New Life (18 page)

“I’m sorry,” he muttered into my hair. “I
shouldn’t have pulled away. I don’t want to be that guy
anymore.”

I lifted my face and looked into his
eyes.

“I guess I have a track record of splitting
when things get hard. I had a talk with an old girlfriend and
remembered some things I’d forgotten.”

“What kind of things?” I asked, not sure if I
was prying or giving him a chance to air issues he needed to talk
about. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No. I think I should. Forgetting the past
doesn’t seem to work so well.”

He took my hand and led me past the
dilapidated armchairs and over to his bed. Heat flickered deep
inside me as I remembered our first night on that bed. I wouldn’t
mind replaying it, but this was a time for listening, not making
out. I held Jason’s hand and waited.

He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand,
and my body responded as if he’d laid me down and kissed me
senseless. “Chrissy, that girl from high school. I got her pregnant
back then. I gave her money for the abortion, but that’s all the
support I gave her. I was heading to college, and she wasn’t part
of my future, so I cut her loose.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Yeah, it
sounded like he’d been harsh to someone who’d been important in his
life, but teen relationships often fell apart over unplanned
pregnancies or when high school was over. “I’m sure you’ve grown
since then.”

“Have I? I don’t know. I was ready to walk
away from you the moment things got a little tough. Maybe I’m a
jerk at the core.”

I squeezed his hand. “I don’t think so, or
you wouldn’t be here now. Everybody screws up. There are times in
my life I wouldn’t relive for anything.”

“I guess.”

“What you did wasn’t nice, but I think you
can put it behind you and move on. What’s important is what you do
now.”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled his hand away from mine
and tapped his fingers on his thigh. The nervous tic pinged my
radar. There was something else Jason wasn’t saying.

“You asked me to be honest with you, and I
was. Is there something else you need to tell me?” I asked.

Jason laced the fingers of both hands
together. “Um, the night I blew off dinner with your parents, I did
something else.”

“What?” The hair on my nape was
prickling.

“There was this other girl from high school I
ran into recently. She was the one who reminded me about Chrissy.
We went out for a drink that night so I could learn more about
those years and…”

“Say it.”

“We got pretty drunk while we were talking,
and we hooked up.”

I felt like someone had hit me in the
stomach. “Hooked up how? How much?”

He frowned and flexed his fingers nervously.
“A little more than kissing, but no sex.”

“You mean no penetration?” I asked coolly,
establishing the facts as if it were one of my cases. Asking
questions about detail helped put my growing anger at arm’s
length.

“Right. No, uh, penetration,” he
stammered.

“But groping and bringing each other
off?”

He stared at his hands. “Yeah. But it didn’t
mean anything.”

“No. Of course not.” Try as I might, I
couldn’t keep the acid from eating through as I pictured Jason
doing intimate things with some strange woman from his past. “You
were drunk, so that excuses it, right?”

“You wanted honesty. I’m being honest. We
hadn’t said we were exclusive so—”

“Seriously?” I interrupted.

“I’m not trying to make excuses, just telling
you how it happened. I know I was wrong to hook up with Lisa. She
was there and convenient, and I didn’t stop to consider what I was
doing. I’m sorry.” He looked at me with those serious, dark eyes,
but for once I didn’t melt.

I rose from the bed, shaking off his hand
when he grabbed my arm. “I can’t be here right now.” I snatched up
my purse and headed for the door.

“That’s it?” he said, coming after me. “We’re
not going to talk about it?”

“No. Not now.” I was too angry to be
reasonable. Maybe I’d asked for transparency but I hadn’t expected
to hear Jason had been messing with some other woman. Right at that
moment, I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. “Maybe you’re
right and you still are the jerk you were before the accident.
People don’t change who they are underneath.”

I wanted to say a lot more hurtful things I
didn’t necessarily believe were true, but forced myself to leave
before I started yelling. The door shut behind me, cutting off
Jason’s voice.

