None of this makes any sense and the pain is unbearable.
When I lift up my head and wipe away some of the tears, Noah asks me to repeat the story again. I do in a little bit calmer manner, but when I get to what Sergeant Mallory just said, the tears begin to flow.
Noah pulls me close, holding me tightly and kissing the top of my head.
"It's going to be okay," he whispers in my ear over and over again.
The more he says it, the more I start to believe.
Maybe he's right.
Maybe it will be okay.
But what if it’s not?
The thought makes me gasp for air and hyperventilate, but he pulls me closer and presses me against his body until my breathing returns to normal.
"Thank you," I mumble and pull away when I feel a little better.
Our eyes meet and suddenly the fact that he believes me, just believes that something bad happened to my brother, is enough.
"Thank you," I whisper and kiss his cheek, one cheek and then another.
And then…our lips graze one another's ever so slightly.
"Jacqueline," a deep voice behind me reverberates.
I turn to see who it is, my worst fears becoming confirmed.
It is Dante.
25
Jacqueline
It takes me a moment to realize that it's actually Dante standing here looking at us.
How much has he seen?
How much has he witnessed? I have no idea.
The look on his face tells me that he had seen enough.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, knowing that I should go on the offensive so quickly.
"Why? Would you have gone upstairs with him if I didn't show up?”
I take a step away. The guilt overwhelms me, but I don't know how to make it better. It's like nothing makes sense.
"Nothing happened," I say.
"Yeah, nothing happened because I called you on it, because I showed up a couple hours too early. Hi, I'm Dante Langston, Jacqueline's boyfriend.” Dante extends his hand in Noah's direction.
Noah takes a step forward and shakes it. "I'm Noah Robacheck. I'm a friend of Jacqueline’s."
"An old friend?"
"An old boyfriend," Noah says, sticking a dagger in my heart.
I glare at him.
"Look, man, nothing happened.” Noah takes another step toward Dante.
"Don't tell me that. I was here.”
“You were spying on me?” I ask.
“I was watching you.”
I force myself to take a deep breath.
"She just got some bad news from Sergeant Mallory about her brother." Noah tries to explain.
"I was out there in the entrance for a while thinking that you're just friends, you're just comforting her but I can tell that it's much more than that, wasn't it, Jacqueline?"
"It's nothing like you think," I say, taking a step closer to him.
Dante is dressed in a suit, holding a carry-on bag. This is the work attire that he flew into Salt Lake City in not that long ago, but suddenly, it feels like a century has passed.
I need to make this better. I need to make up for what happened.
The problem is that I have no idea how.
"I'm going to go," Noah says, waving at me.
I give him a brief wave goodbye and wipe the rest of my tears off my cheeks. I'm still wet and cold and all I want to do is go upstairs and change out of these clothes but I don't know if Dante is going to follow me up there. I want to make this right.
"Look, I don't know what to say," I whisper. "I ran into him. He's an ex-boyfriend from high school and we were just reminiscing. Nothing happened. Then I got this call and he was comforting me. I told him about Michael and Sergeant Mallory, they couldn't find anything on the video tapes. They don't even know if it's a woman or man who delivered that letter. So, he just called and I was so upset and that's what you saw. All you saw was Noah comforting me."
“Don’t tell me what I saw,” he snaps.
I clench my jaw.
“I saw you kiss his cheek,” he continues. “I saw the way your eyes lingered on his. I saw you graze his lips. I saw all that, Jacqueline. All the intimacy, so don't tell me that it was nothing.”
I can’t argue with this.
“You're drenched. He's holding you. You had every obstacle in your way against that kiss. Half an hour later, you would have been in bed with him."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. That's the thing about ex-boyfriends; they bring up all of those sweet, wonderful memories of your past."
I hate the way Dante’s eyes narrow when he says that. He’s trying to hurt me and it's working.
"You're right. All of those great memories of when he cheated on me. Yeah, I just can't wait to get back to that,” I say sarcastically.
"He cheated on you?" Dante tilts his head almost in a robotic kind of fashion.
His neck extends forward toward me and I don't recognize the expression on his face. I don't even recognize him as a human being.
"That guy cheated on you and here you are twenty minutes later throwing away every wonderful thing that we have together. For what?"
"Nothing. I wasn't throwing away anything. He was just comforting me over Michael.”
“Don’t you remember when we talked about trust? And how important it is that we trust each other. How important it is that we don't lie to one another given… how we met."
"I don't know what you want me to say.” I gasp for air.
I hate every part of this.
I hate being here.
I hate standing before him, apologizing.
"We didn't even really kiss, Noah and I. Our lips touched a little, but that’s it. He was helping me through a hard time."
