Carry My Heart

by J. S. Cooper

  Chapter Ten

  Sage

  Jacob was in his bedroom and I was still sitting on the couch I’d been on since he’d left and come back. The sun had set now, and I was starting to feel tired. He hadn’t really spoken to me since he’d come back, and while I was happy for the space, I was slightly saddened by the fact that he seemed to be ignoring me. I sighed at myself as I realized that I was already getting emotionally dragged back into a headspace with Jacob that I didn’t want to be in. “Get it together, Sage,” I mumbled to myself as I sat there.

  I opened my small suitcase and pulled out my toiletry bag. I unzipped it slowly, listening to the sounds of Ed Sheeran playing through the speakers in Jacob’s room. I looked around his living room and smiled briefly to myself. It was warm and cozy, and I admired the colorful Moroccan rug on his wooden floors and the comfortable tan-brown leather couch he had facing his small balcony. The room made me feel like I was at home and I wondered how he could afford to have his own apartment and decorate it so nicely as a student.

  I sighed as I pulled out my toothbrush and toothpaste. There were so many questions I had for him and so many answers that I would never get. I was determined to not let Jacob back into my life on any more than a surface level and I had promised myself that I would not ask him any questions. I knew it would be hard having to spend time with him for a whole month and not asking him about his life, but I knew that I could do it. I had to. There was no way I was going to get sucked back in.

  “What’s the sigh about, Sage?” Jacob crept out of his room, making me jump as I glanced back at him. My eyes trying not to admire how he looked in his black jeans and white T-shirt.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “Can I use your bathroom?” I held up my toothpaste and toothbrush. “I need to brush my teeth.”

  “Of course you can, you know where it is.” He pointed toward the bathroom door. “And you don’t need to ask me. This is your home as well.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Well at least for the next month it is.” He offered me a small smile, but I didn’t smile back.

  “Hmm.” I shrugged and looked away from him.

  “Is it going to be like this the whole time, Sage?” he asked me softly as he took a step toward me. His blue eyes held an unfamiliar expression; something akin to melancholy and it made me sad to see that emotion on his face. No matter how much I hated him, I didn’t want to see him upset or troubled.

  “Like what?” I asked, pretending I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Like we’re strangers.” He frowned. “Like you hate me.”

  “We are strangers,” I said and bit down on my lower lip. “We knew each other a long time ago, Jacob.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago.”

  “It’s been long enough. I’m not the person you used to know and you’re not the person I used to know.”

  “Well, maybe I want to get to know who you are now.”

  “Jacob, don’t,” I said as he took another step toward me.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Please.” I shook my head as he reached up to touch my head. “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Jacob, what do you want from me?” My voice broke as I stared at him. This was only day one and already I was feeling way too emotional.

  “I want us to be friends again.”

  “Why? You don’t even know me anymore.” I stepped away from him and I could feel myself starting to get angry. “And don’t say you want to get to know me again. You’re the one that dropped me. You’re the one that didn’t want to be in my life anymore. I’m not some last minute option. Some backup friend that you can play with like a yo-yo.”

  “I don’t want to play with your feelings, Sage.”

  “So tell me. Why didn’t you respond to any of my letters? Why did you leave and just drop me?” I stared at him and gazed into his eyes, willing him to say something that would make it all all right. Maybe he never got the letters? Maybe he’d been in a car crash and coma. Maybe he had written back, and the post office had lost the letters. Maybe?

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was pained. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sage. I wish I would have written you back. I regret how everything has turned out.”

  “So, you admit you got my letters and you never responded to them?”

  He just stood there and nodded and with that slight tilt of his head, I felt every last piece of hope drain out of my body. There was no catastrophe that had stopped him from writing. He had just moved on with his life. Without me. Like I was nothing. Like I’d thought. I hated him for that. I hated that he hadn’t cared enough to keep me in his life. I hated him for his lies telling me he’d never forget me. And that he’d come back for me. He had left me, and I could never forgive him for that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jacob

  The toothpaste in Sage’s hand was dreadfully close to falling to the ground. I wanted to tell her that she needed to hold on to it a bit tighter, but I didn’t think this was the time nor place to do so. She was standing there in front of me, batting away tears and I felt like shit inside. She wanted to know why I’d never written her back. She felt like I’d abandoned her. I knew that I had hurt her. I knew that what I had done was unforgivable, but somehow I still hoped that it would all be okay. I just didn’t know how to make it all okay though. I didn’t know how I could tell her the truth. I knew that it would break her heart even more than her heart was broken now. I knew that the sort of pain I could inflict would be even greater than anything else I’d already inflicted. I wanted to tell her so badly, but I was so scared of what her reaction would be if she knew. Not only would she hate me, but I knew she would end up hating herself as well and I knew that I would rather die than inflict on her any more pain or self-doubt.

  “So, I guess I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” Her voice was softer than I remembered it being and a dart of pain shot through me.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  “I don’t want you to.” I knew I should stop being so pushy. It was unreasonable of me to expect that she would want to sleep in the same bed as me. But I just wanted to hold her close. I wanted to touch her. Just standing here in front of her reminded me of what it was like to hold her in my arms.

