On Solid Ground: Sequel to in Too Deep

by Michelle Kemper Brownlow

  Things Sylvia had said during our session whipped through my mind. I should have taken notes. It was hours since Jake and I had walked home, talking about all the ‘aha’ moments I’d had during counseling. My brain kept slamming into the part of our conversation that had to do with me being independent. How in the hell was I going to do that? I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be with Jake. But what if I lost him? Then what? How would I stay afloat? My breath hitched a little at the thought.

  “Hello in there.” Jake tapped my temple with his finger, and I realized he had turned the TV off and put some music on.

  I giggled, “Sorry. Kind of zoning out.”

  “Obviously. What’s on your mind, baby girl?”

  “Just realizing that I’m not sure I’ve ever been as independent as Sylvia wants me to be. I mean, I broke up with Joel to be with Noah, and after him, you and I immediately started dating. I went from my parents’ guidance to Joel’s, to Noah’s, and now to yours. That’s gotta freak you out a little. Almost like a new parent would feel being responsible for a baby. I don’t want to get to a point where I start to feel like your responsibility and not your girlfriend.”

  “That, my dear, will never happen. And, no, you don’t freak me out.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder and quietly listened to him breathe. My forehead rested on his neck just under his ear, and I could feel his pulse. Yeah, he was really real. When I looked back over the last year, it was like Jake Rockwell was way too good to be true. I’m sure not many people would hear our story and believe I wasn’t taking creative license and putting a Hollywood happily-ever-after ending on it. He was real. He was mine. I was his. And we were happy.

  I closed my eyes just as he pointed the remote at the entertainment system. The hiss of the audio as he scrolled through songs told me he was going to pick one just for us. I smiled and snuggled into him a little deeper.

  Eddie Vedder’s voice filled the room, and a song I rarely listened to swept across me like a warm breeze. He sang of all the things he would do, the extent he would go for someone. But he questioned if he was making any difference. I would have to add “Indifference” to my summer playlist. Jake made the world of difference in my life. But I wasn’t always sure I was doing the same for him.

  “Gracie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m still proud of you for walking away from him.”

  “You helped me, Jake.”

  “Not really. I think you give me way too much credit for that. I couldn’t make that decision for you. You decided to save yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I only grew those balls temporarily, so I could see you throttle him. That’s where all the bravery came from.” I giggled.

  He knew I was joking. Jake lifted my chin with his thumb and forefinger. He stared so deeply into my eyes, I was certain I felt his soul waft into mine. He said nothing aloud, but his eyes held an emotion there were no words for. A swarm of butterflies flew around my stomach as I gazed back into the eyes of the man I never wanted to walk away from.

  “Gracie, I want to be like this...” he motioned with his hand between us “...for the rest of my life.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But you’ve got to do me a favor.” He let go of my chin and squeezed me so tight, I could barely breathe.

  “Anything, Jake.”

  “I need you to promise you will do whatever you need to do to get better. To be strong. To live the way you deserve to live. And that’s going to take some work. First, you’re going to have to start seeing yourself as strong. Not because I say you are, but because you feel strong.”

  “Jake, I don’t remember the last time I felt strong.”

  “You survived two years of abuse, Gracie, and you’re still here.”

  “But, I was so stupid. I kept going back. I had to have looked like a complete idiot! That image of me is something I will carry.” The volume of my voice matched the pain in my chest. When I let flashes of all the times Noah reduced me to a sobbing fool, I felt like it was all happening again, in real time. The panic and the pain came back. I stuffed it a little deeper and took a deep breath to call my tears back inside.

  “What do you mean, you’ll carry it with you?”

  “Jake, what Noah did to me, all the shit we went through, what if it re-shaped me? It’s definitely shaped how I process things.”

  “Gracie, honey, when are you going to stop holding onto him? You are holding onto the things he did to you like they are still a part of you.”

  “I’m not holding onto Noah. It’s just...” I didn’t know how to end that sentence. Was I holding onto Noah?

  “I want all of you, Gracie. You’ve got my entire heart. You take up the whole thing. I want to have your whole heart, not just part of the piece Noah isn’t still holding.”

  “Jake. I’m not holding onto him. What happened to me is now a part of me; it always will be. I have scars that won’t go away. Not even you can erase them, but I can love you through them. Noah stole a piece of me I don’t want any part of. He stole a piece of the weak Gracie. You’ve got the one that’s getting stronger, all of her. I promise.”

  Jake sat quietly and rubbed my back with his strong hands. He had never held anything back from me, but I felt he had more to say in the rigid way he sat. I was positive, at that moment, he wasn’t sure he really had all of me. And if I was honest, I wasn’t quite sure he did either. There were times I felt like a part of me died when Noah crushed me for the last time. He took part of my spirit with him. But I never saw it as holding onto him.

  How could I live with the fact that the man who saved my life felt like he was still sharing me with the man who’d hurt me the most? The thought of him settling for just a part of my heart, instead of all of it, tore me up inside. Was I being selfish by holding onto Jake? Could there be someone else out there who was better suited for him? My eyes burned, and I nuzzled into him, breathing him in deeply. He drew in a sharp breath, and I was afraid of what he was about to say.

