Undone

by Kelly Rimmer

  I pry open my eyelids and turn my head toward her. She’s shifted now, so that she’s stretched out on her back. In the dim light of the hotel room, I can see that her eyes are wide open and she’s staring at the ceiling while she waits to see if I react.

  “Yeah.” It’s half a lie—sleep was so deliciously close. But if she actually wants to talk now, I’m here for that.

  “I can’t shut my brain off.”

  I roll toward her, and she swallows, then rolls toward me too. We’re staring at one another in the semidarkness. Jess looks so weary.

  “It was an intense night,” I say softly.

  She ponders this for a moment, then quirks an eyebrow at me.

  “You always were more sensitive than me.”

  “You hide it well,” I murmur. “But I know you’re more sensitive than you let on. Insensitive people don’t give a shit. You give a shit.” I expect her to make a smart-ass comment, but instead, she sighs. “Why is Tristan a secret?”

  Jess gnaws her lip as she ponders her response, then she admits, “When I first came here, I was an eighteen-year-old mother without a baby. I was a mess, but that mess wasn’t me. I didn’t want people in my new life to define me by my loss. I learned to compartmentalize. Maybe I got a little too good at that over the years since, but in the beginning, I just couldn’t forge the life I wanted if everyone was defining me as the girl who got knocked up and then lost her kid.”

  “You don’t think people would have understood?”

  “Quite the opposite. If people know your secrets, they think they understand you. I didn’t want people to look at me and assume that I was this woman because of that tragedy.”

  I’m so tired I can’t quite untangle that.

  “What does that even mean?”

  She sighs impatiently.

  “I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, Jake. I’m ambitious to my core and I’m loud and I’m blunt and I’m . . .” She searches for words, then gives me a searching look. “I like dating and sex and men and partying and going out to bars and doing naughty things. But I have always loved those things. I’m not this way because of any flaw or any wound from my past—it’s just who I am.”

  “I know all of that. Knowing about Tristan now doesn’t change how I see you.”

  “Ah, but that’s because you’ve known me forever. Imagine if we’d only just met. Imagine if Paul introduced me as his new business partner all of those years ago, and as soon as I left the room, he told you I’d just given birth to a son who was stillborn.”

  “First, Paul didn’t introduce you as his business partner. He forgot to introduce you at all and you had to introduce yourself. Second, he would never have thought to tell me you’d lost a baby. He’d have let me put my foot in it with some careless comment.”

  She smiles faintly.

  “You just proved my point—your brain has already gone right to the ways you might have hurt me because of my trauma. If you knew I’d lost a child, you’d have been on edge with me. Careful with me, like I was fragile. I mean, think back to when we met. What did you think of me?”

  “You were astounding. A force of nature,” I murmur. The urge to reach up and tuck that flaming hair behind her ear is almost overwhelming.

  I think back across the years to the night I met her. Paul, at the ripe old age of not-quite-nineteen, had just graduated summa cum laude and was the proud owner of a brand-new information science degree. Every academic who encountered Paul over his studies had been convinced that he was destined for a career at the college, including our own father, who’s a pure mathematics professor. “He hasn’t met an intellectual problem he didn’t like, and he hasn’t met a person he does like. Of course he’ll be an academic,” Dad said to me, just a few months earlier.

  You can imagine our surprise when, instead of doing an honors year and then signing up for his master’s like a sensible genius, Paul asked Dad for a not-insignificant loan and announced his “two best friends” were going into business with him, to develop, of all things, an internet browser. Dad and I had both met Marcus and found him impossible to dislike. Marcus clearly saw potential in Paul and seemed to tolerate my brother’s . . . shall we say . . . quirks.

  But Marcus was also young and impossibly green, and Dad and I were nervous. We hadn’t yet met Jess but she seemed to be the driving force behind this project, and she was now in control of a lot of Dad’s money. She, Paul and Marcus had set themselves up in a crappy apartment in a very ordinary neighborhood in Brooklyn—the “incubator,” Paul was calling it. He’d told us that they’d each put in the same amount of money, but if that was true, why hadn’t that kind of combined coin secured the little start-up an office . . . or at least, an “incubator” apartment somewhere slightly less . . . homicide-adjacent.

