“Makes sense,” he says, shrugs, and leaves.
Clara’s sob comes out strangled. “Jason,” she says.
I turn to her, horrified.
Her eyes are wide.
“He’s going to…”
“No,” I say. “I won’t let him.”
“Fuck,” she says. “Oh, fuck.”
I pull her against me. I hold her, even though it’s stupid, even though the others could come back, too.
It doesn’t matter.
Howard’s not going to keep this secret. I don’t think I have enough money to buy him off, even if I wanted to.
This is the end of everything, fucked, destroyed in a single moment.17ClaraI watch Jason leave the room without a backwards glance at me. “I’ll be back,” he says.
I stand there, feeling like my life is falling to pieces.
I can still feel his arms around me, holding me tight like nothing bad could ever beat us, even after Howard walked in. I hug myself, curling up in a little ball and sitting down in front of a computer screen, trying to pretend like that didn’t happen.
But it did, it happened. Howard caught me kissing Jason, and there’s no way we’ll get out of this one.
I want to die. No, not die.
I want to disappear from the face of the earth.
If I could just melt away, slip down beneath the dirt, and cease existing, that would be ideal.
It’s not just me that I care about. Jason has way more to lose than I do. Sure, I might get a bad reputation at school, but I’m going to leave here. I’m going to graduate and move on with my life.
But Jason, this is going to follow him. Nobody will remember my name.
Everyone will remember Jason.
This is going to break him, ruin him. All because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
I sit there in that room for nearly two hours before I finally get up. Jason hasn’t come back, and I don’t expect him to.
Maybe he’s being smart and running. Or maybe he’s doing whatever else he can to protect himself by distancing himself from me.
I wouldn’t blame him. Let him throw me under the bus. I want it, honestly.
I feel simultaneously abandoned and happy that I’m abandoned as I leave the empty room. All those computers back there, all that hard work, all those good memories, it’s all tainted for me now.
None of it matters, anyway.
I don’t know what we were even doing back there. Hours spent writing programs, working on this vision that Jason has, and it’s all for nothing. Howard’s going to blow it up, all because of his failed idea.
I walk through the halls of the building, out into the mild afternoon sunlight, and I start back toward my apartment. I don’t bother going to class today.
It just doesn’t seem important.
I get back home and go right to bed. I curl up and even manage to sleep for a few hours.
Mac’s there when I finally manage to drag myself out of bed. She’s in the living room and looks surprised when I stumble into the kitchen.
“You’re home?” she asks.
I grunt at her and pour myself some water.
“What are you doing here?” She gets up and walks over to me. “Have you been in your room?”
“Sleeping,” I say.
She frowns. “It’s, like, five. Barely after five.”
I shrug a little. “Had a rough morning.”
“What happened?”
I hesitate, but fuck it. What do I have to lose now?
“We got caught.”
She stands there staring at me for what feels like a really long time. I finish my water and put the glass in the sink before she finally answers.
“How?”
I tell her the whole story, starting with Howard’s idea, up through his failure and that awkward moment with the group.
“So when everyone left, Jason and I were talking, and we kissed, and that’s when… that’s when Howard came back in.”
She groans. “No way.”
“Seriously. He saw it, saw everything.”
“Jesus.” She shakes her head. “That’s so…”
“Horrible.”
“Stupid,” she corrects.
I blink, surprised. “What?”
“You two were kissing out in the open in like the most dangerous place imaginable. How could you be so stupid?”
I stare at her for a second and I feel a little anger rising up in my chest. “You weren’t there,” I snap at her. “You don’t know.”
“You’re right,” she says, shrugging. “But it was still stupid.”
I stare at her, feel my anger peak, and slowly let it all fade away.
She’s right. I know she’s right. We were stupid, reckless.
We took too many risks.
Jason’s right about risk. It feels good, really good, it makes everything that much sweeter.
But it’s addictive. It’s dangerous. Risk only works if it doesn’t come crashing down in your face like it did earlier.
We got addicted to that risk, and it destroyed us.
Mac’s right. It was stupid to kiss in that room, especially knowing Howard could come back at any moment. It was a stupid, stupid risk.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit to her. I can feel the despair pushing in again.