Separation Anxiety

by Lisa Suzanne

  “Yep. Yummypants,” she repeated, and I had to agree.

  “Wait until you hear the best part.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “He told me he’s had feelings for me since the day he first saw me.”

  “So sweet I might puke.”

  “Be happy for me.”

  “I’m so happy for you, Veronica. I love you, and Jesse… he’s a fucking catch. You’ve been different – happier, lighter – since you left Dick, and I don’t know if it’s because you left him or if it’s because of Jesse.”

  “Or a combination of both.”

  “Regardless, you deserve it.”

  I grinned and grabbed her hand across the table, giving it a squeeze. “Thanks, Curley Q,” I smiled, teasing her by calling her the goofy nickname her parents had called her since she was a baby.

  “You’re welcome, Va-Va-Va-Voom,” she giggled, calling me by the nickname my younger brother had given me when he was little.

  It felt good to chat with a friend who knew me so well, and I was grateful for her friendship. I was starting to wonder how I had kept the fact that Richard and I were separated a secret for so long. Quinn really was a good friend, and I’d shut her and everyone else in my life out and chose to go through a difficult situation alone. If I’d only talked to someone sooner, maybe I could’ve gotten out of it sooner.

  But ifs and buts got me nowhere. The way things had happened had fallen into place for a reason, and I was more convinced than ever that it was so that Jesse and I could finally find our way to each other.

  The week passed quickly; I had signed up for prom committee, and prom was a couple of weeks after we got back from spring break, so we had a lot of planning to do.

  Lucky for me, one very sexy Mr. Jesse Drake was also on the prom committee. He was in charge of the senior class Student Council, and they were the class who planned prom.

  Jesse made me his deputy, which meant that we had long nights of supervising while the students did most of the work. They made posters to advertise for the dance, they picked a theme, they chose decorations for the venue, they set playlists, they made party favors and centerpieces. We oversaw the process, but really, we spent most of our time with our heads bent together close in conversation while the kids worked.

  I wondered what high school Jesse was like, what it would’ve been like to be his date to the prom. He showed me a picture of himself that his prom date from his junior year had uploaded to Facebook for a Throwback Thursday photo. He definitely would’ve been the kid I had a crush on back in high school. He was attractive even then; he looked like the kind of kid who had never gone through that awkward gawky phase, something I most definitely went through my freshman year of high school. But his eyes had that haunted look that I became familiar with whenever he came home after he’d gotten a call from Carly. He was smiling in his prom picture, but it looked forced, and I could see an air of brooding about him. I wondered what sort of event happened that could cause such grief in a teenager.

  Finally Friday afternoon arrived. We had a happy hour to attend first, and then Jesse and I were going to spend the night packing so we could leave early the next morning. His parents, I’d discovered, lived in Santa Monica, California. So that meant we were heading to the beach for our two week long spring break. I didn’t care that March meant it would be far too cold to swim in the ocean. I’d have Jesse Drake to warm me up.

  I remembered that vision I’d had of Jesse in swim trunks at the beach. I was about to see that beautiful image come to fruition.

  In the spirit of not being super obvious about not only our living situation but also our budding relationship, Jesse and I decided not to sit directly next to each other during happy hour. It was a long table with five chairs on one side, five on the other, and one at each end. Jesse sat at the head of the table, and I was midway down one of the sides seated between Quinn and Avery. The two actually reminded me a lot of each other; both were boy crazy, both were loud, both tended toward the raunchy side of things, and both made me laugh until tears were streaming down my face, as was the case at Friday’s happy hour.

  Avery was recounting a story about one of the men she’d slept with in the science department, leaving very few details to the imagination. We all knew exactly who she was talking about, which made the story even funnier.

  I glanced over at Jesse and his eyes met mine, warm with merriment.

  I was struck with the thought that if I was out with Richard and our table was getting noisy and boisterous, he would’ve shushed me or given me a dirty look meant to quiet me down.

  Not Jesse.

  Jesse joined right in on the laughter, and his wide smile only made me smile even more. His smile warmed my heart, and I knew without a doubt that it was because I had fallen in love with him.

  It wasn’t just because he had saved me.

  It wasn’t just because he was so damn sexy that just looking at him was enough to get my motor running.

  It wasn’t just because he listened to me and protected me and pressed his lips to my forehead every night to make me feel adored and cherished.

  It was all of those things, but it was also his heart and his goodness and the way he cared about others. It was the way he put others before himself. It was the way he was haunted after he went God only knows where to do God only knows what. It was the way he held me in the night as if he was recharging the strength he lost when we were apart.

  And, most of all, it was the way that he needed me as much as I needed him.

  CHAPTER 11

  Saturday morning found me scrambling to get everything in my suitcase. I was suddenly a nervous Nellie to meet the Drakes, and I was honestly a little hung over after happy hour. We’d stayed later than we had meant to, and Jesse stealthily communicated to me via text from the other end of the table that it was no big deal to get my car the next morning before we left for California if I wanted to have more than one glass of wine.

