Chapter 42 Jaxon

It was a familiar scene, indeed. A hospital bed, bright lights, the annoying beep of the machine next to my head, the one pumping fluids into my arm. My head hurt, my stomach hurt, my throat hurt. Worst of all, my pride hurt.
Tyler was sitting in the corner of the hospital room in a guest chair. He was awake, staring at me, but he didn’t say anything as I came to.
“Is Grayce here?” My voice was cracking, my throat dry, and it hurt to speak and even whisper. I could remember bits and pieces of what had happened . . . Grayce crying in my ear, shouting my name, and then darkness.
“No,” Tyler said. He didn’t look at me when he said this. “I think she left.”
For a moment, I was hurt, and I wanted to ask why she left without seeing me, but I didn’t want to give Tyler any reason to mock me, so I didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask about the pills, didn’t ask about any of it, and for that, I was relieved. I was too tired to talk about it. I wasn’t even sure there was anything to say. I was still debating internally if taking those pills had been an accident. I wanted it to be because an accident was almost okay. It was forgivable, something that happened to people who didn’t read the dosage before taking their prescription or took too many things that they thought were something else. I wanted it to be an accident, but I wasn’t sure if it had been. The worst part was that even in my drunken, sad haze of self-pity and regret, I’d taken those pills knowing damn well what I was doing.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler said, and then he said nothing more. Even in the silence, with both of us staring at the muted TV screen, having him here was enough. At least somebody was here.
Apparently, I passed my psych evaluation with flying colors because they seemed content to release me after a mandatory 24-hour hold for observation. You know, just to make sure I wouldn’t go home and try to kill myself again. I told the counselor what I was telling myself: I’d come home drunk and taken too many pills without thinking about it. Whether or not it was true seemed irrelevant because she decided it was an accident, and I was released shortly after that.
I hadn’t heard from Grayce since the night she’d found me, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I wanted to call her, but I knew I wouldn’t, mostly because I felt ashamed. I was humiliated that she’d seen me like that, some pathetic lump passed out on the couch after OD-ing on pain pills. I was a mess, and she saw right through it. I had to stop dragging her through my drama. I know I did because if I didn’t, she’d be hurt. I couldn’t be responsible for that.
Tyler took me home the day I got discharged. It seemed that we didn’t have much to talk about anymore, especially after this. We were in two different worlds now; he was still a popular guy on the football team, and I was his loser friend who couldn’t keep his shit together longer than a week. I think he hated it as much as I did, but he didn’t talk much about it; he didn’t care to. It was too deep for him, and I knew it. Things were getting rocky, and he was getting nervous. This quickly became an issue that sex and the bottom of a bottle wouldn’t fix.
“Are you going to be alright, man?” Tyler asked as he walked with me up to my apartment. As I stepped inside, an overwhelming sense of doom embraced me, and I almost turned around and walked away. But I didn’t because I had nowhere else to go. This place had gone from my blissful bachelor pad to nothing more than a haunted box of memories I sure as hell had no intention of mulling over. It no longer seemed happy and welcoming but now lonely and desolate. Depressing.
“I’m good,” I said. Tyler hesitated in the doorway for a moment. I could tell he wasn’t sure about leaving me, but he finally nodded, just once, and reached out to punch my shoulder. Ouch.
“I’ll call you later, yeah?” he said. I nodded, but both of us knew that wouldn’t happen. As I closed the door behind Tyler, my phone started ringing. I glanced at it, surprised that anyone was calling, let alone Grayce.
“Hello?” I tried not to sound too thrilled she had called. I could only imagine what was going through her head now: disgust, anger, annoyance. Or worse, pity.
“How are you?” she asked. Although I could tell she still had her guard up, she sounded like Grayce, and her voice was a sound I’d desperately missed.
“I don’t know how to answer that question without pissing you off or feeling sorry for myself,” I said honestly. Grayce was silent on the other end of the line, and I closed my eyes, listening to her breathe softly.
“What happened, Jaxon?” she asked finally.
“You were there,” I said. “You know what happened.”
“Now isn’t the time for your shit,” she said sharply, and for the first time since I’d met her, I was glad we weren’t together because I had no doubt that at this point, she would have punched me in the face, and I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit.
“I don’t know, Grayce,” I said. “I was drunk and took some pills. It was an accident.”
“Was it?” she asked. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t be responsible for you,” Grayce said. I hadn’t expected those words to come from her, even though she had every right in the world to tell them. “I can barely take care of myself, Jaxon, let alone you, too.”
“I know.”
“Do you, though?” she asked. “Because it seems like I’ve been holding you up a bit more than I probably should be.”
“You’re right,” I said. “And you don’t have to. So, why did you?”
“What do you mean,” she said, but it wasn’t a question. She knew the answer as well as I did, but she would make me say it first.
“I didn’t ask you to come over that night,” I said. “I didn’t call you; I didn’t text you. When you told me to leave, I left. You chose to come over; I didn’t make you do anything.”
There was silence as Grayce mulled this over. She seemed, for the first time, at a loss for words. I waited patiently for an answer, not pressuring her but not about to let her avoid the question, either.
