Chapter 9
NINE
Jess
After another drama-filled morning between Liam and Brit, I’m desperate for a minute of solitude. He showed up at The Grounds this morning (where we picked up Caroline and Elodie from their sleepover) and a confrontation ensued.
Being here for her is the right thing. She fucking needs it, but at the same time, it’s hard. Because I just want to scream, “I’m not okay either! I need someone, too!”
When I finally get Eden settled down for a nap, for the first time since I’ve found out about Tommy (and Jamie), I’m truly alone. I’m grateful for a moment, until I curl into a ball on my bed and check my messages.
There’s one from May and one from our house cleaner. Then there’s one from Jamie. (Eyeroll.)
Jamie
I don’t know what just happened, but Tommy is beside himself. I’ve never seen him like this. I know you’re not trying to hurt him on purpose, are you?
Gag. He’s worried about me? Hurting Tommy? That’s fucking laughable. I may have let Tommy think there’s something more between Damian and I because fuck him. But there isn’t. (You and I both know that.)
I ignore Jamie’s text.
Tommy
I’m leaving. Hopefully I’ll be back in a couple weeks. If you change your mind, I’ve emailed you all the information you need. Addresses, offices, my assistant there. Reach out any time.
And I don’t know what you’re doing with Damian, but I’m going to hope it’s not what I think, Jess. I’m still hopeful. Okay? I still love you. Do you want me to not stay at Jamie's? Just tell me.
My stomach drops out. My chest hurts. Right, of course he’d stay with Jamie. That’s where he lives most of the time. He works at the Taiwan office, and I wonder: Would this have happened sooner if there weren't thousands of miles between them?
Jess
Stay with Jamie. Stay as long as you’d like. I likely won’t change my mind, but thank you for the information. If anything happens while you’re gone, I’ll do my best to let you know.
Dig , dig, little dig . I try, but if anything, I think the text reads a bit like one you’d send to your boss when you’ve just declined to take that business trip. Polite and to the point. And that’s exactly what this is, isn’t it? It’s transactional, and in this equation, I’m the superfluous one.
Hurt in my chest turns to a full-blown crack, it’s breaking. Officially. I’ve stopped moving long enough for the pain to erupt, multiply, morph into a beast all its own. And I’ve never felt like this before.
I grab the monitor and my phone and walk into the garage at Britain’s house. It’s the only place to hide now that her girls are home from their sleepover.
I press May’s name and wait, she doesn’t make me wait long though, bless her.
“Hi, JJ.”
“May.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
“Jessie? What is it?” May asks, all quiet concern.
“Tommy is in love with Jamie.” I hear a gentle “Oh” from her end of the line. “They want to be together.” I can practically see May nodding along. She’ll have pushed her glasses to the top of her head and crossed her arms over her chest by now. She undoubtedly has me on speaker in her office, too.
“Tommy still wants me to be with them, though…but… I can’t .” A slight cry breaks out. But once a small cry breaks out, it leads to bigger crying, because with May, I can be anything. She lets me. And that includes being a small child, and crying like the boys were being mean to me at the park.
“Of course you can’t!” She says indignantly in my defense. “Does he even know you?!” She’s bewildered at the idiocy of men, always. It makes me chuckle because I can just picture her standing in her office now, pacing the small carpet, waving her hands in the air.
“Exactly!” I exclaim.
“J, if that’s not what you want, that is one hundred percent, A-OK. Fuck Tommy DiAngelo!”
“Yes! Fuck him!” I say back, feeling slightly more resolved in all of this.
“Good. That’s good, Jessica!”
“Yes, I-I don’t need him.” I say, not entirely convincingly.
“Of course you don’t. You are the daughter of Jules and Robert and May, and no woman I’ve raised would ever need a man. Do you hear me?” I can hear the absolute confidence in her voice. It’s almost enough to instill some confidence in me.
“I hear you.”
“Good. Now listen close, baby, because I know that was the pep talk, but now it’s time for the real talk.” My entire body falls slightly.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“Let him go,” she says softly. I cry silently, placing my hand over my mouth in hopes May doesn’t hear me. “Don’t hang on for his sake, but especially not for yours.” She delivers this so exceptionally well and so compassionately, my heart splits right down the middle.
I think perhaps I’ve been in a smidge of denial. I’ve been using avoidance, keeping busy, but the second I stopped moving, the second I was alone, there was no escaping it. And now? Now, we move into the anger phase of grief. This anger feels less reactionary and more deep-seated.
“Let him go?” I practically sob, then scoff, “So what? He can live happily ever after? And me and Eden, we’re just what? Collateral damage?!”
“Never. And how dare you see yourself that way!” May scolds me. It just makes me angrier.