  I was regretting the four more glasses of wine as my head pounded the next morning. No one except Quinn knew about our situation, but I had nearly spilled the beans the night before. I had stupidly confessed to the entire group that I was getting a divorce, and I saw Jesse’s shocked eyes as I made my announcement. I was about to say that I was already seeing someone new when Quinn stopped me and pulled me to the restroom with her.

  Thank God for good friends who know how to shut you the hell up when you’ve had too much to drink. Jesse and I didn’t need the gossip mill working overtime. We’d let people know in time, when the time was right. It still wasn’t even something we discussed.

  In fact, I wasn’t sure exactly where we stood.

  Clearly things were progressing between us, but I was still married. In some ways, I felt like I was in a relationship with Jesse, but in other ways, I felt like we were in a weird limbo zone. I still hadn’t had the feeling that he’d been sleeping around since I started staying with him. But really, all we had done was kiss. Some really, really hot kissing. Well, and we’d slept in the same bed together every night since the first time.

  Apart from that, we were taking things slowly, but not because we didn’t both want more. Jesse didn’t press me for more, either. I knew he wanted it; he’d admitted it to me on more than one occasion, but we had the understanding that we were going to wait until I was no longer a married woman.

  After we’d picked up my car and stowed it safely in the garage, we got in Jesse’s truck and started our trek toward California. He had carefully loaded the beautiful, now completed end table into the bed of the truck, wrapping it in blankets and tying it down with rope. We had a six hour drive ahead of us, and we planned on returning home either Wednesday or Thursday of the following week. That meant nearly two weeks in California with Jesse Drake, and I was ecstatic for the getaway.

  Richard randomly prickled in my mind as we pulled out of the driveway. I hadn’t heard from him since he told me I had to move out of Jesse’s. A strange fe
eling pulled at me as I thought about what his reaction must’ve been when he realized that I hadn’t moved out.

  “You’re quiet,” Jesse commented as we pulled out of his neighborhood.

  “Sorry.”

  “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Richard just popped into my head.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. But I haven’t heard from him since he told me that I needed to move out of your place, and it scares me that I don’t know what he’s thinking. He’s dangerous, Jesse.”

  He grabbed my hand and brought my fingertips to his lips. “You have nothing to worry about, V.”

  I smiled. Just like that, I felt better. I knew he was right.

  We played the “Name that Song” game with my iPod on shuffle for awhile, and then Jesse became quiet and introspective.

  We were about two hours into the trip, driving through the barren desert landscape. Traffic was light, and I felt Jesse pulling further and further away from me.

  “What are you thinking about?” I finally asked, feeling the urge to help him through whatever he seemed to be suffering.

  He glanced over at me, and then he stared straight ahead at the road, gripping the steering wheel tightly in both of his hands. “My sister,” he said, his voice a whisper.

  That wasn’t what I had expected to hear. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. He blew out a breath. “I have some… things I should probably tell you before we get to my parents’ house.”

  I felt one of those ripples of fear of the unknown travel down my spine. I waited patiently and quietly for another piece of the Jesse puzzle – this one perhaps the biggest, the one I’d been waiting for – to finally click firmly into place.

  “Monday marks the fifteenth anniversary of my sister’s death.”

  The fear running through my spine was replaced with compassion. “Oh my God, Jesse,” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He nodded, his eyes still focused straight ahead. Clearly this was a difficult conversation for him to have. I’d never seen him so withdrawn, even when he left to go see whoever Carly was. I wanted to see his eyes to know how this still affected him, even after fifteen years. His eyes truly were the window to his soul, and I knew that I’d get a better gauge on him if he’d just look at me. But he was driving, and maybe he’d specifically saved this conversation until this moment for that very reason.

  “Can I ask what happened?” I asked, turning down the radio to hear his story.

  “Suicide.”

  I put my hand on his arm as safely as I could while he was driving because I suddenly had to touch him, and he pulled one hand off the steering wheel to hold mine.

  I didn’t know what to say. How does anybody respond to such a tragedy? What words could possibly help, even after all the time that had passed?

  The answer was clear: There was nothing.

  He laced his fingers through mine, still not moving his eyes from the road.

  He kept talking. “She was a freshman in college. She swallowed a bottle of Xanax down with a bottle of vodka. By the time her roommate found her, it was too late.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, my fingers tightening against his as I realized the heartbreaking and devastating irony of swallowing too many pills that were likely prescribed in order to battle depression.

  “She didn’t leave a note, but it was clear that she’d meant to do it.”

  “Any idea why?”

  He shook his head. “That’s what makes it so difficult. Even fifteen years later, I still don’t have any answers.”

  “Were they her pills?”

  He shook his head again. “Her roommate’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Jesse.”

  I felt his fingers tighten against mine. “Thank you.”

  We were both quiet for a moment. I didn’t know what else to say; I didn’t want to press too many questions and make him uncomfortable, and even though it was a tragedy, I was glad he told me. His revelation would only bond us closer together.

