Forgive Me (28 page)

“When are you moving to Oklahoma?” he asks. His voice is low and morose. I’m going to miss Noble.

“Not until after the summer. I was offered a job in New York today and I accepted it.” The words pour out, finally accompanied by pride and joy. My excitement touches Noble and he smiles as well.

“Congratulations! But, how?” He doesn’t have to finish the question.

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m just trying to…”

I have no clue what I’m trying to do. And neither does Jason, which is scaring the hell out of him. Noble pulls me to him and we dance to the end of one song and when the second one starts, he doesn’t let me go. This will probably be my only dance of the night so instead of doing the proper thing, returning him to his date, I savor it.

“Did you ever figure out what we owe the dead?” he asks, still holding me close to him.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head and rest it on his shoulder. “But it can’t be more than we owe the living. Life’s too short to live it by someone else’s rules.” I feel safe with Noble.
They’d want me to be happy.

The song ends along with the portion of the night I’m allotted for dancing. Noble stands still and I bring my hands back to my sides.

“It’s time for a drink. Or are you getting ready to run off?” he asks as he leads me to the bar, and orders me a Jack and Coke.

“Not tonight. No big gestures tonight,” I say, and watch as the bartender places my drink on a bar napkin with my sorority’s motto printed on it:
Seek the Noblest
.

Noble leaves me to fend for myself at the perfect time. Enough alcohol’s been consumed to separate those who aren’t going to be together by the end of the night. It leaves plenty of people to mingle with and not be so absurdly alone.

As our new president takes the stage my phone rings. I silence it before getting it fully out of my purse and see it’s Jason. My heart stops for a moment.

I need him here tonight. Every night.

“For some of us, this will be our last party together,” our new president says, and it’s impossible to comprehend. My phone vibrates in my hand.

“Hug your sisters now, because you never know if tomorrow will come.”

“Nothing lasts forever, including our time together.” She pulls out every cliché, and all of them fit. Tonight is as much about grief as it is gaiety.

I rub the screen with my thumb and close my eyes. I can’t deny him now, or ever. The phone vibrates with his call and I walk to the back door. I follow the smokers out back and find a garden no one else has discovered. I look up at the now shimmering stars. There are a million. They shine on me with a calmness that sinks into my soul, and I answer his call.

“Hello.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. I check the screen, making sure the call connected.

“Jason,” I look back at the sky. It’s an incredible night.

“Annie.” His words come from behind me and a chill runs through me. Tears fill my eyes. I am frozen by his voice.

He wraps his arms around me from behind, and I let my head fall back to his shoulder.

“You’re here.”

“I should have been here all along,” he says into my ear, and I inhale deeply to steady myself. “I’m sorry, Annie.” I lower my head to the ground. I’m the one who should be sorry. The months of torture I’ve put him through to finally realize no fight is worth losing him.

Jason turns me around and kisses me with a tenderness that rarely exists between us. He holds me at arms’ length, staring at me with sad eyes. His face is drawn and masked by exhaustion. Large dark circles anchor his bloodshot eyes and sorrow has replaced any emotion I used to feel from my beautiful Jason Leer. I’m terrified I’ve actually beaten him down to the point of not fighting anymore. His chest is caved in and he’s small, a mere fraction of the Jason I’m in love with. It’s as if he’s given up, and the surrender has weakened his core.

He takes my face in his hands and his gaze, through battered gray eyes, scares me. For the first time in my life, he looks weak. He places his lips on mine, barely touching, and he starts to shake. Something is very wrong with my Jason Leer.

“Annie, I don’t deserve you,” he says, and it’s as if someone beat it into his head with a hammer last night.

“Clearly,” I joke, but Jason doesn’t laugh.

“I have to tell you something, Annie.” I kiss the side of his face, barely listening and surer than ever we’ll always be together. I can’t believe he’s here. “Something awful, Annie.” I look at him again. Love, hope, admiration, need, all flow through me. I’ve put him through so much. I run my thumb across his lips and watch him lower his eyes and hide from me.

