Hazed (Palm South University)

Even though he’s the one guiding me, I have to tell him which room is mine. He helps me get into bed, and then turns down all the lights, save for the lamp by my bed. I have the corner room, the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows lining two walls, so the city lights stream in even when Jarrett turns off the lamp.

He’s sitting on the edge of my bed, helping me pull the comforter up to my chin, and he smiles when I’m settled. “I think those meds are knocking you out.”

“I feel loopy,” I say with another yawn.

“Good. Hopefully you’ll get a good night’s rest.”

Maybe it’s the medicine. Maybe it’s the virus. Maybe it’s the way the lights streaming in from the windows remind me of the way Jarrett looked every time we’d video chat when he lived in the city. Whatever the reason, there’s no way to stop the question that tumbles from my lips.

“Jarrett,” I whisper.

“Yes?”

“Why did you break up with me?”

The breath he inhales is stiff, and he looks away from me, out the window. I expect him to say we shouldn’t talk about it, that I should get some sleep, but instead, he answers with brutal honesty.

“Because I was a fucking idiot.”

The words slam into my chest like an anvil, and I roll my lips together, forcing a swallow and waiting for him to continue.

“I let other people get inside my head. I was just… I was so impressionable, this new fish in the big city, and I thought everyone else knew better than I did. When I told my team about how you were reacting to me working with Jenny, not a single person said you had a right to be upset, that long distance was hard, that I was doing a shit job of being a good boyfriend from afar.” His eyes find mine. “Which I was, for the record.”

I sigh. “No, you weren’t, Jarrett. I was young and sus—”

“Normal,” he finishes for me. “You were asking the exact questions I would have been asking in the reverse. But I was so fucking stressed out. We were working all the time, and I forgot I had a life outside of that office, outside of those people. So, when they started talking about how you were young and jealous, how I’d outgrown you… I listened. And they were with me the night I saw that post of you and Greg. They hyped me up, saying how childish it was, how you were playing games and I was above it all and I just… I don’t know. Something inside me snapped.”

“Nothing happened with Greg,” I assure him. “At least… not that night. Not until well after we’d broken up. And even then, it was just a temporary… thing.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation. I know you didn’t do anything with him that night. But I think, in a way, I also knew that I couldn’t be what you needed. Not at that time in my life. So, I just…” He inhales another stiff breath. “I let you go.”

God, I wish I hadn’t taken that cold medicine, because I’m so fucking drowsy I can’t even convince myself that I’m not dreaming all of this.

Jarrett brushes my hair off my forehead, his eyes searching mine in the low light coming in from the city. “Get some rest, Jess.”

“Wait,” I say, reaching for him. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

He smiles, and I don’t miss the way his next swallow is strained. “I’ll wait until you’re asleep, okay?”

I nod, and then, even though I have a million questions racing through my mind, I succumb to the drowsiness slowly pulling me under.

And I feel him there beside me, staying just like he promised he would.

Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe the medicine is still making me loopy. But I swear it’s not long after sleep takes me that I feel Jarrett lower his lips to press a kiss to my forehead.

But I can’t quite make out what he whispers in my ear before he goes.

I NEVER KNEW NUMB could be felt so hard.

When you hear someone say they’re numb, you think it’s this state of nothingness, of insensitivity, of apathy.

But the numbness I feel when I take first place in my category at the pole competition I’ve been preparing for for months now is an all-encompassing heaviness.

I feel weighed down as I stand on the platform, smiling and thanking the organizers as they place a gold medal around my neck. My arms are too heavy, my head too slow, like I’ve been drugged or am existing in an underwater hell.

I should be light and airy and happy right now. I should be ecstatic that I hit every move just how I planned, that every trick was executed flawlessly, that my hair and makeup and outfit are on point, that the crowd went absolutely berzerk when I finished.