Chapter 7
Maia
For the first time since coming to Brown, I have driven the BMW. I never had previously because it was my special way of delivering a silent, yet significant f-uck you to my father. He likes proving that he can buy anything and anyone. Just not me. But the more I walked everywhere and caught the bus, the more I realized that I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. What exactly was I proving in the end? I must say that the feeling of independence that driving gives me is one I’ve always loved. As I pull the car into a spot, I think back to Jackson and his behavior at the Bean. I cannot believe that the asshole had the balls to suggest that we be friends with benefits after I caught him in bed with my roommate. Well, maybe ‘in bed’ in the sordid sense is not exactly accurate. Still, they may as well have been ‘in bed together’. I wasn’t so much angry as I was jealous as hell. I wanted to be laying in Jackson’s bed, with my head on his pillow, inhaling the cologne that smells like an ocean breeze, Preferably with him lowering himself on top of me. Whoa girl! I will myself out of my fantasy before I totally lose it.
Jade looks startled as I walk into the dorm room. She’s on her cell, and whomever she’s talking to is clearly not telling her something that she wants to here. She whispers as I walk into the closet, and I catch fragments of her conversation. “Just because you think…no…I’m not doing it…don’t you dare remind me…don’t even f-ucking pull that card…fine!” I hear her phone snap shut. She staring at the door expectantly, waiting for me to walk out of the closet. “We need to talk,” she says ominously.
“Are you sure you want to talk?” I ask. I get the distinct impression that that’s the last thing she wants to do.
“Okay, talk then,” I say when she doesn’t answer, and sit cross-legged on my bed. I’m not mad at her about this morning, mainly because she had no idea what happened last night. Unless she did, in which case I’m furious. But for now, I decide to assume that she didn’t.
“So, Jackson tells me that you think that he and I fucked each other last night, or this morning or whatever,” she lays it out there, just like that. Not sure why that surprises me. Jade is straight up like that. I avert my eyes, and suddenly feel like there’s nowhere to look, mainly because I really don’t want to get into this with the only friend I care to have on this campus, but also because I have really been trying since this morning to block the image from my mind.
“Jade, really, you don’t need to…” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I do. I didn’t sleep with Jackson. I have never slept with Jackson. We were friends because he dated my best friend in high school. But we, him and I, have always ever only been friends. He seems really into you. So for him, I’m going to tell you why you can believe him.”
I want to stop her, because she looks uncomfortable as hell right now. But I don’t, because I’m curious. “He thinks,” she continues, “that no matter what he or I say to you, you’ll think the worst, therefore I’m going to give you a completely valid reason as to why you should believe us.”
She stops and takes a deep breath, and I resist the urge to tell her to spit it out already. “I don’t sleep with Jackson’s type,” she finishes.
I raise my eyebrows curiously. “And what type is that?” I ask.
“The type with a dick,” she deadpans. “I don’t sleep with people like Jackson because Jackson is the wrong gender. I am not attracted to people of his gender. I’m attracted to people of your gender. And mine.”
“Oh,” I say quietly. Jade looks at me expectantly, and I struggle to answer because too many thoughts race through my head at once. I’m mostly relieved about this morning’s situation, but more so I’m confused as to why Jade has decided that this was something she needed to keep from me. What better way to find the answer than to just ask, right? “Why haven’t you told me until now, obviously only because Jackson asked you to? Is that who you were speaking to just now? Did you really think I would judge you?”
She plays with a long strand of hair, which I know is a nervous habit of hers. She sighs and looks directly at me, and I can see gratitude in her eyes, as if she expected me to react very differently from the way I am.
“The only people who knew in high school were my best friend Shana and Jackson, her then boyfriend. They didn’t care; but in middle school I was a tomboy, dressed like one, hung out with the boys. Shana was a blonde bombshell, and everyone loved to be around her. By the time high school started, Shana and I were as close as sisters, and I admit, I borrowed some of her popularity. I had filled out in all the right places. and my hair had grown longer. Shana taught me how to curl it, and hey presto, I wasn’t the weird. boy-looking sidekick anymore. I was popular, because to be popular, all you needed was the right look and the right friends.” She says the last sentence laced with sarcasm.
“Shana wasn’t your typical mean girl. She was popular, but very sweet. One day at a sleepover, I admitted to her that I thought I liked girls. I expected her to throw me out. She didn’t. She told me that I was the same person she met in middle school, and that she didn’t care.” Jade’s face softens as she remembers Shana’s kindness. “School went on as usual. Shana kept my secret, apart from telling Jackson, because there was very little if anything that she didn’t tell him. Shana left town before I could tell my parents. They both cried at first, but Jackson was there with me.”
