Page 55 of Always Been You

"What about dance rehearsals?"

"That's it. And he walks me to my car and then walks our dance instructor home."

"Aww, that's nice."

"Don't go giving him any Brownie points just yet. She lives a couple blocks away."

"Still," Ali maintained. "Okay, so why don't you walk with him?"

"What?"

"Walk with him to take her home and then you guys could talk on the way back to your cars."

"I don't know." Jess shrugged.

"Have you asked him to talk?"

"No."

"Why not?" Ali asked a logical enough question, but Jess felt anything but logical.

As she thought back over the past couple of weeks, she had to admit he had made an effort more than she had. He’d offered to stop by the night after she'd found out he'd been shot. Seeing him hurt had thrown her for a loop the likes of which took a few days to recover from. She'd been mad at him. Really mad. It was a strange emotion to feel about someone who (kind of) almost died, and Jess tried to figure out why she'd had that reaction—which turned out to be fear.

It was the first time she understood why her dad would always seem so upset with her. She used to ask her mom, "Is dad mad at me?" and her mom would always tell her, "No, sweetie, he's just scared." She got it now.

Seeing the bruise on Ethan's ribs terrified her and she felt helpless. Her mind jumped to all the things that could’ve happened to him, and that made her angrier and more scared. It was a vicious cycle that had taken her a few days to recover from.

Once she did, she felt proud of herself for examining her emotions and resolving her issues like the mature woman that she was. She'd told herself that the next time he asked to see her, she'd agree. One small problem with that plan: he never asked. Not for an entire week. Then, a couple of days ago, he’d texted around eight o'clock at night to see if she wanted to grab pizza.

By that time she'd been missing him for seven days and wondering why he hadn't been trying to see her and, well, she was butthurt about it, so she told him she wasn't hungry.

So much for the whole mature woman thing.

"Hello," Ali waved her hand in front of Jess's face. "Why haven't you talked to him?"

Because instead of Jesus taking the wheel, I let my pride take that sucker, and it drove me straight to Lonely City. Is what she thought. What she answered with was the classic, "I don't know."

"Why haven't you just sat him down and asked him, point blank, what is going on between you two?"

"Because this was his idea." Jess wasn't going to be the needy girl asking for clarity on their “relationship.”

"So. Since when do you care whose idea something is? Do you remember when we were eight and I thought I could be a dress designer and I got all that material from Goodwill and started trying to make patterns out of toilet paper? You stopped production, grabbed construction paper, and saved my first line.

"Or how about when I decided that I was going to throw an Anti-Prom and I started handwriting those awful invitations, and you stopped me, created amazing ones in Photoshop, and got Puck to agree to DJ and Pizza, Pizza to donate four pies before I even finished making the invite list."

"I'm resourceful." Jess shrugged.

"Yes, you are. And you don't wait around for other people to figure stuff out. You—"

"He asked me because he knew I wouldn't get attached," Jess finally blurted out. She'd intentionally left that part out when she'd told Ali what was going on with her and Ethan.

"What?"

Jess lowered her voice. They were the only two people left in the area, but she still wanted to be cautious. And what she was about to admit was a little embarrassing, since it had backfired. Big time. "He said that the reason he asked me was because he knew I wouldn't get attached. That's why he didn't ask Laura or Kennedy. He said he didn't want to lead anyone on."

Ali stared at her blankly for what felt like an eternity before she burst out laughing.

Her friend had never been cruel before or taken joy in other people's pain, so Jess wondered why Ali had chosen this moment to start.

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