Separation Anxiety (21 page)

“It’ll pass,” she said, and deep down I knew she was right. The problem was that I’d worked hard to earn the respect of my colleagues and students and to build a good reputation as a teacher, and it hurt to know how easily it could all be ripped away. Even if our names were cleared, we’d always have that cloud hanging over us. People would believe what they wanted to believe regardless of the truth, and most people tended to believe the gossip anyway. The juicier the story, the better.

I hung up with Quinn and met Jesse in the kitchen. He was leaning on the counter, arms straight and supporting him as he leaned forward. His shoulders were tense, and his posture reminded me of a brief moment when he’d obviously been lost in a world of Carly and Allison and painful memories the night we’d made chicken marsala.

When he heard me come into the room, he glanced up at me. His eyes had taken on the haunting again, and my heart broke for him.

I knew that my presence alone calmed his nerves. I knew that my love for him
helped him to cast his demons aside. What I didn’t know was how I was going to be what he needed when I couldn’t have any contact with him. And knowing that I couldn’t be there for him hurt just as much as knowing that he couldn’t be there for me.

“I just want to hold you. I just need to feel you against me,” he whispered, his eyes locked and heated on mine.

Fuck it. For the second time that night, I truly felt like if we were being accused of having an affair, we might as well actually be having one. I wanted nothing more than to feel Jesse’s skin on mine, to savor his entrance into my body, to writhe in pleasure beneath him, to taste every part of him under my tongue.

But I didn’t want my first time with Jesse to be based in some scandal. I wanted it to be based in our mutual love.

So we climbed into what had become our bed together for the last night until we could be together again. The worst part was just not knowing when that would be.

Jesse stripped down to his boxer briefs. Typically I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants to sleep, but I wanted to feel as much of Jesse’s skin against me as I could, so I wore a silky, skimpy tank top and matching silk panties.

When I exited the restroom after getting ready for bed, Jesse was already there, leaning back against the headboard. His perfectly sculpted washboard stomach called my name.

“Jesus,” he murmured. “If you’re going to wear shit like that, I’m not going to be able to control myself,” he said, not hiding a quick readjustment under the sheets.

I chuckled, the first sign of a smile since we’d arrived home and turned on our phones.

“I miss being off the grid with you,” I whispered.

“Come here,” he commanded softly.

I obeyed.

I turned off the light and then got in bed beside him, and he pulled me close as we both lay back. My head was on his chest, and his fingertips found the hem of my tank top and pulled upward so his hand rested on the bare skin of my back. He stroked my skin with a rhythmic pattern that was reassuring and soothing.

“No matter what happens, V, promise me something.”

“Anything,” I whispered.

“We’ll still have our night. In June, when school’s out and none of this shit matters anymore, and
your divorce is finalized, we’ll still have our night.”

“I promise,” I said.

“I promise, too.” He sealed his promise with a kiss to my forehead. I leaned up and his lips found mine, and suddenly we weren’t talking about June anymore as his tongue swirled against mine and he deepened our kiss. It started out innocently, and then he moaned and I almost lost control as my body ached for him. We shifted on the bed, and I found myself beneath him. His hand ran down my side, past my hip, to my thigh as he hovered above me, kissing me like his life depended on it. His fingertips stroked the skin of my leg and moved around toward my ass, and then he ran his hand back up and landed on my hip as our mouths collided. He pushed his hips down into mine just as I arched mine up into his.

When our time finally did come, it was going to be incredible.

I felt his hot hardness against my hot wetness, and I wanted him inside of me in that moment. The throbbing between my legs was unbearable as every part of me wanted every part of him. I craved that skin to skin contact with him, for our last barrier of clothes to be removed so we could make love slowly and sensually until we were both satisfied and then go at it again and fuck until we were both screaming out in pleasure.

June
, I reminded myself. It was only three months away. We could do this.

He groaned into me and abruptly stopped our kiss.

“God dammit,” he muttered, lying back on his pillow and panting as I fought to catch my own breath. His arm was back around me as he pulled me closer into him, and I cuddled into his side with my head in the crook of his neck, my lips millimeters from his warm skin.

Neither of us moved for a moment, and then in the stillness and darkness with both of us breathless, Jesse whispered, “I love you so fucking much.”

His arm tightened around me, and I kissed his neck, filled with love for this man that Richard was tearing from me. The devastation of knowing that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep in his arms the next night, or the night after that, for who knew how long, filled me with dread.

“I love you,
Jesse,” I whispered back to him.

“I know,” he said. “
And that’s what’s going to get me through this.”

And despite Maroon 5’s reminder from that song, I fell asleep knowing that I’d have to leave him in the daylight.

CHAPTER 15

The next morning, we were both quiet. I caught him staring at me while I packed up my essentials. We both agreed that I wasn’t “moving out.” I was just “relocating” for awhile. And I stared at him as he made me scrambled eggs for breakfast.

“I’ll
swing by Quinn’s later tonight to see you,” he said.

“John said we can’t have any contact.”

“Fuck that. You know that’s not going to happen.”

