You Complete Me - 13. Chapter 13 - An Unexpected Ally

One second Nic was an ever-grouchy presence at Jake’s side, and then in the blink of an eye he practically melted into the shadows. Jake gave him a look, but Nic just shook his head in response just as Jake saw Luke marching towards them. He felt an incoming wave of dread for the second time today.

Luke seemed almost panicked, which was an odd reaction to seeing his best friend and cousin together. “There you are! Where have you been?”

Jake just managed to keep himself from looking at Nic again for help and started speaking before he even had a fully formed excuse. “Uh...I was – the library – ”

Luke waved for him to shut up, which was probably for the best. “Have you seen Meg’s tweet?” he demanded.

In his haste, he evidently hadn’t seen Nic. However, whatever relief Jake felt from that realization was fleeting. He reached for his phone to see what Luke was talking about, but stopped. “She blocked me, remember?”

Luke shoved his own phone into Jake’s hands, with the offending tweet already up. Jake scrolled and scrolled, rereading some sentences multiple times because he didn’t want to believe them, and by the time he was done he wanted to be sick.

Meg had released a complete alternate timeline of their relationship across a long string of tweets. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, but that didn’t make it any easier to read. In her version of events, Jake was a sex addict that made his way through every girl in Glendale High, leaving a trail of STDs and broken hearts behind him, but he somehow convinced Meg that she could change him. She alleged that he was cheating on her from the beginning, was sexually aggressive, and controlling. He isolated her from her friends and was rude to her father, who had warned her about him. But the final nail in the coffin, which led to her “cutting him lose” once and for all, was Jake having a full-on secret relationship...with his tutor.

As if that wasn’t enough, she had plenty of “proof.” Every disparaging thing Jake had ever written about anyone – usually with Meg’s prompting – was linked in those tweets, with Meg’s equally disparaging replies cropped out. There were screenshots of conversations with seemingly everyone to corroborate rumors of every hookup he had ever had. A lot of that part was true, but he didn’t even know some of the girls mentioned, and none of them had any overlap with his relationship with Meg. She included some things just for the sake of being mean: her own father’s cutting remarks about him, some girl that said he was a bad kisser, another one that said he couldn’t get it up. Those things stung a little, but the most damning of all was a picture of a handwritten note that Meg said she found “hidden in his bag.”

It was the sappiest, most lovesick note Jake had ever read, and the fact that it was about him made his skin crawl. He had never been more ashamed to have “luscious black locks, smoldering chocolate eyes, and bulging biceps” in his life. The writer described how Jake Ferguson tenderly took her virginity in exceptional detail, gave her four orgasms, and she couldn’t wait to go to prom with him someday. Signed, Jazzy. To hammer home which Jazzy this was, Meg included a picture of the two of them hugging at homecoming last year, which Jake barely remembered taking. He was pretty inebriated at the time and looked the part, but Jazzy was blushing and starry-eyed.

There was more, along with dozens of replies already, but Jake couldn’t read any more. He chanced a glance at Luke and immediately regretted it. His closest friend since freshman year was glaring daggers at him, clearly waiting for him to say something to explain himself. Which he couldn’t. “It - It’s all bullshit, I hope you know that.”

“Maybe most of it, but that’s Jazzy’s handwriting.”

Jake looked down. “I guess it is, yeah.”

“You told me nothing ever happened between you two.” He had never seen Luke this angry before. He had his arms crossed tightly against his chest, and for just an instant Jake was struck by how much he looked like Nic in that moment.

He closed his eyes. “That was the truth.”

“Then why did she write that?”

“I don’t know, man, you’ll have to ask her.”

Luke suddenly reached over, making Jake flinch. Instead, Luke just snatched back the phone that Jake forgot he was still holding. “I tried to, but she ran off crying as soon as she saw it. So I was hoping my best fucking friend would kindly enlighten me.”

“I don’t know how!” Jake burst out, throwing his hands up. “I wish I had some kind of answer for you, but I don’t. That note was never in my bag and I’ve never seen it before, Luke, I swear.”

