by Lauren Rowe
I nod, scared to death of what she’s going to say next. Is she going to leave me? Is she going to say she doesn’t respect me anymore? That I’m not the man she thought I was? “Yes.” I swallow hard.
“That’s ‘The Lunacy’?”
I nod again. I can hardly breathe.
She exhales loudly and smiles. “That’s the big reveal? The dark and horrible secret that’s going to make me run away screaming and never come back?”
I don’t understand the smile on her face. Is she laughing at me?
“Well, yeah.”
“You torched your daddy’s fancy car collection, went on a joy ride in the prized Porsche he never let you touch, and then drove his car off a bridge in a desperate attempt to stop the pain that had tortured you relentlessly for ten years?”
Well, fuck. That’s a gross over-simplification if I’ve ever heard one.
“That about sums it up, right?”
“Well, yeah. But, I mean, Sarah, maybe you don’t understand. I had some sort of psychotic break that landed me in fucking restraints in a psych ward. That’s kind of a big deal.”
She shakes her head like she’s chastising herself and crawls over to me on the bed. She takes my face in her hands. “I’m so sorry I tied you up, Jonas. I had no idea—”
“How could you know? Any normal guy would have been counting his lucky stars to get tied up by sexy little you.” I shrug apologetically. “I’m sorry I’m not a normal guy.”
She kisses me.
We’re both quiet for a minute. My stomach is churning. I’m freaking out about whatever she’s going to say next, but I wait.
She seems deep in thought.
I want to argue my case, tell her I’m all better now, that she can trust me—that I haven’t had a major problem since I was seventeen—unless you count joining The Club for a year as a major problem, I guess—that I love her and would never harm her. But I don’t speak. My thoughts are spinning out of control. Is she going to leave me? Does this change everything? Does she still love me?
“I thought you were about to tell me you punched a nun or threw a puppy off a cliff. I’m so effing relieved.”
Relieved? I can’t believe my ears. Maybe she doesn’t understand everything I just told her. “Sarah, did you hear me? I crashed into parked cars, drove on the sidewalk. I easily could have killed a kid, a mother, some sweet old lady... and then I purposefully drove my car off a fucking bridge, laughing like a maniac the whole time. Did you hear any of that? I came this close to killing some innocent kid who happened to be standing on the sidewalk eating an ice cream cone.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Only because I got lucky.”
“Aha! That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you describe yourself as lucky.” She smiles broadly. “You see what just happened there? Life is nothing but the story you tell yourself in your own head. So instead of constantly telling yourself The Story of How Jonas Went to the Insane Asylum and Was at Fault for Every Goddamned Thing That Ever Happened to His Entire Family on an endless, self-defeating loop, change your story to The Story of How Jonas Got Super-Duper Lucky One Really Sucky Day.”
My mouth hangs open. Why is she being so difficult? This stuff is horrible. Why can’t she see that? “Sarah, I’m not sure you understand. I tried to kill myself mere hours after my father killed himself—Josh be damned. How could I even think of doing that to Josh? I was heartless. Selfish. Despicable.”
“I think everything you did was perfectly understandable. Sad. Regrettable. Heartbreaking. Outrageous. Yes, pretty fucking crazy. But totally and completely understandable.”
Mind officially blown. I shake my head. “No, Sarah. You’re taking the ‘understanding girlfriend’ thing too far.” She’s just not getting it. I’m damaged. I’m worthless. “Here’s something else you don’t know: I’m told I punched the first guy who tried to pull me out of the Porsche in the water. I mean, talk about an asshole.”
“Oh well, out of everything you’ve told me, that’s the last straw. Sorry, baby, I’m outta here.” She smiles.
“How are you so jovial about all this?”
“I’m not jovial.” She exhales with obvious frustration. “That’s not the right word.” She squints at me.
I squint back. Why doesn’t she get it? I’m hopelessly defective. Horrible. Worthless. Doesn’t she understand what she’s getting into if she stays with me? I’m not normal. At some point, I’m going to fuck this up. Everything I touch turns to blood.
