34. Jake
Thirty-Four
Jake
When I get home, I collapse on the couch, exhausted, grateful and frustrated all at the same time.
I’m really glad I got the chance to speak with Taylor today, to finally tell her my side of the story, but I’m bummed that I’m sitting here alone now.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy getting her forgiveness, and I know I’m going to have to work my arse off to earn her trust back. I get that, and I’m willing to prove that I am worth forgiving, worth giving a second chance to. But a part of me was also hoping that she’d tell me it was all okay. That she understood why I hadn’t mentioned having a wife or even being married at all, and that she got it.
Truth be told, I really hoped we’d be naked in bed together right now.
But that hadn’t happened, and instead, I’d found myself hitting the gym to work off some of that frustration, the literal and sexual frustration, before heading to the shops to stock up on some food for the coming week and then going home to spend my night alone.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself, shoving a hand through my hair as I wander into the kitchen to grab a beer. My house feels so cold and empty and I’d give anything to be at Taylor’s right now, or even to have her here with me.
Just as I twist the top off the bottle, I hear my phone ring. I ignore it, taking a long pull of the cold liquid, having no desire to talk to anyone right now.
Just as I swallow, though, I realize it actually could be Taylor. That maybe, just maybe, she’s found a way to forgive me, to somehow forget all of this has happened and she now wants me to come over.
I leg it through to the living room, reaching for my phone on the coffee table just as the ringing stops. I pick it up, open the screen and see the call was from a number I don’t recognize.
“Damn it,” I say, throwing the phone onto the couch.
It chimes out with a voicemail, but I ignore it, instead replaying the events of this afternoon over and over in my head.
The way Taylor looked at me as I told her my story. The hurt in her eyes, the betrayal I knew she felt. But buried underneath it all was sympathy; for everything I’d gone through in the Air Force, for the things it had done to me and the way I’d tried to cope with it afterwards.
I knew she understood that I was a mess because of what I’d seen and done. And even though she didn’t like it, I got the feeling she knew why Maggie and I had happened in the first place. That I’d just needed something to help anchor me back to reality after it had all been blown to shit over there.
My phone pings again, reminding me of the voicemail I have. Sighing, I reach for it, dialing into my message bank to listen to whoever it is that’s called me.
“Jake, hey, it’s me, Maggie,” the voice says, and I feel my eyes close, knowing this is the last person I want calling me.
“Listen, I got an interesting email tonight, which led to an even more interesting phone call. With Taylor, she…”
I don’t listen anymore, cutting off the voicemail and immediately hitting redial on the phone number that called me earlier.
“Jake, hi,” she says as soon as she picks up. “I had a feeling you’d be calling me back.”
“You spoke to Taylor?” I ask, not even bothering to say hello.
Maggie exhales down the line but it’s not in frustration and for a second, I can almost picture her smiling and rolling her eyes at me. “I did.”
“How, why?”
She laughs now, but it’s kind. “Well, I got an email from her, asking me about you and she left her number, so I called her back. I think she might have been drunk.”
Now it’s me smiling, knowing there’s not a chance in hell Taylor wasn’t drunk when she sent that email. She doesn’t do shit like this because she hates not being in control. Hates people thinking she needs something from them.
It’s one of the things I love about her.
“What did she say?”
“Well,” Maggie replies, exhaling, “she wanted to know what the story was with you and me. Whether we’re still married, still together.”
“And?” I ask impatiently. “What did you tell her?”
She chuckles again. “You really like this woman, don’t you?”
I realize I’m standing, pacing the living room as I talk. “I do, Maggie. I really do. And I can’t…I can’t fucking believe she called you, but more than that, I really need to know what you said to her.”
The silence down the line feels endless, and I want to scream at her to just tell me, to hurry the fuck up and put me out of my misery here so I can know if I have any chance of winning this woman back.
“I told her everything.”
“What?”
“I told her everything,” Maggie says again.
“As in?”
“As in how we met, how we ended up married, and why it all ended.”
“Did you tell her when it ended?” I ask. “How we literally have not been married since six weeks after we got married. That it’s been over a year? That we haven’t even seen each other in all that time?” My words are said in a rush, as though if I say it quickly, I can make it all happen quicker.
Maggie exhales again, but it’s different this time. “Yes, Jake,” she says. “I told her our marriage lasted a grand total of six weeks and that it never should’ve happened in the first place. I also told her that I hadn’t seen you since you kicked me out and that you’ve been trying to divorce me ever since. That up until two weeks ago, I’d been the one refusing to sign the papers.”
Now it’s me exhaling, my body sinking into the couch in relief and exhaustion. “Thank you,” I breathe out.
Something rustles through the line, and I hear a male voice murmuring before Maggie responds, her hand obviously covering the mouthpiece, so I don’t hear whatever it is she’s saying.
“Is that him?” I ask. “The guy you’ve…?”
“Yeah,” she says, and I can tell she’s smiling now. “Michael,” she adds.
“Does he know you’re talking to me?”
“He knows everything about you, Jake,” she replies.
I nod, even though she can’t see me. I feel so weirdly confused right now, about all of this.
“Why didn’t you tell Taylor about me?”
I take a deep breath, knowing that’s the million fucking dollar question. “I don’t know,” I eventually say. “I fucked up though, big time.”
“Do you regret it?” she asks, her voice changing now. “Getting married?”
I shove a hand through my hair, knowing there’s no easy way to answer her question. “Yes and no,” I eventually say, even knowing it’s not going to be what she wants to hear. “I regret we did something without thinking about what it meant,” I add, not wanting to hurt her despite what’s happened. “But I don’t regret what us being together did for each other.”
“No?”
