Heartbreak Warfare

by Jessica Marin

  “Get up, Jenna, we’ve got to get going. We only have minutes to spare!”

  I open my eyes to see that it is my mother, in my bedroom, trying to pull me out of bed. I startle awake and grab her arms, panic seizing me. “What is wrong? Where is Avery?” I look around my room, only to see no signs of my child.

  “Avery is with Robert at the pool. Here are some clothes,” she throws a pair of jeans and a shirt at me,” get dressed, brush your teeth and let’s go.”

  Knowing that Avery is safe, I throw myself back against the bed to go back to sleep and immediately grip my temples when shooting pains from my hangover decide to punish me for the fast movement. “There’s nowhere we need to go then, Mother, if she’s safe with Robert,” I grumble, angry at her for waking me up and leaving Avery in the care of Robert, who I’m still mad at.

  “We need to go catch Cal before he gets on his flight.”

  “Cal is gone?” I slowly sit up and look over at his nightstand, which is empty. The clothes that were hanging up on the travel rack are gone. I look at my clock to see it is 10 a.m., his flight to Dubai was not supposed to be until 5 p.m. Then memories of what I said to him last night come flooding in and I realize why he’s already gone.

  “I told him I want him out of my life, Mother. Apparently, he listened.”

  “I know all about last night, Jenna, and we have a small window of time to fix it. Here, take some aspirin.” She hands me a cup of water and two pills. I take the pills and flush them down with the water.

  “Mother, why are you so insistent of me going after men who are not good for me?” I ask, not understanding why she wants me to fix things with Cal unless it is for her reputation only.

  “I was stupid for telling you to go after Tyler all those years ago. You were a smart girl for not listening to me, Jenna, as you were confident in your self worth. The fact remains that I have never been confident with mine and am so very lucky that your father decides to stay married to me, especially when I make poor decisions like telling you that you wouldn’t get anything better than Tyler. Tyler was a selfish prick, Jenna,” she sits on the edge of the bed and pushes a strand of my hair behind my ears,” but Cal is NOTHING like Tyler and you need to realize that.”

  “But…”

  She puts her finger on my lips to shut me up. “Yes, I do agree with you that he should have been honest with you and told you all that had been going on. But honey, every decision that man has made has been for YOU and Avery. He’s just trying to protect the two women he loves.”

  She removes her finger from my mouth to let me speak, “I feel I have lost all control of my life because of him.”

  “You only feel that way because you’re in love with him as well, you just won’t admit it because you are scared of getting hurt again,” she places her hand lovingly on my cheek. “The bigger risk, Jenna, would be if you stayed scared and miss out on the greatest love of your life.”

  “I don’t know…” I slowly say, her words starting to make sense.

  “Do you trust him, Jenna? I mean, REALLY trust him? Because if you truly believe that he’ll deliberately hurt you in any way, then we won’t go after to him.”

  I stare at her, realizing that I may have made a grave mistake. “No Mother, I don’t think he would deliberately hurt me.”

  She smiles and squeezes my hands with hers.“Then let’s go find him!”

  I throw the covers off me, grab my clothes and race into the bathroom while my mother says she will get my car and meet me downstairs. It only takes me five minutes before I am running out of the bedroom, calling her.

  “I’m on my way down,” I say into the phone, but she tells me to wait there. “Why are you-“ my voice halts, as the front door opens and Cal walks in. I stare at him for only a split second before I launch myself at him, taking him by surprise.

  “You came back! Thank god, you came back!” My voice is muffled by his chest as I hug him as tight as I can.

  “I came back because I forgot my passport.” His voice is void of any emotion and I realize with despair that he is not hugging me back.

  I look up at him with tears in my eyes, hoping that I’ve not lost him forever. “I am so sorry for last night! Learning that you hired Chase to follow me felt like you didn’t trust me, that you were trying to control me and I know that isn’t the case. You are only trying to protect me and I was too stubborn to listen.” I take a shaky breath while he stares at me.

  He grips my arms and pushes me away from him. He walks over to the entryway console, where he sees the passport he left, and puts it in the back pocket of his pants. He stands before me, looking at me with wistful longing before he smiles sadly and shakes his head.

  “I don’t have enough love for the both of us, Jenna,” he states quietly and turns to head towards the door.

  I grab his arm so that he can’t leave and plead with him, “I DO love you, Cal. I am so in love with you that…that I was just scared! Scared I was going to get hurt again.” He rakes his other hand through his hair and I see that there is a glimmer of hope as he starts to show some struggle with his emotions. “Please Cal…..please don’t give up on me!” I cry in anguish as my chest starts to ache from the breaking of my heart.

  His gaze is intense, as if he’s trying to see if I’m toying with his emotions. “How can you love me when you don’t even TRUST me, Jenna? We have NOTHING without trust!”

  “I DO trust you, Cal, I do!” I try to smile through my tears and nod my head at him, hoping he can see the truth.

  He narrows his gaze at me and reaches for my hands. “You really trust me, Jenna?”

  “Yes, Cal, I really do!” I say, as I squeeze his hands.

  “Then come to Dubai with me, now. You and me for two weeks by ourselves. I’ll take care of everything.”

  I suck in my breath and let go of his hands. I can’t just up and leave with him.

  He sees my internal struggle and gets angry. “Why do you even hesitate?”

  The excuses are all in my head, but won’t spill out of my mouth. I can’t leave Avery. I can’t leave work. What if you change your mind about me?

  “We’ll take great care of Avery, Jenna,” my mother says. I look behind Cal and see her standing in the entryway, her eyes red from crying.

  “What are you so scared of, Jenna? Avery will be fine with your parents! Robert can handle work! Why can’t you just say YES?”