“I have to go, I’ll call you later.” I hang up without waiting for her response. I’m not mad at May. I’m just…mad. So completely consumed by a rage I’ve been keeping at bay because if I let myself feel it, it feels like there’ll never be an end.
The air gets sucked from my lungs, and I bow over, because remaining upright no longer seems feasible. I drop the monitor and my phone on the concrete floor and remain bowed over with my hands resting on my thighs, fighting for breath.
Finding out how little control I have over my own life is earth shattering. (Fine, maybe just life shattering.) I’ve always seen myself as a strong, confident, independent woman. But I’m not. I’ve become dependent on Tommy. As my partner, my friend, my co-parent, my confidant.
I put my career (my life) on hold so we could have a child and now, I’m left with…what the fuck am I left with? (Thanks to Tommy’s prenup) it’s simple: not much.
I was just a pawn. I was just a placeholder. My stomach rolls.
Jess
You know what, fuck you, Tommy. For making me an interloper in my own life. Fuck you for even asking something of me that you know I’d never be okay with. I watched my father DIE of a broken heart loving someone who could never be his. And you’re asking me to stick around and do the same? FUCK YOU.
Tommy gets to look like the good guy, doesn’t he? Because he wanted us to stay together, right? That’s fine. Let me be the villain. I’ve been here before, this time I’ll be the villain in their rendition of life.
Fuck, maybe I’ll always be the bad guy. Maybe that’s just my cross to bear.
After a couple dips in a bowl full of ice water, the swelling around my eyes starts to come down. No one will ever know I’ve been crying.
Yet, I still brace myself at the gentle knock on my bedroom door. It’s all a lot right now. Britain’s life is Messy. (Yeah, with a capital M.) And right now, I'm her safe harbor, her dumping ground, and I’m happy to do it. It’s just a lot on top of what I already have. Doesn’t help that she’s also so helplessly in love, and it’s so fucking obvious, but she just can’t accept and move past and forgive. (But I also don’t blame her one bit.)
I open the door and she peeks her head in. “Hi, is the babe awake?” she whispers .
“Yeah, come in.” I pull her into the room while I finish toweling off my face.
“What are you using on your skin? It looks amazing.” I want to tell her it's a concoction of the tears of my enemies and the plus side of having a heart of ice.
Instead, all I say is, “La Mer.” She nods.
“There’s, um, something I want to show you. Think you can come take a look?” she asks so innocently and sweetly.
“Of course.”
Britain picks up a groggy Eden from her nap, changes her diaper and totes her upstairs to her primary suite. Setting herself and Eden up on the bed with a set of play car keys, she tosses me a phone off her bedside table.
“Read the messages from Liam,” her only instructions. So I do. I read each one, and with each one, I feel more and more angry and…jealous. She has this guy by the fucking balls.
Just like Damian would jump off a cliff, Liam would buy her an island. Then he’d build a grandstand on the edge of said cliff, on said island, so she could sit and watch him push every one of her enemies over the edge before falling on his own sword if it might make her happy.
“So, what do you want to do about it?” I ask her once I’m finished.
“I don’t know, Jess,” she says, sounding completely uncertain.
“I think after today,” (Liam, showing up in Spearhead. And him begging for forgiveness), “and all this , it’s pretty clear that he loves you. And it’s pretty clear to me that you still love him, too.”
“I don’t disagree,” she says, sort of trailing off.
“So?” It’s so fucking obvious .
“So…I’m seeing someone else. And it takes more than love to make a relationship work. It takes trust and communication, two things Liam has proven to me to be lacking.”
My blood is boiling. “You do remember yesterday, when I could barely get you to admit you liked Matthias, right?” She literally could have lived without the guy yesterday.
“I like Matthias, there’s something there.” Her voice is quiet. I know she thinks she’s being honest, but she’s not.
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” It comes out a bit saltier than I mean it to. I can see it the moment it leaves my lips because her little mouth turns down in a frown.
“Are you mad at me right now?” She treads gently. I’ve never actually been mad at her. I’m not mad at her now. I’m just…mad.
“I’m not mad at you, but I am frustrated. You love Liam. Liam loves you.” (Only someone blind and deaf could miss it.) “From what I can tell, it’s the end-all-be-all type of love. The mythical kind of love you read about, but don’t experience. And you’re just going to mess with some other guy’s emotions because you have something to prove to Liam? Yourself? It’s wrong. Sit and think on it, and if afterwards you can honestly tell me you are over Liam or don’t love him anymore, then you should go out with Matthias. But if you can’t do that, let him go. Don’t make him a pawn in your game because if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want that either.” (Clearly I’m projecting and not in a good way.) My friend looks like I’ve just struck her.
“This morning you were pumped about me going out with Matthias, though,” she defends herself. I want to roll my eyes at her, but I can’t do it. I'm misdirecting all my negative thoughts and feeli ngs towards her. It’s incredibly unfair of me.
