Therapy (10 page)

We’re sitting at the fancy outdoor table on his pool deck. The outdoor lighting reflects off the pool’s water, glistening as the sound of the waterfall fills the air.

This is way better than any restaurant.

He hands me my food and starts eating his. I ate all of my ice cream before we even got here, but I’m still hungry.

“I can’t believe you ate your ice cream before your food,” he says with a steak finger in his mouth.

“I can’t believe you talk with food in your mouth,” I tease.

Bravery is brimming inside of me, and I just want the dreadful anticipation of this talk to be over with already.

“Jace, what do you want to talk about?” I ask, but I don’t make eye contact.

Coward.

“Nope. Food first. Talk second.”

I look up at him as I dip my steak finger in the gravy. “Okay,” I agree guardedly.

We finish eating and he gets up to throw everything away. Then he goes in his garage and comes back out holding what looks like an empty beer bottle.

What the hell?

“Um, what’s that for?” I ask, pointing toward the bottle.

“Spin the bottle,” he says, completely serious.

Spin the freaking bottle? Really?
He’s got to be joking right now.

His expression remains thoughtful as he plops back down in his chair. He places the bottle side down in the middle of the table then leans back, staring at me. I can’t help but laugh. It’s too much.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. You spin it and if it lands on the other person, you get to ask a question—any question—and the other person has to answer honestly. If it lands on nothing, which is likely since there are only two of us here, you have to tell a truth about yourself that the other person doesn’t know.” He pauses briefly before reaching out to grab the bottle.

I already don’t like this game and we haven’t even started yet. I think I like the middle school idea of regular spin the bottle much better.

“Here, ladies first,” he says, giving me the bottle. I spin the bottle and it lands on the chair beside me where no one is sitting.

“Truth,” he says as he bores a hole right through me with his indigo eyes.

“I’m sorry for making you mad today,” I tell him, because it’s the best truth I can come up with, and I am really sorry for making him mad.

He reaches out to spin the bottle without replying. It lands on the chair beside him. He has this serious, stern look on his face and it makes me feel uneasy.

“I’m glad you’re sorry, but I’m still pretty damn mad,” he says, and my lips puff out in a little pout. It’s my turn, so I spin again. His eyes are pinning me down as I do so. It lands squarely on him.

“Why are you still mad at me?” I ask pointedly.

He lets out a big exasperated sigh and leans forward, resting his elbows on the table.

“I just don’t know why you freaked out. And that crap you pulled by getting all shitty and mean with me was completely out of left field. One minute everything is fine, the next you’re furious and bitchy. You drove away after the sex comment, and I was left standing there thinking what the fuck just happened?”

He pauses, opens his mouth, and closes it again. I see the inner struggle he’s having, trying to form his thoughts into words.

“I’m just going to ask. If I’m way off base, then say so, but I have to ask. Do you want more than just a friendship with me, Jess?”

His question wraps around my neck and strangles me with fear. This is it. I am at a crossroads. I can lie, or I can be honest, but for some reason both paths seem like they will end badly.

I drop my face into my hands and force the tears to stay at bay. I don’t want him to see this sad, broken-down side of me. He saw it after I got beat up, and I never want him to see it again. But all I want to do is cry because I can feel things falling apart with him already. I fucked up by overreacting and that’s the way it always starts for me. One overreaction leads to another, and eventually anything that was good is ruined.

“Jess, why are you about to cry? I swear I’m not trying to be a complete ass about this. I just think we need to get on the same page about whatever is going on. Please, just talk to me, dammit. You never open up to me, and I’ve opened up and told you more stuff than I’ve told anyone else. Why can’t you do the same? You’re frustrating the hell out of me.”

I lift my face from my hands and the tears escape, unhindered by my desperate efforts to hold them back. When I look at him, I can feel his frustration, his anger, but most of all I can see that he’s sincere about wanting to fix whatever is wrong between us.

“Please don’t cry. Dammit all to hell! I hate this. It’s obvious you’re hurting. I can see it in your eyes and not just because you’re crying. There’s a pain behind them that I can’t reach.” He takes a deep breath and continues, more gentle now. “You have to tell me what’s wrong, or it’s going to eat away at me. What’s wrong, Jess?”

I’ve always felt as if he can read me better than anyone else ever has. He’s right about the pain, just not the level of pain. The problem is how am I supposed to explain myself to someone else when I can’t even explain it to myself? There’s no way to tell him what’s wrong with me without sounding like the unstable, needy girl that I know I am.

