by Aimee Brown
Without his help this week, though, I’m not sure I’d be any closer to figuring out what I feel for Jack. Because of Liam, the truth came out and while it was a little, or rather very, hard to hear, he kind of saved me from anymore heartache. I don’t think I could be more thankful for that if I tried.
*
I settle further into my window seat, my headphones plugged into my ears as I stare out of the window at the world below me. I have no idea where Jack is but I hope he’s able to figure out what he needs so he can be happy. He deserves at least that. If for nothing else then for the sake of his child.
His child. Even just thinking it makes me miserable. It shouldn’t be Greta having his baby. She doesn’t deserve him. If I’m honest she doesn’t deserve anyone. She’s just a master of manipulation. Those types do seem to always walk away with what they want.
I pull up the last email I got from Jack, the one that only asks if we can talk this week. I stare at it, wishing it could have been that simple and then hit delete. If I can’t see it, I can’t dwell on it, and I definitely can’t respond to it.
As the wheels skid to a stop my phone vibrates in my pocket.
“You already miss me?” I ask Lily with a laugh.
“Did Amelia call you?”
“No?” I say a little worried. “Why? Is everything OK?”
“You should probably sit down.”
“I can’t sit down, Lily, I’m getting off my plane. Just say it, what is going on?”
“I don’t know what’s going on but something big is happening and when she came over earlier to talk to you, she wasn’t thrilled you weren’t here. I think she’s on her way to Dallas.”
“On her way to Dallas?!” I yell, startling the people also pulling their bags from the overhead bins around me. “Why would Amelia come to Dallas? Shouldn’t she be looking for Jack and trying to help with his problem?”
“You know Amelia, always meddling in something. This time, Jack and your lives.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, she loves you! You know that.”
“Right. I’m sure everything is fine and I highly doubt that she is headed here for whatever reason. I mean, I’ve been living here for a year and she hasn’t shown up yet. I’m just going to go home, get in the bath and get ready for work tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan, we’ll see you then.”
I drop my bags at my front door, pulling a few things from one of them and heading to my bathroom. I hang my robe on the back of the door and start the water. When I turn back towards the door I see a hand towel lying on the floor. A towel that for years I’ve used to dry my face after I’ve washed it. I reach down and pick it up, the words Lewis & Clark Law Student – Jack Cabot stitched into the seam stare up at me. I forgot I had this. It must have gotten mixed in with my robe when I washed it last.
It was a ridiculous gift of a set of towels from Jack’s parents when he was accepted into law school. The kind of gift you give a newly married couple. Embroidered towels. Like a reminder that he actually did become a lawyer at an actual law school. I run my finger along the stitching as a tear slides down my face. Why can’t things be as simple as they were before all this happened? We were so happy until Greta. Now, despite the fact that I know deep inside I do have feelings for Jack, feelings that I’m not sure ever went away after all, I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same if we tried it again.
Eighteen
The One
Five years, seven months ago.
PSU, Portland, Oregon
The first week of my senior year of college and my mind has wandered through every single class. What can I say, I’m in love. It’s actually my first time truly being in love and I must say it’s a little overwhelming.
Tonight though, despite my plans to lie around and dream about Jack, I have to study for an exam being held on Friday. If I don’t, I’ll fall behind, and I won’t graduate from University at the end of the year and if there was ever a reason for my parents to kill me, that would be it.
Who can study when they’re starving though? I glance over at my room mate, Hilda, wrapped up like a mummy with some weird puddy crap smeared on her face, asleep at midnight. It’s gonna be a long boring year.
Maybe Lily will bring me something? I can’t possibly sneak out because if I wake Hilda, she’ll probably report me to my guidance counselor for disturbing her studies and I’ll end up with an even weirder roommate.
I tap Lily’s number into my phone, thankful that I turned off the screen sounds earlier in the week.
“Lily,” I whisper into the phone, huddled in the corner of my dorm room. “What are you doing?”
“Uh, sleeping. What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m so hungry!”
“You’re always hungry. Go get something to eat.”
“Can’t. Or Sleeping Beauty will wake up and have my head or turn me in for harassing her again or being too loud during ‘quiet time’.”
“You do end up with the weirdos, don’t you?”
“Yup,” I stifle a laugh. Says the weirdest girl of them all. “Will you bring me something?”
“No! I’m in bed…”
“Alone?”
“That’s not important,” she laughs. “Why don’t you just call Jack?”
“Because we’ve only been dating a couple of months and it might look weird.”
“Giving you a black eye on your first date is a little weird too, but it didn’t seem to turn you off.”
“Fine! I’ll text him.” I jab ‘end call’ irritated that whatever boytoy she’s got with her is more important than me and pull up Jack’s contact.
I know we’re dating and things are slowly moving towards a little more serious but I’ve never called him in the middle of the night to ask him to come clear across town and bring me a cheeseburger. It seems a little selfish and I’m pretty sure it’s as far from romantic as one could ask.