  I could still remember the feel of her breath on my chest as she slept curled up next to me. I wanted to stroke her hair. I wanted to see her big beautiful brown eyes as they opened for the first time each morning and looked at me in wonder as she smiled at me girlishly. How I’d missed her. How I wanted to kiss her.

  I pressed my lips together and pressed my fingers into each other and tried to turn my thoughts to something else. The last thing I needed to do was attempt to kiss her. I didn’t want her to run away from me screaming and protesting. I knew there was no way she wanted me to kiss her right now; even though my mind had been on her lips since I’d seen her the other night. To be honest, my mind had been on her lips since the last time I’d seen her years ago, but she would never believe that.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter what you want. Does it?” She gave me a look and I tried not to smile at the attitude she was giving me. She reminded me of the girl I’d first met in the orphanage. So headstrong and direct. It hadn’t fazed me then and it wasn’t going to faze me now.

  “If you really want to sleep on the couch, sure, sleep on the couch, but I am a gentleman and I will offer you the bed instead.” I tilted my head down and then did a bow. She looked at me with wide incredulous eyes.

  “You’re going to give me the bed?” She sounded suspicious and I couldn’t help but smile. All the memories from the past were hitting me like a swarm of butterflies on a sunny day and I just wanted to curl up with the memories. She was still my gorgeous and utterly stubborn Sage.

  “Just go and brush your teeth,” I said and turned away from her, before I did something I regretted. “You can sleep in the bed
tonight,” I said simply and walked back to my room.

  I turned around once I got to my door and I saw her staring at me with narrowed eyes suspiciously. I winked at her and walked to my bed and sat on the edge of the dark gray cover and just looked at the painting on the wall across from me. The painting was of a mama polar bear and its cub. I wondered if Sage would think about the conversation we’d had about polar bears when we were younger when she saw it. I wondered if the painting would affect her as much as it affected me.

  When we were younger we had read that mother polar bears stay with their cubs in a den for four to five months before emerging from the den and that they spent the first two years of their cub’s lives teaching them how to survive and catch prey. It had hit us both as something so primal and instinctive. That mother’s love. Polar bears were so grand and beautiful, yet they were primal, aggressive and protective. I didn’t really know what it was about polar bears that had struck us both so much at the time, but we had just loved them.

  As soon as I’d seen this painting in a gallery, I had immediately thought about Sage and the fact that she would love it as much as me. Even though I hadn’t known if I’d ever see her again. Well, that wasn’t true. I’d been keeping tabs on her since I’d left the orphanage. I knew where she was. I just didn’t know if I’d ever be brave enough to try and gain entry back into her life again. And now I had, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to circumnavigate the space between us without completely breaking her heart with the truth.

  I heard the bathroom door closing and I got up and walked back to the living room. I grabbed the remote control, turned on the TV and sat back on the couch. I flipped through the channels, my mind not really concentrating on what was on the screen. I finally decided upon a rerun of Law & Order: SVU and settled back into the pillows, trying to think about a way to get Sage to let me in without delving on the past. My entire body froze as I heard the water running from the faucets stop. The door squeaked open and Sage walked out in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Her face was washed clean and her hair was pulled back. She gave me a small smile as she walked over to her bag and put her stuff away.

  “Is there anything you want me to do tonight?” she asked me softly. “Any dishes or stuff?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’ll write out a list that we can go over daily.”

  “Okay.” She pursed her lips and I could see the annoyance in her face, but she didn’t say anything else. “I’m going to head to bed now. You’re sure I can take the bed?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to watch some more TV.” I nodded at her. “Unless you want to join me?”

  “No, no thanks.” She shook her head. “I guess I’ll head in then. Do you want breakfast in the morning?” She looked at me awkwardly and I grinned back at her.

  “Uh, yes please,” I said suddenly feeling overwhelmed that she was actually here with me. I’d thought that this moment would never come. “Though tomorrow we will have to go grocery shopping because I don’t actually have any food in the fridge for you to cook.”

  “I have a class at nine.”

  “Then we’ll go tomorrow evening.”

  “Okay then.” She nodded. “Night.”

  “Night, Sage,” I said and watched as she walked to my bedroom. I imagined her getting into my bed, sliding under the duvet, adjusting the pillows beneath her head and sighed. What was I doing here? I knew what I wanted, and I didn’t know how to get it. This had seemed like a great plan the other night, but now I wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t warming to me at all. If anything she seemed even more distant and that made me feel deeply saddened. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back into her life. Maybe I should have just left well enough alone. I didn’t want to make us both feel worse.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sage

  The sound of the TV in the living room was soothing to me. It meant that Jacob was occupied by something else and wouldn’t try asking me any more questions. I curled up into his bed and looked around his bedroom. It felt weird to be here snuggled up. I could smell him on his sheets and it made me want to just curl up and die in happiness. I had missed his smell. I had missed him. It was so hard being here, with him, and not having any answers. The fact that he had no good excuse for cutting me off hurt me more than I’d thought it would. I’d thought I’d cut off my emotions a long time ago. Vowed to myself that no one would ever hurt me this way again. I guess that all my efforts had been in vain because there was still a deep and sad longing in me to be with him. Oh, how I wanted to just be with him again and see him.

