by Joy Fulcher
“I’ve never treated you that way,” he protested. “I care about you, Jade. I’ve tried to show it to you but you always push me away. I just don’t understand what it is you want.”
“What do you want?” she yelled, turning the question back on him.
“I want you!” he yelled back.
She stared at him, trying to work out if he was telling the truth. Something changed inside her, a decision being made, a guard being released.
“If you want me, then take me,” she whispered.
It came out as a dare, a dare that Drew appeared very willing to accept.
He practically launched himself at her, crushing himself against her. She was only wearing a summer dress, and his body heat was welcoming as it melted through the thin cotton.
It felt so good to have him pressed against her. His touch was urgent, holding her against him.
“I want you, Jade.” His voice was barely audible as he murmured against her throat.
She wanted him too, and she wished she could tell him, but with every touch of his hand, she thought of him touching Tully. Every kiss to her throat was a reminder that he’d kissed someone else just hours ago.
When she’d built up enough strength to push him away, she did, shoving him hard in the chest and running up the stairs.
“Jade?” he called after her.
“Just leave me alone, Drew. I mean it.”
She slammed her bedroom door and frantically started throwing her clothes into a suitcase. All she could think about was getting away from this house, away from Drew. She didn’t care about the money. He could keep his second payment. She didn’t want anything from him.
He knocked on the door repeatedly. “What the hell just happened?”
“Leave me alone.”
She heard him swear loudly, and then his own bedroom door slammed. Once she had the suitcase full of clothes, she chanced opening the door. She could just make out the sound of the TV on his bedroom so she snuck as quietly as she could down the stairs.
In the kitchen, she wrote Drew a note on a scrap of paper and left it by the coffee maker, knowing he’d find it there.
Drew,
I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. I shouldn't have agreed to do this in the first place. Thank you for showing me the reef, I'll never forget it. Do what you need to do with the contract. I'll sign the divorce papers whenever you want me to. Keep the final payment, I don't deserve it. I wish you all the best.
Jade
There was so much more she wanted to say, but she just couldn’t. She heard movement upstairs and panicked, grabbing her handbag and running out of the house with her suitcase. She’d come back for the rest of her things when she knew he wouldn’t be home.
She backed her car out of the driveway and refused to look in the rearview mirror as she drove away. She had to put Drew and that life out of her mind. She was moving forward with the life she should’ve had. She couldn’t help that she’d bought the car, and in all honesty, she needed it.
But any money that she hadn’t spent, after she’d set up a new apartment, she’d send back to him. She didn’t want to owe him anything.
She drove to Clare and Stuart’s house. She didn’t know where else to go. She knocked on the door, suitcase resting against her leg, and waited. Clare opened the door and smiled, then gave the suitcase a confused look.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Jade burst into tears. Clare pulled her inside and sat her down on the couch.
“What did that bastard do? He cheated, didn’t he? I knew he would, you know. Once a playboy, always a playboy. So much for being a Dream Guy. More like Nightmare Guy! I’m going to kill him!”
Jade didn’t have to speak. Clare knew she just needed a friend. They watched cartoons because that was the only thing that didn’t make Jade cry harder, and ate ice cream straight out of the container.
Jade slept on the couch that night. Well, she lay on the couch while sleep evaded her. She wondered if Drew had noticed the note she’d left, or if he even cared. It probably made his life easier not to have to sneak Tully in and out of the house in the middle of the night.
Torturing herself, she pulled out her phone. Clare had refused to let her look at it all night, but she was curious to see if he’d even bothered to call her. He had. There were six missed calls, all from Drew, and a voice message.
She called her voice mail and listened.
“Where are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone? You’re scaring me, Ariel. I have no idea what happened earlier, and then I went to talk to you and your room was empty. You didn’t even say good-bye. Call me back. I’m worried.”
She wished she hadn’t listened to the message. Against her will, she called him back. She didn’t want to talk to him, but she also hated the thought of him worrying. He had sounded frantic.
“Ariel, thank God!” he said, relief evident in his voice.
“You can stop calling. I’m fine.”
“Where are you? When are you coming back so we can talk about this?”
“I’m not coming back, Drew. Didn’t you get my note?”
“Note? No. You left a note?”
“It’s by the coffee maker.”
She heard him walking and then the rustling of paper. She sighed. She’d thought the coffee maker was the most obvious place to look. Again, she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. She probably should have left it on the bar.
“That’s it? That’s all you were going to say to me?” His voice was angry now.
“I’m sorry to back out of the contract. I mean it; you can keep the money.”
“I don’t care about the fucking money. Please, just come home.”
“I’m not coming back.” She tried to be as firm as she could while not raising her voice. She didn’t want to wake her hosts.
Drew let out a long breath. “Ariel—”
“That’s not my fucking name! My name is Jade. I’m not a mermaid princess, and you’re not my prince charming, no matter what the media calls us. This was a huge mistake from the get-go. There’s no fairy-tale ending for us.”
