Changing Course (38 page)

I love him. I could have gotten over him calling me Sarah, if he told me how he really felt about me. About us. Brett fought harder to make me stay months ago when we had only been on one date. This time he had nothing to say. He looked at me with no more words than he had emotions. No sun and fog romantic speech. Tonight, I got a hug and nothing but bone chilling silence. He's always says I make his world go silent. So I guess it's a fitting end for us.

I tried to do what my mom, Caleb, and Kara all urged me to do. I tried to give him time. Granted, five months isn't long, but it's all I have to give. It took me half of that to realize I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I knew this was going to be hard. He told me he couldn't commit or make me any promises, but I thought we had moved passed that. We've come a long way since that night by his car when I poured my heart out to him. Heck, we might as well be living together. But tonight said it all. All I've ever done is fight for us. In the beginning I was willing to do that because Brett was fighting too.

Now, as I walk down the cold street trying to hail a cab, I see it all too clear. Sarah is the only woman Brett will ever truly fight for.

Brett

T
HE PAIN
in my chest is unbearable. The noises of the world are swirling around my head. I've now officially failed both of the women who have trusted me with their heart. Sarah might be the broken one, but I'm damaged beyond repair too. I won't be the same after Jesse. There is no way I can put myself out there just to selfishly crush another unsuspecting woman. Why the hell couldn't I just open my mouth and fucking tell her how I feel? I know I feel...something. I just can't figure out what that something is.

I snatch my phone off the table, and try to stop myself from dialing her number. Maybe I should call and apologize. And tell her what? That I still can't give her what she wants from me. It's been five fucking minutes. Nothing has changed. Instead, I dial Caleb.

"What's up?" he thankfully answers. It's Saturday night. There was no guarantee he wouldn't be in the middle of banging his way through the female population of Chicago.

"I need a drink."

"I'm kind of busy, can we do it tomorrow?" I hear a woman's voice in the background. Obviously, I was right about his activities tonight.

"Jesse left."

"To go where?"

"I called her Sarah and she bolted. I'm pretty sure we're done. I need to get drunk, or I'm going to end up destroying my apartment. You in or not?"

"Shit! I'm about twenty minute away. Want to meet at the bar?" he says as the woman begins to whine in the background.

"Sounds good."

"Hey, what did you say to her after you called her Sarah?"

I let out a loud sigh, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"Fuck, you're an idiot. I'll be there soon."

"Thanks," I reply but he already hung up.

T
WENTY MINUTES
later I sit at the bar relishing in the burn as Jack Daniels slides down my throat.

"She loves you, what the hell are you doing sitting here with me?" Caleb asks when I finish telling him the whole story. Usually Caleb and I would bullshit about work or football, but as much as it pisses me off, he and Jesse are close.

"She left," I say, annoyed.

"So?" he responds like I'm the biggest dumbass in the entire state of Illinois. He's probably not too far off the mark tonight.

"What was I supposed to do? I can't tell her I love her!" I yell, slapping against the bar for another shot.

"And you think that's the only thing that would make her stay? Not, ‘I'm crazy about you’ or ‘I'm fucked up but I don't want to be with anyone else’?" he says, pulling away the new shot in front of me and tossing it back.

"She knows all of that!" I motion to the bartender to keep the drinks coming. If ever there was a night to get rip roaring drunk this would be it.

"She's not asking for an engagement ring, asshole. She wants a commitment. She wants reassurance that this isn't temporary to you because it sure as hell isn't to her."

"I have to say your knowledge about how my girl feels is highly disturbing."

"Well, if you two would get your shit together and stop dragging me into the middle, maybe I wouldn't know any of this." I rest my head in my hands and stare down at the bar.

"You think she'll take that? Just a commitment of some sort?"

"Nope." He takes a sip of his scotch on the rocks. "But I do think she would accept a real commitment. None of that ‘some sort’ bullshit. Is that something you think you can give her?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly.

"Then take a few days and figure it out."

"I can't go a few days without her."

"Jesus Christ, open your fucking eyes, Brett! You're so caught up on the semantics of what a commitment means, you're missing the fact that you've already committed. You spend every waking minute with Jesse. You’re terrified to move on from Sarah, but you've already done it. It's done! Man up and recognize it!" he says, growing more and more pissed.

"Fuck, Sharp! The hard part is done!" he repeats again, pulling out his wallet and throwing money on the bar. "I need to go. If I knew this was going to be a poor-pitiful-Brett party, I never would have left the blonde who was begging me to fuck her. Get your shit together and say you’re sorry. Just don't fuck with Jesse’s head. She's a good girl who deserves way more than this bullshit you’re spouting right now."

He heads toward the door, but only gets a few steps before turning back to ask, "You drive here?"

I shake my head but stay focused on my drink as I hear him walk away.

"You alright?" the bartender asks.

"Hell no, but I need the check."

I
T'S ONE
in the morning when the cab pulls up in front of Jesse's apartment. She lives on the first floor and I can see the light still on through the small rectangular window next to her door. I walk up and gently tap, not wanting to wake Kara. The curtain slides and I see her face peek around the side. Her eyes are puffy and she looks exhausted.

"Go away, Brett."

"Never."

"Fine. It's supposed to be seventeen degrees tonight. Try not to freeze." She flips off the light.

"I'm not going anywhere, so I hope you can deal with my frozen body blocking your doorway in the morning." I try to joke, but I get no response.

I slide down the wall and sit next to her door. The sidewalk is freezing, but I'm not going home without her. "I know you’re still there, gorgeous," I say to the door. "I'm sorry. I know I say that a lot. I'm sorry for that too. Just talk to me."

