You Remember Me, Right?

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 

He didn't know why he didn't tell her. Maybe it was because he knew she and Aubrey would never get along. They were just too different. Maybe it was because he felt guilty for enjoying spending time with Beca a little too much. He never would have cheated on Aubrey, that wasn’t the type of man Jesse was. He was the guy that believed in miracles and soul mates, stealing every opportunity to act out a cheesy grand gesture. No matter the constant arguments or times when he felt like he had had enough, Jesse never would’ve done anything with another girl while he was still in a relationship with Aubrey.

 

He would’ve told her, never wanting to hurt a hair on her head. But Jesse had no idea how intense his feelings for Beca would grow to be. When she arrived, he was just happy to see her again. But soon, her charm was wearing off on him and he started to count down the moments when he would see her again. That wasn’t something that ‘just friends’ did, right? Jesse never knew how much he would love spending time with her, refuting her sarcastic remarks with his own. It seemed like everything had happened so fast and he never wanted to jeopardize their friendship which had just been repaired.

 

Aubrey used to be fun; she used to be sweet. They met two years ago in chemistry, sitting right next to one another. He had almost severely injured himself one with the Bunsen burner, but she had quelled the flame, laughing as she turned down the dials. The rest of the year, she had helped him learn the material and at least retain a little bit of information about stoichiometry and chemical bonding, lending him her notes on a daily basis. She didn't mind though; she loved the goofy smile that would spread across his face or his laugh when he realized his silly mistake.

 

Towards the end of that first year, they planned even more study times so Jesse would pass his final and thus, the class. They began to see each other more and more, getting closer and closer at every meeting. She would sometimes catch him staring at her when she was focused on a long problem and he would smile when he saw her laughing at his messups, taking the pencil from him and redoing the problem herself.

 

Alone, she was like every other girl in the school. It didn’t matter that she was a year older than him or her status as one of most popular girls in school. Sometimes he did notice her in the hallways; bossing around the younger kids, but he always tried to look the other way. Chloe had pointed out that when they were younger, Aubrey hadn't even talked to them, calling them outcasts and losers. "She has grown up," refuted Jesse, trying harder to convince himself than to convince her. Jesse knew Aubrey wasn't always like this; he covered up the continual occurrences of her overbearing personality with memories he had of the sweet girl he had been studying with for a year. When she was with him, she never bossed people around or strutted down the hallway like it was a runway. He liked her much better when she was the comfort of her home, wearing her hair in a messy bun and a big, baggy sweatshirt.

 

Jesse liked to be around her; he liked seeing her eyes light up when he would get an answer right and when he would sometimes catch her singing along to the radio. He had never gotten butterflies when seeing her, never had his stomach do somersaults. Maybe he liked that. Around Beca, he was always nervous. He tried so hard to make her smile, to get her to laugh out loud. He was anxious meeting her again, hoping they would be able to reconnect. He was so worried that he cared more about recreating their past relationship with her than she did with him, but his worries were appeased when he noticed her smile when he would wave to her from across the hall or bring her a juice pouch at lunch. She may act like she was all hard and tough, but he loves when her smile breaks through the cracks, revealing a side of her not many people knew. Beca was a mystery and Jesse liked that.

 

But things with Aubrey were easy. He never ran down the crowded hallway to see her, never fell asleep watching movies on her couch. Everything was just so carefree for him, but maybe not so much for Aubrey. At first she was sweet, being the perfect girlfriend. She wrapped her arm around his waist when he was at his locker or called him over when she knew he was struggling with a topic. As the months passed, she started to become a little different. At first it wasn't noticeable,  just little things here and there. She never let him pick the movie, always deciding herself. He didn't care so much, but then her requests became more like demands and not suggestions. She forced him to wear the outfit she had choose the prior night so they would match. Before meeting her parents, he had to memorize a list a Aubrey-approved topics.

 

By this time in their relationship, Jesse was pretty much at the tipping point. But then, he found her, curled up in a ball. Pulling out a single sheet of paper from behind her back and handing it to him, Jesse scanned the text, revealing she had been rejected to her top school. The tears rolled down her face, following the curves of her cheekbones, until they collected in a pile on the floor. Pulling her into a hug, he had promised that she would get accepted into other schools; he knew should would be.

 

The thing was, she wasn’t. The rejection letters came back, one following the other. Soon, a whole pile was growing on top of her living room table. Her dad, once he saw them, had bellowed warnings that if she was more like her brother, she never would’ve gotten rejections. She was the disgrace to the family, both she thought it and her father reinforced it. The next letter was scheduled to come in the mail in a couple weeks or so.

 

In some ways, Jesse knew why the rejection letters kept surfacing. In everything she did, Aubrey tried to be the epitome of perfect, making everything flawless and maybe pushing a few people down in the process. The more time you spent with her, the more you could notice the glint in her eye as she took over the room, calling all the shots. Her teachers loved her enthusiasm, but didn’t like her methods as much. Out of the corner of their eyes, they could see how she treated the other kids, ridiculing them when they did something wrong.

 

Still, he saw how dejected she looked once the school day was over, staring off into the distance. He knew college was always on her mind; since she was a little girl college posters hung in her room. He couldn’t break up with her when she was so depressed; it was like breaking up with someone on their birthday. Jesse had been her rock, making sure she laughed in between her crys. Always ready with a carton of ice cream and two spoons, he had helped her stay a little bit more positive. He loved having that role, helping someone when they couldn’t do it themselves, but now, Jesse wasn’t feeling invested in the relationship any longer. He wished he could just come out and say it, he wished he had the self-assurance to just say what he really felt. But there she would always be, crying to him about some test or college, pulling him into a hug before he could mumble out a few words.

So now he just stayed with the group to watch the movie, before leaving without even saying goodbye to Aubrey. For so long he had wanted to get away, but he would just have to muster up the confidence to do so. There was one thing that he thought was the push to halt this one-sided relationship in his life, this one girl. This one beautiful, spectacular girl, that had just arrived back in his life and he couldn’t think of anyone but her in the dead of the night, hoping that these feelings that he got only when he was with her could one day be reciprocated.