My Kind of Woman

29. If Not Now, When?

Hello! Hope everyone is keeping safe, signing petitions and supporting the blm movement, and enjoying the start of pride month!

I thought I'd put here that I'm willing to answer any questions on the book or the characters without giving too many spoilers. You can ask here in the comments, or on my message board and I'll answer. Like a Q&A kind of thing, without ruining the future surprises I have planned. So, any queries, confusion or general get-to-know character questions, please ask!

Anyway, enjoy this one!

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I spent days upon days thinking of her. Endlessly and feverishly.

The earth had shifted under me. My bed felt foreign, my bathroom, my skin, my mind. I started to shiver and shudder when I woke in the mornings; withdrawal symptoms perhaps? But from which - the house or her?

The next school term started up, only a couple more until the end of it all, and I didn't go over to Jackie's for about a week. No particular reason. Jackie just hadn't said anything about me coming over. We'd ambled around the little town after school, eating pastries and from candy bags, instead of going back to hers. I was itching to ask. But I didn't say anything. I was waiting for permission, like a vampire at your front door. I'd never been like this before; I'd truly come back from that house a changed woman.

One afternoon, an hour after the school day had finished, Jackie and I sat up on a fence by the lake, eating from a paper bag full of cookies. She revealed that she'd been studying really hard over the past few weeks, already getting a serious head start for finals. It made me feel incredibly lacking. I hadn't even removed my study resources from my bag. Jackie had always seemed to be quite modest about her studying. I knew she did a lot. She'd offered to work with me a few times, but I knew I'd only distract her. Or be distracted myself by where I was.

I just wanted to be back at hers, so I could slip away and see Mio. I knew it was awful to be thinking of using Jackie's company to go and see her mother, but I was missing Mio so desperately that it was starting to ache. I'd thought a few times I had something wrong with me. If romance was to feel ill, I was definitely experiencing it.

"What would you do if I got a boyfriend?" Jackie asked, then added, "or a girlfriend, or just a partner in general."

"Is there something I have to do?" I said, swinging my legs against the wooden frame of the fence.

Jackie shook her head, "of course not, just was wondering."

"I would probably want to meet them, and hope that you don't leave me for them," I said jokingly, grinning at her.

Jackie crunched around a cookie and swallowed. "Me too. I just wouldn't want them to replace me, you know?"

I nodded. "I know."

Really I knew that caring about someone swallowed you whole. I would've understood if Jackie got a partner and wanted to be with them constantly, wanted to only be around them. It was that selfish desire to have them all to yourself. I would understand. Because I was just as guilty.

"Don't be desperate for a girlfriend though, Fish, it's not all that. I'll be your fake girlfriend if you need," Jackie said, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Jesus. I'm not that desperate, don't worry."

"Rude."

The water on the lake wasn't the same as the sea. It didn't ebb or flow, it rippled and breathed against the rock. It didn't even smell the same.

"Anyway, I think me having a girlfriend is not something that can happen," I said honestly, staring out at the water.

Jackie rubbed my shoulder like I was crying, "don't be down on yourself like that! Besides, you're Miss Anti-Romance, and if you got a girlfriend, I'd probably be lonely."