Maybe Brooklyn ...
“Why would you need a new wardrobe?” he asked, staring out the window and playing with a strand of her hair.
“If I'm gonna be traveling with you everywhere and going on television, I have to look good, silly,” she laughed at him. He frowned and looked down at her again.
There had been no mention of a book tour, and she was already planning on going on camera with him? Something about that really rubbed him the wrong way. This was his moment. His accomplishment. She had helped, and he was thankful, but why was she making it about her?
Why does she always do that?
“Kitty,” he sighed, realizing the moment he'd been dreading all night had finally come about. He slowly pulled away from her so they could face each other. “I think we should talk.”
“Oh god,” she whispered, the color draining out of her face. “That's the worst thing a person could say. What? Oh god, this is it, isn't it?”
“If you'd let me speak, I could tell you,” he said, reaching out and holding her hands. “This book – I don't want it to change me. I'll always just be Jon, the guy with a crazy story. If the book flops, if the book's a hit. Just Jon. There hasn't been any talk about a book tour, and even if there was, I'm not sure I'd want to go. I don't know if I'm ready to leave New York.”
“Ready to leave? Jon, we've talked about leaving New York lots of times. We talked about going to the Bahamas for my birthday in August,” she pointed out. “So what's really going on? What's changed? Why don't you want to leave?”
He couldn't even answer that question for himself.
“I don't know, I'm just not sure I do,” he said. She frowned and let go of his hands.
“It's because of her, isn't it?” she demanded. He sighed and rubbed his fingers over his eyelids.
“No, but maybe we should talk about her,” he said.
“What? Was she here? Did you see her while I was gone? You did, didn't you,” she accused him.
You have no idea.
“Yes, I saw her. She was here,” he was honest. Kitty let out a muffled shriek and jumped to her feet.
“I knew it!” she cried. “I just knew it! I knew she couldn't stay away. You should've seen her face when I talked to her. She's never stopped loving you, she wants you all to herself.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, holding up his hand. “She mentioned you'd talked to her.”
“Oh, yeah, I did. Fat good it did me! She just waited till I was gone to get her hooks into you. What did she do? Just show up here in a raincoat and panties or something!?” she asked, her eyes brimming with tears.
“What? No, I brought her back here. I couldn't figure out why she'd stopped talking to me, so I went and found her. Kitty, what did you say to her?” he asked, slowly climbing to his feet.
“I love you, Jon,” she cried. “And it's not fair! I was the one who nursed you back to health!”
“What are you talking about? I was perfectly healthy when we met, Kitty. What the fuck did you say to Delaney?” he demanded. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes.
“I told her what she needed to hear,” she said simply.
“And what, exactly, was that?”
“That we're in love,” she proclaimed. “And that she was coming between us. It's the truth, isn't it?”
He gaped at her.
“You said that to her!?” he yelled.
“Yes. I told her how all the stress of being around her was killing you. It was, Jon. I could see it because I care about you!” she yelled back.
“You sound fucking crazy right now! How could you do that to me? What if she'd gone away for good?” he shouted.
“Then we could continue on being happy together forever!” she shrieked.
“I could never be happy with you!”
His words shattered something. As it broke and fell around them, they stood in silence. Staring at each other.
Me and my mouth. I have to learn to control it.
“Do you mean that?” she whispered. He groaned and dropped his head.
“No. Yes. I don't know? Kitty,” he sighed her name. “I ... care about you. So fucking much. You're one of the best things to ever happen in my life. But things are confusing right now. I don't know what's going on, or what I want.”
“Did you sleep with her?” she asked, her voice high pitched. He took a deep breath.
“Yes.”
“Are you leaving me for her?”
“No,” he stressed. “I've only seen her once since it happened. Just today, and only to talk about the book for two minutes. That's it, I swear.”
“It doesn't have to end us, Jon. We can work through it,” she insisted, and his heart sank.
“I just don't have it in me right now. Not for anyone,” he told her. “I told her the same thing, and she understands.”
“Oh, I'm sure she understands. Understands how to steal someone's boyfriend.”
“She didn't steal anything, it was all me, okay? I went and found her. I wouldn't leave her alone. I kissed her. I brought her back here. Me. She told me to tell you she's sorry, but I didn't think you'd believe her,” he laid it all out. Kitty started crying in earnest.
“I love you,” she sobbed.
“If that were true,” he spoke softly. “Then how could you have done that? How could you scare her away? Like it or not, she's my only memory, and you tried to destroy that. You know what getting my memories back means to me. How could you try to ruin that? That's not love.”
“You don't know what love is!” she screamed.
“No, probably not. I wanted to learn about it with you. I'm sorry I ruined it,” he apologized. She gasped and hurried over to him.
“No, I'm sorry. You didn't ruin anything, not yet. We can work on us,” she assured him.
“I think I need to work on myself, first. I should've done that from the start.”
“Please, don't leave me! What will my family say?”
“Probably that they wouldn't want their daughter in a relationship with a guy who doesn't love her and cheats on her,” he guessed glibly.
She slapped him, and even he couldn't deny he kind of deserved it.
