Slasher Summer(18)
Jason was struggling against a tide that would drag him under if he didn’t remain vigilant, and his head was starting to dip below water. Lately he’d been grinding his teeth so hard in his sleep that he’d cracked a molar, and he now had to wear a mouthguard at night, too, not just on the football field, to protect himself from himself. It was too bad there was nothing to protect him from Tiffany’s expectations. And to protect Tiffany from him.
That was why he’d been reluctant to come to the cabin. A reunion would’ve been better on new territory. It was too easy to slip into their old patterns. Tiffany wasn’t exactly subtle with that skimpy new bathing suit. Nor had she been subtle about plastering photos of herself with that handsome psych TA all over social media. This wasn’t their first rodeo. He and Tiff split up, and she paraded around a new guy to show him what he was missing.
The trouble was that Jason knew exactly what he was missing, and he didn’t know if he wanted it anymore.
In the past they’d always reconciled because he did truly love her. She was beautiful, yes, but he was mostly attracted to her intelligence and confidence. Unlike him, she never doubted what she wanted, and went for it with a single-minded ferocity. He admired that. And a relationship with her was easier than with anyone else because he knew her so well. He’d tried with others. The curvy redhead who worked at the library. The barista with the great forearms at the campus Starbucks. In high school, he’d briefly dated a forward on the basketball team, but Bruce had been too closeted to do anything but sneak around, and although Jason was comfortable with being bi, he didn’t want to have that conversation with his dad and the more narrow-minded of his teammates. It was bad enough that Tiffany refused to acknowledge that aspect of him because it didn’t fit her image of the perfect straight couple. He kept quiet about it, to make her happy, and what was the point of coming out if they were inevitably going to end up together?
Anyway, dating other people had left Jason only more confused. How could potential partners get to know him when he barely knew himself? Barely knew what he wanted?
With Tiffany, the rules were clear. She saw him as her match, and so he knew the role he had to play. Everything was simpler with her. He’d been able to keep that storm cloud at bay.
Until he couldn’t anymore.
Being with Tiffany had always been easy. But maybe easy was no longer enough.
“We better get inside,” Jason said, stating the obvious, although what he really wanted to do was stand outside in the rain and howl at the sky. He clamped down on those feelings and strode up to the back door of the cabin, holding it open as the others scurried indoors and into the front room.
Tiffany inched to the farthest corner, pulling her clinging wet T-shirt away from her body, lower lip trembling like she was about to cry or burst with indignation.
It was the latter. “Ugh. I escaped a near-drowning just to get drenched again?”
She looked at Jason expectantly. He wasn’t even sure she knew she was doing it. Her glance said, Help us, Jason. You’re the hero. The golden boy. Do something. Get us out of this mess. Something inside him recoiled in response. He knew she loved him, but he’d realized this past year—as she’d made seemingly offhand comments about weddings and starter homes and children—that there wasn’t a difference between her love and her expectations.
He feared all he had were expectations. No actual loves or desires of his own, which was why he’d never been able to make it work with anyone else. He and Tiffany were expected to be together because they’d been the king and queen of their high school. He was expected to attend his college because he’d accepted the football scholarship his father had pushed him toward.
Jason might as well have been onstage at the Rialto, the audience yelling Jock! whenever he appeared. Thrashing aimlessly and dying a slow death.
The irony was that Jason had joined the Jumpscare Society in high school to show people he was more than just a jock.
He’d figured that reuniting with the club would trigger a reset. If he returned to where he’d started from, where he’d first started questioning his path, he could determine if he’d been going in the right direction these past years. One road led to Tiffany. Settling down in a comfortable suburb. Her at home with the kids. Him working at a sports-related job and coaching Little League on weekends. A nice life. His parents’ life. But would he be happy?
And the other road—
“Wait right here,” Patrick said. Jason watched his broad shoulders disappear down the hallway and for once felt a stirring inside him that wasn’t anger. He regretted what he’d said earlier to Patrick. He’d criticized him for living only in the past and future, but he actually envied that. At least Patrick could see his future. He’d been planning for an MBA ever since high school.
Right now, Jason didn’t see anything for himself but darkness.
“Where are we gonna go?” Jen said sarcastically. Her eye makeup had streaked down her cheeks from the rain. Or maybe it was intentional. It was hard to say, with Jen.
Patrick returned with a stack of towels and flitted around, handing them out and taking the last one for himself. He was the most considerate person Jason had ever known. Granted, Patrick was probably also worried they were going to drip on the house’s vintage ephemera. But that was part of what made him so thoughtful. Reliable Patrick, who despite their differences, had always been more comfortable to be around than any of Jason’s football buddies. Patrick had no expectations other than steady, unassuming friendship. Who knew the white, small-town football hero and the openly gay, preppy, big-city Black guy would get along so famously?