Therapy (17 page)

“Loving someone doesn’t suck. Losing the person you love is what sucks.” I grab my keys and gym bag and head for the door. I need to get out of here and think, work some of this aggression out before I explode. “I’m going to the gym to hit the treadmill. I’ll be back later.”

I can’t believe how much time has gone by. It’s been a month since Mom said she would have her friend look for Jess. I hate to keep bugging her, but the wait is excruciatingly painful. I pull up to the gym and grab my bag out of the back. I need to run—hard and fast. I feel so much pent-up frustration and anger that it’s eating me from the inside out. I did this; this is all my fault. If I had been more careful with her that day about the lie, maybe things would be different right now. I always saw her as a much stronger person than anyone else did, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe my cruel words broke something inside of her that day. She struggled with so much pain, so many inner demons. Those scars were proof of it. I should’ve handled things differently. I may have pushed her too far. Now, I may never get the chance to say I’m sorry.

Practice today was brutal and my body’s aching from head to toe. I see a package sitting in front of my dorm room door and I suddenly forget about all of the pain I’m currently feeling. It’s from Mom’s private investigator! I unlock the door as fast as I can and rip open the large envelope. A document and several photos spill out across my bed. My eyes and brain can’t take in everything all at once. I scan the pictures and all I see at first is her face, her smile. All I see is my Jess. Then my chest opens up and everything inside me is ripped out. She’s not alone in the pictures. Photo after photo shows her and some guy hugging, laughing, kissing, touching. I flip through them over and over again just to make sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me. I flip to the last one and she’s looking up into his eyes with her arms draped over his shoulders, and she’s smiling at him.

That’s my smile.

She’s smiling my smile for someone else.

“Fuck!” I scream and hurl the stack of pictures across the room.

I drop onto the bed and pick up the document, forcing myself to hold back angry tears. I read each line. The only address found for her turned out to be vacant. There is no phone number, no email, and no alternate address listed. The information says that she’s engaged to be married. I drop the paper to the floor and fall back hard onto the bed. I run my hands through my hair, gripping it tightly, and squeeze my eyes shut. I want to cry, scream, beat the shit out of something, but I do none of these things because I can barely breathe. It hurts. It hurts. So. Damn. Bad. She’s gone for good, already with someone else, like we never even mattered.

Why, Jess?

Fucking, why?

The door opens and Trent comes in. He stops abruptly, taking in the mess of pictures scattered all over the room.

“What the hell, bro?” he asks.

“It’s over. She’s moved on.” I clear my throat and throw my arm over my face before going on. “Sorry for the mess. I just can’t look at them anymore right now.”

“Damn, dude. Sorry it didn’t work out. You want me to trash them?”

Do I?

I don’t want to see her with some asshole, but I don’t want to throw them away. She looks beautiful, even if she is with someone else.

“No, I’ll get them picked up,” I say. I take a deep breath before rising off the bed to clean up the mess I’ve made.

“Man, you can’t possibly be planning on keeping pics of her with another motherfucking guy. That’s just a little twisted, don’t you think?” Trent asks incredulously.

I grab them one by one, and the images burn into my mind, forever to be replayed like some terrible movie.

“I don’t know what I plan on doing with them. I just can’t throw them away right now,” I say, shoving them into my desk drawer.

“She’s engaged,” I whisper to myself, trying to wrap my head around the finality of what that really means.

“Okay, enough of this whiney bullshit. You’re coming out with me tonight, you’re getting wasted, and forgetting all about this girl for a little while. Get your mopey ass up, get a shower, and get dressed.”

I really don’t feel like going out, but forgetting sounds pretty damn good right now because remembering hurts like hell.

Yeah, forgetting sounds really good.

I’m sitting at the bar watching people practically have sex out on the dance floor. The strobe lights are flashing and the smell of smoke nearly makes me gag. The club scene has never really appealed to me, and tonight is no different. People are crowding all around the bar trying to get drinks, so I move and find a table toward the back, away from all the commotion. Trent finds me and puts another drink in my hand. “Drink up, man. Loosen up a little,” he says.