By the time I reached my car I was already
regretting my flare of temper, but pride wouldn’t let me go back
inside or even send a text. I just kept fantasizing Jason and Some
Girl, blonde in my imagination, going at it in the backseat of a
car. God, I hated her for ruining the good thing we’d had going.
Hated
Jason
for ruining it with his stupid drunken hormones.
Did what he and I did together mean so little to him that he could
casually mess around with someone else and declare it didn’t
matter? Even if we hadn’t pledged our undying troth, we’d had an
unspoken agreement of monogamy. And, penetration or not, what he
had done counted as sex in my estimation.

My phone was buzzing, announcing an incoming
text, but I refused to look at it. I turned the phone off. Two
could play at silence. I wanted Jason to feel what it was like to
be left hanging and wondering where he stood. I was pissed and
wanted to punish him but I honestly didn’t intend it to be a
breakup. However, sometimes silence can snowball and pride can
become a wall impossible to break through.

Chapter Twenty-one

Whoever said “silence is golden” knew what
the hell they were talking about. As the door slammed behind Anna,
I kicked myself for confessing something that hadn’t needed to be
told. And then I was literally kicking out, knocking over a chair,
hurling my phone against the wall, sweeping the clutter of dishes
off the kitchen counter so they fell to the floor with a satisfying
smash. Rage rushed through me and I embraced the feeling.
Controlling my emotions was a daily struggle. After the accident,
I’d had to relearn, like a two-year-old, how to react to
frustrations in appropriate ways, but at that moment, it felt great
to let emotion take over.

A couple of minutes later, staring at the
wreckage around me—not so much. Instead of ruining my stuff, I
should’ve been running after Anna and begging her forgiveness.
That’s what normal people would do. Now she was gone, and I
couldn’t even call her, since my phone was smashed. Still shaking
from the adrenaline rush, I punched in her number anyway, but the
cell was dead. Crap! I’d have to wait until I got to work and call
from one of the office phones.

I needed to get moving or I’d be late, but I
felt as drained as if I’d run a marathon, and terrified I’d ruined
my best chance at happiness. Dropping down onto an armchair, I
replayed over and over in my mind how the promising makeup scene
had gone wrong. I’d been so close to having Anna back again. Now
God knew what she was thinking. Why the fuck had I told her about
Lisa?

I leaned back and closed my eyes, and when I
opened them again, I was more than a little late. Calling in sick
sounded like a good option, but instead I decided to start late and
skimp on the cleaning. The janitorial service trusted me and didn’t
check up on my work like they had when I first started.

I skipped dinner and hurried to the bus stop.
As restless and upset as I felt, cleaning offices was the last
thing I wanted to do, so when I got off at my stop and my friend
Harrison called me over, I went to join him and the other homeless
guys in the park.

Harrison offered me the bottle he was
holding. “Haven’t seen you much lately, man.”

I took a swallow and handed it back. “Been
seeing this girl. Keeping me busy.” The heat of the alcohol slipped
through my body like molten gold and took the edge off my
anxiety.

A grin split Harrison’s pockmarked face.
“That’s a good kind of busy to have.”

I stayed, talking to the guys with no place
special to go, until the trees’ shadows grew long. I glanced
blearily at my watch. “Shit. I’ve gotta go.”

I staggered across the street to the
building, which suddenly looked more like a prison than an office
complex. I squinted and struggled to jam the key in the lock. After
I got inside and entered the alarm code, I sat at the
receptionist’s desk and rested my head on my folded arms for a
while. The world floated around me, and I felt kind of queasy but
also felt pretty good.

When I woke up, it was well past midnight. I
hadn’t called Anna to offer an apology, and now it was too late at
night. I’d be more likely to piss her off for waking her up than
earn her forgiveness.

A drink of water from the cooler did little
to alleviate my dry mouth or pounding headache. I went around the
building emptying wastebaskets, the main task that would prove I’d
been there. Office workers wouldn’t be too aware of messy carpets
or scuffs on the corridor floors, but overflowing baskets pissed
them right off.

In less than an hour, I locked up the
building and went to wait for the bus home. Sitting on a bench in
the dead of night, no traffic, no other people, only me, made me
realize there’s a fine line between peaceful solitude and aching
loneliness. I was pining for Anna. But she was out of reach. I
couldn’t turn up on her doorstep in the middle of the night after
the bomb I’d dropped and expect a warm reception.

