IT TURNED OUT MY FEARof not being able to be normal around Jamie was unfounded, or so it seemed at first.
I avoided Jamie for a few days after the kiss, but when we did eventually hang out again, it was as if it had never happened. Conversation was easy, we saw each other when we could and, even around Ethan, Jamie seemed normal. We went surfing a lot, and since Ethan didn’t like to surf or even be at the beach at all, that was usually mine and Jamie’s time just the two of us. It was fun — we explored new places, tackled new waves, and Jamie even broke in a new board. I, on the other hand, felt like I could never part from mine.
Jamie was true to his word. He didn’t try to kiss me again. In fact, he’d pulled back completely. It felt like I was more inclined to be the one caught staring or standing too close. Jamie, on the other hand, would keep his distance. He kept conversation at safe levels and every touch between us was nothing but friendly.
As if to prove he was serious, Jamie even dated — well, I saydatedlightly. He never put a title on his escapades with the parade of blondes he had coming in and out of his and Ethan’s apartment, but I received the message loud and clear. I think, looking back, he thought it would solidify his promise he’d made to just be my friend. And it did. But, it also made me question why he’d ever kissed me at all. I looked nothing like those girls. They were all light skinned, curvy, blonde. Clearly it had been a mistake for him, which is why he had apologized so quickly.
It was just a kiss, a harmless mistake.
We were fine as friends.
It was easy, being with him — just like it always had been. And so, almost exactly like we had in high school, Jamie and I fell into an easy routine. Surfing, exploring new places in San Diego, studying — we even flew home for holiday break together. I was the most thankful for that, especially after my mom and I spent our first Christmas alone together. Even after I found out about what my dad did, we’d still all been together at Christmas. But this time I’d told him not to come, and even though I was solid in that decision, it still killed me. Jamie picked me up that night and we drove around our old hometown, just like we had that Christmas Eve his senior year.
We really had fallen into a friendship, or at least, we’d convinced ourselves we had.
But see, what you likely already know about liquor that I had yet to realize at that time in my life is this: each type of alcohol affects you in a different way.
Jamie was whiskey, that much I was sure of. I couldn’t deny the way he burned, the way his taste lingered. Still, no one warned me that once a whiskey girl,alwaysa whiskey girl. But I was figuring it out.
Ethan was like rum. He was sweet and fun, like a fruity cocktail on the beach. He said all the right things, took me to the right places, gave me the right gifts on holidays we celebrated together. For all intents and purposes, he was a perfectly fine libation.
But I didn’t get drunk off rum the same way I did off Whiskey.
One particularly late night in February, Ethan showed up unannounced at my dorm. Marie and I had actually formed a friendship by that point, and we were making spiked apple ciders in the kitchen when he knocked.
I opened the door, a little buzzed, and smiled wide when I saw him standing there.
“Hi, baby!” I threw my arms around his neck and giggled, but he just barely hugged me in return. When I pulled back, there was a thin line forming between his brows and his eyes wouldn’t fully meet mine.
“Can you take a walk with me?”
“Right now?” I asked, turning back to Marie in the kitchen. She was stirring her cider with a cinnamon stick and singing Katy Perry. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you a drink.”
“B,” he said, and the way my nickname left his lips sent a shiver up my spine. I crossed my arms, trying to find warmth in the oversized sweater I was wearing. “Please. I just… I need to talk to you.”
I stared up at his frown, missing the smile that usually held its place. “Okay. Let me put on my boots.”
Marie just grabbed my cider, now holding one in each hand, and raised both eyebrows at me as she passed into her room. I laughed, tugging on my boots quickly and meeting Ethan outside. My stomach was in knots as we started walking, the campus dark save for the streetlights and dorm windows. When Ethan reached for my hand and gripped it tightly in his, I breathed easier, but only marginally.
“I need to ask you something, and I need you to be one-hundred percent honest with me.”
I squeezed his hand in return, trying to swallow down the thick ball of cotton stuck in my throat. It was cold, especially for San Diego. I learned that, just like Florida, Southern California earned about a month and a half of moderately low temperatures. At the present moment, it was just over fifty degrees, but it wasn’t just the cool night air giving me a chill.
“You and Jamie spend a lot of time together. And I get it, I understand that you guys were close in high school. I get it that you both like to surf, and I don’t want you to stop hanging out with him or anything. But…” Ethan stopped, pulling us over to a bench and sitting down first. I stayed standing, and Ethan continued to look anywhere but at me. “B, I can’t compete with Jamie.” His eyes finally found mine, and what I saw behind them nearly broke me. “I just can’t. So if I’m not enough for you, just tell me now.”
“Ethan,” I sat then, both of my hands reaching out for his. He held them tight, his teeth hard on his bottom lip as he stared at where our fingers met. “You are more than enough for me. Hell,I’mthe lucky one trying to figure out what the hell it is you see in me.” I laughed and Ethan forced a smile, but it fell quickly. “I’m serious. Ethan, Jamie and I, we’re just friends.”
He nodded, sniffing, and I watched the cloud of air escape his lips with his next question. “Promise?”
A knife twisted in my heart, and I fought against it to smile. “I promise. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Ethan traced the skin of my palm with his thumb before pulling me closer. He wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my head as he exhaled slowly. “Can you… I know you guys have a lot in common. But, I need you to just put me first a little more, okay? I need to feel more important than him. I know it sounds juvenile and needy but I don’t care. I can’t keep comparing myself to him in my head. I just want to look at you and see more in your eyes than I see when you look at him.”
I physically cringed then, shaking my head against his chest and tangling my hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “God, Ethan, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, you’re not doing anything wrong.” He pulled back then, his dark eyes finding mine. It was complete silence around us, a late Tuesday night on campus, a cold night that called for snuggling on couches, not on benches. “I just need a little reassurance sometimes. I—” he paused, as if he caught himself about to say something he’d regret. “You just mean a lot to me, okay? And I want to know if you feel the same.”
I smiled, framing his face with my hands and pulling his lips to mine. “I do.”