I just nod and take the drink. It’s the third one he’s given me so far and whatever it is, it’s really strong. I can feel a buzz coming on already. I’m swirling the tiny straw around in my cup when a girl walks up to my table. She’s smiling and looking down at me with big doe eyes. Long bone-straight ebony hair falls low beneath her shoulders. It reminds me of Jessica’s; I always loved her hair. I can’t make out the color of her eyes due to the flashing light in contrast to the darkness of the club, but when she smiles, the extreme whiteness of her teeth takes me by surprise. She’s striking, older-looking.

“What are you doing back here all alone? A good-looking guy like you should have an equally good-looking woman by his side.” She’s cocking one eyebrow, exuding an air of confidence. She seems cocky, but not bitchy. Interesting is the word that comes to mind.

“I’m not alone. I’m here with my roommate. He’s just conveniently indisposed on the dance floor at the moment, that’s all. It would seem that you’re just as alone as I am, though,” I say, looking up at her. She’s pretty, but she’s not Jess. Too elegant, too proper.

“You mind if I rectify our mutual problem? Can I have a seat here with you?” she purrs in that confident tone again.

“Sure, why not?”

I gesture toward the chair across from me.

She leans over, putting her cleavage on display as she sets her drink down and pulls out the chair.

“I’m Victoria, and you would be?” she asks, offering me her hand.

I reach out and shake it briefly.

“Jace.”

“Nice to meet you, Jace.” She beams at me like she’s won the lottery.

Awkwardness settles between us and I have no idea what to say to this girl. She’s attractive, obviously carries herself well, and seems nice enough, but I’m just not interested. I’ve only just realized that I lost Jess for good. Getting caught up with another girl right now isn’t even close to being on my list of priorities.

I miss you, Jess.

“Why so sad? Some girl must’ve done a real number on you.” She leans back in her chair casually and crosses her long legs.

“What makes you think I’m sad?”

“Your eyes. You have terribly sad eyes. They make me wonder whom you could’ve loved enough to make you so sad. Why don’t you tell me about it? I’ve got all night. I’ve been told that I’m a good listener.”

“It’s been a long day, a long bad day. I don’t really want to talk about it. Let’s just say that I’m not looking for a serious relationship for a very long time,” I mutter and take a sip of my drink.

“Fair enough! What about fun? You have any aversion to fun?” she asks, and shoots me a small, teasing smile.

“Fun is okay, I guess.”

“Great. Then get up and let’s go dance. I’ve got moves and they’re all kinds of fun,” she laughs as she stands up, shaking her hips from side to side.

What the hell? I’m nearly drunk, Jessica’s getting married, and my heart feels like someone pulled it out of my chest and beat it with a mallet. I guess a little fun and dancing can’t hurt.

“True love will always find a way to come back.”

—Unknown

HE’S JUST TOLD me that his heart belongs to me. I want to believe that, but the fact that he’s engaged really kills the sweetness of the moment. Suddenly, the warmth of his body feels too hot, wrong. I can turn off my emotions for other guys, but not with Jace. I can’t do this, not now, not like this. I bring my hands up to his chest and push him back.

“No. Your heart doesn’t belong to me. You’ve given it to someone else and that can’t be ignored.” I roll out from under him and stand up off the bed quickly. I pull my cami strap back up and act on my sudden need to cover myself, reaching over to grab my robe.

“Why does it always come to this with us? You’re hot, you’re cold. No matter what I do I’ve never been able to figure you out,” he says as he sits up.

“Maybe you need to stop trying to figure me out, Jace. I mean, you come knocking on my door late at night after not seeing me for six years, and then you drop this bomb on me that you’re engaged to my shrink! You come here armed with all of my personal, very private information—which, again, I’m pretty sure is illegal—and expect me to just fall into bed with you? Seems like I’m not the only one experiencing a little crazy around here.”

He drops his head. “I didn’t come here intending to get you into bed. I’m sorry if that’s what it seems like.” He exhales and pinches the top of his nose in frustration.

