22. Jane
22
JANE
Me: Happy birthday…I hope you’re getting to do something fun today and it’s not just all work
Nikolai: Thanks LJ. Wish you were here with me to celebrate
Nikolai: And please…like you actually think I wouldn’t find some time on my bday to have a little fun? ;)
N ikolai’s down south for a show this weekend, which in retrospect, couldn’t have come at a better time, even if it is his birthday and he’s not here to celebrate it with his friends. Every year, he throws himself a huge party that usually ends up on the front pages of gossip sites and tabloids. But this year when I asked him about it, he told me he’s grown out of the bashes and will just have a low-key dinner with everyone when he gets back in town.
It’s a bummer he’s not here, surrounded by his friends for his special day, but it does give me some much needed space to get my head on straight without his presence suffocating my every thought. He left for Texas last night and our goodbye was tense.
He’s trying. I know he is.
But I need to make sense of the mess in my head before I can begin to talk things through with him.
And I have just the person to help me do it.
“Hallie!” I squeal as Hendrik turns into the driveway with my best friend tucked away in the SUV. There’s flurried movement in the backseat, but I can’t fully make her out as the windows are heavily tinted. The moment the car parks, the rear door whips open and Hallie jumps out.
“Janie!” she calls out, throwing her arms up and running up the driveway. I jog and meet her halfway, our bodies colliding in a hug that I feel all the way in bones.
“I missed you,” I cry into her shoulder.
She rocks us side to side, even though she’s much smaller than me. “We’re not allowed to go this long without seeing each other again.”
We break apart, and I say, “Deal. Oh my god, your hair!”
She flips her newly done boho knotless braids over her shoulder. “You like?”
“I love! Perfect for summer. Any other big changes you made in the last couple of months? New tattoos, new boyfriends?”
She looks deep in thought for a moment, then cracks a sly grin. “We have two days for you to find out.”
Before Nikolai left, he dropped his black Amex on the counter for me with a simple, “Treat yourself to something this weekend. You’ve been working hard. You deserve it.”
I tried to hand it back to him, but he refused.
Arun pays me generously and I already have everything I need, so I didn’t feel the need to go shopping. While I love retail therapy as much as the next person, nothing beats a night with takeout and a bottle of wine with your best friend.
So pulling a move out of Nikolai’s book, I purchased a roundtrip ticket for Hallie and sent her the confirmation, telling her she better get her ass on the plane and come spend some time on the West Coast for the weekend.
And here we are.
“I need to get myself a rockstar boyfriend,” Hallie muses as we step inside the house. Her wide eyes sweep the open floor plan and various art pieces arranged about. “You sure your brother’s in a happy relationship?”
I laugh and grab her purse from her. “Very sure. But I’ll see if Nikolai has any friends he could set you up with.”
“Please do. It’s the least you could do for ditching me.”
I give her a quick tour, showing off the house as if it’s my own, which I guess, it sort of is. At least for now, still. If things keep going well with Arun, I’m hoping there might be a full time offer in my future which would mean I could put down some roots of my own here. Even if that means the apartment I could afford would likely be smaller than my bedroom alone here. But this living situation with Nikolai has always been temporary.
After dropping her bags in one of the guest rooms and making us cocktails, we walk out onto the patio and sit in the lounge chairs by the pool. The sun is relentless as it beats down on the city, but the umbrella between our chairs help keep us cool.
“So, fill me in. What good office gossip have I missed since I’ve been gone?” I ask Hallie as we settle in.
She pulls her sunglasses off as she turns to me with wide eyes. “Chester got a new assistant.”
“Another one?” He must go through a dozen a year.
She nods enthusiastically. “But it’s not what you think. Savannah was caught using Chester’s corporate card for her own shopping trips and submitting them as his wife’s expenses.”
“Shut up!” I gasp. “How long was that going on for?”
She shrugs. “Long enough that the poor girl is going to end up bankrupt by the time Chester is done wringing her in court for all she’s worth. Which I’m assuming since he was funding her shopping, not very much.”
“That’s crazy.”
She hums as she sips.