He could tell that Luke was starting to believe him, but he clearly wasn’t ready to shake the anger off yet. “You better fix this, Jake,” he said dangerously, pointing at him. “I don't like being dragged into your drama and I don’t like looking like a cuck because of your crazy fucking ex.”

“And you think I do?” Jake shot back, but Luke had already turned his back on him. Jake watched him go, a little angry himself, but more sad than anything else. Everything was falling apart and for the first time, he was completely alone.

Or at least he thought he was. “What note are we talking about?” Nic drawled, reappearing from his hiding place just around the corner.

Jake had forgotten he was still nearby and had the fright of his life. “Jesus Christ, Nic,” he gasped, clutching his chest.

Nic didn’t react with even so much as a smile. He was leaning with one shoulder against the locker behind him, his head cocked slightly to the side, eyes narrowed. “What exactly did you do to my cousin?” he asked, his voice low and with a hint of menace.

If Jake hadn’t seen him completely naked just a few minutes ago to confirm he didn’t have a weapon on him, he would have been nervous. As it was, he was quite comfortable giving him a look of pure venom. “Not a goddamned thing, so calm down. I don’t need you turning on me, too.”

“I don’t recall ever being on your side to begin with.”

“Tell that to my dick,” Jake snapped.

They glared at each other long enough for Jake to wonder if Nic was going to hit him, but, bizarrely, he started to smile. “You know, a backbone looks sexy on you.”

And Nic thought he was the weird one. Jake had just about enough of his entire family. “Whatever, Nic. It will be all over the school within the hour, so go find out yourself.” With great satisfaction that it was finally his turn to storm off on someone, Jake left Nic in a huff.

Jake was very late to his next class, which was just par for the course for him. He was prepared for his teacher to give the usual pursed lips and ominous request to see him after class. What he wasn’t prepared for was the entire room to erupt in wolf whistles, howls, and laughter. Jake froze at the front of the class, a deer in the headlights, as elderly Mrs. Ingstrom struggled to get the students back under control.

When the noise finally subsided, she glared at him and pointed a rigid finger to the back of the class. “Take your seat, Mr. Ferguson.”

As if the crowd response wasn’t enough punishment, thirty pairs of eyes followed his every move. People were still quietly jeering, snickering, or even gave him looks of outright disgust as Jake hugged the nearest wall and slunk to the safety of the back row.

Once Mrs. Ingstrom had returned to her lecture, Jake hazarded a look at his phone, which had been blowing up. For such a large school, news traveled fast. The reception on Twitter was predictably toxic – his inbox was so full of nasty messages it was hard to single out the concerned ones from his remaining friends. Jake was completely lost; he had never been the target of something like this before. Refuting every single one of Meg’s claims seemed a futile and impossible task, but the biggest one should be the easiest to shoot down.

As soon as class ended, Jake all but sprinted to the library in the hopes of finding Jazzy. As level-headed and calm as she was, she would set the record straight and assure him that the note was an incredibly good fake and they’d figure out a way to convince Luke of the same. He had mostly convinced himself that everything would be fine by the time he finally found her in a secluded spot far from their usual desk. Her long curls hid her face as she hovered over an open textbook, already in business mode.

“Jazzy!” Jake hissed to her.

She looked up, and Jake realized with a sinking heart that she hadn’t been studying at all – her glasses were still fogged from tears. She harshly wiped them away and started to get up. “Good, you’re here. We need to talk.”

Nothing good ever came from a statement like that, but Jake wholeheartedly agreed. “Yeah, tell me about it.” He straddled the chair across from her, but Jazzy didn’t sit back down. “Over the course of an hour, my ex started a smear campaign against me, Luke chewed me out, and somehow, you’re right in the middle of it.”

“I know.” She hung her head sadly and put her hands on her hips. “I don’t think I can tutor you anymore.”

Jake gaped at her. “What?”

She couldn’t even look at him, but she held firm. “It’s probably best for everyone that we’re not seen together for a while.”

“Jazzy - I have a Chemistry test next week. You can’t ditch me now.”

“There are other chem tutors.”

“But I like you.”