I appreciated his determination, but I just didn’t feel as certain as he seemed to.
These were our careers, our livelihoods, and I had a terrible gut feeling that the lawyer was going to reiterate that we couldn’t have any contact with each other or it could cost us both our jobs.

Turns out I was right.

Apart from random chance encounters where we merely passed by each other at school or sat at the same meeting trying to avoid eye contact when all I wanted was to leap across the table and pull his body against mine, that morning in the kitchen as we said goodbye was the last time I held him in my arms for over two months.

They were the two longest months of my life, but for some
unknown and completely ridiculous reason, that’s how long the investigation took.

Both of us had only been placed on leave for
three days, and we were able to return to work with the warning from Human Resources that we could have no contact with each other. If I had a senior who I needed to discuss with a counselor, I was required to meet with someone other than Jesse. I was even taken off of the prom committee so we wouldn’t run into each other.

John advised us each separately, but the message was clear: We were being watched, and anything that looked suspicious would be reported. The picture that had been taken of us at the park and then leaked to the press proved that someone was watching us, and not only watching us, but out to get us. So that meant
no phone calls, no texts messages, and no secret meetings.

I was completely miserable, and I was developing a terrible anxiety just from being separated from Jesse.

We spoke on the phone only once, and it was that first night we were apart. Jesse had called Quinn’s cell and asked to talk to me. He told me how much he missed me, and I could already hear the desperation in his voice. I held my tears at bay until we hung up, not wanting to make things harder on both of us. The moment we hung up, a text came through while I still held Quinn’s phone in my hand. It was from an anonymous number, and it said, “Quinn’s phone is bugged, too. That’ll be your last call to Drake.”

One would think that the fact that I was getting divorced from my husband was what was putting me into a constant state of despair, but that wasn’t true. Sure, it was difficult; it was painful and uncomfortable and complicated, but the pain from the divorce was nothing compared to the pain of
separation from Jesse, and the fact that I knew that Richard was the one who set this whole thing in motion made me sick to my stomach. It made me hate him with an unbridled passion that I didn’t even know existed within me, and I couldn’t wait until our divorce was finalized. Separation with him was one thing, but to be completely rid of all ties from him was what I needed so I could move on with my life with Jesse.

I longed to hear Jesse’s
voice.

I prayed for meetings where we’d both be there, but they were few and far between.

I just wanted a quick glance into his office to check on him, to see how he was doing.

The few times I’d caught a glance at him, I saw the haunted Jesse that I’d always been able to comfort without even knowing how. I saw fatigue and loneliness and misery. And I knew that my own expression reflected exactly the same emotions.

It was reflected in my work, too. I was assigning independent work and projects that would allow me to wallow in my misery. I managed to keep the tears at bay while I was at work, but the moment I arrived “home” to Quinn’s apartment, I curled up in bed and hugged my pillow, wishing it was Jesse as I sobbed at the loss.

The worst part of all of it was that I didn’t kno
w how long it was going to last, and that was the thought that plagued me the most every single night as I tried to sleep.

Instead of sleep offering me a sweet reprieve, I stared
restlessly at the ceiling in the darkness of Quinn’s guest room. Each night I got in bed a little after ten, and I stared at the ceiling until just after two. The alarm rang shrilly at its normal time. I was averaging three or four hours of sleep per night, and I knew I couldn’t go on like that for long, but the only fix for my problem was Jesse Drake.

I was exhausted and miserable without Jesse.
The sleepless nights were due to a mixture of events. For one thing, I was scared I was going to lose my job; but that wasn’t as awful as the fear that I might lose Jesse because of this. We’d promised each other that we were going to make it past this, but two months with no contact from a person was a long time. I was terrified that his feelings for me were going to change in that time we were apart while my own feelings only grew deeper and stronger for him. I couldn’t take the fear that gripped my heart, but I also couldn’t take the risk of both of us losing our jobs over something that had never actually happened. Neither of us would ever find jobs in any school district if we were fired because of a scandal, and if I ran to Jesse, I’d fuck up the entire investigation and then we’d both be left with nothing.

I was certain that Richard was watching us closely, and that scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t sure what he was capable of, but I was certain that he’d gotten the revenge he had wanted. This was why he’d been so quick to sign the papers, and I wondered how long he lurked around or who he’d hired to do his dirty work to snap that picture of Jesse and me.

I went to happy hour that first week, hoping for the chance to see Jesse outside of school, but he never showed. And I realized that I wasn’t in a “happy” kind of mood after that, so I declined invitations to sit and drink with my friends, preferring the company of my pillow, my tissues, and my memories.

I used the time to reflect on all that had happened in my life since I’d met Jesse.

He’d always been the one meant for me; I knew that now. But Richard had stepped in and mesmerized me with his charm. The more I thought about Richard, the more I realized that he wasn’t the one who had changed. I was.

He’d always been controlling. He’d always wanted things his way. He’d always been manipulative.
And he was still the same way.

But he had loved me; at least at the time I thought it had been love. He took care of me and provided for me and made me promises. The problem was that I believed him when he promised me things, but he never delivered. He promised me a life full of happiness, but looking back at our five years together, I couldn’t really think of
a single time when I’d really laughed one of those gut-wrenching laughs that leaves your abs sore for days. I couldn’t think of a time when he’d done something to make me happy that didn’t include buying something for me.