We catch up on a few of our other co-workers, including Percy and Cara who everyone knows are having an affair but all decide to play along for their sake. They both took two weeks of PTO at the same time and didn’t think anyone would catch on, even when they posted photos from the same location.
“And Liam’s being a brat, as per usual.”
I snort. “What’s he doing now?”
“Breathing.”
Cranberry juice and vodka spray out of my mouth and onto the pavement as I choke on a laugh. “Well,” I cough, “I can see how that is quite annoying.”
“Extremely.” Hallie smirks. “He stopped coming by my desk the week after you left when he realized he wasn’t going to get any updates about you.”
“Why would he even be asking you?” He didn’t care enough about me while we were dating, so I don’t know why he’d care what I’m up to now that we’ve broken up.
Hallie crosses her ankles and leans back on the striped cushion. “Because he knows he fucked up.”
Why do the men in my life realize they fucked up after the fact, and not before they even make the mistake to begin with?
Hallie switches the subject. “Are you ever going to come back?” she asks solemnly, like she already knows my answer.
I sigh. “I don’t know. I’m finally working with the clientele that I want to out here. My boss trusts me, and it truly feels like a team, not a boy's club.”
“Are they hiring?”
“I’ll see.” I chuckle. “But I don’t know. The last time I emailed Chester, I didn’t even get a response. So at this point, I don’t even know if I’m welcome back, or if I’d even have a job at the expansion office here.”
“Would you even want it if you did?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I know our friendship is deeper than working at the same place. “No. I don’t think so.”
Hallie’s face drops but after a moment, she smiles. “I get it. I can see how much happier you are out here.”
“You can?” I haven’t felt very happy the past few days.
“And I assume it doesn’t only have to do with the new job, but also maybe a certain roommate of yours?”
A groan spills from my lips as I wave her off. “Not now. You just got here. Let’s just enjoy this beautiful day, okay?”
She arches a brow at me, tsking. “Fine, but you’re not getting out of that one. I need to hear everything.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I sigh, letting my head fall back against the lounger as I pull sunglasses over my eyes. “Now, whose hand was that in your story from The Point last weekend?”
Hallie and I spend the afternoon by the pool, catching up and cooling off in the water before we go to Rodeo Drive for some window shopping. Browsing is just as fun for the two of us and we pick up dinner on the way home so we can eat in the theater room while watching one of our favorite movies.
After our first bottle of wine, I let Hallie take her pick from Nikolai’s temperature controlled wine cellar. She gawks at the rows and rows of bottles.
“How can one person have this many bottles of wine?”
“You can take as many as you can fit in your suitcase.”
Hallie gapes at me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “He wouldn’t care.” If anything, Nikolai would probably be happier that they get consumed by someone who appreciates them more. When I first saw the cellar, I was shocked by his collection and even more so when he told me that most of them were gifts. From label executives, agents trying to woo him away from Arun, fellow artists trying to show off or suck up.
If they knew the real Nikolai like I do, they wouldn’t bother with expensive bottles of wine. They’re wasted on him.
He loves nothing more than the Russian vodka from his mom.
“How is it living with a roommate again?” she asks as we make our way back into the theater room and retake our seats on the plush, leather recliners.
It’s so weird to hear Nikolai referred to as my roommate when he’s so much more than that, but also not at the same time. “It’s been fine. We’re both busy, but our schedules also make us two planes passing in the sky sometimes.” More like when I want to avoid him and not confront feelings I don’t want to acknowledge, I can.
“Please tell me you’ve slept with him.” Her eyes spark.
“Nope.”
“Damn shame.”
“Well…”
“You have?” she squeals.
I cup my ears and cringe. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s actually a yes or no type of thing.”
Chewing my lip, I mutter, “He kinda got me off outside of a club the other night.”
Hallie blinks for a moment before she shifts to her knees and leans over the console between us, shaking my shoulders excitedly. “Get the fuck out of here! When was this? What do you mean outside of a club? And he just got you off?”
“Slow down.” I chuckle, peeling her hands off me. “One thing at a time.”
I fill her in on my girls night with Scar and Carter that quickly turned into the antithesis of a girls night when Nikolai showed up, and then everything in the days since where I’ve been trying my best to keep my distance and not think about his confession in the living room.