He knew it as the wrong thing to say as soon as it came out of his mouth. Her head shot up and she frantically looked around them to see if anyone had overheard. “Don’t say stuff like that right now! God, Jake.”

“I’m sorry.” Jake leaned forward with his hands clasped together. “I don’t want to beg, but—”

“No,” Jazzy said firmly. “You are not trapping me with those eyes. I’m leaving, Jake.” She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder.

Jake was so shocked that she’d quit on him that he almost forgot that he still had a lot of questions. What she said about his eyes stood out to him. “Wait, Jazzy.”

She stopped but didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”

Jake swallowed hard, wondering if he really wanted to ask. “Did you really write that note? About me?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I did.” Jake didn’t know what to say, and after a few seconds of silence she half-turned towards him, her fists clenched as if she were waiting for him to laugh.

He didn’t find anything remotely funny about the situation – just embarrassing. “But...why? We never did any of that stuff.”

Jazzy looked like she wanted to sink into the floor. “I can’t believe I’m coming clean about this, but I had a diary my freshman year. I used to make up elaborate fantasies about boys I liked – Stupid, I know,” she added, when she saw Jake cringe before he could control his face. “Before you ask, I got over the crush a long time ago, after I started tutoring you. Sorry, but I tend to prefer the intellectual type.”

That hurt – especially if Luke set the bar for “intellectual” – but Jake let it go. He knew that Jazzy had a crush on him at some point, which he occasionally teased her about, but he had no idea it had ever been that intense. “So...how did Meg get a picture of it?”

Her face hardened, and the normally soft-spoken, shy Jazzy looked quite formidable. “I don’t know for sure, but I have a suspicion. Good luck on the test, Jake.” With that, she stalked out of the library, leaving Jake to attempt to study alone for the rest of the period.

***

Nic jogged up the stairs to his apartment, Luke following closely behind. It was a lazy, too-sunny Friday afternoon, and things were about to finally get interesting in his new school. Nic had no interest in getting involved in a scandal, but he was still nosy, and it didn’t take much to convince his cousin to come home with him and “study.” Luke looked like he wanted to vent, anyway.

Inside, Amos was wallowing on the couch with an unfamiliar man, but Nic didn’t care enough to introduce himself. He was more concerned about the two pairs of dirty work boots on the coffee table, which were surrounded by a few empty beer cans. The two were yelling at some football game on the TV, so engrossed that they did not even acknowledge Nic and Luke’s arrival.

Nic maintained his distance from the couch to avoid the pungent odor of sweat and mud and crossed his arms. “Is Mom still at work?”

“After school thing with Joey,” Amos grunted, without tearing his eyes from the screen.

That would explain why Amos decided to bring the pub closer to home. Nic spotted an unattended pack of cigarettes on the kitchen counter that likely belonged to Amos’s friend. He helped himself to one and turned to Luke. “Let’s go to my room.”

Luke had moved behind the couch and was also staring at the TV. “Who’s playing?”

“Luke,” Nic insisted.

Reluctantly, Luke followed Nic down the hallway to his room. Nic flopped onto his bed and Luke took the only other chair, which was the stool in front of Nic’s easel. He studied the work-in-progress in front of him with a raised eyebrow. “Why’d you deface him?”

The painting represented Nic’s brief departure from fantasy art over the past week, and it was such a pain in the ass he was thinking of abandoning it altogether. It was a futuristic cyborg warrior striking a powerful pose, but his entire head was painted over with the dark background color. “Couldn’t get his face right,” Nic said.

“You’re usually pretty good with faces.”

“Not this time. And it’s not what I dragged you here to talk about, either.” Nic rolled over onto his side, his head propped up by his hand. “I want to know how you’re involved in that stuff with Jake and his girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Luke corrected him. “Since when did you care about drama?”

“Since my cousin got involved, dumbass. Just point me in the direction of the person whose tires I need to slash on your behalf.”

Luke snickered. “You’re going to be busy, since that would be half the school. Although, I’ve heard a certain dark-grey ’97 BMW should be on your hit list.” Nic didn’t get the joke, so Luke sighed. “That’s Jake’s car. And I was kidding – leave Bond alone, she didn’t ask to be part of this.”

