Chapter 65: Chapter 62 - You know everything except yourself

K Y L I E

For weeks, I thought I had dreamt that Jacob had called me, that it all of it had been in my head, a projection of my own self-doubt onto the most impossibly self-assured person I knew, or at least thought I knew.

Then Jacob showed up to school as only a shadow of himself, and after a few days, it was obvious the call hadn't been in my head at all, and that I had been totally wrong about him, or maybe not wrong at all. Maybe self-loathing and narcissism could exist in the same person at the same time. Maybe there couldn't be one without the other, like an insidious cause-and-effect coming full circle, again, and again, until it was hard, if not impossible, to tell one from the other.

The sun was beginning to set when I parked outside the gates of his house. He hadn't been at school today. I had driven all the way to his house trying to convince myself to turn around, but every street I got myself into felt like the highway. I couldn't turn around. I just had to keep going.

I took the keys off the ignition and got out. I walked up his driveway knowing all too well that I was stupid for even thinking this was a good idea. He was probably going to laugh at me, tell me there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, that I just thought there was because he had finally stopped chasing after me after realizing I was a risk without reward.

I rang the bell. Someone I had never seen before opened the door, and for a moment, I thought I was at the wrong house. Then he smirked, and suddenly he was Jacob, years into the future. He had the same strong jawline, the same smug smirk.

But he was confused, "Hello?"

I smiled, "Hi, I'm Kylie. I go to school with Jacob."

"Right," he said, still confused. "I'm Derek. I'm his brother."

"It's nice to meet you," I said. "Is he home?"

He put his hands on the waist of his suit pants, and smirked some more, "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that."

I frowned, "Why not?"

"He's not with a girl if that's what you're thinking." It wasn't. "Jacob hasn't brought a girl home in months. We're all at the edge of our seats. Conversion therapy isn't cheap."

I waited for him to say he was kidding, even though I didn't really think he was.

He crossed his arms over his chest, "I'm kidding. Our family doesn't do therapy."

I waited again.

And again, he said, "Just kidding."

I pretended I believed it, and asked, "Is he in his room?"

"He's been there all day," he said. "You might wanna just wait until he's back at school."

"I would rather not." I smiled. "If that's okay, of course."

He laughed, really laughed. I waited for him to be done.

When he was, he asked "How does he do it?"

I knew where this was going, but had no way of stopping it, so I just went along with it, doe-eyed and smiling, "Do what?"

"Don't get me wrong, the kid's always been a bit of a Casanova," he started. I didn't know what a Casanova was. "But considering how far women have come, you would think they would start seeing through the act, right?"

Allora would have known what to say, and best of all, she would have said it, and by the end, he wouldn't have such an insufferable smirk on his face. But I wasn't Allora, and I also didn't care what he thought of me at all. I didn't have to prove myself to him.

He looked disappointed, "You still wanna go up?"

"If you don't mind," I said. I wanted him to go fuck himself.

He stepped aside to let me in, and then watched me go up the stairs, like a character in a soap opera trash he watched when he was bored and wanted to feel better about himself. I didn't look back at him. I just kept going.

My fingers wrapped around the door to Jacob's bedroom, but I knocked first, "Jacob?"

He didn't say anything, or if he did, I didn't hear him. I opened the door, and tried again, "It's Kylie. Can I come in?"

Still nothing but a smell, strong and sickening, like all the air inside had gone bad, rotten. I walked in. Jacob was in bed, buried under the covers, not moving at all.

"Are you sleeping?" I asked.

He didn't answer. I pushed the curtains back and opened his windows. There were clothes all over the floor, a box of days-old pizza, a bowl of cereal on top of another one, the corn flakes soppy and mushy in the still milk, cans of beer and energy drinks pilling up on the trash can, next to an SAT prep book, and a catalogue for the best military schools in the country.

