A Bridge of Her Own (6 page)

Lacey got her eating and somewhat talking by lunch time. She briefly explained the interactions with Wyatt’s family at the beach. Lacey was dumbstruck. How was she going to be able to reach Jane when Jane could not even acknowledge how dysfunctional that family unit was? Lacey could not understand how Jane was certain she had done something wrong.

In an effort to not upset Jane further or quite frankly lose it, Lacey brought up their approaching senior year for discussion. There was life after this, Jane lamented.
Lacey was not used to being the least dramatic friend in the room. This really worried her. She even contemplated recommending that Jane speak to a professional, but she didn’t want to offend her.

Lacey made spaghetti and put a comedy on. She watched Jane eating like a hawk. Thankfully, there seemed to be some sign of her appetite returning. Afterward, she set up the sofa for Jane to sleep on and went to bed. She woke to Jane sobbing just before midnight. Shaking off sleep, she went to her. Jane was a blubbering mess just beside herself over the loss of Wyatt.

Jane was ashamed that she had woken Lacey up. She just could not control the pain she was feeling. She felt as though she had reached a bottom and was coming to terms with what was going on. Then, it would drop out from under her again, and she would crash through space, fearfully awaiting the impact of a new deeper bottom. Her first bottom was the fear of what other people would think.

Obviously, Wyatt was perfect, so everyone would think it was her fault, and that she had done something. She wondered if she should move her things out of their apartment. She wanted to get everything out before he was back in town but also leave it in the hopes he would have to contact her to arrange some sort of pick up. Then there came the shame of not having her mother feel as proud as she had been. Now, it was the reeling terror of not being sure what to do with
herself. Three days ago, she had an identity and a future all laid out for herself. She truly believed she would be the future Mrs. Wyatt Huntington III.

Now she was just Jane Martin with no plan and no future. That was scary. Sometime after three, they finally drifted back to sleep on the couch. When Lacey woke up the next morning she wondered to herself if this was not unlike waking up each night with a newborn. She suddenly felt much more empathy to any new parent she had ever met because she was exhausted and praying for a full night of sleep tonight.

Jane was very subdued that morning and felt so dehydrated she didn’t think she could cry, even if she wanted to. Lacey brought her a bowl of Fruit Loops, and it struck Jane at that moment how much she actually missed Fruit Loops. She recalled reaching for a box while out shopping with Wyatt, and he had made fun of her, questioning her opinion. He had prompted her to choose a sensible no flavor wheat cereal instead. She hated that cereal. It tasted like cardboard. But Jane remembered at that moment that Lacey had never really liked Fruit Loops. She was more of a Cocoa Puffs girl.

“Fruit Loops?”
Jane asked.

“They grew on me,” was all Lacey would say.

She savored her Fruit Loops and apologized to Lacey for waking her up again. Lacey said that whether she liked it or not they were venturing out today. Jane pouted, and Lacey pointedly ignored her.

“Jane it is a beautiful day
out, and this complex has a pool. So grab a book and borrow my frumpiest bathing suit and let’s go." Lacey had an extensive swim wear collection, so Jane was able to borrow a simple black one-piece while Lacey opted for a fire engine red bikini.

Even though Jane had plenty of suits, they were all at her parent’s house. She had not thought to bring one when Lacey invited her over. It was early, so the pool area was almost empty, but it was going to be a very hot day out. The calm was not going to last long. They selected a couple of lounge chairs with a good early sun angle. After applying sunscreen, Lacey flipped through a magazine while Jane continued the book she had started at the beach. There was still sand in the binding. It made it hard not to obsess about the beach when it seemed to almost be following her.

She wondered how Wyatt was doing. Was he missing her? Did he even care? That last question was too painful to consider. She got up after a while and went to put her feet in the water to cool off. Lacey got up and came to join her.

“Yikes, it’s hot
out,” she said “My feet are burning just walking over here."

Jane smiled in response and then said, “Lacey, I really appreciate you being there for me."

At the threat of another onslaught of eminent tears, Lacey interrupted, “No need to say anything else. I got you babe."

Jane wiped her eyes and leaned her head on Lacey’s shoulder. After a few moments, she and Lacey got back up and went to lie back down. Lacey fussed around trying to get comfortable and then, noticing a group of attractive guys over by the vending machine, was suddenly very thirsty and in immediate need of a bottle of water. Jane watched her, envious. Where did that confidence come from?

She never seemed to care if a guy liked her or not (and they always did). Could that be learned? How did you just not care what other people thought of you? Lacey was heading back over.

“So two of those guys over there asked about you,” she said, sitting down.

“Liar,” Jane said, turning a page in her book.

“I would never lie to you,” Lacey huffed. The idea of any guy other than Wyatt was something Jane was not ready to accept at this point.

Lacey went on. “I heard somewhere that the best way to get over one man is to get under another,” she said, winking.

Jane scrunched her nose at her and got up again to put her feet in the water. She glanced over at the group of guys Lacey had referred to and was surprised to see a couple of them wave at her. She smiled back, thinking: could it really be that easy? No. She was heartbroken. There would be no one else for her ever. She would spend the rest of her days as an old maid. Maybe even adopt a few cats.

She was aroused from her daydream by a young man swimming over to where she sat. She contemplated jumping up and running back to her lounge chair, but he was already too close to her for her to get away in time.

“Hello,” he began, leaning against the side of the pool.

“Hi,” Jane returned.

“I’m Caleb,” he said, putting a hand out.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jane."

