Page 19 of You Started It

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It’s Halloween. Maybe I should go to school dressed as a notable woman from history who’s been wronged by her lover. Problem is, my classmates wouldn’t get the joke if I dressed up as Princess Di in her black revenge dress.

Instead, I’ll go as myself.

Nothing scarier than that.

It’s been two days since my fight with Mom and Axel. Eli has tried multiple times to get me to speak to them, like it’s my job to be the one to “fix” things. But I’m not the one who went behind my back!

I’ll just go to school, keep my head down, focus on my classes, and come home. It’s probably what I should have been doing all along. Mom was right about one thing: I don’t need a man in my life. Especially not a man-child who charms you with his million-dollar smile, convinces you to dance in front of other people, introduces you to his family and friends, and then backstabs you in the same breath.

Losing Axel as a fake boyfriend is one thing. But losing him as a friend has been a whole other beast. A beast that’s been sitting on my chest, crushing me, making every breath I try to take nearly impossible.

I didn’t realize a person I’ve only known for two months could be everywhere. And I don’t mean his actual presence. He’s in that spot in my room, where he tried to teach me how to dance for the first time. He’s on my bed, where we drew up our contract officially. He’s in my car, his scent still lingering. By my locker. The lunch table. The halls. My Instagram account. He’s there when I close my eyes. When I listen to music. When I cry.

I was with Ben for three years, and the main emotion I felt after getting dumped was anger. Sure, I shed some tears. My stomach twisted in knots the first few times I saw him with Olivia. But it was different. It wasn’t this constant ache. This yucky absence. This huge void. And the worst thing is, I don’t know what to do about it.

With Ben, I had a plan: Axel.

With Axel, I have nothing.

The school day goes quickly. Thankfully, I didn’t run into Olivia or Ben, and I even managed to avoid Axel. But for how long?

On the way to my car at the end of the day, I spot a familiar figure leaning up against the passenger-side door. Guess I spoke too soon. I don’t really have it in me to deal with Ben, but at least he’s alone.

“Hey,” he says as a hesitant smile appears. “How’re you holding up?”

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, unlocking my car and tossing my bag to the backseat.

Ben scrunches up his face as if he’s said the wrong thing. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.” He pauses and then sighs, running a hand through his hair. “My mom told me you saw your dad this weekend. And the look on your face makes me think it went about as well as I would have predicted.”

I study the ground. “Yeah. It was pretty terrible. I was caught completely off guard.”

“It must have felt like seeing a ghost or something.”

“That’s exactly what it felt like. At least it gave our parents something to gossip about.” I shake my head as I twist my heel into the hard pavement.

“I don’t think they were gossiping, Jamie. My parents still care about you. We all do.”

I exhale a deep breath while meeting Ben’s eyes, feeling slightly comforted by his presence.

“How is he?”

“Alive. You want a ride home?” I ask.

Ben nods and I appreciate that he’s not pressing for a deeper response, because right now, I don’t have one. He gets in the passenger seat while I get in the driver’s side and turn the engine. My radio blares on, playing some annoying song Axel loves.

“Sorry,” I say, reaching for the knob to turn down the volume. “Was drowning out my thoughts on the drive to school this morning. So where’s Olivia? Surprised the two of you aren’t dressed in some matching couple’s costume.”

Ben barks out a laugh. “Yeah. If she’d had her way, we would have been. I mean, that was the plan, but things kind of took a turn this weekend for us.”

I pull out of the parking lot and glance at Ben. “I thought you made up after the whole tutoring and text message debacle.”

“I thought so too,” he says, his head tilted down. “We broke up.”

“Must be something in the air. Axel and I have also decided to end things,” I state simply, while continuing to drive.

“Oh,” Ben responds.

When I turn onto Ben and Axel’s street a few minutes later, my heart aches. A flashback of the night I met Axel flickers through my mind like an old black-and-white movie. I make a sharp turn onto Ben’s driveway and park.

“Want to talk about it?” Ben asks. “Share war stories?”

“Not really,” I say, staring straight ahead.

“Can I talk about it then?” Ben asks. I guess with Olivia gone, I’m the only quasi-friend he has left. So much for all that enlightenment he’d achieved working at the camp over the summer. He seems to be back to where he was before he left me. Nothing to show for two months in the inner circle with Olivia Chen. Because of course her friends would choose her over Ben.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face him. “Go ahead.”

He matches my pose, all excited, like he’s been waiting all day to talk to someone—me—about this. “She brought up the fact that I’d lied about you tutoring me. Again. It spiraled from there.”

I guess my words got through to Olivia after all. “Spiraled how?”

