“You’re right, Jake. I wish you weren’t but it’s not fair to ask her to wait knowing what lies ahead, not when you’re both so unsure of yourselves. And not when she’s already had enough people use her and then forget about her.”
My fingers tighten painfully on the phone and I want to rage at him that I’m not like any of those people, that I would cut my fucking arm off and never throw a baseball again before I used her, but I can’t, because we both know that I followed her here because she did something that no one else could and made me care again. Before I even knew her, Blue snuck past my defenses and made me feel something and I’ve held onto that for long enough — falling in love with her doesn’t change the fact that I saw something I needed and I took it, it just makes it that much fucking harder to walk away.
“Shit, Murph, why does it hurt this goddamn much?”
His silence tells me he’s remembering his time without his own girl, that awkward in between high school and college time when no one has their shit figured out and even loving someone doesn’t mean you can have them. “Because it’s real. It doesn’t matter if you were always going to walk away, Jake, you fell in love and it’s like being hit by a line drive, right between the eyes. You don’t always recover, and even if you do, that hit stays with you and echoes through you every now and then, so real you can feel it, and it hurts all over again.”
His words are still playing in my head minutes later when Cora opens the door and steps through. I stay where I am, watching her as she drops her keys and purse on the bench just inside the door, then walks a few steps to the couch where she rests her hand and leans down to slip off one heeled sandal before switching feet and doing the other. When she straightens, I slide open the door and we lock eyes.
The air between us electrifies as it has every time we’ve been in the same room in the past few weeks. The urgency that has pushed us to be together as much as possible comes to a boil and spills over and, all of a sudden, the air is thick with not only need, but understanding, heartache, grief. A minute passes and then two, but neither of us moves as we stare at one another, our bodies fighting the magnetic pull that’s urging us together as we acknowledge what’s happening.
“When?” she finally asks and I step inside, closing the door behind me.
“Soon. Tomorrow.”
She nods and I stay still, waiting to see what she wants. My heart is thumping against my chest so hard I can hear it in my ears, and my breath is backing up in my lungs. When she steps toward me, I have to fist my hands to keep them at my sides, still uncertain if she’s going to touch me or slap me. But then she’s cupping my face in her hands and meeting my eyes, a small smile on her lips as she raises to her toes and presses her mouth to mine.
“Then let’s take tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cora
Tomorrow.
His words vibrate down to my core and settle in the pit of my stomach. The dread, the pain, the hurt… we knew this was coming and still, the pain is worse than either of us could have predicted. But I won’t have him regretting leaving, won’t have him feeling sad to be chasing the dream that he’s worked so hard to get back, just as I won’t have him regretting coming here in the first place. Pain or not, I wouldn’t change any of it.
When I see him go to speak, I shake my head, my smile firmly in place though my cheeks ache with the effort.
“Jake, there’s nothing left to say, we both know that. This is your dream, something you thought you lost but can now have. It’s everything you’ve ever worked for, everything you’ve ever wanted.”
His eyes are devastated when they look at me and I know what he’s thinking. But what about us? I stop him before he says something he’ll feel forced to see through, something that I’ll want to believe even though I know better. Who understands better than I that sometimes you have to make a choice.
“We never made any promises, Handsome Jake, and we both know too well that life can change. People can change. I’m grateful I had you,” I tell him and my breath catches in my throat, hitching until I have to stop and swallow. “You and I got what we needed from each other, let’s not make it into something it was never meant to be.”
He’s processing my words and what they mean, for him, for me, for us. I know he understands that I’m telling him he needs to go, to make his future and be the person he was meant to be. It feels like the air has been sucked out of the room, making it difficult for me to draw breath, but I work on it, slowly breathing in and out as I watch him, memorizing every feature since this might be my last time.
It hurts to think that, right down to my bones, and it hurts to know that what we are is temporary because I let myself believe, for even a second, that we could have more. But more than the hurt is the fear that if I don’t let him go, if I beg him to stay and try to make it work, what we have will be tainted by regret or blame. That eventually it will make both of us feel nothing more than mild contempt for the other person, and I won’t risk that.
It’s not a selfless act that has me letting him go; no, it’s fear that if I try to keep him and balance our worlds together, we’ll one day end up like the parents we both claim not to need, stuck in a relationship that eventually causes us to despise one another, or worse, causes one of us to need more than the other can give. I can take watching him leave now if it means we don’t ever look at each other or back at what we were with regret, that we have this memory of what it felt like to be alive together.
I think I can survive as long as I know we have that.
Needing somehow to show him everything I can’t say, I rise to my toes and press my lips to his. My fingers sink into his hair and bring him closer, molding us together as we make that much needed contact. For perhaps the first time since we’ve been together, I let everything I’m feeling translate into my touch. I don’t hold myself back, don’t try to slow myself down; instead, I take everything I need and give him everything I have, hoping that I can show him without saying the words exactly what he means to me. Words are too easy at times, too simple. What we have isn’t simple; he’s the first person to touch me and feel more than my body, the first person in my life to ever reach inside of me and see who I really am, the heart that beats inside of me, and he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to give it to, free of expectation.