“Forgive me,” he whispers.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” I shake my head, and kiss him.

“Annie—”

“Coming here tells me everything I need to know.” I take his hands from my face and wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him with the fire that keeps us together. Jason responds and lifts me to him and I can feel him. I can feel the old Jason coming through, and all my fears melt away at the presence of his lips on mine. He sets me back on the ground and I run my hands through his hair. “I love you. You’re all I’ll ever need, and nothing you say will
ever
change that.”

“Annie—” I kiss him again. Through with the talking, done with the truth. I love him.

“Do you feel that, Jason?” He nods his head in silence. “That’s ours alone.” Jason stares into my soul, working through the internal conflicts of our relationship. He is silent, and then his face changes and he pulls me to him. His arms around me so tight I can barely breathe. “I promise I’ll keep you safe.” He is squeezing the life out of me. “I promise,” he says, and kisses me, his body remembering my own.

“I know you will.”

I answer myself, and my mother, and Sean, and anyone else who questions exactly where I belong in this life. “I’ve always known I’m safe with you.”

I pack my bag the next morning to the sound of horns blowing on the street as one person has pissed off another with their driving. I drink in the yelling; the free driving lessons offered in North Jersey. The idea of moving, packing my things and really moving, to Oklahoma excites me. The thought of waking up on his arm warms me, and however the rest works out we’ll be together. The horn beeps again and this time profanities are included.

I’ll be back, my sweet Jersey. As often as I can.

W
hy the fuck is it so dark in here and what is that clicking? I think I’m going to throw up. Annie has to stop, or I’m going to throw up. I’m so cold. Annie’s so cold. Something’s wrong with her.

“Jason, it’s Annie,” the answering machine in the corner says.

I look at the person on top of me. Her breasts hang low and bounce from side to side as she rides me. She swings her head back at the voice on the machine and I see it’s Stephanie Harding.

“Stephanie?” I say, and try to remember how I got here.

“I love you,” Annie’s voice fills the room and I’m sure I’m going to be sick.

“I’m sorry I’m not there.” That’s right. She didn’t come; had to stay for her formal. “I’m sorry for so many things.”

“I’ve been so afraid of losing me, terrified I won’t be Charlotte anymore if I give in…if I surrender to you, that I almost lost you. But tonight I realized I’m nothing without you. You are the only thing I need. The only thing I want. And you consume me every minute of every day. With you, I am alive. Without you, I am not.”

Her words grind my stomach and I throw Stephanie off me as I run to the bathroom and gag into the shower, throwing up the tequila I poured down my throat tonight. The smell of it causes me to retch even with nothing left in me. I crouch on my hands and knees and I beg Jesus to make this all a bad dream.

“I may not belong with you Jason, but I belong to you. I’ll be home soon.” I hear float into the bathroom, and I want to die. How could this happen to Annie and me?

“Call me when you wake up in the morning.”

The smell of vomit is everywhere. I hang my head and realize there’s throw up all down the side of me.

“Jason, baby? You all right?” Stephanie’s annoying voice cuts me and I retch again.

No, I’m not all right.

Eliza Freed graduated from Rutgers University and returned to her hometown in rural South Jersey. Her mother encouraged her to take some time and find herself. After three months of searching, she began to bounce checks and her neighbors began to talk; her mother told her to find a job.

She settled into Corporate America, learning systems and practices and the bureaucracy that slows them. Eliza quickly discovered her creativity and gift for story telling as a corporate trainer and spent years perfecting her presentation skills and studying diversity. It’s during this time she became an avid observer of the characters we meet and the heartaches we endure. Her years of study have taught her laughter is the key to survival, even when it’s completely inappropriate.

She currently lives in New Jersey with her family and a misbehaving beagle named Odin. An avid swimmer, if Eliza is not with her family and friends, she’d rather be underwater. While she enjoys many genres, she has always been a sucker for a love story…the more screwed up the better.

