Chapter Text
If Jeremy could go back in time and dropkick his sixteen year old self in the face, he would do it without hesitation. All he wanted was for this smart, pretty actress to be his girlfriend, and he was willing to pay four hundred dollars, almost lose his best friend, and end up with a significant amount of trauma to do just that. All that trouble for the relationship to end so anticlimactically two years later. Everyone says not to count on your high school crush. High school relationships don’t last. The joke’s sure on him, then.
It’s not that Jeremy didn’t see it coming. The possibility started creeping up on him within a couple months of class starting, and the inevitability only increased since. As much as he and Christine tried to pretend otherwise.
One of the things Jeremy loves the most about Christine was how she always does her own thing without caring what anyone else thinks. Her mismatched outfits, her bizarre performances, the random thoughts she’ll blurt out about theatre and society and God knows what else. She’s so authentically herself and lets most outside dissent slide right off her back. With one exception.
Nothing in the world makes her angrier than being patronized. And for some reason, her relationship with Jeremy was the number one subject of ridicule among a handful of her classmates. The general consensus was that she was this poor clueless broken-heart-waiting-to-happen, and it was all because of what they thought of Jeremy. Forget that not one of these people knew a damn thing about him beyond the occasional times he’d show up to walk with Christine back to their dorms.
Eventually, though, they’d begun to plaster him with red flags that they unhelpfully advised Christine to start looking a little closer at, like being a tenor with a J name and a weird relationship with his “best friend.” Unfortunately, Jeremy did bring that last one onto himself. Before he went off to school, Michael had given him his favorite red jacket as a parting gift. Jeremy wore it frequently, especially since Christine was never bothered by it. But he made the mistake of wearing it around these classmates of hers, who immediately started laughing and saying to “look at him, he’s not even hiding it!”
A gesture towards Jeremy’s left arm brought his gaze to the rainbow flag patch stamped prominently on his shoulder. A signature of Michael’s, but one that immediately made him realize where all this ridicule towards Christine is coming from.
He tried to defend himself, insisting that the jacket once belonged to his friend, but all that did was make the situation worse, since there’s no way in hell people who are “just friends” exchange clothes with each other. Fuming and evidently unable to deescalate the mockery, the couple decided to just leave.
Jeremy has no fucking clue what his name and vocal range have to do with how good of a boyfriend he is or isn’t, but hearing about the implications that he’s either lying about his sexuality or outright cheating on Christine even pissed him off. He was made to cheat on someone once and it was one of the shittiest feelings ever. Like hell he’d ever do something like that again.
After a discussion and some assurance, Jeremy and Christine came to the consensus that her classmates were likely just bitter about their own relationships that ended in similar ways and were projecting it onto someone else. Who cares what miserable people like them think, anyway?
Easier said than done, since Christine still occasionally came back from that class in a sour, untalkative mood and would rather spend the afternoon quietly wrapped in Jeremy’s arms. Even after he decided to stop wearing the jacket outside so as to not give anyone anymore ideas. But her classmates must have really pinched a nerve one time, because Jeremy will never forget the day Christine came to him before their dinner date, in tears, crying that if Jeremy was gay, he should just tell her already and stop dragging it out. This one stung because it was the day he finally switched the pride patch on his jacket from Michael’s to his own.
It wasn’t much longer afterwards that Christine admitted that she was making plans to transfer schools in the fall. That maybe she needs to find herself somewhere else. And Jeremy couldn’t say he blamed her. Even with the prospect of a long-distance relationship on the table, and all Christine had to say was, “I don’t want to do that to you.”
So that’s it, then.
At least she acknowledges what a pain it had been to get together with her. While walking back to their rooms, she says, “Sorry for all the trouble you put yourself through for me, just to have it end like this.”
Jeremy shakes his head. “I just want you to be happy.”
“This does not make me happy, Jeremy,” she retorts with an airy laugh. What Jeremy knows is also true that Christine doesn’t add is, “But neither does anything else here.”
For a moment, neither of them move or can manage to say anything else. It’s just one more step before the end of them, and if Jeremy can hold that off forever, all the better.
But finally, Christine breaks the stillness by turning to kiss Jeremy goodbye.
“I’ll see you,” she says, accompanied by a trembling voice and glassy eyes.
Jeremy sees her off, pretending that chivalry is the reason as opposed to the paralyzing numbness that’s washed over him.
Idiot, Jeremy says to himself. You should have learned ages ago that life never plays out the way you want. Never.
Never, never.