Watch Over My Life: Emotional Love Story (What Will Be Book Series)

by Laura Ashley Gallagher

  The place was almost sparkling. The fresh smell of lemon and bleach was refreshing as it burst through her senses, and the cool breeze blowing through the windows made her gold curtains fly in the air as if they were dancing together.

  “Well, honey.” Her father kissed her gently on the cheek before wrapping her in his warm embrace. “I know you will be just fine here with Sharon. I better be off.”

  “Thank you, Dad.” She pulled away, smiling up at the tired face of her father. This had taken its toll on him; he was just too proud to admit it.

  “Never hesitate to call us if you need anything. You know where we are, and I’m sure your mother will call around more often to check up on you,” he said.

  “I’m sure.” She smiled before seeing him out.

  “Wow, Jess. That baby is getting big.” Sharon rubbed her bump.

  “And you are telling me? I am the one who has to carry this thing around.”

  “It will all be worth it, though. I can spoil your baby now because I am never pushing a child out through my…”

  “Okay. I get the idea.” Jessica stopped her before she had the chance to share the graphical details. She didn’t want to know.

  Sharon rolled her eyes before making her way towards the counter in the kitchen.

  “Go sit down. I was just about to make some tea.”

  Jessica did as she was told and seated her sore body on the soft brown cushions on her sofa. Its warm fabric enveloped her, hugging her stiff limbs.

  A few moments later, Sharon handed her a steaming cup of strong tea. The hot liquid glided down her throat and instantly made her feel more relaxed, more at home even.

  “Still no word from Jake then?” Sharon sighed, taking a large gulp of her tea as she positioned herself on the sofa, throwing her legs up after her.

  “No.” Jessica’s chest tightened. “I think he would prefer if I disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. He’s hurt. He still loves you. He can’t just stop that, even if he fights it. But he still worries about you and the baby.”

  Jessica’s dark eyes narrowed, making her lengthy eyelashes feather her porcelain skin.

  “How do you know that?”

  Sharon looked everywhere apart from Jessica as she quietly said, “because he still calls me every day to see how you are doing.”

  Jessica almost set her oesophagus on fire as she choked on the hot tea. That was a sizeable chunk of information, Sharon had failed to tell her.

  “Did that just somehow slip your mind?” Jessica blurted; her eyes wide. She blew the pieces of her dark auburn hair out of her face.

  “No, he didn’t want me to tell you. He is hurting Jess. We all are. And you might be dying. I can’t even get over that, so I can’t imagine how Jake feels. You are carrying his child, remember? Give him time, Jess. That is all he needs.”

  “Does he really call you every day?” Jessica asked in disbelief.

  She had cried herself to sleep every night because she hadn’t even heard his name since the hospital and now; she comes home to find out he has been contacting her best friend to see how she was.

  “Every day since you came out of the hospital.” She shrugged, placing her black, bob-cut hair behind her ears.

  “I hate to make things worse for him, but I am going back to work tomorrow. I already told Mr. Johnson.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sharon poked her. “You are not going back to work tomorrow. I am not worried about Jake’s sorry ass. I am worried about you. You can’t go back to work. You’re not ready.”

  “Yes, I am, and I am going back to work tomorrow. I have nothing else to do and it will bore me sitting at home by myself,” Jessica moaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  “But you won’t be by yourself. I’ll be here.”

  Was she serious? No, no, no, that was not happening.

  “What do you mean, you will be here?” Jessica asked, skepticism in her tone.

  “I am going to stay here with you for a while. You need somebody around here.”

  “I am going to stop you right there.” Jessica waved her hand in dismissal. “You are not staying here with me. I love you, and I am extremely grateful to you, but I would kill you if I had to live with you. I am perfectly fine here on my own. Honestly, Rob will not come back.”

  Sharon clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth; frustration was burning in her eyes.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t,” Jessica answered honestly, shrugging her frail shoulders. Then she realized how stupid she was sounding. “Okay, you can stay here with me for a few days, but that is it. I swear I will kick your skinny ass out of this apartment if you don’t leave when I tell you to,” Jessica warned, trying her best to keep the smirk from her lips.

  “Fine, a few days.” Sharon gave in, grunting loudly.

  Jessica knew she would try her best to stay longer, but it would be enough of a struggle to live with her for more than two days.

  “Anyway.” Sharon rolled her light grey eyes. “It looks like I won’t be able to stop you from going to work, so if you are wondering, your clothes are in the closets. I went and got them from Jake’s.”

  She just nodded.

  It was her own damn fault. Typical from Jessica. Everything was going perfectly, and she had to ruin it. Why didn’t she just open her stupid, idiotic mouth in the first place and none of this would have been happening?

  With all of that still firmly floating around her mind, Jessica went to bed early. And she slept. For the first time in a long time, she closed her eyes and welcomed sleep.

  So as the alarm buzzed on her bedside desk, she rolled over and hit it so hard she could have sworn she fractured something in her hand.

  “Good morning,” a voice groaned from the other side of the bed.

  “Jesus Christ, Sharon. But good morning,” Jessica chimed, trying to sound as cheerful as possible as she threw her legs over the side where she was met by the bitterness of the frosty morning air.