“And then we were dancing and I don’t know…I just got caught up in it all. It was that last tequila shot, I know it.”
Hallie scoffs. “Like hell it was. Don’t blame it on the alcohol.” I frown at her but she doesn’t back down. “You still want him.”
I open my mouth to argue but she shushes me and continues, “I don’t know why you won’t just admit it, but you do. And you avoiding him since that happened isn’t how you handle things. I know you, and you’re better than that.”
I sink back in my chair as she calls me out. “I haven’t been avoiding him.”
She gives me a dull look. “You literally told me you have been.”
“You’re supposed to be my best friend,” I mutter into my wine glass.
Hallie slaps my thigh. “I am, and that’s why I’m telling you what you need to hear. Now, did you just need time to process after it happened? Was it a mistake and you don’t know how to let him down easily? Are you scared about what it made you feel?”
Fuck, a mix of all three.
I haven’t really even let myself think about that night because I don’t want to process my emotions and what I know deep down it did for me. What it unlocked that I’ve been trying my hardest to keep tucked away.
“I don’t know?—”
“You actually do, so let’s not start with that.”
I flip Hallie off, and she grins, sinking back in her chair expectantly. The movie sits paused on the home theater screen and the room is eerily quiet, like it is also waiting to hear me unearth what I don’t want to admit.
“I think I still love him.” The admittance is so quiet it’s almost inaudible. But by the way Hallie immediately takes one of my hands and squeezes it, I know she heard it. “I’ve been avoiding thinking about it and burying myself in work because the idea of that terrifies me, Hallie. It’s almost paralyzing. And the longer I could put off processing it or talking with him, the more I thought that maybe it would go away. That it was just the high of his touch, and once the memory of it faded, so would everything else and we could get back to normal.”
“Have you two ever even had a normal to get back to?” she asks. “I know when you were teenagers you had a friendship, but once you became more, were you ever able to find your way back to that to begin with?”
Nikolai and I have regrown our friendship over the last couple of years, but she’s right. We’ve never been back to where we once were.
And I don’t think I ever wanted to.
“No, not really.” I sigh. “But if I admit that we can’t get back there, then that leaves only two other options. And both scare the hell out of me.”
Hallie motions for me to continue.
“I either let him go and not have him be a part of my life anymore.” I choke on the idea of it. “Or, I let him back in again.” And the second one steals my breath and churns the food in my stomach.
“And would it be so bad to let him back in again?” Hallie whispers, the corners of her eyes creased as she cocks her head to the side. “You said it yourself. He point-blank asked for you back. He wants to give it another shot.”
Yes. It would be so bad.
“What’s making you so hesitant? I know he broke your heart but he’s trying to fix it. And I think you want to let him.”
“I can’t trust him. If he once made me feel so loved and safe and secure that I felt comfortable enough to tell him that I loved him, only for him to completely reject me, how can I trust that he won’t do it again?”
“You have a good point.” Hallie nods cautiously. “But no one can predict the future. There’s no telling that it won’t happen again. But there’s also no telling that it doesn’t happen that way again. That maybe this is the time he reciprocates it.” Hallie straightens in her chair and holds one hand up carefully. “Now, I don’t want you to get mad that I’m bringing this up…”
Oh god…
“But I’m truly just trying to understand your hesitation here and as your best friend, I need to ask the hard questions.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Do you think that what happened with Liam is also giving you pause?”
I open my mouth to refute it but she cuts me off.
“Think about it for a second,” she pleads. “Getting cheated on is a major breach of trust and a betrayal. And I’m so proud of you for how you picked yourself up and kept on going afterward because I don’t think I would’ve handled it with as much grace as you did.” I brush her off but she shakes her head at me. “No, I’m being serious. You did. And I know you’ve moved past that situation and from Liam, but do you think you’re projecting any distrust from that relationship onto Nikolai?”
I do as she says and lean back, chewing over what she said. Getting cheated on was a betrayal and it definitely has given me pause at times with even my friendships and relationships with other people. If my partner, the person I’m supposed to trust the most and love me, can betray me like that, who’s to say someone else won’t?