“Screw you, Jon. My family is gonna be pissed. My mother will be so embarrassed, and my father! After all the time he put into you, this is how you treat him?” she snapped.
“Treat him?”
“He's a very powerful man. You don't want to be on his bad side, so just think about that.”
“I'm sorry, is that a threat, Kitty?” he asked, looking at her with new eyes. She sniffled and leaned over the sofa, grabbing her purse.
“No, it's a fact. Look, we're both angry right now and being stupid. I'll go home and we'll cool off, then we can discuss this,” she informed him.
“I think it's been discussed,” he replied. She flicked her hair over shoulder and stomped to the door.
“This isn't over, Jon!” she called out as she stepped into the hallway. “I can fight for you just as much as she can!”
Then the door slammed shut and he was alone, his hands on his hips and his mind swirling.
Fight for me? She let me go and wished me well.
18
Delaney sat out on her fire escape and took a deep breath. The air was crisp, still with just a hint of winter in it.
What was I doing this time, last year? Beginning of May – I was in beauty school. Jayson had kissed me for the first time just a couple weeks ago, and things were getting serious between us.
She frowned and looked down at the street.
Their fight from the other night kept rattling through her brain. Did he really feel that way? That they had been toxic for each other? Sure, it would look that way to an outsider. Even she looked at it with different eyes. She was older, she'd had a couple years scared off her life, and she was sober. Yes, she could admit there had been unhealthy aspects to their relationship.
But they'd both been sober when they'd met. They'd spent plenty of ti
me together sober, too. It wasn't like they'd been stoned all the time. Just towards the end, when things had gotten really rough. It wasn't okay, but that it invalidate their entire relationship.
She knew without a shadow of a doubt she had loved Jayson Fairbanks, just like she knew she was completely in love with Jon Doherty. Drugs or no drugs, memory or not, she loved him. Inside and out.
“I'm glad I forgot us.”
When he'd said those words, her heart had truly broken. For the first time ever. She'd never given up hope, not once. Not when he'd fallen, not when she hadn't been able to find him, and not when she'd found him again in a different person.
But those words.
He'd apologized for them, later in the night. Told her he hadn't meant them, said he'd just been trying to hurt her. Explained how he wished he could remember them, and that he wanted to remember. He knew not remembering caused her a lot of pain, and that killed him.
He wants to remember for me ... but not for him.
“I'm glad I forgot us.”
Sometimes, just sometimes, Delaney wished she could forget, too.
“What's doing?”
Eric, her jigsaw puzzle enthusiast roommate, crawled through the window and sat on the escape next to her. She smiled at him and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Nothing, just sitting. Thinking,” she replied.
“So the other day, was that the guy?” he asked, taking out the supplies to roll his own cigarette. She nodded.
“Yup, that was the guy.”
Everyone knew about her ex-boyfriend, the amnesiac.
“Seemed nice enough, but too tall,” he teased. Eric was only five-foot-five.
“He is tall,” she agreed.
“You guys gonna get back together?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“For reals?”
“Well, he used to. I think he broke up with her,” Del said. “Or he was going to, at least.”
“Obviously he's doing that for you, so what's stopping you from getting him back?” he asked, sprinkling tobacco onto a piece of paper.
“He doesn't want me back,” she sighed.
“Didn't look that way to me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just the way he looked at you when he was here. I think deep down, he's still in love with you,” Eric told her. She smiled.
“It's a nice thought, but no. He doesn't know what he wants, and you know what? That's okay. Maybe he never will, and that's okay, too. Because he's not dead. I get to walk around in a world with him in it and breathe the same air he does, and that's good enough for me.”
“Horseshit.”
She snapped her head to the side to stare at him.
“What did you just say to me!?” she exclaimed.
“I said, you're full of horseshit,” he replied, slowly rolling the cigarette up. “No one actually feels that way. You want him, and he's too fucked up right now to realize he wants you, too. Pound it into his brain, man.”
“That's not how it works. Look, he made his choice, and I respect it. He wants to figure himself out, find out what he wants in life. If it's me, I'll be over the moon, but if it's not, well ... I have to protect my heart, too,” she pointed out.
“How? By shutting him out?”
“Shutting him out? Eric, I had sex with for almost thirteen straight hours. I put myself as out there as I know how,” she laughed.
“Thirteen hours, huh? I'm sleeping with the wrong roommate,” he sighed, making her laugh harder.
“I admit it – I don't like it. I hate it. I want to scream, and yeah, I want to pound his head against a wall. But that won't change anything, except make him more confused and make him want to pull even further away. It's cliché, but it's the truth – I'd rather have him as a friend than nothing at all,” she said. He snorted.
“I wish my friends fucked me for thirteen hours straight.”
He lit up the freshly rolled cig and took a deep puff. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent. Delaney had never smoked, but Jayson had. Not a lot, just occasionally or socially. She'd always tried to break him of the habit, but it had been impossible. Now the smell, as awful as it was, made her feel good. It reminded her of a time in her life when she'd been blissfully happy.
We had nothing. Nothing at all, barely two pennies to rub together, but we were happy. That's true love.