  “I….I.. don’t know,” I stumble with my words, not understanding why I won’t let go of my excuses.

  “TRUST ME, JENNA!” I flinch as he yells out in frustration, throwing his arms up in the air. “Take the goddamn risk of letting yourself go, letting yourself FEEL, regardless of how you think the end is going to turn out. I KNOW how it’s going to turn out if you took that risk on me.” He lets his arms fall and looks at me with sadness, “I would be your forever.”

  Tears silently stream down my face as I watch him walk past my mother to open the door. He stops at the door, turns back to look at me and holds out his hand.

  “Last chance, Jenna. What’s it going to be?” My eyes plead with him not to do this, but I see the resolution in his face.

  I close my eyes and think if I can really do this.

  I trust him with our daughter.

  I trust him with my life.

  I trust him with my heart.

  What more is there?

  Nothing, Jenna, there is nothing!

  I take a deep breath and I open my eyes to look at him, my forever.

  I take that step forward.

  I place my hand in his.

  And I exhale…letting all the excuses go.

  Epilogue

  Eighteen Months Later

  I look behind me, up into the crowd, to try to find where Layla, Robert and their dates are seated. I look for the royal purple of her dress and finally spot them. Robert and his date are huddled together, giving each other flirtatious glances while Layla’s date is looking at every other woman but
her. Layla has slowly dipped her toe back into the dating world, starting with online dating, and the men she is choosing to spend her time with are douchebags. Even though he isn’t looking at me, I can’t help but stare in hatred at him, wishing she would have come alone instead of with him. Sensing my eyes on them, they look at me and wave. I wave back and give them a thumbs up and turn my attention back to the stage.

  I grip Cal’s hand, my nerves about to explode from the anticipation. “Are you nervous?” I ask for the umpteenth time tonight.

  He turns to me and gives me that smile that is only reserved for me, the one that makes me weak in the knees. “No sweetheart, I think you’re nervous enough for the both of us.” He looks so devastatingly handsome tonight in his tuxedo that he has more than once had to remove my hands from wandering all over his body in public.

  I lean into him and whisper seductively in his ear, “You are so going to win.”

  “I already won, because I have you,” he whispers and gives me a gentle, yet firm kiss.

  As the presenter reads off the nominees in the Best Actor category for the Academy Awards, I can’t help but marvel at how far we’ve come in close to two years together. After I let go of all of my negative emotions of being scared, everything in my life got better. Not only my relationship with Cal, but how I am as a mother to Avery, a daughter to my parents and how I am as a friend.

  I clap the loudest after they role a clip of Cal acting in the movie he is nominated for. He laughs at me and kisses me full on the lips as the camera catches our genuine affection for each other.

  “And the award goes too…” I squeeze Cal’s hand, the suspense about to kill me, along with the drumroll increasing the pounding of my heart. “CAL HARRINGTON, CRIME GAMES,” the presenter announces as the audience starts to clap.

  “YES!” I scream and jump up out of my seat and fling myself at him. I grab his face and kiss him with every fiber of my being. He hugs me tight and lets me go so he can walk to the stage to accept his award. I look up behind me and see Robert and Layla out of their seats, screaming and clapping in excitement for Cal.

  “Wow, this is amazing!” he starts his speech as the audience sits back in their seats. “I truly never expected this, and I am so very thankful to the Academy for this award.” Tears stream down my face as he starts thanking everyone who was involved in this film. This film was not an easy film to make, demanding a lot out of him both physically and emotionally. It was also a test on our relationship, him being gone the majority of the time it took to shoot it. But we made it work and I couldn’t be more proud and excited for him.

  “To my daughter, Avery, who I know is still up watching, I love you and it’s time to go to bed now.” The audience laughs and then grows silent as his expression becomes somber.

  “To my partner in life, Jenna.” As he says my name, I feel everyone around me fade, as I stare intently at the man who has my heart. “I wouldn’t be here accepting this if it wasn’t for you. You make me a better actor, a better man and a better father to our daughter. Thank you for letting me be your forever. I love you!” He shouts and blows me a kiss as the music starts to play. I jump up and blow a kiss right back at him, not caring that my make-up is probably smeared all over my face from crying and that millions of people are watching.

  Because they need to see that this is real.

  This is genuine.

  This is LOVE.

  Acknowledgments

  It is a dream come true to finally be publishing this story after having it in my head for five years. Cal and Jenna will always have a special place in my heart with their story being my debut novel. I look forward to sharing more of their lives with you in Layla’s story, Perfectly Lonely.

  I don’t even know where to begin with thanking people as I am beyond blessed to have so many generous, loving and supportive people in my life. My first thank you has to be to my husband. Without his support, I wouldn’t be publishing this book today. To the rest of my family, thank you for your encouragement, love, support and always believing in my abilities to write my own book.

  To all of my friends who cheered on my dream and gave me advice and encouraging words, thank you so very much for always believing in me and supporting me. I have to give some special shout outs to Erica, Crystal, Neil, Melissa, Sara, and Whitney for the extra advice and help with this book, especially when there were days when I wanted to give up.

  To the bloggers and the readers for making it to this page, thank you for your time and most importantly, for your support!

  About the Author

  Jessica Marin began her love affair with books at a young age from the encouragement of her Grandma Shirley. She has always dreamed of being an author and finally made her dreams of writing happily ever after stories a reality. She currently resides in Tennessee with her husband, children and fur babies. When she is not hanging out with her family, she loves watching a good movie, going dancing with the ladies, sniffing essential oils and daydreaming of warm beaches, winning the lotto and world peace.

  Jessica would love for you to join her on all of her available social media outlets.