Between Black and Sunshine (25 page)

I can’t believe the words that are coming out of Jude’s mouth. I can’t imagine how it felt to hear those things- the hell it must have been for her. For the first time I realize I should have been there for her. If I had been she wouldn’t have needed Clara. But I was too busy wallowing in my own depression. I wasn’t thinking about Jude in the right way. I didn’t consider that she might need me. I assumed that she had Anton.

“I stayed there and let her hold my hand and touch my face and my leg as she talked about Luca, feeling sick all the while. When I couldn’t handle anymore I left. I stayed away for a few days, but the voices came back and my need to feel Luca took over.

“Even though I told myself I would never see her again, I went. And this time I stayed. And while I was there I think I unintentionally entered into an emotionally intimate relationship with her. I don’t know. It’s all still really messed up in my head. But I stayed there, with the woman that I believed was in a relationship with Luca, until I found out the truth. Until she told me that he was in love with Jude.”

I’m staring at Jude as her eyes shift to her lap. “I forgot to mention… I had told her my name was Blanca,” she laughs. “What a stupid name. But the words Luca and Clara were constantly running through my head and I just kept thinking how perfect they sounded together. I wanted to be part of that so I told her my name was Blanca. Luca, Clara, Blanca. I wanted to be part of them. But I let it go too far. It wasn’t until I finally left and went back to the studio that I could see what had happened. And that’s when Luca showed up.” She stops then.

My mind is buzzing with a million emotions. The pain that Jude went through. That she went through with Clara. The position she put herself in. Because of me.

“Luca,” Rose says, forcing me to look away from Jude. “How did you feel when you found out about the relationship that Jude and Clara became involved in?

“I was pissed off. I had heard plenty about Blanca from Clara and when I found out that Blanca was Jude, I felt betrayed.”

“Did you tell Jude this?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Jude, what was your reaction when Luca told you how he felt?”

“I was relieved at first because he finally knew. Then I felt destroyed because I knew that he would not be able to forgive me. Then, I thought for a minute that he was going to blackout, that he was going to hit me, and so I felt relief again.”

“You felt relief that he was going to hit you?”

“Yeah. Like I said before… the anger, the physical pain, had become a relief. I preferred it over the sadness of losing, or in this particular case, hurting, Luca.”

I cringe at her words.

“Did Luca hit you?”

“No. It was stupid to think that he would.”

“But he did hit you once. I’m sorry Luca, I know that’s hard for you to hear.”

I smile tightly at Rose.

“He didn’t know he was hitting me. He thought he was hitting Anton. He would never hurt me on purpose. He’s spent his whole life protecting me.”

“Yes, he has,” Rose agrees. I obviously can’t agree. “I think we should take a moment and focus on that. Let’s end this session with something positive- the fact that Luca has always protected you.

“Luca had suppressed a lot of memories of his early childhood, especially where you were concerned. But in a session last week he started to remember. One of his memories was of the first time he met you. You were playing tag and had followed Luca into your stepfather’s garden.  Your stepfather saw you and his reaction was to physically assault you. Jonah and Luca brought you inside and took care of you, do you remember this incident?”

“Yes,” Jude says, smiling at me. Why is she smiling about a memory of getting beaten?  

“Can you tell me about it?” Rose asks.

She answers Rose, but she’s looking at me. “That’s my first memory, my first real memory. Not the beating. But I remember waking up in Jonah’s room. Jonah was on one side of me, his arm was around me. And another hand, another body, another arm was clinging to the other side of me.
Two people,
I remember thinking
, two people who love me
. I was happy, I remember being really happy.

“And then I turned to see who the other person was and Lucas’s eyes were staring right at me. I could feel that he loved me, like Jonah did. I loved him too. I was only five and it never occurred to me that you couldn’t love someone you didn’t know. But that isn’t true I guess, because I know what I saw in his eyes was love and I know that the feeling in my heart was love. In that moment I felt completely and perfectly loved for the first time. It’s a good memory. I’ve had plenty of bad memories since then, but my first memory is love.”

