Worth It

by Nicki DeStasi

  “Oh crap. Excuse me, Anna.” She walks over to whatever is behind me.

  I turn around, and I clench my jaw when I see Danielle smiling up at a scowling Jed. I wonder if she told him that he was outed. He’s whispering harshly at her, and I watch as Maggie walks up to them. Then, they are all speaking in hushed tones. He glances over at me with a hard jaw, and he looks pissed.

  Pissed? Fuck you, asshole.

  I walk over to the coat closet and grab my jacket and purse. I walk—well, I storm outside to his truck. It’s childish, I know, but I’m not going to stand there and be betrayed and humiliated any more. The truck is locked, so I just wait in the cold for Jed to come out. I might be out here for a while. He might want to get in a quickie with that bitch before he takes me home. Actually, I don’t even know if he’s going to take me home. No, I think he’ll at least do that much. What the fuck do I know though? I thought I knew him, I thought I loved him, but for all I know, he’s an alien from Mars.

  I lean my head against the window of his truck and bang on it lightly. With my arms crossed over my chest, I clench my teeth together so hard that my jaw aches.

  How does this keep happening? How? This one might hurt the most because I didn’t even see it coming, not even a little. I feel like I’ve been sucker-punched by a Mack truck.

  “Hey, you okay?” Jed asks softly as he wraps his arms around me.

  I sidestep him, still keeping my back to him. He must be out of his ever-lovin’ mind if he thinks he can touch me when he knows full well he’s been outed. But I guess it’s possible he doesn’t know. I don’t care. I just need to get home before I break down.

  “Can you take me back to my car?” I say coolly.

  He doesn’t say anything for a second, but then he finally says, “Sure.”

  He unlocks the door and holds it open for me. I want to roll my eyes, but I refrain as I climb into the car. As mad as he got about my other asshole exes, at least they didn’t really pretend to be sweet.

  He climbs in the car and starts it to get the heater going, but he doesn’t put it in gear.

  In my peripheral vision, I see him turn to me. I swear to God, he better not say anything right now. I don’t think I can hold back if he does. I don’t know if it’ll be tears or anger that comes out, but either way, it’s not going to be pretty.

  “Did Danielle say anything to you?” he prods softly.

  I swallow hard, trying desperately to hold on to that last thread. “Can you just please take me back, Jed?” I say as evenly as I can.

  “I will, but I need to know what happened in there.”

  That’s it! I turn to him. Anger it is then. “Fine. You want to do this now?” I shout. “Yes, I ran into your girlfriend, and she informed me that you guys were together last Friday.”

  He flinches at my tone. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never had a confrontation like this with a boyfriend.

  “You don’t really believe that, right? I told you about her and how crazy she is. I’ve told you I would never do that to you. I meant it. I would never cheat,” he says as calmly as he can.

  I can see the anger behind his eyes though, and I can’t hold in my snort of laughter.

  “A picture is worth a thousand fucking words, Jed.” I turn toward the window because the tears are now threatening to make an appearance, and I will not let him see me cry.

  “What?” he asks, completely confused.

  I turn back to him and scream, “I said, A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND FUCKING WORDS! You ASSHOLE!” As crazy angry as I am right now, inside, I’m patting myself on the back. It’s about damn time I stood up for myself.

  “Jesus Christ, Anna, I have no fucking idea what the fuck you’re screaming about. Last weekend, I woke up, and she was in the bed next to me. She tried to get back with me, but I pushed her away and left. I don’t want anything to do with her. I WANT YOU!” he roars back.

  Somewhere inside me, I’m surprised I didn’t flitch. “Bullshit. If that were true, why didn’t you say anything about what happened before now? And why does she have a picture of the two of you”—I choke back my tears—“in BED. TOGETHER!”