“No,” I repeat, shaking my head. “We were both a mess, Maggie, we needed help and in a fucked up way, we gave that to each other. I’m not sure…” I pause, taking another deep breath. “I’m not sure I’d be here; not sure I’d be the person I am without that.”
I can almost hear the relief down the phone. I can tell she’s smiling when she says, “Yeah, me too.”
“Thank you for talking to her,” I say. “And for letting me know.”
Maggie laughs. “Yeah, I probably owed you that much.”
“You think?” I can’t help but ask, but we both laugh.
“You going to go and get her back then?” she asks. “I get the feeling she’s gonna forgive you.”
I feel myself smiling, my body relaxing a little more as Maggie’s words sink in. “Yeah?”
She laughs again. “Yeah, pretty sure she’s crazy about you actually,” she says. “A feeling I might be a little bit familiar with.”
After Maggie and I hang up, I throw my phone back on the couch, my head falling back as I stare up at the ceiling and try to make sense of everything that’s happened today. As weird and strange as this whole thing is, I think Taylor talking to Maggie is the best thing to happen in this whole fucked up mess. Because while I know she wants to believe me, believe it when I tell her that our marriage is over, that it never even really existed in the first place, I also know that she’s never going to be fully convinced until she hears it from both sides.
And now that’s happened.
“Fuck,” I say to myself, standing as I walk back into the kitchen to grab another beer.
Moving to the table, I fire up my laptop and open my email, my fingers itching, my whole body restless and needing to do something while I try to process everything that’s just happened.
I notice an email from Reece, who’s currently in New Zealand, but who has still somehow managed to help me out.
“Fuck me,” I murmur as soon as my eyes scan the list of names he’s sent me. “Shit, this is good,” I say to myself. “This is really fucking good.”
Knowing I have to move quickly, especially in light of tonight’s revelation, I quickly fire off a group email to everyone on the list, outlining the situation, what I need and asking them for not just their support, but the support of anyone else in the industry they think will be willing to help.
Then I log off, knowing it’s late and everyone is spread around the globe and there is no point sitting here and waiting for the replies to come in.
So I head to bed, taking my half-drunk beer with me. But as I slide under the covers, the sheets feeling empty and cold without Taylor, I find myself reaching for my phone, opening up the message app and typing.
Me: It was really great to see you today. I’ve missed you, Taylor…so much. Thank you for hearing me out, for letting me tell you my side of the story. I know you’re pissed still, I don’t blame you. And I know I have a lot of work to do to earn back your trust, but just know, I’m willing to do that. I’m willing to do anything for you. I’m in LA for the next 5 days and I would really love to see you again, so… Anyway, I’m not drunk right now in case you were wondering. This is me, stone cold sober telling you I…
I pause, my fingers hovering over the keys as I contemplate exactly what I am trying to tell her right now. That I love her? Yeah, absolutely. But it’s not the kind of thing you say in a text message for fuck’s sake.
…telling you I hope you had a good day today and I hope I hear from you soon. Good night, beautiful xx
The next morning, there’s no reply from her, although I can tell the message hasn’t been read yet. So instead I open my email to find my inbox filled with replies, and not just from pilots either, but also flight attendants, ground crew, everyone.
Seems a lot of them have heard the news now and they’re all pissed about it.
I straighten, realize I’m smiling like a fucking lunatic as I work my way through my inbox, printing every single message that’s come through overnight. When it’s done, I type up and print my own letter before heading into the bathroom to take a quick shower.
On the way to the airport, I turn up the radio, singing along to the music with a huge grin on my face. I get strange looks from a UPS guy who pulls up alongside me at the lights, but I don’t give a shit because today feels like it’s going to be a really fucking good day.
At the airport, I pull into the crew car park, jumping on the bus even though I’m not working today. A couple of people who sent me emails overnight are onboard and I sit with them, chatting about what I plan to do and thanking them for agreeing to help me with this.
Inside the terminal, I head over to the HR department, making a beeline for the pilot supervisor for Crescent Airways, flashing his PA a quick smile but not bothering to stop and check if it’s okay that I go in, as I breeze past her desk and into his office, shutting the door behind me.
“Can I help you?” a balding guy in his fifties asks as he immediately stands, a worried look on his face.
“I hope so,” I say, still smiling as I lay the stack of emails on his desk.
He glances down at them, his eyes briefly scanning the first one, the one I wrote myself this morning. “What the hell is this?” he asks, his head snapping up.
My smile widens. “Action,” I tell him.
“Action?” he repeats, confused.
“Yep,” I reply, nodding. “And if I were you, I’d suggest you take it seriously,” I add, knowing I’m walking a really fine line here, coming in and swinging my dick about as though I own the place. “Because there’s a lot of letters there,” I add, pointing at the stack of papers. “Which could really screw with the schedule if we were to…”
I trail off, not wanting to actually say the words. Striking is not really something any of us wants to do. Not just because it puts our jobs and our pay at risk, but also because it messes with a lot of people’s lives. Passengers who get stranded somewhere, people who miss holidays or weddings or funerals.
None of that is what we want to do. But at the same time, I can’t just sit back and accept that this is okay either. So I don’t say the words, even though both of us know exactly what I’m talking about.
“How…how did you even…”
“Know about it?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
The guy nods, his mouth open as he leans forward, his hands resting on his desk.
I chuckle. “It’s an incestuous business, the airline industry,” I say, smiling. “Which means,” I add, leaning forward a little. “When you fuck with one of us, you’re fucking with all of us.”
I watch as he swallows hard, glancing down at the stack of emails again before he finally lifts his head and gestures to the chair.
“I think you’d better sit down.”