim with more unshed tears as she stares at me in anguish.

“There is no one better for me than you. Please, Maia,” I plead, cupping her face in my hands.

“You have to go,” she answers quietly. I bend down to kiss her gently on the cheek, lingering, knowing that this is the last time I’ll do it, and wordlessly, turn around and leave.

Jade walks up the stairs as I’m leaving, and momentarily considers stopping to talk before seeing the devastated look on my face, and decides against it. Jade knows me well enough to give me my space in this moment. I stuff my hands deep into my pockets as I walk to the Mustang. Maia’s wrong. I never deserved her. I never fit into this lifestyle. She deserves someone that can keep up the life she’s used to. I have to hustle to take her out to dinner. She’s probably better off with someone like that Bryce guy. I don’t know why the fuck I was trying to fool myself into believing that I was anything better than a common thug.

* * *

Days turn into weeks. Turns out that my solution was to throw myself back into college. It’s easy, when you never leave your dorm room except to go to classes, to kill it in exams.
Who knew?
But try as I may, I don’t seem to run into Maia. It was futile, I guess, hoping that serendipity would play a hand in making sure that she was reminded daily just how much we needed each other.
But no
. I spend more than my fair share of time at the library, loitering and waiting, and I do the same at the Clever Bean. I walk purposely past her apartment block with the hope that in a pathetic movie made moment, she’ll come running out the door, our bodies would collide, and books would fly everywhere. Sadly that doesn’t happen either. Joining the intramural basketball team at Brown keeps me occupied, but since joining, I haven’t landed a three point shot at all, not one.

Weeks pass this way, and every day I fight the urge to walk up to Maia’s apartment door. I hope that this void that seems to now be a permanent part of my person will ease, and eventually dissipate.
Again, no luck
. I miss her every goddamn day. I don’t even have a single sighting until a week before winter break when, cold and sweaty from a 2 on 2 basketball game, I finally see her walking towards the Arts Building.
Now or never, Jackson
. I curse quietly, mainly because I’m nervous as all fucking hell, apprehensive because there is a very strong possibility that she’ll blow me off, or be just plain fucking angry at my sweaty disposition.

“Hey…stranger,” I say breathlessly when I finally catch up to her. I nearly slipped up and used the word beautiful. She registers me with a startled look, mixed with something else. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she knew full well we’d be running into each other.

“Hey!” Her greeting is enthusiastic, her voice so melodic that I wish that I could replay the words over and over. Maia really is, and probably will always be, my breath of fresh air. I won’t tell her that, though.

“Come here often?” I tease, opting to come off as carefree smartass. Truthfully, it’s all I got, aside from pleading on one knee.

Her eyes dance mischievously. “Not recently, no…” We stand for a few seconds, which feel like a half-century, in an awkward silence.

“I hoped we’d run into each other,” I say nervously. And then,
fuck it! She can only say no, right?
“Maybe we could grab a coffee at some point, you know as friends? Hang out maybe?” It comes out meek, childlike.

“I have some time now,” she answers, smiling platonically.

Damn it!
“I need a shower,” I say, gesturing towards my sweat-covered body. “I’ll meet you at the Clever Bean?”

“Sure,” she answers clinically. Not a drop of intimacy in her tone. The sexy Maia that I have missed all these weeks seems to have all but disappeared.

Maia

If you asked me whether I knew where Jackson was going to be on that Wednesday afternoon, I would have lied and happily told you that I had no idea. The truth is that I did know. I knew that he played basketball every Wednesday and Saturday at the college courts, and that he spent an unusually large amount of time in the library these days.
He wants to be friends? That’s a novel idea!
Especially since the very thought of being close to Jackson causes my stomach to erupt in beautiful butterflies. Nonetheless, we can do this, we both can.

Surprisingly, he’s already at the Bean by the time I get there. “Hi,” I say casually, trying to ignore how hot Jackson looks freshly showered, his arm swung casually over the back of the chaise lounge where he’s seated. I immediately regret my decision to be in such close proximity to him. We, him, us, all of this is far from over, and way too raw to revisit so soon. We both know that, but here we are, irrespective of that fact.

I perch myself awkwardly across from him, hoping against all hope that something in my demeanor, or eyes, or voice doesn’t betray me, in this little game that we’re trying to play. That I can hide behind this façade well enough to get through the next few hours. Jackson offers me a sweet, platonic smile that both warms my heart and breaks it simultaneously. All of a sudden, in the list of epically bad ideas I’ve come up with in my lifetime, this seems like it might just be number one.
With a bullet
. Despite my stoic expression, my mind reverts back to the moments I spent with my arms...and legs wrapped around Jackson. A searing heat courses through my body, flushing my cheeks.