Here goes nothing.
Hey! I know it’s late, and I’m sorry but I just wondered if you were up for some dinner? A late dinner, but I haven’t really eaten yet and only just realized how starving I am… anyway, let me know…
I sit in the corner, re-reading my ridiculous text wondering if he’ll even respond. How old am I, ten? Of course, he won’t reply, he’s asleep. And he’s clear across the city at his own college. Ugh, if only there was a way to take back a text after it’s been sent. The beep of an incoming one causes me to jump nearly out of my skin.
You think I’d say no to sneaking you out in the middle of the night so you don’t starve to death? Meet me in thirty minutes at the Ira Keller Fountain downtown. Take a cab! I don’t really want you murdered!
The giggle wells up inside me, and it’s nearly impossible to stifle away as I quickly pull on a pair of pants, shoes, t-shirt, and jacket. Cheeseburgers in the middle of the night might not be romantic but a midnight city walk with the person who I think about the most is.
The Ira Keller Fountain is a water feature dedicated to a man by the same name who pushed ahead with controversial and sometimes successful, but often unpopular, urban renewal plans. After he died it became apparent that, despite some of the Portland population not loving what he brought to the city, he was instrumental in revitalizing the business districts. So, both the Ira Keller fountain and the Keller Auditorium were named in his honor.
The fountain is beautiful during the day, but at night, it’s illuminated from underneath and is really quite romantic.
I step out of my cab about thirty minutes later and make my way up the sidewalk towards the fountain. In the water below the fountain are large overlapping dry square concrete slabs that the water pools just under. Jack stands on one, a white hand towel, embroidered with his name slung over one arm like he’s a waiter, a blanket sits on a dry concrete slab in the fountain pool, with bags of food, a single rose and lit tealight candles around it.
“You ordered dinner?�
� he asks with a laugh.
“You’re crazy…”
“I am a little bit.” He laughs. “Ready to hear what’s on the menu?”
“Sure,” I take a step over the still water and onto the slab where he’s standing.
“I have a delicious all cheese pizza, because the pizza place didn’t listen I had to eat all the olives and pepperoni off it on my way here. When I discovered from a not so impressed passer-by that that might gross you out, I also grabbed a bag of the best burgers in town for a hangover, just in case, so I’m told. And… a box of chocolate chip cookies that are still warm. I also grabbed two bottles of wine, whatever was closest to the door, so it’s probably not that great but… anything stand out to you?”
I take a step towards him, stand on my tippy toes and kiss his lips. “You are perfect. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he kisses me back. “Shall we… before we get caught and arrested?”
“Let’s do it.”
If I didn’t know it before this second, this is proof that Jack is exactly the guy I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
Nineteen
A Surprise From Amelia
Present Day
Dallas, Texas
The pounding on my front door can only mean one thing. Amelia did indeed fly to Dallas last night and she’s not waiting around to tell me whatever it is that needs saying.
I glance at my phone. 6 a.m. I was going to go down to the shop this morning, but after Lily warned me that Amelia was on her way here for some reason, I texted Alisha to let her know I would be back tomorrow. After the drama of whatever this is settles down.
“Emi! It’s Amelia! Open this door!”
I pull the chain from the slot and crack the door open to her perfectly made up smiling face.
“Good morning,” I say with a smile as she storms her way past me into an apartment she’s never been in or even invited to. “What are you doing here?” I ask her, confused even though Lily warned me.
“I should ask the same.”
“I live here, why should you ask the same?”
“Do you want to know about Jack, or not?”
“Did your plan not go as you thought it would?” I laugh, knowing there was a plan. There is always a plan.
She forces an unimpressed smile.
“If you’re talking about Jack and Greta being pregnant then not really. I’m trying to forget it ever happened.” I open one of my kitchen cabinets to brew a pot of coffee. “Tea?” I ask her, knowing she doesn’t drink coffee.
“Emi, please sit down.”
I give up the playing it cool act and hop up onto one of the bar stools facing the living room where she’s still standing.
“Jack and Greta are not having a baby. They were never having a baby.”
I stare across the counter at her speechless. But I heard them. And they are. Aren’t they? A mix of emotions race through my chest. Giddiness, hopefulness, anxiousness, and something that feels a little bit like relief.
“But, even Aron was there? You’re saying her own father was lying?”
“Yes, yes, it was a part of the so called plan,” she uses air quotes around the word plan with a roll of her eyes. “But you got anxious and disappeared before I could work out phase two.”
“You were playing me?”
“Well, not in a cynical kind of way like you’re making it sound, but sometimes you have to create a situation so that the right outcome will prevail. Especially, when your two players are so stubborn that they’ll never figure it out on their own.”
“And why would Greta lie to Jack about being pregnant? He was devastated.”
“Because I told her to. Greta knew what she did to you two was wrong and she also knew that I could and would cut her out of my circle if she didn’t make this right. She did more damage to your relationship than I ever could have imagined myself. And as you know I can be pretty devious. That girl is pure evil.”
