A Lover's Secret

by Bloom, Bethany

  Elizabeth drove, her eyes straight ahead and Jess was in the river again, in the New Mexico desert and she was searching, searching for his hand and she felt it but she lost its grip. Then she was on the riverbank, and she was running her hands along his chest. She was pushing against him, against his life, the hardness of his body, its warmth, and she recognized his frailty suddenly, and it made her suck in her breath.

  Her stomach heaved, and she rested her head on the glass. She closed her eyes, then opened them and stared at a fixed point on the dashboard; the horizontal slats of the vent where the cool air rushed into her face.

  She stared at her phone. At his photo on the face of it as she dialed his number once again. She imagined finding him now, as the landscape grew shrouded in darkness. She could imagine his car, dashed upon the rocks, she diving from the top of the bluffs to save him—or to join him. If she were to throw herself from the top of the rocks, would her arms fly out? Would she flail in panic, with a crush of terror—or would she accept her undoing with peace and abandon? Would she know that this was her fate, always? Did some part of her always know this?

  Elizabeth accelerated again, took a corner too wide. White headlines pierced her vision. A horn blared. A screech of tires. Elizabeth swerved and swore, and Jess leaned her head against the glass once again and still they raced through the night. She could hear the crash of the surf now, though she knew she could not really hear it, inside the car, but the ocean and its sounds, they were in her mind, and she reached out her fingertips as though she saw him, as though he were as close as the glass, as close as the windshield.

  Elizabeth turned to her, then back to the road.

  The image of Jake, his face, it swarmed her again, and she was hit with the full force of how terribly great her love was for this man. She had known him before; loved him before. And this knowledge took her and it swallowed her, and she was overcome with the notion that she had always known. She had known him by his eyes, just as he had said. They were so deep, as though she could stare into them and swim about in them, disappearing from the world outside.

  And now she turned toward the ocean, like a dark slash on the boundary of her awareness. Deep and devouring. She dialed his number once more and the sound of it ringing, ringing, as though mocking. “Too late, too late, too late, too late.” She ended the call. Dialed again, and she imagined his phone bobbing in the ocean. Caught, perhaps, in the surf and now crashing against rocks. His candy apple red Ferrari, the very vision of youthfulness, of virility, of lust. Crumpled. Demolished.

  Why hadn’t she been enough? Why hadn’t her love been enough? Why hadn’t it made him want to live? An icy feeling spread though her. A knowing that she wasn’t enough for him to live one more day. Not in this life.

  Elizabeth swerved and weaved now. “Jess!” She suddenly shouted. “That’s him. That’s Jake. Up ahead. Do you see him?” The shape of his taillights, low to the ground. The feminine lines of his car, reflecting the moonlight. “We’re going to catch him.”

  “Just… don’t let him see us,” Jess warned.

  And so they trailed him, some distance behind. When he sped up, so did Elizabeth. “We’re almost there,” she said. “We’re almost to the bluffs.”

  “But how do we stop him from back here? Is there a way to get in front of him?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s only one road here.” Then, “What the hell is he doing?” Jake had pulled off the road and had stopped suddenly. His car was idling now, on the shoulder of the highway, and they had no choice but to pass.

  “Do you think he saw us?”

  “No. I think he’s going to do it. Right here. Jesus. How do I stop him?” Elizabeth’s voice was high and thin. She rounded a bend and snapped off her lights, then flipped a u-turn in the middle of the road. They sat facing his car now. “What should I do, Jess? Try to get in front of him? T-bone him? What?”

