The Willingness to Burn

by J. P. London

  “I think he might be married.”

  “Woah! Really?”

  “Don’t sound so happy about it!”

  “I’m not happy, that’s just a huge bombshell, you know.”

  “Yeah, you’re telling me.”

  “Okay, let’s back up a second, why do you think he’s married?”

  “Okay, so he left me alone in his apartment the other day.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I started snooping a bit.”

  “Ann—”

  “I know, I know. But he left me alone! I didn’t go through his stuff, I just looked around,” I said in my own defense.

  “Okay, and what did you find?”

  “So I found this closed door.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was to his office.”

  “And what was in his office?” Brian asked.

  “Lots of stuff, but the things I’m concerned about are the pictures.” I began to feel anxious just talking about it.

  “Pictures?”

  “Yeah, like wedding pictures.”

  “Oh shit!” Brain said, and we sat in silence for a moment, well, you know, sat on the phone in silence.

  “Yeah, so that’s what’s going on in my world.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing I haven’t brought it up yet.”

  “You didn’t say anything yet?”

  “No.”

  “How have you not asked? That’s gotta be driving you nuts.”

  “I haven’t talked to him at all.”

  “That’s weird. Do you think he’s divorced?”

  “I don’t know!” I said in frustration. “But I really like him, I don’t want him to be married.”

  “Wow, maybe that’s why he has such a weird schedule.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, it makes sense.”

  “So what do you think? He has like a whole other family?”

  “Maybe not a family, but I could see him being married.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, he’s a good looking, well-mannered rich guy, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seems kind of odd that he’s single at his age.”

  I was going to give Brian some shit about the age thing again but decided to let it go.

  “It does! But what if he’s just been working too hard and couldn’t find a girl that would understand his schedule?” I know, I know … It sounded dumb as soon as I said it.

  “Ann, seriously?”

  “It could happen!” I defended.

  “Is that really the plight of the rich, good-looking, well-mannered, finance guys?”

  I didn’t say anything. Brian was totally right.

  “So why was he even in Jersey when he met you anyway?”

  “He has a house here.”

  “So he has a house here and an apartment in the city?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s got a wife at one of them.”

  “No, don’t say that!”

  “Hey, sorry, I know you don’t want to hear that.”

  “I don’t,” I said harshly.

  “I know, but I have to say it.”

  “God, I knew he was too perfect.”

  “Want to get drinks and we can talk about it?”

  “No, I gotta figure this out first.”

  “All right, let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at Jace’s contact info. Should I confront him about this? I mean I was kind of snooping right? But I feel like this is something important that I should know about. How could he do this to me? How could he be married? Okay, I’ll wait a half hour before I text him. I wonder what she’s like. She’s pretty, but she’s older and my features are better. I ended up waiting about ten minutes before I texted him.

  “Hey I need to talk to you.”

  “Hey. Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, we need to talk.”

  “Okay want to come over?”

  “To the city?”

  “Nah my place in Jersey.”

  “Sure. Text me the address.”

  Chapter 39

  Anna

  I looked in the mirror. My normally wavy hair had become a full out mess. Oh, well, fuck him! He’s married he doesn’t get to see me looking hot. I grabbed a hair tie and put my hair up in a ponytail.

  I took a final look in the mirror and headed out. When I pulled up to his house I kept thinking about what Brian was telling me. It was a large home in Ridgewood, this really nice town in Bergen county. The house was huge, but not huge huge. Kind of like what I would want to raise a family it. And definitely the town I would want to raise a family in. I pulled into the driveway. I didn’t imagine his wife was home, but I wanted someone to see me. I wanted someone to tell her. I wanted him to get caught.

  I rang the doorbell, and a few moments later he answered. He was wearing jeans and a t shirt. I’d never seen him wearing jeans before. It was almost kind of oddly intimate.

  “Hey,” he said and leaned in to kiss me. I backed away from him quick to let him know he was in trouble. “Uh oh. What happened?” he asked, not even slightly alarmed.

  I didn’t say anything I just stared daggers at him. That son-of-a-bitch.

  “Well, c’mon in. You can always hate me from the living room.”

  I followed him to the living room. The house was much different than his apartment and almost had more a feel of his office. It was well decorated, but I could have done better. It seemed homey. Not so much classy.

  “All right, you look like you’re ready to be mad. So do you want a drink first, or do you just want to be mad?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me!” I exploded. So much for a calm confrontation, not that that was ever really the plan.

  “Tell you …”

  “Oh! Don’t play dumb with me!”

  “I can assure you, I’m not playing,” he said, trying to be all cute, like that was going to work.

  “Knock that shit off!” I said with rage coming through my lips.

  “Okay,” he said calmly and paused. “What didn’t I tell you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe that you’re married!”

