Jesse is quiet on our drive back home. I haven't spoken to him since I heard him fighting with Clay on Tuesday and I'm not sure if they've made up yet. I almost want to ask him about it, because we used to talk about things like this.

I don't though, because it's just too weird to talk to Jesse about his relationship problems with my ex-boyfriend. 

"Do you think Clay's actually going to tell Bella?" he asks halfway through the two hour drive.

"I didn't exactly give him a choice."

Some silence passes before he follows that up with, "What do you think she'll do? Will she tell anybody?"

"No, she won't. She's going to kick your ass though."

I know he wants to ask me to change my mind, to not make Clayton tell her the truth. To his credit, he knows better than to actually ask it.

"So, I was thinking if you're free next weekend, maybe we could go to that weird interactive museum you've been wanting to try out," He changes the subject.

"I've been trying to get you to go to that place for years," I point out. This museum has crawl spaces to move through and immersive neon rooms with plants made out of human body parts. Nobody's wanted to go with me because it's kind of freaky and Jesse is claustrophobic. 

He shrugs and says, "I don't know, it could be fun."

"You don't have anything better to do now that you're fighting with Clay?" I ask him. 

"No, I just miss spending time with you. You're dating this new guy and I don't know anything about him. I don't like things going on in your life that I don't know about," Jesse explains and when he sees me open my mouth to remind him that I haven't known what was going on in his life for a long time, he stops me. "I know it's hypocritical and all of it's my fault. I want to fix what I broke and get back to how we used to be."

He says it like going back would be so easy. Like I could ever trust him again. I wish it was that easy because it's not like I enjoy looking at my brother and not recognizing who I see. 

"I'll think about it," I mumble under my breath. We're not going to ever be what we used to, but maybe we can get something back from this. I don't know if I'm ready to try yet, but I want my brother back. 

The fact that I don't say no immediately seems to excite him as he starts planning out the whole trip. "There's that frozen yogurt place you like that's over there too and-"

My phone interrupts him with a shrill ringtone. Shaw's name pops up on the caller ID and I know Jesse sees it before I answer. 

"Hello?" I say into the phone.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" He asks me.

"Driving home," I respond. "For my parents' anniversary party."

"Oh yeah. I didn't know that it was a real thing, that people celebrate their anniversaries," He admits.

"It's romantic," I defend with a small laugh. "What's up?"

"I can't find one of the ice packs that you used on Tuesday," He explains. "Do you know where you put them after they melted?"

"I'm pretty sure that I put all of them back in the freezer," I answer.

"How sure are you though?" He questions and then he laughs a little bit. "You were pretty distracted."

My mind flashes back to Tuesday and how we spent that night. He was too sore for us to have sex but I think that I gave him a pretty memorable night. "Yeah, I was pretty distracted but I'm sure that I put them all back in the freezer. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, somebody hurt their wrist and I realized that it wasn't in there. It's my favorite one because the lining is the perfect thickness so it's not too hot or cold," Shaw explains to me. "It's a red pack, ring a bell at all?"

"The red one... I remember it being there but I don't remember where it ended up."

"Shaw, it's starting to bruise," I hear a girl's voice in the background of the call.

"Who's that?" I ask him before I can stop myself. I don't want to sound jealous just because he's with another girl. I know things are casual between us so he has every right to have other girls around.

"She's a friend, you don't know her," He answers quickly. "Anyway, it's fine, I'll just use one of the other ice packs. Have a good weekend, Wren."

"How'd she hurt her wrist?" I continue to ask stupid and irrelevant questions because although I know that I shouldn't feel jealous, I still don't like this. It's not his fault, I just can't help it. Of course a lot of girls like him—he's pretty, he's tough, he's got the aura of a bad boy but the heart of a good one. He's incredibly attractive inside and out so of course, there are a lot of girls.

But is he getting bored of me? He does live an exciting life and I'm just... some frumpy college student whose life is falling apart. Hanging out with Shaw is the only release I get from the shit show that is everything else. I don't care if he talks to other girls, I just don't want that to mean that I'm on my way out.

"Um," He trails off as if he doesn't really want to say but then he finally admits, "The sex got a bit too rough."

"Oh," I force out a laugh. I could have told myself that she was just a friend before that and that I was just jumping to conclusions but that sentence makes the conclusions pretty easy to get to without any jumping at all. "Well, I put your pain meds back in the bathroom, those should help."