“It’s just that when I picked you up and held you in my arms, I couldn’t help but be pulled back into the past. Losing you was hard for me. It took me a long time to finally accept that you weren’t ever going to be a part of my life again.” He stops, seeming to search for words to explain what I put him through. “Then, finding this file, finding you, coming here, going through a myriad of emotions just overwhelmed me. I’ve thought about, dreamed about seeing you again for so long. So having you in my arms made my resolve crumble, to say the least.”

He looks up at me and I hug my arms tightly around myself. I have no idea where we go from here, but wherever it is, he needs to leave. I can’t think with him this close to me and the longer he stays, the more likely I am to not give a shit about him being engaged.

“You should go. You being here isn’t good. You wanted to confront me about the pregnancy and you did. I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am, nor can I change what I did. You should just go live your life with your fiancé and forget all of this, forget me.”

The walls of my bedroom feel like they’re closing in on me, so I turn and walk back to the front of the apartment, away from Jace. I hear his footsteps behind me and with every step my heart beats faster. Saying good-bye this time will have a finality it’s never had before. I reach out for the doorknob, making sure he realizes I’m really ready for him to go. I feel his hand on my shoulder and I flinch.

“Jessica, right or wrong, you and I will always be under each other’s skin. I’ve walked around for six years holding all of this underneath the surface. Finding that file was a tear in that surface and I’m positive I can’t just cover it back up. Everything that’s been pent-up inside me for all these years is flooding out. If I walk away from here and never look back, it will burn like an iron in the back of my mind forever.”

With every word he speaks I lay down another brick, building my wall higher and higher. He’s engaged, engaged to a successful doctor—a stunningly beautiful, successful doctor. I can’t compete with that and I won’t compete with that. Too much time has passed, too many bridges have been burned, and I’m not stable enough to deal with this. No matter how much I want him, it just feels off. Before, when I was with Jace it felt so right, but standing here with him tonight, it feels more wrong than I can even explain to myself. Plus, I think he still sees me as this shy, weak teenage girl that needs to be fixed.

“I can’t deal with any of this right now. I just found out today that I have a serious mental illness. I’m under a court order to attend therapy because I had a drinking and driving accident. In the hospital, they saw all of the years’ worth of scars and the judge took pity on me. Now I have to find a new doctor because I’ll never go to Dr. Ward again since I know she’s engaged to the only guy I’ve ever loved.” The reality of everything hurts so badly. As the words leave my throat they burn. “In the very same day, that guy walks into my apartment after six years and waylays me with a ton of emotional shit. We aren’t teenagers anymore. I’m not a bullied and beaten-down young girl that needs you to come pick me up every time I fall,” I tell him, straightening my shoulders and trying to look strong. “You couldn’t fix me back then and you can’t fix me now. I’m just as broken now as I was then, only now I’m trying to find strength in my pain.” He’s looking at me with pity swirling in his eyes and I hate it. “Back then, I tried to be invisible; I hid from everything and everyone. Now, I just wear my pain for everyone to see and don’t give a shit what they think. I’m a grown woman and even if I’m seriously delusional about many things in my life, I have enough self-respect not to hop into bed or do anything else with a man that’s engaged to be married to another woman. Not even if that man is you. Please, just go.” Tears fight their way into my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I can’t allow him to keep seeing me as a weakling. He lets out an exasperated sigh and I see years of regret pool in his bright blue eyes.

“I’m not trying to fix you. Even though the therapist in me wants to do that, that’s not what I’m trying to do. I just... Hell, I don’t know what I want or what I’m doing. I just know how I feel. I love you, Jessica. I’ve never stopped loving you. I just thought being with you would never be a possibility again, so I convinced myself to try and love someone else, even if it was a different kind of love.” We stand facing each other, silently volleying our words back and forth, and I do everything in my power to stop him from penetrating my defenses. But the more he talks, the weaker I get.

