People who don’t have depressions may wonder how I could be this way when I’m so in love. Truth, I don’t get it, either. When I was younger I thought falling in love with someone who fell in love back would solve all my problems, and while I know that’s way too Pollyanna for the real world, I still believed love could conquer all.
And it has, but at the same time it hasn’t, which makes me wonder how fair I’m being. Can Jaye honestly want someone who can get like this at the best time in her life?
She keeps saying Yes.
“I know it’s not going to be all sweetness and light,” she tells me during our Thursday night talk. “We’re going to have our challenges. I’m up for that.”
“I don’t see you ever being a challenge for me.”
“Wait until I can’t play soccer anymore and I don’t know what to do with my life.”
“Not a problem. We’ll travel the world filling in every inch of your family tree, and then you can help me do research for my books.”
She laughs, and knowing I’ve pleased her keeps the shadows at bay for another few hours.
Friday tests everything positive I have in me. I can’t shake the sadness, despite knowing each passing hour brings me closer to being in Jaye’s arms again. She’s flying to Boston with the team today, and the scheduling means we won’t talk until late.
I’ve booked a room at a Hilton by the airport for Saturday night and bought tickets on the puddle jumper that flies between Logan and the P-Town Municipal Airport. A little pricey, but quicker than the sea ferry, and it will give Jaye and me more time together. We’ve arranged to meet on Saturday in Copley Square, get some together time before her game. It will be great. If I survive Friday.
Most of the day is torture. I’m full of irrational fear. Darkness. Melancholy. Friday means weekend which means more tourists in town. Finding a quiet spot is almost impossible. I end up going out to the harbor at low tide, shortly before sunset, like I did the night I got drunk. This time there’s no alcohol in me, just the gorilla/guerilla. I walk out onto the sand, as far out as I can get without going into the water, and stand out there to listen to the quiet of the evening.
I’m at the far east end of town, away from the heart of human activity. There is the occasional sound of a car passing by on the highway behind me, but mostly all I hear are birds, a whisper of breeze, and after some long moments of no thinking, peace.
There is peace here.
The bay is millpond calm, and I become calm with it. Even fifty yards offshore where I’m standing, the seawater is barely an inch deep. The tide is gradually, very gradually coming in, and I watch as seaweed, shells, bird tracks, and sand succumb to the slow, gentle creep of the water. An old, old Elton John song comes to my mind, one I haven’t heard or thought of in years. I gaze out at the twilight as the chorus quietly plays in my head.
“Oh, my soul . . . oh, my soul . . . oh, my soul . . .”
My soul is troubled yes, but does, temporarily, find solace.
This lasts until a car horn blares behind me, three short blasts of anger. The peace shatters. I stick it out for a few minutes, but my mood is broken. I turn to walk back to the little hotel and wait for Jaye’s call.
Which I discover I’ve missed because I left my phone in the room. She’s left an affectionate voicemail, says she’s tired from the flight but invites me to call back as long as it’s before lights out at ten p.m. She can’t wait to see me tomorrow in town. She loves me.
I check the clock: one minute to ten, I hit the call back button but get voicemail right away. Jaye’s turned off her phone already. I know she needs her rest for the game, but a lurch of disquiet floods my heart, something on top of the ache of missing her.
Stop worrying, I tell myself, in twelve hours we’ll be together. I can handle twelve hours. I play back her message to hear those precious last words.
“I love you, Rachel. See you soon.”
The twelve hours crawl, but they do pass. I park my car at P-Town’s tiny airport, fly over to Boston, ride the T to Copley Square, walk half a block, and see Jaye standing on the grass in front of Trinity Church.
Our eyes meet, and immediately I know something is different. Jaye smiles as she sees me. It’s not the nine-thousand watts of brilliance I’ve grown used to, but a muted, almost wistful turn of her lips. I try to prevent my own happy expression from faltering.
We slide into each other’s arms with ease, hold each other close. The pleasure of our hug is unchanged, though Jaye hangs on a little more tightly than normal, and the overall sense of safety and belonging I get in her arms feels muted.
“God, it feels good to hold you,” Jaye whispers into my ear.
I lift my head to meet her eyes. The glow that always radiates from them isn’t there, has been replaced by a scary sort of blank darkness. No, wait— the darkness is not blank at all, but swirls with something I can’t puzzle out.
“Jaye?” My voice is soft, inquiring. “What’s happened?”
She pulls away from me and holds out her hand. “Let’s walk.”
Oh, boy. I fight down my own little storm of clouds and uncertainty, accept Jaye’s hand, and let her lead the way. She takes us away from the square, over a couple of streets to Commonwealth Avenue. Here the lanes of traffic are separated by a long mall, an attractive little park area with statues, trees, benches. The mall goes on for blocks, all the way to Boston Common. We only walk a little way, though, before she picks a bench in the shade and sits us down.
Jaye turns to face me. “I love you, you know.”
“Yes.” Even now, even with her weird demeanor, I feel the truth of her words.
“Something happened last night that made me sure, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
A tremor passes through me. “I guess we won’t know unless you tell me.”