  “I swear to you, Anna, I swear, she is a manipulative, lying bitch who won’t unhook her claws from me. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think about it. I was pissed at her at the time, but once I got home, I completely forgot about it. She means nothing to me. Nothing. So, her stupid fucking stunt wasn’t even a blip in my memory,” he responds, barely containing his anger and frustration. He takes a calming breath and continues, “Maybe she took a picture while I was asleep. I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t cheat on you.”

  Angry tears course down my face. “Take me home, Jed.” I don’t believe his lying fucking mouth. He’s just twisting the knife deeper.

  After a couple of beats, he slams his fist on the steering wheel and roars, “Son of a BITCH!”

  This time I flinch and stare at him as he takes a couple of deep breaths. Then, he opens the door, steps out, and slams the door before walking over to a small crowd. Up until now, I didn’t even realize they were there.

  Fucking fantastic. I have an audience. I don’t even know where this fighting and shouting girl came from. Maybe I’ve reached a breaking point. Maybe it’s because a part of me now believes that I do deserve the happily ever after. I don’t know. All I know is that it finally feels good to stand up for myself. Sure, I did with Sam, but that was months too late. I’m not going to lie down and get railroaded anymore.

  I watch him walk over to the crowd of ten or so people, and he stops in front of someone. I can’t see who it is because he’s blocking my view, but I can tell he’s livid. His stance is tense, and his hands are waving around in jerky movements. He finally steps away, and I can see that it’s Danielle. He shouts at her one last time and points toward the truck.

  Danielle walks over to the truck in stilled strides with her arms crossed over her chest, and Jed follows close behind her, fuming.

  I want to roll my eyes. This is a little over the top. You’ve been caught, dick. Give it up.

  They reach the truck, and Jed reaches over to open my door.

  Crap, I should have locked it.

  She glares daggers at me, and then she turns to Jed. In a low voice, she says, “You’re making a mistake, baby. I did this for us. You belong with me, and you know it.”

  My anger stalls, and I tilt my head to the side. Why would she say that to her boyfriend?

  He throws his hands in the air and shouts, “You are not going to ruin my life! There is no us. There is no you and me. We’ve been over for months.” He gets in her face and lowers his voice, “You tell her the fucking truth right the fuck now.”

  My anger begins to fade, and confusion kicks in. What the hell is going on?

  She defiantly shakes her head. “You are mine, Jed. I’m not going to let this skank get between us,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

  What the hell? Why am I a skank?

  “I swear to fucking Christ…” He bends his head to whisper in her ear, and it’s too low for me to hear, but whatever he says, it makes her go pale.

  Her head hangs, and her shoulders slump. After a deep breath, she raises her head to stare pleadingly at him. “Please don’t end us, Jed.”

  I am so fucking baffled right now, but things are obviously not what I thought.

  Jed growls loudly before he says, “Danielle, we have been over for over six months. If you have even a shred of decency in you, you’ll tell Anna the truth—right the fuck now.”

  She stares at him for a few more seconds as a tear leaks out of her eye, and she sniffs. She blows out a breath slowly, and then she turns to face me. “I lied. We didn’t get back together last weekend. I took the picture while he was sleeping.”

  The fuck you say?

  My mind blanks as I take in her admission. As what she did settles in, I feel my eyes grow wide from shock, astonishment, confusion, shame, embarr
assment, humiliation, irritation, anger, fury, lividness, rage. My body shakes until all I see is red, and before I realize what I’m doing, my fist rears back and slams into her mouth. She stumbles back, falling on her ass.

  “You stupid bitch!” I launch out of the truck and jump on her. “You almost destroyed the best thing to ever happen to me!”

  I only land two punches on her pretty face before Jed pulls me off her. I struggle in his arms for a second before I remember I have an audience, and I glance up to see most of them are watching me with shock while some of them look on with humor.

  Then, to my surprise, Jed’s funny friend, John, begins that movie clap where it starts off slow and gets faster, and people join in…only no one joins in, and someone elbows him in the ribs, making him stop.

  Skank whore and her not-so-pretty-anymore face gets up. Glaring at me, she wipes the blood off her mouth. She turns to Jed, who’s holding me around the waist even though I’ve stopped struggling.