  “V, I’ve never talked about this with anyone voluntarily.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said, feeling overwhelmed with love for him. I felt honored that he trusted me enough to talk about what was clearly the most difficult event of his life. I brought our joined hands up to my lips and kept them there as he continued talking.

  “I didn’t handle it well. None of us did, actually. My parents nearly got divorced because of it. I turned into a delinquent.”

  I remembered the picture of Jesse at his prom, and now I understood the brooding, haunted look in his eyes. If his sister died fifteen years earlier, that would have made him about a sophomore in high school. He’d told me the picture he showed me was from his junior prom, only about a year after his sister’s death. I couldn’t imagine losing someone I loved so much to something so tragic with so many questions surrounding the circumstances, especially at the tender age of only fifteen.

  “My parents forced me into counseling. They wanted me to talk to someone, thinking that if I just got it out, I’d start to behave again. But none of it helped. Looking back now, I was clearly starved for attention because my parents were dealing with losing their daughter while their marriage fell apart, so I acted out. I was an asshole to everyone around me. I started drinking because it numbed the pain. I got in a shitload of trouble at school.” He paused and took a deep breath, lost in the memories as he drove through the desert.

  I sat quietly as I waited for him to continue.

  “And then I met Dr. Dustin. He was young and he’d gone through something similar, and I just clicked with him. He encouraged me to take up a hobby, something that I could put all of my focus into. For him, it had been furniture. I asked him if he would show me, and he taught me everything I know about it. My life was falling apart, but he was an adult who believed in me and spent time with me when I felt like no one cared, my parents included.”

  “Is he the one who told you that you’d make a great counselor?”

  He nodded, pressing his lips into a thin line.

  “He was right,” I whispered.

  I felt his fingers tighten over mine again. We were both quiet as I thought about juvenile Jesse acting out from a place of pain and then getting his life back on track because of one adult who took an interest.

  “Tell me about your sister,” I said quietly.

  “She was my best friend. She was three years older than me, a senior when I was a freshman. She took care of me. Everyone loved her and she was good and kind. She never hurt anybody, which is why none of us could understand why she hurt herself. I just kept thinking that I could have done something differently. I blamed myself for a long time. I still do, sometimes.”

  A conversation with Jesse replayed itself in my mind. He had once said to me, “I was always there, but maybe you just didn’t realize it.” I knew now that he had been talking not just to me, but about his sister. He’d been there for her, but it was too late for her. She never realized that she had people who loved her and who wanted to save her from herself.

  But I did, and now that I knew the significance behind his words, I knew that he had been trying to save me.

  And he had succeeded.

  I would never have gotten to the point where I could do something so tragically drastic as to end it all the way his sister had, but he still saved me from the life I hated with Richard, even if at the time I’d live it with complacency and indifference and I didn’t realize how much I was missing by being trapped in a dead-end marriage.

  “Jesse, it’s not your fault.”

  “Deep down, I know that. After all of my training and my classes and my own therapy, I know that she had a disease that none of us had identified and that there was nothing any of us could’ve done differently. But it doesn’t stop the wonder or the blame.”

  And then it hit me.

  The tattoo. The phoenix symbolizing rebirth and
renewal. The heart and the cross. Allison.

  “What was her name?” I asked carefully.

  He finally glanced over at me, for the first time during the entire conversation. I could see the grief in his eyes that he still carried with him after fifteen years. It was different from the haunted look that crossed his eyes when he came back from visiting Carly. It was hurt and anger and sadness and bitterness all rolled together, and all I wanted to do was take him in my arms and hold him. Pain like that doesn’t just go away, especially when he had to live with so many unanswered questions.

  “Allison,” he whispered.

  Mystery solved.

  “When did you get your tattoo?” I asked.

  “The ten year anniversary of her death.”

  “Five years ago?”

  He nodded.

  “Why a phoenix?”

  “The symbol of immortality. She may be gone, but she’ll always live in my heart.”

  The image of “Allison” inside of the heart in the cross flashed through my mind, and I felt chills in my spine as tears pricked behind my eyes at his loss. “It’s a beautiful tribute,” I said.

  A ghost of a smile lifted the corner of his lips, but he didn’t respond.

  I wanted to ask about Carly, but he had already shared so much with me. I let it go. Just as he’d told me about Allison, he would tell me who Carly was when he was ready.

  “I’m glad you told me,” I finally whispered.

  His eyes met mine for the briefest of moments and then returned to the road. He pulled our still joined hands up to his mouth and brushed his lips across my knuckles.

  “Me, too,” he murmured.

  “Tell me about your parents,” I said, trying to lighten some of the heaviness that had descended on the car.

  “My mom, Judy, is an elementary school principal. And my dad, Phil, is a doctor.”

  “Wait. So your dad is Dr. Phil?”

  He laughed. “Yep. So original, by the way. I’ve never heard that one before,” he said sarcastically.

  “You grew up with a principal and a doctor as your parents?”

  He nodded. “Getting into trouble was highly frowned upon. But my parents are great. I appreciate them much more now that I’m an adult.”