Tears fall down my face. I can feel them, but I can’t get myself to wipe them away. I can picture her so clearly, this memory that I had suppressed for so long. I can feel the instant her five-year-old eyes met with my seven-year-old eyes and I know that it was the exact moment I fell in love with her. This feeling, this constant connection that I’ve had with her through everything, this feeling that has always been there, that I always thought was the need to protect her wasn’t that at all. It was love. “I’ve loved you since that moment,” I whisper. She raises her hand to my face and wipes away my tears.

“Why are we always holed up somewhere?” I ask Luca. I’m not complaining, obviously, just wondering out loud. Currently we are holed up in his bedroom. We have been for five days. The first one spent entirely sleeping. Every day since then has been spent here in this bed, mostly awake. We only leave when we’re hungry or have to shower. Or for our morning meetings with my personal savior, Dr. Rose.

“You want to go somewhere? We can go wherever you want, sweet girl, just tell me where.”

I snuggle into his warm, naked body. “Someday, maybe. Not today,” I tell him.

I can’t see his smile, but I can feel it as he pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head.

I don’t know how this is possible, considering all the shit that’s happened, but Luca and I are right again. Somehow we seem to be recovering from all of our mistakes.

According to Dr. Rose, Luca and I are only complete when we are together. When she uttered those words it sounded so wrong. Not because I didn’t believe it, but because it didn’t sound like a scientific fact. And facts are how Rose always explains things. But as she kept talking I realized that it was – a scientific fact.

She explained that from early on in our childhood, since that first day we met, our lives became intertwined because we were so young and impressionable and because the emotions we experienced on that day were so intense, too intense for our young minds to process. That that event created a deep seeded mental (because I had gotten beat by Arnie and Luca was forced to watch it and then help me heal) and physical (our small bodies had connected in a mature caring and loving way) bond that became part of our neurological makeup. She says it’s rare, but it happens, that it’s been proven.

She talked about chemistry, hormones, oxytocin, vasopressin, limbic systems and neurotransmitter dopamine. All words that mean nothing to me, but that I stashed away in my memory because it’s proof – that Luca and I are meant to be together.

We are part of each other. Like, literally part of each other. She didn’t say it like that. She wouldn’t say it like that. But it’s true. I’ve always felt that. Even after he left me, I felt him inside of me. Just like I feel Jonah inside of me. And apart from him, when I felt like he was really gone, part of me went with him. I literally felt like a chunk of me was gone.

If that wasn’t enough reason for Luca to believe that we were made for each other, than there was Rose’s other theory. The one Luca mentioned that first night he showed back up at the studio. Rose believes that Luca has the potential to free himself of his anger issues, of his states of mania, if he’s with me. She and Luca had already realized that I was his trigger- the one and only thing that caused him to enter his ugly violent states. She believes that if he knows that I am with him, completely safe with him, then eventually he will be able to let go of his overwhelming need to protect me. He agreed, apparently for the first time judging by Rose’s reaction. He said that he realized the ever present feeling in his body that he always thought was his need to protect me, was actually love. That as long as he knows that I love him and that he loves me also, that he won’t be capable of becoming manic. Which is awesome in so many ways. His purpose in life will be to love me, not to keep me safe. And the monster inside of him that he feared the most, will no longer exist.

This monster was another huge revolution for me this week. As Luca and I worked through our past and the issues that were born there, his big secret was finally told to me. The secret that was the reason he was sure he would hurt me someday. 

Luca’s mother killed his father in a blacked-out state like the ones Luca has. Hearing Luca talk about it was painful. Seeing the fear in his eyes because he thought I would run from him was heart-breaking. Understanding how much this secret changed his life and how he never talked to anyone about it, was devastating. It was devastating to know that he had suffered through it all on his own and that he hated himself because of it. I will never let him suffer alone again. I will never let him keep secrets from me again. I won’t ever let him hate himself again.

