by Erica Hobbs
I picked up my phone and called him.
“Yeah?”
“Are you busy?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Never too busy for you. What’s up?”
“I just want to talk,” I said. “Can I come over?”
He agreed, and I left the house a couple of minutes later. I walked the two blocks to his house and let myself in through the side door they left unlocked during the day. I climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Matt sat on his bed, scribbling on a piece of paper.
“You’re productive,” I said. “Summer getting too long for you?”
He chuckled and crumpled the paper into a ball, aiming for the waste basket.
“You missed,” I said when the ball bounced off the rim and landed on the floor where there were already two others.
“I’m writing poetry. Trying to, anyway. For Grace.”
“Aww, how romantic,” I whined.
Matt pulled a face at me. “Stop it. I’m being sweet. Girls like that.”
I chuckled. “They do. I’m sure Grace will love it.”
Matt started on a new paper. After the first sentence, though he stopped.
“That’s all I have,” he said. “Distract me with your drama.”
I sighed. “How do you know it’s drama?”
He pulled his eyebrow up. “Because I’m closer to you than a brother and you’re really predictable.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. He leaned back on his pillows, passing me one so I could hug it. I told Matt about Jake seeing my dad and all the other things that had been happening, so he had the full story from every angle.
“I don’t know if I should go see Jake. I don’t know if I should talk to him. I feel like maybe I was a bit harsh not letting him explain. But maybe he really was a dick, and I don’t want to hear him say it again.”
Matt was quiet for a while. I glanced at him to check if he’d fallen asleep.
“The way I see it,” he started, showing me he’d been listening after all, “is that you should do what you feel is right.”
I groaned. “That’s all everyone keeps saying to me. How the hell am I supposed to know what’s right?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said.
“For you. You’re not involved in this.”
Matt chuckled. “Shut up and let me speak. Do you feel like you’ll be able to carry on with your life and never ask ‘what if’ if you just leave it as it is, now?” he asked.
I thought about it for a just a second before knowing. At this rate, I would be asking ‘what if’ forever.
“Do you love the guy?”
I blinked at Matt. “It was such a short time, I can’t really say it’s love, yet.”
Matt shook his head. “I’m not asking if it was long enough for love. I’m asking if it was love. Period.”
I hesitated before I slowly nodded. The truth was I did love Jake. I’d fallen for him at some point, and it had slowly grown. It was why his betrayal – if that was what it was in the first place – had hurt so much. He’d already stolen my heart.
“It’s easy, then. You love him, and you don’t want to leave it the way it is now. So, then talk to him.”
It sounded very simple the way he put it, but it wasn’t that easy. It couldn’t be that easy. When my heart was involved, nothing was that simple. It was one of the first lessons I’d learned about love.
“What if he really did do all those things? Then I just pretend like there was nothing and let him get away with it?” I asked. I still didn’t know which way to go with this.
Matt shook his head. “You’re going at it all wrong. This isn’t about him, it’s about you.”
I shook my head. “You know, you’re making this super complicated after you just stated how easy it is. What if he doesn’t deserve a second chance?”
“Ali, you’re missing the point. Your questions should be what you deserve.”
His words hit me square in the face. Me? What did I deserve?
A second chance? Yes. Happiness? Definitely.
Did that mean I had to try again, give him a chance to prove me wrong about him?
It was starting to look like that was exactly what I had to do.
“Oh,” I said, and Matt smiled knowingly at me.
Chapter 44
Jake
When you’re in the tabloids all the time and the stories are mostly false you learn that it’s stupid to believe what’s being said without proof. This was the only thing that pulled me through the doubt about Alyssa. Sure, I hadn’t believed Damien that she had someone else now when he’d said it first. He was the last person on earth I would trust, anyway.
Except, when I had gone to talk to Alyssa, James had been there. Yes, we’d fought, and I remember her telling him that he wasn’t welcome in her life anymore. What if that had changed? What if he’d managed to creep back in there, anyway?
I shook off the thought. I would drive myself mad if I carried on like this. The only way I was going to be able to move forward was if I focused on the things I did have in my life. My career was on a steady incline back to where it was. Coach Clay was happy with the way I’d managed to bounce back. I had a family that meant everything to me, and I would fight to have a better relationship with them.
Those were the things that mattered.
I missed Alyssa every day. It was impossible to think she’d only been in my life for such a short time. When it’s ‘the one,' you just know. She’d filled a hole in my soul I hadn’t even known was there. Sometimes, life doesn’t work out the way you plan it. I kept that in mind. I told myself over and over again that the only reason why it didn’t work out, in the end, must have been because it wasn’t the path for me right now.
