Page 13 of You Started It

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

This last week has been spent ignoring daily apology texts from Ben. He apparently feels bad about how he approached the “situation,” but still stands by what Olivia said. It’s not like I can admit to Ben that the only reason Axel stole his seat on the roller coaster was so Ben would be forced to sit with me. That being said, learning that Axel flirted with Olivia has put me and my stomach in a permanent state of unease.

I know I have unhealed trauma from how my relationship with Ben ended, but I don’t love that Axel flirted with Olivia, even if it was just to test her. Technically speaking, he is a free agent, but we agreed that he needed to give off the impression we are exclusive. Whatever. I can’t control what he does. Clearly, since HE STILL HASN’T SIGNED THE CONTRACT.

Truthfully, I haven’t even tried to get Axel to sign the contract in weeks. The closer we get, the weirder it feels to make him sign his name on the dotted line. There was a moment last weekend (lots of them), but I guess they’ve all faded into oblivion, because we’re back to drives to and from school, lunches together, and public displays of affection limited to when we’re in public. It feels like we’re business partners, not friends. Definitely not more than friends.

What happened?

I keep replaying that moment outside his house with Ben, trying to figure out what turned the setting of our relationship from warm to ice cold.

“Knock, knock,” Mom says, standing in my doorway. Her eyes shift around my room. I sit up in bed and place my phone down.

“I know, I know. It’s a mess.”

She strolls in and opens my closet door. “So?” she says. “Eli tells me you’re going to a wedding tomorrow. Axel’s cousin?”

“Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?” I ask, struggling to hide the defensiveness in my tone.

“Not at all. Eli and I will be having Thanksgiving dinner with the Camerons, so it actually works out.”

“Oh. Maybe you’ll get to meet Olivia,” I say as a fake smile stretches over my face.

“Jamie.”

“It’s fine. I really don’t care.”

“You know, Arab weddings are pretty fun. Do you have anything to wear?” She focuses her attention back on my closet, sliding my mostly empty hangers across the rod and searching through the small percentage of clothing that is hung up.

“I haven’t thought about it much,” I say, now doodling in my journal.

“The wedding is tomorrow, Jamie. I have an idea,” Mom says, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s go shopping. I’ll treat you to a new dress.”

“You hate the mall,” I remind her.

“So do you. We can hate it together. And I’ll buy you dinner after.”

“Why are you being so nice?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her.

Mom laughs and sits on my bed. “Maybe I was a bit too quick to judge Axel. Eli keeps telling me what a great kid he is, and he seems to make you happy. Would I prefer you stay single? Sure. But it’s your life, not mine.”

“Wow,” I say, squinting at her. “Did Amo Eli spike your coffee this morning?”

“I don’t mean to be terrible, Jamie. I just…” She pauses and sighs. “I’ve been through a lot. I look at you and I’m reminded of myself and how we’re all just one decision away from changing the course of our lives. I never wanted to be the kind of mom who tells you what to do. It’s how I was raised and I won’t do that to you, but I also can’t seem to help myself from inserting my opinions. Probably doesn’t help that I have so many of them.” She laughs. “But I’ll try to do better.”

“I guess I can also try to listen more. And maybe clean my room once in a while.”

She grins. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Yeah. I threw that last one in to be nice but had no real intention of following through.”

She playfully pinches my nose before rising. “So, the mall?”

“Sure,” I say. “I just need to send someone a message. Be down in a few.”

I open Instagram and pull up Olivia’s profile as Mom leaves my room. I click Message and start typing furiously.

FYI your boyfriend keeps texting me. I guess karma is my ex-boyfriend.

I hit Send without giving it a second thought.

Shopping with Mom is pretty painless. Parts of it are even kind of fun. She’s a lot more stylish than I am. She helps me pick out a short, black, sequined T-shirt dress, although she couldn’t seem to help herself from saying the length might lead to some judgmental stares from the more conservative Arabs. After I reminded Mom about her promise to keep those kinds of thoughts to herself, she held her hands up in defeat before apologizing.

