“Where is she, Ryan?”
“She’s crashing with Mrs. Ballsworthy’s daughter. She came by right after Nina found out about you. Daria had stopped in to give her a thank you basket and saw her crying. I pulled her aside and told her what happened. She insisted Nina come stay with her for at least a few days. She lives in Park Slope.”
“What’s the address?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Ryan, I like you. I do. So, I’m gonna be up front and tell you that I’m going to beat the snot out of you if you don’t tell me, and I really don’t want to have do that.”
He huffed and pulled out his phone, texting me the address.
“Thank you,” I said as I ran out the door.
***
I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts before entering the brownstone. The front door was open, but you had to get buzzed in to enter the second door. I pressed the button for Unit Six.
A woman’s voice blasted through static. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Jake. I know Nina is staying with you and doesn’t want to see me, but please, I need to talk to her. Can I come up?”
Silence.
It felt like it went on for an eternity. Then, came more static. “I’m sorry, Jake. She doesn’t want to see you. Please leave.”
I pressed the buzzer again but no response. This went on for about fifteen minutes with no luck. They were just ignoring me.
I went back outside and walked around to the back of the building to see if there were any windows. A fire escape led up to the sixth floor. If I could get up there and knock on a window, maybe they would see how serious I was and let me in. Shit, I would camp out here all night if I had to.
I began to crawl up the fire escape, unsure of whether the apartment at the top was even the right one. When I got to the sixth level, I looked in the window at a dark, empty room. Just as I was about to knock on the window and beg whoever lived there to let me in, a light came on.
The sight of her nearly knocked the wind out of me. Nina closed the door and sat down on the bed. She didn’t see me. Her beautiful long hair covered her face as she cried into her hands, her shoulders shaking up and down. Then, she looked up at the ceiling and muttered something to herself. I felt like I was about to suffocate as I watched her suffering because of me. I hated myself for causing the person I loved more than anything so much pain. It was tearing me apart. I didn’t want to scare her, but I needed to do something.
Her body jolted when I knocked on the glass. Her hand over her heart, she turned and noticed me staring through the window.
“Nina…let me in.”
She sat there just looking at me, her chest rising up and down.
“Let me in,” I repeated. “I’m not going away. You have to let me explain.”
She stayed frozen, her beautiful eyes, dark again for the first time since I met her.
“Please…I love you,” I said.
It pained me to think that she probably thought I was a horrible person who was using her.
I decided to attempt to carefully break through the window, but low and behold, it opened right up. I crawled through and closed it behind me.
It sickened me when she backed away and leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room. I didn’t want to upset her, so I kept my distance.
“Nina…it’s not what you think.”
A tear fell from her cheek.
I decided to get right to it. This story needed to be told from the beginning, and I only had one chance to do it right. I sat down on the bed and took a deep breath, looking away from her sad face.
“I was eighteen when I met Ivy. She was like no one I had ever encountered before…so full of life and vibrant. The first time I saw her, she was dancing in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. I walked up to her and made small talk. We made plans for later that night. She was a guitarist, played some small gigs and I went to see her perform in a coffee house. I just thought she was really cool. I guess it was infatuation. We became inseparable and started dating. About six months later, we got a little drunk one night, and she decided that it would be a brilliant idea to hop the next flight to Vegas and get married. What did I know? I was an impulsive teenager with a hot girlfriend and figured it would make a really cool story someday to say I got married by Elvis. I thought I knew what love was then. I thought I loved her enough to spend the rest of my life with her.”
I looked over at Nina to gauge her reaction, and she was looking down at the ground.
“That Vegas trip was just about my last good memory…until I met you. Anyway, we moved in together after that. My family was pissed at me for eloping. My sister didn’t talk to me for weeks. They didn’t like her and thought she was a bad influence. But I was still in the honeymoon phase and didn’t care what anyone thought. About six months later, our relationship began to change. She started calling in sick a lot to work and stopped going to her classes. We were fighting all the time about her behavior. I started to realize that getting married was a really big mistake. I’d get home from work, and she’d accuse me of having affairs all day. Then, the next day, she would tell me she was hearing voices and that they were telling her I was trying to kill her and that she’d better kill herself before I got to her. At first, I thought it was just stress, because she had recently lost her mother to a heart attack. She had no other family, except me. Every day, though, it was something different. The erratic behavior went on for months. One day, she showed up at my job and in front of my co-workers, screamed about how I was trying to poison her. That was when I took her to the hospital for the first time. By the time we left, she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.”
I turned to look at Nina, who was now looking back at me.
“A lot of people can live very normal lives with it, because it can be managed with medication. We tried every medication out there, Nina. Nothing worked. They call her condition ‘treatment-resistant’ now. She was in and out of hospitals, and I just couldn’t take care of her anymore. I was worried she’d kill herself while I was at work. So, about a year after she got the diagnosis, I reached my breaking point and put her in a group home. Shortly after that, I got a job offer I couldn’t refuse in New York with the kind of benefits I needed to help take care of her. She made me promise I would visit her every weekend. That was four years ago, and I’ve kept that promise.”
