Page 66 of Someone Just Like You

He pulled away. “Hold that thought. I need to use the bathroom.” Wiggling his finger, he said, “Whatever you do, don’t leave this room because I’m not sure I can rescue you from Leonard and Sheldon again.”

“I won’t move a muscle,” I said, breaking the promise a second later when I relocated to his bed. Something told me he wouldn’t mind.

I let my eyes wander the expanse of his room. After the way he’d teased my level of tidiness, I had expected Jude’s living space to be a sty. But aside from his perpetually unmade double-size bed and clothes spilling out of his closet and unfinished wood cubby shelves, it wasn’tthatbad—two steps above a college dorm and three steps below a sophisticated, mature man’s abode. I agreed with Jude’s assumption his mom would undoubtedly compare it unfavorably to mine. I chuckled but stopped laughing when he re-entered the room with an obvious limp. “Did you hurt yourself?”

He joined me on the bed. “Only about ten years ago when I fell off a moving bike. My knee pain flares up occasionally. Especially during a solar eclipse.” He grinned.

My throat swelled. My parents had mentioned his osteoarthritis, and even though I’d witnessed Jude clutch his knee on occasion, this was the first time I’d heard about it straight from him. I dropped my gaze to his gray-and-black comforter.

“What’s wrong?”

I took a deep, pained breath and closed my eyes.

“Is this about your parents?”

I touched a finger to my quivering lips. I couldn’t carry the weight of what I’d done any longer. It was time. “It’s my fault.” My voice was one level above a whisper.

“No, it’s not.” Jude rubbed my back soothingly. “You need to let them make their own choices, whether you like them or not.”

I hugged myself to stop shaking. “I’m not talking about my parents.”

“Then what?”

I opened my eyes and pointed at his knee. “That.”

Jude blinked. “What?” He stopped rubbing my back.

“Your knee. It’s my fault you got hurt, lost your baseball scholarship, and still limp during a solar eclipse!” I wiped my nose.

Two deep furrows nestled between his eyebrows. “I don’t understand. How is it your fault?”

“I let the air out of your bike tire.”

Jude gave a confused shake of his head. “What? When?”

I swallowed hard. “The night of your accident. I…I was home—grounded because of that fucking video of me drunk and puking…that you took! I had no idea you planned to ride the bike to the school. I thought you were already there!” A shower of guilt rained down on me for trying to justify my actions in the midst of my confession.

“Still doesn’t answer my question. Why did you…” He paused as if bracing for the next words out of his mouth. “…let the air out of my tires?”

“Tire. Just one. I was so mad at you for”—I waved my arms toward him—“being you! I’d just gotten rejected from two Ivy League schools, despite studying my ass off for years. On top of that I was stuck at home after my first andonlyoffense as atypicalteenager while you were at a game about to be lauded by our classmates for a talent you barely worked at. It wasn’t fair, and I lost it.”

Jude stared at me, not saying anything, prompting me to babble to break the silence.

“That composure you say I have? My inability to do anything without a plan?” I scoffed. “Well, now you know what happens when Mollyanna doesn’t think before she acts.”

Still stoic, he asked, “What was your end game?”

I raised and lowered my arms. “I didn’t have one! That’s the point. I didn’t plan any of it. I just grabbed the closest ‘weapon’ I could find—a wire hanger—ran across the street, and plunged it into your back tire in a rage. I regretted it immediately.”

I reached out to touch him, but he stood and backed away from me.

“I never ever imagined you’d ride the bike that way,” I said. “Worst-case scenario, I figured you’d discover it the next day and be inconvenienced for a few hours before it was fixed. I planned to anonymously pay for a spare tire.”

Jude narrowed his eyes. “How? With a GoFundMe campaign?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

I ignored the rhetorical question. “When I found out what happened—that you tried to ride the bike anyway and it blew—I was so ashamed. I hated you in the moment, but I never ever wanted you to get hurt. I certainly didn’t expect or want you to lose your baseball scholarship…your future,” I said, the last two words whispered for my ears only.

“You sure about that? You said yourself you resented how easily baseball came to me when you worked so hard for everything. Somewhere deep inside were you happy?” His eyes pierced mine accusingly.

---