  That was the worst thing about having a one-bedroom apartment. She had to sleep with her best friend as well as live with her.

  She sighed at the reflection in the mirror. She had lost weight and even if she got a good night’s sleep last night, the dark bags under her eyes were a sure sign of exhaustion and stress. As she pressed her hands against the sink, she noticed her collarbone was a lot more prominent than before and her face had become drawn.

  It was no shock that Sharon was still sprawled out on the bed.

  “Sharon!” she raised her voice a little. “Get your ass up out of my bed. Now!”

  “I’m up.” She yawned, stretching her long body.

  As Sharon went to have a shower, she dried her hair and let the natural curl fall down her back before applying some foundation, blush, and mascara. Rummaging through her closet, she picked out a black wrap dress. Her choice of clothes that both fit and looked professional had become limited. Even though her bump was still small, none of her shirts would close around it.

  “Sharon, I will see you later,” she called into the bedroom before slipping her arms into her red wool coat and stuffing her keys into her handbag.

  “Uh-huh,” was the only response she got as she watched Sharon tumble around the bedroom, trying her best to get her legs into her trousers.

  Jessica strolled towards her car, smiling and waving to the neighbours that passed. She tried to block out their pitiful glares. They had heard what happened. She had a few nosy neighbours; the ones that sit at home all day and have nothing better to do but stick their noses in other people’s business and feed their cats. They were the ones who would start asking questions when Jessica was no longer around.

  Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Jessica positioned her body into her dark blue Mini before switching on the morning radio and heading to work.

  Her leg began to bounce as she stopped at the traffic lights at the turn before her office building. Her stom
ach cramped with unexpected butterflies. She had heard that when the baby moves it feels like butterflies, but this wasn’t the baby moving.

  Could she face him? Could she just ponder around the office, knowing that the father of her child was upstairs and wanted nothing to do with them?

  “Oh, God.” Her hands shook as she pressured them against the wheel. “What the hell am I doing?” she asked herself.

  The loud honk of the car behind her knocked her out of her trance and she quickly put her leg on the accelerator to turn the corner and into an empty parking space.

  Jessica had already prepared herself for the sympathetic looks she would get from her co-workers. She wasn’t sure if Jake had told people about her illness. She assumed they all knew about the attack.

  As she walked out of the elevator and onto the soft carpet, the bright smiling face of her junior secretary came flying towards her with her arms opened wide, ready to pull her into an embrace.

  “It’s so good to have you back. Your replacement was a complete bitch,” Sophie grunted on an immediate rant as she flicked her flaming red hair onto her back.

  “It’s good to be back.” Jessica smiled, grateful for the warm welcome. “And you seemed to have survived with me gone. The replacement couldn’t have been that much of a bitch.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened, swirling her light turquoise pools around and gasping.

  “I had to stop myself from swinging her out the window by the legs too many times. Believe me, when I say, I am more than relieved to have you back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you should have waited until tomorrow. Mr. Johnson has scheduled one of those monthly staff meetings for 12 this afternoon.”

  Wasn’t that just fantastic? Sophie was right, she should have held off on coming back. She hated those meetings.

  And Jake was going to be there, and she wouldn’t be capable of keeping her roaming eyes from him. She wanted nothing more but for someone to come along and shake her and tell her it was all a bad dream.

  But she created this nightmare. She was the only one that could wake herself. It felt like one of those dreams where you were falling and the ground was getting closer and closer, but you still had not hit it.

  Don’t they say if you hit the ground you never wake up? Jessica had just hit every bump on the way down.

  “We heard what happened to you? You know this place. News spreads fast.” She threw her eyes. “Jake gave me some basic details. I am sure he didn’t want to have your business talked about. He only told me because I asked.”

  Jessica could feel her whole body freeze. She had prepared herself for the sympathetic stares, but no amount of preparation was good enough for the real thing.

  “Your ex is such a jerk to do that to you,” Sophie snapped. It filled her eyes with sheer rage.

  Jessica relaxed a little then, and her shoulders collapsed as the tension dripped from her body. Maybe he didn’t tell them about her illness after all.

  “Yeah, he is,” Jessica breathed.

  “But you are good now, right?” Sophie shrugged, smiling happily.

  “Of course,” Jessica agreed. “I better be off. I have a lot of catching up to do?”

  “See you later.” Sophie waved before slipping in behind the tall, green marble desk to carry on with her work.

  As Jessica sat down to do her work in her office, which she noticed had been rearranged a bit (maybe the replacement was a bitch), but something suddenly hit her. Did Jake even tell them they broke up? Sophie would have surely said something if he did, right?

  He must have said something. He was hardly going around answering questions about her, letting people think they were still together. That was a stupid thought. Sophie didn’t want to be nosy. That must be it.

  After three hours of solid work, Sophie called Jessica on the office phone to tell her it was time for her to go to the meeting.

  So, putting on the bravest face, she took her belongings and headed upstairs to the conference room. She was one of the first in there, but soon the large oval table became surrounded by her colleagues. They didn’t ask questions. They just gave a brief hello and a strange look.