  She snarls, “You really want this bitch, this stupid, violent cunt? You have got to be kidding me. Her over me?” She shakes her head. “Don’t call me when you finally realize your mistake,” she spits out before stalking off into the house.

  “Fucking Christ. About time she let it go,” Jed mutters to himself before turning me in his arms and holding me by the shoulders.

  I look up into his eyes as guilt settles like a ball of lead into the pit of my stomach. Shit, I can’t read his face at all. Was my mistrust enough to push him away? Is he sick of my batshit crazy behavior? My shoulders begin to tense as my panic rises, but I try to squash it down. I caused this, and it’s my own fault.

  I chew on my lip nervously. “I’m sorry, Jed.”

  His lips thin and he clenches his jaw. He closes his eyes and takes a deep through his nose before he opens his eyes and nods his head once. “We’ll talk about it in the truck. Let’s go say good-bye to Mark and Maggie.”

  We have just started on our way back to my apartment where Anna’s car is, and I’m fuming. If Danielle were a man, she’d be in the hospital right now.

  Who fucking does that? Seriously.

  She wasn’t even supposed to be there because Maggie asked her to step down from the bridal party after last week’s fucking bullshit. That was huge for timid Maggie, but Danielle is crazy and came anyway.

  “Jed, I—” Anna starts softly.

  I cut her off and hold up a finger, telling her to give me a minute.

  I’ve seen how she reacts to anger, and I don’t want to scare her, so I need to calm down before we talk. And boy, are we talking. I was actually floored with the way the fight went down between us. It’s ironic that she finally stood up for herself, when I didn’t do anything wrong.

  I’m not mad at Anna. When I stormed over to that succubus, the first thing I demanded was to see the picture. She tried to deny it at first, but come on, she knew that I knew there was some misleading picture she had shown Anna, and I wasn’t backing down until I saw it, too. When I finally got a glimpse of it, I was so fucking livid that it took all my willpower from every single cell in my body not to lay a finger on her. This fucking psycho not only treated me like shit when we were together, but now that I’ve finally found someone I really care about, she tried to destroy it so underhandedly that Satan’s probably giving her a round of applause, and she hurt Anna. This girl has been hurt enough, and I’m so fucking pissed that the trust that I’ve so carefully built was nearly shattered because of that witch. I had to pull out the big guns and threaten to tell her state senator daddy that she has her current job because she routinely gets on her knees for her boss. I know that because Mark works in the same office.

  “I’m so sorry, Jed,” Anna tries again.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing myself to be calm. Another couple of seconds go by before I think I can act and speak like a normal human being rather than acting like a raging bull ready to charge the matador.

  “Anna, I’m not mad at you. I might be a little hurt because you didn’t believe me, but I’m not mad. I saw the picture she took, and I can see how it looked.” I swallow thickly. “If the situations were reversed, I’d probably want an explanation, too.”

  She seems to release a sigh of relief. I turn my head toward her, and she’s chewing her lip.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she says quietly. “That’s the last thing I want to do and the last thing you deserve.”

  I look out the windshield and think about this situation we’ve found ourselves in. I’m sure as shit not letting her go, but that didn’t have to escalate the way it did. Instead of believing I’d fuck around on her, when I’ve told her I wouldn’t, she should have come to me and asked me to explain. It’s like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that’s no way to live. Even if she weren’t with me, she should be happy with herself. She should love herself.

  “Like I said, Anna, I’m not mad. I’m just a little upset that you didn’t trust me enough to talk to me. I have never done anything to make you mistrust me. In fact, I’ve done everything I can to earn your trust.”

  She nods in agreement and turns to look out the window. “I’m sorry,” she says again, defeated.

  I sigh. “Listen, baby, I don’t want you to apologize. I just want you to trust me.”