"I can't do this anymore," she responds.

"Then let me say goodbye to your face," I lie. No way am I saying goodbye tonight.

I'm about to open my mouth again when I hear the click of the dead bolt. The door only swings open a few inches, and I see timid Jesse from months ago shyly standing in the darkness. I try to catch her eye, but she won't look up at me.
Shit, this is bad.

I can feel my own heart banging around in my chest. What if I'm not able to fix this? I know she doesn't want me to come in, but I'm not having this conversation in the breezeway. Careful not to hurt her, I push open her door wide enough for me to squeeze inside.

"Brett!" she yells as I close the door behind me.

"Sorry, gorgeous. Add it to the list. I've got things to say, and I need you to listen.” I'm lying. I still have no idea what the hell I'm going to say. Why do I never plan this shit out?

"Come here." I pull her into my arms.

"Have you lost your freaking mind?" She moves out of my reach. "Say what you need to say, then leave."

It's now or never. Time to dig deep and figure this out. I need to fix this with Jesse so I can escape this screwed-up existence I call a life. I've learned over the last four years there is no escaping it, this really is my life. Suck as it might, you either live it or leave it. I glance over at the tiny brunette leaning against her kitchen counter with a glare that should be melting my face. Somehow it just makes me smile instead. She looks like a tiny, pissed off fairy–a description that would surely earn me even more of her pixie wrath. As my eyes slide over her, I realize that leaving Jesse isn't an option. Caleb was right, I've committed.

I walk to the kitchen cabinet, grabbing Kara's bottle of Vodka, and pour us both a shot. I'm going to need this if I am possibly going to get through this conversation. I'm about to rock her world, and I know because this revelation just rocked mine.

Tipping back the glass and pushing one towards her, I start. "Jess, I had a wife and I loved her with every fiber of my being. She was my life for seven years. She was my best friend, and I miss her...a lot. Yes, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Sarah, but it didn't work out that way. She’s gone, forever. You can't hold that against me. I lost her four years ago, but it took meeting you to realize I lost myself on that same damn night."

Jess starts nibbling on the edge of her thumb nail nervously like she so often does.

"What if one day she changes her mind? I mean...what if she isn't really gone."

"Yes, she is still breathing, but the woman I loved is dead. Jess, I can't change my past. I was lucky enough to meet a woman at twenty-one, fall in love with her, and spend seven of the best years of my life with her. Did you know we planned to have three kids? We had all these silly names picked out. There was supposed to be a little Danika and Hephzibah running around tearing shit up right now. God, those names were ridiculous," I smile and laugh to myself.

"She wanted unusual names, something about her name being so plain, and I could not have given two shits what she named them. They were going to be ours, and that was enough for me. We wanted to move to Georgia. Live on the coast. Buy a big house on the water, and spend our weekends lounging on the dock arguing about who won last night’s Jeopardy challenge. That is all I have ever known about my future. Those were our plans. Then one day I woke up, and just like Sarah, everything was gone," I pause to take a breath and Jess pounces.

"Jesus Brett, why are you telling me this? This is exactly our problem. You're sitting here reminiscing with a Cheshire cat grin on your face. You have dreams, and the perfect little story-book life of you and Sarah in your head. How am I supposed to compete with that? I struggle every single day knowing I have to share you with her. I can't do this, I can't be her replacement." She wipes a tear away from her eyes while scanning the room for an escape. "You need to go."

"Please shut up...it's about to get better, I swear." I take two steps closer, effectively blocking the doorway in case she decides to run.

"No, you need to leave." She crosses her arms over her chest in an adorable display of attitude.

"Christ Jess, stop running. You are always running from me, just hear me out. I have a point. I'm not trying to rub anything in your face."

"I don't want to hear you out!" she shrieks in a tone unlike anything I have ever heard before. "Call me a quitter or whatever you want, but I can't live like this. Everything I do, it always flashes through my mind 'what would Sarah do.' She was your perfection. She was your happily ever after. It's fucking exhausting living in her shadow. I can't do it anymore. I love you, I really do. But damn...at some point you have to say enough is enough. This," she frantically waves her finger between us, "is not working."

I run my fingers through my hair as I look around the room, hoping for some sort of divine intervention.

"Clearly, we are having some sort of miscommunication because this," I wave my finger between the two of us the same way she did, "is very much working."

"No it's not. This relationship is crap. I am the only reason it's even a relationship at all. If it were up to you we would be nothing more than friends who have sex. I'm sick of pushing you for more. It's not going to happen and I have to accept that. I get that you're scared. You had your life snatched out from under you. I can even see why you would be hesitant to get back into a relationship. If things had slowed down back in September, none of this would be happening right now. You can't honestly think we have been taking this slow.

"I'm not some crazy woman who's in a rush to get married and settle down. I'm definitely not trying to force you into some big serious relationship if you aren't ready. Brett, it kills me that you are the only one who doesn't recognize how you feel. I can see it in your eyes, I'm not stupid. I know you love me. I can feel it when you make love to me. Yep, I said it. It's making love when we do it, not fucking!"

She pauses to take a deep breath, and just as she did earlier, I jump in before she can say anything else.

"Did you just say fuck?" I ask at what I will later learn to be, 'completely the wrong time.'

"Oh my God, did you not hear anything else I said?"

"I'm sorry, I've just never heard you say fuck before...and you just said it twice," I reply laughing, which only serves to piss her off more.

"Yep, that's it! I'm done here. You can sit there laughing it up that you made good girl Jesse Addison say fuck. Congratulations, jackass. You will have plenty of alone time to bask in your triumphant glory, because I quit!" Finally her eyes land on her car keys across the room and I know it's time.