“What do you wanna talk about?” I asked, biting my lip.
“Um…” Rubbing the back of his neck, he shifted his weight. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. After last night.”
“You mean because you broke up with me over something really, really stupid?” I asked.
“It’s not stupid, Alice.” He sighed and shook his head. “And no, I didn’t mean that. I meant, you know… about Leif and everything too.”
“Well…” I wrapped my arms around myself, and my mouth felt dry. My stomach dropped, and I didn’t even know how to answer his question. “Why?”
“Why what?” Jack looked up at me, but I wouldn’t meet his eyes. I could feel him appraising me, making sure I was alright, and that hurt all the more.
“You don’t get to do this, Jack.” I ran a hand through my tangles of damp hair, and I put my hand on my side, pressing hard, as if I could hold the sadness in that way. “You don’t get to break my heart and pick up the pieces.”
“Alice.” His entire face fell and his shoulders slumped as he stared helplessly at me. “I didn’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re an even bigger liar than I am.” I rolled my eyes to keep back the tears.
I hated being the in same room with him, feeling the way he felt. His own confused pain permeated through the air, like a thick fog, and I couldn’t stand to feel it along with my own.
“How am I a liar?” Jack asked, his hurt expression growing defensive. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know that!” I yelled, and I didn’t mean to yell. I shook my head, and when I spoke again, I tried to lower my voice. “But you said you’d love me forever, and then I did something really dumb and relatively minor, and … I mean, let’s be honest, kissing Peter was way worse than this.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and furrowed his brow. “That was bad. But this… I asked you what you were doing. I told you I felt a distance between us. I was so honest with you, and you didn’t correct me. You didn’t… You couldn’t trust me with this part of you.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry,” I told him emphatically. “I didn’t want to fight about this because we’ve been fighting about so much other stuff lately. I wanted to have one less argument.”
“But that is the problem, Alice.” He looked at me seriously. “We’ve been arguing, and there’s been something going on with you. You’re restless and distracted, and this whole thing is just a symptom of that. Something is going on with you that I can’t fix.”
“Jack, you don’t need to fix me,” I shook my head. “And yes, I know I’m going through some stuff. But that doesn’t mean we should end this. We should work through it.”
He smiled, one of his pained smiles that broke my heart even more. He lowered his head and ran his hand through his hair, and for a while, he didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been trying so hard to be everything you wanted. To give you everything you could ever want. And you’re not happy.” He took a deep breath, and let his words hang in the air. “So now I’m going to be what you need.”
My phone rang in my pocket, but I ignored it.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“Answer your phone.” He nodded at me and turned to walk away. I said his name, but he left the bedroom without looking back.
“Hello?” I answered my phone with a heavy sigh.
“Alice?” Olivia said.
“Olivia? Are you back? I’ve been looking for you.”
“I need to talk to you,” Olivia said, forgoing her usually rambled greetings. She sounded clear and clipped, and that made me nervous. “When can you get to my place?”
“When do you need me?”
“As soon as you can.” Without waiting for my answer, she hung up.
I checked my phone to be sure it wasn’t a dropped call, and it wasn’t. I thought about calling her back, but if Olivia said she wanted me over there now, it was probably important. I didn’t need to waste time making unnecessary phone calls.
“Hey, Alice, how are-” Milo was saying as he walked into my room, but then he saw me pulling on my shoes and stopped. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I said, then sighed and shook my head. After what happened with Jack, it would probably be better if I didn’t keep anyone in the dark anymore. “Olivia called. She wants me to come over.”
“What for?” Milo asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I don’t know, but it sounded important.”
“I’m going with,” he said, and he’d been starting to master Ezra’s tone when something wasn’t open for debate.
“Don’t you have school or something?” I didn’t want him to go with me, not if Olivia’d gotten herself in trouble, but I couldn’t very well tell him that. He’d only insist on coming with more.
“It’s ten o’clock at night, on a Friday.”
“Oh. Right.” I nodded. “Well, then. Come on.”
Since Milo came with, that meant Bobby had to tag along, not that I minded. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I felt better about bringing Bobby along on dangerous excursions, even though he was more fragile. I cared about Bobby almost as much as I did Milo, so that wasn’t it.