The Art of Being a F*ck Up - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

Now that we're alone I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do. Maddy dredged up every ugly thing that I had buried down for Jonah to see, and when the damage was good and done she left me alone to deal with it—to deal with Jonah. He still hasn't said a word, I don't think he can. I can see plainly enough that he's angry and heartbroken and so confused, but mostly he's just speechless. He looks at me like he thinks I'll say something that'll make all of this okay, that'll make some kind of sense out of this nightmare, but it's all I can do to keep from crying when I'm feeling all the same things he is. And I can't break down, not like this, so I just stand there shaking before he can finally find it in himself to speak.
"Tell me this isn't happening." Jonah addresses the dead air directly ahead of him, and I can't be sure if the tremulous words filled with such disgust are meant for me. But then he looks directly my way, "tell me you wouldn't actually do this to me, any of it. How much of what she said is true?"
"Jonah," it sounds so unemotional and I hate it. I hate that I can't think quickly enough to come up with an answer that will stop him from looking at me like he is. A master of deception, yet I've run out of those little white lies to tell as I just shake my head. That's the one answer he won't accept, and his lip curls into a snarl before he steps forward.
"Don't lie to me!" There will be grief later, so much of it, but for just this moment all he has is that fiery anger I've known so well in him. "I'm so done with being lied to when I have done nothing but be there for you. You should have come to me if it was so bad—you should have trusted me enough to tell me the truth! But instead you go behind my back and delete my emails, you take away my one chance to do something meaningful that I'm passionate about. Then I had to hear from Devin all about what's been going on with your dad, and now I find out about this—about Madison—so I want to know how much of it's true!"
"Let's not pretend like you're the victim here. What do you want me to say, huh?" I'm supposed to be the bad guy, the villain, I shouldn't get to be righteous, but the way he tries to twist everything just makes me mad. How do I get him to see that none of this was designed to hurt him? I guess it doesn't really matter what the reasons are though, they'll never be good enough. They never are. "You want me to say I fucked up? You want me say that I got Maddy pregnant once and that I accidently kissed her the other night? I don't know what happened after that, I really don't, okay? Maybe I wouldn't have drank so much if you'd actually responded to at least one of my goddamn texts!"
"Don't you dare put this on me, do you not get what you've done? You fucking cheated on me! And you think, what, that it somehow excuses it because you were drunk? No!" Jonah seethes, unwilling to see it from any other side than his own. I know that all of this is so messed up, but can he really not see his part in it? "Everything we've been through, all of it, you would just throw it away like that? All I wanted was for you to talk to me, but it seems like the only thing you know how to do lately is drink."
"You want to talk? Fine, but let's not kid ourselves—how have you been there for me? Seriously? Any time I tried talking to you about Bill you just blew it off like you didn't give a shit, so why would I think it'd be any different with my dad or Maddy?" I speak through clenched teeth, knowing that I shouldn't hurt him any more than I already have. But it's like the dam breaking, the weight of the world crashing down, and I can't stop it. "You changed, Jonah. Maybe it was after I busted my knee, or like my dad said, maybe you just realized what a pathetic fucking mess I am, but you stopped being the same with me!"
"Jesus, I'm so tired of hearing about your dad! I didn't change, you just couldn't stand the thought that my whole universe doesn't revolve around you, so instead of having the balls to be honest with me you just sabotaged something you knew I wanted! And then you call that love? Even you know better, I think that's the real reason you can't seem to stay sober for more than a day."
"All I've heard about for months now is that stupid fucking competition, so yeah, I did something I regret in the heat of the moment because I was terrified you were going to leave me behind! I've given literally everything I have to be with you, I proposed to you for christ's sake! How is that not love?" For all the ways I've tried so hard not to hurt him, doesn't he care how he's been hurting me? "I never asked to be the center of your goddamn world, Jonah, I just wanted you to care about me half as much you obviously care about everything else! You're wrong, you did change, nothing has been right between us since you got dead set on leaving, and, fine, you got me, sometimes that makes me want to drink. You want to hate me for that too?"
"Who's really kidding who now here? I told you that you're the most important thing to me, I would've done anything you asked if you'd just talked to me—I'm not the one who changed! That's you. I know things have been hard for you lately, I know, but all this bad stuff happened and you were the one who decided to stop being Brent. My Brent." Jonah stops, his anger starting to run out when the first glimpse of sadness wears through. "Now you drink all the time, no matter how small the inconvenience, and try to use that as an excuse to justify all the horrible shit you've been doing! You're the one who's changed, and you know who you are? You know who you've become? You're your father."
"You're an asshole." I growl, stepping forward suddenly. I'm not sure if I really meant it, but Jonah flinches anyways, proving that he truly doesn't trust me anymore. That should break my heart, and it might if I wasn't so upset. I know what I did wasn't right, but he abandoned me and he doesn't even seem to care at all. I had thought that I was only sad before, but now I realize just how betrayed I've been feeling. I realize that I've been angry this whole time and it shows when I bare my teeth. "I'm nothing like him."