"You know that you're lying, right?" Dante asks, taking a step away. "You know that you're just justifying things that can't be justified. How would you feel if you were in my position, in my shoes? I show up here to surprise you, to show you Seattle, to thank you for going on the interview and this is how you repay me?"
"Fuck you," I say, throwing my finger in his face. "How about that? How about you just go fuck yourself?"
Something snaps, I grab my purse and I walk away from him, past the front desk and toward the elevators.
He tries to follow me, but the attendant asks for his ID card and room number and he doesn't have that.
"Jacqueline, wait!" Dante yells after me just as the doors close, but I don't open them again.
I'm pissed. I want him to go to hell.
When I get back to my room, I peel off my wet clothes and jump in the shower, crying for over half an hour. The hot water brings up my core temperature, but the tears feel hot against my skin as I get out.
I'm so angry with myself. I’m so angry with Dante first for coming here and surprising me, for invading my life, but also for catching me doing something so terrible.
What would I have done if he hadn't shown up?
How far would it have gone?
I want to believe that I would've pulled away, but it was hard enough to pull away from Noah before our lips touched.
Now, after that, if our mouths were on each other’s? I don't know what would have happened.
I hate myself for even thinking about it. I hate myself for cheating because that's what it is.
There are all these fake definitions of cheating; oral sex doesn't count, only actual intercourse does.
But my definition is a lot simpler. Noah and I were being intimate, we were flirting, we were only having fun in that romantic way.
It was so much more than reminiscing. I can deny it all I want, but I know the truth.
I know exactly what I was doing just like Dante does and that's why he was so angry and that's why he's so hurt because I shouldn't have done that. Our relationship is worth more and he's right.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and I bury my head in my knees.
Dante is right.
If he hadn't shown up, if he hadn't interrupted us, who knows how far it would have actually gone?
26
Dante
I show up in Seattle to surprise her. I get on the plane without making plans, but I know what hotel she's staying in.
I need to get out of Salt Lake City. I need to put this horrible thing that I've done behind me and get some clarity. I need to remember why I was doing any of this in the first place.
I arrive in Seattle in the evening, and I take a cab straight to her hotel. It's pouring, and I can't wait to take Jacqueline into my arms, kiss her, and love her, and maybe even ask her to marry me.
I've never felt this close to anyone before. I've never had such a connection. I know that what Jacqueline and I share is special.
It's worth holding onto these secrets. It's worth protecting all of this darkness.
I know that by being with her, the darkness will disappear, and finally, I'll be able to breathe.
I just have to give it some time. There's so much that I have not told her, and so much that she can never know, but I say to myself that it's all for the greater good. It’s all to make our relationship work.
I walk through the double doors of the five-star hotel just across the way from Vasko’s building. We haven't talked about how her interview went, but she did text saying that she had a good feeling about it.
I can't wait to take her into my arms and kiss her, and then climb into the shower and wash all of this darkness and death off of my hands, as if it were possible.
I head through the lobby, and then in the corner of the room, right across from the bar, I see them.
At first, the couple, and it takes me a little bit to recognize that it's actually Jacqueline and some guy.
Who is he? Why is he rubbing her back like that?
I stand by a column in the shadows just out of eyesight. I want to see what is really going on. This is so unexpected and out of the blue that I'm in a state of shock.
Jacqueline pulls up her head and the guy wraps his arms around her. He looks to be about her age, attractive, well off, judging from the clothes. His look is a bit more casual than what you see on guys in finance, so he must work in tech.
He holds her in that familiar way, and I know immediately that they're not strangers. He has held her before.
She buries her face in his shoulders, and he pats the back of her head. When she pulls away, he kisses the top of her head lightly, as a friend would.
I let out a little sigh of relief. Maybe that’s all it is.
But then when their eyes meet, something changes, something clicks, and everything is different.
They're not just friends.
There's a lot more to it, and it breaks my heart.
I watch them. Their intimacy is hard to deny.
Who is this guy? And why is she with him?
Anger rushes through me. I take a few steps closer and then she pulls away. I say something. She sees me.
My eyes narrow and hers widen. She bites her lower lip and she looks terrified.
She recoils from this man next to her who still has his arm around her shoulder. She walks up to me and she tries to make it seem like I didn't see what I saw but we both know the truth.
She tries to explain but the more she talks, the more I realize just how involved she is with him.
He doesn't walk away giving us time to speak so I turn away from her. She rushes after me, trying to make it right but all I want to know are the details.
Who is he?
Why is he here?
Why is everything suddenly so wrong?
Eventually Noah leaves and it's just the two of us in the lobby. We fight. She leaves and they stop me from following. I wait downstairs for a long time before she finally answers my calls, reluctantly inviting me upstairs.
I don't want to fight but I also don't want to leave mad.
I follow her up to her room and we sit on the edge of the bed, opposing one another with our backs to each other.