I caught the bus home and stopped to buy a
six-pack at the convenience store around the corner before I went
home. I sat up and drank most of the beers by morning, then passed
out and slept till late afternoon. I woke feeling queasy and dizzy,
which probably had a lot to do with missing several meals. I
couldn’t blow off work again, so I got my shit together, had a beer
with my sandwich, then scooted out the door.

A full day had passed since Anna had walked
out of my apartment. Was the ball in her court or mine? Should I
get myself to the nearest pay phone and call to beg forgiveness, or
wait for her to be ready to talk to me? I wasn’t sure, and that
indecision froze me, so I did nothing.

I dropped by the park to check in with
Harrison and his crew again. I learned a lot about Harrison’s
troubles with the VA while others complained about delays in
getting their disability or relief checks. A couple of joints made
the rounds, and I cruised into work a couple of hours late and
pretty high. It didn’t matter though. I could get through the
building faster if I skimped on some of the detail work. Who
noticed if picture frames were dusted or woodwork was rubbed to a
shine?

I knocked off early and headed toward Anna’s
place. I stood on her street and came close to going up and letting
myself into the apartment. I still had the key. What if I climbed
into bed with her as I’d done so many other nights? Would she let
me stay? Would we make love and everything would go back to
normal?

No. The middle of the night was no time to
have this out, and Anna hadn’t tried to see me at work, so
apparently she wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

I walked away and waited almost a full hour
at the nearest bus stop for a ride home.

****

The third day after my stupid announcement, I
still hadn’t heard from Anna. I gathered my tattered pride and
decided I had to do something. Anna had to
know
she could
trust me never to fail her again. I must find some way to
show
her how much I cared. The idea of the grand romantic
gesture sounds better than it actually plays out. Trust me, it’s
not foolproof like in the movies.

I tried to think of what would really move
Anna, something that reminded her of our time together and the
intimacy we’d shared. I knew some of her favorite things, and there
was Baby. The little mutt had really brought us close. But for the
life of me, I couldn’t come up with some clever way to weave all
these details together into a Grand Gesture with capital Gs.

I decided to get some input from people I
knew who were more romantic than I was. Unfortunately, nobody in my
recovery group had anything to offer.

“Flowers always help when you’re making an
apology,” Maxie said.

“What’d you do?” Rob asked. “The cost of the
gift depends on the size of the screwup.”

“It was a misunderstanding. I don’t want to
get into the particulars.”

“You screwed somebody else,” Serena guessed.
“Why don’t you leave the poor woman alone? If she decides to
forgive you, she’ll let you know.”

“I didn’t screw her.” Because I hadn’t, and
nobody here needed to know the extent of the fooling around.
“Besides, Anna and I never said we were exclusive, and I’ve already
told her I’m sorry.”

“Oh yeah, that’s what a girl wants to hear.
Excuses and empty apologies.” Serena sneered. “You’re not sorry
enough, and she sees right through you.”

“Okay, thanks for the help,” I said as
members of the group began to argue about when commitment in a
relationship began.

I tried for more advice from the gang in the
park. Charlie offered support for my heartache in the form of a
vodka bottle. Harrison echoed Maxie’s advice about flowers.

“Chicks dig flowers. There’s some right over
there.” He pointed at a flowerbed encircling one of the trees.
“Take her a bouquet. Go down on one knee or whatever. I don’t know,
man.”

“Grow a pair and tell her to fuck off,”
Charlie said. “There’s plenty of women out there. Act like you
don’t give a shit, and I guarantee she’ll come crawling back.”

“Like your wife did?” Harrison goaded.

“Fuck off,” the drunk snarled.

With a last pull on the vodka bottle for
added confidence, I left them to their sniping. Since I couldn’t
afford a fifty-dollar bouquet of roses, I followed Harrison’s
advice and picked a few of the park flowers. I crossed the street,
headed for the Haggenstern and Lowe offices, my palm sweating
around the bouquet.