  That’s why, on a steamy summer night like this one, I arranged to catch up with Paul. He met me at the subway station, and as we walked to his new home, we chatted.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Jess. You’re going to love her.”

  My brother was the most literal person I’d ever met. Ordinarily, when Paul said something, I knew I had to take it at face value. That’s why I was so confused by his statement.

  Did he think I’d love her, because he had a crush on her himself? Or did he think I’d love her, because he’d concluded that this Jessica Cohen girl and I were somehow soul mates? Or did he think I’d love her, because for once in his life, he’d managed to use a phrase loosely, instead of literally?

  “Why?” I asked him. He thought about this for a moment, then shrugged.

  “She’s smart in many different ways, just like you are. I’m sure you’ll mutually appreciate each other’s charms. I’ve been quite certain that you two would really hit it off ever since she came into business with me.”

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. As we approached their apartment, I could hear a woman speaking.

  “. . . oh for fuck’s sake, you can do better than that, Himanshu!” The owner of this particularly feminine voice was Southern, and her tone was positively brimming with what some might call “sass,” and what other, less charitable folk might call “snark.”

  Paul slipped his key into the rusty lock of the front door, and the hinges screamed as he pushed it open, to reveal Marcus sitting at one of the many laptops that littered the vinyl dining room table. He was sporting a wiry beard and heavy gray bags under his eyes. He glanced up at us, smiled warmly, then went right back to tapping on the keyboard.

  Paul walked right up to the table to stare down at Marcus’s screen, pointed at a line near the top, and rattled off a few corrections. I scanned the room for the source of the voice, and that’s when I saw Jessica Cohen for the very first time.

  She was sitting on a Swiss ball in the darkest corner of a dark room, a cell phone at one ear. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting, but when they did, I drew in a sharp breath.

  “I’ll call you back,” she said, then dropped the cell onto the carpet beside her feet and stood to run her gaze from my feet to my eyes. I actually felt myself blushing from the undisguised hunger in her gaze—suddenly wondering if she was thinking about mounting me right here in front of an audience or sautéing me to literally eat me.

  Actually, now that I think about it, the hungry look she gave me tonight was pretty much the same one she gave me the first time we met.

  “Well, well, well, Pauly,” she whistled, voice low, his name drawn out slowly. “This delicious hunk of man can’t possibly be your famous brother.”

  “It is,” Paul said, without glancing up from the monitor.

  “Hello there, Jake. I’m Jess, and I’m enchanted to meet you,” Jess said as she made a beeline for me. I resisted the urge to cover my eyes with my hand, instead resorting to looking away as I said, “Uh . . . isn’t it a little early to be wearing your . . .” I glanced back, skimmed my gaze up her body, then swallowed and croaked, “. . . pajamas?”

  If her clothes were
indeed pajamas, they were teeny, tiny, skimpy pajamas, the shorts so short that I knew I’d see the curve of her ass if she turned around, the tank so small that one halfhearted jump and her breasts might have bounced right out of there.

  “It’s hot as balls, Jake,” she said, laughing as she approached. “The rent is dirt cheap, but apparently that kind of dollar doesn’t buy you a working AC or even a functional super. And I bet you didn’t even notice that Marcus is shirtless, did you?”

  My gaze skipped back to Marcus, who was indeed shirtless, and I belatedly noticed the rivulets of sweat that ran down between his shoulder blades.

  “Oh,” I said, glancing back to stare over her head so I didn’t have to look down at her eyes, which were dangerously close to her breasts. “Sorry.”

  “I hear you’re a doctor.”

  “Yeah. I’ve just started an oncology fellowship.”

  “Are all oncology fellows deeply sexist, or are you just a relic from humbler times?”

  I dropped my gaze to hers.

