Best Friend’s Brother: Best Friend's Brother Romance Page 5

“She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” Zooey squeaked happily. She nuzzled her face into the curly fur.

  “Yeah she comes close. Her curls have nothing on yours though,” Jakob smiled at them both. Zooey loved that he was romantic in a silly way. He made her heart laugh and flutter at the same time. She smiled back up at him, Moxie lying sleepily in her arms.

  They left food and water for the dogs, and put Moxie back inside after playing with her for a little while. They left Bruce’s water and food bowl out on the porch for him to have some food during the night. Jakob was supposed to check up on them every day while the Mennezes were away. They trusted him enough to even give him a spare key.

  “When we were younger, Carl and I would try to race across the lake. There was only ever one time we both made it all the way across without chickening out,” Jakob was walking on the edge of the lake on his way back to his car. He could talk about his ex with such ease. Like he was unaware that that could shake or upset anyone, especially with the history Carla and Zooey had.

  Zooey looked out into the water and at the other side of the bank. She remembered the fireworks that were there only a few nights before. Jakob had a way of putting things behind him the way that she did with things as well. She wanted to talk to him about things like that, but she didn’t know how. She had never been able to find the words.

  “What’s on your mind, precious?” he took her hand, kissing it softly, then running his thumb along her knuckles. Zooey sighed. She didn’t know where to start. And even if she did start, where would it end? He would still be confused about her, and she would still always wonder.

  “How great my grief, my joys how few…” Zooey said with her head down. That was all she could recite from memory.

  “What are your great griefs?” Jakob stopped walking when they were under a wide oak tree. He kept his hold on her hand and sat down slowly.

  “You know, the usual grief that’s not really grief. Complaining about things I’m not sure I even understand. Inadequacies. That old emo stuff,” Zooey lowered herself onto the grass beside him. There was enough shade under the tree for it to almost feel cool. She chuckled to make the situation seem light hearted, but she didn’t have that gift the way that Lauryn did.

  “What does ‘not really grief’ mean? Does it make you hurt?” Jakob looked at Zooey with a concerned expression on his face. She sat for a moment, really considering his questions. It was hard for her to admit, but she was hurting a lot of the time.

  “Sometimes,” she said quietly.

  “Ok. Is it something you want to talk about?” he invited her to continue. Zooey raised her right shoulder slowly in a shrug. “No pressure.”

  They sat in silence for a good long while. He watched her and waited. Maybe the words would come, and if they did, he wanted to be ready to hear them. He wanted to be there for her.

  Zooey spent the next few minutes looking out over the lake. Her eyes were on the water, but her mind was elsewhere. She wasn’t paying attention to the dark ripples from the small petals that blew onto the water. She didn’t see the shimmering rays of the sun undulating on the surface.

  “Sometimes,” she started. Her voice got tangled in her throat. Jakob could hear the tears in her words. “Sometimes, I feel like I’m not truly cared about.”

  Her eyes overflowed, but she didn’t look sad. In fact, aside from the tears, you would never have known that Zooey was crying. This was the second time in a week that she had cried in his presence. The second time she found herself in tears and confused about why, even though she had every idea what the reasons were. It was hard knowing and not knowing, understanding but not understanding, being ok but not being ok.

  Zooey, embarrassed now, buried her head in her hands and cried for a few moments. She didn’t so much as let out a sob. She breathed in deeply. It was a heavy and tired breath. She wiped her eyes and used the back of her hand to wipe her nose. The entire time Jakob sat silently beside her and didn’t say a word. He looked concerned, but he was patient.

  “I care. I can’t speak for other people, but I can tell you that I care. Lauryn cares. Your mom and step-dad and little brother care. The people who matter to you care. We do.” He brushed the tips of his fingers on the edge of her collarbone. His fingers moved down her arm slowly until he was holding her hand again.

  “I know you do. It’s just hard sometimes. Sometimes it feels like I’m alone in the universe…like a lost alien.”

  “Oh I definitely know how that goes.”

  It was strange for him to say. Jakob was always surrounded by interesting people.

  “How come you never talked to me about liking me?”

  “Because I never thought I could,” Zooey said. She had collected herself now. There were no tears, only the occasional sniffle and post-crying hiccups. “I wasn’t even in high school yet, but my mind automatically made the decision that best friend’s brother was off limits, and…”

  Zooey’s voice trailed off.

  “And?” he urged.

  “And I didn’t think you liked me back. I just thought you liked that I was your sister’s fun little friend.”

  “I’ve always liked you Zooey. But I didn’t know you on a deeper level. I still don’t. Not really anyway. So that’s what I’m trying to do now,” he smiled without showing any teeth. He was so cute.

  In truth, that was mostly what it had been. Jakob was cute, and he had a personality that people gravitated towards. Zooey never thought she stood a chance, so her subconscious let it go, and she had convinced herself for almost a decade that she was happy with that decision.

