Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
SHELBY
Early October, 2013
The next forty-eight hours dragged with me trying to fill time with distraction and sleep. Kendra offered several times to come over, but I decided I needed to swim solo in my feelings and get through the worst of it on my own.
For years, when I was feeling sorry for myself and for my situation with Ari, it helped to play music that spoke to my angst, my sadness, my anger, or my melancholy. I’d light candles and journal or even take a stab at writing horrible poetry.
That night I finished watching Mr. Holland’s Opus, ugly crying both happy tears for Richard Dreyfuss and sad and pitiful ones for me, and I headed toward the sunporch. I turned on the small lamp, lit a few candles, put on an Otis Redding record, and reached for my journal. Avoidance was no longer an option. Instead, I elected to fully immerse myself in memories and emotions. Some would consider that torture or self-sabotage, but since I’d only sought therapy after Ari died, I attributed my survival in an abusive marriage over the last twenty years to practices like these. A tether and a touchstone to keep me sane and connected to my own identity through all the gaslighting and manipulation. My little lighthouse in the storm.
This time it would be the way for me to navigate this heartbreak.
The only way to the other side is through.
I’d gotten through half a page of stream of consciousness journaling when my phone lit up. My breath caught in my throat.
It was Jake.
I slid my finger quickly across my phone to answer, trying to keep my mind from racing too far ahead. “Hello?” I still had his number saved, but I was being cautious.
“Hey. It’s Jake.”
It seemed so surreal to be here. Where we had to announce to one another who we were. I didn’t know how to respond to him, and I was trying not to guess what he wanted or get my hopes up. I stayed silent.
“I’m on the road. I hope you don’t mind that I called you, but I need a little help staying focused.”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Of course. Any time.” I sighed and leaned further into the phone. Any time. In any way. Forever.
Jake was quiet for several seconds, and I had to resist the urge to fill the silence with nonsense.
Finally, he spoke. “Shelby, I’m so sorry about the other day. I… I just needed a minute. I wasn’t in a good place to hear what you were telling me, and I needed a little time to figure some things out.”
“Okay.” I needed him to say more.
“You told me you lied to me. I wasn’t mad that you lied. Everything that you’ve said or done is understandable after all you’ve been through.”
“Not really. I?—”
“Shelby, please let me finish. You were brave enough to be honest with me and I…I haven’t been honest with you.”
My stomach dropped. I was trying and failing to keep my brain from imagining all kinds of things that Jake was about to tell me. Secrets that he was about to confess. But apart from having a wife and family stashed somewhere, I couldn’t think of anything I wouldn’t forgive.
“I was attracted to you, and I wanted to be with you because…well, because you were a mess.”
“What?” Okay, maybe this was going to be trickier to forgive than I thought.
“I was attracted to you before we met, yes. And when we finally met, there were definite sparks. But when Kendra told me your husband had died, I couldn’t resist you. Not because you were single. But because you were a widow.”
For the life of me I could not wrap my head around what he was saying.
“Have you ever heard of a savior complex? Sometimes it’s referred to as a hero or white knight complex.”
“I’ve heard the terms, but I guess I never knew it was a real thing.”
“It’s most definitely a thing. And a more destructive thing than people realize. I’ve struggled with it ever since my brother died. Actually, even before he died. I thought his death and helping my mother through her grief was the catalyst, but I’d been assuming a caregiver role since my father left us. Since I was five years old.
“I’d always looked for broken people to fix. And if they wouldn’t let me, or if I couldn’t do it, I would move on. What’s worse is when I would be able to help them, but once they didn’t need me anymore, I would lose interest. I’ve never had a healthy romantic relationship. Ever.”
“Oh.” Still speechless.
“I had been struggling for years with finding the big ‘why.’ I finally realized it was me avoiding processing my own grief with my brother’s death. If I was so busy and consumed with other people and their problems, I wouldn’t have to deal with my own shit.”
Oh, Jake . How was it that I was finding what he’d thought a fatal flaw so completely endearing? “That makes a lot of sense. And if you were already primed for it, like you said, in a caregiver role. It was a natural progression.” I melted at the thought of Jake struggling with all this churning inside while maintaining his solid and strong outer shell. The shell he put on for me.
“And you want to know the worst part? The part I never told anyone, other than my therapist, was that my father—my horrible, selfish, asshole of a father—could not be bothered to come to his own son’s funeral. When Trevor died, he––” Jake’s voice broke as he tried to rein in his emotion, “The bastard sent a card.”
“Oh, Jake. I’m so sorry.”
