that it had something to do with making that long climb up the stairs that she had just come down. Students who couldn’t get around easily on the stairs were given a key to the elevators, and I wondered if Aria would get one when she was too big to move around much. Watching the two of them, I felt a surge of sympathy and a wave of sadness. At one time Aria was a good friend, and after all that had happened I wasn’t quite sure if I would ever call her my friend again. I should have been one to carry her books, help her up the stairs, get her through the nine months like any friend would, but no, there I was, walking behind her at a slower pace so she wouldn’t see me and possibly call me out again like she did that day at my house.
I walked slowly and felt relief when I saw her go into a bathroom at the top of the next floor. Taking the stairs two at a time, I dashed past the bathroom door and Nate, who was standing nearby looking down at his waffle stompers, and made my way down the hall to my locker. When I got closer I saw Krissa there and she was in the process of shutting the door.
“Not yet!” I said, reaching for the locker door. Krissa grabbed it before it slammed on my fingers.
“Just in time,” she called out before I quickly tossed my accounting book inside and grabbed my notebook for my next class with Alicia. “I should stay over more often,” she said. “That was a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, we should, but on a weekend. We can stay up later and gossip,” I said while at the same time looking around for Alicia. It was odd that she wasn’t waiting for me.
“If you’re looking for Alicia, she had a DECA meeting this morning. I saw her when I came in.”
I was about to comment when Krissa lunged up on her toes and began waving her arms above her head. “Hey, Aria! Hey, Nate!”
I rolled my eyes in the confines of our locker so only my books would see my annoyance. Oh, no. Now what do I do?
Aria and Nate arrived at the locker before I could make a discreet get-away, and all I could think of to do was give them a quick nod. Aria let out a “hi” but I was sure it was directed at Krissa and not me, and in order to save myself I put out a “see you guys” and took off down the hall without looking at any of them. Current Events class awaited me.
Slipping into a seat, I watched for Alicia to get there and remembered that Jensen hadn’t called to tell me he’d made it back safely like I’d asked him to. Before I had a chance to pick apart and analyze that, Alicia slid into her seat just as the bell rang. She smiled at me and our teacher got right to business reading the bulletin for the day. The entire class period, we were more than busy and didn’t get a chance to talk until the bell rang and we walked together to our lockers. Now that we had a new seventy-five minute class schedule, breaks in-between were now fifteen minutes, enough time do to more than just get from one class to another. At the time she heard about the change in times from the school bulletin, Alicia had thrown a fit and I wondered what she thought of it now. To me it seemed a plus. Walking down the hall and dodging other people, I asked how her parents were holding up.
“The same,” Alicia shrugged, “although Em called last night after you left. Evidently Madison knows, and she and Emery are at a bit of a crossroad about this whole kid thing. Em is taking a DNA test to confirm it’s really his kid, but obviously it is since Jensen wasn’t a hundred percent match.”
“I guess I’d also take the test just to be sure and have it down on paper. If this does wind up in court, anyone who could possibly be the father has to be tested.” Sometimes I liked watching the talk shows on TV that dealt with cheating and paternity and knew the value of scientific tests. Alicia agreed, and I said Jensen was pretty pissed at Emery. “Do you think he’ll talk to him anytime soon?”
“I don’t know. Em said he tried calling Jensen but couldn’t get ahold of him. He said something about going to take a trip to see him, but Mom told Emery to give Jensen space. I’m not sure what he’ll do.”
“That would be smart. Jensen is ... he’s just not himself.”
By then we had arrived at my locker and Alicia looked at me as if willing me to share more, but there wasn’t anything I could add. For some time now I’d been trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how I was going to handle it, no matter what anyone else did. Some days felt as if there were so many circumstances and no clear-cut answers. I spun the dial on the lock and quickly opened it.
“Well,” Alicia started before she took off to her own locker, “let’s hope he breaks out of it. I don’t like it when he’s not his usual self.” Alicia then skipped off to her locker, leaving me with that thought and thinking about the last time he wasn’t exactly himself. It was not a welcome reminder of my sophomore year.
That night, coming home after a long day at both school and work at my job with the Federal Government, I found a short and sweet message on my phone from Jensen. He said he was sorry for not calling to say he’d arrived safely, that a layover in Seattle had lasted longer than planned and he didn’t want to wake me after getting home. I listened to it twice just to hear his voice before hitting ‘delete,’ and then picked up the receiver to dial Gabe’s number for his perspective of my weekend. He answered on the fifth ring, seemingly out of breath and claiming to have been out for a run. I knew better because I heard a faint female voice in the background ask who it was and if he could call me back. I assumed it was Marissa.
“It’s not a bad time, is it?” I asked, feeling a little embarrassed that I’d caught them in the middle of ‘the act,’ although he didn’t have to answer the phone in the first place.
“Eh, it’s fine. What can I do you for?”
“I kind of need your opinion on Jensen since he stayed at your house this last weekend.” I brought my feet up on the couch and sat cross-legged, not caring now whether his evening extra-curricular activity was waiting for him or not.
“He wasn’t his usual self, that’s for sure,” Gabe shared, and then listened as I launched into my time with him. Once I was finished, he gave his two cents.
“Most of the weekend I was with Marissa,” Gabe said, “but we did talk before you two went to dinner on Saturday and when I took him to the airport on Sunday.”
“What was he like before we went to dinner?”
“I don’t know, I guess he seemed a little nervous.” Gabe paused.
Assuming his hesitancy was because he wasn’t quite sure what Jensen had shared with me about Fallon, I thought I better speak up. I wanted a no-holds-barred opinion from Gabe, so I told him I knew all about his drug-and-alcohol-induced entanglement with Fallon.
“Alright, good, I wasn’t sure how much of it he told you, or if he had yet.” Gabe relaxed and began to freely tell me about Jensen. “It was really tearing him up and I think he was stressing over seeing you for the first time since Phoenix.”
“Did he even tell you everything that happened in Phoenix?” I wanted to know.
“He saw Savannah, thought her kid was his, you gave the ring back and left ... yeah, he told me.”
“I think Jensen missed the point of why I gave the ring back,” I stressed. I now knew without a doubt I should have made it clear to Jensen then that I hadn’t ended things, and I should’ve done so before he acted like a single guy and did something that would be hard for me to forgive. I was starting to feel party to blame for his actions. “Gabe, I didn’t give him his ring back to end our engagement or even our relationship. I did it because I wanted him to feel like he had time to make an informed decision without any pressure. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to choose me simply because we were already engaged.” I unfolded my legs and stretched them out in front of me, digging my toes into the carpet.
“Yeah. By the way he explained your split, I’d say our boy may have missed that point. He also said something about Phoenix being a wake-up call, and that he was pushing you too