Chapter 30 Jay
Ivan falls asleep around midnight, his breathing going slow and even, his body relaxing completely against mine.
I don't sleep.
I can't.
I lie there in the dark, and I feel it coming.
That creeping sense of dread that always shows up when the universe decides it's time to remind me that I don't get to keep good things.
The whisper in the back of my head that says this can't last, that I'm going to ruin it somehow, that I don't deserve any of this anyway.
Ivan talked about savings and building a life together.
I can barely get through a day without wanting a drink. Without thinking about the pills in the bathroom cabinet.
He has no fucking idea how bad it is.
The gap between what he's offering and what I can give feels like a canyon. He's been planning for years, preparing for a future that included me even when he didn't know if he'd ever find me. I've been surviving hour to hour, numbing myself just to make it through the night without screaming.
He has a family that loves him, a career he's good at, stability, and health insurance and a future that makes sense.
I have a motel room with a drawer where I used to keep pills until I moved them to a hiding place where Ivan wouldn't see them.
I still have some. I didn't throw them out when I poured out the whiskey.
I told myself it was just in case. Just for emergencies because they're hard to get.
But I know what it really is. It's a safety net. It's my escape route when this all falls apart.
And it will.
My hands are shaking. Carefully, trying not to wake him, I slide out from under Ivan's arm.
He stirs, makes a soft sound of protest, his hand reaching for me even in sleep.
But he doesn't wake. I stand there for a moment beside the bed, looking down at him in the dim light.
He looks peaceful. Content. Like being here with me is exactly where he wants to be.
He doesn't know how broken I really am. He thinks he knows because I told him about the drinking, about the pills, about the nightmares. But knowing something intellectually and seeing me at my worst are two completely different things.
I walk to the window and sit in the same chair I've sat in hundreds of sleepless nights.
The parking lot is quiet at this hour. A few cars scattered around, a flickering streetlight that the motel has been meaning to fix for six months, the neon glow of the Vista Inn sign reflecting off puddles from yesterday's rain.
My whole world for the past few years, and it looks exactly as empty as it always has.
I want a goddamn drink.
The craving hits me so hard my stomach clenches, my mouth goes dry.
I know exactly where the closest liquor store is.
Three blocks away, open twenty-four hours.
I could be there and back in fifteen minutes.
Ten if I ran. Ivan would never even know.
He'd wake up in the morning and I'd be right here, and he'd never have to know.
But he would know. He'd smell it on me when he kissed me.
I grip the arms of the chair and try to breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The way one of the social workers taught me when I was having panic attacks.
This is what he signed up for. This is what he doesn't understand yet because he hasn't lived it.
The version of me he sees, the one who holds him and touches him and says the right things and makes him feel safe, that's not the whole picture.
That's the best version of me, the one that shows up when I'm trying my hardest.
The whole picture includes nights like this, when the walls close in and the darkness gets so thick I can't see my way through it. When my thoughts won't stop racing and there's a constant, gnawing need for something—anything—to take the edge off.
He said he'd been planning for this for years. Preparing for the day he'd find me.
He sure as fuck wasn't preparing for this.
He was preparing for some better version of me, some version that exists only in his imagination. The good version of me he remembers. And when he realizes that—when he sees what I'm really like day after day, week after week, in all my broken glory—he's going to walk away.
I can't blame him either.
I press my hand against my chest, like I can physically hold myself together, keep all the broken pieces from falling apart.
When he wakes up, I should tell him to go.
I should push him away now, before this gets any deeper, before he invests any more of himself in someone who's just going to disappoint him.
Before he wastes more money or time or emotion on me.
It would be kinder, really. More honest. Let him find someone who can match what he's offering.
Someone stable. Someone whole. Someone good and deserving.
Someone who isn't sitting in the dark at one in the morning, fighting the urge to walk to a liquor store or swallow a handful of pills just to make his brain shut the fuck up.
"Jay?"