Jaye hesitates, like she’s screwing up her courage. When she finally comes out with it, the words are jarring, a thunderclap from a clear blue sky “You were right about Nickory, maybe.”
Jarring—and confusing as well. “Maybe?”
She bites her lower lip. “We hadn’t talked much since you left, and last night I finally told her I was going to get my own apartment because I needed a place where you’d be welcome. She threw the same shit back at me—the age difference, you not being in a relationship before, yadda yadda. We went back and forth on it, and I finally said something like ‘Rachel thinks you’re in love with me, so maybe you’re jealous.’ Nickory got real still and stared at me, and I right then I thought it was true. I thought you were right.”
Jaye is far from done, but she stops talking. We sit there, me waiting, her not meeting my eyes, until finally I blink.
“And then?” I ask.
“She got up and came over to me, pulled me up. She put her arms around me and said, ‘Maybe I don’t want to lose my family.’ ”
Now Jaye digresses a little. “Nickory doesn’t have any contact with her parents. Bree and I, and my folks, we’ve become her family since her parents disowned her. So I understood that, and I let her hold me, and when she kissed me, I let her.”
Something inside of me freezes up. Jaye doesn’t notice.
“It was like I was sixteen again. Something came over me, and I wanted to know how she felt, so I kissed her back. I let myself get lost in it for a while. I honestly can’t say if it was one minute, or ten.”
The pain in Jaye’s expression is clear as she admits this. Cold spreads out from my core, icing over my heart. “How far did it go?”
“My brain woke up when she pulled my shirt off and she started to touch—”
Jaye cuts herself off, takes a deep breath. “She wasn’t going to stop at kissing me. All I could think was if I let this happen, I’d lose you. The message was so clear, ‘You’ll lose Rachel!’ Almost like someone was shouting it at me.”
I’m watching her in profile, and abruptly I r
ecognize the darkness emanating from her. Fear. Jaye is not angry, not even guilty, much. She’s afraid.
“I pushed Nickory away, hard,” Jaye says. “I didn’t let her say anything, I packed up my gear and switched rooms.”
I give a fleeting thought to the rumors undoubtedly galloping through the team grapevine right now, but keep it to myself. So okay, the cold has not reached my brain. Not yet.
Jaye exhales. “I spent the whole night angry at Nickory, then angry at me for kissing her, then wondering if I’ve screwed things up, if it’s already too late.”
Her expression is hollow, haunted. “Please tell me it’s not too late.”
She’s so sad, so bereft, sitting there with slumped shoulders. All I want to do is take her in my arms and make it better. And the beauty of it? Taking her in my arms will make her feel better. It’s a win-win, right? But the cold within me is a solid ice wall, it won’t thaw quickly. Still, I can do something. Instead of wrapping Jaye up in a hug, I take her hand in mine and interlock our fingers. My grip is firm, and I hope there’s some comfort in it.
“I don’t think ten minutes is a deal breaker, Jaye.”
Her response is tentative, her tone beyond subdued. “I wish you sounded more sure.”
Me, too. I keep hold of her hand as we fall into silence, get lost in my own head. Why don’t I sound more sure? I love Jaye, right? The worst happened, right? She chose me in the end, right? So what’s wrong?
I must be lost in my head for longer than I realize, because Jaye asks, “Where are you, Rachel?”
The little girl quality of her voice spears right through the ice in me. I want to comfort that little girl. I want everything to be all right for her.
“I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
My perfect lover strikes again. “Yes, there is. I love you, Jaye. Deeply. And my almost-worst nightmare came true, but you chose me in the end, right?”
“That’s why I’m here now.”
“Then why am I not dancing down the grass? Why am I not ecstatic and hugging you and kissing you? Why did my emotions bury themselves in a deep freeze?”
“I don’t know. Do you want me to go?”
“No.” My answer is immediate and unequivocal. There’s hope for me yet. I tighten the grip on Jaye’s hand so she doesn’t try to get up anyway. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“If this were reversed, if I were the one coming to you saying I’d kissed another woman and almost went to bed with her, how would you feel?”
Little girl graduates to simple, clear, adult certainty. “You’re not going to do that.”
“You weren’t going to either, were you?”
Jaye hangs her head. I touch her chin, raise her eyes to mine. “I’m not blaming you, Jaye. It happened, and I’m not angry. Honest.”
“But you’re something.”
Too true. “Please humor me. How would you feel, say, if I met someone at the writer’s convention I’m going to later in July. If something clicked, and I didn’t go to bed with her, but we maybe slow-danced a few times and made out in a dark corner. And I told you about it and was genuinely apologetic and said it would never happen again.”
She won’t go there. “It wouldn’t happen in the first place.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. You would never do it.”
We’re gazing into each other’s eyes, and Jaye’s are full of faith. She believes what she’s saying. She is totally sure. Her expression and simple declarations combine to crack my ice. The frozen wall doesn’t fly apart and shatter into tiny little shards, but I think part of my spirit does.