  “Get it together, Sage,” I muttered to myself as I lay there. I was going to drive myself crazy if I kept thinking about how hurt I was and how hard this situation was for me. I closed my eyes and willed myself to fall asleep. “Count sheep or something,” I lectured myself under my breath as I realized that I was far away from the lulling darkness of my dreams.

  My brain just wanted to think about Jacob. I was mad that it would betray me just as badly as my heart had in the past. “Turncoat.” I sighed as my eyes popped open again.

  I looked down at my fingers and wondered if I should paint my nails with the new pink Essie polish I’d picked up at Target the week before. My stomach started to churn as I thought about all the other items I’d picked up and paid for on my credit card. I didn’t have enough money to pay off the card and pay my rent. I’d been hoping to find a part-time job, but if I had to be Jacob’s maid for the next month that meant the job would be delayed and so would my first paycheck. I could feel anxiety building up in my stomach as I thought about money. I still needed to buy two textbooks as well. I had no idea how I was going to pay for them. I could ask Nina to lend me some money, but I’d rather die first. I’d hate for her to feel like I was her poor sad friend. Even worse, what if she thought I was using her? No, I’d have to think of something else.

  My heart started to pound then as emotion hit me. This was all too much happening at once. I couldn’t deal with the stress of the situation I was in. I could feel a pity party coming on and I tried to stop myself. I didn’t want to be sad. I didn’t want to feel like I’d been given an unfair lot in life. Lots of people had it worse than me. I knew that and yet, I couldn’t stop the tears as they slid out of my eyes.

  In that moment, I didn’t even really know why I was crying. There were so many things that were making me sad. I was rubbing the tears from my eyes as I heard the bedroom door opening slowly. What was happening? My back froze immediately. Why was Jacob coming into the room? Maybe he needed to change into his pajamas? I decided to pretend I was asleep and hope that he would change quickly and leave the room.

  I heard him walking to his closet and opening a door. It took everything in me to stop myself from sitting up and asking him what he was doing. The silence in the room was tense and deafening and I was about to ask him what was going on when I heard the sound of a zipper going down and his jeans falling to the ground. Oh my lord, he was changing. If I looked up right now, I’d see him in his boxers or maybe he wore briefs now. Oh lord, I didn’t want to see him in his underwear. Not now. Of course, I’d seen him when we were younger, but I’d still been really innocent then. We’d kissed and cuddled, but we’d never had sex. In fact, I’d never had sex. I was still a virgin. Not that I would ever admit that to anyone. It felt weird to be a virgin in my early twenties when all of my friends and the girls I knew had lost their virginity in high school. I was sure there were other virgins out there, of course, but I sure hadn’t met them.

  “Argh,” I screamed as I felt something touch me on the shoulder. I had completely spaced out thinking about my virgin status.

  “Sage, it’s just me.” Jacob’s voice held a tinge of humor as he spoke.

  “What are you doing?” I sputtered as I turned over to face him. I could feel his body heat next to me and my body was already burning up in response.

  “I was nudging you over. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “Nudging me over?”
I blinked. “But . . . but, what are you doing in here?”

  “What do you mean, what am I doing in here? This is my bedroom?”

  “But you said I could have the bed?” My voice rose suddenly as I realized he had no top on. My heart betrayed me by skipping a few beats as I looked at the sprinkling of hair across his muscular chest. How was he so handsome? And why did he affect me like this? Still.

  “Yeah, I said you could sleep in the bed. Obviously, I meant with me still in it,” he said with a straight face as if he couldn’t understand why I was upset.

  “But, but . . .” I sputtered. “You knew that I wanted the bed for myself. That’s why I was going to sleep on the couch in the first place.”

  “And your point is?” He raised an eyebrow at me and then yawned. I was pretty sure it was a fake yawn and I glared at him. He started to break out into a little smile and then snarled. “You’re welcome to go to the couch now, if you like.”

  “What?” I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling angry. “I think you should go to the couch.”

  “I’m not going to the couch.”

  “Well, I’m not going to the couch now,” I said obstinately. “No way, Jose.”

  “So, I guess that neither one of us is going to the couch then.” He smirked at me and I took a deep breath.

  “This is so unfair.”

  “No one said life is fair, Sage.”

  “Yes, pops.” I rolled my eyes at him and then muttered under my breath, “Asshole.”

  “Yes, I have one,” he said lightly back, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. He still had that incorrigible sense of humor that I’d always loved about him. Sigh, this was going to be a long month.

  “Good night, Jacob,” I said and turned my back on him. I was not going to back down and leave the bed with my tail between my legs.