It didn’t make me feel better in any way. Just because fate didn’t agree with me, it didn’t mean that it still didn’t hurt like hell and I wished it would be different. Amanda had been the one to cause this, after all. Was that still fate? But Alyssa had made her choice, and I had already made too much of a nuisance of myself. What I needed to do was let her go so she could live the life she deserved, even if that was without me. She deserved a man to respect her wishes, even if that meant her wish was never to see me again.
It was some backward shit, and the only reason I convinced myself it was what I believed was because anything else would have me in my car, chasing after her again, begging for another shot.
The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was pathetic on top of everything else.
I was back in my own place after staying with Maurine and Becky for a while. Spending time with family had helped me understand the point of life again, and Rebecca was quick with answers that helped. She was growing up. My wish for her was that she would never experience heartbreak the way I had, or Alyssa had. She would start dating, eventually, and that would open up a whole new level in this game of life. Woe to the man who would hurt my sister.
I felt hungry, so I opened the fridge to see if there was something to eat. I found eggs and bacon. I could work with that. I hadn’t cooked in a long time – not for a while before I’d cooked for Alyssa, and not since – but eggs and bacon with toast was easy enough. Even though it was late afternoon. The smell of bacon in the hot pan filled my apartment. I mixed up the eggs, and I was just about to add them to the pan when my phone rang.
“Shit,” I said. I put the container with the raw scrambled eggs down and answered my phone, pinching it between my cheek and shoulder.
“Yeah?”
The bacon sizzled. I stepped away to hear better.
“Jake?”
I froze. Alyssa’s voice was clear over the phone. I would recognize her voice anywhere. I hadn’t checked the caller ID. I should have. Not that it would have prepared me any better for this.
“How are you?” I asked. I felt like an idiot for it.
“I’m okay, thank you.” Her voice was soft. I wasn’t sure why she was calling. I was scared to get my hopes up for anything positive. A
girl like Alyssa and my feelings for her could break me if I ended up disappointed again. I had just managed to convince myself to move on.
“I know I should probably have said this earlier… can I come over? To talk?”
Blood rushed in my ears. The world spun slowly around me. I felt smaller and smaller.
“Sure,” I said. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
I swallowed hard, my tongue swelling in my mouth.
“Of course,” I said.
“I’ll be right over.”
She hung up the phone. My mouth had gone dry. I tasted my heart in my throat. Alyssa was coming over to talk to me. She hadn’t been willing to do that since the beginning. I was suddenly in a flat panic. When I turned my attention back to the bacon on the stove, it was burning. I swore and pulled it off the heat. Smoke bulged toward the ceiling, creating a smelly fog. The bacon was a sad crisp.
I dumped it in the bin and shoved the hot pan into the sink, pouring water into it. The oil sputtered and popped for just a second. I opened all the windows to get rid of the smoke. Alyssa was coming, and my house smelled like burned bacon. Wasn’t that just perfect?
I glanced at my phone, trying to guess how long it would take her to get here. Half an hour? I could work with that. I pushed my phone into my pocket so I would have it on me in case the doorman phoned up to announce her. I scrubbed the pan, trying to get rid of the black char. Finally, I got it off. I rinsed the pan and dried it, packing it away. I put the container with the scrambled eggs in the fridge and cleared up the counter.
When I was done cleaning, I wiped my hands on my jeans. The place was spotless. Who said I wasn’t domesticated? I didn’t need help to do all of these things when it really mattered.
I breathed in deeply through my nose. The place still smelled like smoke even though it was clearing up.
I ran to the bathroom and found an air freshener. I emptied half the can in the kitchen. When I took out my phone twenty minutes had passed. I stood in the kitchen, not knowing what to do with myself. My stomach was tied in knots. I was going to see her, soon, and I wasn’t ready for this. I had forced myself to forget. I had convinced myself I was okay with not having her around. Now, suddenly, it all came rushing back again.
I was excited to see her. I was nervous.
I checked my phone again. Two minutes had passed. I walked into the living room and sat down on the couch, waiting.
Time almost stands still when you need it to pass quickly. It felt like forever to reach the thirty-minute mark. I checked my phone. I had full signal. The doorman would call up any minute now.
Time ticked on. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes. Where was she? I checked my phone again and again. I was starting to worry. What if she wasn’t coming, after all? She wouldn’t ditch me, of course, but what if something happened? I was being paranoid, I scolded myself, and went straight back to worrying.
