Exposed (Free Falling) (34 page)

He took me into his arms and I didn’t resist him as hard as I
should’ve.  “No…this is on
both
of us,” he countered.

He held me tight and I let myself melt against his chest. 

“I can’t help that I love you,” he whispered lightly into my ear and I broke even more.

I worked to compose myself and then pushed him away.  “Take me home please,” I said flatly as I made my way to the car like I’d intended to d
o in the first place.  Now, he didn’t bother trying to stop me.

AJ closed the car door behind
himself, but didn’t start the engine.  Instead, we sat there in absolute silence as the conversation that had just taken place lulled in my head.  I wasn’t mad – not at
him
anyway.  Didn’t have the right to be.  It was me who blindly wandered into this, knowing the history that we shared.  It was me who kept going, knowing that he was engaged to be married to someone else.  It was me who’d walked away years ago and left him for another woman to find the man who I’d carelessly discarded.  This was
my
fault.

I looked to my left, staring at his fingers intertwined with mine when he grabbed for my hand.

“Sam…what’re you doing?” he asked, searching my eyes for an explanation.  “We’re here to talk.  Running won’t fix anything.”

I imagined he was trying to figure out what he’d said
that set me off, but he hadn’t done or said anything.  This moment of clarity came to me all on its own.  I’d simply had a revelation – the one Angel had tried to get me to see the day before – the one that showed the doom awaiting us at the conclusion of our tryst.  This situation wasn’t set up to end well for me and I refused to be the reason it didn’t end well for AJ either.

I stared into his eyes and
instead of saying all of these things, I just started crying again.

“I
think you misunderstood what I was saying.  All I meant was, right now, despite what plans have been made with Kira, I only see myself with you,” he explained.  When I didn’t answer he squeezed my hand a little tighter.  “Talk to me,” he beckoned softly.

I shook my head
and sighed, not really even knowing how to verbalize what I was thinking; especially when the root cause of it all…was jealousy – something I didn’t even want to admit to myself.

“
You’re marrying this girl,” I breathed.  “You may be having doubts now, but as it stands, she’s wearing your ring and probably making plans as we speak.”

He lowered his head and said nothing.

“And I
know
you, AJ; you’re not this guy.  And I refuse to be the one who messes things up for you again.”

“You keep bringing up things that happened years ago,
” he responded with a heavy sigh that made me look into those dark, sloping eyes of his. He unhinged our fingers and cupped my face in his large hands.  “The past is the past, Sam, and I’ve let it go; when’re you gonna do the same?”  The warmth of his words, the acceptance behind them, moved me to tears again.

“I have no
right to feel how I feel about you,” I confessed.  “In my heart I know that we’re as wrong as two left shoes for doing what we’re doing.  I just keep asking myself why it is that we can’t have this without the negativity, without the drama – and it all boils down to – ” 

AJ shook his head before I could blame myself again, quieting me with one word.  “Don’t.”

“I just hate that I’m in the position
I’m
in.  I hate that you’re in the position
you’re
in.  And I hate that I’ve been so willing to keep seeing you, knowing what this makes me.”

He frowned.  “What this makes you?”

He took my chin in his hand and brought my eyes back to his when I tried to look away.  “What does this make you?” he repeated.

I felt ashamed, but knew that I’d have to admit it to
him
just like I’d admitted it to Jason.  “I’m the other woman,” I breathed, unable to hide the hint of embarrassment in my tone.

AJ didn’t say a word; a
ll he could do was stare.  The truth in my statement was undeniable.  I
was
the other woman.  At least with Jason, I could fall back on the fact that I was blind to the situation, but when it came to AJ, I willingly accepted this title and was now clinging to it for dear life because being his
‘side-chick’
was all I had.  This was not who I wanted to be, but the sad truth was, I was willing to be this person for him.

C
hapte
r
E
ighteen

Sam

“Samantha?”  I looked up to find Dr. Gill staring at me questioningly.  “Where’d you go?” she asked with a smile.

The smile that I returned was a weak one.  “I was just…thinking.”

She watched me, waiting for me to share, and then set her pen and notepad down when I didn’t.  I hadn’t said much at all actually in the ten minutes I’d been in her office, so without telling her anything, she already knew something was wrong.

“You may as well just tell me,” she added, still smiling.  “You’ll feel better once you do.”

I let out a breath and thought over the past few days.  AJ and I had our talk Sunday and now on Wednesday I was still just as miserable.  My attempt to save him from me, to save him from losing his fiancé, was an epic fail.  We still hadn’t reached a plausible conclusion to our dilemma and it was days later.  All either of us knew was that the bond we shared defied all understanding and reason.

“How do I end this?” I asked Dr. Gill sullenly
, shocking her with my statement. 

She continued to stare.  “Is that
really what you want?”

“That’s just what has to happen. 
Despite who AJ’s been these past few days, despite who he is when he’s with
me
, he’s a good guy and he’s got a lot going for him; there’s no way I can expect him to break that girl’s heart.  He doesn’t have the strength to sever our tie, so…I guess it has to be me.”

My breaths left in quic
k spurts as I pretended to be sure of this decision.

“I tell you what, why do
n’t you tell me what happened and we can sort this -“

“I need to do this now
,” I cut in.  “He leaves to go back to Fairfax tomorrow for business, and he’s gonna have to face his fiancé.  I need to free him.  If I don’t, he’s gonna mess up his life.”  I swiped at a hot tear that didn’t match my stern expression.  “I have to let him go.” 