I listen quietly as Jade speaks; it seems the respectful thing to do. I think back to my childhood and know how insanely difficult it would be to open up to anyone about how I felt, or what I went through with my parents.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I figured that since my parents and Jackson accepted me, the rest of the world would. Senior year I decided to date publicly, thinking that no one would care; only they did. The girls I was on the swim team with waited for me to leave before showering after practice. Friends that Shana and I had kept for years became suddenly distant. I would overhear the guys at school comment about how hot it would be to catch me naked with another chick. Jackson was the only one who didn’t change.” She exhales as she reaches the end of her confession, looking at me expectantly.
The fact that Jade is a lesbian has no bearing on how I feel about her as my friend. But I’m not good with words; I don’t know how to console or counsel people, so I do the only thing I can. I walk over to her bed and wordlessly place my arms around her neck in a tight hug. She hugs me back before grabbing my shoulders and pushing me back. “You’re a good friend,” she says. “But can you be a better friend and please go and f-ucking talk to Jackson, so he can stop blowing up my phone? He’s been nagging me all day. He’s a whiny bitch, you know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he starts getting on your nerves.”
She smiles at me cheekily. I grab my bag and make my way towards the door. “Maia,” Jade calls as I turn the handle. “Hurt him, and as much as I love you, I may have to kill you.”
I turn to her, grinning, but my smile quickly fades as I realize that the expression on her face is anything but playful. “The last few years for him have been anything but pleasant,” she trails off, and I decide to broach that subject later. At the moment I need to apologize to Jackson for being such a bitch to him.
“I love you too, even if you are a crazy bitch,” I call over my shoulder as I close the door.
* * *
Making my way to Jackson’s dorm room, Jade’s story plays over and over again in my head. Maybe it’s because I grew up with the continual judgment that is rife within the upper echelons of New York society, but I never understood why people could be such assholes. Still, Jade was guaranteed to have at least one friend besides Jackson who didn’t give a shit about her sexual orientation. I round the corner to Jackson’s dorm, cursing myself for wearing wedge heels for the trek halfway across the campus. I’m relieved to see the Mustang is parked in the lot out front. I’m surprised when butterflies explode in my stomach as I climb the stairs to the second floor, and I realize that I haven’t considered what the hell I’m going to say to him when I get there. No point in chickening out now.
I knock twice, and just when I think that he may not be there after all, the door swings open, and there Jackson stands in all his godlike glory. I seem to have momentarily lost the ability to speak because he opens the door in a pair of grey sweatpants, sans shirt. His body is lean, but I could definitely do a week’s washing on the abs displayed before me. God damn!
“So, are you finally satisfied that nothing conjugal happened here this morning?” He leans against the door frame, crossing his arms across his chest. The tattoo that I noticed on his left tricep the first day we met is an intricately designed infinity symbol, with a phrase interwoven between the loops. He infuriates me when he’s so cocky!
“I’m never satisfied, haven’t you noticed?” I tease before strutting past him into the room. The satisfaction of knowing that Jackson isn’t, in fact, a lying sack of shit has given me this confidence that I really didn’t know I had.
“We’ll see,” he murmurs as he follows me in and closes the door.
I try to distract myself from shirtless Jackson by looking through the books on his desk, but before I get to the second one, his strong arms wrap around my waist from behind. He gently kisses the nape of my neck, and a burning heat races through my body. I turn to face him, leaning back onto the desk. “What makes you think my forgiveness entitles you to free run over my body?” I ask coyly.
“I didn’t say it did,” he answers. “Look,” he says twirling a lock of my hair between his fingers. “I like you, and I don’t know what Jade may have said to you, but I’m not the man-whore she thinks I am. So just say when, and I’ll be the perfect gentleman until then. No questions asked.” He reaches for my waist and pulls me into him. “Now, I’m not saying that it’s not going be hard as a motherfucker, no pun intended, and if I see you every day, it may involve some really long cold showers.”
I lift myself onto the desk and pull him towards me. If I’m honest, I’m scared of what will happen next. Jackson makes me laugh, and I can’t help but feel comfortable when I’m with him. “Good girls don’t give up anything to someone they met four days ago,” I say, and as I do the cold realization hits me that I have only known Jackson for four days. Questions fly through my mind. Like if he can be trusted not to play around with my feelings, whether he really is interested in me or interested in getting into my pants. Or my wallet.
Jade’s words flash back in my mind, and an image of my ex-boyfriend, Bryce, assaults my consciousness. And before I have a choice in the matter, emotional walls fly up around everything that I’m feeling for Jackson. My body tenses, and I look up to see the confusion on his face as he notices me push him away.