  “Welcome back,” Mark whispered as he took a seat to her right.

  “Thanks.” She smiled, turning to look at him.

  “She is back,” a deep, loud voice boomed throughout the large room.

  Jessica turned to see Mr. Johnson stepping towards her in even strides. “Our very talented, very beautiful”-he stepped closer to her and his wrinkled eyes narrowed, making his grey eyebrows furrow- “very pregnant Jessica is back to us. Welcome back, you were missed,” he told her.

  “And Jake, you made it.”

  Mr. Johnson turned to look at the door where the man standing there made her heart skip a beat and her breath catch in her throat. He stood there, frozen, looking at her with an unrecognizable stare. His face was a look of severe pain. His dark eyes searched over her face. His cappuccino brown hair was still short but slightly longer than it was when she last saw him, and stubble on his face gave him a rough, rugged appeal. It was a look that made her heart ache. He too had also lost weight, she noted.

  “Take a seat next to your beautiful girlfriend. You must be so happy she is back.” Mr. Johnson gestured towards the seat next to Jessica. It was the only one free.

  Hold on! Did he just say Jake’s girlfriend?

  “You two always were the office lovebirds, even if you argued,” Mr. Johnson sighed, staring at them both. The entire table let out a hushed laugh in unison.

  Jessica had to remind herself she needed oxygen as Jake took a seat beside her. Her whole body trembled as he pressed against her, the smell of his cologne eroticizing her senses.

  But she was confused.

  She was about to open her mouth to object to her bosses’ statement.

  “Shut up, Jess,” Jake warned, leaning over so that she was the only one who could hear.

  Her whole face tensed. What the hell was he talking about? And the more she relaxed into her seat, the more she realized what was happening. His stare was seeping right through her until her breathing was escaping in tiny gasps and she felt like she could see into his eyes for miles. All she wanted to do was reach out and touch him.

  Slowly, his eyes roamed from her face to the small bump and back again.

  “You haven’t told anybody?”

  He looked away then, to make sure nobody was paying attention to their intimate conversation.

  “I’m getting there,” he confessed. “I just never realized it would be so hard to let you go. And seeing you again, I am asking myself if I can?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As the meeting ended, Jessica gathered her belongings in a ‘hurry and get the hell out of there’ fashion. She couldn’t bear to be there. She couldn’t look at him and know that she had caused the pain written in his deep-set eyes. It was crushing her to be there, to feel him close to her, to feel the heat of his body and know she had caused his hate and his coldness.

  She wasn’t going to lie; her heart made an instant tremble and her knees turned to jelly when he said he wasn’t sure if he could give her up. But he hadn’t looked at her since, and even as he said the words, it was like a chisel scraping against ice. She needed to walk away; in fear, she was going to cause him any more hurt than his big heart was already struggling through.

  Opening the door to her office, a firm grip pulled at her wrist, tugging at her painfully, until she spun around and locked with Jake’s wild eyes. His breathing was coming in thick, heavy pants, and Jessica noticed something she had not noticed in the meeting. Along with the dark stubble on his cheeks came the undeniable scent of stale liquor.

  “You can’t just run away like that,” he told her, before dragging her into her office, shutting the door behind him.

  “Have you been drinking?” she asked, already knowing he was going to give her a smart answer. She was prepared for that.

  “
I apologize if it offends you, but I just found out that the woman I love is killing herself.”

  Jessica let out a long, quiet breath.

  She deserved that.

  “I am allowed to drink myself senseless at night when all I can do is think of you and what the hell you are doing to yourself.” He paced back and forth in front of her. He ran his shaking hand through his hair and loosened the knot in his tie.

  Her office was dull. The dark clouds outside threatened heavy rain and thunder. It may have been the beginning of summer, but the weather reflected the mood between them both.

  “Jake, the whole drinking thing, it’s not who you are. Please stop,” she begged.

  “And you suddenly know who I am now, do you? Don’t worry your little self about me, it didn’t seem to bother you the past few months,” he spat, staring straight at her.

  It felt like a thousand knives had soared right through her, tightening the air around her lungs until her throat closed in. And she could see by the way the warm colour in his eyes suddenly flickered, he knew what he had done to her. But before it could seem as if he were sorry for what he said, his cool guard came flying back up again.

  She decided not to fight back. She had fought against him for too long now. Instead, she stayed silent and let his words seep through her like a deadly punishment. She deserved everything he was going to throw at her.

  “Don’t worry, Jessica. I don’t drink on the job. As you can probably tell, now that you know me so well, I am perfectly sober.”

  And he was. There was nothing glossy or foggy about his eyes. And she knew when he was drunk. Right now, he was just downright mad.

  “Tell me something.” He stepped closer to her. “Did you enjoy telling me how much you loved me, knowing that you were dying? You must have been laughing inside the entire time.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, Jake? Can you hear yourself at all?”

  “I can hear myself fine,” he snarled. “Goddamn it, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. It hurts like hell. But I can’t love that thing.” He pointed towards her small bump. “Do you know what is worse? Knowing that I helped create what is killing you. I mean…”