“I love you, Jade. I’ve felt that way for a long time, but I haven’t said anything because you’ve been so adamant that we were only friends. Today I saw a glimpse that maybe your feelings are stronger than that, so I’m telling you how I feel. I love you, and I want you to be here with me.”
Jade laughed. She didn’t know why—his words weren’t funny—but the irony was unbelievable.
“I’ve heard you say that before, Drew. You’re a great actor. You vowed to the whole world that you were in love with me, and still you had no problem sleeping with someone else. Those words don’t mean anything from you.”
She hung up the phone and lay staring at the ceiling until sunlight flooded the room.
Drew threw his phone against the wall. No woman had ever infuriated him so much. Yet he wasn’t angry. He was devastated. He’d grown used to having her around. And even though he hadn’t been able to be with her the way he wished he could, she’d still been there. He’d seen her smile every morning, heard her singing to herself as she cooked dinner for them at night.
And most of all, for several hours a week, he could pretend that she really was his. He could hold her hand, kiss her and claim her as his own. Those few hours made all the other times, watching and longing for her, worth it.
And now she was gone, really gone. Many women had passed through his life, and he hadn’t missed any of them when they’d left, not even Tully. Jade was different. He was sure he loved her; there was no doubt in his mind.
It had hurt when she’d said his words were meaningless to her. But he understood. They’d both played their roles so well, how was she to know when he was playing it up for the cameras and when it was real? But if she wanted more than words, if she wanted actions, he’d give them to her.
Chapter Nineteen
The Wake-Up Call
JADE PUT THE EMP
TY ice cream container on the coffee table in front of her. It’d been a week, and she felt no better about leaving Drew. She flicked through channels on the TV and stopped when his face appeared on the screen. She turned the volume up and leaned forward.
“Drew, you’re alone tonight. Where’s your beautiful wife?”
Drew’s eyes were red, and Jade knew that he was either drunk or hung over. She wasn’t surprised.
“She couldn’t make it tonight,” he said, his words slightly slurred. So, still drunk it was.
“Is there any truth to the reports that you’ve been fighting? Witnesses have said they haven’t seen her at your home for several days.”
His eyes flashed as if he were about to yell at the reporter, but he reined himself in.
“She’s not been feeling well and has been in bed for the past few days.”
He turned and walked away. The reporter faced the camera and held the microphone up to his mouth. “You heard it here; Drew’s marriage is intact. It’s good to hear that he wasn’t another Hollywood statistic so early in his marriage. Oh! Here comes Tamara Farrell, let’s get her attention. Tamara!”
Jade turned the TV off. Another Hollywood statistic. Jade hadn’t thought of herself like that, but she supposed it was true.
“I’m home!” Clare called, and the front door slammed.
Jade turned the TV back on and tried to look interested in an infomercial of a new vacuum cleaner.
“Enjoy your ice cream?” Clare asked, picking up the discarded container.
“Oh, sorry. I was about to get that.”
“Here, I thought you might like something to read.” She handed Jade some magazines. “You know, I’m sure you could get your job back. It wasn’t like you got fired. You only stopped so you could go to school…which you haven’t done. Everyone says how much they miss you. Want me to ask tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I guess. I can’t sit around here forever.”
Jade still had Drew’s money in her account. She wanted to give it back, she knew that morally she should, but once she did that, it was really over, and she wasn’t quite ready for the finality of that. It might be good to have an income to help her get a new apartment.
“No, you can’t. Look, I was thinking that you and I might have a girl’s night tonight. What do you think? We’ll go out and do something girly, just you and me. Or we can invite Pam too, if you like.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Why do you look like it wouldn’t be fun at all?”
“No, sorry, we should go out. I’m over it. Let’s have some fun.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’re not over it. How could you be? You’ve just broken up from a marriage. But we can start to take the first step to being over it. And that involves tequila and loud music.”
“It’s a date.”
“Stop calling me!”
Drew hung up the phone and threw it across the room. It rang again right away, Tully’s name flashing on the screen. He grabbed the phone up off the floor and answered it.
“Fuck off, Tully. I’m serious.”
“Just wait. Don’t hang up. Answer one question for me, okay?”
He waited, not bothering to verbally agree.
“Okay, you need to grow up and stop being a fucking baby—”
Drew hung up the phone again. He didn’t have time for her shit. The whiskey bottle on the counter greeted him as he entered the kitchen, and he took a swig, not even bothering with a glass.
He could hear his phone ringing again, but he ignored it. Tully had ruined his life; he didn’t need to hear her bitching at him about it too.
He stumbled through the house and collapsed on the couch in the formal lounge. He’d hoped this room would be a solace from memories of Jade, seeing as she’d rarely entered it, but it had been the last place he’d seen her before she’d left. They’d almost made love on the very couch he was lying on.
