The Art of Being a F*ck Up - Chapter 21: Chapter 21

The past couple of days have been a blur, between figuring out details and telling almost everybody we know about our engagement, I haven't really had a minute to process. I'm not exaggerating either, I thought maybe me and Jonah would go out to celebrate or something, and sure he did end up doing that thing for me when we got home, but after that he spent almost the whole night on the phone with Grace telling her every last detail about the proposal. Then, for good measure, he called Bram all the way in New York just to wake him up so he could tell him too. It's sweet though, I love to see Jonah so excited, but I'm glad we're finally getting our chance to make the most of our announcement.
"Congratulations, brother. I can't believe you're actually engaged, that's so fucking stupid." Devin brings me another round. We've been sitting here at our usual haunt, living up what little time I have left as a bachelor while Grace and Jonah play the world's worst game of pool. Devin watches her the way I'm watching Jonah, but suddenly his face goes white before he looks at me with horrifying realization. "Oh shit, I don't have to get you a stripper, do I? I'm not ready for that."
"No thanks." I roll my eyes, my sights still set on my fiancé. It's weird, like, yeah I thought dudes were kind of hot before Jonah, but no one had ever struck me anywhere near how he did the first time I'd seen him—all disheveled and care-free with a fuck you attitude he used to take the world by storm. I'd been surrounded for so long by people who said what they thought I wanted to hear, or dressed or acted the way everyone thought they should. But Jonah was real, the one thing that came crashing into my sorry life out of the blue one day that couldn't care less about all that. And he was cute too.
I'm embarrassed to admit out loud how fucking hard I fell for him, and obviously I never fully recovered, because while there've been guys I thought were attractive in passing or whatever since, nobody has ever been able to compare to Jonah. He's the only guy who still catches my eye.
"You're the best, seriously. You're a goddamn saint, man." Relieved, Devin takes another shot before watching Grace again. I wonder what he feels when he looks at her, does he feel all the same things I felt way back when with Jonah? It's a beautiful thing, I think. To be in love. No matter who you are, or who you love, it deserves to be celebrated, and I know my best friend believes that as whole heartedly as I do. He asks, "have you told your uncle yet?"
"I'm trying to find the right time." I'd like to think Bill would be happy for me too, regardless of whatever else. I'd like to think he'd be supportive and come to the wedding and everything, but how do I know anything I tell him won't get back to my dad? Every day he weasels himself in further, taking over, and my job's already complicated enough with him there now. I don't need to give him any more reason to come down on me harder. Besides, Bill's got enough to deal with, I can hear how exhausted he is every time I call him.
"Sounds like an excuse if you ask me, do you want me to tell him for you? I owe you one after the whole stripper deal." Devin teases. He's probably only kidding, seeing how he's laughing his ass off, but I'm actually tempted to take him up on it. That's how much I really dread having to deal with my dad. After another snort Devin stops laughing abruptly, and I almost ask why before he practically growls at Maddy coming in. "What the hell is she doing here?"
"Play nice, I invited her." After I issue him a warning I wave her over. I know she's still lonely with everyone gone for break, and I do kind of owe her for everything. These past few days have been more than a blur, they've also produced some awesome news. I don't know how I pulled it off, she must a goddamn miracle worker, but I heard back that I passed all my make-up exams. No more worries about being kicked out, and now with the whole dyslexia thing under control, no more worries about living dangerously on the edge of academic probation either. Hopefully. I'm riding pretty fucking high right now, so yeah, I can show a little empathy.
"Hey, Brent," Maddy comes over, thankfully ignoring Devin completely. I'm taken by total surprise when she throws an arm around me in a legitimate hug, and I just sit there frozen. When she pulls away I have to wonder if she's trying to rub it in Devin's face how much she hates him, but I catch a whiff of something on her breath that suggests she probably got started well before she showed up here. Not that it stops her, "I'm going to get something from the bar, you want anything?"
