yours.

[60] Miles

The rest of the summer passes in a blur. A lonely, Jasper-less blur.

I spend hours alone in my room, not wanting to join a call or talk to anyone. I can't, knowing that the only person I really want to see is... unavailable. It's all I can do every day to hope he's okay, to hope he's safe and his father won't hurt him. And every time I consider going over to his house to check on him myself, I'm reminded of the fact that he ended things, that he doesn't want to see me. And I can't face rejection like that, not now.

I consider telling my mom about Jasper's dad, but it's obvious she won't listen to me. After I got fired, she told me that I still need to stay productive despite my "setback," and since then, I've only disappointed her. I don't think asking her for help will really do anything to improve things between us, no matter how dire my situation may be.

Chelsea finishes packing for college and sets off with my mom and Lesley to move into her new dorm. I stay home in bed, crying. Life just keeps moving on, never stopping, and I feel like I'm being left behind. Without Jasper to ground me, I can't move on. And to be honest, I don't really want to.

One day, I wake up to hear shouting outside. Jasper, my groggy, hazy brain thinks, and I scramble out of bed and over to my window. I watch through its blinds as two men call out to each other, slamming the back of a truck shut, before climbing in and pulling off.

It takes me a minute before I realize what's happening. Once I do, I search the ground, panicked, for Jasper's father's car, and when I don't find it, I sink to the floor beneath me in crushing regret. He's gone, I think numbly. He left, and I didn't even get to watch.

I missed him.

The tears come naturally at this point, as they have been almost every day for the past week. I cry for him, and for us, and for everything we'll never get to do together. 

"I love you," I mumble, knowing he'll never hear me say it to him again. "I love you."

After a few hours of quiet mourning, I grab my phone for the first time in days. There's been no need for it lately, since Jasper doesn't have one. It's also the reason we can't keep in contact...

But there's no use thinking about that now. He's gone.

So, I call the only person I can think of at a time like this.

Krystina picks up on the second ring.

I explain to her that everything I told her in my driveway the week before was a lie, that I was so nervous to admit I was wrong in breaking up with her that I came up with a whole story about being gay to scare her off. But it's not true, I say, and I want her back, and please don't tell anyone.

That's the most important part and pretty much the only reason I'm doing this -- I don't want my secret out at school, where I'm vulnerable. And if this is what I have to do to save myself, then I have to.

It doesn't make the lie any easier, though. Every word seems to chip away at my summer with Jasper until I'm back to the Miles I was when school let out, scared and closeted and lying to myself. "Please, baby," I tell Krystina through the phone. My heart lurches as the word reminds me only of Jasper. "Please say you'll come back to me. I'm so sorry."

There's a long pause on the line, and I check to make sure she didn't hang up. But then she says, her voice bright, "Of course, Miles. You know you can be honest with me."

I breathe a sigh of both relief and caged anxiety. "Thank you, Krys."

"Always. I love you," she adds, and I swallow.

"I love you, too." A final nail in my coffin of lies.

* * *

That night, I feel the need to get up and go. Not just out of my room, but out of my house. Into the world.