Growth.

When it’s time to pick out shoes, we struggle to come up with a solution since Axel and I are already the same height. I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who’d feel emasculated by a taller (or older) woman, but I also don’t mind being on his level. Physically speaking.

After amassing a mountain of shoeboxes, we settle on a pair of lace-up Oxfords, which sounds kind of nerdy but look amazing on.

Over dinner in the food court, I show Mom a few of Axel’s TikToks. She nods along and even smiles a couple of times.

“He’s good,” she says.

“He’s more than good,” I say, taking back my phone. “He’s amazing. You should see how the crowd lights up around him. It’s a vibe that can’t be portrayed through the screen.”

“What’s his endgame?” she asks, picking up a fry.

“Like with dancing?”

“Yeah. Is it something he wants to do for a living?”

“I don’t know,” I say, tearing open a ketchup package. “He’s sixteen. Pretty sure he doesn’t have his whole life mapped out yet.”

“You do,” she says, raising a brow. “And I thought it was important to you to be with someone who shared the same values and ideologies.”

I dip a fry into the ketchup and pop it into my mouth. “Axel’s really smart. He’s in advance placement at school. Plays soccer and used to swim competitively. He’s good at almost everything he does. I’m not too worried about his future.” Or ours. I can’t exactly tell my mother this is all fake.

“I ran into Ben the other day,” she says, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

“Oh yeah. What’s new with that traitor?”

“Jamie.” Mom tilts her head. “He says you’ve cut him out of your life completely. He was upset about you not tutoring him anymore and ignoring his texts. He seemed really hurt.”

“Oh,” I reply, leaning back in my seat. I suppose I could have responded at some point to his texts, but I’m still so angry with him. For interrupting a private moment with Axel. For accusing Axel of being a womanizer. For betraying my trust and falling in love with someone else over the summer while I was still madly in love with him.

I do kind of miss him sometimes. He was so easy to shock, and I saw it as a personal challenge to come up with inappropriate jokes at the worst times. And he did really push me, in a healthy way, to set goals and meet them. This whole thing with Axel was supposed to bring me and Ben back together, but instead, all it’s done is push us further apart.

“Speak of the devil,” Mom says, glancing past my shoulder.

Ben strolls up to our table with a sheepish look on his face.

“Hi, Ben.” Mom smiles politely. “Would you like to join us?”

He looks down at me for approval. His long hair has been brushed back and tucked behind his ears. A glimpse of who he used to be shines through. I swallow before nodding.

Ben sits to my left and leans his elbows on the table. He’s dressed in a green plaid shirt and jeans and looks like a hot lumberjack. “What’re you two doing here?” he asks.

“Checking out the local architecture,” I say.

“Jamie.” Mom shoots me a cut-it-out look.

“I bought a dress.” I gesture to the garment bag draped on the chair next to my mother.

“What for?” he asks.

“I’m going to a wedding with Axel tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he replies, looking down at the table. “So you’re not coming over for Thanksgiving dinner then?” His tone is laced with disappointment.

“Shoot,” Mom says, glancing at her phone. “Kourtney Dixon just messaged me. Her six-year-old chopped off her hair with a pair of kitchen scissors and wants to know if I can squeeze her in.”

“But it’s Saturday night and tomorrow is Thanksgiving,” I remind her.

“It’s hard to turn down business when you’re an entrepreneur. Besides, we’re all done here, aren’t we?”

I look down at our half-eaten meals. “Sort of.”

“You go ahead. I’ll drive Jamie home,” Ben says.

Mom’s eyes meet with mine and I shrug an agreeable shrug.

“You’re a lifesaver.” Mom rises from the table, grabbing her purse and my things.

“You never drive,” I say to Ben as Mom walks away.

“I borrowed my mom’s car.”

“Why? Is Olivia getting eyelash extensions? Or maybe she’s volunteering at the food bank again.” Cool it with the not-so-internalized misogyny, James.