I turn her down and she saunters off, leaving Devin to offer up little more than a seething glare before he slithers from his seat to go join Grace and Jonah. He acts all tough, but I know he's just been waiting for an excuse to hang all over his new crush. It does make me worry though, I know why it was important for me to invite her, but watching Maddy up at the bar, ordering a drink, I start to doubt that asking her to come was a good idea. What we are, friends or something resembling friendship, is nothing she shares with the rest of this group. By the time she's on her way back over, and I've returned my stare to Devin and the others, I see that Jonah has caught me watching her.
Then he does the most incredible thing. He intercepts Maddy and invites her to play with them. For so many reasons there has always been such animosity between them, but he proves that he's the bigger person with the biggest heart, while also proving that I couldn't love him more if I tried. Even Grace accepts her without too much fuss, and Devin, by extension at this point, lets bygones be bygones for at least today. It's an incredible sight to see them all together, laughing and smiling and having a good time, and for the first time all year, through all the ups and downs, I feel something close to peace.
Inevitably they rope me in, and I join them for a pretty competitive game of pool. Devin does his best to teach Grace how to shoot, pressed right up behind her, and I coach Maddy and Jonah in return. One game turns into two, two drinks turn into three, and after we've eventually devolved into telling our favorite stories from high school in alcohol-drenched merriment we've lost all track of time. It isn't until Grace has the good sense to check her phone between a bout of inappropriate laughter that we realize just how late it's actually gotten.
"My mom's going to kill me, I've got to get going, you guys." She bears the burden of breaking up the party, along with our playful booing.
"It'd be my pleasure to see you home," Devin tells her, as if he wasn't the one who drove in the first place. Being designated driver isn't any fun to begin with, and I appreciate that Maddy doesn't give him hell by calling him out for his super cringey advance. She wants to, I can see it all over her face, but she doesn't. Possibly because she also doesn't look all that well.
"Are you feeling okay? Do you want us to take you back to your dorm?" I ask her. Even barring the head start she got over all of us, she drank the most tonight. It's weird, I've known her for a long time and she's never been a heavy drinker, which is probably why the alcohol's not agreeing with her.
"Me? I'm fine, don't even worry about it." She gets up on cue with the rest of us and digs around in her purse. Again I catch Jonah watching us, this time with a concerned look, but regardless of his prompting I already know what I have to do.
"No, here, let me drive you." I snatch the keys away from her. I haven't had too much to drink tonight and besides, I've got the highest tolerance of anybody here, hands down. After I give Jonah a kiss and a promise to see him back at the house, I say goodnight to Grace and Devin and help Maddy out to her car. She doesn't argue about it, and slides easily into the passenger seat. Before she can forget I pull the seatbelt over and buckle her up, ensuring I've kept her safe in more than one way as I climb behind the wheel.
I put the radio on low as we drive, and she's almost completely quiet next to me, her head leaned against the window. There are a few moments during the short drive, fleeting and almost immeasurable, where she cracks a smile and chuckles under her breath. I'm not sure what's going through her mind, or what she finds so funny, but I can't help thinking that maybe she realizes how familiar this all is too. A long time ago, before Jonah, it was she who occupied my nights, and maybe she didn't know why then, but I tried hard to find ways of avoiding sex. We used to love going on drives, and while it started out as an excuse, it ended up being one of my favorite things.
Thinking about it now, it's still one of my favorite memories of her.
For just a little while I was able to escape my dad, and all the perfect little rules I had to follow around everyone else. She felt that too, I know she did, I saw so many different sides of her. I told her a lot of things then, and while I was never in love with her I think what we had was definitely a kind of love. It's sad to think about now. We're getting back on good terms, and things between us seem to improve every day, but I don't know if it'll ever be what it was. And for better or worse, she was my closest friend for longer than either of us probably realized. Maybe she does think about it while she sits over there, smiling.