“Are you happy?” she asks.
I pause. Is this a trick question?
“I mean are you happy with me?”
“Oh.” Well, that’s an easy one. “Yeah, of course. I’m happier with you than I’ve ever been in my whole life.” Actually, happy isn’t the right word for how I feel when I’m with her. “I’m beyond happy,” I say. “I’m crazy happy. It’s like I’ve got a serious mental disease or something.” I grin sheepishly.
She grins back at me. “Same here. It’s madness, I tell you.” She twists her mouth to avoid a smirk. “So, considering my current state of madness, why the heck would I purposefully buy myself a big ol’ steaming pile of wretched unhappiness, especially about something that happened thirteen years ago? Why wouldn’t I just continue to be happy?”
I’m dumbfounded. I can’t answer that question.
“Hmm?”
The woman makes a good point.
“And more importantly, why would you want to be anything other than crazy-happy? Wouldn’t you just rather enjoy your happiness?”
I feel my lower lip trembling, so I bite it.
She cups my cheeks in her hands again. God, I love it when she does that. “Do you foresee trying to kill yourself again in the near future, love?”
I shake my head. “No. Never.”
“Well, okay, then. Good.” She drops her hands.
I wait but she doesn’t say anything else.
But I’m confused. What does “good” mean? Is that all she’s going to say? “So that’s it?” I ask. “Good?”
She sighs. “Yeah. Good.”
I’m incredulous.
She leans in and kisses me softly. “Jonas, failure isn’t falling down—it’s not getting back up. And you’ve gotten back up more than anyone I’ve ever known. I’m proud of you. I see your triumphs, not your failures. I see your goodness. And sweetness. And generosity of spirit. The beautiful kindness that glows inside of you. And I love you for all of it. Just like Mariela did. Just like Miss Westbrook did. Just like your mother did.”
That last one makes my eyes water, so I close them. I’m blown away. Is she really going to make this so easy on me? So poetic? So beautiful? She’s making me out to be a fucking hero?
“I do have one question, though.”
Ah, here it comes. I nod, bracing myself.
“How did you get from Lunatic-Driving-Off-a-Bridge Jonas to Hunky-Monkey-Ass-Kicking-Sexy-Beast Jonas? How’d you get from there to here? I’m fascinated.”
Shit. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to figure out whether to tell her or avoid the topic altogether.
Sarah’s eyes are patient. Warm. Curious.
“You really want to know?”
“Duh.”
I don’t like this part. I’ve never told anyone about this, not even Josh. All he knows is that I had some “treatments.” I’ve never told him what finally made a huge difference for me. I pause.
“Was there some kind of turning point?” she asks. “Did you have some kind of epiphany? Something specific that helped you turn things around?”
Damn, my baby’s nothing if not persistent. I nod.
“Well, what was it?”
I twist my mouth.
“Come on, Jonas. You can tell me anything.”
I exhale.
“Come on, baby. Trust me.”
Chapter 33
Jonas
My pulse pounds in my ears. Shit. I really don’t want to tell her this.
I know how bad it sounds. I know how much stigma is associated with this. But I’ve told her everything else, haven’t I? I can’t stop now. Fuck it.
“I got a whole bunch of ECT treatments,” I say quietly. “Do you know what that is?”
She shakes her head.
“Electro-shock therapy.”
She pauses. “You mean they shocked your brain? With electricity?”
I nod.
“Wow. That sounds barbaric.”
“No, it wasn’t like you think. It’s not like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. They drug you first. I don’t even remember it. It helped me.”
“They did this to you when you were seventeen?”
“Yeah. I guess ECT is what they do to you when they’ve tried everything else.”
“And that helped?”
“A lot. I don’t know why, but it did. And then there was one additional piece of the puzzle. Something life-changing that happened right after my treatments were completed.”
She’s utterly captivated.