  But Jess had already snapped open her door, and she was running, running along the pavement. Her shoes pinched her feet and she kicked them off and now she felt the bare dirt, the asphalt beneath her feet. The pebbles hard on the soles of her feet and she allowed the searing pain to flow deep into the heart of her and still she ran, closer and closer to his car and then she saw that his car was moving. It was moving backward, and the moonlight winked from the top of it. He stopped again, facing the ocean head on. If she ran straight ahead, she could cut him off; she could cut him off before the cliffs. She leapt upon the rock, near now to the cliffs and she ran toward his car. The soles of her feet were slippery with blood now and everything was darkness and moonlight and stabs of pain and she tore off toward him. His lights were switched off, the car closer now. It was strangely quiet, just a throaty purr and the syncopated sounds of her breaths. He must have wanted to slip, slip into nothingness. No record. No memory. Just a car and an ocean and a joining. No sound with no one there to hear it. But the moon. It was bright.

  Her hair absorbed the moonlight. Her black dress. And maybe he could not see. The car loomed larger and larger, barreled closer and closer to her. Elizabeth shrieked for her to go, to run, to move out of the way, but instead her arms and her legs, they splayed out like a star. She threw her head back, knowing that he could not see her, and knowing that she could not save him, and she looked into the night sky and she felt something open up in her, and then her head snapped back to center and her eyes met his. Those eyes. Waiting for impact.

  Then a squeal, loud and metallic. A biting smell of rubber. A burning and then a ripping. Pain. A throbbing throughout her. And then only blackness.

  ***

  The scent was peppery then. The biting, familiar scent of pepper. And then the scent of pine. A forest. Softness beneath her. Spongy fabric. Muted voices. Something fell to her face. Moisture. It was raining here in the forest. No. Something was wrong. Dreadfully so.

  Her eyes blinked open. Darkness above her. Her face now pushed against the softness. And then a pressing. Jake’s face above her. “Jess. Jess.” Her eyes fluttered. And now gripping pain. And thirst. Cold. No forest. A racing in her chest. His arms around her. An engine running. She could smell the color of the night. It was like roasted eggplant, purple and dense. And she could hear the pain in her leg. It was a hollow buzz. And there, Jake. His tears fell hard on her, like stones upon her cheek. On his face, an expression of terror. Don’t be afraid, Jake, she tried to say. But the darkness and the quiet space inside her, it closed her eyes then. Lights circled her. A song, distant, rhythmic. A whirring and a sliding. And then this thought, like a shard, a scrap or a remnant of something larger that she couldn’t see or feel: She would give her life for his love. Would he have given up death for hers?

  ***

  Voices, high in pitch, and then blurs of color. Smudges through eyelids half open. And then her name, too low, as though someone was speaking under water. Who? A warmth on her hand. A squeeze. A gravely feeling in her throat.

  Images, a patchwork. A book. Jake’s face. His book. The man on the plane. The tumor. Grandma. Elizabeth. A red car glinting in the moonlight.

  His face wet with tears.

  Her eyes opened wider. This was not a hospital. It smelled of candles, of vanilla spice and the walls were painted a soothing chocolate color. White crown-molding bordered the ceiling, and Mozart was playing. Her right leg felt heavy like the trunk of a tree.

  Elizabeth’s face blinked into view. Her lips framed her teeth. A light emanated from behind her, making a kind of halo against the wall. Elizabeth’s mouth—so broad, so wide—exploded into a smile. Her words flowed to Jake who sat smoothing the hair from Jess’s forehead. Elizabeth left the room, and she could feel the rub of Jake’s thumb, just on her hairline, and warmth washed into her.

  “You’re here,” she said finally. It hurt her throat to talk.

  “So are you.” His voice was gravely and deep. A voice she never thought she’d hear again. Then he made a choking sound deep in the back of his throat and he lay his head down on
her chest. “We’re here. I’m here. I am taking care of you.”

  She swallowed hard. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in my treatment room.”

  Her neck and shoulders felt strange. Heavy. “How long? How long have I been here?”

  “A little while.”

  “How long?” Her tone was pleading, suddenly. Desperate. She raised her head, strained to see everything around her.

  “It’s not important.”

  “How long, Jake?”

  “A few days. A week.” He shrugged. “Long enough where there are no longer any reporters standing on the lawn. Long enough for your family to come around. They’re staying in the house.” He chuckled. “All of them.”

