Chapter Forty-Two
Marty
It's the first morning I beat my dad. And I don't just beat him.
I thrash him. I'm racing up our climb and speeding down the descent like my life depends on it, which feels entirely plausible considering I am approaching my final few hours with Jenna.
I enjoy the muscle burn, the views of the island and of the beach where Jenna and I had our day together, but I also regret leaving her side.
When we're about five kilometres away from the resort, winding around the zig-zagging coastal road, I look back at Dad and he lifts his hand and waves me on, and I hope he knows how grateful I am.
I hadn't wanted to go on the bike ride, but last night, after our sunset swim and then a long hot shower, she told me she was too exhausted to pack and that she would need time in the morning to do it, so she suggested I get up at the same time and do my ride with Dad.
She had the alarm set before I could convince her otherwise, and I wasn't about to spend our last night together arguing with her.
Not when I could lie in bed, sniffing her hair and feeling her stomach rise and fall under my hand as I drifted off to sleep.
There is relief when I burst into our villa and Mum only says hello as I rush to get showered.
I smile when I come out of the shower and find a cup of coffee and a pastry waiting for me by my bed where she usually leaves a glass of water.
They taste all kinds of wrong after I've cleaned my teeth, but I hastily gulp both down.
“Thanks, Ma!” I call out as I pull on clean underwear, shorts and a T-shirt.
“I’ll see you later,” I say as I charge to the front door.
“Good luck!” Mum calls out.
“Say goodbye from us!” Maeve yells.
Goodbye. Goodbye. I don't want to say goodbye. I'm not going to say goodbye. Because this is not goodbye.
And those are the first words that leave my mouth when I'm finally at her villa and she's opening the door to my incessant banging.
“We are going to see each other again. We are going to make this work.” I stare down at her.
Jenna is smiling, and she has never looked better.
She's wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, the kind of casual, normal-life outfit I'm yet to see her in and I love how good it looks.
It boosts my confidence that our love can also carry on in our normal lives, and that I will get to see her in any number of other outfits in years to come; winter coats, Christmas pyjamas, evening dresses, sexy lingerie. ..
“Come in,” she says. “I have about half an hour before I need to head down for the car.”
“We,” I say. “We are heading down together. I'm coming with you in the taxi.”
“Marty, you don't have to. It will take over two hours to get there and the same again back. That's a waste of your day.”
“Don't argue with me, Jenna. I've made up my mind.”
Her shoulders lower and her expression softens as she acquiesces. “Fine,” she says. “You know what you want and who am I to stand in the way of it?”
That right there is why I love her. Because she trusts me to make my own decisions.
“Are you all packed?” I ask.
“Yes,” she nods to where her luggage stands.
I can only look at her suitcase quickly before putting my eyes somewhere else. It hurts more than it should.
“I still can't convince you to stay two more days?” I ask.
She shakes her head slowly. “There's no room in the inn,” she says. “Thanks to Maeve. My brother needs all the available villas he has thanks to her.”
“There's plenty room in my bed.” I step closer, needing to hold her while I still can.
“And that would be a sure way to stop any growing fondness for me that your parents may have. You know I make a lot of noise,” she says with a soft wink and I'm filling my shorts a little more at the reminder.
“Do we have time for a quickie?” I push my pelvis against her.
Her eyes roll back in her head as she looks up at me, her mouth in that dangerously delicious pout. “I think we need to talk, Marty.”
I nod. I've been wanting to talk with her for days but felt her resistance too many times to push harder.
She promised me she wouldn't end it, and I remind myself of that as I keep hold of her hands and take us further into the room.
I perch on the sofa arm and she stands between my legs, meaning I am looking up at her for a change.
“Okay,” I say. “I'm listening.”
“Marty,” she says, and her hands are on my face, her eyes bearing down into me as they fill with tears. “Shit, I had this all figured out. I even practised a handful of times. It all sounded so good.”
“I don't need a speech, Jenna, I just need to know I can see you again,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, you can see me again.”
“Thank fuck for that,” I say, grabbing handfuls of her butt and pulling her closer.
She places a flat palm on my chest, directly over where my heart beats for her.
“But not for five years,” she adds in the quietest, most devastating voice.