“Jessica, trust me, if there were a button I could’ve pushed years ago to turn off my feelings for you, I probably would’ve done it, but there wasn’t and there isn’t one now. All I could do was disguise it and put it in the back of my mind like it wasn’t there anymore,” he says, drawing his brows together and dropping his head. “I put a fortress around the love I felt for you and kept it hidden because that was the only way I knew how to move on.” He looks back to me and our eyes connect. His are red and the dark circles under them show how draining this has been for him. “But seeing you, knowing where you are, you being so close by...I won’t be able to hide it anymore. It’ll be a lie. And the way I see it, now that I know where you are I don’t have much choice in the matter. Not knowing where you were, thinking you were happy and married was the only way I could convince myself that we wouldn’t be together again.” He reaches out and gently tilts my chin upward. “I love you, Jess, and I know you love me too. There hasn’t been one day in the last six years that I haven’t loved you. I’m not letting you go this time. I can’t.”

I love him too, or at least I think that’s what I feel for him. I don’t know what he wants me to say. He’s engaged. That keeps running through my mind.

“You’re engaged. Are you saying that you’re going to go tonight and break off your engagement with Dr. Ward to be with me? Is that what you’re saying to me?” He stands silently as I berate him. A selfish little piece of me wishes he’d say yes, that he
is
going to go shatter her heart, but I know that wouldn’t be right. “You don’t even know me anymore! I keep telling you, I’m not the same girl you used to know. Why would you break off something as serious as an engagement for someone you don’t even know anymore, someone that you haven’t seen in six years? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Disappointment and defeat are written all over his face as he looks down, shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking back at me. His eyes roam over my face like he’s searching for the magic solution to this situation in it.

“The wedding is in four weeks,” he blurts out.

“What?”

“We’re supposed to be married in four weeks back home. Her and Mom have everything all planned down to the very last stupid detail.”

Married. Thinking about Jace being married to someone else puts a crack in my armor. It hurts; it burns my throat as I try to swallow the acidic thought of it down.

“Well then, in four weeks you should get married. Buy a big fancy house and go to charity dinners with your mother and wife. You can have the white picket fence and everything. It sounds like a perfect happily ever after, Jace. Don’t give it up for some broken girl you slept with once.” I bite out. I’m doing my best to keep it together, but I’m slowly unraveling. I love him; I hate him. I want him to stay; I need him to go. My contradicting thoughts circle my mind like vultures.

“Jessica, falling in love can’t always be a happily ever after or a once in a lifetime kind of story. Those happen in books, in movies. This is life and it’s real. Life has no script, no outline. We broke the rules of love long ago. All I know for sure is that with you, the rules will never apply.”

Before dejectedly walking out, he stops to look at me once more.

“And you weren’t just a girl I slept with once. You’re a girl I’ve loved—always.” And then he’s gone.

I wake up the next morning with a headache from hell. I massage my temples and start replaying everything that happened last night. My cell phone is chirping at me at an annoyingly loud volume and I fumble for it, not even opening my eyes to see who it is.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“How’d you get this number? Actually, never mind—don’t answer that. The file, right?”

“Yes, the file. How are you this morning?”

What is wrong with him? Has everything that happened last night flown right out his proverbial window?

“Fine, I’m just fine. Peachy, actually!” I remark.

“No, you’re not. I can hear it in your voice. You’re lying.”

“Jace, it’s too damn early in the morning for this. What do you want?”

I’m mad—pissed off, actually—that he’s acting so normal, like we can just pick up right where we left off six years ago. He’s getting freaking married in four weeks!

“I forgot the file at your apartment. I need it back before Vic—I mean Dr. Ward realizes it’s gone.”

What in the hell? He has lost his mind! Like I give a shit about him getting into hot water with his head-shrinking, soon to be wifey!

“That’s not my problem. Wait a minute; does she not know about me, about you coming to see me last night? How did you know about the file if she didn’t give it to you, Jace?”

“I took it. We were leaving the clinic and she’d left her keys in her office. I told her I’d get them for her. They were on her desk, and when I grabbed them I saw your name on a file folder that was sitting there. It shouldn’t have even been left out like that. That was a huge screw-up on her part,” he says, trailing off at the end.

Wow! So this doctor chick doesn’t even know about me. This is an interesting turn of events, for sure.

“I’ll deliver the file back to the clinic myself. I’m supposed to attend a group thing there today anyway,” I say, silencing him. Let him chew on that for a while. She might be the one marrying him, but he was mine first and I want her to know it.