  He looked surprised. I caught him!

  I stood up. “I knew it!”

  “Sit down.”

  “No! I knew you were lying!”

  “Shut up and sit down.”

  His calm demeanor was odd for such a circumstance. Usually, when you catch a guy doing some shady shit, they backpedal, stutter, make something up. But he didn’t. So I sat down. He was quiet, it looked like he was thinking to himself a second and then he shook his head.

  “What makes you think I’m married?” he asked.

  “I saw the picture of you and your wife.”

  The tension drained from his face, and his expression turned to one of amusement.

  “Oh, really?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s pretty funny.”

  “No, it’s not!” I shouted, trying to stay angry at him.

  “So where did you see this picture?”

  “Oh, uh, It doesn’t matter!”

  “See, I think it does.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “You went in my office.”

  I looked down. “Yeah …”

  “So, I leave you alone in my apartment, and you respond by going through my stuff?”

  “I didn’t go through you stuff. The door was open,” I lied.

  “No, it wasn’t,” he said with absolute assurance.

  He stared at me, and I stared back, gritting my teeth.

  He broke his expression. “Okay so you’re mad because I trusted you alone in my apartment and you went through my private things, in my private office, and found something that you didn’t understand? Is that about the gist of it?”

  I felt suddenly ashamed when he put it that way. He was
absolutely right, that’s exactly what happened. Who was I to go through his stuff the way that I did? Regardless of my feelings for him, I hadn’t known him that long. But now isn’t the time for that kind of thought.

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I am. We are now talking about me being able to trust you.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “So are you married?”

  “We’ll, get to that.”

  “No, I’m asking now.”

  “What else did you do while I trusted you alone in my private space?”

  I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No nothing, I just … I saw the pictures and I got scared.”

  “Why did you get scared?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know, but if you did know, why would that make you scared?”

  “Because I really like you, and I don’t want you to be married!” I blurted out. My eyes started to water a bit. He had a way of cutting thought the bullshit and getting straight to my emotional hot buttons.

  “Okay. Do you want to address this before or after we address my inability to trust you?”

  “Can we just not address that?”

  “No.”

  “The door was right there!”

  “I know, and just like everything else in my life, it wasn’t locked, because the only people exposed to the door are those I trust. Now, how should I respond when that trust is broken?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s a cop out.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I know I shouldn’t have been in there.”

  “But you were.”

  “I was. It was a mistake,” I said in shame. “But tell me about your wife!”

  He gave me a harsh look. Suddenly, I realized that there was going to be a sound explanation behind all of it, and the feeling of shame fell down into my stomach.

  “I know I fucked up, But I need to know about this.”

  “Come here,” he said in a low tone. I moved over and sat down next to him. He offered me his right hand, and I took it.

  He squeezed my hand tightly.

  “I met my wife in 2011.” I tried to pull my hand away, but he squeezed it tight. “She was absolutely beautiful,” he said with a sense of pride. “Oh god, she turned heads like you wouldn’t believe. If we were in a restaurant, everyone knew where we were. The waiters must have used her blonde hair like a homing beckon.” He smiled deep in thought. I said nothing.

  “I loved her so much. She was the absolute personification of beauty.”

  Okay, that was past tense that means she’s no longer in the picture, or it means… Oh, shit. I sat still. I didn’t say anything. I felt like I was about to be hit with a knockout blow.

  “We got married in 2014. It was amazing. We rented out the entire hotel and kept everyone there for four days. We loved it. It was the never-ending wedding. We were in South Jersey. I had my brother bribe a state official to let us have a bonfire out on the beach.” He laughed. “You should have seen how nervous he was. He was so scared he was going to get in trouble.”

  He cleared his throat. “The next day we got married, and after the traditional wedding stuff we stuck around for another few days, and so did most of our guests. We inhabited the town of Ocean City for four days. It was quite literally the happiest time of my life.”

  I felt weird hearing that. It was not what I was expecting. In the beginning, I felt embarrassed, and toward the end I felt competitive. Would that be the best he ever felt? What about our wedding? What if things moved forward with us? Then what?

  “A little over a year later,” he continued, “she got pregnant. Our child was to be the first grandchild.” Oh, fuck … “My brother was married but hadn’t had any kids yet. My mom always said that we were anxious and didn’t want to wait, but in all honesty, he was a surprise to both of us.

  “But then she got diagnosed with cancer.” He paused and his words pounded on my conscience. “She wanted to keep the baby, but couldn’t if she underwent treatment.

  My eyes started to swell with tears of guilt. I can’t believe I ever doubted him. Why would I make this poor man relive such a painful event?

  “She tried to fight off the cancer naturally, and we were going to have the baby.

  “But it didn’t work out. After a few months … The cancer metastasized,” he paused and swallowed hard. “And it killed the baby.”