The fact that I hadn’t heard much from AJ these past few days since our talk led me to think that he was dealing with a similar struggle.  I’d do him the favor of taking on that burden myself, though.

The look on Dr. Gill’s face made it clear that she thought I was making a hasty decision, but if I toiled over this one for too long, I’d revert back to my original way of thinking –
our love for one another was as good an excuse as any for why we should be together. 

“How do I end this?” I repeated.

Dr. Gill lowered her head.  “Samantha…I see a lot of patients.  Hundreds,” she explained.  “It’s unprofessional for me to guide
any
of you based on my own personal feelings and emotions.  But…I consider you to be one of my patients who I’d sit here talking to about life with, mine
and
yours, even if you weren’t on my roster.  I care about all of my patients’ wellbeing – that’s the nature of my profession; however, there are some of you who are special to me.”

I looked up at Dr. Gill through watery eyes, blinking them away as much as I could. 

“I think you’re making a huge mistake,” she finally shared.  “This has nothing to do with those documents hanging in frames behind me on that wall,” she said, pointing at her credentials from various respected institutes.  “I’m speaking to you as a woman.  If this is truly what you want – to end things with this guy – then by all means follow your heart.”  She reached across and touched her hand to mine briefly.  “But if there’s even a
shadow
of doubt…don’t you do it,” she warned.  “Don’t let him go again.”

*****

I didn’t feel like going back to work.  Instead, I sulked around my apartment for several hours, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself to do something other than lie on the couch staring at the ceiling fan.  Even more than before, I was confused.  Dr. Gill’s words of caution had me thinking; was it wrong to sacrifice myself for AJ’s happiness?  Still, regardless of whether or not he thought I deserved it, I blamed myself for setting him back in the past.  Freeing him to live out his life in peace came with an air of redemption.  Maybe after this one final, selfless act, I’d be able to find peace too.

The knock at the door had me clutching my chest.  My head spun a little when I first sat up
right, but whoever the visitor was knocked again persistently.

“One sec,” I called out.  Glancing through the peephole, I stared into Jason’s green eyes on the other side of the threshold.

Slowly, unlatching the locks, I opened the door.  When I didn’t greet him with much of an expression at all, he wasn’t sure how to take me.  The faint smile he started out with faded almost completely in a matter of seconds.

“Did I, uh…catch you at a bad time?” he asked.

I shook my head and stepped back, gesturing for him to come in.  His steps halted when he got next to the couch, but he didn’t sit.

“Did you get the flowers?” he asked. 

I sat and stared at the floor when I spoke.  “Yeah, I got them.  I’ve been meaning to call, I just got caught up,” was the only explanation that I offered.

“Caught up,” he said to himself a
s if trying to understand what that meant.

Instead of breaking it down further, I just stared and said nothing.

He cleared his throat nervously and tried to strike up conversation again.  “I meet with my lawyer this Friday.”

Again, no words from me.

“I mean so…how do you feel about that?  What’re you thinking?”

Honestly, I wasn’t
thinking about
anything –
not about Jason anyway.  As far as I was concerned, our relationship was over.  I’d already made that clear once.  This desperate attempt to do something he should’ve done
years
ago just looked faulty the longer I had to ponder it.  So, in the true spirit of closure, which had been my theme for the day, I broke the news to Jason one final time.

“I’m not telling you what to do one way or another.  Whether you end your marriage or don’t end it is completely up to you and your wife.  But the advice that I
will
pass along is this – be a father to your son, Jason.  You said he plays sports.  Don’t just send him money for his uniforms and gear,
be
there.  But whatever you do, do it for you and your family, not me, because I haven’t changed my mind.”

He stared at me half-shocked, but only lowered his head. 

“At the core, you’re a good guy, Jason.  You have your flaws just like everyone else, myself included, but don’t look back in a decade, when your son doesn’t need you anymore and finally realize what you missed out on.”

Judging by the look on his face, I got the impression that he was giving my words some serious consideration
.

There was nothing else to say
in my opinion.  We’d been officially broken up for nearly a week and this conversation was a mere formality – the last bit of closure that Jason needed to understand that I was standing firm on my decision.  With that, he and I exchanged a surprisingly cordial goodbye and I closed the door behind him. 

My mind drifted to the
next task before me – breaking things off with AJ.  The sliver of certainty that I’d grasped onto hours ago in Dr. Gill’s office had now slipped away, though.  There was no way that conversation was going to be as easy as this one with Jason.  No way.

Realizing that it’d be better to handle things sooner rather than later, I made up my mind that
, sometime before AJ left for Fairfax tomorrow, he’d know how I felt and where we stood. 

This had to be done.

At least that’s what I kept telling myself…

*****

“What time are you heading out?” I asked through the phone. 

On the
other end, AJ seemed reserved.  “Um…probably in about an hour if I’m gonna make my plane on time.”

I’d dreaded having
this conversation – didn’t sleep all night because of it.

“Okay, well…is it cool if I stop by
your office in about thirty minutes?  I won’t be long,” I explained.  “I just wanted to talk to you about something before you go.”

Again, he hesitated. 
“Yeah, that’s fine.”

I took a deep breath
and nodded like he could see me.  “I’ll call when I make it there.”

As soon as I hung up, a flash of heat made my face sweat.  I didn’t want to do this.  In my heart, I knew I’d never
experienced love like this before AJ and never would after him for a reason – there was no one else out there for me
but
him.