I have to tell him how I feel about him because if I don’t it will be yet another regret I’ll have to live with. No matter what happens between us in the future, I need him to know how he has made me feel and how much more I want from him. I reach down deep within myself, mustering every ounce of bravery I can, and tell him what I’ve wanted to say for weeks.

“Jace, I’m sorry for acting like I did. I’m sorry for all of it. I was jealous—am jealous—at the thought of you being with someone else. When you start to date again, I want it to be with me. The next time I feel someone’s lips on mine, I want them to be yours.”

I pause before continuing to pour my soul out all over this table.

“You’ve given me more in the past two months than anyone ever has in my life. I trust you. You make me feel like I matter. You’re funny, sweet, cocky, sexy, adorable, and you always know how to make me smile. There are things you don’t know about me that I’m not quite ready to tell you about yet, but I’m going to do my best to stop lying to you and to myself about my feelings for you.”

I pause to catch my breath and gather my nerve to finish what I want to get out.

“I know you’ve made it clear you don’t see me that way, and I know you don’t want me like I want you, so I’ll try really hard to continue being just your friend, because having some of you is better than having none of you at all. I just don’t know how to control my feelings or my actions when it comes to thinking about you being with someone else.”

I suck in a rush of air, trying to regain my breath after spitting all of that out faster than he could probably keep up with. I look up at him, feeling more exposed than I’ve ever felt before in my life. He has no idea how hard it was for me to say those things. Giving him that tiny glimpse of my desperation was incredibly difficult.

He leans back, crosses his arms over his chest, and lifts his eyes to mine. A lone tear rolls down my cheek, but I don’t try to wipe it away because these tears serve a purpose. I just let it fall, allowing him to see me. I can’t help but wonder if my life will always be filled with these kinds of moments, fear, sadness, and pain.

Confusion and worry cloud his eyes. I drop my gaze from his and look down to my lap.

“Jess, I know that was hard for you to say. To be honest, I already knew without you saying it, but I just needed to be sure. First of all, this isn’t about me not wanting you, so please don’t think that I’m blind, dumb, and deaf to the beautiful girl sitting in front of me.”

He leans in toward me and rests his elbows on the table.

“That’s not what this is about. You have no reason to feel unwanted, so just know that right now. Any guy in his right mind would want you, especially if they knew the Jessica that I know. Aside from your body, your eyes, and that damn curtain of shiny black hair, you’re funny as hell and I have a shitload of fun with you. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to grab you in the pool, throw you over my shoulder, and take you inside to my bedroom.”

He stops to drop his head briefly.

Looking back at me he says, “But what stops me is the inevitable. Think about it, Jess. How many high school relationships turn into something lasting? Few to none. How many people date in high school, have a huge falling out over some stupid high school bullshit, and then graduate never to see or hear from each other again? The answer is almost all of them. I don’t want that for us. I don’t want to lose what we’ve built.”

His words wrap around me one by one, bit by bit, solidifying everything I already knew. Jace is different from the rest. He’s good and true. He’s one of the nice guys.

“You’re the only friend I’ve ever shared Genevieve with, and it makes me value this friendship more than my raging teenage hormones. I want to have you in my life for years to come, and the only way to make sure that has a real chance is to take the drama of a physical romantic relationship out of the equation. Can’t you see that us being friends is safer than us being something else?”

I know that everything he’s saying makes sense. He’s so thoughtful, and the fact that an eighteen-year-old guy can put his hormones on the back burner for something he values more says a lot. Guys usually value me based on sexual encounters alone, so I should be happy about this, but I’m not. I can only think about him being with someone else eventually, and I can’t stand the thought of it. Thinking about him with another girl breaks me. It consumes me, causing an abysmal hole to open in my chest that threatens to suck me inside of myself, never to be released again.

I have no idea what to say or do. This will never work. Maybe if I was normal and had the ability to regulate my emotions I could agree to everything he said, but the fact that I know he’ll fall into bed with another girl someday overshadows our friendship. And it will continue to do so, until the day it finally cracks in half, irreparable. I can walk away from him now and never look back, or I can stay friends with him and take what I can get before that awful day comes. A smart girl would walk away, but the desperate girl that I am will stay.

“Okay, Jace. I’ll try harder. I don’t want to lose this either. You’re important to me, so I’ll try to stop wanting more. Just be patient with me, okay?”

He stands up and rounds the table before reaching out and grabbing my hands, pulling me up. His warm arms wrap around me and I drop my face to his chest, hugging him back. He squeezes me tightly and kisses the top of my head. It isn’t the kiss that I want, but I’ll take it.

“Thank you. I’m relieved that I don’t have to lose my best friend. Plus, who will keep me in line if you aren’t around?” he says with a hint of laughter in his voice. “It will all work out. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

He holds me for a moment longer, and I squeeze him back knowing that I won’t have many more of these hugs before I screw it all up again and lose him forever.

