What I Should Have Done ✓

Chapter 40

The weekend after the getaway debacle, John and I were hanging out in his room Saturday night. We were set to go to dinner with Devin in a couple of minutes. John was on his laptop, supposedly writing a response paper to his American Identity Aesthetics After World War II readings, but the three social media pages opened in his browser spoke a different language. I was watching him from across the room where I was sitting at John's desk finishing up my own readings. If we sat beside each other, we would only end up making out and wouldn't get anything done; we had tried. His eyes were fixed on the screen and his tongue ran along his front teeth behind his closed lips as if he were trying to get to something that was stuck in between his teeth.

I had spoken to my mom on the phone earlier that day. We were talking regularly now. A lot of trust and familiarity was lost, and I had realized only recently that it was my fault. And Dad's. I had forgiven him for lying to me, but that didn't mean that everything was fine now. Now he had to earn back my trust.

"Hey, John?" I suddenly asked.

"Mhm-hm?" he hummed, not looking up from his screen.

"Why did you and Jenna break up?"

His gaze snapped to meet mine and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Why do you ask?"

"I realized we never talked about it. And I haven't seen her around in quite a while, come to think of it."

He set aside his laptop and slid to the edge of the bed where he let his feet hit the floor. The movement seemed unusually stiff for him.

"She's abroad this semester."

What?

"Abroad! Wow. Um, where?"

"Cameroon."

Cameroon. Who on earth goes to Cameroon for their study abroad? What the heck is going on? My eyes blinked rapidly as I tried to comprehend what he was telling me.

"You guys broke up because she was going abroad?"

"Well, not really. It was part of it, but it hadn't been going well for a while." He scratched a spot behind his ear.

"You know what I'm thinking," I said in a low voice and cursed myself for how insecure I sounded.

John closed his eyes. "I'm afraid I do."

Then he looked at me, stood, and crossed the room in a few long strides until he was beside my chair, twirling a lock of my hair around his index finger.

"Tell me I'm wrong." The whisper was a genuine plea. I needed to hear it.

"Where is this coming from, babe?"

I took a breath before looking up at him.

"You know my parents are divorced, right?" He nodded. "Well, for the longest time, I thought it was because my mom had cheated on my dad, but... I found out over Christmas that they had both cheated and my dad had let me believe otherwise for seven years."

John looked at me with a hint of... disgust, maybe. Then he swiftly took my hands and pulled me to my feet. His hands ran up and down my arms as he looked into my eyes intently.

"You're wrong. You're exactly who I want, this is not second best." The golden specks in his hazel eyes exuded a warmth that was too easy to fall into.

A first wave of relief relaxed my shoulders, but I still had questions. "What happens when it becomes second best, or even less?" I asked and tried hard to lose my nerves.

You're an adult, I told myself, and this is an adult conversation. Everything was good. I was with John, he was with me, this was a routine talk in a relationship.