News over Nachos

Considering my unbelievably unhealthy weekend (Beer Olympics and Sunday dinner with the Italian side of my family), I attempted to flush out my system for the next few days. I was drinking a gallon of water a day and eating protein packed meals. I told myself I would continue the pattern all week. It is swimsuit season, after all.

Wednesday afternoon, as I was consuming a dressing free salad, I received a text from Anna in the middle of my daily twitter check. She wanted to get together that night. Everyone else was free and I decided I deserved a cheat meal. I still hadn't had a solid, quality gossip session with Darlene, Anna, and Jessica in months, and after the feeling fiasco that occurred the night of the Beer Olympics, I felt a desperate need for this.

Wednesday night, we made our way to a restaurant in our town that had a special on sangria. Obviously, I was most looking forward to the sangria. I didn't know if I wanted to tell my friends about my moment with Moose. Or my phone call with Justin for that matter. Justin had been texting me a lot, but I only responded sporadically to tell him I needed space. I wasn't sure that I was completely done with him. I wanted to give him another chance, but I didn't want to dive into something with a guy who could talk to me like that. We weren't even dating yet!

We sat down in our booth and within minutes, we had a pitcher of sangria in front of us. Anna told us about a job interview she had. Darlene gave an animated recount of a fight she saw on the train. Jessica was abnormally quiet.

"Is everything okay?" I asked Jessica after finishing my first glass of sangria.

"Yeah, why wouldn't everything be?" she asked without looking up at me. Her eyes were focused on the stem of her glass.

Darlene thankfully intervened. "You are kind of quiet."

Jessica's eyes met Darlene's. "I'm good."

We sat silent for a moment. I was not about to press the issue with Jessica, but Darlene had finished two glasses before we even received our appetizers so she took the reins.

"Why can't you talk to us? We're your best friends!"

"I told you, there's nothing to discuss."

"Yeah, but you're clearly lying."

Jessica opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself. Her eyes met with Darlene's, and then with mine. She looked exhausted from arguing. She let out a sigh, finished the drink in front of her, and looked down at her hands. "I've been hanging out with Josh."

Josh was Jessica's toxic ex-boyfriend. I would even describe him as dangerous. He played mind games with her, using her affection for him as a weapon, drove past her house to make sure she was home, and even threatened to kill himself if she didn't do what he wanted. Oh, and the crazy part is, he broke up with her. We were all super relieved when they were done, but we tried not to let her know that.

After a few seconds of silence, Anna spoke. "Really?" she asked.

"Yes, really," Jessica responded. "And I knew you guys wouldn't approve, but he's been seeing a therapist and he hasn't done anything crazy. I'm just going to see how this goes."

Darlene and I made eye contact. We could not simply disapprove, because that could just push Jessica back into his arms. However, I definitely didn't want to see her go down this road.

"How long have you been seeing him?" I calmly asked, trying to mask any sense of disapproval in my voice.

At that moment, the waiter came over and set down our nachos and mozzarella sticks. He took a little too long and had a smile on his face the entire time. Read the table, dude.

Once he walked away, Jessica promptly and matter-of-factually responded. "Two weeks," she answered.

I nodded before picking up a nacho. I needed time to process everything, and I also really wanted a nacho.

"Just keep us in the loop, okay?" Darlene finally asked. "Think about why you thought we would disapprove and try to think about what kind of future you can have with him."

Jessica gave a weak smile for the first time that night. "You're right," she responded. "Do you guys want to maybe go in his pool this weekend? You can see for yourself, he is so collected and normal." I saw Anna almost choke on a mozzarella stick at the very mention of hanging out at Josh's house.

"Yeah, I'd been down," I responded. "Hey, speaking of crazy guys," I began. I figured if we could accept that Jessica was talking to Josh, maybe my friends wouldn't think Justin was that crazy. I told them the story about Justin's phone call. As I retold it, I wasn't sure how I still felt about the whole thing. I hoped for some guidance from my friends.

Unfortunately, they weren't very helpful. Jessica defended him, of course, while Darlene said I should change my phone number. (As if, I've had the same number since the tenth grade. It's mine forever). Anna thought I should get dinner with him. After all, we never even had a real date. I figured it couldn't hurt to give him one last chance. Maybe there was a reason he was in such a bad mood that night. Maybe he was just a jerk. Either way, I knew I wouldn't have the closure I wanted if I just stopped seeing him all together.

"And hey," Jessica started as she polished off the nachos, "if things go well at dinner, you should bring him to Josh's house."

"Sounds like a plan," I said with a smile. If anything, Justin would look like Gandhi next to Josh. Unless Jessica was right. Maybe Josh did change. Maybe not. I decided to leave my judgments for another day.