So it almost doesn’t make sense that I can’t provide that to Jordi right now. Which is nuts! She’s upset because I broke up with her, and I broke up with her because of her.
I still do my best to avoid looking at her for the rest of the day. Of course we have to walk in the same direction after we’re off. Sometimes I’d wondered, if we hadn’t had time alone before and after Lemonberry, if we would have ended up together when we did. Then, it felt like a gift.
Now, less so.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” Jordi says. “Can you at least listen?”
“I can’t stop you from talking.” It’s something I never could have pictured myself saying. Quiet, steady Jordi. Her words had been everything in the world to me.
But now she can say whatever she wants. She won’t get my words in return.
“I never would have … Abby, I thought if you could just see the photos, you’d see.”
“See what?” Ugh, not talking is so hard. “See that you didn’t really care about me? Not like you said, at least. Not if it doesn’t ultimately benefit you.”
“Why won’t you believe me?” Jordi stops walking, and I do, too. “I made a mistake and I know that, Abby. Why don’t you have any faith in me?”
I stare at my feet. Today I’m wearing pink flats decorated with white leather flowers, which I clearly remember wearing when we sat on a blanket together at Hollywood Forever.
But that feels like a long time ago. So I walk home without another look back to Jordi. When I watched romcoms and saw main characters storm off from the person they once loved, I sometimes couldn’t handle it. It always seemed so silly not to just give someone a chance. I had no idea how this could feel, though. I didn’t know that the thing that would seem silliest is the idea of giving someone the chance to hurt you again.
Jax makes me go out with him to lunch on Thursday even though I still don’t quite feel like a normal day is what I need. Maybe if I did know what I’d need I’d just go do that, but it’s not as if anything else feels right either. My time feels too big and unfillable, which is exactly how I felt in June, too. And I guess I was making it work or at least getting there.
And then I didn’t have to, because there was Jordi.
“You still look like shit, Abbs,” Jax says while I’m looking over the menu at Fusion Burgers. “What the hell is aillade?”
“Garlic puree,” I say, and he raises his eyebrows. “When your mom’s entire life is cooking and weird food combinations, you learn a lot.”
“Oh yeah, the great Norah of Eating Fancy with Norah,” he says.
“It’s Eat Healthy with Norah, exclamation point,” I say. “The exclamation point is very important to the brand.”
“‘Boschetto a la tartufo remolade,’” Jax reads. “I literally don’t understand one word I just said.”
“I thought you were smart,” I say, and he cracks up.
“Seriously,” he says. “You doing okay?”
I shrug. “Seriously? Probably not. I lost my only chance to be in love.”
“Shut the hell up,” he says. “There’s a new chance to love every goddamn day. Look at me, no luck at all this summer, and I’m not worried. Going to a party tonight, who knows what could happen. Hey!”
I rack my brain for an excuse before he even asks.
“Come with,” he says. “We’ll find you a new girl. And me. We’ll find me a girl, too. You’ll wingman—wingwoman me. It’ll be awesome.”
“Jax,” I say. “Can I have at least, I don’t know, a week? Two? Until school starts? I still feel … I don’t know how I feel. Not good. Not party-ready.”
“The best days of your youth are passing right by you,” Jax says.
“I find that very hard to believe.”
So I go home after rating the super spicy Dan’s Inferno and sweet salty Mexican BBQ burgers that Jax and I split. I convince Jax to head off to the party on his own, and I spend the evening in my room. The photos and cut outs from magazines that used to decorate my bulletin board, pre-Jordi, are still in my desk drawer, so I take them out and fill the empty space. Before long, my room looks just like it used to, and between that and the burgers actually tasting like something today, maybe I’m doing better.
Jax texts while I’m slowly putting together a post about maxi dresses for +style. wuts the deal w ur friend brooke.
Even after all this time, his flexibility with the English language really pains me.
What do you mean by ‘the deal’? I respond, and then go back to posting photos from my usual collection of shops. It feels foreign doing this in my bedroom and not on the Perezes’ living room couch. It’s weird that my soundtrack is one of my favorite playlists, not Christian playing The Last Guardian.
she’s cute, & i assume u have good taste in friends.
Oh, this is just what I need.
What about that barista? I text. Weren’t you just concerned about her deal very recently?
I try again, very hard, to concentrate on prints versus solids instead of watching my phone. But of course it buzzes again.
that went nowhere. new plan. And then: ur girl is here. she looks like shit too.
It offends me that Jordi’s ready to be at a party less than a week out from our breakup. And what offends me more is that that’s a thought I have. Forget about Jordi, forget about Jordi, forget about Jordi.
As a compromise, I