I flinch hard, my body jerking. Ivan's voice is rough with sleep, confused and slightly worried. I hear the bed creak as he sits up, the rustle of sheets.
"What are you doing over there? Why aren't you in bed? Is something wrong?"
"No, I just couldn't sleep. Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep."
"Are you okay?"
I haven't been okay in years. Actually, I've never been okay.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
The bed creaks again. Footsteps, soft on the thin carpet. And then Ivan is there in front of me, crouching in front of my chair. His hands land on my knees, warm and solid and real. His face tilts up to look at me even though I know he can't see much in this darkness.
"You're not fine. Talk to me, Jay. Please. You can tell me anything."
"There's nothing to talk about. I can't sleep sometimes. That's all."
"Jay."
"I said I'm fine. Just go back to bed."
He doesn't push. He doesn't demand answers or get frustrated or tell me I'm being difficult. He just stays there, crouched in front of me, his hands warm on my knees, waiting.
The silence stretches out between us. I can feel the walls I'm building, brick by brick, trying to put distance between us before he gets close enough to see all the ugly parts. I can feel him refusing to walk away.
"I'm scared," I finally admit.
"Of what?" His hands tighten on my knees.
"Of everything." I stare at a point over his shoulder because I can't look at his face, can't see the concern there that I don't deserve.
"Of wanting this too much. Of believing it might actually work.
Of letting myself hope. Of waking up one day and finding out you finally figured out what everyone else already knows. What I've always known about me."
"Which is what?"
"That I'm not worth it." The words taste like poison in my mouth, bitter and choking. "That I'm too broken to fix. That you could do so much better than some guy who lives day-to-day in a motel room."
"Is that what you think?" Ivan interrupts. "That I'm going to leave when I see how hard this is? When I see all the broken parts?"
"Everyone leaves. That's what people do when things get hard. When the person they thought they wanted turns out to be someone else entirely."
"I'm not everyone." He says it with such certainty, such conviction, that I almost believe him.
"You don't know that yet. You don't know what I'm like when it gets really bad.
The bad days, the really bad ones—you haven't seen those yet.
And when you do see all that—when you see who I really am beneath this person I'm trying to be for you—you're going to realize you made a huge mistake. And you're going to leave."
"When I do see all that, I'll still be here." His hands move from my knees to my hands, taking them in his. "I'll still be right here next to you."
"You can't promise that. You can't know—"
"I can," he interrupts. "I can promise that, because I know who you are.
Not the version you show the world to survive, not the mask you put on when you're trying to be strong.
The real you. The one who held me when I was twelve and terrified.
The one who took beatings so I wouldn't have to.
The one who broke his own arm protecting me. "
"I'm not that person anymore. That person died somewhere between the Hendersons and here."
"That's exactly who you are. That fighter, that survivor, that protector, he's still in there. And that person is worth waiting for. He's worth fighting for."
I shake my head. "I was sitting here wondering if I could make it to the liquor store and back before you woke up," I admit.
Ivan doesn't flinch. Doesn't pull away. Doesn't look at me with disgust or disappointment. "But you didn't. That's what matters."
"Only because I didn't want you to kiss me and taste alcohol on my breath. Only because I didn't want to see the look in your eyes if you knew I was drinking when I told you I wouldn't." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "That's not strength. That's just fear of getting caught."
"That's still a reason. That's still you making a choice not to do it.
" He moves his hands from mine to my face, cupping my jaw, forcing me to look at him even though I don't want to.
"I'm not going to pretend this is easy. But I'm also not going to let you push me away because you're scared of letting me see the worst of you. "
"What if I hurt you? Not physically, I would never—but what if I hurt you in other ways? What if I drag you down with me?"
"Then we deal with it. One day at a time." His thumbs stroke my cheekbones. "I'm not asking you to be perfect. I'm not asking you to be healed overnight. I'm not asking you to have all the answers right now. I'm just asking you to let me be here. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard."
"I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to let someone in when everything inside me is telling me to run."