Nina let out a deep breath. I stopped talking for a few seconds to let her process what I had told her so far. She finally whispered, “Jake…I—”
“Please…don’t say anything yet. I need to finish this.”
She nodded.
“I was scared shitless those first couple of years, but over time, it just became my normal. The way I saw it, I had made my bed, and I had to lie in it. I convinced myself that I could handle it. I was just a 20-year-old. Twenty fucking years old and I was taking care of my mentally ill wife. After those first two years, our relationship changed. It became less like husband and wife and more like brother and sister. We haven’t been intimate since she moved to the group home over four years ago. Even in the months before that, it was almost non-existent, and when it happened, it didn’t even feel right anymore. I was celibate for a long time. Then, a couple of years ago, I started seeking out women I knew I could use as an escape with no strings. I had needs, and I was so fucking lonely.”
“Women like Desiree,” she whispered.
I nodded.
“I had accepted that fate. My life was all planned out, and that was it. I’d stay legally married to Ivy so she could have my benefits and so I could look out for her, and the rest of my life would be separate. I was basically dead inside…until you.”
She turned to me. “What happened the other night…when you had to go to Boston?”
“They thought she tried to kill herself. They found her on the roof. No one knows what really happened.”
Nina closed her eyes as if my words hurt. “So,
you were going to tell me all of this the night we—”
“Yes. Yes, Nina. I was going to tell you everything and hope that by some miracle, you’d still want to be with me.”
She walked over and sat next to me on the bed. I inhaled her vanilla scent. I wanted to hold her so badly and bury my nose in her hair but held back, unsure of where things stood. She reached for my hand and squeezed it and my body relaxed. We just sat like that for minutes. My heart was breaking with each second that passed. The silence was killing me. “Nina, talk to me,” I finally said, my voice hoarse.
“I don’t know what to say, Jake. I am so confused right now. I spent the past few hours filled with hate toward you. I thought you were sneaking around on your wife with me. I never wanted to see you again. And now…I don’t know what to feel. This was a lot to take in.”
I shook my head in understanding, but inside, I was shitting a brick. I don’t know what other kind of reaction I expected.
What I wanted to say was, “you said you’d never leave me.” What I actually said was, “I know this is a shock and can only imagine how you feel. You need to know how much I love you and how you’ve changed my life.”
Her eyes were watering again. “Are you going to stay married to her?”
“I never planned to divorce her because I never planned to fall in love with someone. I don’t know what would happen to her if we weren’t legally married, what rights I’d have when it came to her care. I still have to do a lot of research before I cut those ties legally. I would never be able to abandon her, Nina. She’s always going to be a part of my life. But if divorcing her is a condition of being with you, then I am telling you right here and now that I will do it.”
“I would never expect you to abandon her, Jake. That’s horrible. I hope you didn’t think that’s what I meant when I asked if you were going to stay married.”
Thank God.
“I didn’t think that. I am glad you understand.”
She continued. “But I just can’t be with you if you are married. I can’t sleep with a married man.”
Fuck. Where was this going?
“I don’t consider myself committed to her in that way anymore. There would be no marriage if it weren’t for my wanting to be able to make sure she is cared for. I can understand your point, though. I am still legally married to someone else.”
Just be with me, Nina.
She let out a deep sigh. “Daria asked me to move in with her. This is an extra room, and she had been looking for a roommate anyway. I think it’s best if we live apart while we try to figure things out.”
No. I can’t fucking live without you.
“Okay. If that’s what you need.”
It felt like I was losing her.
“I am still in shock, okay? I need some time to let this set in.”
You said you’d never leave me.
I put my hand on her knee as my chest tightened in agony. “Anything you need.”
CHAPTER 24
I fell into a deep depression over the next couple of weeks. Nina moved the rest of her stuff out, and the new semester had just started, so I hadn’t seen her much.
We met in a park to talk one afternoon. She seemed disconnected and wasn’t making much eye contact when I answered some questions she had. She asked me again exactly how long it had been since I had been intimate with Ivy and how many women I had slept with since. She was fidgety and seemed distressed. I was honest with her about everything, but it felt like we had taken a step backwards.
I went home that night pissed at life and ended up punching a hole through the wall in my room. The clincher was, after seeing her, I felt more in love with her than ever. That desperate need to take away the darkness that had returned to her eyes was overwhelming me. I had been dying to touch her as she sat across from me on that bench. She was wearing a white wool coat and looked like a snow angel, her nose and cheeks rosy from the cold air.
That was over a week ago. Now, I couldn’t even walk by her empty room without getting angry. One night, I lay down on her stripped mattress, staring at the ceiling and wallowing in the memories of our first and last night together in this room. I opened her bedside drawer and slammed it shut out of frustration after finding every single paper bat I ever made her.
