It became very apparent to me what was going on. “Why are you letting him change you?”
“Rob, he’s not doing anything. This is all me. These are my decisions. If I’m going to be his wife I need to look and play the part.”
The curiosity was killing me. “How in the hell did you two meet?”
“Listen, it’s cold out. Let’s go get some coffee and I’ll tell you there.”
Experience told me I knew better, that I should run in the other direction. That part of my life was over, and I had Layla now. The exact parameters of our relationship were still unclear but at least I she kept me sane. My feelings for her were my saving grace, pulling me out of all the bad shit I had surrounded myself with, but damn it all to hell if I didn’t still want to know Jenny. It would probably kill me, but I really didn’t care. What did I have to lose?
And just like that, I made a decision. I followed her again, no questions asked, just like I had all those years ago.
It was a lot warmer in the coffee shop and after setting our mugs down on the table, I plopped down into the chair across from her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, taking off her scarf and jacket. The weight of everything must have been wearing her down and she let out an exasperated sigh before taking her mug into her hands. She stared down onto the cup for a few moments, warming her hands while doing so, before finally looking up at me.
“We met at an underground club. I used to Go-go dance there some nights.” The mere mention of her past job made her shiver. That didn’t bode well. “He’d come in drunk with a bunch of other doctors. They were good tippers, and one night they invited a bunch of us girls to an ‘after party.’”
“I always knew he was a scum bag—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted. “Don’t act like you know him.”
“Oh, but I do.”
“No, you don’t. Bradley and I talked all night that night. He was a complete gentleman. He talked about his past, his loves lost.” Jenny’s eyes burned on mine and I knew what she meant he had been talking about.
“Emma?” I asked.
“Possibly. He never mentioned names, but he talked about a girl who could have been the one had she not been in love with someone else.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Yep, that’d be her.”
“Anyway, listening to him open up to me that night made me realize that I missed being close to someone. I’d shut the world out since you and I had ended, and in that moment I decided it was time for me to let love in again.”
It amazed me that she could be so dumb, yet it sounded familiar to what I was feeling with Layla. My blood boiled. “So you decided to marry the first jackass to show you a bit of interest? Sounds dumb to me, Jenny.”
“Whatever, Rob. You don’t have to understand my motives, but you need to understand one thing. Losing you, it hurt more than I would let on… to anyone. I spent years just trying to forget you.”
“Same here,” I said.
“Seems we’re both a little fucked up, huh?” She looked up at me from under her long lashes.
In spite of my shitty attitude, I felt the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. “I’d say.”
“We sure did have some great times together.”
“Best six months of my life.”
“Is that all it was? Six months?” She sighed. “It felt like we had been together for a lifetime.”
“We certainly did click.”
“Too bad your parents hated me.”
“Well, you were older than me, and corrupting to boot.”
She reached across the table and playfully slapped my shoulder. “Was not!”
“You most certainly were, Jenny Jenkins. There was me, a naïve seventeen year old, whereas you were almost twenty. Up until I met you, I’d never drank a drop, smoked a cigarette—hell, I didn’t even know what pot was!”
“That was funny.”
“Yeah, you got quite a kick out of that. Handing me over that first joint.”
The laugh that came from her was straight from her stomach, and I responded with a chuckle of my own. Well, there was one thing that hadn’t changed. Jenny’s laugh was still infectious. When she was finally able to get a handle on it, she continued.
“The look on your face was priceless. I guess I did do a bit of corrupting, huh?”
“And that’s not even counting all the teaching you did between the sheets.”
The words left my mouth before I could think about what I was saying. Jenny and I had inexplicable chemistry when it came to sex—some might say that our relationship had solely been based on it—but the truth was that we each knew what the other wanted before they did. Jenny had been my first, and I had yet to find a girl that matched her chemistry. Jenny was always “the one.”
“Listen, about that night…” she started.
Things were getting too heavy. I needed to get out of there, to separate myself from Jenny before it was too late.
“Don’t worry about it. Your secret’s safe with me.” I pushed up from my chair, grabbing my coffee cup with my free hand.
The path to the exit was blocked when Jenny stood in front of me. “It’s just, I don’t… Jesus. I’m not a cheater.”
“I know.”
Priority one was trying to get myself out of there and I tried to push past her, but she placed her hand on my chest preventing me from moving any farther.
I sighed. “Jenny, it’s not cheating if you’re in love.”
Even though she’d never been one for grandiose professions of love, her eyes glassed over with emotion. “Do you think we’ll always love each other?”
Taking a moment, I considered the possibility. After all, it was probably my last chance. The last chance for me to tell her everything I’d ever felt, to lay it all out on the line so that she knew and could have a little peace.
“I think you and I will always be ruled by our history. We can’t forget those feelings, but I don’t think that they’re meant to be forgotten. You and I, we had something special, Jenny. I can’t explain it, but we had that crazy, can’t eat, can’t sleep, unhealthy, don’t want to breath, kind of love. That doesn’t just go away. You drive me insane, every second of every day—even now, when you clearly shouldn’t. It’s always you. You encompass every bad thing that my parents warned me about love. All of it, rolled into one sickening, deathly, salacious package.”
