Shy (9 page)

He picks out several Bill Monroe songs, then a couple of his own. As he plays, his expression relaxes a bit. Finally, he says, “Wildflower, I want to talk to you about why I broke up with you last year. There's something I never told you.”

My heart seems to beat double time. “What?”

“Well, your mom talked to me. It was after she'd caught us doing some pretty hot cuddling—and hell, I think she saw us feeling each other up, too. I could tell it really upset her. She had such a weird look on her face, like she wanted to beat both our heads in.”

I nod. “Yeah. I remember that. She was really pissed off about it, and we fought after you left. She actually slapped my face, she was so mad.” I sigh, replaying the scene in my mind, then shake my head to banish the hurtful memory. “She's so weird about sex. I don't know why. I don't think she and Dad have much of a relationship in that way. Not that I think about that a lot, yuck, but honestly, there's no chemistry at all. Your parents have a lot more chemistry together than mine.”

I think about Jake's parents, his much-older father with his still fairly young mother. She got pregnant with Jake when she was only sixteen, when his dad was in his mid-thirties. They have a weird relationship. He's big, rugged, and handsome, like Jake, and anyone can tell his mom really has the hots for him. But she's also afraid of him because he can be a belligerent asshole and very hard on people when they disagree with him or contradict him. It's a problematic marriage because of her inability to stand up to him when he's acting like an asshole, but as troubled as their relationship is, they have loads more sizzle together than my parents do.

Jake makes a face as though he smelled something nasty. “God, the last thing I want to be like is my parents. Especially my dad.”

“I'm sorry.” I didn't mean to make him think about being like his dad. He's got his dad's good qualities without having his bad qualities. Well, not many of his bad qualities. The only bad qualities he shares with his dad is a tendency to be distant, uncommunicative, and moody. But Jake has never made me feel afraid of him or nervous around him. He makes me feel loved and protected. I know he'd give his life for me, like those heroes in the fairy tale romances.

“Why did you break up with me?” I say. “I didn't want you to. You know that.”

He nods. “It was your mom. After she'd caught us on the couch. When you were at your piano lesson a few days later, she asked me to come by your place for a talk. There are some things she made me see very clearly about you, how you have the potential to achieve so much. You don't need someone in your life like me, somebody who doesn't have the same kind of goals and background you do.”

“What?” I fairly scream the word. I can't believe Jake fell for that crap, that he actually believes it and is parroting it to me now. “You can't really feel that way. Not with all the stuff you've said to me about how most people are just conformists who do what's expected of them.”

“But babe...” He stops talking for a moment.
Babe
was what he called me when we were dating, and he said it now, I guess, without intending to. “You're in college. You're headed for a career in your major. You're working hard to fulfill everyone's expectations. I've seen the look on your face when you disappoint your mom in even a tiny way, let alone a big way. No, Wildflower. I'm not good for you. I'd hold you back without meaning to, and I'd mess up your goals and dreams. And even without all that other stuff, I'm afraid I might wind up like my dad and you'd wind up like my mom, and I'd hate myself for doing that to you.”

“But it doesn't have to be that way. You aren't him. You're good to me, and you're good for me, too. I like that you encourage me to question my assumptions about life and to question what I've been taught growing up.”

He looks at me speculatively. Then he nods. “Yeah, I can see that, with us as friends. But if we're a couple? There's no doubt about it. I would seriously hold you back. I wouldn't mean to, but I would. And besides, this other guy sounds like he's much more your speed. A science major who plays piano and is into classical music.” He pauses. “He has money and he's probably very cultured. That's a good thing for you, you know. I'm just a country boy. You can do better.”

What irony that he criticizes conformity, then mouths words put into his heart and mind by Mom, one of conformity's most brainwashed advocates.

“At least you know the truth about why I did what I did,” he says. “It was for your own good and for your future.”

I shake my head. “Well, I'm not surprised Mom found a way to interfere. But Jake, she's wrong about you and wrong about us. She's bigoted and misguided. And in a funny way, I think she might be jealous of the chemistry and bond we have. She's well-meaning, I think, but she's such a narrow person. She has such narrow ideas of success and how people should be...”