Just over an hour after she’d phoned me, the doorman called. I answered on the first ring.
“Uh… a visitor for you, sir. A lady.”
“Thank you, I’ll be right down.”
“But she-“
“I’m coming,” I interrupted him and hung up. I sprinted to the door, pressing the button to the elevator three times. The doors slid open a moment later, and I traveled down toward her, toward Alyssa.
The elevator pinged again and slid open in the lobby. I walked to the front desk and froze. Amanda leaned against it, looking sour.
“He’s telling me to leave,” she said.
The whole nightmare was starting over again. Was this woman never going to stop? A full array of scenarios ran through my head – Amanda stopping Alyssa from coming, Alyssa walking in on us and getting the wrong idea again, Amanda being the person I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life, Alyssa changing her mind and not coming, after all.
“He’s right,” I said. “You need to go.”
“I just want to talk to you, Jake. You won’t hear me out. I can’t ever get around to just talking.”
I sighed. “I’m done talking. I have nothing more to say to you. Now, get out of my life. For good. You’ve caused more than enough trouble in my life. I’m done with you.”
Amanda looked hurt.
“Why won’t you give me another chance?” she asked.
I wanted to grab her by the arm and drag her out of my building. I wasn’t going to lay a hand on her, though. If the paparazzi were here again – and somehow they always were around when I didn’t want them to be – it could look like I was hurting her. It was the last thing I needed right now.
“If you don’t leave, I’m calling security on you,” I said.
Amanda’s face changed from hurt to anger.
“Fuck you, Jake,” she said. “You’ll regret this. You’ll regret you ever knew me.”
I looked her square in the eye.
“I already do.”
She stormed away. I turned to watch her go and then I froze. Alyssa stood in the doorway, watching me.
“Hi,” she said.
I rubbed my eye with my thumb and forefinger. “I bet this looks really bad, huh?”
Alyssa shook her head. “No. Actually, it looked pretty good to me.”
She smiled. It was a careful smile, but a smile nevertheless. Her face lit up the way it always did when she smiled. She wore simple jeans and a black blouse with a mint green silk scarf around her neck. Her hair was pulled back. She wore no makeup. She was like a vision, an angel, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Come upstairs?” I asked.
She nodded.
It was strained in the elevator together. We wouldn’t start talking until we were inside and I didn’t know what to say to her. The atmosphere was thick. I wanted to grab her and hold her, but I didn’t want to be weird. So we stood awkwardly side by side, waiting to get to the top.
When the door slid open the smell of burnt bacon and air freshener, hit me, and I winced.
“Sorry about the smell,” I said, following Alyssa out of the elevator. “I had an incident in the kitchen.”
Alyssa shook her head. She walked through the living room where, thankfully, it didn’t smell that bad. She sat down on the far couch. I sat down opposite her.
“Thank you for coming,” I said. She smiled.
“Thank you for having me.”
Chapter 45
Jake
Having Alyssa in my apartment was surreal. I had envisioned her all over the place, trying to make the heartache better. When that hadn’t work, I’d tried to forget about her. That hadn’t worked, either. Fleeing to Maureen’s place had been the only way to get rid of the memories because Alyssa hadn’t been there.
I wanted to take her there. I wanted to show her when I’d grown up. I wanted her to meet my aunt and my sister.
I shook off the thought. I didn’t even know why she was here, what she wanted to say. Maybe she was here to tell me she hated me and that I’d messed up her life. Maybe she was here to tell me she’d found someone else.
I swallowed hard, trying to smother the feeling of jealousy and rage that came with the thoughts. When I looked at Alyssa, she sat on the couch like she wasn’t sure she was welcome. Her feet were perfectly together, her hands on her knees, and she sat on the edge of the couch like she could jump up and run away without a moment’s notice.
She was quiet. I didn’t know what to say, so I was quiet, too. The silence became overbearing, so loud I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to make small talk, though. I didn’t want to stop whatever was happening from happening.
Alyssa looked down at her hands, studying her nails. Her hands were so familiar, slim and delicate just like the rest of her. “I should have come to talk to you earlier,” she finally said, “and it was wrong that I’d left it so long. I was so angry…”
“I understand,” I said.
She glanced up at me just a moment before looking back down at her hands.
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br /> “I don’t know what to think anymore. At first, I thought you were just like James.” The words hurt. I flinched inside. “When I found out my new friend was the same woman in the picture I was furious. I didn’t know how you could choose someone like her when we had what we did… what I thought we did.”