“You’re being really judgmental about a person you don’t even know,” Ben says, all judgmental like.

“I don’t need to know her. She’s shown me who she really is. Actions speak louder than curated Instagram photos.”

Ben doesn’t have a comeback, which is weird, because any time I’ve spoken poorly of his precious girlfriend, he defends her.

“What? You’re not going to tell me again how wrong I am?” I ask.

“We’re sort of not talking at the moment,” Ben says, pulling my mom’s tray toward him.

“Lover’s quarrel? Let me guess, first one?”

“Yeah,” he says with a half-hearted laugh. Ben studies the leftover fries in front of him, picking up a few, but they don’t make it into his mouth. He drops them, then looks at me. “She found out about the tutoring and wasn’t impressed that I’d kept it from her. Then I called her after I saw you and Axel and she accused me of trying to find excuses to see you. I told her she was being paranoid and insecure and, well, that’s apparently all it takes to piss off Olivia.”

“It would piss me off too, to be honest.”

We laugh.

“It’s just weird,” he says, sliding the tray away. He leans an elbow on the table and rests his chin in his palm. He turns to me slightly, bumping his knee against mine. “You and I spent almost every day together for three years and now…nothing. This will be our first Thanksgiving apart since we met.”

“Do I need to remind you whose idea that was?”

“No. I know.” He shakes his head and sighs. “I guess I just kind of miss you.”

Convenient that he misses me when his girlfriend isn’t speaking to him. He keeps doing this. He keeps popping up in my life every time I start to think I don’t need him anymore. And it’s not because he regrets breaking up with me. He just expects me to forget everything that happened to ease his conscience. Well, I won’t do that. It’s not fair to me. He can’t dump me and then expect me to tutor him in math, give him rides home, and accept his new girlfriend. He also doesn’t get to interrupt private moments between me and Axel. A moment I’m still thinking about. “If this is about trying to be friends again, I told you, I can’t.”

“Why not? I don’t get it.”

“Because, Ben, it hurts too much. Is that what you want to hear? You broke my heart without any regard for our history or my feelings, and the second I feel like I’m putting the pieces back together, you materialize again, all puppy-eyed, trying to insert yourself back into my life. Well I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way.” I push out my chair and stand. “At least not for me.”

He remains sitting, a look of defeat on his face. “I’m worried about you, Jamie. I don’t trust this Axel guy.”

“Why? Because your egotistical girlfriend seems to think Axel is obsessed with her?”

“He’s not for you, okay? Do I have to say it?” Ben rises and stands so close, his hot breath trickles down to my face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, breathing out of my nose like an angry bull.

“Come on, do you really see yourself having a future with this guy? He posts videos of himself dancing online. Cringe. Not to mention all the red flags I pointed out before. Why can’t you just admit it to yourself?”

“Admit what?” I ask, my heart thumping against my chest, fingernails digging into my palms, mouth dry.

“The only reason you’re with Axel is because you’re physically attracted to him, but we both know that’s not enough for you. You need substance behind the style. Axel can’t give you that.”

“So what?” I say, placing my hands on my hips. “So what if I’m attracted to him? What does it matter to you?”

“Because I know you and I know how important your future is to you. I just don’t see how Axel fits. All he’s doing is distracting you.”

“You’re telling me you’re with Olivia because she mentally stimulates you?”

“This isn’t about me and Olivia. Axel doesn’t understand where you’ve come from and how hard you’ve worked to get to where you are.”

“Here’s the thing, Ben,” I say, squaring my shoulders before swallowing. “When you decided I was no longer worth having in your life, it meant you no longer got a say in what I do or who I choose to spend my time with. You might think Axel is using me or isn’t good enough or that I just want to jump his bones, but what you think no longer has any bearing on my life or the decisions I make.”

“What happened to you?” Ben asks as I toss all the leftover food onto the top tray. “You used to be so much easier to reason with.”

“I found my voice.” I pick up the tray and my things before glancing up at Ben one last time. “And I’ll find my own way home.”