They spoke for a couple of minutes, and all Jane could think was he seemed nice, but he had nothing on Wyatt. He asked what she and Lacey were doing later and mentioned that he and his friends were having a barbeque if they would like to come. Jane told him she would check with Lacey and let him know. With that, he swam back over to his friends, and Jane got up to go lay back down.

“Hey, I saw that guy talking to you,” Lacey said as she opened her book. “What’d he want?”

“We have been invited to a barbeque they are having tonight,” Jane replied.

“Do you want to go?” Lacey inquired excitedly.

Jane gave her a look like “What do you think?”

Lacey shrugged. “Come on. I think it would be good for you."

“I’ll think about it,” was the best Jane could do. “Can we please go inside now? I think I might melt." Jane moaned.

“Fine, but first let me go find out a little bit more about this shin-dig,” Lacey said, sashaying back over to the guys.

Jane packed her and Lacey’s stuff up then walked over and waited for her by the exit. Lacey, seeing her, headed over and gave her the details on the way back up to her apartment. Jane really wasn’t interested in going but could acknowledge staying in and obsessing about what went wrong would not assist her in moving on. She didn’t want to admit to Lacey that she did not want to move on. She was at least able to recognize how desperate or sad that made her appear. Lacey had absolutely seen her at her worst, but even then, Jane was too embarrassed to say that out loud.

Lacey and Jane took turns showering and then shared a bag salad with roasted chicken morsels for lunch. After that, Lacey took a nap feeling very drained from the sun. Jane, taking advantage of time when she was not being watched, went to check her email. She was secretly hoping to have some sort of communication from Wyatt. Unfortunately, the only new email was from her mother. It mentioned trying to get a hold of her via cell phone multiple times.

It made Jane realize she had not even seen her phone since she got to Lacey’s. She tore through her bags and it was nowhere to be found. She raced out of the apartment down to her car, and when she opened the driver’s side door, she spied her phone in the door well. When she went to check it, she groaned, realizing it was dead. Shutting her door and beeping her car, she raced back up to Lacey’s apartment and attached her phone to its charger.

It was so drained it would not even turn on. It just gave her a message that, once there was enough of charge, it would automatically turn on. She sat on the sofa switching off from watching Lacey’s bedroom door to see if she was awake to checking her phone to see if it had turned on yet. She remembered a saying about a watched pot never boiling, so she went back to the computer to finish reading the email her mother had written.

It went on to say that Wyatt had been trying to reach her and had actually even called her parents trying to track her down. Her mother was dumbstruck that Jane would treat Wyatt this way, as he was trying to fix whatever had happened at the beach. Jane was in agony. Her phone was still charging and finding out that Wyatt had tried to reach her and she had been unavailable to him killed her inside.

He would never believe that her phone was in her car this whole time. He might not forgive her now that he had to think she was ignoring him. Her manic pacing must have woken Lacey up because she was now coming out of her room rubbing her eyes.

“What is all this noise?” She was struck by the look of sheer distress on Jane’s face. “Jane, what’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.

Jane pointed to the email from her mother, still open on the computer. Reading it, Lacey felt her shoulders sag. So Wyatt was trying to get Jane back, she thought mentally preparing herself for her friend to once again be removed from her.

“Where was your phone?” she asked.

“In my car,” Jane replied. “It’s charging right now, but it was so dead that it still will not turn on."

“Well…” Lacey began “How do you feel about what happened with Wyatt?”

Jane furrowed her brows in confusion. Didn’t Lacey understand this was the solution to all of her problems? “What do you mean?” She answered.

“Are you sure you and Wyatt are right for each other?” There. She said it out loud, Lacey thought, cringing as Jane stared at her open-mouthed.

“That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. Of course we are right for each other."

“I mean are YOU really happy with Wyatt?” Lacey went on.

“I’ve only been unhappy right now without him,” Jane cried.

“Are you going to ditch me again if you get back together?”

Jane exhaled. She could not deny that she had absolutely chosen Wyatt in her life over Lacey. But doesn’t that happen with a lot of couples? You start dating someone seriously and have different interests as a couple than you once had as a single person. Maybe it was just inevitable that she and Lacey would outgrow each other. However, she could not deny that when every other person in her life had failed her, it was Lacey that she ran to.

The long silence was enough for Lacey

“Forget about it. Do what you want." She muttered.

“Wait!” Jane replied. “I don’t know how it will work, but I can tell you one thing. If Wyatt and I do get back together, I will not allow our friendship to be affected like I did before. I promise. Besides, Wyatt probably will not want anything to do with me. He must think I’m ignoring him."

Hopeful, Lacey asked “You don’t think he would believe you didn’t have your phone on you?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said, still looking at her phone miserably.

“Well if you do get back together, what needs to change so that a repeat of whatever happened at the beach doesn’t just happen again?” Lacey asked.

She had a point, Jane thought. She did love Wyatt but had no such attachment to his parents. Plus, they had all actually considered she had been making advances to random people on the beach. How could he ever think that? And, if she could not trust him, what hope would they even have in getting married?

She still had not told Lacey everything that had happened down at the beach house. Besides, if she told her now it would possibly poison her opinion of Wyatt or his family. She decided to wait and see what Wyatt had said, if anything, once her phone was charged. Her phone chirped with life as it turned itself on. She watched it go through all of the startup functions. Leaving it still plugged in, she checked her voicemail first. Multiple messages. The first was from her mother. Delete. She already knew what her mother wanted.

The next one was from Wyatt, and he had called on the day she had arrived at Lacey’s. He had said that he was upset at the way they had left things, and he felt he had acted rashly in asking her to leave and to call him. The next message was from Wyatt again about four hours after the first message. He had reiterated wanting her to call and had even apologized this time.