  “All of them?”

  He nodded. “Your mother and your father. Your sister. Andrew and Kelly.”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head on the pillows. “How are they… handling everything?”

  “Well, Elizabeth and I didn’t exactly tell them everything. They know you came out here and they know that you saved me. They know that you risked your life for love. They know that you’re a hero. And that’s all they know.” He winked then, the way he had when she had first met him. Book Jacket Jake. “You’ve given me some time to win them over to my charms.”

  She groaned. Had it really been a few days. A week? She swallowed hard. “Are you here… to stay?” she asked.

  His hand tightened around hers. His head was perfectly still, and when he spoke, he did so almost without moving his lips. “Jess, I don’t have long. You know that, right? It’s already beginning to happen. I can feel it.”

  “I know.”

  “But, watching you, lying there,” he said, low. “At first I promised myself that I would wait until you woke. So I could say that I was sorry; so that I could say goodbye; and just so you knew I didn’t abandon you. And then, then I began to feel this sort of lift that came with taking care of you.” He met her eyes. “Taking care of you is lovely.”

  She laughed without meaning to.

  “I mean it, Jess. Loving you, caring for you. It gave me strength. It gave me courage. More than I’ve felt in a long, long while. I had something to live for. That simple hope that came with staring at your eyelids, willing them to open. The simple act of being there for you in the most complete way, whether that would last for two days or two months.”

  “But, Jake, don’t you see that if you left me, like you planned to leave me, you would be taking that away from me. The blessing of caring for someone I love. Our strength is shared, Jake. When you fall, I can help you up. I need to help you up. Please don’t ever take that from me.”

  “I know you want to make it sound romantic, Jess, but this disease is terrible. It’s going to be terrible…”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll take it day by day and you’ll never be alone.”

  He kissed her then, with a warmth and a tenderness and a familiarity; with love and with hopefulness.

  “If we were meant to love, lifetime across lifetime,” Jess continued, “Let’s at least make the most of this one. Because it will be years and years before we’ll meet again in some hallway and probably many years more before we’ll get it together enough to realize what we have.” She laughed. “And I can’t wait that long.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “One thing is true,” Jess said. “We will live a life less ordinary.”

  “Fast and free,” he said.

  “And slow and hopeful,” she added.

  “About that,” he said. His hand burrowed in his pocket. Was he still carrying his stone, the hunk of obsidian? Would he present it to her now? Give it to her as a promise to never take that leap without her? But what he pulled out was a small velvet box, and then he sank to one knee, and she turned her face on her pillow to see him, to stare into his hard and handsome face.

  “Will you marry me?”

  With these words, a sense of abandon surged through her. She felt open and wild, free. Liberated. Even if it were to last only a moment, even if she were to blink in and out of being, as she knew she would, just as he would. And they would care for one another, lifetime upon lifetime, and they would love one another deeply.

  “And Jess, before you say yes, know that I’m not going to live.” A tear welled in his eye and then slid down his cheek. “I’m not going to live for long.”

  She smiled then and her answer burst from her lips. “Everyone has gathered, Jake. Everyone is here. Let’s have our wedding tomorrow.”

  ***

  Hours passed, and still they hadn’t told anyone she had awakened, and now she asked to venture toward the beach, to dip a toe into the ocean, to feel the bite of the sea for the first time.

  He wrapped her cast carefully with plastic, and she watched his hands moving over her. His fingers fumbled ever so slightly, in a way they hadn’t before, and she was overcome with love for him, a wave of tenderness accessible only when you have been chosen to witness another in their weakening. When you share it like a secret. Jake gave her a set of crutches then, and together they made their way down the landscaped path to the beach that smoothed the shore near his home.

  “Are you sure this is what you want to be doing on the eve of your wedding?” Jess asked, “On your last night as a free man?”

