Jake Undone (26 page)

“I’ll call you as soon as I can later tonight.” He repeated, “I need you trust in me.”

“I do trust you…but you can’t blame me for wondering and worrying.”

“I know, baby. I know. It’s easier said than done, but please don’t worry, okay?”

“As soon as you get back, we need to have that talk. The not knowing is starting to kill me.”

“I promise,” he said amidst car horns and people shouting. “I just pulled up to the airport. I’ll call you

later. I love you, Nina.”

“I love you, too.”

***

I spent the rest of the day Monday on pins and needles unable to eat or concentrate.

Ryan had asked me where Jake was that night, and I explained that there was an emergency in Boston.

He spent most of the evening interrogating me about what I really knew about Jake, trying to convince me

that something didn’t seem right and warning me to be careful. I tried not to let him see that he was scaring

me.

Jake ended up calling me about midnight.

He sounded extremely tired. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I haven’t been able to sleep. I have been so worried.”

“I am so sorry that I couldn’t call you until now. Everything is okay. There is nothing for you to worry

about. Believe me. My being here does not change
anything
between us. Do you hear me? Just give me a

chance to explain this to you in person. It’s not something I can do over the phone. I’ll be here one more

day then flying home late tomorrow night and coming straight to you.”

It was quiet wherever he was.

“Okay. Where are you?”

“I just got to my sister’s house. I’m spending the night here.”

“Call me tomorrow?”

“I promise. I love you, Nina.”

“I love you too, Jake.”

I hung up the phone and prayed for tomorrow to come quickly.

***

It was about 5:30 Tuesday night when Ryan came home from work. He walked in the door and hung up

his coat.

He hung up his coat.

Normally, the act of hanging up a coat is a very insignificant thing. But for me, the moment when Ryan

hung up his coat meant everything.

It was the last moment that I could remember when things were normal. It was the moment before

everything changed. Because the second he turned to me and looked into my eyes, I began to suffocate.

“Nina, you need to sit down.”

“What’s going on?”

He gently patted my arm. “Sit down.”

I walked over to the couch and sat. My palms were sweaty, and my heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Nina, I don’t know how to tell you this…”

I gripped the seat cushions. “Just say it. What is it? Did someone die?”

“No…it’s not like that.”

“What?”

“After our talk last night, I did some digging. You know, at work at the D.A.’s office, I think I told you,

we have quick access to public records and such.”

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

He continued, “I looked up Jake’s information, did a background check and found this document. Do

you know what this is?”

He handed me a piece of paper and I glanced down at it. He immediately moved to the couch next to me

and put his arms around my back. It felt like a drum was beating in my ears and my body started to shake

uncontrollably.

I had suspected that maybe Jake was in some kind of trouble with the law or that he had a girlfriend in

Boston. But I never expected this.

I looked down at the printout again and felt like my head was on fire.

Jake Alan Green

Ivy Marie Macomber

No. Jake didn’t have a girlfriend. He had a wife.

He was married.

PART 2:

JAKE

CHAPTER 21

“Mr. Green, your wife has been transported to McLean Hospital. We think she tried to take her life last

night.”

It wasn’t the first time I had received a call like that, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Talk about

going from heaven to hell in a matter of hours.

Before Nina, that was all my life amounted to…a living hell. Maybe escaping to New York for work

during the week was my purgatory. But there was certainly no heaven, no respite, never any peace or true

happiness…until she came along. Nina had become my only solace from the nightmare I had been living

over the past five years.

The beverage cart stopped in front of my seat, and I asked for the strongest thing they had. It didn’t

even matter what it was. I needed to take the edge off because I never knew what I was going be to walking

into, especially this time. Thank God, at least from what they told me, Ivy was stable in the safety of a

hospital.

The flight attendant nudged me. “Excuse me? Your drink, sir.”

I had been deep in thought staring out the window and hadn’t noticed her handing it to me. “Thanks,” I

said, taking the hard liquor, whatever it was, and downing it.

I let out a long breath and closed my eyes. My focus should have been on Ivy, but I couldn’t bear to let

my mind drift to the reality that was about to slap me in the face when this plane touched down. There

would be no way to escape it then.

These minutes, miles up in the sky, were going to be my last moments of peace for a while. So, I chose

to close my eyes and focus on the only thing that took the pain away.

I never should have let things get as far as they did with Nina. But what should have happened and

what I wanted to happen with every fiber of my being were two very different things.

I became addicted to her from the moment I first shook her hand, and it trembled in mine. Women have

always had strong reactions to me but never like that. I had never met someone so beautiful and sexy, yet

humble and innocent at the same time. I wanted to lift her over my shoulder, carry her right then and there

back to my room and make her mine, which was a crazy thought to have seconds into meeting someone.

That was just the physical pull. Within a few minutes though, when I really looked into her eyes and she

was talking about her phobias, there was this darkness there. She looked the same way I imagined I

appeared to anyone that could see through my façade. Here was a girl I had just met, and I was sure our life

stories couldn’t have been more different. Yet, somehow, I knew we had both been living the same
kind
of life, just going through the motions, trying to find something to make it worth living. For some unexplained

reason, there was a connection with her that I hadn’t even known I was searching desperately for. But it

was too late. My life was already laid out for me. So, I had to figure out a way to ignore what I was feeling.

What a mind fuck.