She had tried to make things right, still is trying but something is shifting within me. Something is changing and it's almost as if whatever forgiveness I was capable of earlier is getting further and further away.
"Maybe it's better this way," I say to myself in the silence, "maybe it's better if this is where we leave things."
I haven't been looking for a way out.
In fact, I came here wanting to ask her to marry me, but the truth is that I have my own secrets to keep and perhaps the only way that I can keep them is to just push her away.
"You don't understand," Jacqueline says, turning to face me.
Her voice is smooth as silk, calm. The tears are gone.
"Noah and I were in love and things went awry. He cheated on me and we never talked about it and we sort of let our relationship fall apart."
"So is that what you were doing? Making up?" I ask, immediately regretting that line. I shouldn't have let it slip, but I did.
"No, it's not that. I realize that I don't want him, I want you. He was just comforting me over the news that I got about Michael, but nothing was going to happen."
"Something already did," I say, turning to face her.
I straighten up my back and I unbutton one button on my jacket to let it fall apart in front of me.
She swallows hard and I see her lower lip trembling.
"I saw how intimate the two of you were. I saw how gentle he was and I saw that kiss."
"It wasn't a kiss," she cuts me off.
"It was a kiss. His lips grazed yours, yours slightly touched his, whatever you want to call. It was delicate and light but it was a kiss. And if I hadn't come in, it would have become something else."
“So, you're going to punish me for what could have happened that didn't?"
"No, I'm going to punish myself for walking in and breaking you two up," I say quietly.
I stare out in the distance.
She moves over closer, her body is right next to mine.
I can feel the heat emanating from her.
"You're just going to let me go?" she asks, looking both crushed and angry at the same time. "You're just going to push me away over what? Nothing. It was a tiny indiscretion, if you can even call it that and you're going to hold that against me. For taking solace in a friend and having him comfort me in my time of need?"
"You're telling me that you and Noah don’t have feelings for each other?"
"I just ran into him. I haven’t seen him or thought about him in years. Of course, I don’t have feelings for him."
"You're telling me you didn't want to kiss him?"
"What does that matter?" Jacqueline says after a long pause. "You're holding something against me that I didn't even do and it's not fair."
She's right of course, more right than she can ever know.
The truth is that I hate this person that I've become. I did something good for her. I paid for her mother's treatment and in doing that, I was brought into a world that I’d done my best to get away from.
Darkness enveloped me and I had to do the unthinkable, something robotic. I had to take a man's life, something that I had promised myself I would never do again.
So yeah, maybe I am pushing her away.
Maybe I don't want her in my life because I don't want her to see this other part of me.
I need to protect her. I need her to believe that I'm still this wonderful person that I wanted her to know and not this dark force responsible for more death and destruction than she could ever know.
This is my way out.
I know this now.
I'm going to take it because I'd rather have her think that I'm a good person than to know the truth. I'd rather have her miss me for who she thinks I am than to have her be disappointed by the darkness that I've become.
Tears flow down her face and I know that she feels like something's wrong. I'm pushing her away and she knows it but she doesn't know why.
I walk away
, out of the door and disappear down the street.
It's easier to cry when the weather outside matches what you're feeling on the inside. It's easier to cry when the rain collides with every fiber of your being. This way it’s also easier to pretend that you didn't just lose the one thing in your life that made any sense.
I walk for a while.
I walk until my feet start to feel soggy and tired and then I walk some more. I need space. I need this time to myself.
I came to Seattle to ask her to marry me, but I'm leaving the broken person that I have always been.
I don't deserve her.
Jacqueline deserves nothing but happiness and love and light and I know now, especially after what happened in Salt Lake City, that I'll never be able to provide that for her.
27
Jacqueline
The following morning, I wake up and I don't want to. My face is puffy, I'm exhausted. I haven't slept much, waking up practically every hour and thinking about everything that I did wrong.
Did this really happen? Did we really break up? I have so many regrets, and yet I have no idea what I can do about any of them.
The day is dreary, black almost. I want to get out of here as soon as possible but my flight is not until later tonight.
I have a few missed calls from Noah, but none from Dante. I am sure he is still mad and I need him to talk to me.
I begin to cry when I think about him wanting me gone.
He was so angry. I can tell that he was holding it all in, that his anger was bubbling somewhere inside him.
What does this mean? Does this mean that we're actually over?
I force myself to take a shower, but I can't bring myself to dry my hair. Instead, I just sit down on the edge of the bed and bury myself in my grief. I cry for a long time that morning. And when I stop, the darkness continues to envelop me. I have to make this right somehow.
But how? Was Dante right about everything? What would have happened with Noah if he hadn't walked in?
I don't know, but a part of me is also angry at Dante. He had no right to just break up with me. There's so much more that we haven't discussed that we haven't talked about.
Dark Sins Page 12