I thought of his promise to love and cherish me. It had never been about love for us. It had been about a big wedding and materialistic things. He never cherished me. He took me for granted, and so when I suggested a trial separation while we still lived together, it really hadn’t affected the way he lived his life. I still did his laundry. I still washed the dishes. He still had a clean house to come home to, with the added bonus of living in the same house with a wife who didn’t nag him because I didn’t even talk to him.

I had spent so much time blaming him for turning into an asshole, which he undoubtedly was, especially given my current situation. In reality, though, I had just grown up. I had changed. In my early twenties, sparkly jewelry and designer clothes and fancy cars were enough. But I grew out of that phase and realized that those things didn’t really mean anything. What truly meant something was love. It meant being there for each other, needing each other, suffocating without each other.

To me, that was Jesse Drake.

After I had that realization, I called my mother. I made plans to visit my parents that weekend. Weekends were the worst during the time I was apart from Jesse because I had all the time in the world to contemplate how depressed I felt. So I planned a quick weekend visit, and after my dad had gone to bed one night, my mom and I sat at the kitchen table.

“Do you remember when you told me that if I put Richard first, we’d be able to work things out?” I asked her.

She said she remembered, and so I continued. “I did put him first, but Richard never once put me first. Not once in the past five years.”

“So you’re really ending things?”
she asked, avoiding the dreaded “D” word.

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

“Is that what’s got you all tied up in knots?” she asked, somehow instinctively knowing as my mother that it wasn’t.

I shook my head as tears filled my eyes, and I felt her hand cover mine.

“What is it?” she asked.

I sniffled and wiped my eyes, and then I told her the whole sordid story, from when I realized things had started falling apart with Richard, to the night Jesse took me to his place, to the scandal that was surely Richard’s doing.

By the time I was done, my mom stood up and pulled me into her arms, comforting me with a mother’s love. She had come through for me, and it was then that I realized that part of the reason I’d stayed with Richard for all of that wasted time was because I didn’t want to disappoint her. But now she understood, and as she hugged me tightly, I finally felt at peace. All I could do was hold onto the hope that my time apart from Jesse would end soon, that he’d still be waiting for me and we could finally be together, maybe even with the support of my family.

O
ne Saturday night in early May, Quinn decided that she’d had enough. She declared that we were going to go out. She picked out my clothes for me, did my hair and make-up, and mixed me a strong vodka and Sprite.

It felt good to have a friend like Quinn, but I wasn’t in the partying kind of mood. She knew that but ignored it, thinking that if we just went out for a night of fun, I’d snap out of my funk.

The only thing that was going to snap me out of my funk was Jesse Drake.

I had severely strong emotions during this period of time. Either I loved with all of my heart (Jesse), or I hated and resented with everything inside of me (Richard and that bitch I liked to call Fate). Everything else fell into the indifference category.

I craved everything about him. I missed the way he smelled like man and Christmas pine and happiness. I missed his tattoo and his washboard abs. I missed his kitchen and his comfy couch and the bed we shared in his guest room. I missed his labels facing out in the most organized refrigerator I’d ever seen, especially when I opened Quinn’s rather haphazard fridge. I missed his heart and the way he took care of everyone around him and put everyone else first. I missed the haunted look in his eyes that was magically cured when he took me in his arms. And most of all, I missed the way he loved me, how he showed me how much he loved me without sex and without words.

I looked toward the end of the school year with renewed hope. I wanted each day to pass faster, because I knew that somehow we’d find ou
r way back to each other once school was out for the summer and we didn’t have the threat of our jobs being taken from us. Once Richard and I were finally divorced, I’d be able to date whoever I wanted, and I wouldn’t have the public eye of my students and their parents and the entire community judging me for being married while living with another man.

My night out with Quinn was an epic fail. I couldn’t help it; I just wasn’t good company. I was depressed and in a dark place, and taking me out and parading me in front of hot guys wasn’t the solution. Not only was I despondent because of the Jesse situation, but I was also still married. I didn’t need more guys hitting on me to complicate my life even more.

I just held onto the hope that Jesse had given me on our last night together: We’d made a promise that we were going to have our night in June, and I was still determined to make that happen. I just hoped that he was still determined, too.

Quinn
finally took me home when she realized that I was in no mood to be out in public, and we drank some more together at home. I was feeling pretty drunk, but where I usually felt giggly when I was tipsy, that night, the alcohol just filled me with sadness.

She sat nervously on the couch next to me while I leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. “Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“Of course, Quinn,” I said, turning my head to face my friend.

“I have a confession to make,
” she declared. She looked nervously at me and then away from me.

“What?” I asked. Her nervousness was making me nervous, too.

“It’s just…” She sighed and then restarted. “You think this was Richard’s doing, right?”

“The S
candal?” I asked, using the understated nickname we’d given to my situation with Jesse.

She nodded. “I
t’s just…” she trailed off.

“‘It’s just’ what?”

“I think I might be the one who gave Richard the idea to break you and Jesse up,” she blurted out, almost like it was one long word.