“Remembering. Forgetting.

I'm not sure which is worse.”

—Kelly Armstrong

Six years later...

Starving for more

Back pushed against the door

Looking for nothing

Hoping for something

Like a white crayon

Drawing upon white paper

Showing no results

All these years

Invisible...

Where did I go?

Where have I been?

Lost myself

All for him

Relenting

Spending myself

Treading the waters

Being pulled under

Holding my breath

Giving in

Breaking down on the inside

Looking for someone

Looking for more

Wanting to smile

Needing to explore

Exhale

Relax

Just needing

Just wanting

A friend

A place

Where I can be myself

Be free

Just be me...

Looking back on the day six years ago when I lost Jace forever, I know I didn’t have a pretty picture painted of my future with him, but I couldn’t have imagined what it would become, or how far I’d slip away from any chance at normalcy. I never could have predicted such despair or agony, and I never thought that I’d eventually hurt Jace just as badly as I hurt myself.

In a few weeks, I’ll have to face a day that I never want to face—the date that our child would have been born. Every year the day comes, and it rips me to shreds. So many wrong decisions, so many impulsive choices, and so much misguided love and hate brought me to that tipping point all those years ago.

Thinking back on my senior year of high school, I feel an immense weight, intense pain that cripples me in every way imaginable. It rides on my shoulders every single day, haunting my every decision, my every action.

After we had agreed to continue being friends that day so long ago, I really tried hard to keep my word. Every day, I tried to push my urge to have more of him away. I tried to hide my possessiveness and my jealousy. Jace was so considerate of the feelings he knew I struggled with, and he always made a point to avoid flirting, never rubbing it in my face when he noticed other girls.

For a while, I deluded myself into thinking that he would be single from there on out. We still spent tons of time together, and when swim season started we were pretty much inseparable. We watched each other’s races, cheered each other on, and practiced in his pool daily. His mom tolerated me, for the most part, but the tension was always there. Jace finally met my parents on one of their better days and it actually wasn’t as terrible as I had thought it would be.

Things were going well, despite my pent-up desire for him. He still made me happy, and he still filled the emptiness inside me that I desperately needed filled.

We were near the end of the school year, and everyone was off scouting colleges. Jace was extremely pumped about going to Baylor University, and every time he talked about it a little part of me felt like dying. All I could think about was that he was leaving me. He mentioned several times that I should go there too, so that we could be together, but he knew how I felt about school. It was a place I never wanted to be again, whether it was here or there.

He had gone to Waco several weekends in a row, and had even brought me back a Baylor T-shirt. He was getting familiar with the area and touring different parts of the school’s programs. He was undecided on what he wanted his major to be, but was still excited about going. I didn’t want to ruin that for him, so I kept my sadness to myself the best I could.

The weekend right after we graduated turned into hell on earth for me. I had always looked forward to the end of high school, but what happened ended up being worse than all four years of high school rolled into one. Jace was going off to Baylor soon and I wanted to spend some time with him. I decided to surprise him that Friday afternoon, knowing his mom would be at work and it could just be us. In my warped brain, I thought there could be a possibility of him finally caving and us moving on to something more now that high school was over. When I got there, the nightmares that I had lived over and over in my paranoid mind came true right in front of my face.

Even now, the memory still haunts me.

I walked slowly around the side of the big brick two-story house, and faced a sight I never wanted to see: Jace and a pretty brunette in his pool. He pressed her up against the side of it and covered her mouth with his. His hand gripped her breast, which was barely hidden under her tiny white bikini top, and both of them moaned as the water splashed around them.

I froze like time was standing still.

I knew I should turn and run away, but I couldn’t. I stood there, watching their every move. Jace reached up and untied her top, releasing her breast, and dipped his head down to cover it with his mouth. Her head dropped back, and I heard her mumbling to him as she ran her fingers through his hair.

“God, Jace, that feels amazing. After today, you won’t be able to get to Waco fast enough for me, baby.”

My heart slammed into my ribs, and my eyes welled with unshed tears. She was from Waco. He had met someone there, but didn’t tell me. And he let her come here—to the place we shared together practically every day. Tears spilled from my eyes and a sob escaped my throat. My sobs must have carried across the water because Jace froze and turned around. His eyes met mine through the gaps in the black iron gate, and we stared at each other for what felt like forever until he snapped into action.

He pulled her top back up, telling her to cover herself, then pulled himself up out of the pool quickly in a panicked state, his obvious arousal very much on display through his swim trunks. He grabbed a towel anxiously, and wrapped it around himself as he ran in my direction. I didn’t even attempt to move. It was over, and I knew it.