August 14, Two Years Later

T
he pain in my head won’t stop. It’s a hammer pounding on the sides of my skull, gutting my existence. I wrap my arms around my head, holding it tightly, trying to thwart the pain. The room is completely black, but the hammering doesn’t mind the darkness.

I rock back and forth repeating, “Please, God, just make the pain stop. I’ll do anything if you just make it stop.”

Like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces…

Thanks be to God.

T
he roar of the plane about to hit my house wakes me. It won’t actually hit because the pilot will pull up just before impact and descend again on the other side. It’s deafening and somewhat frightening, even though I’ve heard it my whole life and know it won’t crash. It always reminds me of what WWII bombings must have sounded like. If only this crop duster would drop a bomb on my house.

The windows are open, the temperature having dipped into the low seventies last night. The breeze is still present this morning and the sheers covering my windows billow out on one side of the room and are sucked in on the other. I close my eyes and roll onto my stomach as the attack continues. Fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides…whatever it is…I should go out there and open my mouth. Drink it in. It’s better than opening my eyes. My stomach churns. It’s either a response to utter despair or the mere concept of another day beginning. When will the daybreak finally break?

The house phone rings, it must be 8 a.m. Every morning his calls begin at eight. As usual I don’t pick up, but the machine does.

“Annie,” my middle name on his lips cuts through me and I begin to cry again, “please pick up the phone.” His voice is low, tormented. “I love you.” I run to the bathroom and make it to the toilet just in time to throw up, a little bit getting into my hair. I can still hear his voice, but I can’t make out the words. My back aches as I try to stand and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My reflection is simply horrifying—bloodshot eyes, mangy hair, and dry, cracked lips. I look like I have a serious drug problem. I shrug at the fresh idea and go to my parents’ room to search their medicine cabinet for any kind of painkiller. As I walk into the hall I hear, “Not knowing where you are is killing me. I need you. I need to talk to you. I need to feel you, Annie.”

“Fuck you, Jason Leer,” I yell at an outdated answering machine.

No pills here. I wonder how difficult it would be to establish a “drug connection.” Apparently lots of people are hooked on drugs. It shouldn’t be too hard to get an addiction started. If I’m not going to kill myself, I’m going to need something to help me cope. This house is like walking around in an old photo, except my parents missing from the picture for the past two years.

I’ve always blamed the delivery truck driver for what happened, but everything’s different now. I completely understand the desire to be out of my mind on something. Perhaps the driver discovered his reason for living had sex with someone else, and he only knows about it because there’s a baby on the way. For the first time in two years I feel some empathy for him. See…there is a bright side.

I head back to my bedroom, but it’s just another source of agony. Last summer Jason spent almost every night in that bed. It’s still a little lower on the top left corner from the time we broke the frame. I walk over to the headboard and begin to untie the scarf he gave me last Christmas. It’s never been worn except on that first night when he tied my wrists to the bedpost with it. A dull aching in my pelvic bone subsides and I put the scarf in the pile on the floor with my semiformal dress, my Oklahoma sweatshirt, and some pictures of Jason and me.

I walk to the garage and get a screwdriver. The headboard detaches more easily than I thought it would. I put it next to my mattress with the other things that need to be destroyed.

“I hate you, Jason Leer.” This is my new daily affirmation. I should be looking in the mirror when I say it, but after that first glimpse, I can’t stand the sight of me.

I fall back on my bed and switch on my laptop; the homepage announces it’ll be sunny today with a big, happy sun. Yippee! It’s August 21, officially seven days since I heard the outstanding news, and I’m still not recovering as well as my brother would like.

I Google “Stages of Grief.” There are five, there are seven, there are none. There seems to be some dissent in the grief community.
Can nothing be easy?
I click on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages. It’s somewhat comforting she’s decided on only five stages of grief—less anguish on my part hopefully.