“Okay, then. Are you capable of going against what she wants?”

My gut twists. Just hearing Mom call me
shy
in that accusatory tone breaks my heart. As for going against her expectations of me in a big way? “Honestly, I just don't know.”

We're quiet for a little while. Then he starts playing one of his originals, a sad song called “Why Not You.” The lyrics are melancholy and deceptively simple, about a young man who loves a young woman, but he's afraid he isn't good enough for her.

Why should he think he isn't good enough for me? Just because my mom said so, or because he's worried about being like his dad? Jake and I can create our own future. But I just can't get him to really open up to me about this and make himself vulnerable. He isn't exactly the most communicative guy in the world when he's off-stage. When he's playing for an audience, he's funny, engaging. But he can also be distant and remote when he wants to be, sometimes downright mysterious. It's his pride, I suppose, and his independent streak.

“How about you sing with me,” he says softly as he strums the instrumental bridge to his song. “Just the chorus. You can do it.”

Oh, dear. I should be able to do it. I sang for Granville. But my fucking shyness isn't logical, nor is it reasonable. Granville took two weeks to work me up to being able to sing with him in the room, and even then, it wasn't in the least easy. And now Jake expects me to sing along with him on the fly, after such mind-blowing emotional excitement when we kissed, then such mind-numbing disappointment when he pushed me away. There's no way. Sure, I see the logic of why I should be able to, but my feelings and my heart and my shyness don't obey the laws of logic.

“I can't.” My voice quavers as if I were actually singing and up to my ears in painful, oppressive shyness. Oh, the god damn shyness! I wish every part and particle of it could be ripped away from me. I would be a better person. More likely to succeed in life. More likely to have friends.

And more likely to have love.

“Just as I thought,” Jake says harshly, his expression darkening with pain. “You can sing for that other guy, but not for me.” He puts his guitar back in its case and heads back toward his truck. “Come on. I'm taking you back to your dorm. If that doesn't show me that he's better for you, nothing will. You respond to his encouragement, but not mine.”

“But...” My lips are trembling and I can't begin to put into words how I feel. Yes, I'm attracted to Granville. But the heat I feel with Jake is off the charts. He and I have been close for so many years, yet he still makes the blood rampage throughout my body with a single look, his smoky tone of voice, a quirk of his lip into a little smile. He's incredibly hot, with his big, tall, rangy body, his mysterious manner that can go from sullen to passionate to funnier than hell to sullen again. He's a paradox, even within himself. He keeps me on my toes and makes me feel edgy. And that edgy feeling I have when I'm around him is why my shyness when it comes to singing grows even worse.

But how the hell can I explain that to him in a way that will make sense?

He's gotten in the truck and he's sitting there, waiting on me with his fingers clenched, white knuckled, around the steering wheel.

Slowly, I get in. “Jake.” I'm hoping he'll respond with
Wildflower
.

But he doesn't. He only continues to stare off into space, a thousand-yard stare that makes my stomach knot like a pretzel.

“What's the matter?” I ask. “What did I do?”

He looks at me then, and I glimpse tears standing in his eyes before he shifts his gaze back in front of him. “For years now, I've tried to get you to sing with me, to help you overcome your shyness. I've encouraged you in that way for years. But you just won't do it. Then you know that other guy for a couple of weeks, and already you're singing for him, not just for him alone, but you're off to sing karaoke with him.”

“But Jake. Sweetheart. What if it's
you
I love?” I speak so softly, I wonder if he can hear me.

“Then you're in trouble,” he says roughly.

He gets us on the road and neither one of us speaks for the rest of the trip. He's off in his super-reticent, distant mode, so no matter what I say, it wouldn't do any good. He wouldn't answer me. He's somewhere else, far away, a distant place in his mind and heart where I can't possibly reach him.