Mostly, I was mad at myself because I hadn’t grown the balls to confront Ivy about a divorce. The timing was bad because she had just started that new risky medication. I was hoping that if it gave her some clarity, it would make it easier to explain everything to her. So, I was waiting, but it hadn’t kicked in yet. We had no guarantees that it ever would, especially when nothing had ever worked for her.
The more days that passed, the more afraid I was that Nina was going to move on and realize that she was too good for me and all of my baggage. I had asked her to wait for me, but how realistic was that when I had no idea how long a divorce would take? That asshole Ryan was probably planning another blind date for her as we speak. I knew in my gut he was working against me. I needed to keep an eye on him.
One Thursday afternoon, I told my boss I was going home sick, but really, I was sick over Nina. I walked around the city aimlessly until I decided I just needed to go to her. I hopped the next train back to Brooklyn, unsure of what I was going to say or do. I needed to know where things stood. And I just wanted to see her, bury my nose in her hair and tell her that I loved her. It was her day off from school, so I was counting on her being there.
After buzzing the doorbell several times, there was no answer at her apartment. Desperate, I even climbed up the fire escape on the off chance she was in her room and didn’t hear me ringing. Her window shade was down. I knocked on the window, but she wasn’t there. I sent her a text.
I really need to see you.
I got no response after five minutes of waiting outside her doorstep.
My mind went crazy wondering where she could be, at one point, imagining that she was out with another guy. A jealous insecurity like I had never felt in my life started brewing inside me. I sent her another text:
Where are you right now?
When there was still no reply, I threw my phone, and the screen cracked.
Fuck.
***
When I got back to my apartment, thankfully, my roommates weren’t home since it was still late afternoon. Ryan made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want me with Nina, so he and I avoided each other. I pretty much kept out of the living area entirely when he was home. I was never quite sure which team Tarah was on.
When I opened the door to my bedroom, my entire body shuddered in shock.
The sight of beautiful blonde hair cascading down the side of my bed stopped me in my tracks.
She was sleeping in my bed.
Nina was out like a light, her body rising and falling slowly with each breath. I stood frozen a few feet away, not wanting to wake her.
I noticed her phone on my desk, with the lit up notification of my texts. She wasn’t ignoring me; she was asleep…in my bed…the entire time.
My heart filled with love and my body with desire as I sat down next to the bed, taking in her beautiful silhouette curled up on top of my comforter. With each passing minute, I became more and more tempted to curl up beside her and hold her, but I stayed back, afraid if I woke her, she’d leave.
I thought back to the other night when I could have sworn I smelled her on my pillow. I had assumed it was my imagination playing tricks on me. I laughed to myself now, realizing the probability was good that she had actually been in my bed that day. She was always a little sneak.
I loved her so much it hurt.
After about ten minutes, her body stirred and her eyes opened. When she noticed me sitting there, she jumped.
Her eyes were groggy. “Jake…I’m sorry, I—”
“Shh. Baby, it’s okay. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you sleep in my bed when I am in work. It means you’re thinking about me, and I can’t stop fucking thinking about y
ou. I had to leave early today, because I couldn’t focus. I went to your apartment. If I had known you were here…”
She scooted up against the headboard. “I still have my key, so sometimes I come here.”
I reached my hand over to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes when I rubbed my thumb across her face. She started to tear up. I was going to lose it. Anytime she cried because of me, it felt like getting stabbed in the chest.
I climbed onto the bed and placed my face on her stomach, afraid she’d resist, but she didn’t. Instead, she caressed my hair with her soft fingertips. This was exactly the comfort and reassurance I needed, what I had been desperately searching for today. A firestorm of emotions that had been dormant for years erupted inside of me, and I cried for the first time in my adult life. It felt like the weight of the past six years was finally crushing me, and the core of her body was the only place I felt safe enough to let go.
My shoulders shook over and over as I buried my face into her, my tears soaking through the thin fabric of her shirt. She held me closer, and I could hear her crying too. In that moment, I realized the depth of her love for me; I just worried whether love would be enough to conquer the lack of trust that now existed.
When my tears stopped, I sniffled and kept my head on her stomach. I couldn’t resist moving my mouth over her skin. She let out a soft moan that my dick felt instantly. The need to be inside her grew by the second. I began to kiss her stomach more urgently, grazing her with my teeth, nearly ripping her shirt as I pulled at the material.
I knew she was conflicted and could tell she was tensing up. I understood why. Nina was very literal and saw the situation as cut and dry. In her eyes, I was a married man, off limits. In my mind, a piece of paper couldn’t dictate who owned my heart. And she owned me in every way that mattered.
Despite her reservations, I also knew that I had a strong physical effect on her. It’s why she’d been staying away from me these past few weeks. Her body reacted to me from the very first moment I met her. She would always buckle under me with the slightest touch. That’s always made me crazy. If I kept touching her like this, it wasn’t a question of whether she would give into me today but when. I just needed to decide whether I would push, knowing that she had asked me for space.
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