Nic pretended to be only mildly intrigued. “Hm. What did Jake do?”

“If you’ve seen the tweet going around, a better question would be, ‘who did Jake not do?’” Luke got up and started pacing. “I swear, Nic, if he swung that way, I’d be worried he’d find his way into your pants.”

It took Nic a while to recover from that. To buy some time, he got up to open the bedroom window a few inches, letting in a gust of warm air. He lit his stolen cigarette, took a puff, a blew the smoke through the crack. “Uh...gross, no thanks. I have standards, you know.”

He didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears, but Luke seemed too agitated to notice. He wrinkled his nose. “That’s a disgusting habit, you know. You know the gist of it, right?”

Nic nodded. “Shiv told me about it, and it sounds like a bunch of dumb rumors.”

Luke gave that some thought. “Some of it is, but I’ve also known Jake for years. He did sleep with most of the girls Meg named.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’? I guess that means you didn’t see the part about Jazzy. Then you’d know why I’m more than a little suspicious about the two of them.”

Nic winced. “Yeah, I saw it, all right.” It had been a little funny, actually, reading it from the perspective of someone that could confirm that Jake was not “hook-shaped” while erect, but Luke would not appreciate it if he snickered. “It didn’t sound like she was writing from experience, really.”

Luke glared at him. “How the fuck do you know?”

“Oh, come on, it was complete fantasy. Can you imagine someone like Jake unironically asking to suck on someone’s ‘delicious little love button’?”

Luke stopped pacing to stare at Nic in complete shock for several long seconds. Then he started to laugh. At first it was an uncertain chuckle, then it grew in confidence until he had doubled over in hysterics. Nic watched silently from afar, unsure if he should leave his cousin alone for a minute or call an ambulance.

Eventually, the laughter died down as Luke weakly clambered back onto the stool and put his face in his hands. “Oh my God, I’ve completely overreacted, haven’t I?”

“Just now? Maybe. It wasn’t that funny.”

“No, I’m laughing because you’re right. It was so absurd when you said it out loud I realized I was crazy to take it that seriously.”

“A little, yes,” Nic admitted, studying him intently. “But it sounds like you kind of already knew that. So, what are you actually mad at Jake about?”

Luke had mostly sobered by now, wiping away the remaining tears of mirth. “Well, having the entire school thinking my friend and new girlfriend have been hooking up behind my back isn’t cool.”

“Who cares, as long as you know it’s not true. The note’s not even dated, Luke. Why would Jazzy go out with you if she wrote that recently?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know that you’re making a lot of sense. It’s just...I really like Jazzy, but I don’t like that she liked Jake first. It’s already hard enough to get noticed when he’s around.”

Nic tried to look at his cousin objectively for a moment. Luke was a good-looking guy, with the All-American blond, blue-eyed, boy scout look. He was funny, sweet, well-rounded; any girl would be lucky to have him. But then Jake was...well, Jake – the guy that was so disgustingly attractive that you wished he was an asshole just for the sake of balance. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. “Yeah, I guess I see what you mean,” Nic muttered thoughtfully. “Sounds like you’re insecure.”

Luke gave him a sad smile and a nod. “I’m going to end you if you tell anyone.”

Nic crossed his heart. “I’ll take it to the grave. Have you talked to Jazzy about it yet?”

“She called after school ended, but I was too pissed to answer. I’ll deal with the two of them next week.”

Nic could tell he had no interest in talking about it anymore, but he also knew from experience what those last words meant. Luke may not be as temperamental as Nic was, but they shared a prideful, stubborn streak. Even if Luke knew he was overreacting, he probably wouldn’t make amends with Jake without some prodding from the jock. Nic shrugged to himself: that was up to the two of them to work out and he’d interfered enough. His own curiosity might have been to blame, but the lost-puppy look Jake had on his face after Luke told him off earlier might have played a hand as well.

Nic put out the smoke on the windowsill. “If you’re done bitching, I did have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Luke had been looking at his phone and shaking his head, but he put it down then. “Sure, what’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said a few weeks ago. About moving into the cabin. Does that offer still stand?”

