Growing Pains

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.