Jake Undone (18 page)

crossed his heart with his hand.

“What time is our return flight?”

“Late…not until nine.”

I was officially on the old wooden roller coaster of anxiety again, rising up slowly.

When the cab let us off at the building on South Wacker Drive, I looked up and gulped. “You’re kidding

me, right?”

“Come on.” He waved and led me through the front doors to the elevators.

My panic didn’t even have time to fully build because in what seemed like less than a minute, we had

arrived on the 103rd floor in lightning speed.

I didn’t know if it was because I had just survived a flight thousands of feet into the sky, but being up

there wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I couldn’t wait to be done with it, but compared to flying, it

produced so much less anxiety because there was a means to escape.

Jake made me feel like a kid when he stopped to tell the staff it was my first time, and someone actually

gave me a sticker.

An unexpected calmness came over me as I looked out at the view.

There were details posted all around that explained what part of the city we were viewing on each side.

Jake led me over to this high-tech set of binoculars. “Look, that’s the south side of the city, where I

grew up.” He pointed to his old stomping grounds. It made me both sad and happy for him because he

hadn’t been back here in years. I wondered if he was thinking about his father or what he left behind when

he moved to Boston.

After about ten minutes, I knew there was one last thing he was going to make me do.

“Come on, let’s go take a picture on the ledge,” he said.

Shit.

I knew I wasn’t getting out of this, so I hung onto him, gripping his jacket as he practically dragged me

over to the terrifying glass platform.

I continued to nervously cling onto him, floating through the moment, developing vertigo as my legs

shook. As the staff took a professional picture of us, I was careful not to look down.

Luckily, he didn’t force me to stay on it for very long. When we stepped off, it was an immense relief,

but I was glad I had done it. I could have never dreamt of attempting that without him by my side. They

gave us our picture, and it took my breath away. The two of us were basically on top of the world, and that

was exactly how I felt.

***

The next leg of the adventure was a subway ride to Jake’s old neighborhood.

It was run down with dilapidated houses very close together. There was a bodega on the corner that he

used to frequent as a kid. He told me he would buy penny candy there after scrounging up all of his change.

He took me inside and bought me some Lemonheads and Laffy Taffy.

We dodged children playing on the narrow sidewalks as we approached a beige house with a rusty

railing along a steep set of stairs.

“This is it. This was where we lived,” he said with a look of childlike awe, as I followed him up the

front steps.

He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. “That sucks. I was hoping to see the inside.”

I felt bad that we had come all this way, and he wouldn’t be able to see his old house.

Jake put his hand on the small of my back as we walked back down, and it gave me goosebumps.

“Come on, let’s go out back,” he said.

He didn’t seem to care that we were trespassing; it was clear he felt that the memories here gave him

some ownership.

There was no fence preventing access to the backyard, which was a small rectangular area of grass with

a concrete border surrounding it.

“Check this out,” he said, leading me over to a shady corner.

Carved into the concrete were the words,
Jake Loves Buffy
.

“Buffy, huh? Lucky girl,” I said as we both sat on the ground next to the carving.

“Buffy. I was nine. She was basically my first love.”

I did not just get a twinge of jealousy over a nine-year-old girl!

“What was she like?”

“She loved to nibble on things if you know what I mean.”

“Nibble?”

“She’d do anything for me. I had her eating out of the palm of my hand.”

“Seriously? I mean, I figured you had skills, but nine-years-old?”

“Buffy was portly. She loved to eat. So, as long as I fed her, she was happy.” He noticed my disturbed

expression and chuckled. “A hamster, Nina! Buffy was my first pet.”

I looked up at the sky and shook my head. I felt so stupid. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. This grassy area right by the carving is where I had to bury her. That was a tough day.”

“I am sorry, Jake.” I hoped it wasn’t bad that I was laughing somewhat when I said that.

“It sounds so stupid, but for a kid, when a damn hamster is the only thing you came home to everyday

and then it dies, well, that was a shitty day.”

“What do you mean the only thing you came home to?”

“I was a latch-key kid. My mother had to work two jobs after my father died, and she couldn’t afford a

babysitter. So, when the bus dropped me off at the corner, I would walk home and come in to an empty

house. I’d lock the door with like five different dead bolts, make a peanut butter and banana sandwich and

hope for the best.”

I definitely wasn’t laughing now; my heart ached for that little boy. “God, that is so sad.”

“It was fine. I didn’t know any different. My mother worked hard, and she had no choice. She taught

me to take care of myself, and the old lady next door would look in on me from time to time. But the thing

is, for two years, I looked forward to seeing that little critter every day.”

I was not about to cry over a hamster.

I was…about to cry over a hamster.

My eyes became watery, and I ran my hand over the carving. “Well, for a latch-key kid, you turned out

really well.” I nudged him playfully with my shoulder. “You’re seriously the smartest person I have ever

met.”

He didn’t say anything. He just closed his eyes with a placid look on his face as the wind blew on us. I

felt honored to be here with him at the place where he experienced so many things that shaped him.

He opened his eyes and rubbed my shoulder. “Are you cold? You wanna get going?”

The truth was, it was the warmest I’d felt all day. “Let’s stay for a little bit longer. We came all this way.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

We just sat, taking in the cold air and listening to the sounds of sirens and children in the distance. I

wanted so badly inside his head as he looked around. It was clear this place still meant a lot to him.

I really wanted to hold his hand, so I reached for it, and he opened his palm for me, taking mine in his

and said, “Thank you for tagging along with me.”

“Does it make you sad to be back here?”

“Not if I take my own advice and only think about the good memories. It’s all about focusing on the

good ones, remember?”