Luke frowned. “Yeah, of course it does. What happened?”

Screams of dismay from the other room interrupted them, and Nic rolled his eyes before continuing. “Nothing specific. Anus and my mom have been fighting a lot.”

“They’re always fighting.”

“Not this much. The other day, after I picked up Joey from school, he asked me to drive him around the block a few times just because he didn’t want to go home. It’s not good for him here.”

“For both of you, I think.” Luke leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, I can give my parents a heads up. When were you thinking of moving in?”

Nic sighed. “See, that’s the problem. I don’t know how to mention it to Mom without making her freak out.”

“I could have my mom mediate. She’s a psychologist, after all.”

“No. That’ll make it worse. She’ll think we’re ganging up on her.” Nic knew this because that’s what he would think in the same situation. He and his mother were woefully defensive people. It must have been a height thing. “I’ll figure it out. I just feel like something’s going to give and I don’t want Joey around to see it when it does.”

Luke gave him a very hard look. “You would tell me if he hit one of you, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Nic lied. “I’m more worried about Anus walking out for good. No great loss if it happens, but it would be easier on Mom if she didn’t have to worry about taking care of us, too. I’ll get her to understand.”

Luke still seemed skeptical. “If you say so. Just let me know if I need get my parents in on it.”

“Thanks, Luke.”

***

“Ellie, seriously, stay out of it,” Jake begged his sister as he followed her outside.

It was too early on a Monday morning and Ellie had been fired up all weekend, up until she dragged him out of bed at six A.M. Jake had to drop her off at work before he went to school, and she countered his grogginess with helpfulness. “Just let me talk to her face to face and I promise you’ll get a retraction.”

Jake dropped so heavily into the driver’s seat that the entire car shook, all the air leaving his body in a long exhale. “I don’t think you’ll help anything by starting a fight with my ex. They have a lot of money, remember?”

“So does Dad.”

“He doesn’t have ‘fuck you’ money like the Watts do.” Jake could totally see Mr. Watts being the type to make people inexplicably disappear if he wanted to. He had spent most of the weekend wishing someone could use that sort of power on him.

As a former student of Glendale High, Ellie found out about Meg’s takedown attempt almost immediately. And as a former university student, she had a more optimistic take about the situation: Jake’s friends would come around, Meg was just jealous and bitter, and none of this would matter after graduation. It seemed reassuring at first, but Jake was worried about the news eventually reaching authority figures, especially his father. Meg hadn’t just accused him of being promiscuous; she’d insinuated that he was borderline abusive as well.

“Fine, fair enough,” Ellie said, slumping in her seat. “I’m just can’t accept that she’s legitimately trying to ruin your life over nothing. Just because you didn’t want to date her anymore.”

Meg’s tweet had gained ever more traction throughout the weekend, but the reception was something of a mixed bag. Even on Friday, most people didn’t seem to take it all that seriously. Jake received the most hostility from girls, which was most likely her end goal. If making Jake untouchable to the general female population was the worst punishment Meg could think of, she was incredibly successful. Guys, on the other hand, were treating him like he’d won an award for something he didn’t feel he really deserved.

“I feel bad for the girls she named,” Jake said, thinking out loud. “They probably didn’t know she was going to out them like that.”

Ellie looked out the window. “You’d be surprised what some people would do to fit in with someone like Meg.”

Her tone was a bit off, but when Jake gave her a questioning look, she was still turned away. He was still too sleepy to press her, so they continued the rest of the drive in companionable silence.

After dropping off his sister and arriving at school, Jake took a moment to collect himself in his car. He had no idea what he was going to walk into today, and he didn’t even have Luke to share the brunt of the storm with. Jake had texted him a few times over the weekend, insisting that he’d never done anything with Jazzy, but after the third attempt without a response, he decided to take the hint. Luke most likely had his fair share of rumors and teasing to deal with, which was the most regrettable part of everything. Jake could live with being undatable and having everyone speculating about who he had or hadn’t slept with – it was the fact that Meg had involved so many other people in their breakup that weighed on him. If her actual goal was to isolate him, she had definitely succeeded.