Before I knew what was happening her lips were on mine. Everything within me told me to pull away, to push her away like she had done to me so many times before. But the thing about emotions is that they don’t always listen to reason. They don’t hear the head. They take advice from the heart. So instead of doing what I should have done, I snaked my arms around her waist and pulled her closer. It must have been the right thing to do because she responded by wrapping her arms around my neck and parting her lips for me. Our bodies embraced long forgotten routines and when she opened for me and I slipped my tongue inside her mouth, she moaned.
I lost my head. For an instant I forgot about all the bad shit. But it didn’t take long for it to all come flooding back to me. As my head overruled my heart I broke the seal of our mouths, and used the flat of my hands to push her back.
“What the fuck, Jenny?”
She looked up at me innocently through her long eyelashes and I shook my head. “You’re fucking with my head again. Jesus Christ, we just came from our divorce hearing!”
“Stop. You’re making a scene…”
The anger inside me was building. It would appear that Jenny could still mess with my mind like no other. “You’re just as psychotic as you were twelve years ago!”
In a flash, her hand was across my face. “You’re a son of a bitch, Rob!”
“And you’re still a manipulative cunt.”
She stood in front of me, her mouth agape. Rendering her speechless wasn’t something that happened often and I knew I needed to seize the moment to make my escape. so I reached down and grab
bed my jacket off the chair. “Sayonara, Jenny.”
Throwing the jacket over my shoulder, I made my way out of the shop and started down the sidewalk. Where I was going I wasn’t entirely sure, but I needed to get away, and fast. It hadn’t taken long for Jenny to start playing her games. Being the puppet master was always her preferred role, and she was right back at it. What the hell was her deal? For Christ’s sake, she was getting married! We were putting all this “being us” in the past and moving on from our stupid mistakes.
Weren’t we?
“Rob! Rob! Wait, please!”
I turned my head slightly to look over my shoulder and saw her running toward me. Despite my conscience telling me to keep going, I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. People skirted around me—which wasn’t easy in the middle of the city, let me tell you.
Jenny finally reached me, slightly breathless. This was more than likely from the years of smoking, because Jenny had always liked a good workout. And, no, that wasn’t an innuendo. My parents had been right about her being a bad influence. Jenny had been the one to ignite my own habit and I was still a slave to the sticks.
“I’m sorry, Rob. it’s just all so confusing to me. Seeing you again, dealing with all these feelings, thinking about the past… it hurts.”
As we stood in our own little vortex in the middle of a New York sidewalk, I wanted to carry on being pissed at her, I really did. But I couldn’t. And the reason I couldn’t was because I knew exactly how she felt. Knowing that saying the words balanced precariously on my tongue could quite possibly be the stupidest thing I’d done to date, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, the cold air burned my lungs.
“I know. Me too.”
“I just…”
She ran her fingers through her hair, stalling for time, searching for the words. “I want…”
When the words didn’t come, she tugged on her earlobes—a sure sign that she was stressed. “Fuck!” She stomped her heel onto the dirty sidewalk.
Despite the situation, I found her temper tantrum amusing. But I couldn’t show weakness. I couldn’t let her back in, at least not any further than she already was.
“Spit it out, Jenny.”
“I’m not ready to be without you again.”
“Little late to be thinking that, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, Jenny, it does. You’re getting married for Christ’s sake!”
Everything was unraveling and I had to stop myself and take a deep breath. I really needed to control my anger better. It wasn’t something that I usually struggled with but for some reason Jenny always brought out the worst in me. “Plus, I’ve met someone.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And for the first time since you, I find myself opening up to the possibility of being happy. So I really don’t need you clouding up my head with your bullshit.”
Her head dropped in shame. She knew I was right. For a moment I almost considered going to her. I was so torn. But instead I took a deep breath and took some of my own advice.
Part of learning to love, is knowing when to let go.
“Goodbye, Jenny.”
Leaving Jenny standing alone, I made quick work of healing my heart the best way I knew how.
Layla.
Pulling my phone from my pocket I shot her a quick text, telling her to meet me at my apartment. The journey was a blur and once I made it there, I wasted no time in getting her into bed, tangling with each other between the sheets.
Lost in a postcoital haze, I absently twirled her hair between my fingers. The day’s events had left my head spinning, and I was still trying to make heads or tails of it all.
“Something on your mind?” Layla asked, her head resting in the nook of my arm.
I cleared my throat. “No. I mean, nothing that I should bother you with.”
She propped herself up on her elbow, her gorgeous green eyes piercing through my soul. A smile crept across her face. “Try me.”
I took a deep breath. I was about to divulge information that nobody knew. Not even the closest people in my life. But Layla… well, Layla was worth letting in.
“So… I got divorced today.”
“Divorced? I didn’t know you were married.”