These days have been full of purging and cleaning and hurting and healing. It’s a lot to handle and when Rose leaves we’re usually physically and mentally exhausted. But when we are together, naked in bed, our flesh touching, none of that matters. 

My thoughts have my hand wandering over his body, which means that his hand is now wandering also. I climb on top of him and kiss his neck. He moans his appreciation for my lips and tongue on his flesh. His fingers sink into my backside, pushing me down on his hard length. It feels so good and he fits so perfectly beneath me. I start moving, start kissing him harder, biting and sucking him like I always wanted to, like I am totally allowed to do now. My mouth finds his and I push down harder and my tongue sinks into the wet, warm, delicious place that is Luca’s mouth. His hands cup my breasts, his thumbs are taunting my nipples. He’s tempting me. It would be so easy to shift my body. One small movement and I could know what it feels like to have Luca’s body inside of mine.

“Please, Jude,” he mumbles around my tongue, “I need you so bad, I need to be inside of you.”

“No, Luca,” I tell him.

“Fuck,” he pulls himself out of my mouth to say. I stop moving and put myself into sitting position on top of him so we can have this discussion…
again
. “Why can’t we just let this go? Why can’t that woman just leave our lives, once and for all?”

I stare at him feeling hurt, like I always do now when he talks about Clara. Things between Luca and I have changed. He’s more than willing to make love to me- to give me what I’ve wanted since I was fifteen. But I can’t let him do that. Not yet. When Luca makes love to me for the first time I don’t want anything standing between us. Things with us are so close to perfect, so close to pure, but there is still one thing between us.
Clara
.

After listening to me talk about Clara, Luca got the impression that she took advantage of me. That she
fucked with my vulnerable head
. He also has a problem with the fact that she thought that she was in love with me and that she wanted to
be
with me. I can understand the last part, but I know Clara wasn’t trying to hurt me. I was the one who hurt her. Luca doesn’t understand this.

“Luca, I have to talk to her, I have to apologize to her. Even Rose says so.”

“You don’t have to apologize to that manipulating bitch.”

“Luca!” I scold. He shouldn’t call her that. It’s unfair and wrong.

“Jude, she told me, to my face, that she felt like a creeper, that she knew she was taking advantage of a young, heart-broken girl. She called herself a horny guy for Christ’s sake. She was trying to screw you- a girl who obviously wasn’t interested in her like that. But she was willing to do it anyway because she thought she could. You’re not going anywhere near her. I don’t even want her eyes on you.”

“Luca, can you forget about that for a minute? Can you just try to remember what she’s gone through? Her husband hurt her and the two times she had hope that someone could love her again, we both screwed her over completely. We messed with her mind so badly that she will probably never trust anyone again. Think of what we have, Luca… how lucky we are to have each other, to know what it feels like to love and to be loved. She might never know how that feels and at least part of the reason for that is us.
You and me
. We did this to her. She was vulnerable too. I took advantage of her too. And so did you. I can’t make you do the right thing and apologize to her, but I also can’t move forward until I try to make things right with her.” I look down at Luca; his eyes are shut tight, an internal battle waging in his head, I’m sure.

And then the most genius idea comes to me, urged on by the thoughts I was just having about our conversations with Dr. Rose. Luca’s singular need to protect me was never that at all, but a need to love me, to make sure I felt loved. This may be dirty but I want his body inside of mine so badly, I’m willing to take advantage of his weakness. “Luca, I can never forgive myself, I will never be able to love myself completely until I apologize to her. I will never feel like I can let you love me completely until I feel like I deserve that.”

His eyes close tighter before he opens them. He looks into my eyes to see if I mean what I say. And I do; I won’t feel worthy of his love until I try to make things right with Clara. “I’m coming with you,” he says.

