How Does a Moment Last Forever?

by Jenna Michaelson

  “You really think they’d have anything but sympathy for you? I’d be the devil reborn and you know it.”

  “They don’t need to know.”

  “I disagree,” he argued.

  “This is our business, Zane, and there are things I don’t want to discuss with my parents. I’m not blameless and couldn’t bear to see the look of shame on my parents’ faces if they realised what I allowed to happen.”

  He looked at me across the table. “Then what do we do? Pretend none of it happened?”

  “No, we don’t pretend anything of the sort, but we’re still fighting to save this marriage and you know how much pressure both our mothers would put on us. Mine would hate you, and yours would say the same old thing, that I was never good enough and if I was, you’d never have slept with anyone else.”

  He couldn’t argue. His mother could be a harridan. The worst kind of monster in-law, and he’d be the first to admit it. He is the apple of her eye. The golden child who can do no wrong. She tells him often enough. “You’re my beautiful boy,” is a favourite, before kissing him on the forehead. “You were always too pretty to be a boy,” is another, and don’t get me wrong, he is pretty for a man, but totally masculine with it. He cringes when she starts mothering him, forgetting he’s thirty-one years old. “What’s that on your cheek?” she says, and I watch his face drop as she dabs the corner of a handkerchief on her tongue, followed by what he calls a spit wash. It makes my stomach churn and the girls dissolve into fits of laughter at Daddy getting what they’ve christened ‘the nana lick’. They don’t escape it either.

  “Oh, get off, Mum,” he says, wiping at his face.

  “My beautiful boy,” she says, sweeping in to kiss him.

  “You know what she’s like,” Zane says, jumping to her defence.

  “Yeah,” I grumble, imagining sending her flying into the swimming pool.

  Zane – I shouldn’t laugh, but as much as I adore my mum, she can be a nightmare. She does love Jenna but fails to see past me where anybody else is concerned.

  My siblings frequently tell me I’m her favourite. I’ve always known it, and that’s why she’s a bit of a diva with Jenna at times. She still sees me as her baby, and not a grown man with a wife and kids.

  We’ve had many a heated discussion about her behaviour, and she promises to be nicer, and less cutting with her remarks. I don’t see much of an improvement, but I know it bothers her that Jenna is now totally indifferent to her. Tough. I love my mum, but she caused the rift and it’s her job to close it. I won’t take her side, but at the same time Jenna respects the fact I’m extremely close to my mum and shows the appropriate respect.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Christmas Eve was the day he would finally come home to stay. Even though I was nervous, I couldn’t wait. The girls were beyond excited and hadn’t listened to me all day.

  “When is Daddy coming home?”

  “Is he here?”

  “What number on the clock is it when he comes home?”

  If you have kids, you know the drill. Time is a concept they don’t grasp.

  Still, they’d seen Zane every day, but for them, rushing into the bedroom and him not being there – it unsettled them. Now, it’s just like he was always there. They are still Daddy’s girls. Mummy doesn’t often get a look in.

  Christmas Day was amazing. We were together again, but I felt an emptiness, like there was somebody missing, and that somebody was Chad.

  Over the months we’d struck up an incredible close friendship.

  Zane had had no contact with him since the test results came back, and it pissed me off. Despite what went on between them, to drop him in that way was cruel. But, Zane could be very clinical when he wanted, closing off emotions, severing his feelings at will.

  I didn’t like keeping secrets from my husband, but needs must, and I wanted to find a way to repair their friendship. I would do it if it was the last thing I did.

  Zane was suitably outraged at the suggestion we invited him round for dinner the following day. He was angry I had maintained contact, but even then, he didn’t realise how strong a friendship we now had. He just had to get past his own feelings, shut his mouth, listen and think about what he was throwing away.

  I know he missed Chad. I wasn’t stupid. I just had to get him to admit it and he finally did, paving the way for them to repair their friendship.

  He invited Chad for breakfast the following day, but little did Zane know that he had already been primed for the call, and subsequent invite.

  As agreed, Chad accepted and arrived the following morning. Everything was fine, as I knew it would be.

  Boxing Day was a day to remember. I will never forget the laughs we had.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zane and Chad met up after the holidays and even now, I don’t know what was spoken about, apart from what I read in ‘Till Death us do Part’. It didn’t seem right to ask as I’d made my peace with Chad, and certainly didn’t divulge my conversations to my husband so didn’t expect any different from him.

  All I will say here is; I don’t think either of them dealt with their true feelings. They just accepted things the way they now were. They loved one another deeply in University. They found one another again years later and began their affair. True love never dies.

  So, this leads me back to that awful day. The day we lost Chad.

