Anika stops the waiter. “Hi, could we get some waters? And a muzzle for this one?” The waiter steps away. “You’re talking ten times too much.”
I would say twenty times too much. I don’t understand how Jackson can miss someone so self-absorbed and insensitive. I also don’t believe you actually enjoyed playing card games with this girl. Anika seems chill, no doubt. But there’s no way you left your hang-out with Veronika and turned to Jackson and said, “I love her! Let’s be sure to do that again!”
“I’m just excited,” Veronika says. “I haven’t seen Jack in a while.”
“Jackson,” he corrects. “Only Theo calls—called me that.”
Besides my dad, you’re the only one I let call me Griff. Jackson and I both gave you that intimacy. You’re gone, and so are Griff and Jack, dead with you.
“There’s no way I could’ve known that,” Veronika says.
“Maybe if you actually showed up to our Skype dates you would,” Jackson says. He doesn’t sound angry, just disappointed. I’m not sure if Jackson is the angry type. I’m still learning.
“Listen, Jackson . . . Is it okay if I call you Jackson?” Veronika leans forward. “You could’ve moved out here with us. You decided to stay back home and go to school—”
“Go to a school where there are better programs for me,” Jackson interrupts.
“Let’s not do this,” Anika says. She turns to me, apologetic.
“Animation isn’t that bad out here. I know a guy who loves it,” Veronika says.
“Good for him. I don’t want to attend a school where animation class isn’t that bad. I’m sorry my school didn’t offer productions of hipster Wizard of Oz—”
“Peter Pan,” Veronika corrects.
“—but I respected you moving out here to do what was best for you. I knew you and Anika would get closer once you started rooming together, but I didn’t think I would be so squeezed out.”
Veronika glances out the window, as if bored. “I’m surprised you noticed anything, considering you were always with Theo.”
I don’t like where this is going. Someone’s going to say something stupid, something unforgivable. I’m still anxious from the three questions Jackson asked that pretty much started this mess. I’m openly scratching my palms on the table, hoping Jackson will notice and cease fire. But he doesn’t even acknowledge the waiter, who comes by to take our order and just as quickly steps away so as not to get caught up in the cross fire.
“Theo was always there for me,” Jackson says.
Veronika claps. “Good going on Theo, then! You both were in the same city. I stopped making as much of an effort with our Skype dates and texting you back once your relationship with Theo hyper-drove into this serious thing we couldn’t possibly understand but were simply expected to. I get it. I was with you during all your rejections and heartbreak in high school, and you picked up some cute guy on the highway and it was magical and totally worth blogging about. I get the obsession, but don’t pin this all on me. You’re at fault too, Jackson.”
He blinks at her. “You have no interest in actually being friends, do you? Don’t pity me because of Theo.” His voice cracks; mine would roar.
Veronika shakes her head. “There’s no pity. Don’t try and twist this into me hating you because I didn’t love your boyfriend as much as you did. I’m sad for you, of course, but I didn’t know the guy. We played cards once, and it was nothing but inside jokes between you two.”
There are so many emotions rocketing through me during this ping-pong: jealousy over and curiosity about the inside jokes (even though we have our own, probably ten times as many); rage for how she’s making you sound so insignificant; sympathy for Jackson, who, like me, is grieving and, also like me, could really go for friends who didn’t act like assholes during this particular time; confusion as to why Anika hasn’t shut this down and how everything could spiral out of control so quickly.
“I was making him feel welcome and comfortable,” Jackson says.
“That was our job,” Veronika says, rolling her eyes. “You didn’t trust us to try and get to know him. You hogged him to yourself. We honestly felt like you only felt obligated to hang with us because you were in town.”
Jackson turns to Anika. “You thought this way, too? With everything she’s saying?”
“God no, definitely not everything she’s saying.” Anika shakes her head, then shrugs. “But I agree with a lot of it. I love you, Jackson, but you put this relationship before everyone and everything else. I’m not mad at you. College and distance will do that to people. But we’ve had a lot going on over here, too, before Theo . . . We’ve had a lot going on and we felt weird not being able to tell you. But honestly, we couldn’t risk your not putting in the friend time it would ask of you. There would be no coming back from that.”