Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter twenty-five

The warmth of the California pre-spring arrives late February. As I walk to class Tuesday morning, the warm breeze brushes across my arms, giving me goosebumps. I hate the heat, but I don't mind the comfortable lukewarm of spring; it's not too hot and not too cold.

For the first time in a long time, I see Liz ahead of me, walking alone. She wears a loose-fitting hoodie, which I can't help but notice. She's always been a fashionable dresser so the hoodie is uncharacteristic of her personality.

It is cold, I think.

I let the crowd of students that separates us be my excuse for not walking up to her.

During class, she's silent and I watch her the whole time, oblivious to Garcia's lesson plan. It feels good just to be able to see her again. She's been avoiding me for weeks and I've only caught glimpses of her here and there. I think she must spend most of her free time in her dorm room because as far as I can tell none of the other students hang out with her all that much.

I can relate.

After class, she disappears and I can't find her so I just head back to the dorms.

I'm at the door and I open it and right in front of me is Jeremiah. We almost run into each other, but freeze. And now we're both standing in front of each other and I can't move. And I don't know what to say or do. My stomach twists and turns and my mouth hangs open as if to say something, but there's nothing I know to say.

Jeremiah just stares at me as if waiting for me to make the first move.

"Are you gonna move?" he asks, his tone sharp.

"I- um... sorry." I step to the side, holding the door open.

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever."

And that's it for me. The anger swells inside me, beyond the breaking point. All the months of pain have taken their toll and I feel everything surge through every vein in my body, breaking out through ever cut in my skin.

"What's your problem?!" I shout as he's walking away.

He turns around slowly. "Excuse me?"

There's no going back now and I couldn't stop the wave of emotion even if I wanted to. "You hurt me, remember?" I shout through gritted teeth. "You abandoned me. It wasn't the other way around. I did nothing to you except trust you and believe you when you said you'd be there. I believed in you and betrayed me."

Jeremiah looks stunned and I see the anger slowly creeping into his expression. "I never asked you to unload your problems onto me!" he shouts now. "I never told you that I was perfect. I'm a sinner just like you. I'm human. Just like you."

I scoff as the tears burn my eyes, but I don't stop them. "Is that your excuse? You're just a sinner? Do you think that makes it okay to break your promises? Do you think that God's going to excuse you for treating me like this? Do you think you just get to live your life, hurting people, and telling them 'Oh, well, I'm just a sinner. Sorry.' Do you? No, you don't! You control how you act. You control whether or not you keep your promises. You control your 'sin'. And you made the conscious decision that you were done with me."

"We're all sinners, Ada-"

"Shut up!" I laugh. "God, you don't get it, do you? You had every capacity to keep your promises, but when things got hard – when I told you I was suicidal? You acted like it was no big deal and then when I got mad at you for that you ditched me two days later. I was already broken and you crushed me," I seethe. "That is unforgivable. You acted like what I was going through was just something that I could get over and it wasn't because you wanted to see me better. It was because you didn't want to deal with it anymore."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he shouts.

"Yeah, I do. I've sat back for months watching you live your life as if I never existed. As if I was nothing. But I'm not nothing because I'm still here and I'm still trying to pick up the pieces of me that you left on the floor."

His expression is blank now. "It's not my fault."

"Dear God, would you shut up? Stop making excuses for yourself and own up to it. Maybe then both of us can finally move on."

"It's not my fault," he whispers again. He doesn't even look at me. Instead, he stares right past me at the empty space of the dorm entryway. I ignore the people who've begun to gather around us. I don't know if Liz is among them or not, but I can't even think about that right now.

"Stop saying that!" I shout. "All I ever wanted was for you to keep your promises and be there for me – through thick and thin, like you said – but I guess that was asking too much. I guess you were too weak to handle the hard stuff." I feel the disgust seer itself onto my face as I look at him. "You may think I'm weak. You may think I'm nothing. You may think I'm forgettable. And maybe it's true." I point my finger at him, my entire arm trembling with every raw emotion that consumes me in this moment. "But at least I'm not you. At least I don't give up on people when they need me the most."

I turn and leave just as Jeremiah whispers again, "It's not my fault."

And I hate him for his excuses. I hate him for making me shoulder all the pain.

I hate him. God, I hate him.

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