26. Jake
Twenty-Six
Jake
I have no idea where she’s gone. By the time I get to the end of my driveway, Taylor has disappeared into thin air.
“Fuck,” I scream, shoving a hand through my hair, as I turn around and head back toward my house, ready to grab my car and go look for her. Maggie is waiting outside, arms crossed over her chest as I stalk back.
“Who was that?” she asks.
I ignore her question, instead throwing one back at her. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Maggie uncrosses her arms, shrugging her shoulders at me as she says, “Like I said, I am your wife, remember?”
I roll my eyes, stomping up the steps and brushing past her and into my house. “Only because you won’t sign the fucking papers,” I shout back as I head into the bedroom.
“Yet you keep sending them,” she shouts after me, following me inside.
I ignore her as I grab some clothes and shove them into a bag, my other stuff all still over at Taylor’s place. I reach into the wardrobe and grab a clean uniform and am about to get changed when I realize she’s now standing in the doorway watching me.
“Well, do me a favor then and fucking sign them already,” I say, grabbing the envelope off the side table and throwing it on the bed. “Then we can end this mess of a marriage once and for all.”
I walk into the bathroom without waiting for a reply and slam the door behind me, locking it because I wouldn’t put it past her to follow me in here. I hurry and get changed, knowing I still have time, although not much, to head back over to Taylor’s before I have to be at the airport.
I need to find her because she and I really need to talk, but this is not a conversation I want to have at the airport or in the cockpit. It’s one we should’ve had long ago, back when we first got together, before that even. At the very least, it’s a conversation we should have had before she had to find out by coming face to face with my so-called wife.
But it’s too late for that now and the only thing I can do is try and fix things before I lose her, before Taylor walks away for good.
When I open the bathroom door, I see Maggie has disappeared from my bedroom along with the divorce papers I’ve been trying to get her to sign for the past year. I grab my bag, pulling the zipper closed before walking back into the living area.
“You really want this to be over?” she says, looking up at me from where she’s laid the papers out over the kitchen bench.
I let out a long exhale. “Why do you think I’ve been sending you the papers for the past year, Maggie? Jesus.”
She shakes her head. “Can we please just have a civilized conversation about this, Jake, for once?”
I glance at my watch. “I don’t exactly have time for that right now,” I tell her, desperate to get back to Taylor and fix things. “Pretty sure there’s nothing more to talk about either,” I add, knowing the arguments we used to have pretty much covered everything anyway.
“I’ll sign the papers,” she suddenly says, surprising me.
“You will?”
Maggie nods. “Yes.”
“Why?” I ask, shocked. I’ve been trying to make this happen for so long now. “I mean why now? Why all of a sudden?” I run a hand through my hair, confused. I don’t want to fuck this up and change her mind, but I want to know why too. Why she’s been fucking with me for over a year? “Why wouldn’t you just sign them before? Shit, Maggie, a year?! A year you’ve been fucking me around with this.”
She lets out a long exhale, nodding as she pulls out a stool and takes a seat at the bench as though she’s settling in for the long haul. “I know,” she says.
I glance at my watch again, wishing I could hurry this up but knowing I can’t push it, not when she’s finally agreeing to the divorce. “So, why now?”
“I’ve met someone,” she says, shrugging as though it’s somehow obvious. “And I realize it’s time.”
“You realize it’s time?” I repeat, annoyed at the timing, annoyed that it’s ever had to come to this. Annoyed that I ever married her in the first place.
She looks up at me, her gaze meeting mine. “I didn’t want to fail,” she says, hands out, palms up as if to say, what did you expect . “I didn’t want to fail at yet another thing, not after everything. And I really thought our marriage could work.”
I laugh, but it’s without humor. “You thought it could work? Jesus, Maggie, you cheated on me,” I say, my tone harsh. “Literally weeks after we made the stupid decision to get married.”
“You really think it was stupid?” she fires back defensively.
“Maggie, come on,” I say, letting out an exhale. “I think we both know it was stupid. Neither of us was in a good headspace, and both of us knew it was the absolute worst thing to do given all of that. I mean shit, there were rules, remember? A process we should have been following.”
Now it’s her letting out a long breath. “Yeah,” she admits. “You might be right.”
I reach for my keys, grabbing a pen from the empty fruit bowl and putting it pointedly on top of the divorce papers. “I really appreciate you finally agreeing that we need to do this,” I say. “But the truth is, we’ve needed to do this from day one. Shit,” I say, scrubbing a hand across my jaw. “It just never should’ve happened in the first place.”
She stares up at me, a sadness in her eyes as she listens to what I’m telling her.
I look at my watch again, sighing when I see how much time has passed already. Meeting Maggie’s eyes, I finally admit the truth. “Look, I’ve met someone too, okay? Someone who is really important to me. And up until today, she did not know about you, so I really need you to sign these papers so I can go and fix things with her before I have to go and fly a fucking plane full of passengers who would actually like to get to their destination.”
