Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
JADEN
Ray loads the barbell with two more ten-kilo plates. ‘You sure that’s not too much?’
I lie back down on the bench, take a deep breath and stretch my arms up. ‘It’s worth a try.’
He hands me the bar and I start the exercise. By the third rep my heart is pounding with effort, beads of sweat creeping across my forehead.
‘Well, that’s what you get for partying so much, huh?’ Ray comments in amusement. ‘Your arms have already gotten all skinny, too.’
Yeah, right. ‘Just wait… till it’s… your turn,’ I force out.
The weight really is heavier than usual today, but only because I can’t manage to focus on the workout.
Ever since I said goodbye to Nyla last night, she’s been roaming through my thoughts over and over again, smiling wistfully, begging me with her eyes to finally kiss her and shaking her head at the same time.
She tells me about binge-watching shows with her roommates and laughs out loud when I claim I got all my medical knowledge from Dr. House.
She’s always with me – she and that longing in her eyes, that pull that comes off her – and I have not the slightest idea how to deal with it.
I press the dumbbell up a sixth time and just barely manage to heave it back into the rack.
Ray’s face appears above me. ‘Oh man, seems like last night’s party got a little too wild again…’
There was no party tonight. After we said goodbye, I went straight home, watched TV and thought about Nyla, then slept and dreamed about Nyla, and then I woke up again and looked forward to seeing her again tomorrow.
But I don’t tell Ray that. He’d just ask why, and I wouldn’t be able to give him an answer. After all, I don’t understand it myself.
And that’s not the only crazy thing I’ve done in the last twelve hours. In the light of the new day I can hardly believe it, but I actually put together a playlist for her. So she’d have something she could enjoy with her new headphones.
Something that will make her smile, even if I’m not with her today.
That’s what I was thinking when I used the contact list in the internal emergency services portal to find her phone number and shared the playlist with her.
‘Jaden?’ My coworker nudges me. ‘Come on, tell me, what happened last night?’
‘It got late,’ I reply evasively, peel myself off the weight bench, and grab my towel.
Calmly, he spreads his towel over the bench. ‘Same here.’
I can hardly believe it. Ray, who’s usually the first one to go home, had a late night? ‘Did you have a hot date?’
‘Sure, and my fiancée was there too.’ He shakes his head and sits down. ‘No, we decided it was finally time to take the next step.’
I move behind the bench to spot him during the exercise. ‘Oh, so you spent the whole night going at it like rabbits…’
‘A house, Jaden, we’re going to buy a house,’ Ray cuts me off before I can finish my sentence.
The house, Jaden. Sell it, then you’ll feel better, I promise.
There they are again, Mom’s words, and they echo in me for a conspicuously long time. I can almost see the street in front of me, the sidewalk, the gate, the stepping stones.
The door.
‘We went through the online real estate listings. The prices are totally insane,’ Ray chatters on, yanking me out of my thoughts. ‘In South End you can easily drop a couple million on a house.’
How did he end up on South End? Fancy-schmancy isn’t his thing at all. ‘That’s where you want to live?’
He lies down on his back, and I lift the barbell off the rack for him. ‘No, we just stumbled across it and were shocked, that’s all,’ he says as he does the first two reps.
I lean on the barbell rack. ‘Yeah, you’d need to win the lottery for that.’
‘Then we…,’ Ray presses the barbell up with a gasp, ‘…looked in Bedford.’
Bedford. The images come back. The roof, the round windows in the gable, the rusty gutter.
‘But even there….’ He pauses mid-movement, takes several deep breaths, lets the barbell sink back to his chest one more time, but can’t manage to push it up again.
I take the barbell from him and set it back on the stand.
‘…prices have really gone up lately,’ he finishes his sentence, panting.
It’s really cheap. Yes, it needs a lot of work, but I’m telling you, the area is going to boom over the next few years.
Camee. In an instant I’m as tense as Nyla when she gets lost in her worries.
At the same time I feel that she wouldn’t let me run away if she were here now.
On the contrary, she’d make sure I faced every facet of the pain that’s threatening to spread through me right now.
Because unlike me, she has the courage to face painful subjects—and she can still keep breathing while she does it.
She survives it, and for a split second I wonder if I could do the same.
‘Do you see it, Jayjay, do you see it?’ She tugs on my hand. ‘What it could become…’
I slip my arm around her, pull her close, and kiss the crown of her head. ‘Yeah, Camee, I see it.’
My chest tightens.
Ray lets his arms dangle beside the weight bench. ‘Do you happen to know anyone who wants to sell their house? A private seller would be great, then at least we’d save the realtor’s fees.’
Mom thinks I should finally get rid of the house, and Ray needs one. I wouldn’t even have to drive out there; I could just give Ray the key so he can look at it on his own. It would be perfect, and yet something in me balks at the idea.
Handing the house over to someone who will fill it with a life it was never meant for feels wrong. Preserving this place—at least in the one way that’s possible for me—is the only one of my promises I’m actually keeping. If I break that one too…
No, I can’t do that.
All at once, in my mind’s eye I see Nyla strolling through the house, eyes shining with excitement.
Where did that come from all of a sudden?
‘Unfortunately, no one comes to mind,’ I say absentmindedly and motion for Ray to clear the bench. ‘I can manage one more set.’
As soon as he’s stood up, I sit down, get into position, and lift the barbell out of the rack.
Pump once. Twice. Three times.
Images of Nyla, the house, and Camee flicker through my mind. Some of them are beautiful, some of them hurt.
Four. Five. Six.
In my mind I’m kissing Nyla in the garden. Camee is watching and smiling happily. The thought feels bittersweet, and I don’t know whether I want more of it or less.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
The weight on my arms grows heavier and heavier, the fatigue in my chest more and more intense. My triceps are trembling, but I keep going—and in the process I lose a small part of myself.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
For a single breath I see the man I promised I would be. His eyes are shining.
‘Hey, slow down,’ Ray warns me.
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
No idea what number comes next, I just keep going, because I want to know if there’s more. If I could be this man, someday maybe. But my strength leaves me before I can find out.
I collapse, exhausted and confused and overwhelmed. The images inside me dissolve. That’s good, I think. It’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s how I like it. Or do I?
Ray steps up beside me, his expression worried. ‘What the hell was that just now?’
I don’t have the slightest clue. ‘That’s what you call hard training,’ I say, because I honestly can’t explain what just happened.
Shaking his head, he gives me a once-over and looks a bit like he’s my father. ‘One day, one of your crazy stunts is going to go wrong.’
One day… his words whirl through my head. I wonder what might come, who I’ll be—in a week, a month, a year—and above all, with whom.
‘What happens one day doesn’t matter today.’ I hear the lie in my words, but at the same time I’m aware that I don’t know the truth. Before Ray can reply, I throw the towel over my shoulder and nod toward the exit. ‘I’ve got to go. You good on your own?’
I see that something is on the tip of his tongue and also that he’s trying to swallow it down. In vain. ‘You can’t keep this up forever, Jaden.’
I know. What I don’t know is how I’m supposed to get out of the life I’ve built for myself without it killing me.
Reluctantly, I fold my arms across my chest. ‘Sorry, but I really have to…’
He studies me for a while. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he says at last, visibly disappointed, and I make sure I finally get out of here.
Emotionally shaken, I step into the locker room and open the locker.
My gaze falls on the fabric rose from the fair, which is still tucked into the buttonhole of my jacket. Instantly, the memory of last night takes hold of me, and this time I’m happy to let it happen.
Because thinking about the time I spent with Nyla doesn’t hurt. On the contrary, it feels like a bright counterweight to all the darkness buried deep inside me.