Chapter 40 Miss You, Goodbye #2
“I guess it’s a good thing you’re the only thing I wanna eat.”
Her face grew warm, and even her cheeks were sore from smiling so hard. “You’re a mess.”
Jamie leaned in to give her neck another kiss, long and tender, before pulling back again. “I brought you some food.”
“Your penis doesn’t count as nourishment.”
He made a face. “I’m gonna refrain from making the joke that I seem to fill you up just fine,” he quipped. “But no, I stopped at Whole Foods on the way up.”
Eve grinned again, appreciating that he had both the forethought and the recollection that she hated the entire selection at Food City.
He knew her well, which she had never been able to say about a man before.
Or anyone, really. Maybe Maya. Maybe it was why she couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was a mistake.
“Hey,” Jamie beckoned her gaze. When it landed on him, she could tell he was studying her. “What’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“Because I don’t know where you are right now,” he said, his thumb caressing her arm. “But I wish you’d take me with you.”
She replied with a quiet smile as she touched his scruffy cheek. “I’ve just…missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“And I don’t wanna spend the whole weekend just doing…
this.” She gestured at their setup in his messy bed of crumpled sheets and discarded clothing.
She cherished the weekends where they did nothing but this, but if they went back to it, if she spent too much time in his arms, she was positive she’d slip right back under.
And all the work she’d done to free herself would be rendered futile.
“Okay…” Jamie nodded and left a chaste kiss on her lips before slowly rolling back to his side of the bed. “Whatever you wanna do is fine with me,” he said. “We can just stare at each other all weekend for all I care.”
Eve traded her musings for another smile.
Because she was happy to do that, too. And she did stare at him for a long time.
Her eyes fixed on him, she wondered what he was thinking, questioned what he saw when he looked back at her, was curious what he was hoping for at the end of these two days.
She wished she could see into his mind. She imagined he’d yearned for the same on so many occasions, back when they were… whatever they were.
She reminisced as if it were so long ago.
But in a lot of ways, it did feel like another life.
She was so different from that woman. But he seemed very much the same, and she wasn’t sure what that meant.
If anything. It still stung, the way things fell apart between them, and it was hard for her to push down the pain.
To pretend she didn’t blame him for her unraveling when he abandoned her, even if it was her own fault for relying on him so much in the first place.
“Where have you been?” she eventually whispered. That was what came out of her mouth, even though she meant, Why did you leave? She searched his eyes for the answer to that question instead. If only she could erase the last two months and they could just pick up where they left off.
“I’ve been…home,” Jamie said, a small, sheepish chuckle following. “Just working. Taking care of Jack. Back to life before you.”
Eve nodded against her pillow.
“I thought about calling you every day,” he said. “But then I thought it might be cruel to pull you back in—to even attempt it—if I wasn’t sure what I wanted.”
She looked down, not guiltily, but knowingly.
“I read your dissertation.”
Eve narrowed her eyes at him. “You did not.”
“I did. All two hundred and seventy-eight pages,” he said.
“Never imagined I’d spend my nights learning about the intersection of film culture and social activism in Liberia and Ghana, but…
I’m glad I did. I love how much I learn from you.
” He punctuated his sentence with a doting gaze as a tiny smile claimed his face, manifesting as a twinkle in his eyes more than a twitch of his lips.
“And then I just happened to come across the news about your show, and I had to call you,” he said.
“I just…saw your name, and all of a sudden, I knew what I wanted.”
Eve didn’t know how to respond. How sweet it was to hear him say that he wanted her.
To know he hadn’t really discarded her. After all the pain of the last two months, the loneliness and the regret that had tried its best to swallow her whole, being with him, like this, felt like a balm for the wound that was left when he shut her out.
She leaned in to kiss him softly. Briefly.
Her lips saying what had been on her mind since they laid eyes on each other the night before: I’m home.
Jamie quietly groaned at the touch of her lips, and then again when she pulled away. “Where are you going?” he asked, sighing as she climbed out of their bed. He reached out for her, but she was already gone and slipping into her panties.
“Go get our food,” she called back to him.