I looked up at his desk. His computer screen was broken. He had put a band-aid over the crack. Next to it, a tower of number two pencils had collapsed on top of an SAT score report sheet. I tried not to look at it, but it was impossible not to. He had failed all sections. I looked away. There was an essay question written on a piece of paper next to the computer's keyboard: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

In bad handwriting, Jacob had written, I was born. I guess that was a big setback.

I walked over to his bed, where he was still under the covers, not having moved at all, and touched his forehead. He wasn't feverish. He was just sleeping, or just pretending to.

I sat next to him, "I know you can hear me."

He didn't open his eyes. Instead, he turned over in bed, so he had his back at me. His phone was right next to his pillow. He had a missed call from Edward. I took off my shoes, and climbed over the covers. Jacob went on pretending to sleep. I laid on my side, and put my arm around him.

I didn't know what to say to him. I thought he needed help from someone better equipped than me, a seventeen-year-old apparently capable of offsetting years of the women's liberation movement for an emotionally challenged boy who probably still thought of us as second-class citizens. I thought of Dr. Davis' business card forgotten in one of the drawers back at home. I thought I might give her a call.

Jacob's hand moved for mine.

"I never liked pulling out teeth as a kid," he said, and I remembered our call. Of course I remembered our call. I had told him maybe he had to lose his mind a little, like people who got their wisdom teeth removed because they would only ever cause them pain.

"It hurts at first," I said, and he held my hand in his, warm like the sun coming in through the window. "You might need some help with it. I can go with you, if you want."

For a while, he didn't say anything at all. I had said the wrong thing. His brother hadn't been kidding at all. I had been right about that. His family didn't do therapy. Jacob didn't need to see a doctor. He probably just needed to grow a pair.

I waited for him to tell me to leave, but he never did, so I laid there with him until the sun went down in the sky and the wind picked up outside, coming in through the windows and blowing against the curtains. He never let go of my hand.

When Allora didn't pick up, I called Sky. It was late and I didn't want to go home. Sky didn't like it when I called her, because most times she would be studying, and she wouldn't have it in her to ignore my call, so every time she would have to stop to talk to me, and every time I would have a lot to talk to her about. I had told her more than once that she didn't actually have to listen to me, most times calling her was like making a cup of coffee and not drinking it. I just wanted the company of something warm. But Sky insisted on listening. It was just the way she was.

She picked up after a few minutes. I was sitting in my car with the radio on.

"Hello?" she said.

"What are you doing right now?" I had thought maybe I would just stay in my car and talk to her until she said something about it being a school night and having to go to bed, but now that I had her on the phone I didn't really think that was enough.

"I'm watching a reality show."

"Shut up!" Sky did not watch reality shows. She didn't even watch tv.

"It's really bad," she said. "I can't stop watching it."

"I don't believe you." She probably just didn't want me to start my finger-wagging sermon on how she should live her life, so she was lying. I went on, "You're probably revising for the Spanish quiz tomorrow and you just don't wanna tell me –"

"Maybe," she stopped me. "Maybe not."

I started the car, "Well, I'm on my way to yours, so whatever it is you're doing, stop it. We're going out for dinner."

"We are?" She sounded confused.

I put her on speaker so I could focus on the road, "Do you like sushi?"

"Not really, no."

"Okay, so you have no taste," I said. "We'll figure something out. Just get ready."

I thought it would take more convincing, but when I pulled up outside her house, she was already waiting on the front porch in a skirt and a nice sweater.

"Look at you! You look so pretty!" I said as she got in the passenger's seat. She was wearing perfume, and small golden hoops, and lipstick as red as her cheeks. "You know it's gonna be just us, right? I didn't invite any boys –"

She said, "I know."

I watched her put her seatbelt on, and roll the windows down, "What's happening?"

She turned to me, and shrugged, "Nothing, why?"

"Is there something I should know?"

"No," she said. "Well, yes, actually, but I need you to not make a big deal out of it."

We were on the road. I turned the radio down, "I'll try not to."

She leaned back on her seat. The wind coming in blew her hair in front of her face and she tucked it behind her ears before saying, "I didn't get into Harvard."