  He laughed and nodded. “Absolutely sure.” He turned to her and grinned, his mouth wide. “And you? I mean, I’m sorry I don’t have any lewd decorations for your little bachelorette party in the sand.”

  She took a deep breath and lifted her face to the sky. “Well, if you squint your eyes and look at that cloud formation…”

  He laughed again. “Mother Nature always delivers, doesn’t she?”

  “Always.”

  They made their way down then, down past the swath of green grass that bordered his outdoor pools and spas, and they walked together along the beach, he helping to steady her as best he could. The sun was setting and the waves rolled across the horizon as though they would engulf her.

  The sand was fine there, and he lifted her, high, holding her up to the sky and then setting her ever so gently down to the shore, and the freedom and the openness of their life together unleashed itself. The fulfillment that came with knowing she would be with the one she loved. The one she was meant to be with, if only for an hour, for a day, for a week, a month. However long it would be.

  And this was how they made love there in the fine white sand, with the ocean bathing and blessing them. And afterward, she lay still and she felt the pulse of the ocean and the throb of her breath, of her heart. It was a feeling she would always have when she lay very, very still. Knowing that she would do it all again, just to have this, now.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Bethany Bloom is the author of The One Who Got Away and Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju. She is currently working on the sequel to A Lover’s Secret. If you would like to receive free sample chapters and other bonus content, please sign up for Bethany’s notification list here, and visit Bethany Bloom’s Author Page on Amazon.

  More Novels by Bethany Bloom

  The One Who Got Away: A Novel

  Have you ever wondered about the one who got away? The person from your past whom you’ve never quite managed to stop thinking about? What would happen if that certain someone returned—today?

  Olivine Eriksson never needed a man until Henry Cooper tumbled into her path. And just as Olivine falls for him, Henry vanishes. Mysteriously and completely.

  Fast forward ten years. Olivine has given up, finally, on fairy tales of the re-emerging lover and, as the clock on her living legacy ticks away, she decides to move on and begin planning her wedding to Paul. A surgeon and humanitarian, Paul is helping her to lead the life they’ve dreamed of together. Loving him makes perfect sense. He needs her, and he has plans for her. Big, important plans. And Olivine wants nothing more than to live a big, important life.

  But a twist of fate and a mysterious intervention
brings Henry back to Olivine's idyllic mountain village and in search of the only woman he has ever loved.

  His return triggers Olivine to remember the wide-eyed, wilder woman she once was and to recognize the ways she has distorted herself to fit into her perfect life with Paul. Now Olivine must choose between the man who will give her everything and the man who proves she needs nothing.

  A wise and deeply moving portrait of a woman rediscovering the power she once held, The One Who Got Away is a masterful love story that will remind readers how fate can change in the blink of an eye. Will Olivine decide what she truly wants before she loses it all?

  Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju: A Romantic Comedy

  Shy Charlotte MacDougall has the perfect life until she stumbles in on her perfect husband pressing against a perfectly naked woman. It's a scene that leaves Charlotte suddenly single, jobless, and bewildered, with two impressionable daughters looking on. That’s when her filthy-rich younger sister cooks up a plan for her: a “Summer of Transformation” in her swanky Rocky Mountain resort town...an entire summer devoted to helping Charlotte lose weight, shake off her shyness, and regain some self-love—all with the help of a personal trainer and “Confidence Coach” (who, Charlotte suspects, moonlights as a gigolo) and a soft-lipped, hunk of a man who, curiously, smells of freshly baked bread and cinnamon sticks. Fighting these men off is Charlotte’s husband, who suddenly discovers he can’t imagine life without his sweet Jellybean.

  Charlotte tries—oh, how she tries—but, the more she works to change and improve herself, the more she realizes she doesn’t know who in the world she is.

  Filled with Bethany Bloom’s signature insight and humor—and a cast of quirky characters, Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju is a witty, wise and heartfelt portrait of a woman redefining herself and finding, at last, the one kind of love that truly matters.