Love You Better (Better Love 1)

Me: *Mariah Carey gif*

Ivy Bean: *middle finger emoji*

Me: *kissy emoji*

Ivy Bean: *crying emoji*

I laugh out loud at the exchange, and then immediately have to apologize to the people in the seats next to me when they shoot me irritated glares.

“Sorry, guys.” I wave my phone a little. “Reddit.”

Me: Seriously tho. Want to come over tonight? Jesse is going out with friends... *water emoji*

Ivy Bean: I’ll be there.

I’m cheesing like an idiot, and I don’t even fuckin care who notices.

I’m walking to the student union to grab lunch with Je

sse when my phone rings and I see it’s Ivy. She never calls.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

“I’m really sorry to ask this, Kelley, but can I borrow your Jeep?”

“What? Why?” Ivy is attempting to hold her voice clear and steady, but I can still hear the worry there. The waver of fear.

“I got a call from Jacob’s school. There’s been an incident, and they can’t get ahold of my mom. I wouldn’t ask, but I let Bailey borrow my car so she could go home for the weekend, and I don’t know how to drive her stupid motorcycle.”

“Where are you? I’ll come pick you up, and we can go together.”

“I’m outside the library.”

“I’ll be right there,” I tell her. “And Ivy?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll go to the school and we’ll straighten everything out. Jacob is going to be fine.”

She pauses and I hear her deep inhale and exhale.

“You’re right. I’ll see you in a few.”

I hustle to my car and head straight for Ivy, picking her up from the library and starting the drive back home. For the entire hour-long drive, Ivy is distraught. She fluctuates between eerie silence and blaming herself for whatever has happened at Jacob’s school today. We don’t even know what it is yet, but she’s certain it’s her fault.

“I haven’t spoken to him in over a week.” The disappointment is evident in her tone. “I never go more than two days without talking to him, and it’s been a week. Gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t realize I’d let it go this long.”

She’s scrolling through her phone. “He called on Wednesday and I missed it because I was too busy...”

She lets the sentence trail off, disgust coating her words. I know what she was going to say, though. On Wednesday, she was too busy with me, in my car, hooking up. She hasn’t talked to Jacob in over a week because she’s been so focused on spending time with me.

A feeling of dread coils deep in my gut. I know that her distress is due to worry for Jacob, but I’m worried that it’s got something to do with us too.

“It’s okay, Ivy.”

“It’s obviously not okay, Kelley. We wouldn’t be having to go to Jacob’s school if everything was okay.”

“I realize that it looks bad, but I think that if we just try—"