As soon as he walked through the metal detector leading into the main hallway, heads turned. And not in a good way. Normally, Jake wasted a lot of time each morning socializing with friends, but this time he avoided eyes and tried not to listen to the furious whispering on all sides as he made his way to his locker.

Someone had gone through the trouble of taping safe-sex flyers and condoms all over it. Jake took one look at his locker and kept walking, deciding he would just carry around his textbooks throughout the day instead.

Even though most of the guys didn’t initially seem bothered by the rumors about Jake, their girlfriends must have pressured them into leaving him alone. That left him pretty effectively shunned. No one spoke directly to Jake across the next three periods, though they had plenty to say about him. Luke was pretending he didn’t exist, and Meg was absolutely glowing from the waves of sympathy coming her way. Jake regarded her with sheer amazement – not at her scheming, but at how much she was reveling in the damage she had caused.

Jake made it to lunch without anything too terrible happening, but he was growing more miserable by the hour. He was an extrovert to his core and talking to people had been one of the few things he enjoyed about school. Without it, he was even more bored than usual. He sulkily walked along the edge of the courtyard with his lunch, planning to eat it in his car just to avoid the stares.

“Yo, Ferguson!”

Jake stopped and glanced over at the rugby table he had just passed. The backs’ captain, Amir, was waving at him, but Jake still looked around as if there was another Ferguson on the team. He’d occasionally sat with them before, but he didn’t know how his teammates felt about him right now. Amir seemed insistent, though, so he walked over.

“Want to sit with us?” Amir scooted over to make room.

“You’re not worried you’ll catch something?”

Amir laughed. “Don’t be dramatic. We know you’re good people, sit down.”

At that point, Jake noticed that the table was unusually empty, with mostly veteran players there. The newer ones had decided to sit elsewhere. That meant there would likely an interesting vibe at practice that he would have to navigate later, but that was an after-lunch problem. Jake was just happy that someone was being friendly to him. He took the seat next to Amir and conversation around him resumed as if it were any other day. They talked about plays, upcoming games, and some non-rugby topics, but no one mentioned the rumors.

Jake gradually relaxed as he became numb to everything else, and the period flew by more easily than the others. It was more than half over when he noticed that he had a new notification from Instagram. Nic had messaged him with, Meet me at the spot.

Frowning, Jake considered ignoring it. Nic had made it clear where his loyalties were the last time they spoke. For all he knew, the kid probably just wanted to yell at him some more.

A few minutes later, Nic texted again: I’m not going to yell at you.

He was so intuitive it could be a little creepy sometimes. Jake gave it some more consideration and decided to hear him out. Coming, he wrote back. “Guys, I’ve got something to take care of,” he announced to the table at large. “Catch you at practice later.”

There were a few murmurs of assent, so Jake made his leave and went back inside. Nic wasn’t waiting in the hallway like he usually was, but the door was left open. After the day he’d had, it felt suspiciously like a trap, so Jake peeked around the doorframe to confirm that Nic was alone before letting himself in.

Nic was sitting cross-legged on a desk, shrouded in dark clothes, his expression impassive. “You’re here,” he stated, not sounding like he cared one way or the other about it.

Jake didn’t feel up to engaging in their usual dance of words that Nic always won, so he cut right to the chase. “I guess you don’t think I hurt Luke anymore if you want to talk to me.”

Nic nodded. “Or I’m just on your dick’s side after all.” He gave the appendage in question a lingering look.

For the first time all day, Jake cracked a smile at that. “What changed your mind?”

“You’re just not the type,” Nic said simply. He opened his mouth again, as if he had something else to add, but seemed to think better of it last minute.

Jake waited for him to elaborate, but it never came. He crossed the room and sat on the desk next to Nic. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, do you still want me to finger you?”

Nic shook his head. “I lost the bet last time.”

“I took Adderall this morning,” Jake lied, waving it off. “Couldn’t get hard even if I wanted to. Consider it a consolation prize.”

Nic looked amused. “You’re a bad liar, you know that?” That seemed to be his only complaint, though, since he got undressed anyway.