Page 59 of Summer Breakdown
“I’m—“
“If you say you’re sorry once more without proving you are, I will scream,” Jasmine replies. She’s sad—Frankie can tell that—but she doesn’t know how to fucking fix it. She doesn’t know what she wants.
Frankie taps her toes. “I think about you, and I hope you miss me and that you think about me too,” she says, pulling the inside of her cheek. “I have dreamt about nothing apart from telling you about every thought in my mind and kissing you. That’s it.” Frankie swallows. She’s practiced this. It’s written on the notes app of her phone.
“It’s not because I don’t want to talk to you,” she continues quietly. “I do. I want to talk to you all the time, but I don’t knowhowto talk to you. I try and message you or I go to call you, or I think about walking over when you’re in the office, and my throat closes. I don’t make new friends for real. I’ll be friends with the cabbie, or a girl in the bathroom at Carl’s, but no one I want to keep,“ she says, with a wave of her hand.
“Mali is an anomaly because she works here, and she seeped into my personal life. I can be friendly here because I’m in charge, so they have to do what I want regardless. I’m practically a dictator. But you—I swear you are in every thought that I have, and I hate that I can’t be normal around you. You’re too important.”
Jasmine’s eyes are wide. “I am?”
Frankie rubs her hand over her jaw. “You are. I think about what I could possibly say, and I panic. Every time I think about something I could say that would make it even the slightest bit better, I learn something else that just—fuck, it destroys me. And it’s my fault. I know it is. The thought of being around you when I haven’t fixed anything makes me break out in hives. But everything I do is a desperate attempt to be where you are. I am always waiting to hear your voice.”
Jasmine’s head tilts to the side with a frown. “Actual hives?”
Frankie laughs, but it’s watery. “Hypothetical, but they’re just as bad.” She looks up at Jasmine. Her face is open and far too kind to be dealing with Frankie’s bullshit.
“I want to be your friend so badly,” Frankie says. “I want to be the person you come to the office for. I am always waiting for someone to bring you up in conversation.”
Jasmine chews on her lip. “Is it anxiety that stops you talking to me? Or something else? Because if I know that, I can talk to you first.”
“Yeah, but I know that’s not reasonable.”
She shrugs. “I’m not going down the mines,” she says, with a smile. “I want to talk to you. I just need to know you want to talk to me too.”
“It’s all I want. Well, that’s not true. The night I left,” Frankie starts, tapping her thighs. She takes a deep breath.
“You can write it down and leave it under a bench if you want,” Jasmine says, her ankle rubbing against Frankie’s thigh. “I’ll go and get it under the cover of darkness.”
Frankie laughs. She’s cute. She pulls the inside of her bottom lip and sighs. “I’m ugly.”
“What?” Jasmine asks.
“Okay, wait,” Frankie responds, with a self-deprecating groan. Her throat burns, and she’s going to cry. Jasmine moves, but Frankie pulls her back. “It’s supposed to sound better than that.”
Jasmine frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“Please. Just… wait until I’m done?” Frankie tries not to panic. Embarrassingly, she’s already crying. To be fair, Frankie cries often and easily, but Jasmine’s eyes are wide as the tears drench Frankie’s cheeks anyway.
“No,” Jasmine says, her voice a broken whisper. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me.” She wipes her thumbs to dry Frankie’s face, but it’s a futile attempt. “Please, I’m sorry. I don’t care.”
Frankie smiles, pressing her lips to her palm. “Sweetheart, I cry all the time, and you’re not allowed to be sorry.”
“But—“
“Jasmine,” Frankie says, with a sniff. “It’s okay.”
Jasmine places her hands against her waist lightly. “Touch helps, right?”
Frankie huffs out a laugh and leans until their foreheads touch. “Yeah.”
Jasmine runs her hands down the side of Frankie’s neck until they land against her waist. “Okay.”
Frankie takes a deep breath. “I base a very large portion of my self-worth on how other people see me. I think you probably figured that out already because you’re annoyingly smart, but I do.”
Jasmine pulls Frankie closer so they’re touching everywhere. She’s kind even when Frankie has given her no reason to be.
“I like being liked. I like being wanted. It’s supposed to be some deep thing. Some groundbreaking reason that I left that night. I was hoping I’d figure out something monumental so I could give you something. You didn’t do anything, I swear. I had the best time with you, and I wish it was longer. I wish I was able to stay and not—“ She finally takes another breath.
