by J. Saman
I don’t knock. I don’t enter. I just wait here, trying to breathe in and out past the tightness in my chest.
Because what if she tells me something? And that something changes everything?
I didn’t listen to Jameson tonight. I didn’t let him talk and that’s because I really don’t want to hear whatever excuse he has. I don’t want to hear him tell me he’s sorry or that it was a big misunderstanding that’s led to four years of just getting by. I don’t want him to tell me he wants to try again or—and I seriously cannot decide if this is worse or not—say that he’s after closure, too, because I don’t ever want to hear that from him the way I forced him to hear that from me tonight. I don’t even care if that makes me a hypocrite. Bitterness is a bitch.
But I decided a long time ago, after months of tears and second guessing myself, wondering what I could have done differently, that I was done with him. That breakup was on him. Not on me and I hated him for making me feel like I’m less deserving than I am. That if I had done things differently, he wouldn’t have ended it.
I promised myself that even if he ever came crawling back, I wouldn’t give in. I wouldn’t cave. That day on the phone, when he told me he wanted to take a step back? That was the day my heart turned to glass. Firm and unmovable. Cold and lifeless. But so easily shattered. And even when glued back together, there is always a crack. A fissure. A weak spot.
Jameson shattered my heart. And it took me months, if not years, to glue it back together. He is forever my weak spot. I may have told myself I was after closure. I may have told him the same thing. But it’s that weak spot that really lured me in. The masochist who gets off on torturing herself where he’s concerned. I’m forever pulled in his direction. We’re like two bonded atoms. When put together the right way, we spawn a chemical reaction.
Honestly, I was curious to see if it was still there after all this time.
He’s a bastard who hurt you and left you behind without a backwards glance. Right. He did that.
He’s going to hurt you again if given the chance.
“Stop lurking out there and get your ass in here,” Melody calls out and I find myself smiling. Damn her. Twisting the knob, I open the door to find Melody sitting in the light gray rocking chair in the corner of the room, nursing Max. “When do you think he’ll stop using me as a human binky? Every time I take him off my boobs, he cries. He’s getting like his father.”
I snort, rolling my eyes as I walk over to them, sinking down onto the ottoman she has her feet propped up on. “Have you tried a real binky?”
She puffs out some air, her blonde bangs flying up before they fall back into her eyes. Melody needs a haircut. And to change her clothes and shower. Melody needs a break. “I’m afraid to do that. I’ve read that it’s not good for their jaws and that they get attached to them and then it’s nearly impossible to get them to give them up.”
“Yeah, but that won’t be for a few years, and by that point, you’ll have slept and he’ll have slept. And you can always get him braces and offer bribes to get him to give it up.”
“Probably true. Okay, pass me that binky. The one with the stuffed giraffe hanging off it.”
“That was easy.”
“I’m fed up and exhausted. A little persuasion goes a long way with me right now.”
I pick it up off the bookcase next to the rocking chair and hand it to her. I love this room. It’s a little like Pottery Barn Baby threw up in here, but it’s so great. There are wall decals of baby animals playing in a field with a giant tree, flowers, and a bright yellow sun. The furnishings are white with gray and blue fabrics and accents. My mother and José’s mother had a really good time getting this room set up for Max.
Melody pulls Max from her breast and the little man goes nuts, instantly wailing at the top of his lungs and thrashing his ineffectual fists about. She shoves the pacifier in his mouth, holding it there for him, and after a few seconds, he starts to suckle and calms down. “Ah,” she says with a satisfied grin, “music to my ears. Now if I could only get him to fall asleep without being in my arms, the world would be perfect.”
“Why don’t you swaddle him?”
“I’m afraid he’ll suffocate.”
“Christ, Mel. You bought all those expensive sleeping swaddle things. Try one out and keep the video monitor with you. You’ll wear yourself out if you keep this up.”
She shakes her head. “José helps.”