I leave the computer knowing I’m nowhere near the last stage, Acceptance. I’ll never accept what he’s done. What he’s done to me. He was supposed to protect me, to keep me safe. I walk to the mirror in the bathroom again, this time wanting to sadistically bask in the effects of Jason Leer’s actions. “What? I look awesome,” I say sarcastically as I wince at my reflection.

I am gross. My emerald-green eyes replaced by blood-drenched circles surrounded by black shadows. My hair, once long and lustrous, is a matted web atop my head. I think there’s a hair tie in there, but I’m no longer sure. There’s barely a trace of its former bright, blond color. Angry, selfish, and gross. No wonder he cheated on me with Stephanie. Oh yeah, and depressed. I can’t even move through my stages in an orderly fashion. Angry, selfish, gross, depressed, and disorganized. Wretched in general.

My pep talk is interrupted by a knock at the door. As is my new system of communication, I ignore it completely. Whoever the hell it is can continue to lead their life without interrupting my progress through the stages. I yawn and my lip cracks and starts to bleed.

I return to my computer and Google “Signs of Dehydration.” This is fun. Much better than moving all my things to Oklahoma to be with the man I love.

Loved.

Hate.

Want to set on fire.

I have one more week off from work for the move. A move from a city I love and an office I love. Six months it took. Six months of working insane hours with impeccable results to sell my boss on the idea of me telecommuting from Oklahoma. Now I’ll have the pleasure of explaining why I’m still in NJ. First I’ll have to figure it out myself because when I can complete a thought it’s usually, “What the hell am I doing in my hometown?
Our
hometown. Mine, Jason’s, and that whore Stephanie who’s carrying his baby’s hometown.” I think I’ll just quit my job and focus full time on working through the disputed amount of grief stages.

The knocking stops and I head back to bed, exhausted by Day Seven of my new life.

“Hey, it’s your brother.” Sean comes into my room the same way he’s come in the last ten days, without me answering the door. “I heard you’ve been starting fires,” he says as if this is normal. “Camping out?”

“How did you hear that?” I sneer.

“By living in Salem County, that’s how. What are you burning?”

“Old clothes.” I don’t bother to even lift my head off the pillow. From this vantage point he looks much taller than his six-foot-one-inch height. Sean goes silent and I assume he gets the nature of the fire.

“Do you have any other old clothes to burn?”

“Am I breaking some sort of ordinance or something?” I mock.

“Actually, yes. The state of New Jersey is under a water-emergency restriction because of the drought. You can’t go around starting fires. You’ll burn the whole town down.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes because, even though I couldn’t care less how many towns burn down, I do care about Sean. He’s already lost his parents; he doesn’t need a bitch for a sister as well. I sit up in bed and my beautiful appearance registers on his face.

“Man, you look rotten.”

“Rotten or rotting?” I enunciate the last syllable. “Because I think I’m both.”

“Come out to the kitchen and eat. Michelle sent soup. She’s worried sick about you.”

I lower my eyes to my blanket in guilt.

“I wish she wasn’t. I wish neither of you were,” I say rather than I’m sorry because I’m a selfish beast. I follow Sean’s bearlike self to the kitchen. His usual lighthearted expression has been replaced with one of debilitating concern.

“Eat,” he says as if he’s not leaving until I do.

The soup is still warm and it burns the crack in my lip. The pain feels good. Maybe I’ll start hiring some of those people who will come to your house in leather and beat you.

“Look,” he starts, wringing his hands, “I have no idea how this feels, but I’m starting to grasp that it’s beyond shitty.” I nod just to help him out. “You’ve got to start showing some signs of…recovery.”

I keep eating silently.

“I’ve started researching facilities to send you to if you can’t turn this around. I don’t know what else to do. You won’t talk to anyone; you won’t take care of yourself.” Sean runs his hand through his blond hair and I become distracted looking at my own mange—it used to be the same color as his.

Angry, selfish, gross, depressed, disorganized, and crazy. It’s a new low. I like it.

Sean leaves. I promise to shower every day and head back to bed as I hear the phone ringing.