Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [4]
“Go,” he urges gently, pointing toward Gate C-88. “Don’t miss your flight.”
She pulls a wad of scrunched-up paper towel out of the front pocket of her hoodie, rubs her nose, and jerks her head in agreement. They offer hasty good-byes but no hugs, not even a handshake, before she takes off for the gate.
“I’m sorry I ran you over,” Jessica calls out, barely casting a glance back as she hurtles herself forward.
I should be, too, thinks Marcus. But I’m not.
And then she’s gone again.
six
Jessica can’t catch her breath, but she won’t stop running. Panting, she picks up the pace.
A new mantra: That didn’t happen. She runs faster than ever, even with her palms burrowing into her eye sockets to push away tears, memories, perhaps both. That didn’t happen. Part of her wants to remove her hands, look back, and contradict her desperate denials. That didn’t happen. She wants to look behind her and take him in, Marcus Flutie, looking every inch the rumpled grad student in his choice of clothing (the sweater, the thin-wale corduroys), hairstyle (the finger-picked brush cut), and eye-wear. (Glasses? She does a mental double take. He was wearing glasses, wasn’t he? When did Marcus start wearing glasses?) Only he’s not in graduate school, he’s still a superannuated undergraduate, a twenty-six-year-old senior. (Is he graduating this semester? On time? Only four years late?)
Time. Late. There’s no time to contemplate any of these questions because she is still late late late late for Gate C-88. (They weren’t annoying emo glasses, were they?) She steels herself against the temptation to look back for any reason. An apology, maybe. Or a simple explanation. (No, they were just regular wire-rimmed glasses, I think.) Her face burns still hotter; she’s mortified by how she must have looked to him in both appearance and in action. (Oh fuck.) What was he doing just standing there like that in the middle of the airport? Meditating? Seeking inner peace with no regard to his fellow travelers? Marcus Flutie standing still amid the chaos on the concourse was an accident waiting to happen. And it did. It finally did.
Jessica wonders who will be the first to find out about their momentous collision, and when. Such a reunion has been a forgone conclusion among Jessica’s best friends since the breakup. They would not only expect a second-by-second reenactment but are exponentially invested to demand one. And on any other day Jessica would have complied. She would have told them everything, starting with how calmly Marcus reacted to being run over by his ex-girlfriend in the middle of Newark Liberty International Airport, as if he’d been expecting it, not in the same “someday” way that Jessica and her friends had expected it to happen, but almost as if he had chosen to wait in that exact spot on the straightaway under the arrivals and departures boards outside the men’s restroom because he knew she was on her way.
But not today. No. Even before the crash, she’d already had her reasons for not making today about her. And because it is definitely not about Marcus Flutie, either, she forces him out of her mind. She keeps moving. She must keep moving if there’s any hope of her making this flight. (I can’t miss this flight.) Bridget and Percy didn’t question Jessica’s need to make a pit stop in Pineville before traveling to the Virgin Islands, which only makes her feel worse about having bailed on the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. She has little hope of arriving in time for tonight’s rehearsal dinner even if the flight (I won’t miss this flight) hasn’t already taken off without her. But Jessica must be there for tomorrow’s wedding, because she is the ministress of ceremonies, after all.
That didn’t happen.
Oh, yes, it did.
Her thoughts ineluctably return to Marcus and the last time they were in the same room together: He was hunched over, bent at the waist on the edge of his bed, slowly turning two unopened notebooks over and over