I let go of her hand, turn away and face the sidewalk. “But I thought you would. I thought if Nickory made her play you’d jump for it and be gone.” I squeeze my eyes shut, ready to fall into complete and utter despair. “I don’t deserve you.”
I feel Jaye rest my head on her shoulder. “I don’t deserve you, Rachel,” she says softly. “So if we don’t deserve each other, can that cancel things out and make it all okay?”
Now I’m fighting back tears. Ten days ago I made a commitment in my mind. Or so I thought. Faced with a bump in the road of my first relationship I sit here now confused, unsure, and stupid. If I’m committed to Jaye, then where is my certainty? The worst has happened, and we’ve passed with flying colors.
Or at least Jaye has. I seem to be tangled up in the flag.
“Please tell me what you’re thinking,” she asks.
A mélange of debris in the eye of a tornado. “A mess of stuff,” I say out loud. “Can we walk again? For a bit?”
Jaye pulls me to my feet, keeps hold of my hand, and we saunter slowly down the mall toward Boston Common. The day is absolutely gorgeous, slightly cool, but sunny and full of positive energy. There are people around, but not huge crowds, and we move easily along the pathway. I try not to think about nearly melting down in public, but let the positive energy flow through me, try to put my soul back together. It works a little. I’m glad Jaye is with me. I’m so lucky Jaye is with me.
“If I could take back last night I would,” Jaye says after a while.
“No, it needed to happen. At least now there’s no what if.”
“You’re not acting like there’s no what if.”
“I know. But I don’t know why.”
We cover almost another block before Jaye speaks again. “Would it have been easier if I’d had sex with her?”
Wow, what a question. “No.”
“Are you sure? If Nickory and I had sex, then I showed up begging your forgiveness, wouldn’t it be easier for you to believe me? To believe I really want you?”
I stop walking because I’m too stunned to move. “I need to sit down again.”
Benches abound, and I collapse on one. Jaye has no choice but to join me or lose a limb, since I’m still gripping her hand. The morning has been a roller coaster ride beyond Coney Island’s wildest pretensions. I have no idea what the ups and downs are, but I’m sure I’m hitting every peak and every valley.
“I need to think a minute,” I say.
“Do you want me to go?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay.” There’s a calmness in her tone, a sort of peace I’m suddenly envious of. She sits back and turns away a little, as if to give me space to do exactly what I asked for. Think.
But thinking is not the answer. I blank out instead, let it all go unconscious, see what floats up from the depths. This takes one minute, or ten. I have no idea. But something does eventually surface.
“You’re right about last night,” I say at last. Jaye shifts back toward me.
“Right about what?”
“If you’d slept with Nickory, you’d have lost me.”
“Okay.” Her tone is still calm, but also carefully neutral. “I haven’t lost you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I hope so. You deserve someone who wants you heart and soul, Jaye. I want to be that someone, but . . .” My words trail off, slinking away with my ever-tenuous confidence.
“You do want me heart and soul. I just have to get you to believe it.”
I heave a deep cliché of a sigh. “I have to get me to believe it.”
Jaye pauses, then nods firmly, intense and serious, like she’s found solid ground again. “Do you promise to try?” she asks, fervor in her voice. “Do you promise not to give up on yourself and go away?”
An image sears through me suddenly, a flashback through the thirty years of darkness marking my prime years. And a flash forward to what I can expect without Jaye in my life. The guerrilla surges inside me, ready to fire IEDs all over the place. But this time, I know, if I let it, there will be no other side, no second chance. I will exist in hell until death takes me away.
Jaye will not wreck me. I will wreck myself.
I
face her and meet her gaze. “Yes, I promise to try. Anything for you, Jaye.”
She stands, pulls me up with her. “Okay. Come on.”
Now it’s me who has to move or lose a limb. Jaye’s energy has done a complete one-eighty, and her stride is full of purpose. The roller coaster is moving again.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
All the way back to Copley Square, as it turns out. Right near the T-station are some street vendors selling things like paintings, hand-woven scarves, trinkets of Boston-related minutiae. I had not noticed them earlier, but clearly Jaye did, because she goes right up to the one selling jewelry.
The table has earrings, necklaces, pins, and two long boxes full of rings. Jaye gestures toward them. “Remember what you said the day we talked about tattoos?”
I glance at the rings, then at her. “Yes.”
“Good. Pick one.”
Moment. Momentous. Monumental. I try to swallow, but my throat has gone dry.
“Not marriage,” she says before I can protest. “Not yet. But a commitment to try. To try for us.”
Jaye is calm on the surface, but something in me knows this is a turning point. This is my chance to get untangled from the flag, find my own flying colors.
I examine the rings. Some have inset jewels, but most are simple bands of metal. Like wedding rings, for sure. I’m drawn to those, the ones that imply you are married, probably because deep down I always wanted to be. I’ve always wanted a partner, and now I have the chance.
My eyes fall on a thick band with a Celtic-like pattern of engraving. Simple but not plain. And there are two of them, actually, a pair amongst a bunch of different single designs or unadorned rings. I catch the vendor’s eye. She’s watching us with an amused expression.
“Those two, please,” I say, pointing, “are they silver?”
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