“Jess, what—” he stammered, trying to form complete sentences. “What are you doing here?” he tried again. I didn’t look up. I just stood in front of him like a helpless, worthless shell of nothing. He looked down, bringing our faces eye-to-eye.

“I’m sorry you saw that,” he said, encasing my face with his wet hands, hands that only moments ago had been grasping onto some other girl’s breast. I pushed his hands away. My fight or flight mechanism finally kicked into high gear, and I was on the run.

As always.

Just before I reached my car, I turned and scowled, throwing millions of daggers at him with my glare. It was all coming out of me at once. When I reached that level of hurt, every emotion I felt was in overdrive and nothing could stop them.

“I HATE YOU, Jace Collins!” I screamed venomously.

His face practically turned inside out with anguish at my vengeful words. He stopped in his tracks, and I saw wetness in his eyes that could have been mistaken for pool water had I not known better. He put his hands on his hips and dropped his head to look at the ground. I turned back to my car and yanked the door open as hard as I could. Whipping around, I spouted one more hateful thing at him.

“I wish you would’ve never helped me that night! I wish Elizabeth and Hailey would have beat me to death. I wish I would’ve died that night; that would’ve been better than you coming into my life!” I yelled as my voice cracked.

I’d never seen such a pained expression on Jace’s face—ever. It was tragic, and I was the one to put it there.

Days and days went by.

Every day he sent me text after text, begging me to talk to him, but I never replied. The night before he was supposed to move to Waco, he came to my house drunk. I’ll never forget opening my door and seeing him standing there. After not seeing him for so many days after such an awful incident, he looked even more beautiful.

“Jace? What are you doing here, and why do you reek of alcohol?”

He smiled a lazy smile when he answered me. “I’m leaving tomorrow, Jess. I just wanted to say good-bye to my friend.”

I looked out to his still-running truck and realized that he had just driven to my house drunk off his ass.

“Jace, you’re drunk! You can’t drive around in this condition. You’re going to kill someone, or yourself. I’m taking you home. You can have someone get your truck for you in the morning. Wait here while I get my keys.”

I got my keys and hooked my arm in his, leading him to my car. He rested his head on my shoulder and inhaled loudly, nuzzling his nose into my hair. My skin prickled and my stomach flip-flopped at feeling him so close to me.

“I love your hair, Jess. It’s the prettiest hair I have ever seen, and it smells so good.”

“Shut up, Jace. You’re drunk and don’t know what you’re saying,” I told him, even though I wanted to hear every drunken thing he had to say about me.

Even if I knew it wasn’t true.

I pushed him down into my passenger seat and shut the door, shaking my head as I went around the back to my side. Silently, I got in, started the car, and backed out of the driveway.

“I’m not ready to go home yet, Jess. Just drive around,” he whispered, laying his head back on the headrest.

“Jace, you need to go home and sleep this off. You have a big day tomorrow, plus I don’t want to drive around with you. I’m only helping you because I couldn’t let you kill yourself driving like this.”

He rolled his head to the side, regarding me with sadness in his bloodshot eyes.

“Jess, don’t hate me anymore.”

I could barely restrain myself from jerking the car to the side of the road and reaching out to hug him. I wanted to say how sorry I was for what I had said, to beg him to forgive me, but I didn’t because the vivid picture of him with that girl was still too painful. Forgiveness didn’t come easy for me. Actually, it usually never came. Once I’d cut someone out of my life, there was no going back.

“I’m sorry it couldn’t be you, Jess,” he said simply, and he reached across to tuck my hair behind my ear. “That it wasn’t you in the pool with me. Forgive me, don’t hate me anymore.”

My heart was thumping, and my mind was reeling. I had no idea what to say to that because I wished I were the one in the pool with him that day too. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, struggling with the tug-of-war in my head. He reached down, grasping my hand and interlocking his fingers with mine.

“My mom is still at the country club. That’s where my going away party was,” he said as his thumb rubbed over the soft skin on the back of my hand. “She usually stays until close. Come inside with me. I just want to spend time with you before I leave tomorrow.” His hand squeezed mine before he continued, “I feel like I’ll never see you again once I leave.”

His words, his actions, his very presence—it was all too much. His eyes captured mine and it felt like a million butterflies were being released in my stomach all at once. I knew he had been drinking, but I also knew how badly I wanted to have at least one more moment with him, despite my anger over how he hurt me. I knew he didn’t do it intentionally, but that didn’t make the pain any less real.

“Okay,” I whispered, caving to my desires.