  “I’m not sexist,” I said, but I was fumbling to regain some sense of control, so I tried to turn on the charm. “Just slightly less attuned to the half-naked male form than I am to beautiful, half-naked females in my immediate vicinity.”

  A loud laugh burst from her lips.

  “Oh, we’re going to get on just fine, Dr. Jake. Come in and have a lukewarm beer and some coupon pizza.”

  It’s telling that I remember this moment so vividly after all of this time. Maybe I was in love with her right away, even if it did take me more than a decade to come to grips with it. All I knew was that I suddenly wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time at my baby brother’s god-awful apartment-slash-office, and I’d soon been sucked into a friendship group that I came to love.

  My career had been my entire world for years, and the change was subtle at first, but soon became undeniable. I’d work a twenty-hour stint at the hospital, then instead of crashing at my apartment nearby, I’d be dragging myself onto the train to go “visit Paul.” I told myself that the only reason I spent any time with Jess at all was that I was worried about my brother. Maybe there was a degree of truth to that—it was several years before Brainway started making money. But even when I didn’t trust her, I was also drawn to Jess like a moth to a flame. And maybe it was a while before I realized she really knew what she was doing with that business and, by extension, Dad’s money.

  It was even longer before I figured out that our near-endless bickering was never going to ease up, but for all of that time and for all of those years, and even while I was learning more about her, I was entranced.

  “Well, obviously I was and am amazing,” Jess says lightly now, and my attention returns to the present. “So when you met me, I’m sure you were fascinated. But if you knew then what you know now, how would you have viewed me? Would you have assumed I’m driven because I have something to prove? Would you assume that I was dating like it’s a competitive sport because I was trying to heal some kind of psychological wound?”

  She rolls onto her back again, not waiting for my response. I reach out and take her hand in mine. She winds our fingers together and squeezes.

  “Maybe I would have,” I admit. “But I do think you underestimate your own confidence. It’s hard to question why someone is the way they are when they are so . . .” I hesitate, and she looks at me “. . . intimidating.”

  “I never intimidated you.”

  I laugh softly.

  “Maybe. But you do intimidate pretty much every other person I’ve ever seen you meet. People don’t wonder why you are the way you are. They wonder how to get on your good side, because they’re scared of what you’ll do if they don’t.”

  She laughs softly. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles gently.

  “How soon after he died did you move here?” I ask her.

  “He was born on December 7. I caught the bus out of town on Christmas Eve. I started classes at NYU at the midyear . . . end of January, I think it was. I had missed the first semester of my freshman year so I did a double course load in the second. I wanted to catch up.”

  “And no one here knew what you were going through?”

  “My grandmother did. Remember Grandma Chloe?”

  “Of course.”

  “I still miss her. I really only came here because of her.” She flashes me a look. “I wasn’t alone, Jake. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.”

  “Well, am I allowed to feel empathy?”

  She pauses, then nods.

  “Okay. I’ll allow it.”

  “It’s your story, Jess,” I tell her softly. “You get to share it if and when you want to share it. I’m just trying to understand. I feel like you and I have this long, checkered history—but until these last few years, I never doubted we were important to each other. Even long before we were together, even when we were just sometimes-friends-sometimes-verbal-sparring-partners. I just . . . I guess I wish you’d been able to tell me, but only so I could be there for you.”

  “You were there for me tonight,” she says. Her eyelids are finally growing heavy, and her voice is getting softer. I rest her hand against the duvet, then rest mine on top of it, reluctant to let go of her. “I wish . . .”

  She trails off as her eyelids flutter closed, and I’m hanging on the end of that sentence, waiting for her to speak again. Just when I think she’s fallen asleep, she shuffles a tiny bit closer to me and, eyes closed, whispers, “I regret what happened, Jake. I really wish we’d found a way to have more time together.”

  There’s a painful contraction in my chest, and in a heartbeat, I relive the last few years. I’ve told myself that I loathe Jessica Cohen—that she treated me so badly, and that I could never forgive her. In this moment, I know that’s all untrue.

