All Grown Up Read online

  I raised my eyebrows as I felt my cheeks redden. I felt like I was going to throw up. “No,” I said. “You know what isn’t fair? What you did.”

  He looked around and began to walk away. I walked after him, feeling furious, feeling like I was going to punch him. He walked through a door and I walked in after him, ready to shout at him.

  “I just wanted to apologize,” he said. “I—it wasn’t on purpose. I was upset, okay? I was looking at your pictures and I got a text from the group chat and I accidentally sent it to them. I didn’t mean to send it to everyone else. It was… it was an accident, okay?”

  I shook my head, looking right at his face. “No,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Can you please believe me?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, then steeled myself before I spoke to him. “I don’t think I believe a single word that comes out of your mouth, and I don’t know how I ever did.”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t,” I said. “If you say you’re sorry again, I think I’m going to explode. Don’t, okay? Do not.”

  He blinked. “Jess,” he said as he put his hands on my bare arms. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  I shrugged him off. “I don’t care,” I said. “I want you out of my life. You want to humiliate me, take revenge on me again? I’d like to see you try.”

  “Jess—”

  “Try,” I said. “I’m going to leave this town and you’re going to be nothing but a bad memory who has left a bad taste in my mouth. You are going to be nothing but someone I gave a chance to once and I was wrong about. But trust me, Jody. You’re going to be the last boy I make that mistake about. The last person I make that mistake about.”

  He opened his mouth and I heard words coming out of it, but I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to hear anything else that he said.

  Never, ever again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  2019

  I sighed as I looked down at my clipboard. The free clinic was so underfunded that the doctors didn’t have their own electronic devices and we all seemed to share one computer in one of the darkened offices.

  I waited a few seconds before my gaze slid down the list. There were no names I recognized and I didn’t think I was going to find Jody in the list. He wasn’t going to come in and I wasn’t going to be able to speak to him or to check on his wound.

  I sighed again as I walked to the next room, room number three. I knocked on the door, walked in, and my breath caught in my throat. Jody was sitting on the chair in the corner, looking up at me, big bags under his eyes.

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to say it, but I thought that he looked dreadful.

  “Mr. Banks,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “I checked in as Ian Smith,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  I shook my head as I smiled back. “It’s not very imaginative,” I said. “But I suppose, if it’s better than your own names.”

  His smile widened into a grin. “It was the best I could come up with on such short notice,” he replied. “I could have planned it out, but I didn’t know if I was going to come over here.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “You seemed like you really wanted me to,” he said. “How could I say no?”

  “I really wish you had stayed in the hospital,” I said. “But if this is the best I can get, then I’ll take it. I did bring your things, too.”

  “You did?”

  “I didn’t know if I was actually going to see you, but I figured you weren’t going to go to the hospital.”

  His expression softened a little. “I didn’t—you didn’t have to do that.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s okay,” I replied. “I figured you wanted to keep your things.”

  I could see him chewing the inside of his mouth. “You’re still really nice.”

  “Only because you’re my patient,” I said. “As soon as you’re out of earshot, I start telling everyone how much I dislike you.”

  “Do you still?”

  I laughed a little. “As endearing as it was to see you in my emergency room, it didn’t particularly change my opinion of you.”

  He shook his head then tilted his face up so he was looking at the ceiling. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “Can I see your arm?”

  He nodded. He slowly moved his sleeve down his arm and I noticed that he was practically grimacing as he moved it away from him. I walked over to his side and noticed the way he smelled. He smelled like a cologne, but I didn’t know what it was. It smelled like sandalwood and oak and I could’ve stayed next to him smelling his cologne for a while.

  Unfortunately, despite how I felt about Jody, I still loved the way he smelled. I didn’t want to. I thought that I would feel upset by being around him, but no. I remembered the way he had made me feel when we had broken up, but I also remembered how he had made me feel before then.

  I leaned down and looked at his arm. The wound was healing okay, though it was a little red.

  “You haven’t had any fever or anything, do you?”

  “No,” he said. “Not as far as I know.”

  “Keep an eye on that,” I said as I examined his wound. “I need to know if there are any signs of infection.”

  “Like what?”

  “If the wound doesn’t seem to heal, or if you have a fever, those are pretty good indications,” I said. “If you don’t, you’ll probably be okay.”

  He blinked. “Well, I’m glad I came in, then.”

  “Keep taking your antibiotics,” I said. “And if you wait for me for like, I don’t know, thirty minutes, I’ll get your things out of my car.”

  “You really do have my things in your car?”

  “I told you I did,” I said. “Of course I have your things.”

  ***

  I walked out to my car and looked around the parking lot where I scanned for Jody. He was standing by the wall, leaning against it, smoking from one of those cherry-flavored vapes. I saw a white cloud coming from his face and walked over to where he was, flashing him a smile.