Maggie picks up the pen, her other hand resting on the papers. She stares at them for what feels like forever before she finally says, “Do you love her?” She doesn’t look up, just stares at the page, the pen hovering so close to the dotted line.
I suck in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of my nose as I let it out in a long slow exhale. “Yes,” I finally say. “I do.”
Maggie nods, still without looking up. “Did you ever love me?”
“Maggie, come on,” I say, shoving a hand through my hair as I pace around the kitchen.
She slams down the pen. “I think I deserve to know.”
I look over, see she’s staring at me, her face hard, but her eyes sad. “Did you ever love me?” I ask, my words harsh.
She ducks her head now, staring back at the papers as she shrugs and says nothing.
I step closer, put my hand on the bench as I gently nudge the papers closer. “I think we both know what this was, Maggie,” I say, my words quiet. “And I think we both know why this needs to happen. So please,” I say, pausing to look at my watch yet again, “please give me this so I can go and do what I need to do.”
I watch as she takes a deep breath, nodding once as she swipes angrily under her eyes before signing the papers and throwing the pen back into the empty fruit bowl. Then she pushes back from the bench, the stool legs scraping loudly on the hardwood floors before she turns and walks toward the front door.
“Thank you,” I say when she reaches it. She pauses, her hand on the handle, but she doesn’t turn around. “For this,” I add, “and for what you did back then.”
She glances back at me now, her eyes meeting mine. “Thank you too,” she whispers. “I know it wasn’t pretty, but it felt like what we both…”
“Needed,” I say, finishing her sentence.
“Yeah.” She nods, offering me a sad smile before she opens her bag and pulls out a key. “Here,” she says, holding out the house key she still has. “I guess this belongs to someone else now.”
I walk over, take the key from her. Neither of us says anymore. Maggie just leans in and places an awkward kiss on my cheek before turning away, walking out the door and down my drive toward the street, where I guess her car is parked.
As soon as she’s gone, I waste no time pulling my phone from my pocket and dialing Taylor’s number, only to hear it ring and ring before finally going to voicemail. As soon as the beeps sound, I start talking.
“Taylor, please let me explain,” I say, my words coming out in a rush. “It’s not what you think, I promise. It’s nothing, a mistake, a fuck up, a stupid decision that I can explain, please, I…”
The beeps signal, indicating the rest of my message has been cut off.
“Fuck,” I exhale, grabbing my keys, locking up the house and walking back to my car.
I haul arse back to Taylor’s, knowing I’m cutting it really close before I need to be at the airport, but desperate to sort this out before then. When I get to her place, I open the garage door using the clicker remote I took when we drove over to my place.
As soon as it opens, though, I can see her car is gone.
“Motherfucker,” I shout, slamming my hand on the steering wheel.
I reverse out of her driveway and head to the airport, grateful she managed to get us a flight together, even if the pilots’ lounge or the cockpit is the last place I want to have this conversation.
At least we’ll be forced into a confined space together and she won’t be able to avoid me.
After I park my car and take the crew bus to the terminal, I push through security as quickly as I can. I ignore pretty much everyone who tries to talk to me, my phone permanently pressed against my ear as I repeatedly call Taylor.
But she never picks up. My calls all going to voicemail until eventually, I get a notification that her mailbox is full.
I send her a quick text just as I walk into the pilot’s lounge, scanning the room for any sign of her. But I can’t find her anywhere and everyone I ask hasn’t seen her.
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning and walking out. I head over to the office to get our papers before heading to the plane, knowing this is the one place she can’t avoid me.
When I get onboard, I ignore the crew and head straight for the cockpit, going through the paperwork and checklists with the ground crew as I wait for Taylor to finally show up.
Finally, I hear the cockpit door open, and I turn in my seat, already halfway to the door as I ready myself for the million apologies and explanations I know I owe her. God, if I could go back and fix this, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
“Hey,” a guy I’ve never seen before says, holding out his hand to me.
“Hi,” I say warily, shaking his hand as I glance behind him. “Where’s Taylor?” I ask, not giving a shit that I’m kind of breaking protocol by referring to her like that.
He grins, shrugging as he says, “Family emergency, apparently. I’m Captain Rick Simmons,” he adds.
“What?”
His grin widens as he says, “I mean, Tahiti. Can you believe it?”
I say nothing, my brain going a million miles an hour as I try to work out what the fuck is going on right now.
“Last minute call-up,” he continues, apparently oblivious to my what the fuck moment right now. “I wasn’t gonna say no. Tropical island, booze, flight crew,” he adds, a smarmy smile on his face as he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Anyway, should we get started? You called in with dispatch?”
I ignore his question, instead, pulling my phone from my pocket as I glance at the screen. My thumb brushes over it, illuminating the screen and bringing up the image Taylor sent me last time we were apart: the one of her, naked beneath a white sheet.
My stomach sinks at the realization of what’s happened, at the knowledge that I may have completely fucked this up because I was too much of a coward to tell her something that I should have told her long ago.
Please don’t tell me I’ve totally fucked this up.