Page 240 of Falling Backwards
I swallow through it and go on.“Not much going on with me that’s new, though.How’s school?”
He sets his glass down.“Shitload of work.It’s easier to cheat than I thought it’d be, though, so that helps.”
I give him a look.“Ha.”
“It is.”His eyebrows lift earnestly.“I really didn’t think I’d be able to do it as much as in college, but it’s—”
“Wait, what’re you—?”
Astonished now, I can’t even finish my question.
Is he for real?Surely not.He wouldn’t do that stuff, would he?
The steadier voice that’s been with me whispers,Would I really put it past him?
Jayden slowly shrugs and shakes his head.“What?”
“You cheated your way into medical school?”I blink, then frown at him.“And you’re cheatinginmedical school?”
“Well, yeah.It’s hard to get into and hard to get through.”
I stare at him.
“But at least I’m gonna come out of it with a good job,” he says breezily.
I start to point out any number of things—that cheating is wrong, that faking his way through schooling for something like medicine isreallywrong, that there’s likely going to come a time when he can’t actually fake anymore and he’ll get caught—but the way he starts grinning distracts me.It looks condescending or something.
Now I’m the one asking, “What?”
“You jealous, bartender?”he asks.“Of the good job I’m gonna have after all this?”
And there’s that tone: the one he uses when he thinks he’s being funny and I don’t.He touched on it a minute ago when he called me a beer bitch.I know I would’ve heard it the other night if we’d been on a call instead of texting when he said I’ve been pussy-whipped into spending all my time with a girl who makes me spend my money on her.
My face must be saying what I’m thinking because he holds his hands up and laughs.
“I’m kidding!No need for you to look like you wanna get up and leave.”He picks his drink up again and gestures at me with it.“But honestly, friend to friend…if you’re gonna get touchy over a joke, maybe that should tell you something.Areyou jealous I’m in med school?Do you wish you were there too?Or in law school or in school for—” he shrugs, “—I don’t know, computers or some shit?’Cause you don’t have to have a lame job forever, you know.You don’t have to be stuck mixing sugary drinks and slicing limes.”He grins again.“Seriously.When do you work again?Tomorrow?Bail on it and hang with me and we’ll figure out how you, too, can grow up and do some real—”
“One Guinness, two shots of Patrón.”Our server starts setting glasses on the table.“Anything else y’all need right now?”
As I shake my head and Jayden says we’re good, I look at the beer and actually feel like I don’t even wantitanymore.
I want Maggie.
A swell of missing her hits me once again.
The server is gone and Jayden is lifting a shot like he wants me to toast him.
I don’t so much as touch my glass.I don’t even get back to the rude and stupid things he was saying moments ago, though I know how I want to respond to them.No, I jump into what I really want to say.
“Do you ever think back on what we did to Maggie Moss in high school and feel bad about it?”
“Who?”
I blink at him and watch him raise his eyebrows, gesturing for me to lift my drink to his.
This is when I finally find myself thinking,Strike one.
Absently, I curl a hand around my glass.Not absently, I prompt him, “Maggie Moss.When we were sixteen.The girl I started hanging out with because I lost that bet to you about your brother’s—”