  “That can kill you,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied. “You want some?”

  I rolled my eyes, laughing. “I didn’t park too far from here,” I said. “It’s in the back, just follow me.”

  He did. He finished smoking his vape, then stuck it in his back pocket and looked down at me. He was still about a head taller than me and I could see his smile, which was still playing on his lips. I didn’t want my heart to flutter when he was around. I didn’t want to think about the way he made me feel, about the way he made me feel like I was being swept off my feet.

  We walked to my car. He whistled as we walked up to my gray Lexus. I clicked my keys and opened the backdoor.

  “A black jacket, a button-up shirt, and your wallet?”

  “You have my wallet?”

  “Yes,” I said, handing a black leather wallet to him. “It has your license in it. This is yours, right?”

  He nodded, looking bewildered. “I just didn’t think you’d have that.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought I had lost it somewhere else,” he replied.

  I pressed it into his hand and his fingertips touched mine. He smiled at me as I felt electricity jolting up my hands. I moved away from him and tried to flash him a smile, but it was too hard. Focusing on him was too difficult, and I wanted to move away from him, and forget about him having walked back into my life.

  “Anyway,” I said. “It was good to see you. I need to get back to work.”

  He nodded, but as I turned around, he caught my wrist.

  “Wait,” he said. “Can we talk?”

  I turned around to face him, so quickly I practically gave myself whiplash. “Listen,” I said. “I’m going to need you to leave me alone.”

  His smile dropped, but only for a second.

  “I will leave you alone,” he said. “For g
ood. I just need you to listen to me for a second.”

  My lips a straight line, I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I can give you one second of my time.”

  “I just—things have changed, okay? I’m not the same person anymore.”

  “Okay,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

  “And I—I made mistakes, okay? I was a stupid kid. But I was just a stupid kid, and I know I made some shit decisions, and I shouldn’t have done any of the things I did,” he said. “And if I did, I would go back and change my behavior.”

  I felt a flash of red-hot anger in my chest, climbing up my body and culminating in my head. “Is that right? Which part are you most sorry for, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it for implying I was a slut for liking you every time I went near you and your friends were around, even though we had been dating for the better part of a year?”

  “Jess—”

  “Or was it when you disseminated my nudes and got away with it because I had turned eighteen that year? Which one was it?”

  “I didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “You still did it!” I said. “I almost dropped out of school because of you. I hope you’re proud of yourself. After you did that, my grades dropped and—no, you know what? I’m not getting into this with you.”

  “I am sorry,” he said. “For what it’s worth.”

  I softened a little. I hadn’t expected an apology. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

  Then I walked away from him, not looking back once, despite how much I wanted to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  2010

  I walked toward the cafeteria. It was early in the morning, and the school was full of students of all walks of life going back and forth, none of them making eye contact with me.

  I didn’t expect that I was going to end up in community college, but I supposed it was better than not going to college at all. I told myself this would be cheaper, that it would be better for me if I did this. Getting into college was hard, but getting loans was especially difficult. The financial crisis meant trying to go to a four-year college had gotten way more competitive. I was working on a full scholarship, but even with that, something had to cover my living costs.

  The plan was to make it to the honors college in the community college, because people could transfer to Ivy League schools from there. I didn’t know if I was going to an Ivy, but I knew I was going to four-year schools, and the sooner that happened, the better it would be for me. I knew it was selfish, and I knew my mother wanted me to stay for as long as possible, but things were not that simple. I wanted to get as far away from the people who were my high school classmates as quickly as I could.

  Ever since the whole thing with Jody had gone down, I hadn’t been able to shake the humiliation. Every time I ran into one of my old classmates, I felt like I was going to throw up.

  It wasn’t anything that they did. They could’ve chosen to be cruel, but they didn’t. They never were. They were always extremely kind to me, to the point where it was concerning. It was clear that they felt sorry for me. It wasn’t what I wanted, so I needed to get away.

  I needed to forget about them. I needed to forget about Jody, about high school, and about what had happened. I was going to, that was the plan.

  I ordered my food from the counter, opting for Chinese food, waited for it, then sat down in a large round table near the entrance to the cafeteria. A girl I had seen in my classes asked if she could sit next to me, her food in her hand.

  “Hi, I’m Laura,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Jess. Nice to meet you. You’re in my humanities class, right?”

  “Yes, with Dr. Mansa. She is a riot.”

  “I’ve never had her before,” I said, then shook my head. “Let me make that clear. I’m a freshman, just came in this semester, but I used to come for baccalaureate classes for extra credit and I’ve run into some of the professors before.”

  “Oh, an honor student,” she said. “Cool. I'm from Nicaragua, so I didn’t have a chance to do that, but I know there’s a good honors program here. That’s why I decided to come to this community college.”