“Well,” Eric sighed, flicking ashes to the street below. “I still say horseshit. Nobility is for pussies. Tell him exactly how you feel and how you'll die if he doesn't take you back.”
“Even I have more pride than that,” she snorted. “Besides ... it wouldn't be fair. He's had it hard enough. I'm not going to be another problem for him to deal with. I couldn't stand it.”
“Horseshit.”
As stimulating as the conversation was, Delaney excused herself and headed back inside. Smiled at Eric's girlfriend, who was perpetually angry at him. Ignored the other couple who seemed to be permanently attached at the mouth.
She sat in her room and looked at her small little existence. So controlled, so empty. Once upon a time, her room would've been filled with stuff. Clothing everywhere, and the desk completely covered in makeup. Now, she didn't even have a mirror in her room, let alone any desire to paint her face.
No, the desk was piled with stacks of papers, and a map was on the wall behind it. On it were pins with little red heads – one stuck into every hospital she'd gone to looking for Jay. She stood up and put her hands on the desk, looking at the map.
Lenox Hill Hospital. She hadn't gotten that far north yet. She'd wasted so much time in Brooklyn. Though at least back then, she hadn't had a job to get in the way. She'd trained in everyday from Connecticut, early in the morning, and stayed till the last train was heading back. When she'd decided to take her search into the city, she'd made the decision to just move there, which meant getting a job. Eight hours a day she couldn't spend looking for him.
She lowered her gaze to the papers on the desk. They were fliers, all with Jay's picture front and center, and his description below it, along with her contact information. She would show them to customers at the restaurant, then walk around Times Square after work, handing them to anyone who would take them.
She snorted and slammed her hand into the stack, sending the pieces of paper flying across her room. A lot of good they had done her – she'd been looking for a person who hadn't existed anymore. Even if someone had seen him, and then saw her flier with his picture, it wouldn't have helped. He looked like two totally different people. Answered to a totally different name. Of course she hadn't been able to find him! Asking all those fucking doctors “have you seen a man named Jayson Fairbanks?” when of course they hadn't – Jayson Fairbanks had never been to any hospital in New York, and she hadn't known to ask for John Doe.
For Jon Doherty.
She sank to her knees and pressed her forehead against the desk. Panic attacks were a thing in her life now. Xanax would help, her doctor had told her, but she refused to take anything. So she just had to live through it as best as she could.
Day after day after day.
I love him. I love him so much. It's like he's dying all over again. Like I'm dying. God, please help me. Help me get through this. Make him remember me, or make him go away, because I don't know how much more of this I can take.
19
Jon was told, very politely, that his stay at the hotel had come to an end.
Kitty must have told her dad about the conversations she'd been having with Jon. The Beaumonts were stopping payment for his hotel room.
It didn't matter much. He could afford to pay it himself now, and in fact planned on paying Mr. Beaumont back. But Jon didn't want to stay there anymore. It was a room filled with memories of people he didn't really know. Kitty, Delaney. Himself.
Once again, he longed for the halfway house. It had been shitty and there hadn't been any real pri
vacy, but every memory there was one he'd carved out for himself. By himself. Just Jon. It wasn't possible to go back, though. There were other people who really needed the help Benson House and Gary Tupper provided. Jon didn't get to have the room just because he was feeling depressed.
Sloany once again solved the problem by inviting him to stay at her place. She said since his case was all but closed, there wasn't really a conflict of interest. It wouldn't be considered unprofessional. He'd grown on her a lot during their months together. She liked being around him, so she didn't mind sharing her personal space.
Plus, he wouldn't be staying very long.
“This is exactly how I pictured your home,” he said the moment he walked in the front door.
“So you've been picturing where I live, huh? Jeez, you must be hard up.”
She bumped his shoulder as she moved past him, giving him a general tour of the house. It was a small Craftsman style home, just shy of being in the Upper East Side proper. Apparently, her husband had been very wealthy. She'd done very well in the divorce, scoring an impressive alimony and her quaint little home.
There was a living room to his left, den to the right, kitchen at the back. Up a set of perfectly creaky stairs, she showed him to a guest room. It had all been done in gauzy whites, and the duvet cover had little rosettes stitched onto it. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Shut up, Mr. Sloan had a niece who came over all the time. Besides, pink suits your coloring. And your crybaby attitude.”
He slammed the door in her face and listened as she cackled her way downstairs.
He didn't care about the colors in the bedroom. It was warm, and it belonged to a good friend. A friend he remembered and trusted and knew, through and through. That was all that mattered.
He stared at his suitcase for a while. Sloany had gotten it for him. It was black, on the smaller side, and had wheels that rolled in any direction. Between it and a messenger bag, he was able to carry all his worldly possessions around with him. Which was handy, because he wouldn't be in New York for much longer.
There was a lot of interest in his book, even though it wasn't even published yet. After Delaney had found him, his story had made national news. Everyone wanted to meet Jon/Jay. His lawyer, now acting as his manager, had offers for Jon to appear on eight different talk shows, and more were coming in every day.
Muscle Memory Page 19
