The Significance of Orange Juice

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“So.”

I stared determinedly down at my hands, faking great interest in the chipped nail varnish on my finger nails. Perhaps if I ignored her she would go away.

“You’re not gonna get away without an answer.”

A flick of a nail and a fragment of paint floated to the ground. Another scratch dislodged an even bigger piece. There was still a chance that she’d give up and go away.

“Isabelle Franklin, answer the damn question!”

I sighed and looked up from my hands. Seems she wasn’t going to give in. Livvy was cross legged on the bed in front of me, gazing expectantly at me. She brushed a blonde lock of hair away from her face with a sigh of exasperation when I still didn’t answer her.

“Technically, you didn’t ask a question.” I hedged, hoping to delay the inevitable for just a little longer. After all, ‘So’ was barely even a sentence, let alone something which demanded an answer.

Olivia huffed and sent me a distinctly unimpressed look. After so many years, she knew when I was trying to avoid something. “I meant,” she asked with a deliberate slowness, “What’s up with you and Jay?”

Ah yes, the elephant in the room, the question I had been desperately trying to avoid because it was the question that I couldn’t answer myself.

I blew a strand of brown hair away from my eyes. “There’s nothing between Jay and I,” I stressed emphatically. Maybe if I said it convincingly enough, I’d be able to believe it too… “He’s nothing more than an obnoxious, arrogant, self-absorbed, reckless idiot who won’t leave me alone.”

Olivia raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow, disbelief shining in her clear blue eyes. I stared back at her, unwilling to acknowledge her scepticism. She could think whatever she wanted. There was nothing – and never would be anything – between me and Jay. We were polar opposites, clashing and fighting whenever we met.

Olivia pursed her lips slightly as she contemplated me. I ducked my head. Yes, it was irrational, but I couldn’t help but feel she’d be able to read my entire life story in my eyes. And that was something I was unwilling to let happen, even though she knew me so well already.

She scooted across the bed until she was right in front of me. A finger hooked under my chin and forced my head up until I made eye contact with her. “Izz, you’re my best friend, right?” I nodded in admission of this fact, but she had plunged on regardless. “We’ve known each other for years, and I swear, I love you more than anyone. But you’re being an idiot.”

Wait, what? Where the hell did that come from?

Olivia smiled slightly and carried on more gently. “Yes, you’re being an idiot. Because you don’t seem to realise what you’re throwing away. So I’m going to ask you again. What’s happening between you and Jay?” She cut off my instant protestations with a quick glance and I fell silent. Liv gave me a light shove to hurry up and I felt all of my resistance crumbling.

“I don’t know.” I moaned, hiding my head in my hands. “It’s all… he’s just so confusing. One minute he’s mocking me and winding me up, and the next he’ll do something so completely unexpected. And he can be so… sweet.” I grimaced as I said the word. Every fibre of my being shuddered at the idea of applying that word to Jay Roberts, but there it was. Even I couldn’t deny how adorably sweet Jay had been that night in the cell.

Olivia laughed at the disgruntled expression on my face. “What do you feel when you see him?” she questioned curiously.

I gulped, unexpectedly nervous by the question that I had been anticipating since the very beginning of the interrogation. Still avoiding all eye contact with Olivia, I began to relate every Jay-Isabelle moment, from the very beginning when we first met in the bar and he gave me the detestable name of a ‘good girl’. Olivia stayed quiet as I talked, only giving the occasional nod of encouragement if I began to slow down. I talked about everything, from the moment when I first had a civil conversation with Jay at Doris’ dance competition, to the few drawings of Jay that had begun to appear in my sketchbook to the comfort I’d felt when he’d held me in the cell. Though Olivia didn’t say anything, there was a quiet joy in her eyes that I couldn’t explain.