  I smiled. “That’s so cool,” I said. “How do you like it here?”

  “It’s okay,” she replied. “I miss the food.”

  “What’s the food like there?”

  We got into an easy conversation, and soon, without realizing it, I had made a new good friend. We worked hard to get into the honors program together and soon, there were more of us. Slowly but surely, my study group became my favorite people to see every day.

  It was great. I was finally finding my groove again, until I got on the train one day, sat down in one of the empty seats and looked out the window. It was the perfect time to be on the metro, nobody around me, and I was glad. Taking my car to school wouldn’t make any sense, because there was rarely any parking there, and I would likely be stuck in traffic for too long to make it worth it. So I left my car at home, or the train station, where I hopped off and hopped on the train. I was thinking about the logistics of this when I saw somebody that I recognized on the reflection of the window.

  My breath caught in the back of my throat as I tried my best to continue staring out the window. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of looking right at him. I had been very conscious of avoiding him ever since our messy breakup. I had gone out of my way not to run into him in the hallways or during student events.

  He had tried to talk to me, but I had always ignored him. It seemed like he had finally managed to get the message. So I was trying my best to keep avoiding him, even though seeing him right then made things a little weird. I thought I had left him behind in high school, a memory, more bitter than sweet, but seeing him in flesh and blood made me feel a little sick to my stomach.

  I was trying my best not to show it. To be a static figure sitting on the train where he wouldn’t be able to find me. He sat on the seats behind me and I continued to hold my breath.

  Maybe he was going to ignore me and we weren’t going to speak to each other.

  “Whoa,” he said. “I thought it was you but I wasn’t sure.”

  I craned my neck to look at him.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  I stared at him. “Did you startle me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, cocking his head. “It seemed like I did.”

  “You didn’t. It’s fine.”

  He swallowed. He looked bigger than he had last time I had seen him. As if he had gotten taller, but wider, too. His hair was cut very short, shorter than he had kept it in high school, and it looked darker when it was cut so close to his skull. “Where are you going?” He asked, after a little bit.

  “School. You?”

  “School.”

  I furrowed my brow, but I was determined not to ask. “Okay.”

  “I did hear that you’re going to community college. I just didn’t think I would run into you. The place is so big.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t run into me there, though. You run into me on the train.”

  He nodded. “That’s sure. Can I sit next to you?”

  I licked my teeth, shrugging my shoulders. “You can do whatever you want. You are a grown ass man.”

  He nodded, walking over to where I was, and sitting down next to me. He put his arm on the back of my chair and I felt the warmth coming off his skin. I looked him up and down. “Maybe we can do this together every time,” he said.

  “Do what together?”

  “You know,” he replied. “Go to school together.”

  I glared at him. “I don’t think I want that.”

  He looked a little defeated for a second. “You don’t seem to be that excited to see me.”

  “I’m not. Not excited to see you at all.”

  “Okay, but you don’t have to be rude.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I really laughed, a belly laugh, because what he had said wa
s really funny. I waved my hand in front of my face when he asked for an explanation, taking a few seconds to calm down before I spoke again. “I’m the one being rude.”

  “Yeah, you don’t have to be a sarcastic bitch.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “The laughing was sincere.”

  “I—look, I get it, it was awkward,” he said. “It was—”

  I held my hand up. “No,” I said. “Mhm. Let me stop you right there.”

  “Jess—”

  “You don’t get to talk to me,” I said. “You don’t get to pretend that we’re still friends. We’re not still friends. We are nothing. We don’t know each other. If you try to pretend we are, I’ll just ignore you.”

  “You’re not being fair.”

  “Me? Being fair?” I said with a scoff. “Let me be clear. If you act like we know each other, I’ll say you are obsessed with me. You are out of my life, Jody Banks, and I promise you that you are going to be out of my life for good.”

  “When did you become such a bitch?”

  “I’ve always been a bitch,” I said. “You always seemed to like it before.”

  I flashed him a huge smile before he moved away from me. “You’ve changed.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I haven’t. And neither have you. Now excuse me, please. I gotta go find a different seat, one away from a creep, ideally.”

  He winced. I could tell I’d hurt his feelings, but I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t care about him at all, and it didn’t care that he was clearly hurt.

  He hadn’t cared about me, so I wasn’t going to care about him and his feelings. No matter how much it felt like it was wrong not to care.

  CHAPTER NINE

  2019

  I threw myself back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, pressing my phone against my face. It was early in the morning and I was beat, but being tired didn’t mean I didn’t want to speak to my best friend.

  Cam’s voice was helping calm me down slightly, and as she told me about what was going on in her life, I managed to slow down my breathing. It wasn’t until a few seconds after she was done speaking that I realized I wasn’t actually saying anything.

  That neither one of us was.