Chapter Forty-Two #2
“I don't think you would expect me to stay the same person. I certainly don't expect you to never change.”
“That's true, and I love that,” she says. It's almost patronising, except there is too much kindness and love in her eyes as she looks down at me.
“I don't think I can do five years,” I say because honesty is all I'm capable of.
“Maybe it will go quickly. If we both stay busy...” she says but there's nothing certain in her voice, it just sounds like air.
“It's forever. I've only had five days with you!” I pull her back into me, but her body feels a lot more rigid now.
“I’m sorry I’m hurting you.” Her arms come around my waist and I feel her stroke my back.
Her touch is so gentle and intentional that for a few brief moments, I exhale and relax into it, but immediately that peace is tinged with the sadness when I remember that nobody touches me like her. And nobody will for five fucking years.
“And we really won’t see each other?” I ask, my mouth back in her hair. “Can we talk? Can I text and call?”
She shakes her head against my chest. “No, I don't think so.”
“But why? If I'm not seeing you then it's still time apart.”
“I want you to explore other options,” she says quietly. “Other lovers, or partners.”
“What the fuck, Jenna!?”
Her whole body sighs. “I'm not saying this because I want that to happen, but I do want you to be as happy as you can possibly be, and if that's with someone else, Marty...” She takes another breath. “Well, I'd never be able to forgive myself if you missed out on that.”
Her words are so cruel and yet so deeply laced with love. It makes no sense and yet I know there’s truth there. “How can you even think like this?”
“Because...” She pauses and I wait. She doesn’t have an answer for me and instead continues talking like I never asked. “After five years, if you still think what you feel for me can go the distance, we'll give it a go.”
Swallowing, I feel how heavy the lump in my throat is. “I can't have nothing. I can't just go from this to not hearing from you again. In five years, you'll have forgotten about me.”
Her smile shrinks into a very knowing pout as she shakes her head looking down at me. “You have to trust me when I say I will never forget about you, Marty.”
“I need something to hold on to,” I say. “I need to know I can contact you if I need to.”
She sighs but there's no impatience in it, only fatigue and sorrow. “You can have my address. And if you want, you can give me yours.”
“I want,” I say although it feels like begging for crumbs.
“But we make no promises to each other. I don't expect you to get in touch. I don't expect letters, or anything.”
“Oh, you'll get letters. I've never had a pen pal before,” I say, and my first attempt at a joke in this conversation lands as miserably as it's delivered.
Her pulling back is instant. “No, not pen pals, Marty. Just, if you need to get in touch with me for an important or urgent reason, then you can, but it has to be by post. That way you have to think about it before, during and after you do it. Texts and emails are too easy and quick.”
“You want me to have time to stop myself contacting you?” I hold her elbows and give her a little tug as if to pull her back in, back into reality, maybe, but she doesn't move, not an inch.
“Yes and no,” she says. “Like all of this, it's yes and no.”
This is when I start to tell myself things to try to make myself feel better.
I don't want to spend any more time arguing with her.
She still has a flight to catch after all and I don't want to waste a single second with hostility.
This is why I tell myself that I will agree to her suggestion, but I will keep in touch.
I will send her notes and letters and make her realise that I cannot be without her, that I will wait however long I need to and then we will be together. Unless...
“What if you meet someone?” I ask. “What if you meet someone and you fall in love and you have those babies you maybe want.”
“I still don't really know how I feel about kids,” she says. “But I know you are not ready for them.”
I nod. That much is true.
“But these are your years for it.” It chills me to my core to think of her having children with someone else, but the idea of her missing out on it, that would hurt me too.
“They are,” she says. The corners of her eyes and mouth fall and for a second, I think she's about to cry again. “But honestly, I'm not even thinking about that right now.”
“But you might meet someone,” I say again.
She shrugs. “I might. And you might,” she adds with more emphasis.
“This sucks so fucking much!” I turn my head and shout out to the room.
“Yeah, it does.” She is crying now, so I stand up and pull her back into my chest and we wait like that for her tears to dry and for my brain to formulate a plan to keep her close.
I am not losing this woman. I am not losing her.
I am not losing another person I love, especially not now I don't have to.
Jenna breaks the silence by sucking in a deep breath. “I really do want you to try and meet other people. Take other lovers. Give yourself to them.”
“Do I get a say in this?” I ask sounding everything I feel; angry, sad, disappointed, scared, frustrated, hopeless, and yet still, despite it all, hopeful.
“Of course,” she says quietly. Her hands grip my back and I can feel how many of her silent tears have soaked my T-shirt.
“You think I haven't felt like this before.
You think I'm all high on how good this feels, but I'm not.
You forget I have been in love before. Arnie and I fell in love slowly and awkwardly, with lots of stops and starts and mistakes made along the way.
But this, this was so quick and oh-so-fucken easy.
This feels more real, more mature, more solid, which makes no sense considering he and I had nearly a decade of friendship before we even kissed, and we've only had five days, but I trust how it feels. I trust how I feel about you now. I... I...” I cough, swallow down the solid ball in my oesophagus one more time.
“I thought Arnie was forever, and maybe he would have been if it had played out differently.
It wasn't my love ending that stopped our forever, it was his life on this planet ending.
None of us are guaranteed forever, Jenna.
I just want as many days as I can have with you. I don't want to waste a single day.”
“They won’t be wasted days,” she replies. “Not if we live them with love.”
She leans back and searches my eyes for a few seconds before resting her forehead on my chest again. My chin automatically falls to the top of her head, locking her in place.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you and for me to not be there,” I say in a quieter voice.
Her laugh is small and weak. “Now, I know I'm old, Marty, but I’m not that old. As far as I know I have many more years left.”
My exhale is one of defeat. “And what then, in five years?”
Jenna turns her head to look out of the door, at the swimming pool we made love in, jumped in naked, held each other in as the sun sank into the sea that stretches further than we can see. “How do you feel about coming back here?”
“In five years?”
“Five years to the day,” she says. “How's that for romance?”
“I fecking love the romance of it, but the five years part scares the shit out of me. You're asking a lot of the man who doesn't even know what he's doing next week.”
“I don't know that, either, Marty,” she says, still staring outside. “That's why I'm asking for this time so we can both get a better handle on our lives and make plans for the future.”
“Didn't someone famous say 'life is what happens when you're busy making plans'?”
“John Lennon,” she says, kissing me once, twice, her hands in my hair. “But he also said 'a dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality'.”
“Now who has an answer for everything I say?” I whisper into her lips.
I feel her tears on my cheek as she speaks. “I don't mind us being a dream, Marty. It will be the sweetest dream of my life.”
“My dreams torture me,” I say, my words full of tears. “I dream about Arnie and then wake up to remember he's gone.”
“Well, give yourself the gift of this dream.” She holds me tighter as we both shake with crying. “If you want this dream, it's yours. It's ours.”
We stay like that until our sobs ease and our tears slow. I am the first to pull back and speak again. I feel she’s carried the conversation enough and it’s my turn. It’s my turn to be strong.
“So, five years, back here? You and me?” I ask, gripping her upper arms firmly.
“I think I would like that.” I see her trying to smile, my beautiful, brave Jenna.
“And then...”
“And then... then we take it day by day.”
“Sunset by sunset?” I offer, feeling the smallest, thinnest, most threadbare piece of hope. I'm not sure it's big enough for me to hold on to, but I know I have to try.
“Sunset by sunset.” She turns her head to bury her nose against my ribcage again and I close my eyes as I feel her leave kiss after kiss after kiss there, and tear and tear after tear.