Page 70 of The Hookup Situation

“Shhh,” she soothes as I sob on her chest. “You’re okay. I’m here. You’re okay.”

It takes a while for my tears to stop, and when they do I’m fucking exhausted. Lucy hands me a tissue and I wipe my nose, apologizing for getting bodily fluids on her shirt, which of course she waves off and squeezes me tighter.

“I’m gonna go make us some tea,” she tells me as she strokes my back. “And then you’re going to talk, okay?”

I nod, and she leaves. When she comes back I’m sitting up in bed, blowing my nose again and wiping my eyes. I know I must look like shit.

“Fuck, I just realized it’s the day before Christmas Eve. You should be with your family,” I sniffle.

“I’m with my family,” she says, and my heart squeezes as I almost start crying again. My chest heaves and she kisses my hair as she hands me my tea, and then takes her seat on the bed again, sitting criss-cross applesauce. “I told my parents I would be back tomorrow. But you needed me. I wasn’t going to leave you alone. I love you, Jax.” She rests a hand on my leg over top of the blankets.

I suddenly feel so shitty for not being honest with her from the beginning. For hiding everything about my parents and pretending I was okay for so long when I wasn’t. Because this is Lucy and she always has my back. I know that. I’m just still not used to people caring about me this much.

“Talk to me,” she says gently.

So I do. I tell her everything, starting with my parents, and how I feel like I’ve been invisible my entire life when it comes to them. How I’ve spent so much time and energy trying to be better, do better, so they’ll see me, love me, want me. How I’ve spent so much time alone, and how they were never there for the small or big moments in my life and how the holidays at home were anything but enjoyable.

“I lied about all of it,” I admit. “I don’t exactly know why. I think I didn’t want to burden you guys with my problems, and for a long time I didn’t feel like they even deserved to be problems. I didn’t want to come off as complaining when I had so much more than some other people do. I’ve got a fancy car and nice clothes, and my tuition is paid for, and my parents are covering the cost of my apartment, and I have money to spend on anything I want whenever I want, which a lot of college students don’t, and I don’t even have to work, and I don’t know. I dealt with so much guilt because I felt like I should be grateful, you know? But I wasn’t. Throwing money at me has always beentheir way of pretending they care, or making up for not being there. And it honestly pissed me off because it wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted them. But I learned pretty early on that telling them that didn’t go over well, so I stopped. Just accepted the gifts and money and pretended everything was okay.

“But I didn’t want pity. Hearing everyone else talking about their families and how excited they were to go home, I didn’t want to say I was dreading it, or that I wasn’t going home and I was staying here alone, because at least then I wasn’t expecting anything and getting let down. And maybe making up excuses for them not coming to my shows just seemed easier and less painful than accepting that they weren’t coming because they didn’t care.” I sniffle. “God, just saying that out loud hurts like hell.” I take a breath and let it out, wiping a few more tears from my eyes.

Lucy sets her tea down and scoots closer, wrapping her arms around me. “Okay, first of all,” she starts, “your parents better hope I don’t ever have the displeasure of meeting them because I would have some words, and maybe a few gestures for them.”

I laugh a little and she grins. “And second, you are always allowed to tell me or Rory about the shitty stuff in your life, Jax. That’s what we’re here for. It kills me that you’ve been dealing with this for so long and we didn’t know. You don’t have to pretend that things are okay when they’re not. We love you, and you can bet if we knew any of this earlier we’d have dragged you home with us for the holidays and we would have loved doing it. And, just because you had things, nice things, lots of money growing up, that doesn’t mean your emotional needs were met. You're allowed to be upset and hurt by that.”

“You know, between this and the panic attack, that psychology major of yours is really coming in handy today,” I say, and she grins and smacks me.

“Now, tell me about Preston. Because I’m guessing that all of this has to do with that.”

So I tell her that too, starting at the beginning. How I know people see me as a player, someone who just jumps from one guys’ bed to another, but then I tell her why. Why I don’t do relationships, why I don’t sleep with the same guy twice. Because I’ve been there, and done that, and had my heart broken too many times.

“When I was a junior in high school I was dating this guy, and I was falling in love with him after we’d been together for about four months. At least I thought I was. Who really knows when you’re seventeen if it’s love or not, but it certainly felt like it to me, and when I told him, he told me that he had been fucking another guy the entire time we’d been together, and that the two of them we going to be a couple. He was even so kind as to offer to let me join them in bed sometimes, like he hadn’t been cheating on me and just broken my heart. And seeing them around school after that for another year and a half was fucking awful, and I was humiliated because everyone knew except me that all of this was going on behind my back the entire time, and I was a fucking idiot, for thinking anyone could actually like me and want to be with me for something other than sex.” I sigh. “So, anyway, that was the first time. And I figured, that’s high school, you know? Kids are kids, I can’t never take a chance again because of that. So I put myself out there again freshman year of college, and I just had so many of the same experiences. I wasn’t dating because I’d sworn that off, but I was hooking up with the same guys several times, and I’d start to develop feelings for them, and they’d all tell me the same thing.“Look, you're just not the kind of guy I would date, or bring home, but you’re great in bed.”or“You’re gorgeous, and you’re a good lay, but that’s it. You’re not relationship material” or “You’rethe kind of guy people fuck until they find someone to settle down with.”

“And I just didn’t know what it was about me that wasn’t good enough, but I’d heard the same message all my life from my parents, and then from my asshole boyfriend, and then the guys I was hooking up with, so I figured it must be true. I just wasn’t what people wanted long term. I was only good for sex.”

Lucy sighs and squeezes my arm as her head rests on my shoulder. “Oh, Jax, honey, I’m so sorry.”

I keep going. Somehow it feels really good to get it all out there. And I feel safe with Lucy. “So even though I wanted to belong to someone more than anything, and for them to belong to me, I figured it wasn’t in the cards, and if I wanted to keep from getting my heart broken over and over, I’d just have to never fuck the same guy twice, and so that’s what I did for two years.”

She looks at me. “Until Preston came along.”

I nod.

She gives a soft smile. “He didn’t play by the rules, did he?”

I chuckle slightly and shake my head. I tell her how we met, how I told him I didn’t do repeats, but he suckered me back time and time again. I tell her how fucking terrified I was the entire time, because I didn’t want to fall for him and end up getting hurt again, but couldn’t stay away. I tell her I couldn’t say anything to her or Rory because I knew it wouldn’t last and I couldn’t have them getting my hopes up.

“I’m so sorry,” I admit. “I’m so sorry for lying to you both and being deceptive and acting like a total dick.”

She kisses my cheek. “Do you love him?”

I nod.

“I thought I was alone in my feelings. I never expected him to…” I trail off.

“To love you back.”

Another tear trickles down my cheek and I nod. “Yeah. He said he did. But I don’t know if I can be enough for him, and I’m still scared shitless he’ll wake up and realize I’m not what he wants. That he’ll find someone better.”

---