Any sane man in my situation would have just gotten the hell out of there that first day, taken a long

walk and sorted out my head…maybe moved out of the apartment even.

Instead, you know how I handled it? I went straight to my room and made her a fucking paper bird.

Because, after meeting her, the only thing I could think about was that I just wanted to make her smile, take

some of the darkness out of those beautiful blue eyes.

What a pansy.

It only got worse from there. I’d keep looking for excuses to be around her. I knew she had these fears,

and I really did want to help her through them. But I also really wanted to get my fix, be near her, smell her

vanilla scent and touch her in subtle ways every chance I got, even if it was just her hand or her back.

She made me feel alive after years of being emotionally dead. I lived for every moment spent with her

and dreaded the weekends when I had to leave. I thought I could handle being close friends with her, as

long as I paced myself without letting it go too far.

Which is why I came up with the brilliant idea of tutoring her and of course, our bet. Everybody won.

She’d get good grades, overcome her fears, and I got my angel fix. She got what she needed, and I

needed…
her.

Things started to get complicated because each day I fell harder, and I craved more. The fact that I

sensed that she was attracted to me too didn’t help; it only turned me on, and there was no goddamn shut

off switch. I tried my best to curtail the physical need. I really did. Let’s just say, I jerked off so much that I was able to prove once and for all that the myth my grandmother told me about was false, because I never

did go blind.

Aside from wanting her physically, there was this constant need to make her happy. I got off on it. I

noticed Nina changing the more time we spent together. Her eyes started to transform. Light replaced the

darkness, and I wondered if I had put it there. She always looked at me like no one ever had and was so

attentive; she ate up every word I said. I made her laugh, and she comforted me. I wanted to be around her

all of the time like a fucking bee on honey.

The way I saw it, we were two fractured souls that fit together like the last two missing pieces in a

“fucked up life” puzzle. When we were together, life finally made sense; it wasn’t all work, obligation, guilt

and fear. It was just amazing to be alive. She needed me to help her, but she didn’t realize I needed her so

much more.

The first time I knew I was really in trouble was when she cut her finger that night trying to make me

dessert. I physically felt the pain—a shooting pain—when I saw her blood. I had never experienced anyone

else’s pain before. It felt like she was an extension of me. That was when I began to suspect that I might

have been falling in love with her.

The moment I absolutely
knew
I loved her, though, was in Chicago. I was telling her things I hadn’t

ever told anyone, like the story about my father and the moon. On the plane ride home, when we were

holding hands and I watched her with her eyes closed, I had wished that the plane were taking us

somewhere far away, where I could spend the rest of my life just being with her, making love to her and not

worrying about anything else. I knew it was selfish, but I would have given anything for that.

I hadn’t even planned to take her to Chicago initially. My original idea had been a helicopter ride over

Manhattan, but she kept getting A’s and putting it off. During that time, we became closer, and I wanted to

share more of myself with her. Maybe it was to make up for not letting her in on the most important piece

of information. Something she had every right to know, even as my friend.

Over Christmas, I had missed her so much that it was like going through withdrawal. I realized that

staying in the friend zone just wasn’t working for me. I needed her. The only way I could be with her was

to tell her the truth and hope that she would understand. She promised that nothing could make her leave

me, but would that really still be the case once she found out about Ivy? Maybe I was kidding myself.

If she didn’t want to be with me after I told her the truth, I’d move out and walk away, because living

under the same roof with her would be like strapping a bottle of vodka to an alcoholic.

I wished she had just let me get it off my chest last night, because the truth was, there was never really

going to be a right time to explain my fucked up situation to her. But she convinced me to wait a day to

have the talk.

When I realized she wanted me as much as I wanted her, I became like a caged animal unleashed for the

first time; I wanted to ravage her so badly that I gave in and waited to say anything. If all else failed, last

night will stay with me for as long as I live, and nothing could ever take it away.

Now, I needed to figure out how to explain my sudden disappearing act and everything else, the second

I get back to New York.

How exactly
was
I supposed to tell the person I love that I’m married to another woman I may never be

able to leave?

***

The halls were eerily quiet as a nurse led me to her room. Ivy was sitting up in bed staring at the clock

on the wall. That was a habit she developed about a year ago. She just watches the hands go by. It seemed

to calm her.

“Ivy?” I said as I slowly approached the bed. She wasn’t in the middle of a delusion, but she also didn’t

seem to be affected by my being there one way or the other. She looked at me and then looked right back at

the clock.

She winced when I grabbed her hand. She didn’t like to be touched, but she gave in and let me hold it. I

was just relieved she wasn’t telling me to go away this time or accusing me of trying to kill her. That one

was the worst.

I squeezed her hand lightly. “Are you okay?”

She nodded repeatedly in quick motions without making eye contact with me then said, “Did they call

you?”

“Yes. They said you—”

“Well, I didn’t. They’re lying. They shouldn’t have called you.”

I didn’t want to argue with her. The truth was, only she really knew whether she meant to take her own

life or whether it was a misunderstanding. She never admitted to intentionally trying to commit suicide the

past few times something like this happened.

“What did you do, Ivy?”

“I was just trying to get some air.”

“They thought you tried to jump out a window?”

“I was on the roof.”

“Ivy—”

She cut me off and shouted. “I was just getting air!”

I decided not to grill her any further. It was pointless. Even this little amount of clarity from her was

rare, and I didn’t want to push her into an episode. She just needed to know I was there for her. Thank