"You got so fucking wasted you can't even remember if you had sex with Madison! How are you going to stand there and act like you don't have a problem? I can smell it on your breath, you've already been drinking today. You need help!" He recovers, his hands throttling the air in frustration. Then he huffs, reining himself back in as another glimpse of the sadness he's fighting so hard to hide reemerges. "I thought I knew you. I thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, but now I get that I don't know you at all."
"That's bullshit and you know it! What have the last five years been about then? One mistake doesn't take all that away, I don't give a fuck about Maddy, no matter what happened!" I still can't stop it, it feels like I'm only getting more upset when he keeps trying to twist it, to make it worse, to make me into something even I couldn't love. And it's not like Maddy went into detail about the other night anyway, so neither of us have any idea what actually went down. "I didn't cheat on you! That's not what this is, and maybe it is my fault for spending so much time with her, but at least she's been there for me and that's more than I can say for you."
"So this is my fault then? That's what you're saying, that I asked for this?" He looks on, horrified. "How fucking dare you, how am I supposed to know what's going on with you when you don't tell me anything?"
"When? When was I supposed to tell you when you're never around? You said you were there for me but where've you been, Jonah, because you sure as hell haven't been here!"
"Do you hear yourself? Honestly? When have I not put you first? I told you I would keep tutoring you, but you were the one who said no. I wouldn't have even entered that competition if you hadn't convinced me to!" Jonah defends himself, as uncompromising as ever. All I want him to say is that he understands, I don't even need an apology, I just want him to really see how much I've been hurting. But he only sees his own pain, "you could've just told me how much you really didn't want me to go, you didn't have to do all of this. That's all on you! So how can you say that any of this is about me?"
"Everything's about you!" I've been telling so many lies that it feels almost weird to give him the honesty he's been begging for, but it comes now without a filter. "It always is—don't you get that? I just wanted us to be what we were, I didn't want you to keep looking at me like you felt sorry for me, so I didn't say anything! I never meant for any of it to hurt you, I'm only ever trying to look out for you! That's why I told you to enter that competition in the first place after your mom died, and that's why I didn't tell you not to go, or make you tutor me, because I would rather be miserable than get in the way of you being happy. I did this for you!"
"I didn't ask you to save me!" He shouts, repaying my honesty as he wipes away the first tear that finally falls onto his cheek. "That's your problem, Brent, you always think you have to be everybody's hero! You don't need to protect me, or shield me, or whatever fucked up thing you've convinced yourself you're doing. We're supposed to be partners, you don't hide this stuff from me—not ever! You give it to me, you let me take it. I share it with you so you don't think you have to be so strong all the time. I didn't need saving! All I ever needed...was you."
"Then don't do this." I'm back to sounding cold when I'm anything but. Another tear spills from his eye and I cave, reaching out, but unlike me he's a slave to his emotions, and he pushes my hand away before turning his back. That only makes it so much worse for some reason. "What else am I supposed to do, Jonah? You want me to say sorry, will that make it better for you? Just once I wish you could see things my way! I did this for us, so we'd have a chance!"
"There is no us!" Jonah faces me again, the rest of his anger falling away in fragile pieces to expose the powerful sadness I knew would be there. He can't accept any fault here, not when he's decided that I'm the selfish bastard, the sole owner for the blame. "Not anymore."
"Are you saying you want to break up?" How did I miss this? Did he come over here today, knowing already how things would end? I stutter as I try to get it out, so shocked that he could even conceive the notion. I don't care how bad things seem. I don't care if the whole fucking world is against us, it's always been me and him. It's not something I ever thought he could even consider, and realizing the possibility now I start to lose all that pent-up anger and grief and I start to just be afraid. Petrified.
"I love you so much, Brent." He's back to being speechless, and the second he says my name his face crumples and he cries harder. I want to reach out again, to plead with him, but I only watch in a stunned silence as he takes the ring off his finger with a shaky hand. He can't possibly know what he's doing, who would he even be without me? Who would I be? After he finds the strength he holds the ring out like I'll take it, "but I don't think you can love me. Not right now, not like this."
"You can't." At first it's all I can manage while I stand there, lost and panicked, but then my chest heaves heavily and I lose all control. "Don't leave me, I'll do whatever you say, okay? I don't have to talk to Maddy or my dad ever again—I'll get help! Just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, please!"
I plead with him, desperate to stop whatever this is from happening, but he's made up his mind. It has to kill him, I know it does, and yet he reaches out for my hand anyway, giving me just a little hope before he sets the ring down in my palm with great care, like it's still any kind of precious. Then he turns to go, hesitating at the door long enough that I can kid myself into thinking he has anything left to say. But the damage is done, and what we had is over, so he just covers his mouth before hurrying out of the room, putting me and everything we had behind him.
I still stand there, incapable of really understanding what's happened here until the dead quiet starts to set in. It takes longer than it should, or maybe it just feels that way, I don't know, but either way I sit back on the bed when my legs give out. To realize I've lost him, lost that last and probably only thing that's ever made me special, kills me. Alone, I don't bother trying to hide it as I start to weep, wishing more than anything that I was dead now that I'm without Jonah.