I squeezed his hand tighter. “What are some of the good ones?”

He looked up over at the house. “Oh, I have a lot at this place. Christmases with my mother were

definitely good ones. She would save up her vacation days and use them all up during the holidays. She’d

do up the whole house in cheesy tinsel and plastic mistletoe, and we’d eat greasy Chinese and play games

like Monopoly. We’d watch
A Christmas Story
over and over because that’s the best fuckin’ movie ever.”

He laughed. “Then, of course, there were the teenage memories. Let’s just say being a latch-key kid ain’t so

bad when you want to sneak girls in at fifteen.”

I cringed. “I bet.”

“Then, there was the day I found my sister…coming back here and telling my Mom. Or the day I

checked the mailbox right out front there and opened a letter that said I had gotten a full ride to

Northeastern. Man, I’ll never forget that day.”

“Wow, I never knew that.”

“Yeah. As they say in Boston, I was pretty
smaht
.”

“Well, I knew that part.”

“Anyways, lots of good memories...focus on the good…”

“I am trying. I don’t know how I got to be such a negative person…so flawed.”

He turned to me. “Flawed?”

“Yeah, you know, with all my crazy fears.”

He didn’t respond right away and seemed to be thinking about something. “When did your first panic

attack happen again?”

“I was a senior in high school.”

“What was going on in your life then?”

Maybe it should have seemed obvious, but for some reason, until this very moment, I had never

connected my own issues to my brother’s death. The truth was, “My brother had just died…a month before

the first attack.”

My brother had just died.

“See, Nina, I hadn’t even realized that part. Is it really that unusual for someone who experienced a

traumatic event to lose control? That doesn’t make you flawed. It makes you real.”

I looked down at our intertwined hands and back at him. “I have honestly never thought about it that

way. I always just assumed my panic attacks were a sign of weakness.”

Jake scratched his chin and turned his body toward mine. “I’ve been thinking about something a lot

since I met you. Everyone has fears. Yours are just more tangible. You wear them on your sleeve. You think

you’re weak, but you’re one of the strongest people I know, because as of today you’ve knocked the top

two things you feared down one by one in a relatively short amount of time. Do you realize how rare it is

for people to actually do that? Some people never have the courage to face their fears in an entire lifetime,

let alone a matter of months.”

I pushed my shoulder into him playfully. “Most people don’t have crazy roommates who take an interest

in helping them do it.”

“You think I’ve helped you…but you inspire me, Nina, without even realizing it. Seeing you and how

you’ve trusted me enough to guide you through your own fears, makes me think about facing some of my

own.”

“I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything. What do you fear?”

“What are my fears?” He looked up at the sky, and his lip twitched as he pondered my question, then

looked back at me. “Hurting people…like letting people I care about down. Stuff like that.”

That was all I was going to get because he looked away from me, and I knew an imaginary wall had just

gone up. Jake was like a puzzle. He’d offer me small pieces of his life, but none of them fit together to tell a complete story. The more silence that ensued, the more sure I became that he wasn’t going to elaborate on

why he was afraid of hurting people and who he was afraid to hurt. I decided not to press my luck in

prying further.

A plane flew overhead, and we both looked up at it in unison. More time passed in silence as we sat

holding hands while we continued to trespass on the back lawn of this house.

A sudden blast of wind blew my hair right into his face, and I said, “They’re not kidding when they call

it a windy city. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, still looking up at the sky, before whispering, “I love your hair.” He said it so

softly I wasn’t sure he intended for me to hear it.

But I did.

He let go of my hand abruptly, and his eyes popped out of his head. “Do you like milkshakes?”

Holy random transition.

“Sure.”

He stood up, and I followed suit. “Let’s get out of here.”

CHAPTER 15

“This place is awesome,” I said as I followed him into Bernie’s diner, a retro-style joint about six blocks

from his old house.

The smell of French fries and burgers was absolute heaven because I was starving.

“Wait ‘til you taste the food.” He was grinning from ear to ear as we sat ourselves in a booth by the

window. The table had one of those mini jukeboxes, and for a dollar, we could play our choice of about

twenty-five different oldies from the 50’s and 60’s.

“These music boxes have been here since I was a kid. The songs are exactly the same. It’s wild.”

“What are you gonna play?”

He put some change into the machine. “My father used to always play this one.”

I recognized it immediately, and my mouth dropped because I couldn’t believe my ears. “
Crimson and

Clover,”
I said.

“You know it?”

“This was one of Jimmy’s favorite songs. It was from way before our time, but he loved it. Except, it

was the Joan Jett version he would play. Who sings this one?”

Jake closed his eyes and moved his head slowly to the rhythm of the haunting song before answering

me. “That’s wild about your brother. This was my Dad’s absolute favorite song. This one’s the original by

Tommy James and the Shondells. It’s one of the few songs that remind me of my childhood, because he’d

play it every Sunday when we’d come here.”

“I didn’t realize the other one was a remake.”

“I like the Joan Jett version better, but this is the one my Dad always listened to.”

When the song finished, a waitress came by to take our order. We hadn’t even looked at the menus, so

she said she’d come back.

He handed me one. “I know what I’m getting, but you should decide. The milkshakes are legendary,

and the burgers…don’t even get me started.”

“I’ll have whatever you get.”

“Anchovy pie, then?” He winked, then flagged the waitress down and said, “We’ll take two Bernie

burgers and two strawberry milkshakes.”

While we were waiting for our food, he played with the straw to his water then looked up at me and

asked, “What made you decide to become a nurse?”

“Honestly? My brother. There was this one nurse who was with him the most. Her name was Kerri. She