I nod. She’s not wrong about that. “Where is pure evil at now?”
Amelia waves a hand my way as she strolls through my apartment. “She’s on her way to a spa in Berlin with her father to discover herself.” She laughs with a roll of her eyes. “I have a feeling she’s going to be there for a while. Anyway, it’s not important. She owed me a favor and she delivered. What matters now is that she’s out of your life for good. Jack’s as well.”
“Amelia, you had her lie to your son about being pregnant. That’s not a little thing. That’s life altering.”
“I’m well aware, and not only altering his life but yours as well.”
I shake my head. “How’s that?”
“Before the pregnancy announcement, you were considering your feelings for Jack? Yes?”
“OK,” I’ll give her that. It would make a good excuse as to why I suddenly slept with him without much thought.
“And when you heard she was expecting, what were your feelings then?”
I sigh heavily, “I was devastated, not only because she won but because he even slept with her after telling me they weren’t that serious.”
“Because you love him.” Amelia says simply.
I stare at Amelia trying to figure out if she’s right. “She’s really not pregnant?”
Amelia shakes her head. “I’m not sure the two of them ever even slept together. She showed up at his apartment on a night that wasn’t his finest and convinced him they had or took advantage of the situation, I don’t have all the details there, nor do I want them. But I know Jack, and I’m not sure he could have or would have gone there with anyone but you.”
“Does Jack know that she’s not—”
“Of course he does, do you really think I could lie to my own son?”
“Yes… you did!” I laugh.
“Plans may not always go the way I’d like, Emi, but I would never intentionally hurt my children. By now you should know I think of you like my own daughter. And I know as well as anyone else that life can come with complications. Sometimes we have the strength to pull ourselves out of them and sometimes we don’t. I’ve watched Jack fall down a hole that I didn’t ever think he’d be able to pull himself out of. I wanted to help, but Lord knows he did not want my help. He thought he’d lost you forever. He had somehow convinced himself that giving you space was what you needed. I couldn’t have forced him to chase after you for anything in the world.”
“Actually, he’s been trying to contact me for while…”
“He has?”
I nod, “He sent me an email last week, asking to talk.”
“For Christ’s sake, Emi.” Amelia shakes her head.
“I just wish he told me all this in the email.”
“If you had known you would have what? Taken him back on the spot?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Well, no…”
“Exactly, you weren’t ready until now.”
“And how do you know that?”
“At the wedding, I watched the two of you on the dance floor and I knew. I think everyone knew. Things would be a lot easier if the two of you weren’t so damn stubborn, you know?” She sighs, pulling a pamphlet from her bag and sitting it on the counter next to me.
“Over the last year when Jack got overwhelmed he’d disappear to a place that he said reminded him so much of you that he could breathe again. He’s there now, suffering in silence. Worried that he’s lost you forever.”
I open the pamphlet, inside is a single plane ticket to Cancun San Lucas. The number 233 is written on the envelope in black ink. My heart drops in my chest. It’s the hotel where Lily got married. The same place we agreed would be the perfect place for a private wedding. He’s even staying in the same room.
I laugh through an almost cry that’s bubbled up in my chest.
“He’s there. Trying to escape life and wishing you were right there by his side. When I told him what I did, which he was not happy about, he was ready to pack his bags and come straight here himself, but I’ve convi
nced him to let you be and work out your feelings. I hope you’ll go there, and if nothing else, make your peace so you can both finally move on.”
“You chasing me down is how you let me work out my feelings?” I ask as I stare down at the ticket. A lot has happened in the last week. Heck, a lot has happened in the last few months. I know I feel something for Jack but will all this other stuff get in the way? I pick up the ticket, emotions stirring in me even thinking about going back there to the place where things were simple.
“I would assume that since the two of you slept together yesterday, that you had already been in the process of working out your feelings…”
“How do you know about that?”
“When I called Jack to confess he told me that my interference wasn’t necessary after all. He thought that the two of you were headed down a path that might lead you back together. He asked me to simply call, confess what I’d done and let the two of you work things out on your own.”
I chew on my lip as I stare at Amelia, now looking slightly embarrassed.
“Why are you here then?” I ask.
“Because I was already on the plane when I learned of all this.” She sighs as she sits on the bar stool next to me. “Robert and I have never had the kind of relationship that the movies portray. I sometimes regret falling into a routine that our normal is well… pacifying at best. You and Jack have that cinematic love that people root for, me included. Never did I see myself so wrapped up in my child’s relationship that I would lie, manipulate, and fly half away across the country on a red-eye flight to convince you that you’re made for one another. It’s not up to me whether you two get back together.” She takes my hand in hers with a shy smile. “I do hope you can forgive me for being too involved and just know that it’s out of love. I just want to see my children happy. I had already bought the ticket so feel free to use it if you wish, but no pressure from me from this moment on.”
