Page 76 of Honest With You

He ignores my plea and scoops me up in his arms.

My body is near convulsion, trembling from my sobs. Even through all of this, I’m aware of him. His spicy scent hits me, it’s familiarity both comforting and painful. He tugs the comforter off my bed just enough to make room for us to slide in. He settles behind me, burrowing his face in my hair. I can feel him breathe me in, feel the heat of his tears hitting my neck and I can’t help myself from turning in his arms even as I continue to cry. My fingers automatically go to his face to wipe them before I realize what I’m doing and rip them back. He catches my hand, kissing my fingertips slowly as glistening blue eyes pierce mine asking–begging me to listen to what he has to say.

My heart joins in, urging me to.

The loud beating of my heart quiets the rampant thoughts.

The warning in my head gets shoved to the back and all I can focus on is him.

“Why?”It’s one whispered word but it’s a loaded one.

“Ava. I fucked up.” His fingers glide down my arm to the curve of my waist and he pulls me in closer. His breath fans my face and I squeeze my eyes shut, relishing in the feeling of comfort and safety only he provides. It’s overruling everything negative I’ve felt about him for weeks.

“I should have talked to you about Margaret a long time ago. That weekend was a mistake.”

My eyes fly open and he cups my face almost reverently. ”Not for the reasons you think. Margaret has… a lot of shit going on” He shakes his head, something that looks like guilt flashes in his eyes, and it makes me rethink letting him hold me like this. But when he focuses on me again, I see it for what it is.

He regrets it.

“I’m going to start at the beginning and explain it the best way I can, okay?”

I give him a stiff nod.

“I realized fairly quickly that our relationship was a means to an end for her. I was popular at school and she saw me as someone who–and I’m quoting her on this–'fit her brand'.” He laughs without humor at the memory. “All she ever wanted to do was stage dates for her Instagram followers, using me as an accessory to all her events. It wasn’t until she recorded me playing guitar that I saw what she was really after. She had the audacity to post it, saying I wrote her a song when that was legit the first time I ever played in front of her. I had told her before that my music was private but she ignored it for the sake of likes. I realized then that I will only ever be a prop to her. After I broke up with her, she begged me and cried, saying I was going to make her look bad and it was her job to look good. She asked if I could just pretend we were together until she graduated, and since it was only a few months away and I didn’t plan on dating anyone else, I agreed.”

He pulls me against his chest, his fingers skimming my waist as he lays flat on his back staring at the ceiling as he relived memories I can tell now weren’t the best.

“It wasn’t until right before the end of the school year that I started noticing things. She wasn’t eating. She was obsessed with what she looked like to the point where one time she realized she had a scuff on her shoe in a picture and I had to stop the car because she became almost hysterical about it.”

He runs his hand through his hair, tugging the golden locks.

“Then a week before her graduation, she didn’t show up to school. I didn’t think anything of it until I started getting tagged on Instagram. She was all over the feed, partying, wasted and drunk when she was supposed to be at school. She was posting pictures with some blond dude all while tagging me on it pretending it was me with her.” He peers down at me, his eyes sad and filled with regret. “Then she passed out in some random person’s yard in Carmel Mountain. She was lucky because it was an older woman who found her and took her to the hospital, where she was treated for alcohol poisoning.” His finger travels up my arm like he needs to touch me to get through it. “She had put me as her emergency contact, and that was when it all clicked for me. I never saw her at school with anyone– at least not in a friend type of way– it was always in the context of them wanting to hang around her for her blog or events. It was never just her and other people hanging out.”

“She was lonely,” I whisper.

He frowns, as if just now realizing he could use that word to describe his ex girlfriend’s situation.

“Yeah. But then the hospital found traces of some illegal drug in her system, and they had to call the police.” Jesse grits his teeth. “When they questioned her, she tried to pin it on me. She claimed she had a headache because of the alcohol and only took the pills because she trusted me.”

My hand shoots up to cover my mouth and I sit up, looking down at him, watching the anger course through him.

“Luckily, my cousin Tyler was in town and I was with him that whole weekend. So he showed the cops pictures and receipts of places we were at. By then, she had called her parents and they made arrangements for her to seek help, in exchange for no jail time. I honestly thought that was it, Ava. But when Margaret refused to go to the center, her parents acted like it was all my fault. They were spewing things like ‘I broke her heart’ or ‘I was the reason she ended up almost dying’. I’ve never felt so guilty in my life. And I was afraid they would contact my parents if I refused, so I helped them. I took her to New York under the pretense of visiting Tyler, and took her into that center. I left her there and I swear to you, Ava, since you walked back into my life, I’ve had zero communication with her. Until she showed up at Ty’s place, wasted.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me all this?”

He shakes his head then shrugs, like he didn’t know either but I can see it in the way his demeanor changes. His shoulders slump, his discomfort evident. He feels shame and guilt.

“I guess I was scared. I didn’t want you to misunderstand or worry. I figured it was better for me to come home and tell you in person than for you to hear it from me over the phone.”

“That picture?”

She was laying on his shoulder. He shakes his head again, this time sitting up and taking my hands in his. “I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for her dad to pick her up. She took advantage of me again. For this image she wants to portray on social media.”

“Why would she do that if she knew you had a girl—” I pause when it hits me. “Sh-she didn’t know about me.”

I pull my hands from his, rubbing my arms as I mull over everything he just told me. Even though he didn’t cheat on me, he still lied to me in that text and omitted important things that happened between him and his ex. And then he ghosted me. He knew his ex had a history of manipulating the narrative, yet he chose to do things without giving me a heads up, riskingusin the process.

And then the fact that he never even told her about me makes me feel like I mean nothing.

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