  It still haunts me. I still miss him, his laugh, smile, and most importantly, his friendship. He was one of the best.

  The drive to the hospital seemed to take forever, but in reality, was only an hour and a half. We didn’t speak. We were too scared to say anything, not wanting to sway the universe in making its decision one way or the other.

  It didn’t matter.

  Chad was dead. Mangled in the wreckage and killed instantly.

  Life got cold again.

  Zane didn’t want to talk about it. If he said nothing, it couldn’t be true.

  Getting him to the funeral was a mammoth task in itself, but I was determined, and it was only the night before I knew he was willing to attend.

  The girls had gone to stay at my mother in law’s. I didn’t want them to see us lost in our grief.

  They knew Uncle Chad was gone, but I wanted them to remember happier times with him, not mummy and daddy dressed in black, fighting back tears.

  Zane had gone upstairs to shower, and I was sat on the sofa consuming far too much wine, dreading the following day.

  Suddenly, I heard a noise that turned my blood cold. A scream of pain and anguish. I jumped off the sofa and stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to Zane’s cries, wondering if I should go to him, or let him have this time alone. After a minute, I rushed up stairs and found him on the bathroom floor. Crumpled in a heap, the shower was still running, and the room was filling with steam. I turned it off, dropped to my knees, pulling him toward me, letting him cry it out.

  It was crushing to hear the grief manifest itself. He’d lost his best friend, but also the only man he’d ever love.

  There’s nothing I can say that would describe the sadness we felt being at Chad’s funeral.

  It was surreal.

  This didn’t happen to people like us. It shouldn’t happen at all.

  I worried Zane wouldn’t be able to hold himself together, but for the most part he did, closing his emotions off once more, running on auto-pilot.

  The tears came once we arrived home, and shutting himself in his office, he cracked open a bottle of scotch and celebrated the life of his friend. Alone.

  It was a while before he talked about Chad again, but that was what led him to write ‘She Loves to Watch Me Play’.

  Zane – I feel this is the end of that part of my life.

  The books are out there for the world to see.

  Jenna’s is now out there too.

  You know pretty much everything you need to know, apart from this one last thing I wasn’t going to share with you, but at this
point, I feel I should.

  In University, Chad was the love of my life.

  He left me because he was scared to declare his love for me.

  I met Jenna, and in every way, my feelings for her surpassed anything I’d ever felt for Chad.

  We married and had two gorgeous children. I was happy.

  Then, depression set in and I mistakenly believed I was missing something in my life.

  I found Chad again and the love I once felt for him resurfaced. I thought it had died. It hadn’t. We embarked upon an affair which nearly ruined my marriage.

  I came to my senses.

  I lost Chad again but got my wife and children back.

  Then, thanks to Jenna, I found a friendship with Chad I treasure to this day.

  But for the final time, I lost him again.

  That’s beyond my control.

  I’m at peace with that now because I know what we had was special.

  Jenna knows I’m madly in love with her, but I also carry a love for Chad too.

  She knew that before I did.

  The love I feel for him didn’t die in the crash.

  It lives on.

  Jenna knows this too and if she can live with a piece of my heart belonging to somebody else, then so can I.

  She is a remarkable woman.

  I am a very lucky man.

  My Last Words

  And there you have it.

  You asked what my thoughts and feelings were, and I told you as honestly as I could.

  There are things I’ve divulged in this book I’d never discussed with my husband, but he did get to read this before anybody else. It was only right.

  He read things he didn’t want sharing but to his credit, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t live with.

  I thought there would be arguments and door slamming. He was strangely quiet and pensive when he’d finished.

  Oh, God. Was he about to have a meltdown? Nothing of the sort. Things were written he didn’t like, but he took them on the chin.

  “I’m proud of you,” he said. “But, can this be the end of it?” I smiled. Typical Zane.

  “Yes,” I replied. “This is the end of it, I promise.”

  Now, before I fade back into obscurity, it’s time for me to say thank you and goodbye.

  I’ve had a great time meeting you all, but now it’s time for Zane to take the spotlight once again.

  There isn’t anything else left to say apart from this…

  How does a moment last forever?

  I’ve wondered about that for the longest time.

  It’s only recently I discovered the answer.

  The truth is, moments don’t last forever, so grab as many of them as you can, take everything you can from them and hold onto the memories for dear life.

  The End

  Related to the Author’s work

  I Know What You’re Doing – The Series

  Available now at Amazon

  eBook / Paperback / Kindle Unlimited

  (This is a companion release to Jenna’s book)

  Acknowledgments

  My Husband and children – I love you all very much.

  Gloria Nuckols. Thank you for everything you’ve done in supporting this release. You made this experience an easy, but enjoyable one