Chapter Three
The next morning, I crawled off the mattress early and got ready for the day in Laynie’s spare bathroom that branches off the kitchen next to the mudroom. Laynie was already gone to dance practice, leaving me to have the house to myself for a couple hours before Jonah would come.
I sat on the couch, remote in hand, and flipped through the channels. Music videos felt like a good idea and I laughed as I turned it on. Ce Lo Green singing Fuck You. I laughed louder for just a second before I suffocated my giggled and continued to watch.
I feel that way sometimes, like just flipping the bird and watching people’s surprised faces. Dealing with people that just don’t care is just too hard to do from day to day. Some days I just want to say just what Ce Lo Green is saying. I smile happily to myself as I imagine doing this to all of the people that have ever made fun of me.
At about ten, Laynie walks in the door with the phone to her ear, her face a little concerned. She smiles, waves, and sets her stuff down in the kitchen.
“Give me a second, here she is.” She says, coming towards me with the phone. She adds, “It’s Jonah.”
I take the phone. “Hey, fish.” I laugh. “What’s up?”
“Hey to you too. I don’t think I can come today.” He said, sounding just as disappointed as I felt.
“Why?” I ask.
He stays quiet for a second. “Hannah’s pissed.”
“Why is she pissed?” I ask. I think back to the night before on the porch, when Megan looked at me.
“Well, her exact words last night as she ripped my head off were ‘I can’t believe you and that girl cuddled right in front of me! I mean jeez, Jonah, you barely even know her!’”
“What?” I yelped. “Barely even know me? We cuddled?”
“I know! We got in a pretty big fight last night. I’ve known you for years, Tide. And cuddling or not, if I’m not allowed to be with my best friend, then I don’t know if this Hannah and me thing is going to work.”
I grew quiet, my mouth gaping slightly. “Don’t say that.” I forced myself to say.
“You mean you’re one hundred percent happy with Hannah?” he asks. This was a test, I could feel it.
“Jonah. It doesn’t matter if I like Hannah or not. I’m not the one dating her. But I would like to say that if I were a guy, I don’t think she’d be my type. Too preppy, snood, energetic, sometimes annoying…” I went on for a little bit with Jonah laughing on the other end.
“Well, Tide. I promised her I wouldn’t come today. She was freaking out a lot and that was the only way for her to calm down and start packing for New York.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped.
“But. I’ll be there tomorrow. We’ll practice all day. I promise.”
I smiled then. “OK Jonah. Luff you. Talk to you later.”
He chuckled. “Bye, Tide.”
I hung up and gave the phone to Laynie.
She looked at me sideways again. “What exactly did Hannah freak out about?” she asked.
“She accused Jonah and I of cuddling.”
Hannah and I looked at each other for a second without saying anything. And then we both exploded with laughter that sent us to the floor.
The rest of the day went by fairly quickly. Laynie and I jammed in the basement for a bit, and then drove to Iowa City, since here in Iowa, there is nothing to do unless you’re in a big town. We walked through the Old Capitol Building Mall, which is known to the regulars as the Ped Mall.
We went to our favorite art store, shopped around until we found what we wanted, and then went to the nearest ice cream parlor to cool down.
“Um. I’ll have a vanilla with pecans and chocolate fudge.” Laynie says to the girl behind the ice cream case.
“And I’ll have the same thing.” I add.
The girl scoops out the ice cream and rolls it out on a cold stone. She flattens it, mixes things in and then puts it in cups.
Laynie and I make our way to a back table away from everyone else, since we aren’t very social people at times, and we talk.
“So, Tide. You’re still in love with Jonah.”
I cringe. “That word!” I hiss.
“I’m sorry. You still have very strong positive feelings for Jonah.” She says, tapping her fingers together in her therapist way.
“I don’t know. I’ve always had strong feelings for Jonah, you know that.”
“Yes, I know. He’s going to break up with Hannah, Tide.”
“How do you know?” I choke on a pecan.
“Because he told me.” She took another bite of her ice cream.
“When did he tell you?”
“This morning before I came inside, he told me that he wanted to break up with her, and then he told me that he couldn’t come to practice. The latter part was far more depressing, which is why I was sort of not happy looking when I came in this morning. I really wanted you to start off with a good morning.” She frowned.
“I did start off with a good morning! I watched Fuck You on VH1 today!”
Laynie snorted as people turned around to see me talking obnoxiously loud. I covered my mouth, blushed, and tried to choke down my ice cream before we could get kicked out of the parlor.
On the ride home, Laynie and I sang again. She doesn’t sing in front of anyone except me. Not even Andy, who’s been another one of her best friends since they were in sixth grade. She sings softly, and she reminds me a lot of Rivers Cuomo. She has the same tone, the same attitude as him. No wonder he’s her idol. I sang too, joining in where I thought harmonies should be. We laughed when the harmonies sucked, and nodded and smiled when they fit perfectly.
Once we finished, silence hung in the air like a comfortable blanket for a few minutes. I thought quietly about Jonah, about Hannah.
“Why would he break up with her?” I blurted.
“Because he’s liked you since the first time you guys met?” she took a gander.
“Impossible!” I shout.
“How? You’ve even admitted to me that the second you met that kid you immediately were drawn to him. He’s told me about it too you know. He talks about it a lot, especially when he’s sad.”
I hated that. How I couldn’t be there for him when he was upset, since I was an forty five minutes away now.
“Don’t even go getting yourself down,” Laynie said, reading my mind. “You can’t be alone forever, Tide. I know that with… you went through a lot of things you should have never had to go through. You shouldn’t have had to grow up like that to take care of him. But Jonah, he’ll take care of you. Even Mitch sees it for god’s sake!” Laynie laughed a little.
I rolled my eyes. “What does Mitch see when he’s best friends with Hannah?”
“He sees that you and Jonah connect on an entirely different level than anyone else that he’s ever seen. Jonah may have liked Hannah, or maybe even loved her once. But the second you came into that door last night, everything changed.” Laynie grew serious.
“That can’t happen.” I whine softly. “I’m not good for him.”
Layne yelled then. “What do you mean you aren’t good for him? Do you even see how you make that boy feel? He doesn’t smile like that, not even with me. We’re all best friends, but you two go to such an extreme level without even trying that I don’t even know what to think about it. It’s like it’s so easy for you guys that there’s no need in working on establishing a relationship. It’s already there. You both just need to grow a pair and admit that maybe you both have loved other people in the past, and you’ve both made mistakes, but you’ve both learned from them, and you can both grow with each other.” Laynie faded then.
I never knew that she could see those things, and I didn’t know they were true until she said them all out loud.
“I really thought you and douche were going to work. I mean, you guys were together for forever, but he turned out not being good for you… he changed you so much. I hate what he did to you, Tide. And I wish I could take it away. But Jonah can. When he sees you he lights up,” Laynie shakes her head with a smile and I could see that she’s tearing up now.
I put a hand on her shoulder. We sit quiet then as I digest everything, and try to figure out how to tell Jonah.
We fall asleep that night in the same way we did the day before, with Laynie on the couch and me on a mattress. We watch movies for a little while and eventually drift off to sleep.
I close my eyes, and for the first time in months, I don’t see James there behind my eyelids. I see Jonah.
Gah! I'm so behind! Anyway...
