Page 78 of His Custody

She managed to hang up before she started crying for real. Throwing herself on her bed, she grabbed her Peter Pan doll from under her pillow where she kept it so her roommates wouldn’t know she still had a stuffed animal, and she sat on her bed with her phone in front of her, rubbing her star on her bracelet and trying not to feel like her scar was on fire.

Five minutes that were some of the most agonizing of her life passed before her phone rang.Jasper. Finally.

“Jasper, what the hell? Where have you been?”

There was a pause and she almost started yelling again, but then there he was. Sort of.

“Could you not with the yelling?”

His voice sounded off. Like his mouth was stuffed with cotton and slurry at once.

“Are you sick?”

There was a humorless chuckle on the other end and her muscles went rigid. “I’m a little under the weather, yeah.”

Why hadn’t he called her? Probably didn’t want to bother her, but if he was sick—Jasper never got sick—and sick enough to sound like that? “Do you want me to come home?”

His refusal was swift and harsh. “No. Don’t you dare. Midterms are in a couple of weeks, you can’t miss any classes.”

Well at least he was with it enough to scold her. But she still didn’t like it. Something was wrong. “Fine.”

She waited for him to ask how she was, what was new, even to ask in that begrudging tone how Tyler was, but he didn’t. Coughed and cleared his throat. Nothing left to do but tell him then. She’d planned to ask, but now he’d scared her half to death and not even apologized, and she wasn’t in an asking mood.

“Fall break is in a couple of weeks. I want to come home, and I want—”

“Keyne, we’ve talked about this. For the next four years—”

“Fuck you and your four years. I’m telling you I need something, that I want something and you’re saying no? Even though you want it, too? What the hell? This doesn’t even make any sense, Jasper. I found a nice boy like you wanted me to, tried to be a normal girl who likes vanilla fooling around. And guess what? I hate it. It makes me feel like a cold fish, that I can’t be what Tyler wants me to be. It makes me feel broken. Is that what you want?”

“No, that is the opposite of what I want.” His voice had that gravelly quality that told her he was talking through clenched teeth. Good. She hoped he chipped one and the dentist couldn’t see him for a good long time. Yeah.

“Then why are you doing this to me? To us?”

“I—” She could picture him on the other end of the line, eyes closed, nostrils flared, bridge of his nose pinched between his blunt fingers as he blew out a sigh. “I’m doing it for you, Keyne. For us. I want to know that when you come back to me—if you come back to me—it’s because you’re choosing it, not because you don’t know any better.”

Alice was always telling her that she shouldn’t use her kickboxing skills for harm, but only to defend herself if necessary. But she was quite certain Alice would have nothing to contribute but a thumbs-up if Keyne decided to punch Jasper in his stupid, illogical face.

“So, you can come home if you’d like. I’d love to see you. We can go to the gym and do crossword puzzles, maybe have dinner with Leisl, but I’m not going to touch you.”

Her heart hurt, and it was fucked-up that the only person she wanted comfort from was the person who was hurting her. If she could see him, be held by him... but he wouldn’t, because he was a stubborn bastard.

“Fine. You can make your choice, but I’m going to make mine, too. I’m not coming home, so you can free up your calendar for whatever the fuck it is you do when I’m not there. And you should go to bed, you sound like hell.”

***

He felt like he’d been dragged through hell and back, and then through hell again. Not only had he gone to Ryan’s house and gotten beyond fucked-up, he’d been so out of it he hadn’t realized he’d lost an entire day to being blitzed out of his mind. It wasn’t until his phone rang, and rang, and, dammit,rang, that he’d realized it was not in fact Saturday night, but Sunday night and it was Keyne calling.

When he’d cracked his eyes open, it had taken him a minute to even remember where he was. Ryan’s. On his couch because guy had transformed his guest room into a weight room. And fuck was that couch too small for him. So small he’d fallen onto the floor. When he’d sat up, he’d barely made it Ryan’s bathroom before he’d puked. He was getting too old for this shit.

And talking to Keyne hadn’t made him feel any better. Guilt gnawed at him that she’d panicked when she couldn’t reach him. And panic was what her yelling had been covering up. Ugh, the yelling. His head was still pounding from it. Girl had some lungs on her.

She’d been right about one thing though. He needed his bed. But first, a shower, a change of clothes, and if he could stomach it, some food.

He left without saying good-bye to Ryan. He would text him later. Luckily, his car was still parked in the driveway, and his keys had been on the counter. This was not the worst bender he’d ever gone on, though the aftermath was proving worse than he remembered. Apparently getting royally fucked-up and having nothing to show for it the next day but a smile and a few sick stories was a game for younger men than him.

On his drive home, he couldn’t help but play his conversation with Keyne over and over in his head. And the more he thought about it, the sicker he felt. He’d made her a promise, and he’d broken it. Yes, it had only been a few minutes until he could call her back, but the reality was he didn’t remember half of what had happened while he was messed up. He could’ve—and probably had—done some really dangerous shit that could have got him hurt or killed. And then what would Keyne have done?

His stomach lurched and he had to pull over. There on the side of the Merritt Parkway, he puked up his guts for the second time in as many hours, but this time it wasn’t from the alcohol or from the drugs. It was there, leaning over a low wood guardrail that he swore never again. He’d keep his promise to Keyne if it was the last thing he did. Whether she ended up with Tyler or some other guy, or whether she came back to him, it didn’t matter. He’d be the man she believed him to be. He would.

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