Jake showed me that love isn’t a balancing of scales, it’s a gift, one that’s given and accepted freely, one that makes looking at someone and saying goodbye easier because you know deep down it’s the only thing that will allow them to truly be whole.
When he wraps me up and lifts me, so reminiscent of our first time together, I have to battle back the tears that spring to my eyes. I wind around him, my legs anchored around his hips, my arms around his neck as I take my lips on a journey of face and neck while he carries us into the room we’ve shared for months now.
Neither of us says anything as he stops at the side of the bed and I slide slowly down his body until my feet touch the floor. The time for words has passed, and now we’re looking at each other, standing pressed together as the dying light pours through the open window and invites in the sounds and scents of the outside world. A world we made our own for just a little bit.
For a second, I’m transported back to those early days we were together when we would love playfully, when he would shush me and tell me the neighbors would hear and then do exactly what he had done the second before to make me cry out. It didn’t matter if there were thousands of noises coming through the windows and surrounding us or nothing at all — for those brief periods of time, all we needed was each other and what we felt when we were together.
Hoping I can remind him of that now, I take my time undressing him, my fingertips brushing lightly over exposed skin, my lips exploring each new piece of flesh I uncover. His shirt falls behind him as I push it over his head and my lips immediately find the smooth skin of his chest, resting over his heart. I reach for the top button on his sho
rts and he grabs my hands, shaking his head even as his mouth comes down on mine.
He takes the power easily, his mouth demanding, his touch consuming as he strips me of my dress, laying me back on the bed as his lips go to work covering every inch of me. He’s tender in his assault and so thorough, letting no part of me feel left out, covering me with his body as his fingers take their own journey from my breast to my stomach and more, the sensations so overwhelming I can barely breathe.
“Don’t forget this.” He speaks the words against my lips, his tone fierce and urgent, and I shake my head. Never. We can’t have it all, but we have this, and it’s special. No matter what happens, neither of us will forget. When his mouth closes over my breast and his fingers press into me, I’m thrown from the cliff, my back arching and my body breaking apart as he works me ruthlessly over the next peak as well.
Shattered, I lay there when he shifts away to get a condom, my lungs burning and my limbs weak, and then he’s back, his forearms bearing his weight as he rests over me and waits for my eyes to meet his.
“Was it worth it?” he asks and I don’t pretend to not understand. Were we worth it, the pain we both know is coming, the opening up of secrets and pieces of my life buried? Was everything we did over the past five months worth this moment?
I look into his eyes, my own free and clear of tears, my hands going to his face. “Yes.”
His forehead drops to mine, his body shuddering for a heartbeat before he’s moving, rocking inside of me and taking me to that place where it’s only us. I hold onto him, bring his lips down to mine and take everything he has to give me one last time.
~
In the morning I wake alone, his ratty Yankees T-shirt and a note on the pillow beside me.
“…I might not be alive now, only for you…” You saved me from myself and gave me back my dream, I’ll never forget that. Yogi wanted to stay. Check to cover the rest of the year is on the counter. Be happy, Blue, and remember you’re not alone. xoxo
I stare at the piece of paper, something that most people would have sent in a text. Not Jake. My Jake, I think. The poetry reading, paperback holding, pen using, cat owner with brown eyes and a heart bigger than most. He wrote me a note to keep, something I can take out over and over to trace the words that will protect me against loneliness.
Curling into his pillow, I don’t cry. I breathe him in and let his scent fill those places inside that are already lonely without him. Then I grab his note and get up to feed the cat.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jake
Mia’s waiting for me when I finally arrive at my old Arizona apartment thirty hours after I left Blue sleeping. I don’t know if it’s the haggard scruff I carry from the almost fourteen hundred miles of driving with minimal sleep, or the fact that I hurt everywhere and it shows, but one look at me has her stepping back and reaching out a hand to bring me inside.
“I won’t blame you if you take a swing at me.”
“Ah, you’re thinking of Cora — she’s the fighter.” She must see my face because the Angel’s smile is sympathetic as she wraps her arms around my waist, resting her head on my chest for a beat. “She’s stronger than we think, Jake. You both are.” When she pulls back, she smiles up at me and I feel the tenuous bit of control I have start to tremble. “Come on, Ryan told me you were coming and, though I’m sure I’m not as appealing to hang out with as a bunch of sweaty guys, they’re on the road at Stanford until Saturday night, so I’m all you’ve got. But I did buy you beer and some tacos to make up for such a quiet homecoming.”
“Muph’s a lucky guy, Angel.”