  “What about Carla?” Zooey said suddenly. It was like something she had forgotten to mention, but her mind had just brought it to the forefront.

  “What about her?” Jakob asked. There was a slight hint of defensive in his voice.

  “Is that why she never liked me?”

  “I don’t know,” Jakob shrugged off the question. “Carl didn’t like a lot of people in high school.”

  Zooey frowned. There was a difference between Carla’s everyday bitchiness, and how she made Zooey feel for a year of her school life. She knew that Jakob must have seen it or noticed it. But it wasn’t up to him to be her savior. Carla was his girlfriend, and there had been a reason for that whether Zooey understood it or not.

  “Well, why is she trying to be sweet with me now?”

  Jakob furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Maybe because she’s sweet. Look, I’m not her. I can’t tell you what someone else is feeling. If you want to know about me or what I’ve been feeling, I can tell you that.”

  There was slight annoyance in Jakob’s tone. He was getting impatient with the questions. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk about his ex-girlfriend now that he wasn’t the one leading the conversation. Zooey felt uneasy now. Carla’s house wasn’t even 50 feet away from them. She stood up quick enough to cause vertigo. She closed her eyes tight for a moment, giving her mind time to focus and to adjust to the new height and sudden rush of blood throughout her body.

  “I’m going to go sit in the car. I’m not feeling too well,” she opened her eyes, and began to walk away. Jakob got up too. The sound of him moving made her turn to face him.

  “Zoo, you can’t actually be mad at me right?”

  “I’m not mad. Of course I’m not mad. How can I be mad? I get kisses, and poems, and told that I’m beautiful and that you’re figuring things out. You can’t tell me how someone else is feeling, but you’ve never really told me how you’re feeling anyway! You get to be confused, but I don’t get to be confused.”

  Zooey ran a hand slowly through the curls of her hair. She turned around again and continued to walk to the car.

  “That’s not fair,” Jakob called after her. She didn’t pause or turn around when he spoke, so he started to move towards her.

  “Of course it’s not fair, Jakob. Life isn’t fair. But all I want to do is understand you.”

  “And I’m try
ing to understand you. I’m trying to understand myself. You know how weird it is to be home from war? Do you have any idea what it means to be in a war?”

  “I don’t. I have no idea. But I know what it means to be scared. And when I was scared, I’d go to the people who helped me out most. You and Lauryn. But now I’m someone you care about, but have no idea about. You’re asking me if I get it, but how can I if you don’t talk to me?”

  “I had no idea the war was about Zooey John Dempsey. If you’re mad, I’ll take you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home. I want to understand!” she screamed and spun around. Her eyes were on fire. All of the emotions she hadn’t poured out when she was crying were now appearing on her face. There was pain and confusion to the point that Jakob stopped walking and waited to see what she would do next. She stood still. She breathed in and out angrily. Adrenaline had taken over, and it was either lash out or walk away.

  “I want to understand too!” his voice was raised. He was practically shouting. “You think my confusion has anything to do with you? I’m crazy about you, Zooey. I’m not confused about that. I just don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. Everyone’s changed, but no one has changed. War makes you remember ghosts of people. Everyone seemed two-dimensional until I left. Now everyone has depth, and insight, and confusion, and their own grief and life and worries. How could I not have realized that until I went away?”

  Zooey was starting to feel ashamed of herself. He was right.

  “I’m being selfish. I’m sorry.”

  “No. No,” his voice was softer now. “Well...yes, but that’s not it. From what I know, and from the little you’ve told me...you just want someone to love you fully. You weren’t sure about your dad, and I don’t know about your mom or your step-dad. But there’s something that’s missing. I don’t want you to think that I should fill that. You fill that. I’m just here to love you.”

  Her heart jumped when he said “love”, but she didn’t mention it. She appreciated being understood. It really was hard for her to express herself about love, or her family, or her parents’ divorce.

  When Zooey turned 18, she started getting birthday and Christmas cards from her father. The first few years she was excited, and she would write him a letter of thanks. It would include a drawing that she did. She was a more than competent artist, and she drew them for him to show how much she appreciated him. The excitement ceased once she really thought about it. He only cared because she was now an adult. He had no moral or financial obligations when it came to her. He was now going to try to be a father. He hadn’t sent a letter in a year or maybe it was two; it was difficult to keep track with him.

  “Would you like me to take you home Lil John?” he said with a straight face.

  Zooey glared at him. “I hate you.”

  “You don’t. You really don’t.”

  “I know.”

  *

  “And how was your day?” it was 6AM. Jakob was sitting on the couch in a bathrobe. He was fully clothed underneath, he just felt like being dramatic. There was a cold half-cup of coffee on the table in front of him, and the crusts of a sandwich that had long been devoured. Lauryn was sneaking into the house, and she had no idea that anyone was still awake. She leapt about 3 inches off the ground when Jakob spoke.