“You know what I’m saying. Come on. We’re going to swaddle him and put him down in his bassinet thing and then you and I are having a glass of wine and a long talk.”
“Can’t I just use the baby as a buffer? You’re much less hostile when I’m holding him.”
“No,” I say, pointing a finger at her.
“Fine. Here. Take him.” I lift Max out of her arms, his eyes already growing heavy as he sucks furiously on his binky. I bring him over to the changing area and set him down gently. God, he’s so fragile and small.
Melody sets to work on changing his diaper and putting him in his pajamas, then tucking him into the swaddle thing that looks more like a blue straightjacket with white elephants on it.
“I ran into Jameson when I was bringing Max for his checkup,” she starts, her eyes on her son. “He was there for his dad and he saw me trying to get something to eat in the cafeteria while Max napped in his carrier. He wordlessly bought me lunch and sat with me, even though I told him to screw off.” She pauses, glances in my direction and then back down to Max. “The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I need to talk to her.’”
When she’s finished with Max, she picks him up, holds him out for me to kiss his tiny, dark-haired head and then sets him down in his bassinet with a kiss on both his cheeks and nose. We leave Max’s room, head back downstairs and into her kitchen where the video monitor is. José is nowhere to be found and even though I adore my brother-in-law, it’s a relief.
“I know you think I set you up,” she says, a sheepish grin on her face. “I guess I did, but I did it for a reason and I think you need to hear me out.”
“I know what you’re going to say, Mel. It’s the same thing that Ethan and Cass have been saying. That I need to get over him. That facing him and getting the chance to say goodbye might be the only way to do that.”
“Honestly, that’s not what I was going to say. I get Cass and Ethan’s thoughts on this. Part of me agrees, but a larger part doesn’t.”
I sit back in my seat, folding my arms protectively across my chest. I hate the look she’s giving me right now. It makes me wish I had hopped a plane back to California immediately after I walked out of that restaurant, instead of marching over here.
“What I was going to say is that everyone makes mistakes,” I open my mouth to jump all over that, but she holds her hand up stopping me. Max makes a few fussy noises from his room and she turns her complete attention to the monitor, making sure her son is okay. He is and he quiets down after a beat so she shifts back to me and says, “I know what he did was fucked up. I know he stopped trying and generally gave up on you. I know he ended things in the most bullshit, asshole of ways. I know this. And I do not excuse that.”
“Then what, Mel? I really don’t get it.”
Her eyes fix back on the monitor as she says, “José cheated on me.” My eyes bug out of my head and my jaw hits the floor. “It was before we were married or even engaged. We had been dating for about a year and he went to Vegas for a friend’s bachelor party. Long story short, he cheated one very drunk night.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe, my hand covering my mouth in shock. “I had no idea.”
“No one does. I didn’t want you to hate him, so I never said anything. He regretted it, obviously. Hell, he was more of a mess than I was. It took a lot for me to forgive him. For us to work past it. And I’m not comparing the two, Lyric. I’m not.” She turns to look at me, square in the eyes, her expression so severe that I find it hard to maintain eye contact. I want to look away
. Anywhere but at her. “But Jameson did make a mistake. A mistake he acknowledged to me over and over again. A mistake he regrets and wishes he could take back. A mistake he hates himself for.” Melody reaches out, taking my hand away from my body and holding it between us as she squeezes it tight. “I’m not saying that what he did was okay or right or just. I’m not even saying you should forgive him and take him back. I’m just saying that you should hear what he has to say. That’s all I was trying to do tonight.”
“Did José come back to you and apologize?” She nods. “Did he beg for forgiveness?” Another nod. “Did he do everything he could to get you to forgive him?” A sigh this time and then a nod. “Jameson never did any of that.”
Melody releases my hand as I stand up. She looks wrecked. I turn to walk away, and she stops me with, “You still love him, though.”