"Nah, she'll survive, I'm not giving up my pain meds," He tells me.

"What? Why not?" I hear the girl whine from the background.

"Because it's good shit and what have you done to earn it? You couldn't even go one round!"

"You almost broke my wrist, asshole," She snaps back at him.

"It's not broken," Shaw informs her, both of them sounding very annoyed at each other. "Not even close. You're fine. Here, take this ice pack and go lay down."

"Asshole," She repeats as she walks away.

"Anyway, sorry to bother you, Wren, I hope that your weekend goes better than mine," Shaw comes back to our conversation.

"Oh, I doubt that," I mutter dryly, wincing before it's even come out of my mouth.

"Is everything okay?" He notices my sour tone.

"Yeah it's just that I won't be getting laid this weekend so it's definitely not going to be as good as yours is all," I explain to him but even as I hear myself say it, I know that I sound bitter and jealous and he's never going to talk to me again. "I should go," I say because I've decided that I've already said too much and I've made a complete ass out of myself.

"Wren," Shaw says my name before I can hang up. "What are you doing? We've talked about this. We aren't exclusive or anything, just having fun."

"I know that."

"You just sound jealous or something," He says.

"You misunderstood my tone," I lie to him, because I guess I am a little bit jealous. "I was just making a joke."

"Okay, well-"

"Shaw!" The girl interrupts what he was about to say and then she says something else to him that's mumbled and I can't understand what it is.

"Hey, Wren, I have to go. Some people just can't handle doggy style like you can," He teases me and then before hanging up, he adds, "That was me making a joke, by the way."

I wasn't angry at him before but that last line made me a little irritated. Not because he's sleeping with somebody else but because he started talking to me like I'm just another slut on the line. Although, I guess maybe I am just another slut to him. Why shouldn't he think of me like that? Sure, we hang out just as friends more than we hang out having sex but he probably does that with other girls too.

"Everything alright?" Jesse asks me once I've put my phone back in the center console.

"Fine," I mutter before turning the radio back up.

"I told you that he's a jerk," He reminds me over the louder music.

"I've been through worse," I assure my brother.

"Right," He says, sounding very sarcastic. "He may be cheating on you but at least it's with a girl, right?"

"No, because he's not cheating on me, we aren't a couple," I say quickly and harshly because I am definitely not in the mood to deal with Jesse's snide comments. "And even if we were exclusive, the person that he's sleeping with isn't somebody that I know, love, and trust. Walking in on Clayton and Bella would have hurt just as much as what actually happened."

He doesn't say anything and so I take that as permission to continue my angry rant.

"The gay thing was a shock, I'll admit that, but it didn't make it hurt any more than it would have if it was a girl that he was sleeping with. What made it hurt more was that it was you who had been lying and going behind my back and it was like getting my heart broken by two people at once. So yeah, I'd say that the guy that I sleep with sometimes but is mostly just a friend, him sleeping with another girl sucks but I've been through worse."

He still doesn't have anything to say so I stop ranting, let the music fill the silence, and wait for the road trip to be over so that we can just be home. Our sister, Brianna, will be home too so it'll be good to see her. She moved to Portland for graduate school and after finishing, she just stayed there because it was easier to find work. She'll probably bring her boyfriend, Joel, home because they're a pretty serious couple which is fine because I like Joel. He's a nice dude.

He's religious enough to make my parents happy but not too much to where he follows the bible almost by the verse like my parents do.

When we finally get home, Jesse stops me right before getting out of the car.

"Wren," He says and then I look up and over at him to see what he is going to say. "You're not going to say anything to Mom and Dad, right?"

"No, I won't. The only time you take me seriously is if I'm threatening to tell them the truth. I'm not going to just give up the only leverage I have," I remind him. "So let's go put on some happy faces and pretend like we like each other."

And then I get out of the car and I do exactly as I said—I pretend. I pretend like everything is fine, nothing is falling apart, it's as perfect as it has ever been. Rainbows and unicorns. How is Clayton? Oh, he's great. Studying hard. And Bella? Always busy with her classes but we still hang out on weekends.

Everybody is happy. Together and happy. Jesse and I are happy, getting along great just like always. Because if we weren't, there'd be some uncomfortable questions that I don't want to have to deal with.

In some ways, I kind of like being home because it feels like nothing has changed. Pretending for everybody else almost makes it easy to believe it myself. It's like everything is back to normal, just how things should be.