Page 28 of Disorderly

Silence filled the car as we all thought about my questions, my concerns. I didn’t know if Jarrod had taken his relationship with Katy further than friends. No, he hadn’t. Of that I was pretty sure. If he had, I was sure that Katy would have told me. She’d have been concerned about cheating on me despite all the times I told her that I wanted to experience everything. That I didn’t want to hold her back. The virgin trope with the experienced men wasn’t completely my thing. Not when they tended to go over the top with jealousy if a man even looked at her. And keeping her a virgin while they got to play around, never screamed love to me. Instead, I felt like they didn’t respect the woman they loved since they treated her as a possession.

Although, if I were being honest, I’d never asked how Jarrod felt about her. I assumed he felt the same as we did since he treated her like we did, but maybe he only thought of her as a little sister. No, that didn’t sound right. He loved her like we did. Even if he was in possible denial like Peter had been, he loved her.

Jarrod broke the silence. “We still have lots to discuss, but first, we need to talk to Katy. You’re right, Jason. We did hurt her. And if I’d been thinking clearly, I would have noticed it right away when she wouldn’t make eye contact. We need to make sure she’s okay and understands.”

“Agreed. And I need to make sure she knows that I did it spur of the moment to protect her.”

Their words made me happy. They were taking Katy’s needs into consideration, but I didn’t want them to talk to her first. I needed to be the one to do that. After all, she’d called me, wanting comfort and I hadn’t been able to provide it. If anything, I ripped away all her safety nets due to my shock, letting her guess that I’d been keeping the information from her.

“Hold off on that. I’d like to talk to her first since she reached out to me.”

“But this isn’t something we can wait on,” Jarrod and Peter protested. “Besides aren’t you away for another couple of weeks?” Jarrod asked.

“I’m less than an hour from home,” I informed them. It didn’t matter what they said, I was going to talk to Katy first, even if I had to break into her house as soon as her mother went to work. I needed to smooth things over with her because now that I’d tasted her lips, I wasn’t going to give that up without a fight.

Chapter Nineteen

Katy

My heart jumped,waking me as my bedroom door clicked shut. A large shadow moved towards me. My mouth opened to scream, but nothing came from it. I couldn’t move. It was like I was frozen or restrained in some way. Every cell in my body urged me, shouted for me to flee, but my body didn’t respond.

And then the shadow stepped into a patch of lightness. A spot where my curtains allowed a faint glimmer of light through.

My breath rushed out with a woosh as my heart steadied. But my breaths came in gulps since my lungs continued to struggle to inflate. “J-Jason? Wh-what are you doing here?”

Two steps later he sat at the foot of my bed, staring at me with sadness. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but never spoke. The longer he took to respond, the more my head cleared of the fuzziness from sleep. The bottom fell out of my stomach. Memories of yesterday, of my phone call to him last night rushed in. I sat up, curling my knees to my chest under the blankets, trying to make myself as small as possible and as far away as possible.

“Please leave.” I was proud of myself for not stuttering or crying even if my heart cracked open, tearing itself into pieces.

He slid closer to me, allowing me to see the sheen of tears in his eyes. It tore at my heart and emotions. Why was he upset? It was me that had been wronged.

“I can’t.” He reached out but dropped his hand before it landed on my knee. “Not until I explain. I need you to understand, to know that we never wanted to hurt you or for you to find out the way you did.”

I didn’t know what to do. This was my Jason. The one who taught me to throw a ball so I could surprise my dad. The one who cuddled me when I was sad, and my dad wasn’t around. And after Peter left to go to work for the summer after my dad died, it was Jason who stepped up, caring for me when I didn’t want my mom to know how devastated I was. He’d stay with me at night, lying next to me until I fell asleep and when I woke up crying from a nightmare, he was always there, holding me together. Could I really cut him off without giving him a chance to explain? Even when I made mistakes, done something stupid, he always let me explain. I owed him that much. I took a deep breath, trying to work up the courage to push past the hurt and betrayal. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair as he opened and closed his other hand. It was like he wanted to touch me but wouldn’t allow himself to. “I wanted to. I never meant to keep it from you. But I never expected Peter to go public like he did. You know me.” This time he held out his hand to me, letting me make the decision as to whether or not I wanted to hold his hand. I did. I wanted too so much. I wanted to curl up into his arms and forget that this ever happened, that I ever knew they were all together in that way. But I couldn’t. I touch him yet. If I did, I worried I’d break down.