He lifts his shoulders. “I asked her to show me Axel’s text. I wanted to see how she replied to it.”

“And?”

“She got defensive. Claimed she’d deleted their exchange and didn’t understand why I wanted to see her responses anyway. She accused me of not trusting her. Which is just so ironic I could puke. But if my enemy is DMing my girlfriend, I think I have a right to see the messages.”

“Enemy?” I ask, side-eyeing Ben. Axel is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t consider him anyone’s enemy. Even now. I don’t hate Axel. I’m just disappointed. And hurt. Maybe I’m pushing him away as an act of self-preservation. I guess I’m more like my mother than I care to admit.

Ben continues. “The guy is dating my ex-girlfriend and trying to get with my new girlfriend. I think it’s fair to call him an enemy. I’m sure you don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings for Olivia.”

“No. I don’t. But, at a certain point, you have to decide whether or not to trust someone. And as far as I can see, Olivia hasn’t given you any reason not to trust her.”

Ben thumps his head against the headrest, exhaling a loud breath. “I’ve really screwed things up.”

“Just say you’re sorry.”

“It’s not that easy. I said some things. Things I can’t take back. Things I’m not sure I need to take back.”

“What did you say, Ben?” I ask, running a hand over my stomach, as a baby cramp pulses.

“You know how some people have a tell? Like when my mom makes brussels sprouts for dinner, she pulls at her earlobe, and how my dad swallows a lot when he’s about to tell my mom he has to go on another business trip?”

“Sure,” I say with a shrug, trying to ignore the memory of when Ben and I discovered his mom’s earlobe quirk. We laughed about it and then went to his room. We made out and it got pretty intense. It’s why we had to come up with that winter formal plan. Ben didn’t want us to lose focus and have our first time be rushed and unmemorable. He was always so adamant about not getting lost in the moment.

Lost together.

Like me and Axel.

“Olivia rolls her eyes. A lot. Especially when she’s trying to hide something.” Ben shifts closer to me, his left arm leaning on the center console. “I think Olivia and Axel are messing around behind our backs. In fact, I accused her of it.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Definitely not.”

“Why else would she erase the messages?”

“Lots of reasons. It actually would have been weirder for her to keep them,” I say. “There’s no way Axel and Olivia were hooking up. All his free time was spent with me.”

“Then why aren’t you two together anymore?” Ben asks, a sharp edge to his voice. He hates being told he’s wrong. He hates being wrong.

“It’s complicated. But it has nothing to do with Olivia.” Both our phones ding and we immediately pick them up. “New message from the social committee,” I say.

Ben nods and opens the message. I freeze, completely confused at how I ended up here. With Ben. In my car. On his driveway.

“They’ve announced the location for the winter formal,” he says. “The CN Tower. December 19.”

“Well, that just solidifies the fact that I will not be going to the formal,” I say, facing forward.

“Why not?” Ben asks. “I mean, we’re both single now.” He traces a finger along the top of my hand. “It’s not too late to meet the goal we’d set. We can go together, make an appearance, and then…disappear. Like we’d planned all along.”

Ben’s touch is a sharp pang to my skin. He wants to forget everything we’ve been through. Pretend the last two months (and then some) haven’t happened. He wants to be my date to the winter formal. He wants to…He couldn’t possibly be that dense.

He continues to drag his finger along my skin while I sit still. Processing.

I have Ben where I want him. My father is just a phone call away. Axel is out of my life.

All things I wanted.

Some of them were goals I had been working toward.

And none of it feels right.

It’s all hollow. Fancy packaging but nothing on the inside.

“I know you’re afraid, Jamie, but I’ll be there. I’ll hold your hand on the ride up.”

“Sorry?” I ask, turning to face him again.

“Your claustrophobia,” he says. “The elevator. It won’t be so bad if I’m there with you. I promise.” His eyes are kind. His grip on my hand firm but caring.

He actually remembered.

“Sure,” I say, nodding along. “We can go together.” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“And then we’ll come back here?” he says, leaning in slightly.

I pull away, not ready to feel his lips on mine again. “Just because I agreed to go as your date to the formal doesn’t mean we’re back together. And it doesn’t…well it definitely doesn’t mean the other thing.”

“I get it. You need time.”

I need peace.

Maybe in seven weeks, I will have come around to the idea of me and Ben again. After all, he was my endgame. Or was supposed to be. I just need to get Axel out of my system first. It shouldn’t take too long. Studies say it takes about half the time you were with a person to get over them, which means a month from now I’ll likely have forgotten all about Axel Dahini.

His existence will be nothing more than a glitch in the timeline of my life when I look back ten years from now.

He’ll just be some boy I used to know.