  “Oh my god,” I said. He didn’t respond. He just stared down lost in his own thoughts.

  “She was so mad. Not even upset… just mad. She made the wrong choice. That was her way. She always took responsibility for things. Two months later …”

  His jaw clenched, and I could tell he couldn’t speak anymore.

  “I’m so sorry.” I put my arm around him and he leaned into me in a sort of embrace.

  “His name was Aimen. That’s what we were going to name our son.”

  The tears started to flow, and I could feel his body heckle with the sadness that I had brought up.

  I squeezed him tight. “I’m so sorry.”

  “She … she never recovered.”

  I hugged him and wrapped both my arms around him. He squeezed me back and the grief filled the room. We sat there in pain together for a few moments, and in those moments I focused all of my attention on him in a desperate hope to avert the shame of my own behavior.

  He sniffled hard. “Well, now you know.” He freed his hand from grip and rubbed his ring finger which I just then noticed had a slight tan line.

  He took a deep sigh and let the remaining emotion flee from his body. “Now you know, That’s the big secret,” he said loudly. “That’s what you’ve gotten all bent out of shape about.”

  “I feel so embarrassed,” I admitted.

  “I just wish you would have talked to me before jumping to conclusions.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’ve never lied to you. Why would you think that way?”

  I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. There was no good answer.

  Chapter 40

  Jace drew the shades on his floor-to-ceiling windows. This office in the 47th floor of the Velbuet building was once the personal office of Arnold Rothstein. Jace regarded that as he was tightening the shades. Considering that it probably was not the most awful thing that had happened in this office. That many men had given their lives and souls to those walls. Just none since he was the occupant. The lavish office extended beyond Jace’s oak desk to a sitting area, which Dr. Angelos sat at. Jace turned from the window and paused a moment The doctor looked up at him and the diseased dedication of a lurid madman crept from his eyes yet again. It was unnatural, it was evil, and it was something that Jace was oddly okay with. Jace took a seat across from the not so good doctor.

  “So tell me how it works.”

  “It’s actually not as complicated as one might think. There’s just the moral aspect that has everyone hung up and calling me a mad scientist who has lost his grip on reality.”

  Jace nodded in concession. That was exactly what he had thought as well.

  “The main aspect in this procedure that is going to make everything possible are V stems.”

  “V Stems?” Jace asked.

  “V stems are a chemically-engineered stem cell. It’s essentially a stem cell that has been turned into a virus. They convert to whatever they touch, then spread like wildfire. They will take transplants to a whole new level.”

  “How so?”

  “Imagine this. You need a new heart. We take a drop of your blood, mix it with the V stems, then inject it into the heart before the transplant.”

  “Okay…”

  “The V stems spread and convert the compatibility of the tissue they’re exposed to.”

  “So it can change blood types?”


  “Blood types, HLA compatibility, it won’t matter. So far it’s been shown to work on everything accept brain tissue.”

  “Why?”

  “Something about the infected tissue, the synapses wont fire the same way. You would need actual compatible brain tissue, and even that is risky.”

  “The synapses?”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “I mean, I can tell you, but you’re not going to understand it.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. So if this works, why are you here?”

  “Because this works. Because pain is a very lucrative industry. And there are people who make a lot of money off of suffering. The transplant cocktail costs Americans billions of dollars every year. And they need to keep on them … Every year.”

  Jace nodded in understanding. Being an educated man, specifically in the financial world, he understood that profit was all that anyone understood. Was it possible that a cure for cancer was discovered? Yes, but it would have been bought by a pharmaceutical company and hidden away. And if the cure wasn’t for sale. The discoverer, the man who changed the medical world, would have an accident and his work would be lost forever. In fact, even if it was for sale that person would likely slip and fall to their death.

  “I gotcha. What about the spine?”

  “That’s easy. Once the compatibly is taken care of its just a matter of regrowing the spine.”

  “Regrowing it?”

  “Yes. Artemin will regrow it and some carefully placed V Stems will ensure that it is rejoined and function is full.”

  “Okay, what about skin tone?” Jace asked. It seemed like a silly question, all things considered, but it was one of those important things you always forget to ask about.

  “As long as they are within a few shades, it won’t matter much, photon therapy will take care of that, skin grafts for the scarring.” The doctor paused a moment. “But try to get it as close as possible, no need to fight another battle.”

  Jace nodded.

  “How long will it take?”

  “The surgery? Two days.”

  “Two days?” Jace’s eyes shot open.

  “Two days,” the doctor affirmed.

  “Yes. We need to ensure that everything takes and that every single one of her nerve fibers connects. It takes time. Then she will need to undergo months of therapy.”

  “I understand.”

  Jace took a deep breath.