Her grin is lightning quick and blinding when she throws it over her shoulder at me, and for what feels like the millionth time, I think of my siren and her smile, the one that was so rare in the beginning, and made me feel like a fucking king every time I got her to give me one when we were together. And then I remember her smile that last time we were together, the small curving of her lips as she told me she wouldn’t change anything about us even if she could. There’s a gaping hole in my chest, something that tells me I’ve just left the best thing behind and when I see Mia watching me from the kitchen with knowing eyes, I understand that love, however new, however short lived, changes us more than any other experience. Hefting my bag, I block out the images of Blue and follow my best friend’s girl into the kitchen.
~
“Have you talked to her?”
Mia looks up from the sink where she’s rinsing dishes and I see her eyes narrow, assessing how much I can really take. Finally, she nods.
“This morning, and yesterday after Ryan texted me and told me you were moving back in. I’m going to see her this weekend.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask. Shit, just ask. “How is she?”
“About like you’d expect, I guess.”
My smile is humorless as I tip my beer bottle back. “Not gonna make this easy on me, are you, Angel?”
“Can anything really make this easy, Handsome Jake?”
It’s not the statement but the tone she delivers it in, not full of resentment and condemnation, but of understanding. That alone has me cracking enough to set my beer down and scrub my hands over my face.
“I just couldn’t stay — and I couldn’t ask her to wait. I wanted to, fuck did I want to, I just knew that asking could be a promise broken. Leaving her honestly, leaving without expectation and hope, letting her go instead of tying her to a possibility seemed more honest than anything else.” I pick up my beer and swallow half the contents as Mia comes to sit on the stool the next to me. The apartment is the same, small kitchen with a breakfast bar and two stools that leads into the small living space, which leads to the hall and two bedrooms. But it’s different — when Murph and I lived here there were beer cans on the table and baseball posters on the wall. The television was the only thing that was taken care of, and it was almost always hooked up to some kind of game console. Now, there’s some flutey-type music with a contemporary feel playing over the sound system and the screen is blank. The carpet is clean and void of any stains and debris, and the kitchen smells and looks clean.
My mind flashes back to the apartment I left almost two days ago, the windows that filtered in light and sound, the comfortable furniture that had become a place for Cora and I to love each other in the afternoon. The kitchen where we made meals together, danced while we cleaned, stood while she cried on my shoulder, and where I admitted that we were close to an end.
Mia sits patiently while I gulp more beer, erasing the images even as I erase the emotion in my throat. She’s pulled her knees to her chest on the small stool and has her chin resting on them, her eyes strong and steady as she watches me. She’s similar to Cora in ways that show me they’re more than good friends — certain expressions, her ability to sit completely still and listen. But Mia’s demeanor isn’t controlled so much as ingrained. Assessing things, figuring out the best approach and all possible outcomes is as a part of who is she is, something as natural as her eye color. Blue, she was my siren, the temptress who was controlling her body and her heart while she learned to control her choices and her life.
Until me. It isn’t arrogance, it’s plain understanding that until me, Cora was living with the hope to survive in peace, and then I came along and wouldn’t take no, and eventually, her walls began to come down and together we came alive. Even as the memory comforts me, it makes me feel like a bastard. I walked away, but I’m starting to wonder if I ever should have walked toward her that first night.
“It was braver than you think to walk away, Jake.”
Mia’s words penetrate my thoughts, as if she knew where they were headed, and I look up from the counter to meet her eyes.
“Most people would think walking is the weak choice — that fighting for her is the brave thing to do, giving it all up to be with her so I can show her she’s all that matters.”
“Is she? All that matters, I mean.”
I tak
e a minute to think about it, remembering what it felt like to go home each night knowing she would be there, waking up in her bed in the morning, moving with her, inside her, loving her.
“She matters more than anything or anyone else ever has. More than I thought anything or anyone could,” I admit, and Mia nods like she gets it. “But I can’t say she’s the only thing that matters because I want others things too. I guess that’s why I left. I want to be a ball player, and I don’t know how to do that and be with Cora, not the way she deserves.”
Mia stays quiet, even after I stop and drink down the last of my beer. When I stand to drop the bottle in the recycling bin, she waits for me to come back before speaking.
“Did Ryan ever tell you about my family?”
I nod. “Some, but it was enough to understand that loving a guy like the Murph was probably scary as fuck for you at first.”
“And then some,” she adds with a smile that draws one of my own. “My parents don’t know how to think of each other and of themselves at the same time, if that makes sense. Like both of them lost their identity when they got married and started a family, so they adopted roles that can only be defined as a member of that family. My father runs the family business, and his family when they need order and guidance, and my mother does everything she can to keep my father happy and our appearance perfect. It’s not a hard way to grow up,” she says when my eyes narrow, “just different. I have three brothers and a sister and we’ve all dealt with our own understanding of love differently. My older brother gave up his life for a girl, just as you said people think we should. He dropped his dreams, his family, his future, and followed her around because he thought this was the only way to show her he loved her, to think only of her.”
The Light of Day Page 19