  “Me too,” I whisper back, and she rolls away from me, but I know it’s an invitation to spoon her. I pull her into my arms, breathe in the scent of her hair and finally let sleep pull me under.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jess

  THERE’S A DISTANT buzzing that sounds on and off—a phone vibrating, I think, although I’m not sure if it’s Jake’s or mine. I rise from the sound, and find I’m completely enveloped in man-mountain.

  I’ve never been a fan of sleepovers, even less so with snugglers. And Jake is definitely a snuggler, even in his sleep, so in theory this should be my worst nightmare.

  Everything is different with Jake—even, apparently, sleep snuggles. I’m lying on his chest and his arms are locked around me, even though, when I glance up at him, I see that he’s still deeply asleep. Some stubble has grown in overnight, and the skin around his eyes is puffy. I know, when he wakes up, his eyes will be rimmed with red from the late night and the lack of sleep. I’ve seen him like this before. When we were together, he’d get a call at some ungodly hour and he’d rush to the hospital to be with a patient who was dying.

  If I loved Jake, I loved him because he’d always go. If I loved Jake, I loved him because when I saw him the next day, exhausted and sometimes more than a little sad, the one emotion I’d never see in him was resentment. He told me once he didn’t have to go for those moments. There were palliative care teams who supported families and, for most of his patients, a whole health care mechanism that kicked into place in the final hours.

  He didn’t go because he had to. He went because he wanted to. Cancer care is personal to him, and he makes no secret of that. Besides, Jake Winton is that kind of guy and he’s that kind of doctor. Maybe that’s why I don’t regret talking to him about Tristan last night. I told him because I needed him, and I knew I could count on him to carry me through the memories. Even now, the scent of antiseptic clings to our skin in a way I probably couldn’t have coped with before yesterday.

  I inhale tentatively, reflecting on that scent, this time focusing on something else in the air. Yes, I can smell the hospital, but I can also smell Jake and there’s no better scent in the world. Even on a cel
lular level, I’m drawn to him in a way I’ve never been drawn to another man. I lie still, counting the minutes. I want to store this memory with all of those other memories I hold so dearly, despite the distance between us now.

  Jake shifts suddenly, bringing me with him as he rolls to view the alarm clock. He sighs, and his arms contract around me.

  “I slept through breakfast with Mitch,” he says, voice rough with sleep.

  “Someone’s phone has been ringing,” I tell him. “Probably Mitch looking for you.”

  “Or Marcus or Paul,” Jake says, and then we both sit up with a start. Everything feels uncomfortable—bleary eyes, the crick in my neck and even the ridiculously large shirt I’m wearing. I reach for my phone. The battery is on 4 percent.

  11:00 p.m. Mitch: How are you doing?

  12:15 a.m. Mitch: I hope you’re okay.

  2:00 a.m. Mitch: If you need to talk, come round anytime and wake me up.

  10:00 a.m. Mitch: Jake hasn’t showed up for breakfast with me and you aren’t answering my texts and I’m trying to be gentle with you today because I’m sure last night was really rough, but if you break that man’s heart again, I will write you into a book and kill you off.

  12:15 p.m. Mitch: Jess, it’s noon now and I’m seriously worried about you. Call me.

  12:30 p.m. Marcus: Are you coming to visit us today? Abby has just graduated from the ICU to maternity. There are two beautiful girls waiting to meet you.

  1:00 p.m. Abby: Jess! Please come see us ASAP. We have a surprise! Well, two surprises. And we’d all love to see you.

  “It’s almost 2:00 p.m.,” I say, eyes wide as I turn back to Jake.

  “Well, we didn’t really go to sleep until five, so that’s about right,” Jake mutters. He scoops his phone off the dresser.

  “What time were you supposed to check out?” I ask him.

  “I paid for a late checkout. My flight isn’t until tonight.”

  He holds the phone close and then at length and then close again as he tries to read something. I burst out laughing, and he laughs in spite of himself and reaches for his glasses, which are folded up beside the bed.