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So I huddled under the umbrella with rain soaking through the back of my jacket and Lieutenant Dan hiding under the table, drier than I was. The waitress looked at me like I’d lost it.
An outstretched hand while I was falling, an umbrella in a downpour. Friendship in a hostile place.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to live like that? To not carry that burden around with you. To not feel constantly overwhelmed and overstimulated and second-guess every little thing.
She was, for all intents and purposes, perfect.
“I’m staying the night,” she said with her chin over my shoulder, her pregnant belly pressed into mine.
And now I saw the truth I couldn’t recognize then.
“You never realize you’re living the best time of your life,” I said softly. “It happens and then it ends, and you only see it for what it was after.
My life was a mess. But at least Briana’s was the way it should be.
Silence was always my default response. Sometimes things are easier to understand when unsaid. Sometimes words complicate things and make them murky. This moment didn’t need them.
“I love her,” I said. “Of course I want her to be happy.” Something in her expression went soft. “Well, you are a much nicer person than I am, Jacob Maddox. When people go low on me, I go lower.”
Alexis said it sounded like a romcom and to let her know when I got to the Only One Bed scene.
A man who brings you food without you asking is thoughtful and considerate. He’s a natural nurturer, he’s taking care of you. It’s extremely telling.
Dearest Briana, There is no accounting for your poor taste. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Sincerely, Jacob I opened the bag. It was Taco Bell.
“It’s hard to find out that someone you love is fine with just setting your life on fire and walking away.”
“I always think that when we’re quiet, we’re agreeing to be harmless to each other. That we’re just sharing the same space and letting each other exist exactly as we are, and neither of us would hurt or upset the other one.”
it had moved on to how I could look after Briana.
She put her hands on my chest and peered up at me lovingly. Long lashes. Deep brown eyes.
I was here. A living, breathing consolation prize. Some desperate next-best-thing thing.
didn’t want to be Jacob’s in-between solution. I didn’t want to be what he did while he tried to work through this or figured his shit out. I didn’t want to be his second choice.
I didn’t want to share space with another woman inside of the man I loved.
He’d waited up too. Now I felt even worse. He hugged me. Then he kissed his wife on the side of her head and went to bed.
Because just like with Kelly, I still wasn’t her.
if you’re with someone who doesn’t speak your language, you’ll spend a lifetime having to translate your soul?
And for her I would go anywhere.
“Is that…a pig?” “Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s Kevin Bacon.
“But I would work hard enough so you’d always have everything you need. I’d go hungry so you could eat.”
“The truest sacrifices are the ones no one knows anything about.” She paused. “Jacob, you are too pure for this earth.”
“You and me?” he said gently. “We’re different. We agree to be harmless to each other.”
“I want to have the kind of living room you like.” My face went soft. He was making plans for me?
Jacob was who he said he was. All the time. And to me, men were never who they said they were. But this one, by all accounts, sort of was.
Her mouth fell open. “You sat in the rain just to talk to me?” I looked at my lap for a long moment before looking back up at her. “I’d do a lot more than that for you.”
Briana was a catastrophic life event. A thing that changed everything. And I wouldn’t be the same after this. All the women I’d ever met and all the women I ever would fell away beneath her.
Then I picked her up and carried her to bed. And while she was cradled in my arms, she muttered something about teleporting.
He was like that terrarium in his plant room. A self-sustaining ecosystem. Everything I needed or wanted was wrapped up into one human being. It didn’t even seem possible.
“Okay, Doug is not my people. I do not claim him.”
“If you do not go and feed that man right now, I will go there and feed him myself.”
And I guess I sort of already was. Because in making this arrangement with Jacob, I’d signed up to break my own heart.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sexually frustrated,” I lied. “Well, I am,” she scoffed. I felt heat rising up my neck. There was such an easy solution…
From this point on, and for the first time in my life, I slept with the door open.
I would give her this every day. I’d spend the rest of my life looking for ways to make her smile at me like that. I lived for it.
The wedding was in four weeks. Benny’s kidney transplant was in five. I figured we’d probably keep up appearances for a few weeks after that. Then that would be it.
I laughed a little. “Yes. It’s a long story.” He nodded. “He seemed kinda jealous.” Now I really laughed. “He’s not, trust me.” God, I wish he were.
the miscommunication is insane
“Marry an ugly rich man who loves you more than you love him.”
“Gil is obsessed with you and couldn’t live without you,” I said. “And if he did, he’d do it without his house.” She shrugged.
“Okay, first of all, no man tells me what I am allowed to do.”
What the hell had just happened between us?
i am thinking the same thing
It sucks when you actually like the other woman. It sucks more when it happens twice.
Because I am so fucking in love with you, I’ll settle for anything. Even that.” His voice broke on the last word.
“Use me,” he said, his eyes resigned. “Use me for whatever you want. Just stay.”
it was all a gift. A privilege.