“I guess I was worried,” she said. “After you left my house, I got a bad feeling. You were in a dangerous place, and apparently, my gut was right.”
“So? That doesn’t mean you had to come over, right?”
“Jaxon,” Grayce said. Her tone was sharp again, annoyed, angry. “Do you want me to say it? Really?”
“Say what?”
“You know what.”
“Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I leaned back on the couch cushion and ran my hand through my hair, blissfully aware that I was forcing her to say what she didn’t want to say but that we both needed to hear.
“I care about you, okay?” she said finally. “I care about your well-being.”
“Okay.”
“And I have no fucking idea why.” She took a deep, rattling breath on the other end of the line. “I care about you, Jaxon, unlike I’ve ever cared about anyone in the world, and it kills me because I know you don’t care about me.”
“Grayce,” I said. I closed my eyes and put my hand over my face, feeling a migraine coming on. “Will you just … Can you meet me in ten minutes on the Quad? I want to see you.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said. “We should cut ties.”
“Please,” I said. “Just meet me there. We need to talk.”
I wasn’t sure if she would show or not, and I tried to convince myself on the way down that if she wasn’t there, it was time to move on and forget about it. I couldn’t keep depending on another person. It was becoming clear that the person I had to be there for was myself, and if Grayce wanted to cut ties once and for all, I couldn’t keep stopping her. No matter how much I felt I needed her, I wouldn't be that person.
I found her sitting on the fountain near a park bench on the Quad. It was nearing dark, and she was dressed in jeans and a tank top, holding a denim jacket over her lap. She looked up at me as I approached, and I couldn’t read her expression.
“I’m glad you came,” I said and sat beside her. She took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air and nodded, not looking at me. Instead, she was gazing at the moon sneaking in behind the clouds. She was leaning back, supporting herself with the palms of her hands, watching the sky. I could tell she was wearing her favorite scent, the one called Cashmere Glow I’d seen sitting on her nightstand the night I’d walked her home. Her hair smelled like lavender shampoo with a hint of vanilla. Without saying anything else, I reached out and rested one hand on her arm. Her skin was warm to the touch, and her eyes flickered over to meet mine. She said nothing. Neither of us did.
Her eyes seemed more vibrant in the moonlight as if she saw right through me. They were more green than blue tonight, and I’d concluded that they tended to change color with her mood. I wasn’t sure what green represented. Hopefully, it was something other than passionate hatred for me. Under my fingertips, goosebumps were rising on her skin. I leaned in, slowly at first, waiting for her to meet me halfway, but she didn’t. Since she didn’t pull away, I came in further until my lips met hers. She didn’t react at first, so I parted my lips slightly, and after only a moment’s hesitation, she did the same.
“Jaxon—” she breathed, but I shushed her, taking her chin between the fingertips of my free hand. She closed her eyes and allowed me to kiss her. A slight groan escaped her throat, and I slipped my tongue between her lips in a moment of desperation. I was ravenous for her, and as I pulled Grayce in to hold her body to mine, she tensed up and pulled away, shattering the moment.
“What’s wrong?” I was breathless, and so was she, but in the light of the moon, I could see the wariness in her eyes.
“This whole thing is wrong,” she said. She pulled away when I tried to reach out to touch her again.
“Which part?” I asked. “Because this feels nothing but right to me.”
“You’re not attracted to me, Jaxon,” she said. That surprised me because I had my tongue down her throat a few seconds ago, but even that hadn’t convinced her.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re lonely,” she said. “You’ve been through a traumatic event, and you’ve lost a lot of close people in the process. You’re not attracted to me, you don’t even like me, you’re just desperate for the attention, and I’m the only one who stuck around when the rest of the world bailed.”
“That’s not tr—”
“It is true.” Grayce wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “I won’t be one of your flings, Jaxon. I can’t fall for you, and I won’t because I know you won’t return my feelings.”
“You’re overthinking this,” I insisted, and Grayce nodded.
“I know,” she said. “I overthink everything, but that keeps me out of trouble.” She stopped and took a deep breath, fogging up the frigid air. “We can be friends, Jaxon, but that’s it.”
“I have enough friends.” I know it was a horrible thing to say, but she had struck a nerve, and my irritation was growing. And not only was it a mean thing to say, but it was also untrue, and we both knew it.
“That’s up to you then,” she murmured. That also surprised me, as I had expected her to apologize or beg. Instead, she only looked at me, her eyes sad, and finally, she shrugged. “Call me when you figure it out.”
I watched her go. I watched her walk away with my mouth hanging slightly agape and my brain reeling to process what in the hell had just happened. Never in my entire twenty-two years had I been rejected like that. For the first time in my life, I was on the other end of the spectrum, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
I sat by myself for a while in the dark, wondering what to do next. I was at a loss, mainly because I’d never been in this position before. Kissing Grayce had been something I didn’t believe either of us had expected, most definitely not me. It came from nowhere, merely seeing her sitting under the moonlight was the driving force I’d needed to make my move. And now I felt a shit storm of confusion envelope me, and I had no idea what to do.