  “If you still feel like a victim, then he is holding a part of you I will never have.” Jake squeezed me tightly and stood up, taking me up with him. “I love you with every ounce of my being, Gracie. Every ounce.”

  His voice was quiet, but it broke on the last word. He was hurting, and after everything he’d done for me, I was the one hurting him. I didn’t know what to say. I just looked up at him, trying to form something, anything, that would convince him he had all of me. But at that moment, I couldn’t even convince myself of that fact.

  “Jake, I...” I stood in front of him, holding onto his waist, begging him with words I didn’t have. I couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to give him what he deserved.

  He took my hands in his and kissed my forehead. “I’m going for a run. I’ll be back in a bit. I love you.”

  “I love you, Jake, with everything I have.” I wanted it to be reassuring, but it came out sounding like everything I had was what was left over.

  I sat on the couch and listened to the rest of the Pearl Jam album while I waited for Jake to come back. How could I live with myself if the man who taught me how to be truly happy sacrificed his own happiness just to hold me together?

  I grabbed my bag from the coffee table and pulled out my sketchbook. I turned to the “Behind Blue Eyes” page. I ran my fingers across the words of the song I had written that day in the cafe. There was something about feeling the indentation of the ballpoint pen I’d used that helped me concentrate on the lyrics. I started writing similar lyrics, as though I was re-writing the song to match my current struggle. I ended up tapping my pen on a page that took me close to an hour to fill with doodles and a few scattered lyrics. I tried to make sense of the thoughts running through my mind, but I couldn’t.

  Jake startled me as he came through the door, gasping for air. He wiped his mouth with his arm and pointed in the direction of the shower. I heard the water turn on, and I gave up trying to write something that wasn’t there.


  I climbed into his bed and was asleep in no time. I woke to Jake’s warm, wet body as it curled around me. I breathed in his crisp, clean scent and pressed my back into the front of him, molding him into my shape. There were no words, just touch. It was comforting and peaceful, while at the same time, I felt unsettled. I felt Jake’s body fall into a deep sleep.

  Just as I was drifting off, something came to me I wasn’t expecting. I carefully lifted Jake’s arm and slid out from under him. I walked out to the dark kitchen, grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of a chair, and my bag from the floor. I flipped the light on, grabbed my sketchbook from my bag, and sat down to write my own words to a song that echoed in my heart.

  The words flowed out of my soul, and my hand could barely keep up with what my heart was saying, but when it was done, I was stunned...

  I know what it’s like

  To be troubled

  Truly broken

  Swallowed by an ocean of fears

  Now I know what it’s like

  To feel true love

  Nothing but pure love

  That brings me to tears

  But my heart

  will not survive -

  Will disappear without a trace

  if the truth is that I

  am the reason for

  the tears that stain your face.

  I stared at what had just spilled out of me. This was true subconscious writing. And I wasn’t ready for this truth. I read it over and over again. It was so quiet in the room, I could hear each of my tears hit the page. I pulled the thick sleeves of the sweatshirt down over my hands and buried my face in them. I drew in a deep breath that smelled just like Jake and burst into muffled sobs.

  I wiped my face and carefully tore the lyrics from my sketchbook. I shoved everything into my bag except for the torn sheet. I stood but kept my hand on the table to steady myself. I almost couldn’t believe what was written on the paper was the condition of my heart. Worse still, I couldn’t bear to break Jake’s. But I also couldn’t be the one to hold him back from true happiness. I grabbed the pen and jotted one last thing on the paper I’d leave behind.

  Jake,

  I struggle with knowing who I am anymore. I don’t know how long it will take me to get better, and I refuse to drag you along for the ride. You deserve to be happy, and maybe there’s someone out there better suited for you who has her shit together. I will love you all the rest of my days, and because I love you, I need to let you go.

  Always, Gracie

  I squeezed the deluge of tears from my eyes and left the apartment. I tried not to think about what I’d just done as I ran down the stairwell to the next floor, my floor. I knew if walked slowly it would give me time to change my mind. I needed to leave my heart in Jake’s apartment. I needed to leave Jake behind, so someone who was whole could take my place.

  Fourteen

  Jake

  “Where are you? God, Gracie, pick up the phone. Please.” I tried to calm my voice as I left her a message, but it was evident I was struggling. Pain stirred together with panic.

  It was morning. I’d woken up and waited for Gracie to climb back into bed, cold feet and all. But she didn’t. I checked the bathroom and the kitchen. The apartment wasn’t that big, so it was obvious she was gone. When I walked past the table for the second time, I saw it, her re-written lyrics and the note that had me in someone else’s arms.

  I dressed and dialed her number again. It went right to voicemail, which meant one of two things, her phone had died, or she’d turned it off. My heart pounded so hard, I could see it through my t-shirt. It never occurred to me to find someone new when I’d heard Sylvia had hinted that Gracie and I take a break. Plus, she must have completely misinterpreted my side of our conversation the night before. I ran down the stairs to her apartment and knocked, probably a little louder than I should have.

  “Gracie?” My voice was raspy. I leaned my forehead against the cold steel of the door and pressed my right hand where I knew her left would be on the other side.

