Somewhere in the Middle

Friends

Most days, Jamie hated himself. But today in particular, he wanted nothing to do with who he was, and who he would always be.

What sucked even more was that he didn't see a way around it.

"Hey man," Jamie said, rising from the couch when Greg came out of the bathroom, hair still dripping wet. Jamie ran his hands palms down on his jeans. "You going out?"

Greg turned, his leather jacket in hand, and looked at Jamie for the first time in days. "With Claire, yeah."

Jamie stuck his hands in his pockets. Claire and Greg had been together since high school. And Claire was always the more grounded part of Greg's heart. The more serious, more rational half of the two of them. Jamie's heart was already lighter with the knowledge that Greg wouldn't be completely ignoring him (hopefully from now on), but was still weighted down by yet another worry. Because if Claire was going to be there, then that might mean...

"Is... is she gonna be there?" he asked, knowing how close Claire and his ex-girlfriend still were. He couldn't say her name, even now.

Greg's face changed. Pity showed up, prominent in his otherwise disdainful eyes. "Who, Lisa?"

Just hearing it stung a bit. Jamie nodded. "Uh, yeah."

Greg slid his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. "I, uh, I'm pretty sure she will, yeah."

Jamie's heart stuttered. He was over her, he'd told himself. Time and time again. Over the fact that she'd pushed him away. Left him behind. Over the fact that she was the one good thing in his life for so long, and she'd walked out of it assuming she'd be nothing more than a blip on his radar. She was so much more. She always would be.

"Look, I didn't think you'd want to come," Greg said, turning to face Jamie. "You don't want to do anything anymore, so I just kind of assumed -"

"It's not that I don't want to," Jamie said, and he already regretted the hostility underlying his words like cold stone. He gritted his teeth, bit it back, and unclenched his jaw. "But I probably shouldn't anyway."

She had a boyfriend now. He knew that much just from stalking her Instagram. Some finance guy with slicked-back hair, who held up a suit better than Jamie ever would. And she deserved it—the happiness he could see in those photos. He wanted that for her. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt. She'd known Jamie couldn't give it to her, long before he knew it himself. Now, having that understanding didn't make it any better. Didn't make it hurt any less.

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Greg said. But it wasn't said with the snap of anger. Not like his few responses the past several days. "Don't need you going off on a binge tonight."

Even that wasn't as angry as it could've been. But it did remind Jamie of the night before.

And this morning, when he'd awoken and joined the rest of them on the bus, head pounding with his hangover, guilt boiling over in his stomach, only to discover that Evie hadn't said a word of what went on in his room last night.

Pete had been sitting on the couch in the front lounge, his iPad propped open on his lap, and a steaming hot cup of coffee in the cupholder beside him. He'd looked up at Jamie through his glasses and smiled, easing the tension in Jamie's chest, but leaving him confused all the same.

And when he'd made his way to his bunk, all of his focus on locating Evie, hoping to get her alone so that they could talk, he heard her laughing in the back lounge. And Luke's laugh just a moment later.

So, he'd crawled into his bunk and pulled the curtain closed.

Now, he let that guilt, that jealousy, creep through his blood like a heated sludge, stopping up any and all other feelings until he was consumed, stiff with endless frustration.