“I just dove into rescuing everyone else so I wouldn’t have to think about any of it. The relationship I’d been in when you and I met was the last straw—I treated her so unfairly. I got back into therapy after that, and I was doing well. That is, until I got Kendra’s email about Ari’s accident. I don’t know if she ever told you I’d emailed you. I reached out to tell you when the show would air, and… and to let you know I was into you. Knowing you were married.”
“She told me. The next day after our night together in Vegas, she told me everything,” I said.
“At first the fact that I’d reached out to you before I’d known he was gone felt like progress, because for the most part, you were so confident and together. It wasn’t like me to be so attracted to someone like that. But in hindsight, I could see the cracks. Over the years I’ve gotten very good at seeing someone’s pain, even if they hide it well. The day we met I could see the little dips in your vibrancy, the hesitation, your calming practice of holding your thumb when you get nervous. Looking back at something as innocuous as you not wanting to use your own phone to take a picture of us together, I knew there was something casting a shadow over your life. Subconsciously I think I knew it had been an abusive relationship and I’d hit on a married woman to try and rescue her.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know whether to be offended that he was attracted to my messiness and pain or to marvel at the universe for creating someone who’d been able to see me so clearly.
And the irony of having gone from being at the merciless hands of an abusive narcissist into the arms of a man with a savior complex was not lost on me either.
“I was already so drawn to you in so many ways. When I heard that you were a widow, and I had no reason to believe you weren’t a lost and broken grieving widow, I couldn’t resist you. You were my fucking holy grail.
“The worst part was that I couldn’t or wouldn’t see to the end. To when ultimately, after I’d help you turn your light back on, I’d once again just ride off into the sunset. And I wouldn’t have considered how badly I’d hurt you. I always convinced myself that I did more good than harm when more often than not, it was the other way around.
“But then something happened, Shelby. I couldn’t save you. You wouldn’t let me. You kept everything inside, and while it drove me crazy, wanting to know everything that was bubbling under your surface, you were quietly and effectively saving yourself. For the first time, I not only appreciated that, but I admired that. I was attracted to that. You clicked something back into place for me.
“I just have to believe that we were sent into each other’s lives for a reason. You showed me that I’m able to see someone’s pain as something separate from me and isn’t my responsibility to fix. That I could admire strength and confidence and even be attracted to those qualities. And that I might be capable of having a healthy relationship someday. But I am still a major work in progress. I’m not good for anyone right now.”
Jake’s soft voice making his heart’s confession was almost more than I could bear. The distance between the two of us was gut wrenching as it was, and he was trying to push me even further away. I desperately searched for the tiniest bit of ammunition to fight with. “Jake, you said maybe we were sent into each other’s lives for a reason. Why do you think you were sent into my life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an escape? You always said we were just having fun. Or maybe a way to get the taste of Ari out of your mouth?”
“Is that all you think you were for me? Yes, I’ll admit it’s what I wanted to believe at first, too. Because it was too overwhelming to think about falling in love. Falling in love with Ari was like falling into a black hole. It turned me inside out and upside down, and I couldn’t see myself going through it all again. Or having the first clue of how to do it right.
“But somehow, without knowing why, you gave me exactly what I needed. At every, single turn. From the very first day we met, and you asked me questions and cared about my answers. You laughed at things I said, but with me, not at me. You said, ‘You should be so proud of yourself,’ when no one had ever said that to me before.
“And then, you were gentle and tender, but you didn’t treat me like I was breakable either. You offered this warm bubble to explore and push myself to see what I was capable of. You encouraged me to take back the control I’d lost, again without knowing why.How? How did you always know what I needed even before I did? I don’t know if it was your savior complex that informed and guided you or not, but you know what? I don’t care.”
As I was talking, I realized I had managed to tiptoe outside of my fortress a few times within the last several months, finding a new safe place to visit. “Despite what you think, Jake, you were not just an escape. You were my refuge.”
Silence.
I had no idea if what I’d said was enough.
“That’s a lot to think about.” Jake said, followed by a tortuous pause. “Hey, I’m coming up to where I need to be. I’m a little nervous though, because I didn’t have Brenda arrange for my stay tonight.”
“Well, you could always play the ‘I’m Jake Ford’ card at some hotel,” I said as I recognized more irony. I’d always been so closed mouthed, now it was Jake’s turn. And I didn’t have the energy to push.
“It’s cute that you think that I’m that famous. But honestly, I hope that might help me out here.”
The thought of him hanging up and riding off into the sunset thrust me back into my feelings. The gaping chasm was aching again, and I could feel the tears. My nose started to run, and I sniffled.