I pause, my hands going to my hips and my chin hitting my chest. “Yes. But I don’t want to. It’s time I get on with my life. He certainly has.”
“You don’t know that. He wouldn’t have called you if that were true.”
I shake my head and walk toward the front door. So very done with this conversation. With Jameson.
“Let José drive you home.”
“That’s not–”
“Yes, it is,” he says, suddenly appearing out of nowhere like a damn ghost. “Come on. Go get some sleep, Mel. You’re exhausted. I just checked on Max. He’s fast asleep and I’ll be on baby duty tonight.”
“I knew there was a reason I married you,” Melody says, her exhaustion catching up to her.
José and I reach his car, and we’re silent until he says, “She told you? About what I did in Vegas?”
“Yes,” I say quietly, slightly embarrassed. Both for him and for me.
“It’s okay, you know. I told her she could. I was an idiot. I got blackout drunk and woke up naked next to some girl I couldn’t remember. It was easily the worst moment of my life.” He glances in my direction briefly, gaging my reaction before he turns back to the road. “I didn’t tell her right away. I was afraid she’d leave me. Tried to convince myself that what she didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her. It took me over a month until the guilt finally ate me alive and I fessed up.”
“José—” I start, because I know what he’s doing.
“I worship your sister,” he cuts me off, not letting me speak. “I’ve loved her from the first second I saw her. She is my goddamn universe and I still did something I thought I would never ever do. Sometimes people fuck up,” he goes on, catching my eye briefly. “Sometimes people fuck up so bad that they don’t know how to fix it. They make excuses and rationalize things they know better than to rationalize. Sometimes we find ourselves in the deep end of a nightmare with no idea how to swim out of it and end up sinking in deeper. Drowning in our choices. I don’t know if that’s what happened with Jameson. I didn’t talk to him, but Melody did. He told her something to convince your overprotective, adoring big sister to give him your number. To set up that dinner. That’s all I’m saying.”
I can’t respond to any of that. My head feels like it’s on a Tilt-a-Whirl. Or that Tea Cups ride at Disney World. Basically, I feel like my brain is being scrambled and I need to throw up. José pulls past the gates into my parents’ house and I get out, thanking him for the ride and not mentioning the intense conversation we just had. My parents aren’t home tonight. They drive home from Vermont tomorrow and I’ve never been so grateful to have their mansion to myself.
Drowning in our choices, Jose said. Why do I have a feeling I’m about to know just what that feels like?
Chapter 21
Jameson
* * *
I sat there in the restaurant much longer than I should have just…staring off. I heard her words. I listened to every single one with the focus of a general going into battle. Closure. That’s why she came. She came for closure. And wow, that’s like…shit. I have no words for what that’s like. I don’t want her to have closure. I don’t want her to tell me that she never wants to see me again.
But it’s what I expected, so I can’t exactly get too worked up yet.
What I didn’t expect was for her to tell me that the guy I’ve observed her with, the one I saw at her Malibu house that fateful night when I flew out to her, the one I’ve noticed with her in publicity shots and at the Grammys with, is her fucking gay friend Ethan. Gay. As in, not interested in pussy. As in, not interested in Lyric’s pussy. Jesus Christ. I can’t even wrap my head around how stupid I am. How so much of my life since then has been dictated by that night. By that guy. By the notion that Lyric was happy, even if I wasn’t.
That thought got me through.
It’s what stopped me from going completely insane whenever I saw those pictures. Whenever I saw him holding her hand at the Grammys as they smiled at each other. Ethan. How could I not have known? Four. Years. For four years I believed she was with him. I kept searching for a wedding notice. For something that would force me to once and for all let go of the Lyric Rose torch that had continued to burn bright in my chest.
I never figured out how to extinguish it. There was no magic switch that would erase her. That would help me get over her. My love for her has not diminished. Maybe because she’s right. We never had closure. We were always unfinished. And that’s exactly the way I liked us. Unfinished.