“On my eighteenth birthday, Josh sent me The Republic by Plato. His note said, ‘I was forced to read this instrument of torture for Philosophy 101. I’d rather pry my fingernails off with rusty pliers than read it ever again. You’re gonna love it, bro. Enjoy.’ And he was right. I loved it. It introduced me to philosophy for the first time and got me reading everything—Locke, Descartes, Aristotle, Heraclitis, Nietzsche, Sen, Camus, Santayana, whoever. But, in the end, I kept going back to Plato. He was the forefather of modern thought—the one who inspired me to visualize the divine originals and conquer myself. ‘For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.’” I exhale. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“Are you crazy?” She laughs. “Of course, I do. I’m hanging on your every word.”
I pause.
“Come on, Jonas. Continue. I love hearing about this stuff.”
I exhale. “All my treatments were over. All charges against me had been expunged from my record thanks to me being a minor. Josh was at UCLA and Uncle William was busy trying to keep the company afloat after my father’s death. So I just said, Fuck yeah, Plato, let’s do this shit. I threw on a backpack and went to visit Plato in Greece—which is where I got my tattoos, by the way—and from there, I traveled all over Europe, wherever the fuck I wanted, all by myself. I climbed, hiked, explored, whatever. I listened to music and read my books and just figured my shit out.”
“Oh, come on, Jonas—that’s all you did? Climbed, hiked, and read your books? I’m sure you did a little something else, too.” She smirks. “I bet all the horny college girls backpacking through Europe went crazy for eighteen-year-old Jonas Faraday with the shy smile and sad eyes.”
Leave it to Sarah. Nothing gets past her. Yes, she’s exactly right—I’ve left one particular activity out of my narrative. That trip was when I first got the inkling women might be especially attracted to me compared to the next guy hiking the trail or sitting at the bar. As long as I didn’t blow it by being Creepy Jonas or Intense Jonas or Antisocial Jonas or Philosophical Jonas or Asshole Jonas or, God forbid, Crazy-Eyes Jonas, girls actually seemed pretty interested in me—though not being one of those aforementioned Jonases almost always took a lot out of me.
And on those rare and fucking awesome days when Charming Jonas randomly decided to show up, or at least Shy Jonas or Awkward Jonas, I couldn’t miss. On those occasions, as few and far between as they were, getting girls was like shooting ducks in a barrel—I had my pick of any young woman on the youth hostel circuit.
“Yeah,” I say, blushing. “I learned how much I thoroughly enjoy sex on that trip. That was when I lost my virginity, actually.” I can’t help but smile broadly. Sex with that pretty Swedish girl wasn’t objectively all that great, really, but a guy never forgets finally getting to use his cock as nature intended for the first time in his life.
“I feel like cheering for eighteen-year-old Jonas and throwing confetti on him. That poor boy deserved to have a little carefree fun, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do. And he did.”
She laughs.
Why was I so nervous about telling her all of this? She’s so damned easy to talk to, so nonjudgmental. The woman is flat-out kind. Why didn’t I have faith in her?
“Interesting factoid discovered by eighteen-year-old Jonas, though. Most girls don’t like dudes who are creepy and intense.”
“Really?” She’s aghast. “Wait a minute—are you sure?”
“It’s true. They run away, their arms flailing.”
She laughs. “Well, those girls were all idiots, then. I happen to know it’s the creepy and intense guys who make the best lovers.” She winks.
I feel like the weight of the world’s been lifted off me. “Well, not necessarily. I hadn’t quite figured out the sexcellence thing yet. Not by a long shot.” I laugh again. “I was like a frantic dog with a bone.”
“Well, you were just a puppy, after all.”
“Yeah, a puppy with a big ol’ hard-on.”
She laughs.
“A big ol hard-on and huge paws and a big ol’ tail that knocked drinks off coffee tables.”
“Are you sure it was your tail knocking those drinks off coffee tables, big boy?”
I laugh. God, I love her.
“So, okay. You weren’t quite the woman wizard at age eighteen.”
“Not quite. I’m pretty sure I thought the female orgasm was a myth propagated by the porn industry.”
She smiles broadly.