  “Fine. Why are you up?”

  “Can’t sleep,” Jakob said. He had never been much of a normal sleeper. He wouldn’t get more than 5 hours of sleep at a time no matter how tired he was. This case was no different. Jakob had fallen asleep at around 9 the night before. He was awake by 2, and he had already started his day.

  “Want company?” Lauryn shimmied over to the couch that Jakob had made himself comfortable in. He moved his feet in order to make more space for his sister. She collapsed onto the couch and sighed when her body melted into the soft cushions.

  As carefree and open as Jakob and Lauryn were, they still had traditional parents. Ryan may have been in town, but they preferred that he stay at a hotel. No offense to him of course, it was only because they didn’t know him. The real reason at first was because Ryan was a unisex name, and they were secretly worried that Lauryn was going to bring home another woman with green hair and a pierced septum. Ryan surprised them all. Not only did he have his natural hair color, but also he was such a normal and upstanding guy. It made Rachael and Allen Savage wonder what kinds of things Ryan and their daughter talked about on their own. They were really the odd couple.

  Ryan was on this visit for a few weeks, then leaving for a month, and coming back to sort things out with Lauryn. She had seen him and spent the night at his hotel every night that he was there. She came home early enough to make it seem like she had been home for a decent amount of time, even though her parents had long approved of Ryan.

  “How was your day?” Lauryn asked. She opened her mouth in a wide toothy grin. Jakob rolled his eyes. His sister was ridiculous.

  “It was good.”

  “Just good? Was it like a date?”

  “We haven’t gone on any dates yet,” Jakob pretended to get back to reading his work. Lauryn was being nosy. Besides, he knew that in a few hours she would call Zooey and ask for the details from her anyway. Lauryn frowned. She wanted to hear better news than that.

  “It’s about time you did,” Lauryn said with a scoff. She couldn’t remember the last date her brother had been on since prom. He of course went with Carla. They broke up in their first semester of college. They didn’t think there would be much point given the distance. They never got a chance to see each other after that. There were the polite “hellos” during the holidays if they bumped into each other, but the two had not really spoken to each other until Jakob had come home from Iraq.

  “Maybe,” Jakob nodded his head slowly. Lauryn shook her head and gave him a stern look.

  “This isn’t high school. You can’t wait to see if it’s all perfect to try anything. And Zoe is…”

  “Your best friend and her own person,” his head was still nodding, as if to keep up with a slow paced rhythm. Lauryn yawned wide when he spoke.

  “I know. But don’t you like her?” Lauryn wanted to figure things out without having to be told everything. She didn’t want to know more about the situation than the people actually involved in the situation. She rested her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes.

  “I do like her. Enough for it to wake me up at 2 in the morning, and enough to have my sister lecture me about it before the sun even rises.”

  Lauryn groaned. They were too alike. He wasn’t really going to tell her what his plans were or where his head was at. He knew that whatever it was he was doing was working or not working, but whatever the case, he was keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Lauryn raised an index finger and wagged it in his direction sternly.

  Zooey’s first boyfriend in high school had been a complete louse. They were in 10th grade, and it was during one of Carla and Jakob’s first break ups. Zooey tried dating a Junior by the name of Seth Yeun. He was cute, and kind of popular, but he didn’t really like Zooey. Everyone could see it, except her. She was too excited about him. All he was really looking for was to hook up with a virgin.

  Lauryn had saved the day of course. She walked him home one day. It was her way of getting to know her best friend’s boyfriend. He tried to hit on her, and Lauryn decked him square in the nose. She had to explain it to Zooey, who was angry for weeks. She thought that Seth had gotten Lauryn alone and something could have happened before she stopped it. Lauryn of course stood her ground and let Zooey know that it was all Seth. Seth didn’t tell anyone what happened. He told everyone that he had an accident on his motorbike, and his nose was black and blue for a long time. Zooey stayed with him for a few more weeks. That was the longest she and Lauryn had gone without speaking.

  Seth ended things with Zooey. She admitted that she wasn’t ready to lose her virginity, and he eventually gave up. Zooey was upset
for a long time. She was too embarrassed to face him. Seth treated her like garbage after that. He never talked to her, or ever acknowledged their relationship again. Lauryn didn’t let a stupid feud get in the way of her friendship. She tracked Zooey down one day after school and they had a long talk. Lauryn told Zooey everything she knew about guys based on her brother.

  ‘No matter how nice they seem, take a deeper look. And never ever let a man come between your best friendship.’ Zooey listened, and that made her always cautious about men. She didn’t get into relationships until she was absolutely sure, and even then, she managed to end up being hurt.

  Lauryn may have been the one to cry more, but Zooey felt things more deeply than her best friend. She just had her own way of locking it up and letting it eat at her.

  “Shouldn’t you be telling Zoo not to hurt me?” Jakob said as he kept his eyes on his sister’s wagging finger. “I mean, I am your brother.”