She’s single. All. This. Fucking. Time. She’s been single. It makes me want to simultaneously fist pump into the air and slam that fist into a brick wall. Melody told me she was single when I ran into her at the hospital, but I didn’t fully believe her. Those pictures of her with Ethan were everywhere anytime I looked Lyric up. Which was embarrassingly often. I cornered Melody in the hospital cafeteria, averting my eyes while she nursed her tiny baby after I bought her lunch, all the while badgering and begging her relentlessly about Lyric. In truth, Melody didn’t give me much to work with.
All she said was that Lyric is single and that if I go after her again and hurt her again, she’d have their father use every connection he has and have me eliminated. Doesn’t worry me, I told her. I have no intention of ever hurting Lyric again. All that hurt she threw at me last night is old hurt. It’s festered hurt. It’s why she says she needs closure.
Because she hasn’t been happy.
All this time, she’s missed me as much as I missed her. So yeah, I promised Melody I wouldn’t give Lyric any new hurt and I meant that. I no longer make promises I don’t know I can keep, and I know I can keep this one.
Four years in between then and now and look at us. It would be comical if it weren’t so goddamn tragic. And ironic. Yeah. It’s that, too. But I have plans for Lyric. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Sighing out, I clear my throat. “So now what?” I ask the neurologist as I sit back into one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. It’s annoyingly reminiscent of the last time we did this. Only this time, the right side of his body is weak. And the right side of his face droops a little. And he doesn’t have as many words directed my way and whatever he does say is slightly garbled.
I hate seeing my father like this. It’s so much worse than when he had the heart attack. Now he just looks beaten by life. By his poor health.
“He goes to rehab,” Dianne says, even though I wasn’t asking her. She’s been standing by the window and staring down at her nails or out at the crap scenery every time she’s here, which isn’t often and isn’t for very long. The waiting room evidently isn’t any different than my father’s room. I don’t say anything about it. I accepted the last time my father had a major health incident that some people are not strong enough to handle things like this. That’s Dianne. She loves my father and that’s all that I care about.
“Right now, Mr. Woods is stable and doing very well with the treatment plan we’ve set up for him. We should be able to discharge him in two days to the rehab you chose. It’s a great facility for him and he’ll have the very best care. With enough diligence and proper
lifestyle changes, we’re very hopeful about his recovery.”
I love that. Doctor language. What that says is we have no fucking clue if he’ll be a limping, drooling, slurring mess for the rest of his life. And I get it. There are no guarantees with this. My father never changed the things he was supposed to change after his heart attack. He figured that having a stent placed in his artery was enough. And since no one appreciates it when someone says I told you so, I’ve kept my mouth shut about that.
I had that talk with him multiple times and it didn’t do dick.
“Okay. Sounds good, I guess.” Because really, what am I supposed to say? I seriously have no idea. If something like this is going to happen every five years, I need to develop a better way to cope.
“If you have any further questions, I’m on call tonight and my colleague, Dr. Guhan, will be here tomorrow.”
I stand up and the doctor follows suit, and we shake hands. “Thank you,” I say to him. He throws Dianne a cursory glance, though she doesn’t turn or say anything and then he’s gone. “I’m heading back in,” I say to her.
“I’m going to go, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Sure.” I head toward the door without so much as a backwards glance. I’d love to say that over the years our relationship has improved. It hasn’t. The only thing about me that she likes is the fact that I’m very good at what I do. Which is exactly what my father used to do before he retired and left everything to me. Which means that our stock is doing well and she will never have any financial worries for as long as she lives.
I hate hospitals. I hate the smell of chemical disinfectants and sick people. I hate the way everything looks sterile and yet contaminated at the same time. I hate the way everything takes hours instead of minutes to get done. Walking down the center of the hall, because I can’t stand the idea of touching even the walls, I round the corner, smile at the nurses behind their station and then find my father’s room, all the way down at the end of the opposite hall.