While Jamie headed outside, Eve started scouring the cabinets for breakfast items, deciding on some grits Jamie had left over, while hoping he had bacon among his purchases.
She was pleasantly surprised when he returned with a cooler full of groceries—mostly fruits and vegetables, but also steaks and bacon, eggs, bread, and juice.
Enough to get them through the weekend and then a little more.
They flirted their way through breakfast prep, sharing little touches and kisses, as well as strawberries and blackberries, while Eve cooked their grits and Jamie took on the duty of bacon and toast. And mostly, there was that comfortable silence between them again, their actions taking the place of words, giving a quiet ease to their morning. The way it used to be.
Jamie stopped for a moment as the bacon sizzled to watch Eve, walking around in his shirt and basically nothing else, leaving Eve feeling self-conscious with his attention on her. “What?” she asked.
He shook his head, grinning cheekily as he popped a cherry into his mouth. “Just got a text from my mom. She told me to tell you hi.”
Eve turned back to him, her eyebrows raised. “Your mom?” She smiled tentatively, unsure how he felt about it. “The one you don’t speak to?”
He laughed. “We’ve been speaking a little more,” he said. “Her and my dad came to visit for my birthday. They’re watching Jack this weekend.”
Eve nodded slowly as she stirred her grits, pleasantly surprised by this news. But the mention of Jack made her ache again, pangs of sadness settling in the pit of her stomach. “I’m really glad to hear that,” she said, ignoring the pain. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m taking it slow,” he said, leaning against the counter as he looked to the floor. “But I held that grudge for too long. Casey said I needed to forgive her, and he was right. Insufferable as he is, he’s usually right.”
“How does it feel to have her back in your life?”
“It feels…good?” He said it with a slow smile, as if he was just now realizing it. “I always felt like I had a part missing. And to be able to move forward and welcome her in. To feel like I’ve got a handle on this thing with Lucy. It’s nice.”
Eve nodded again, understanding him far too well.
She went back to the stove, but only to turn it off—she didn’t want burning food to interrupt what she was about to say.
With Jamie watching her, she nimbly pulled herself onto the open counter space next to the refrigerator. “I have something to tell you, too.”
Jamie’s eyebrows quirked with silent intrigue. He stood in front of her, his hands resting on her thighs. “Okay.”
“I started going to therapy,” she revealed, her voice low as she avoided his gaze at first, focusing on his hands instead.
She let the words hang in the air, feeling her heart beating in her ears as she tried to convince herself to keep speaking.
That she—that they —needed to have this conversation.
He smiled. Again, the kind that put a glitter in his eyes. “I’m proud of you ,” he said, his thumb still rubbing her smooth skin. “I really am.”
“After what happened with us, I really…lost it.” She had to consciously suppress the humiliating image of her weeping in Stella’s office. “I couldn’t avoid it anymore.”
Jamie nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Eve shook her head. She’d chosen how to respond, and that wasn’t on him. “We talk about you,” she said with an inkling of a smile.
“Oh.” He chewed at his bottom lip, his brows knitting then. “I don’t think anyone ever wants to be on the receiving end of ‘I talk to my therapist about you.’?”
“Probably not.”
“How bad is it?”
“There’s no good or bad. Just the truth.”
“Okay…”
“I had to discuss why I was so scared of letting you all the way in,” Eve went on.
She focused on the freckles on his nose as she spoke, because she couldn’t handle his stare.
Not now. Because for half a year, those eyes had begged to know her, and now that she was finally giving in, she couldn’t watch as that earnestness decayed and turned to pity.
“And the truth is, it was because I didn’t want you to know I had a baby at seventeen.
” Her bottom lip began to quiver before she could say more. “I had to give him up for adoption.”
“Eve.” Jamie exhaled shakily as he took one of her hands.
“It wasn’t just the miscarriages that sent me here.
It was the combination of all of it. I felt like my parents had stolen my baby, my fiancé couldn’t give me one, and I was reeling.
” She wiped at the tears that had begun to fall; they came faster than she could express her thoughts.
“I’m so fucking tired of crying,” she said, laughing at herself.
“It’s okay.”