“I think these text messages and Liam coming back make a difference. I know you’re smart enough to see that whether you want it to or not, Liam being here changes things. If you feel strongly about Matthias, then wait. Wait till you’re sure you can get over Liam. Otherwise you run the risk of doing things you’ll regret and hurting people who don’t deserve it along the way.”
I sigh before continuing, “I am grumpy, so I’m sorry this is all coming out in a bitchy tone. I will always be Team Britain, so if you want to date Matthias, I will root you on. I just don’t want you to make the same mistake as…someone I know. That’s all.” (Almost said Tommy, fuck.) I hope she hears me though, because I will always be Team B. Period. Till the end of time.
“Someone you know?” She questions me, one light brown eyebrow popping up. (Don’t want to deal with this right now, can’t actually.)
“Want to go swimming?” I ask, popping up from my spot on the bed like I’ve just had the greatest desire to throw myself under water for a little while. (Maybe even a long while.)
“What?” She shakes her head, not missing my act of deflection. “No, I want my best friend to talk to me about what’s going on.”
“I’m not ready. Not yet.” That’s all I can give without becoming an emotional wrecking ball.
“I can respect that. Honestly, I can. But not forever, okay?” She tries and succeeds at making eye contact with me.
“Okay.” This is where things get difficult. Sometimes I want to be an op en book and tell her everything. About me. About her brother. But then…I clam up. I never want to lose her friendship.
“You know, I’m Team Jess, too, right?” She reminds me. I sort of half smile, and like word vomit, I push down all the things I’d love to talk to her about, but can’t yet. Instead I nod. She reaches over, pushing a piece of my dark brown hair out of my eyes to make sure I can see how sincere she’s being and I nod again.
“So then I guess I should make a decision about Matthias, right? Do you think I should cancel our date?” This poor babe, she’s so conflicted, and all I’ve done is made things more convoluted for her. My role here is support, get her to the other side. It’s not my job to tell her what side that is.
“I don’t know, Brit,” I sigh, feeling like maybe I’m about to say the wrong thing, but perhaps it’s the right thing for Brit. “Maybe go on the date and get your answer that way. Maybe you go, and if it doesn’t feel good, you’ll know it’s not what you want. Or maybe you go, and it’s better than you expected, and the feelings deepen, and you realize it’s worth it to move forward with Matthias.” Felt wrong saying it.
“Right…yeah, I think I’m going to go. But after that I have to make a decision one way or the other. Hold me to it, please?” A part of me wants to yell at her, that she has two amazing men that aren’t Matthias willing to go to bat for her, and that she should abandon this ship. But it’s not my place, so I hold my tongue.
“I will,” I say, then imagine how my life could have been if someone had had this talk with Tommy.
“Wanna start Queen Charlotte before dinner gets here? I’ll make you a margaritaaaa…'' She asks in the most ridiculous voice, and it makes me smile.
“Duh, yes.” We all roll off the bed and Eden and Brit trail behind me down the stairs.
I head for the great room to turn on the tv while Brit turns towards the kitchen where I hope she’ll bring me back a margarita. She’s derailed by the doorbell though.
“Are you expecting something?” she calls out to me.
“Nope!” I shout back, turning on the Apple TV.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Brit asks the guest. I lean against the back cushions of her sectional so I can view the door, and just like I always do when I see Alex, I freeze.
He breezes in like he owns the place, but stops dead when he glimpses me. Turning around quickly, he faces his sister so that I can’t hear them. And no matter how hard I strain, I can’t. They exchange words, and then he trudges to the kitchen.
Brit gives me a helpless look that says, “I’m sorry my brother is a dick,” then places Eden in my lap to follow her brother to the other side of the house.
What I want to do is get up, walk over to where they are in the kitchen and force the issue. It’s been long enough. You’d think he could stop hating me now. But I don’t get the chance, because he’s back, walking fast towards the front door.
Britain barely just stops him, “Wait! Wait! Wait! You are not going to kill him. I’m not forgiving him or anything, but I don’t think he deserves death.” So Alex knows Liam is back in town now. Got it.
“Fine, I’ll let him live.” He looks me in the eyes briefly, and I feel it. Like a punch to the solar plexus. My toes curl and my heartb eat races. And then he turns to head out the door.
Brit is still trying to talk him down, but all I can think is: No. It’s been so long. How? He…I…didn’t imagine it? The door shutting gets my attention.
“Do you think I should call Liam and warn him?” she asks, very seriously.
I can’t help it, but I laugh (to keep from crying), and say, “Absolutely not.”
Brit wanders down the hall, picking at her fingers in a daze while I get lost in thought and wonder if Liam is just the latest excuse in the long line of many that Alex has used to avoid being around me.