  “Jake.” She answered so quickly it made me wonder if she hadn’t been on her way to me.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Jake, I just need time. I can’t see you right now.”

  “Can’t see me? Gracie, that’s ridiculous. Please, let me in so we can talk.”

  “Jake.” A sob slipped out, then she cleared her throat. “Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I know it’s what I need to do right now, for me. If I open this door, seeing you will kill me. I just need some time. Please give me that.”

  “Okay.” There was a long pause and my body started to quiver. “Gracie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Walking away from us so you can heal is one thing. Thinking I’m running into the arms of someone else is another. I’m not—”

  “Jake, stop. Please. Give me a couple days. I can’t talk about this right now. Please understand.”

  “I love you, Gracie.”

  I heard a door inside her apartment close, and I wasn’t sure she’d heard those last four words. I turned and pressed my back into the door. I was going to need to be stronger than I’d ever been to get through this.

  I’d started to fall in love with Gracie even before Jessica left last semester. At first, I thought I was misinterpreting my protective nature for her as romantic feelings, but when I started to think about her, and not Jess, when I zoned out in class, I realized what was going on. But loving her while Noah shredded her piece-by-piece felt like walking across shards of glass. I would hold her while she cried and as she slept. I prayed she’d leave him so I could be the one to show her what real love was.

  But, during that time, I also promised her over and over that I would always be her friend first. I told her she never had to love me back, and I would take her however I could have her, as a friend or a lover. I assured her I would be satisfied either way, but now, I wasn’t sure.

  I needed to run. I returned upstairs for my shoes and took off. I’d started running upon leaving my first college calculus exam. I knew I’d failed it. I’d handed my backpack over to some kid who lived in my dorm and told him to put it at my door. And I took off in the same way I’d just left my apartment. I think, subconsciously, I was hoping to run away from the reality that my parents were footing the bill for my education, and instead of spending the night studying, I’d spent the night with Jessica for the first time. So, that day, I ran for two hours to sort out in my mind what I’d have to do to pull my grade up. After a conversation with the professor and some extra work, I’d brought my grade up to a B- and was satisfied.

  But trying to run away from my own heart was a totally different kind of running. My feet pounded into the pavement with angry strides. I needed to work through my anger and disappointment in Gracie’s assumption that I could turn off a switch and stop loving then run off into the sunset with someone else. I knew it was her self-esteem taking a nose dive that had brought her to that conclusion, but, at the same time, it pissed me off. I wanted her to have more faith in our relationship. I wanted her to be sure of where my heart was. But she wasn’t ready.

  I knew that her decision meant we wouldn’t be spending as much time together, and my constant concern for her would have to wane as I started to trust her to make wise choices. Thank God Noah was gone for the summer and I wouldn’t have to worry about him preying on her newfound independence. I hoped he decided not to head to campus like he’d mentioned to Gracie. Of course, now there was Calon. Fuck.

  I didn’t know Calon from Adam, but I knew the rock star type. How in God’s name would I protect her from—

  As soon as I stepped off the curb, a loud screeching sound came out of nowhere. A sharp pain in my knee radiated up through my pelvis and into my back. A hollow thud resonated inside my skull and everything went black.

  ****

  “I think you should be okay. You have a minor concussion, and you’ll probably limp around on that knee for a wh
ile, so you need to take it easy. Are you taking any classes?”

  “Um, no.” I was still trying to process the fact that a car had hit me.

  “Work?”

  “Not yet. I start a job next week.”

  “Well, that’s good. A couple of days rest, a simple regimen of icing your knee, and ibuprofen should have you good as new.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now watch where you’re going from now on. If the driver hadn’t been slowing down to turn into the parking lot, this could have been a lot worse. You actually ran into her. Had it been the other way around, you’d be in the ER.”

  “Got it, doc. Thanks again.”

  I limped out into the waiting room only to see my old roommate from the dorms smiling and shaking his head. Maverick was one of my first friends on campus. Freshman year, he, Sam, and I had met during an impromptu volleyball game in the quad. Thankfully, on this day, he had just parked in the lot I got hit in.

  “Dude, what are you, four?” He slapped me on the back, which made my head throb even harder.

  “Hey, shithead, I’m injured. Knock it off with the slapping.” I back-handed him in the stomach and ducked out of the way of his retaliation. Maverick was a Naval ROTC guy who could kick my ass with his eyes closed, so I knew I’d pushed it by hitting him back. His real name was Sean, but Sam could never keep straight who we were talking about, and it was too much hassle referring to them as ROTC Sean and Becki’s Shawn, not to mention it sounded ridiculous. So we settled on a nickname from the Navy-centered movie Top Gun.

  “You were mumbling something about Gracie when I helped you stand up. Are you two actually dating? I was there last semester for the show.”

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t about to get into the details of the last twelve hours with Mav. My head hurt enough already. “Wait. What show?”

  “Your party last semester. You two made out in the hallway. I just assumed it was a drunken thing. Didn’t know you’d dumped Jessica for her. Gracie’s hot. But then again, so was Jess. You’re a stud, man.” He slapped me on the back again.