“Before I go, I have one more confession.” Jake said. “I’ve been working hard this year on my relationship with pain. Not the kink, not physical pain, but other people’s emotional pain. I am attracted to it. It used to scare me how much, sometimes it still does. It made me feel like I was sick and twisted because I tend to conflate it with being romantically attracted or even turned on. But Dr. McCallum helped me realize that it’s compassion that drives that attraction. That it’s someone’s ability to easily access their emotions that attracts me, not the pain itself. It’s their openness and vulnerability. Like appreciating a flower in bloom. Bearing witness to an opportunity for deep connection with another human.”
I lay down on the couch, not caring about soaking it with my tears. Damn him for continuing to break my heart, torturing me with poetic therapy speak. I heard his car door shut through the phone. Our time was almost up, and the hollowness started to swallow me again.
“But you, Shelby, God. No one on the face of the earth is more beautiful than you when you cry. It makes my heart leap and weep, and it convinces me of the existence of a higher power. You, the most perfect flower in bloom that has ever existed.
“But that was when your tears were not for me. Now that I’m the one making you cry it makes me want to rip my heart out, it hurts so fucking much. Ahh…I hate this. I don’t want to let you go, but I have to.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “I have to let you go.”
“Don’t, Jake. Please don’t let me go.” I couldn’t control myself, softy sobbing into the phone. I wanted to hear him tell me more and more about everything he loved about me. Forever. I sighed deeply, desperately. “I wish Mt. Eptou and the Wishing Lake were real.”
“What?” Jake breathed a soft chuckle and sighed. “And if they were, what would you wish for, Shelby?”
“I would wish that you were here.”
To this day there are three sounds that I love.
Number three is a baby's squeals turning into joyous, infectious rolling belly laughs.
Number two, the sound of rain on a roof mixed with low rumbles of thunder in the distance.
But number one, my absolute favorite above all others, is the sound a finger makes tapping on a window.
Tap. Tap. Tap .
My heart began pounding through my chest, it seemed to know what was happening well before my brain could fully process it and command my head to tilt upward and my eyes to lift to the window.
Jake .
With his forehead pressed to the window, his eyes full of longing and promise, his hand held up against the glass in a gesture of deep connection, there he was.
After achingly long seconds of feeling frozen in time, my limbs finally got their orders to get up and go to the door.
I was finding it hard to form words and my shock was not letting me touch him. I feared if I reached out, he would evaporate into mist, and I’d realize it was just a dream. “What? What...what are you doing here?”
“I would have been here sooner, but I had to stop for snow tires in Colorado. Damn October blizzard.”
I looked out the window toward the street and saw a beige Range Rover. It hit me like a cinder block. That is not a rental car. It’s Jake’s car. He drove here from home.
“But I thought you said… that you weren’t good for anyone right now. I didn’t think…”
“And I meant it. All of it. I just came to give you this back.” He opened his hand producing my black thong that I had left in his backpack in Vegas all those months ago. I looked up and he was smirking.
I somehow managed to arch an eyebrow at him. “Did you at least wash them?”
“Fuck no. That would have been a travesty.”
I laughed, so grateful for a moment of levity.
He gently wiped the remnants of tears from under my eye with his thumb and I could hardly keep from collapsing to the floor. “So beautiful,” he said as his smile faded. “Shelby, I am so sorry I had to get off the phone like that the other night. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you, but my brain got so busy right away. Frantically making these plans as a favor to my heart.”
“And mine,” I said, my eyes swimming. “I hope you think my happy tears are beautiful too.”
His deep brown eyes glistened with his own happiness. “Absolutely breathtaking.” He held my face in his hands and once again spoke his silent sonnets before saying, “I know we will have a lot to work through. Individually and together. But I also know it will all be worth it. I love you, Shelby Ristow. With everything I am. I am yours forever.”
I smiled as all my hollowness was filled to overflowing.
My Balthazar.
“I love you, too.” I looked deeply into his eyes, spilling poetry of my own, trying to convey the multitude of emotions I’d never find the words to describe.
He kissed me then. A cataclysmic supernova of a kiss that contained all the attraction, all the spark, all the lust, and now bursting with all the raw and epic emotion of our love story’s climax. A kiss like I’d only ever seen in movies or imagined in books. The kiss I’d never, ever had—the one that seals the happily ever after.
Jake broke away from my mouth to fall into me and hold me as tightly as he could. I whispered into his neck, “It’s McGrath.”
Jake pulled away from me, his puzzled, bemused face tilting. “What?”
“My last name. I’m changing it to McGrath. It means child of grace.”