He groaned and tipped the bottle over his face, getting some in his mouth but more over the cushions. And then he must have passed out because the next thing he knew, he was being jerked awake by a loud banging.
It was dark in the house now, and he turned lights on as he moved to the front door.
“I’m coming!” he yelled as the banging continued.
He pulled the door open and then tried to close it again right away. Tully pushed her way past before he could lock her outside.
“I don’t want you to be here!” he said.
Every night, he hoped Jade would come home. Maybe tonight would be the night, he’d tell himself. It was the only way he could keep himself from driving all over Los Angeles searching for her. What would she think if she showed up and Tully was there? No, she had to go.
Drew grabbed her arm and tried to maneuver her back toward the door, but she shook herself free.
“I won’t stay. Just listen for two minutes, for fuck’s sake. Geez, you’re a mess!”
“Is that what you came to say?” He turned and walked back to the couch. His whiskey bottle lay on the ground, much of the amber liquid pooled on the floor. There was still enough left in the bottle for a good swig, though, and he drained it dry.
Tully followed him into the formal lounge and stood shaking her head at him.
“Drew, you can’t blame me for your marriage breaking down. Yes, we were cheating and you got caught, but you know what? You made the decision to cheat. I didn’t chain you up and force you. You invited me here. Take some responsibility and stop being a victim. And for God’s sake, stop drinking. You think Jade’s going to want to come back to you in this state? You can barely even stand up. I bet you want to lick that spilled liquor off the floor, don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” was all Drew could say. He hated that she was right.
“You did. And that’s why you’re in this mess. If you want Jade back—and don’t try to pretend you don’t, I know you well enough to know this isn’t one of your usual benders—then you need to clean yourself up and be the kind of guy she’ll want to come home to.”
“Get out, Tully.”
He slumped down on the couch and closed his eyes, trying to block Tully’s words from his mind. He didn’t know how long she stayed, but when he opened his eyes again, she was gone.
It infuriated him that she was right. But she was. He was a mess. If Jade saw him like this, she’d run for the hills and never look back.
He went back into the kitchen and got his phone, then called Jade for the millionth time. Just like every other time, he got her voice mail.
“Ariel, I don’t know if you’re listening to these messages. I hope you are. I want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m going to make this right. Please just give me the time to make this right. I’m going to rehab. Please give me a call so we can talk.”
The thought of going to rehab hadn’t even occurred to him until the words were leaving his mouth. Once it was said, though, he knew it was what he had to do, so he made another call.
“Drew! Good to hear from you, son. How is everything?”
“Hey, Dad. I’m not so good.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, so Drew kept talking. “Jade left. She’s been gone a week, and she won’t answer my calls. I’m a mess. I was hoping you could talk to your agent and find a good rehab. I want to grow up and be the man that Jade needs.”
Drew had never spoken so honestly with his father before. But he needed the help, and he would take the shame that came with raw honesty.
Aaron let out a long breath. “I’m proud of you, Drew. I’ll get you some details. Why don’t you come stay at the house with your mother and me tonight?”
Drew hesitated. He wanted to be home in case Jade came over, but the chances of that were remote. It would be good to have his parents looking out for him.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I’ll come pick you up.”
Jade wasn’t sure what brought her back to her old neighborhood. The only thing she could put it down
to was that she missed the simple life she’d had when she lived there. Her face hadn’t been plastered on the cover of tabloid magazines, photographers didn’t chase her down the streets, and Drew was just some guy she’d vaguely heard of.
Everything was so different now. She kicked a pebble along the sidewalk as she walked past the school. The sounds of boys yelling came from inside, but it didn’t sound like a fight, it was cheering.
She thought about stopping to see what was going on, but it was nearly dusk and she wanted to get home before it was dark, so she turned to head back to her car. Back to her crazy new life.
“Hey, miss!”
Jade heard the greeting but assumed it must have been for someone else. She didn’t know anyone who lived on this street.
“Miss!”
The voice was closer. Thundering footsteps approached her from behind. She spun and prepared to defend herself, expecting her bag to be snatched. A young man raced toward her. He looked to be in his mid-teens and wore his black hair in a ponytail. He slowed as he approached her with a huge smile. She couldn’t feel any threat coming from him, so she relaxed.
“Are you talking to me?” she asked.
“You’re Drew’s girl, right?” the boy asked, breathing heavily from running after her.
“Uh…” Jade didn’t really feel like getting into her complex love life with a stranger on the street.
“I knew it was you. Craig said you weren’t, but I recognized your hair.”
“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked, expecting the boy to say he had a message for her from Drew. Apparently he was getting kids to do his dirty work for him now.
“Have you seen Drew?”
“Have I…? Haven’t you seen him?” His question threw her off.
“He hasn’t been coming to practice for a few weeks, and he missed our championship game.”
“I’m sorry. He’s got some personal things going on right now. I’m sure he would have been there if he could.”