Tears burn in my eyes, but I'm determined not to cry in front of him. It would only make things worse. In my mind, I still feel his lips on mine, as though he were drinking from me. I feel the blood still coursing through me, hot blood he'd aroused and set wanting, spinning, needing.

But it doesn't matter. He's dumped me again.

And I'm back at my dorm room, wondering what the hell happened.

I cry into my pillow for an hour before I can even think of getting back to my studying.

I drive away from Wildflower's dorm. I shouldn't have come here. It was a huge mistake. I couldn't stop myself from kissing her. For just a moment, I wanted to ask her to come back to my apartment, but I couldn't do it. I saw in her eyes she still loves me, still wants me, and I can't take her back. It isn't that I don't want to. I love her more than I could ever describe in words.

But she deserves better than me.

At least I told her the truth about the breakup. She deserved to know, looking at me the way she does with her heart in those huge brown eyes of hers.

She has a chance, now, with this Granville guy. He's helping her open up. Sing. Do things she has always wanted to do but has never been able to do with me. He's more of a people person, I think. Able to help shy people express themselves. I'm not shy, no way in hell, but I am no fucking people person. I don't like people all that much, except just a few of them. Most people are out for themselves, and they just don't have the slightest clue about anything important, like music or living like a person of dignity in your own right. All most people care about is jumping through hoop after hoop to get lots of money or keep up with the Joneses or whatever. It's exactly the kind of person Wildflower's mom is, it's the kind of person she wants Wildflower to be, and it's exactly the kind of person I can't stand.

Wildflower will never be her mom's clone. She's her own person. That's why I love her. Well, that and a billion other reasons. I love her innocence, her goodness, and her gentleness. She's the sweetest person I've ever known, not only in her personality but in the taste of her lips, her breasts...

Stop, Jake
, I tell myself.
This train of thought is doing you no good.

But I want her. That kiss. With everything in me, I wanted to make love to her tonight. We would have sealed ourselves as a couple. Maybe we'd get married when she gets out of college. And then what would happen to her classical music career, her singer-songwriter goals? Maybe she could play with me in my bluegrass band, but even though she enjoys the music we play, it isn't her thing. She plays different music, and she needs to play what she loves, the way I play what I love. I couldn't live with myself if Wildflower gave up her goals to support mine and she wound up like Mom, struggling and scraping for every dollar she can get, slogging through a life of anxiety over money and fear of an angry husband who's worn down by life, by the world, and by his own unending anger.

I want to spare Wildflower that.

If she'd stayed with me in that truck, we would have done something that would have set us on a new path together, and I didn't want to tie her to me. She thinks she wants a life with me, but she just doesn't understand why it wouldn't be good for her. I want her to have a better life than my mom.

And that's why I need to stay away from her, if I possibly can. At least for a while. I want her as my friend, but right now, it's hard even for me to deal with that, with this Granville Watts in her life. So I need to keep my distance. At least until I can get used to the idea of her with this other guy. As long as it takes for me to get used to it.

I can't stay away from her forever, though. She's one of a kind. There's no other girl on earth like Wildflower, and whether girlfriend or best friend only, she will forever be the only woman who has the key to my heart.

It's been nearly a week and I haven't heard a peep from Jake. Not one text, not one call. Nothing. I've tried to text and call him, but he hasn't answered. It seems he's cut me out of his life, even as his friend.

Yeah, it hurts like hell.

Granville, though, has been extremely attentive. He's called and texted me every day in addition to coming to the practice room each morning. He could tell I was sad Tuesday, and he asked me what was wrong.

I told him about how Jake has been distant with me and that I'm worried about him. I haven't been talking to Mom a whole lot this week, since I'm highly pissed about how she talked Jake into breaking up with me last year. I guess I'll have to talk to her when I go home, but I'm not going home this weekend. I'm staying in my dorm room. If I go home, I won't be able to keep from bringing up the subject of how she interfered with Jake and me, because she'll know, from the moment she sees me, that something's wrong. In fact, she's been able to tell something is bothering me from our brief phone conversations. She could hear it in my voice when I told her I won't be coming home this weekend.