When I didn’t take his hand, his eyes dimmed, and he let his hand drop to the blanket. Disappointment at myself and shame rushed through me. I should have taken him up on his offer. He wouldn’t have hesitated if I’d been the one in his shoes. Yet I couldn’t make myself reach out and touch him.

“If it had just been me, I would have told you. I’ve always been open about my sexuality. It’s why I told you that even though I want you to be free to experience things, to kiss as many boys as you want, I wasn’t going to be with anotherwoman. You are who I want. But I couldn’t say the same for men because I’m also with Peter and Jarrod. Only them.” He shifted a little on the bed, getting comfortable with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out across the bed.

“Peter and Jarrod were different. I don’t know if they even identify as bisexual. But I do know that Peter has never been with another man outside of us. Not that we were really anus. Or at least we never really talked about us being anus.” He crossed his legs at the ankles. The movement proved he wasn’t really as comfortable as he tried to portray. A different reaction to the stress than mine, which was to sit, curled up, and absolutely still. “I mean, we talked. We made up rules to keep us safe. But we never talked about emotions or feelings, relationship type stuff.”

I nodded to let him know that I understood what he was saying.

“So when you told me about Peter kissing Jarrod at the school, I was shocked. Just like you. It was a huge change from how we portrayed ourselves to the outside world. It’s why I didn’t tell you this all this last night on the phone. I needed to check-in with them, to find out if things had changed in our”—he shrugged—“for lack of a better word, our relationship.”

And even though I didn’t want to speak, to ask questions, to find out things that would limit the hurt I felt, I couldn’t resist. Questions burned my tongue, wanting to be asked. As much as I didn’t want to care, his story sucked me in, making me feel the confusion, the hurt, and the betrayal on his behalf. In my own pain and grief, I never stopped to think about how this would affect him. It would have been bad enough if they had only been best friends. I mean, to find out that your best friends had been hooking up behind your back and didn’t even bother to tell you before they went public… well, I knew exactly how it felt. But his was worse. He wasn’t only their best friend. He was involved with both of them. He was part of their relationship, and they did this without him knowing. If I’d been in his shoes, I would have wondered if they’d publicly broken up with me without telling me, leaving it for me to find out from others. Craptastic! I now felt sorry for him.

“Have they?” He glanced at me with his eyebrows furrowed. Confusion written all over his face as if he’d forgotten I was there. Or since I doubted, he’d forgotten about me, maybe he didn’t understand my question. “Has your relationship changed? Are you no longer with them.”

The look cleared on his face. “No. We’re still together. Not that we’ve talked about what that means. In fact”—he leaned towards me as if he was telling me a secret which, in a way, he was—“I don’t think they even know what it means for themselves.”

Now it was my time to look confused, causing him to chuckle. It wasn’t his full throaty laugh that I loved. Not when both of us were too tense to be fully relaxed to allow it, but at least it was a laugh. A real laugh and not one of those hysterical ones that occur when you’re overloaded with emotions. At the sound, I dropped my guard, letting my legs slide down as I shifted my body to lean up against the same wall he did.

“What do you mean? How can they not know?” The whole idea was inconceivable to me. Not that I had any experience to draw from, but a public kiss like that signified a different step than a kiss in private. I mean, I’d heard the girls complaining about not knowing what a kiss meant before. They wondered if it meant they were together as a couple or if the other person was playing the field. But all those kisses had been done away from other eyes. By the time the kisses were done in front of others, they’d already had the relationship talk.

“You know Peter. He often does things without thinking it through. And this was one of them.” He lifted his right arm above my head, giving me the option to curl into his side or not. After a quick hesitation, I gave in, snuggling against him. And when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, the tightness in me released, sprung like a coiled spring. I felt safe again. It didn’t take away the hurt and betrayal, but knowing he’d gone through the same feelings I had, it made him a shelter again. In his arms, we could offer each other the comfort we needed.

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