My face lights up with happiness, I dip down to kiss his beautiful, angry lips. “No, you’re not,” I tell him. “Not unless you’re coming to apologize to her yourself.”

“Jude, what the hell do you want from me?”

“I want you to trust me. I want you to trust that I will meet with her, I will tell her I’m sorry, then I will make it safely back to your arms, where you will make love to me for a week straight.”

“You’re not going to her apartment.”

“Fine,” I easily agree. I don’t want to go to her apartment.

“Or that store where she seduced you.”

I look at him with disappointment, but tell him, “Fine.”

We stare at each other. My face is beaming. His is as pissed off as I’ve ever seen it. “Well, go. Get it over with so you can get back to my bed and I can make love to you for a month straight.” He stands and starts dressing. “A week….please,” he mutters to himself.

When Clara agreed, begrudgingly, to meet me, I was elated. But now, as I sit at a booth at Daddy O’s, fully aware of how Luca’s meeting with Miles went in this same restaurant, possibly at this same booth, I feel terrified. I feel like the girl I was that first time I walked into Clara’s store, when she thought I was a shoplifter
; a homeless shoplifter
, according to Luca who has nothing nice to say about the woman whose heart he broke. The woman who nursed him back from his own personal hell.

I stare at the door, becoming more agitated with each passing second.

But then she’s there. She walks through the door and my nerves go away because my mind knows I need to do this; I need to look her in the eyes and try to make her believe that I’m sorry. I want to do this.

She scowls as her heels click closer and closer to me. She whips her purse down on the table and stares at me with her laser eyes. She’s still angry. I can deal with anger.

“I ordered you a coffee… one cream, two sugars,” I tell her, hoping the fact that I know how she takes her coffee will help somehow.

“Wow, that’s really sweet,
Blanca,
” she says, her words soaked in sarcasm. “Oh, wait, sorry. I forgot that that’s not your name. I forgot for a second that everything you ever told me was a lie. I suppose you want me to call you Jude?”

Okay, so we’re just going to jump right into this. “Clara, I’m sorry…” I begin, but she cuts me off immediately.

“You know what? I was thinking about that- the fact that you wanted to apologize to me, the fact that you needed to wipe your conscious clear of me. I realized I was doing
you
a favor by coming here so that
you
could feel better about yourself and move on with
your
perfect little life with Luca and forget about all the shit you did to
me
. I was thinking about that and you know what I thought?”

She pauses like she actually wants an answer. “No,” I tell her.

“I thought, fuck that. If I’m going to waste one more minute of my life on that girl then it’s going to be to make her feel worse. It’s going to be to make her understand exactly how fucked up she really is.”

Jesus.
Really far into the anger stage. “Okay,” I say, giving her permission to lay it on me.

“I thought I was doing you a favor that night that I put makeup on your sad face. I thought I recognized the sadness in your eyes, a sadness that I spent years looking at in the mirror. I thought
, I could help this girl. I could be a friend. I could help her understand so that she doesn’t end up screwing her life up the same way that I did
. For the first time in my bitter, sorry life I thought I could do something good. Help someone out. Because for once in my life I felt like I didn’t have to be the weak one, the one that needed help. And do you know why I felt that way?”

I shake my head, no.

“Because I had just spent a week of
my life
watching the man who had destroyed my heart, being destroyed by the woman he loved. I didn’t feel so weak because I thought, if love could take down someone like Luca, then maybe I wasn’t so pathetic. Maybe everyone else in the world is just as stupid and weak as I was. I felt pity for him.

“I no longer wanted him. For the first time since I met him it didn’t matter that he didn’t want me because I didn’t want him either. I felt hopeful. I felt like maybe someday I could love again. I took care of him and when I was able to make him better I felt like I was worth something. And then Blanca walked into my life.” She stops to shoot me a bitter smile.

If it weren’t for the fact that I can feel her hate for me radiating off her body I think I would probably be in tears right now. I was right- Clara was vulnerable and I was the one who took advantage of her.