And the way Liam made all of my old insecurities about my body rear their ugly heads definitely hasn’t gone away, either. Some days, I can ignore it, other days, all I can think about is the way my stomach protrudes from my waistband and how I cover my arms even in the summer.
But I know that my hesitation with Nikolai is not getting confused with my hurt from the dissolution of my relationship with Liam. If anything, Liam was a bandage. A distraction. A balm to the burn.
“No,” I finally answer. “I’m not taking anything out on Nikolai caused by Liam. If anything, Liam was the one I took things out from Nikolai on. And at the time, I don’t think I even realized it.”
Hallie looks deep in thought as she asks, “What do you mean?”
“Liam never had a fair chance,” I whisper. The admittance tastes sour because it not only makes me realize how much time I wasted with him but also how unfair I was all along to him.
“But you loved him,” she says. “At the time, at least. I know you did.”
I agree. Only a complete psychopath would spend seven years in a relationship with a person they didn’t love.
“I don’t know…I guess it just felt safer to love him.”
The moment the words hit the air, they hit me full force like a tidal wave as realization crashes over me. Hallie stays quiet as she watches me process the weight of everything I just finally admitted.
“He felt like a safe choice to love because in my heart, I knew that while I loved him, I was never in that deep, all-consuming, in-love feeling with him,” I say, expelling the ugly truth that makes me feel two feet tall. “I think I knew that even if it all came crashing down with him, that it’d be okay. I could stomach the thought of it. But thinking back to how I felt with Nikolai…” I trail off, choking on emotion clogging my throat. “That was devastating. And the idea of going through something like that again?”
I look at my best friend to see tears in her own eyes as she grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze.
“I can’t even fathom it,” I admit.
I wouldn’t survive another heartbreak from Nikolai again.
The break-up with Liam in retrospect was more about the upheaval it did in my life. When you spend so many years with someone, all of the parts of your life become entangled with them. Friends, bills, living situation, families.
It was a rough transition, but looking back on it, I never felt that deep, empty, clawing void inside that I felt when Nikolai denied me those three words all those years ago. It was like he robbed me of all the oxygen I breathed, all the peace and comfort I had ever known. Every nerve ending was raw and exposed and getting out of bed in the morning felt nearly impossible most days.
It wasn’t like that when I broke up with Liam. Sure, there were tears, and some days, I did simply rot in bed and contemplate what I was going to do next. But some of that, I have to admit, was due to my bruised ego of being cheated on and not the fact that Liam and I were done.
“Who’s to say this isn’t the time it works, Jane? That these years you two spent apart were for a reason and regrowing your friendship has led to you reconnecting?”
“How am I not supposed to imagine the worst-case scenario when that’s all I’ve ever experienced?”
Hallie chews on the inside of her cheek and looks at the movie screen, which has long since turned off.
“Exactly,” I say, taking a sip of wine.
“Just because that’s what’s happened in the past doesn’t mean the same lies ahead for your future.”
“I know, but…” I wipe a hand over my face, wishing I could wipe away the ever-present ache in my chest since I’ve been back around Nikolai. “I’m scared. It’s easier to settle into something comfortable than live with the idea that something like I had with him could be snatched away with my next breath.” It’s a cowardly thing to say, but it’s even more of a cowardly way to live. “And if I jump back into the deep end with him, there’s nothing comfortable about that.”
It’ll be like freefalling with only his promises to keep me from crashing headfirst into the earth below.
And I don’t know if I can trust that he can keep them.
“Jane, listen to me.” Hallie scoots as close to me as she can with the divider between our chairs and grips my thigh. “I love you. You know that, and this is only coming from a place of love. But you cannot live like that. You are too powerful and too smart to allow that.”
Tears cloud my vision and blur my best friend as she tells me what I already know but don’t want to hear. I was selling myself short with Liam. And I’m selling myself short now by denying what my heart wants.
“I’m scared,” I croak, and Hallie leans over and pulls me into a hug. I cry into her shoulder at the feeling of familiarity and safety she provides; the weight of everything finally crashing down.