“Now, Josh, on the other hand, he was fantastic with girls—or, at least, compared to me. When school got out for the summer, Josh met me in Thailand so we could climb Crazy Horse—which is so fucking awesome, by the way, I can’t wait to take you there—and then we traveled together for like ten weeks, climbing and hiking and partying and, you know.” I grin broadly. “Fishing.”
She knows what kind of fishing I’m talking about. “So Josh taught you how to get the girls?”
I laugh heartily. “The guy was my Obi Wan Kenobi. Before Josh showed up, the only strategy I’d formulated for catching fish was sitting in my boat, all alone, without any gear—basically trying not to come off like a serial killer—and praying a pretty fish might by chance leap out of the water and flop right into my lap.”
She laughs. “Oh, Jonas.”
“And, occasionally, a fish did—lucky me. But Josh? That boy had skills. He could do this revolutionary thing—he could lure the fish into his boat with an actual fishing rod and bait.”
Her face is glowing. “What was Josh’s bait?”
“Check this out. He talked to the fish. Pretty good, huh?”
She laughs. “What? That’s crazy. He should write a book.”
“Oh, and he taught me the simple art of buying a girl a drink. You know, being a gentleman. Being attentive. Smiling. Insane stuff.”
“He was a woman wizard in training, sounds like.”
I laugh. “Definitely.”
I’m amazed. I never in a million years thought Sarah and I would be laughing during a conversation about The Lunacy. I thought we’d be crying—or that I’d be begging, apologizing, reassuring. But laughing? Never.
“You should have seen Josh in action. He was Mr. Smooth—or at least eighteen-year-old Jonas thought so. Josh would always say, ‘Jonas, just shut the fuck up and look pretty, okay? Your job is to be the dew-covered web that attracts the girls—you’re the something shiny—and my job is to be the spider who lies in wait and bites their legs off before they know what hit ‘em.’”
She bursts out laughing and I join her, yet again.
“So, to answer your initial question, that’s when everything started turning around for me—when Josh dragged me all over Kingdom Come in search of big rocks and pretty girls to climb. That’s when I started to glimpse the divine original form of Jonas Faraday-ness for the first time in my life, however dim and blurry the image might have been back then.”
“Well, I’d already done pretty much all of Europe by myself. So with Josh, it was Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and then a little bit of Central America on the way home. Actually, that’s the first time I went to Belize—on that trip with Josh.”
The mere mention of Belize is enough to make Sarah’s face light up. “Belize,” she says, sighing dreamily.
It suddenly strikes me, full force, how much my little caterpillar has transformed since we first huddled together in our Belizian cocoon-built-for-two. I thought I loved her then, and I did, in my own way, but my love was a shallow pool compared to the limitless ocean I feel for her now.
“Belize was just the beginning, my precious baby. I’m gonna show you the world.”
Her face bursts with excitement.
“Wherever you want to go, we’ll go. You name it.”
She squeals. “Oh, Jonas. Thank you.”
God, I love this woman. Why was I so afraid to talk to her about this stuff? This entire conversation has felt so right. This woman loves me. My skin feels electrified. She loves me.
“So, what happened once you got home?”
I’m reeling. I can’t concentrate. She loves me, despite everything—and maybe even because of everything. She’s told me she loves me many times by now, of course, but this is the first time I’ve believed it. She loves me. All of me. The real me. Not the pretend me. Not some ridiculous projection of me. Me. For better or worse.
“Jonas, what happened when you got home?”
“Um.” I smile at her. Damn, she’s beautiful.
She raises an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great, baby. Never better. Uh, Josh went back for his second year at UCLA. I went off to Gonzaga and later down to Berkeley for my MBA, and when Josh and I finished all our fancy degrees, I took over Faraday & Sons in Seattle, Josh started the L.A. branch, and Uncle William moved to New York to start a satellite office out there. And that’s when the company took off like a fucking rocket, beyond anything we’d imagined.” I pause. I can’t think of anything else to say on this topic. “And-now-I’m-here-with-you-in-Las-Vegas-and-I’m-totally-normal-in-every-conceivable-way-and-I-want-to-be-inside-you-more-than-I-want-to-breathe. The End.”