“What?” I feel like I've been shot. Straight in my heart. I flatten my palm against her hand on my chest, like the pressure will stem the flow of pain that's there.
“Five years?”
“Yes.” Her tears spill over and slide down the freckles on her cheeks, but she holds onto a smile.
“Why?” My head is spinning. It makes no sense.
“Marty, I love you. I am in love with you. I want to be with you. But I don't think it will work if we try now. You are so young...”
My spine elongates. “No, Jenna, no. Please don't play the age card.”
“It's not a card to play. It's the truth. You are young. And you've been through so much the last few years.” Her fingers are stroking me through my T-shirt. It feels like both heaven and hell.
“All the more reason why I need this,” I say. “Why I need you.”
She pauses, swallows, and looks down at our hands. “I don't want you to need me, Marty. I want you to love me and have me as your partner. Not your crutch.”
“Is that what you think you are to me?” My mouth falls open.
“No.” Her eyes are back on me – dry again, and more serious. “I don't think that at all, but I worry that's what it could be.”
“I would never, Jenna, I...”
She’s quick to interrupt. “And I worry you would become the same for me. I'm still healing from my divorce too. I still have things I need to figure out and work through.”
“Why can't we do it together?”
“How, Marty? With trips here and there? With you working a lot of weekends, it's just not sustainable. It will get stressful very quickly, and you don't need stress in your life right now. I don’t want to be a source of stress to you.”
“You are the literal opposite of that to me,” I begin.
“Right now,” Jenna interjects. She glances up and her eyes rest on the view through the double doors.
“In this little paradise, away from the rest of the world.
But we can't live here, Marty. The real world is waiting for us.
You will change, I will change. Whatever we feel now, it will change.
Like I said, I don't want to play the age card-”
“Then don't,” I interrupt.
“But I've been here before. I had all this magic and spark and joy and sex - all the wonderful sex - and the connection, and it faded away when things got hard and I needed space to grow. And honestly, I don't think I can survive this spark dying because you didn’t have space to grow.”
“Who says it has to?”
“It's what happens. Of course, you don't know this yet.”
“I asked you not to say shit like that.” I grit my teeth. I feel dangerously close to losing it, but really, I know it's more dangerously close to losing her.
“And I am asking you to not play the youthful magic card. I know you see the world differently, with all its shine and possibility, and in some ways that's the thing I want to protect by doing this.”
“But five years...” It’s an eternity. I was still a teenager five years ago. Arnie and I weren’t even together. I didn’t know who I was.
“One for every sunset we've shared...” Her voice is so full of pain I can't bear it.
“Jesus, Jenna!” I have a sudden urge to pull out of her grasp but I daren't. I worry if I do, she won't let me back in. Instead, I hang my head low and heavy on her shoulder. “It's such a long fucking time.”
“I know,” she says, her voice breaking. It's only a small comfort to have her fall apart with me.
I decide to level with her. “You know you're doing the one thing I thought you'd never do. You're telling me I don't know what's best for me. You're trying to make that decision for me.”
“Marty, no,” she begins but the protest drops from her voice quickly.
“Well, actually, yes. You're right. That is how it sounds, and I can understand that’s how it may feel, but this decision isn’t about that.
It’s about what I think is best for me too.
I am also vulnerable and scared and fragile right now.
I've not had anything like the loss you have but I have had a huge life change and I still feel lost and I don’t know what I want my future to look like.
I need some time and space to figure that out.
And the way I feel about you... Oh, God, Marty, the way I feel about you.
It's not for the faint of heart. So, I want to make my heart stronger. I want to make myself stronger. I want to be the best version of myself for you.”
“But I love you as you are, right now,” I say, lifting my head and digging my fingertips into her flesh at her waist. “Why not five months? Or just one year? Bollocks to the symbolism of it all.”
“I think it has to be longer. It has to be years,” she says slowly, her hands now smoothing out my T-shirt on my shoulders.
“You're still very deep in your grief about Arnie.
I have to figure out my career and I want us to have all the time and energy we need to tackle both of those things.
Even if that wasn't the case, you are just twenty-four.
When I think about who I was at that age and who I was five years later, it's not the same person.”