When we get to campus she tries to insist again that she'll be okay, but I'm adamant about taking her inside—which turns out to be for the best when she demonstrates her inability to walk in a straight line. Her arm around me doesn't feel as alien as it did earlier, though I've only just gotten used to it as we reach her dorm and she shoves herself off of me to run to the bathroom instead. I think about leaving it there, but as I look in at her cold and dark room it doesn't feel quite right. I hesitate for a moment before following after her, waiting outside the bathroom door until I hear the toilet flush.
"You didn't have to bring me home, Brent. I told you I would've been fine." Her head seems a little more clear after I step inside. She hates that I'm seeing her like this, I know her well enough, but I only look at her softly as I grab a paper towel to hand to her. She takes it reluctantly and wipes her mouth, sitting back on the tile.
"Yeah, I did." I go to sit next to her. No, she's never really been a heavy drinker, but I couldn't count the nights she picked me up off the bathroom floor like this. "It's the least I could do. I was really glad you decided to come tonight, I didn't know if it would be too weird."
"To be fair I wasn't going to," she confesses, trailing off like there's more to be said. A minute passes, "but then my date cancelled and, honestly, I didn't want to be alone."
"Was it that same guy, the one from before?" My question only earns a pointed look from her, as if to remind me that she's not exactly rolling in suitors. It makes sense though, why she showed up, and why she'd already been drinking. "What happened?"
"What always happens." Her shoulders heave and she slumps over, looking more defeated than I've seen her in a while. There's a good chance it could be the alcohol, or it could just be that under it's influence she allows us to be friends again, for real, but when she regains her composure enough to face me I see how much it gets to her. She looks so sad. "I told you men suck, they get what they want and they don't bother sticking around. I'm so tired of having my heart broken."
"It's not you, Maddy. I promise."
"You think? Because I'm starting to wonder." She has a laugh at her own expense, sniffling. After that she doesn't say anything for a while, and I feel like I should comfort her some more, but I can't think of anything to say that will make any of this better. Then she does it again. She smiles and chuckles like she did in the car, but this time she lets me in on it. "Jonah's so lucky, you were the last guy I was ever happy with. And I know it wasn't perfect, but you always made me laugh and listened to my problems—I even remember the time you got in a fight with my dad because he wanted me to quit ballet. You always looked out for me, and I loved you for it."
"I'll still look out for you." I say. "If you want."
"It's not the same." There is such venerable truth in her words, and when she stares over with those sad eyes of hers I wonder for the second time tonight if there really can be love again, of any kind. Or is there just too much damage? "It can't be."
"Is that why you're so mad at me?" So softly, I finally ask the question that lives at the back on my mind, the same one that has drifted in and out of my consciousness over the years. I think about how ugly the breakup had been, about how it was after the truth came out. I think about seeing her around campus the past couple of years, and even how we were when we started the tutoring. All that anger.
"I wish it was that simple, there's just," Maddy covers her face, incapable of looking at me anymore, "there's so much you don't know. About me, about what I've been through—about what happened the summer after we graduated."
"Then tell me, I want to know." I already know it wasn't rehab, but all those rumors abound. They hang around her neck like a noose, what could be worse that she wouldn't want to set the record straight?
"No you don't, believe me." Still she persists, wanting more than anything not to relive it. Yet that sadness in her prevails and I recognize it all too well, like maybe there's a light that's gone out in her too. "It's not like it matters, not anymore."
"It does to me."
"Please, let's just not talk about it, I'm tired."
"You don't have to keep pretending, you don't have to be alone." There's something that breaks my heart to see her like this, but it'd be a lie to say I wasn't also dying to know. So I don't listen, "tell me what happened to you."
"My hero. You really must still be looking out for me after all, but where were you when I needed you?" Something breaks in her too, and I glimpse so much of that familiar anger when she's forced to confront those things she didn't want to talk about. "You have all this big talk about how I should've known it wasn't going to work out between us, and maybe that is on me, but I did love you. I never used you, not once, but you tore me to pieces and never looked back. I thought that would kill me—I thought it couldn't get any worse—so imagine my surprise a week after we broke up, when I found out I was pregnant."