I shook my head, "You're lying."

She smiled, a soft small smile, "Turns out I'm not as smart as everyone thinks I am."

"Yes, you are –"

"No, I'm not," she stopped me, "but it's fine. I'm fine."

"Skylar." It was hard to keep my eyes on the road when she was smiling in the passenger's seat, telling me she hadn't gotten into the college of her dreams after working harder than anyone I knew, so I said, "It's okay if you're not. You worked so hard –"

"I did everything I could," she said. "And it still wasn't enough."

"There are other colleges."

She laughed, "I'm pretty sure I hate chemistry, and biology, and calculus –"

Nothing made sense, "You do?"

"Yes!" she said. "I almost spent the rest of my life doing something I don't like because I thought I had to, but as it turns out, I don't."

"So you don't wanna do medicine?"

"I don't think so, no," she said. "I just always thought it would be a waste not to."

I laughed, "Why? Because you're so smart?"

She smiled, "Because I'm so smart, yes, exactly."

"You are though. You really are," I said, and I meant it, of course. "What are you gonna do?"

"I have no idea," she said, putting her arm out the window and laying her head on it. Her hair flew in the wind. I kept my foot on the gas. "I don't think I've ever thought about it. I never thought it mattered."

"Of course it matters! Are you serious right now? So you were willing to spend the rest of your life doing something you don't even like because what? With great power comes great responsibility? You're not spiderman, Sky, you're just a girl."

I looked at her, and she looked at me, the same sad smile from before, "Apparently, yeah."

"I'm not saying your life has no meaning, obviously," I said, just in case. "I just think no one's going to find it for you. It has to be you, and no one else. If that makes any sense. It probably doesn't. I'm really hungry."

"There's a drive through right there," she said, pointing at it through the window. I took the next turn towards it and eased the car into a stop to get us in line.

Then I turned to her, "I guess what I'm trying to say is, even if you did get accepted into Harvard, you still shouldn't do medicine if it's not something you actually want."

She sat back against her seat, and frowned, "So you think my life is more important that all the potential lives I could save if I became –"

I laughed, "That's ridiculous. I'm sure there are enough medical students to close the astronomical gap you're gonna leave in our national health system."

The line moved, and she smiled, and said, "I doubt it."

"I was right!" I laughed. "You really are a stuck-up bitch!"

"So it seems," she said with a shrug.

We ordered burgers and fries with large sodas and ice cream. I parked the car under the lights of the parking lot, and said, "You're not a stuck-up bitch. Never let anyone call you that. Not even me."

She smiled, "I thought I was some kind of chosen one. I'm definitely a stuck-up –"

"No, you're not!" I stopped her. "I'm actually convinced you didn't even know about that big fucking brain of yours up until other people told you about it. Like with your story – which I really want to read, like please let me read it, I'm begging you – you thought it was no good up until Mr. Wyatt told you it was, and even then, you still thought maybe he was just doing some kind of sick reverse psychology, which by the way, sounds –"

"Insane," she said. "I know."

"You know everything except yourself." I took a big bite of my burger, and she took a sip of her drink, a smile on her face, only dimly lit by the neon signs of the drive-through.

She said, "I know."

"It's like a botched arranged marriage," I went on, grabbing a handful of fries. I usually didn't eat like this, not in front of people, but tonight I didn't care. I didn't even think I ever should have cared. Sky was waiting for me to go on, and so I did, "You're gonna be stuck with yourself for the rest of your life. You might as well make friends. I mean, you have to be friends with yourself. You just have to."

She only smiled, "I'll try."

"You really should." I smiled back. "Cause you're a great fucking friend."

"All I've done since I got in your car was talk about myself."

"And listen," I said. "You listened too."

We went on eating. When a song we liked came on, we sang too, from the very bottom of our lungs. I had to undo the button of my jeans at some point, and so did she, and we both laughed about it. I talked for hours, the way I did when I was drunk at parties, and she listened, and talked too, both of us sipping from ours drinks with only sugar in them.