  She glances over at me with those big blue eyes so full of remorse that my chest aches, and I hate it. This wouldn’t have been an issue if she didn’t have those underlying problems or her self-doubt. I want her to get better, not just for my own sanity but also for us, for her.

  “I think you should see someone.”

  Her eyes grow wide and I almost want to take it back because she looks so ashamed, embarrassed, and hurt. But I can’t take it back. I think it’s time to really try and push her to do this. She needs it. I know she does, and hopefully, it’ll help her see herself the way I do.

  Tears fill her eyes, and she glances away. I reach over and place my hand on her knee.

  “Hey,” I say softly, “baby, look at me.”

  She glances at me and her jaw is working, her tears falling down her cheeks.

  “Anna, baby, I’m not trying to hurt you. I think it would be good for you. I think if you were able to work things out, then you would be happier. We’d be happier.”

  “You’re not happy with me?” she squeaks.

  I want to roll my eyes because of the part of the sentence she narrowed in on, but I don’t. I want her to see and understand that she needs to do this. “Anna, I’m very happy with you, but I think if you were happy with yourself and you were able to see what I see, then you’d be more secure in what we have here. Tonight wouldn’t have gone the way it did. If you have doubts, I want you to come to me, just like I’d come to you.”

  I see her jaw working and the wheels turning. “I don’t know if I can do that, Jed.”

  “Why?”

  She looks back out her window and whispers so quietly that I almost miss it, “I don’t want to fall down.”

  My brow creases in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  She sighs and rubs her face with her hand before looking back at me. “It took me a long time to be able to get to where I am now, to be able to shove everything out of the way, so I can move forward.”

  I think that over for a second. “But are you really moving forward?” She starts to talk, but I cut her off. “You’re constantly waiting for us to fall apart. You’ve let assholes treat you like shit, you have nightmares, you almost had a nervous breakdown when I freaked out about Jared, and you are not happy with who you are. I know there is more you’re not telling me, and for now, I can accept that you’re not ready to share it with me, but you need to talk to someone. You need to heal. Pushing everything aside will not make it go away. You’re only setting it aside.”

  I rack my brains for the right words. “Maybe it’s like dirty dishes or something. You can set them aside, but they’re only going to grow mold and stink.”

 
I glance over at her, and I can see a tiny smirk under her seriousness.

  “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best analogy, but I want you to deal with this. You need to deal with this. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  Her throat bobs as she tries to swallow before she looks back out the window. I can see her internal battle as her jaw works, and she tries to control her tears that slowly drip down her face. She glances back over at me and studies me. I wish I knew what she was thinking, which way those gears were turning.

  Finally, she nods reluctantly. “You’re probably right, Jed. I actually thought about it briefly last week when I bolted.” She sighs and leans her head back to look at the ceiling of the truck’s cab. “I just feel stupid and weak going to see someone, like I’m not strong enough to handle it on my own, you know? Sure, I’ve had some shitty experiences, but they’re nothing compared to what a lot of people go through.”

  The relief I feel that she’s not shooting down my idea, but she’s really thinking about going is overwhelming, but we’re not there yet. I think about what she’s saying, and I understand to a point. “How do you know they’re not going to therapy?”

  She scrunches her lips to the side, thinking about what I said. I almost want to laugh because she looks so damn cute, but that wouldn’t be inappropriate, so I reel it in.

  “Good point,” she finally says.

  “And how do you know that those people you’re comparing yourself to wouldn’t look at you and say, ‘Wow, I thought my problems were bad’? Everyone carries around pain, and it’s not fair to compare yours to someone else’s because you are not that person, and that person is not you. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  She takes in a deep breath and nods her head, absorbing my words of wisdom. I’m surprised that I’m making sense here. I must be channeling my dad or something.

  “Yeah, I get what you’re saying.” She looks out the window for a minute, lost in her thoughts.

  Although I could have really done without the trigger that spurred this conversation, I’m glad I decided to push a little here because something had to give. I care about her. I’m falling for her. I might have already fallen, and I want to be there for her, but there’s only so much I can do to—