“Nobody did. Hell, I’d forgotten myself. I was young and dumb.”
She ran the pads of her fingers across my tattoo. “Jenny?” she asked as she stared at the ink scrolled across my arm.
“Yeah,” I sighed, my heart still heavy with hurt and regret.
“Well, you must’ve really loved her to permanently mark yourself with her name.”
“I do—” I stopped myself, “I mean, I did.” The heat of embarrassment floods my face. Layla moved her hands to my chest and rested her chin on them, her eyes shine as she looks intently at me.
“Tell me about her.”
It should’ve surprised me, Layla wanting to know about her, but it didn’t because Layla was selfless. Of course she would want to know all about me—my fucked up past included.
“I’ve never really talked to anyone about Jenny before, I only recently let Tyler in on my dirty little secret,” I said, hoping she’d get that I just wanted to leave it alone. It wasn’t exactly the sort of stuff I wanted to bring up, especially this early in our relationship. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be really ready to share that information.
“There’s no better time than the present,” she said, placing a gentle kiss above my heart, encouraging me to share.
Taking a deep breath I considered my options. As bad as I wanted to get up and get out of dodge, something kept me in that bed next to Layla. Something deep within me wanted her to know about my inner struggle. For her to know my darkest secrets.
“I wasn’t always like this,” I started. “There was a time when I was good kid. Some might have even called me a dork.”
Layla giggled into my chest and I pinched her side, teasing her. “Sorry,” she said between giggles. “Go on.”
With my free hand I slapped her ass before continuing with my story.
“No joke, I was hopeless when it came to women. And I kept my nose to the grindstone when it came to all other areas of my life. I was smart, got good grades, did the right things—you know, regular old dweeb stuff. Then, one Saturday during my junior year I had to go do some community service for National Honor Society. It was super early and we were sweeping the sidewalks. After the long, cold winter, the sand had built up and needed to be cleared. Nobody wanted to be there, not even Goody Two-shoes me.
The foreman had just finished giving us our instructions when I head her voice for the first time. She was late and called out to the foreman, to say sorry. He was obviously used to it because he just rolled his eyes, but I had to turn and where the voice had come from. Something about it pulled at my heartstrings and once I saw her I knew I was done for. She was standing there smoking a cigarette, wearing a Germs T-shirt and ripped jeans. Tattoos peeked out from under her sleeves, and she flicked at her lip ring with the tip of her tongue. She was beyond striking, her flaming orange hair pulled into a high ponytail. Just by looking at her I knew she was dangerous, but I couldn’t look away.
I must have stared too long because eventually she flicked her cigarette butt at me and told me to take a picture—that it would last longer. She turned away from me and went about her work. Throughout the day I stopped to admire her, noticing that she worked harder than most of the men with us. To say she intrigued me would be a massive understatement. She consumed me from the get-go. I obsessed over her all morning. Seriously, it was borderline unhealthy. By the time lunch rolled around I had memorized every curve and line to her face.
“My stomach was awash butterflies when she plopped onto the brown grass beside me that day. She held up her pack of smokes and asked if I minded—I didn’t smoke back then. Too scared to actually answer her, I just shook my head and she proceeded to light up.
She told me that
she hadn’t seen me around before, and asked if it was my first offense. That was all she needed to say and I knew, with total certainty, that she was bad news. I should have ignored her, gone back to my sandwich without so much as a word, but I didn’t.
Instead I shook my head again, words seemingly evading me. I remember swallowing over and over, trying to shift the lump from my throat, and hoping for some spark of bravery to find me. With a shaky voice I explained that I wasn’t completing community service, just helping out. She responded with some smart-ass comment about me being a ‘do-gooder’ and I laughed, because she was right.
“I offered her half of my sandwich and we spent the remainder of our lunch talking. She teased me about my taste in music and told me that she was a regular sidewalk sweeper. In half an hour, I learned that Jenny had been busted for lots of misdemeanors—from smoking weed to shoplifting, and everything in between. She was everything I wasn’t, and I found her views on life intoxicating.”
I paused for a moment and swallowed as the memories flooded my consciousness faster than I could speak.
“We became inseparable. How, I’m still not entirely sure, but my parents weren’t overly happy about my newfound friendship with a nineteen-year-old criminal. They told me as much but it didn’t do them any favors because as hard as they pushed me, I pushed back. I started to rebel against them—sneaking out, drinking, smoking. I just didn’t care and I loved how alive I felt with Jenny.”
Layla’s voice was quiet, almost tentative as she said, “It sounds to me like she brought you to life.”
“I guess you could say that. For six months we lived and breathed each other. We were passionate beyond belief. We fought, we listened to music, we argued some more, we drank, we yelled at each other, and we made love. We were crazy about one another. Everything happened so quickly. One day she got me a fake ID and I got her name on my arm, the next we decided to make our relationship official. We went to the courthouse. At the time she thought I used my fake ID, but in reality I forged some documents from my parents saying they gave me consent to get married. She thought our marriage was a sham, but it was the real deal.
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