The Fall

Thirteen

SENT: 2:01 AM, 28 November 2015
DELIVERED: 2:03 AM, 28 November 2015
FROM: jclark102@jchs.net
TO: me

Hey, it's Jasmin (but you probably already can see that) and I was just wondering if you could grab lunch with me at The Shake Stand? Possibly on Sunday? I have something kind of important to talk to you about and I would really like to do it in a place that is not school. Thanks, please reply as soon as you can.

Stay beautiful,
- Jasmin Clark

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SENT: 4:50 PM, 28 November 2015
DELIVERED: 4:51 PM, 28 November 2015
FROM: me
TO: jclark102@jchs.net

You're making me kind of nervous here, but I can be there at two tomorrow if that's okay with you...

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
- Kacey Vargas

---

There's a little diner downtown called The Milkshake Stand, and it's one of two general meeting places around here (the other being the Seven-Eleven on Blake Street that no one with any shred of a self-preservation instinct would ever go near.) You know how in the movies, especially the kind that are trying to be all indie and cute, the lead couple will without fail, end up in a fifties-style diner at some point?

Well, even though I was pretty sure I didn't live in one of those, somehow I ended up waiting outside of one to meet Jasmin on a cold, bracing late November afternoon. I didn't know why she wanted to meet me, seeing as we had barely even spoken outside of the stupid lunch program before now, but I figured it had to be important.

She had e-mailed me through our school system, because when you use it you can message anyone in the district without needing to know anything but their name. The message struck me as oddly formal, yet cryptic in a way and was sent in the middle of the night for some reason.

Bouncing on the balls of my feet in an effort to keep my blood from freezing over, I soon saw a beat-up, obviously used Dodge Neon pull into the parking lot and immediately knew it was Jasmin. It seemed like the kind of car she would drive: not flashy, but taking a sort of pride in it's dilapidated state. It, and she, looked strong somehow, like they had been through a lot.

The exact opposite of Ryder's car, said a little voice in my head.

Jasmin got out of the car, wearing skinny jeans, riding boots, and a cranberry-colored trench coat. It was a stylish, yet surprisingly understated for Jasmin look that put a questioning pit im the bottom of my stomach. What was the big deal?

"Hey," I said, trying to hide that my hands had started to shake- both from my nerves and the cold.

"Hey," she answered as we walked in, then removed her jacket and laid it on a large, comfy corner booth.

"Can I get y'all a coke?" asked the waitress once we got our seats, around here it was custom to have a normal drink with your actual food and a shake at the end.

"Yeah, give me a Dew, thanks," I said, wondering what Jasmin's order was. I always thought you could tell a lot about a person from their coke order- root beer was cool and quirky, Sprite was for bland conformists, Mountain Dew (forever a guilty pleasure) was for nerds like me, and cola was the domain of purists.

"Root beer, please," responded Jasmin. I knew it.

"And are you ready to order yet?"

"Yeah, sure," I said. "I'll have a bacon bleu burger, with a side of onion rings."

"And give me a chili dog and fries, thanks."

Once we had finished ordering, the atmosphere between us was thicker than a chocolate shake. I wanted to start the conversation, but I didn't know what to say, so I waited until forty seconds later, Jasmin cleared her throat and began.

"So I don't want to meddle in your relationships or whatever, because obviously you can do whatever you want and I know that I can't really do anything about it. But I just feel like-"

The waitress arrived again, setting down our sodas. As Jasmin spoke, she avoided making eye contact with me and busied herself in the tasks of preparing the drink: unwrapping the straw, placing it slowly into the red plastic glass, taking a contemplative sip between her words.

"I just feel like I should tell you what I know about Ryder, okay?"

She paused, waiting for my response and upon receiving nothing but an apprehensive stare, she continued her spiel.

"I went out with him when I was a sophomore and he was a junior, so, like, about a year ago. It was really nice at first, he got me all this cool shit that I really wanted, like a new sketchpad to work on my designs- it's actually the one I still use now," she said, laughing sheepishly.

"Look, Lena told me all of this already. I'm a naïve idiot for dating him, he's awful and horrible and stole forty cakes, that's as many as four tens and that's terrible. I get it," I shot back defensively, surprising myself with the sharpness of my words.

"I'm not trying to tell you you're an idiot. Fuck, I mean, if you're an idiot than that means I'm even stupider."

We were briefly interrupted by the arrival of our food, but Jasmin kept talking as we ate. All pretense of this being anything casual or low-key was long gone at this point, but she seemed comitted to keeping it up as she swore and made liberal use of self deprecation.

"Shit, what was I saying again? Okay. So basically, for the first few months, he was really cool. It was like a romance movie to begin with, you know?"

I stayed silent for reasons I didn't understand even though I could hear Ryder's voice in my head asking me to defend him. Jasmin was intensely nervous, that much I could see and I guess I just wanted to give her space.

It took her three hours and, between the two of us, four caramel milkshakes to spin out her alarming story-- a story of a compulsive liar, a story of falling for the wrong person, a story of being used and discarded when she spoke out.

As she drained her first shake and stared at the bottom of the speciality ice cream glass, she told me about how he had made her feel like she was insane-- he would delete texts from her on his phone then deny she had ever sent them, for example. He told her not to take an early-morning class because he was scared she'd talk to other guys, along with a myriad list of other controlling things.

It was nearing dark when I left, and I knew I had a lot to think about.