Page 77 of Something Good
“A vibe?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem…sad? Anxious?” I’d noticed the circles under his eyes and the way he kept running his hands through his short hair. As if to prove my point, he ran his hands through his hair again before swiping them down his face.
“Do you remember Zach Jacobs?”
I’d only met him a few times, but Jason had talked about him quite a bit that summer, always in a way that made me think there was something more there. Jason had also insisted he’d never felt attraction toward anyone, so I’d never pushed it further, and honestly, I’d been so tied up in my own dramathat summer that I hadn’t given it much more thought. “Yeah, I vaguely remember him. You guys were friends, right?”
His cheeks heated, and if possible, he looked even more miserable. “Yeah, something like that.” He looked down, fiddling with the cardboard coaster the server had laid down while she went to get our drinks. “We sort of had a thing the spring after you left.”
While I’d had my suspicions, I was still surprised to hear him say it had gone further than a crush. “I thought you were ace?”
“I am. Well, I think I’m demi, actually. Zach is the only person I’ve ever felt attracted to.”
“Okay, so…” I raised my eyebrows, indicating he should continue.
He blew out a breath. “Do you remember when my sister got in that accident?”
“That was my freshman year of college, right?” I’d spent the spring semester digging myself out of the academic probation I’d been put on after nearly failing in the fall, but I remembered Jason calling me in a panic, upset about being one of the first responders on the scene of his sister’s accident. Thankfully, she’d made a full recovery, but it had been touch and go for several days, and she’d ended up spending a week in the hospital.
“Yeah. I was nineteen.” His face took on a haunted look, and I knew he was reliving the memories. “My sister wasn’t the only one in the car that night. The person driving was Zach’s sister. The girls were best friends.”
“Oh shit. Did she…?”
“She came out of it okay. In fact, they were roommates in college a few years later. I think the whole ordeal made them even closer.” Our server stopped by, dropping off glasses of water and straws before vanishing to the kitchen. “Zach was inschool in California at the time, but he flew home to be with his family, and we ended up…”
“You guys hooked up?” I prodded.
“Yeah, but it was more than that. I don’t think I could ever just ‘hook up’ with someone. I was so confused at the time. I’d accepted I was ace, and I couldn’t figure out why it was different with him, so I did some research and figured out demisexual was probably a better label for me.”
“So what happened after you guys…?”
“We pretty much spent that whole week together when we weren’t at the hospital with our families. But when the girls started looking like they would make a full recovery, he returned to school. Then he just…ghosted me.”
“Seriously? What an asshole!”
Our server popped by with plates piled high with our burgers and fries while I fumed over what Jason had just told me. Ghosting someone was a total dick move, and if there was anyone in the universe who didn’t deserve something like that, it was Jason. He was probably the nicest dude I’d ever known.
“I was pissed and hurt, but also kind of…relieved? It meant I didn’t have to explain anything to my family. Things could go right back to the way they were before. It was…easier.” The sadness was written all over him, telling me it hadn’t been as easy as he was trying to make it seem.
“J, I’m sorry, man. I wish I’d been a better friend back then. I had no idea any of this was happening.”
“You had your own shit going on, and I never told you. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
I could have come home more, reached out to him like any good friend would do. Maybe he would have shared what he was going through if I’d simply asked him how he was doing. Not for the first time since I’d returned, I realized how selfish I’d been and vowed once again to do better.
“Hey.” I waited for him to look up from his plate. “You deserve better. You deserved better from him, and you deserved better from me. Don’t settle for that shit, okay?” He swallowed his french fry, then nodded. “So what’s all that stuff about Zach got to do with you now?”
“I got a text from him last week. He’s moving to Omaha.”
“No shit? And after being radio silent for the last—what? Nine years—he felt the need to let you know?”
“Yep.” He swiped a french fry through some ketchup and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Did he say anything else? Give you any hint as to why he was reaching out?”
“He said he was moving back to Omaha and wanted to know if I would be at our class reunion next month.”
“What’d you say?” I took a bite of my burger.
