Losing Him (8 page)

I fell to my knees, burying my face into my hands. He could probably hear me, but he never came back out. Jessie had said worse things than that, but he always knew when it would get to me the most. I got that he thought I didn’t deserve his love, but he had a terrible way of speaking to me. He was still so angry, after all this time, and I guess that being there, around the people that were affected, was too much for him. He probably felt embarrassed that he was ever with such a monster.

I wondered if I would ever be able to break free of my past. Even starting over with someone new would require me to tell the truth. I knew that was what Jessie was so angry about. He wanted to hear what I’d done that was so bad. All he knew was about the sex parts. He didn’t know the real story about what I’d done to Ty. He had no idea that I’d drugged him and taken pictures to make his wife leave him. He didn’t know that my actions almost killed her and her twins.

I cried harder, knowing that I will never going to be able to move forward unless I came clean. Like it or not, I was going to have to be honest. I shook my head, knowing the inevitable was going to have to happen. With nothing else to lose, I stood up and starting walking down the hall to find where Jessie had gone.

He was tucking Jacob in. I leaned against the doorframe, trying to keep my tears at bay. When he looked up and noticed me standing there, I could see the content in his eyes. He didn’t want to hash things out again.

“I’m ready to tell you everything, Jess.”

His one eyebrow cocked up. Jessie leaned down and kissed Jacob goodnight, then stood up and started walking toward me. He followed me back into the kitchen, where our fight had begun. He face was unreadable as he sat down and folded his hands. “You told me all this before and then I found out from my sister that it wasn’t the truth. What makes this time different?”

I looked up at him. “I’m tired of fighting about it. If you’re going to leave me and walk away from this, at least I will know it was because you couldn’t handle the truth, instead of you not being able to handle not knowing it.”

“Heather, you do realize that if it’s that bad, I may not be able to get past it?”

I nodded and started tearing up again. “Yeah, I know. I already feel like I’ve lost you, so telling you seems like the right thing to do. At least you can walk away with the truth.”

“For what it’s worth, I appreciate you being honest with me. No matter what happens, I did love you, Heather. I just can’t deal with the bullshit.”

“I know,” I said sadly. “I’m used to being hated. If I were in your shoes, I’d hate me too.” I paused for a moment and looked up into those blue eyes. “Can you just promise me that you’ll keep it from Jacob? He doesn’t need to know the person I used to be. I’m his mother; I’d die before I’d let anything happen to him. Please don’t tell him.”

He reached over and touched my hand. “You know I’d never do that. I know you love our son. I won’t tell him, alright?”

I smiled, but it wasn’t because I was happy. My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest, while my body shook in fear. This wasn’t exactly easy for me. I’d never come out and admitted what I’d done to someone. In fact, I’d always thought that I could get away with never talking about it again. People didn’t understand how much it hurt me to look at my own child and remember the time when I almost killed two, out of stupidity. They didn’t see that every time I looked at Jacob when he was born, I thought about those little twins hanging onto life. They didn’t know that I feared losing my child every single day of my pregnancy, because I didn’t deserve to be a mother. They didn’t know that I’d considered giving my baby up for adoption because I didn’t think I could take care of someone else, when I couldn’t even manage to be responsible myself.

Jessie was the reason that everything changed. When he came back and told me that he wanted to be a part of our child’s life, the fear and pain went away. Now, imagining being without him forever was ripping me apart.

“You already know most of it.”

“Heather, tell me. I want to know that deep dark secret that you haven’t told anyone. I want to know what you did. Why does Tyler and his wife hate you so much? Why are you so surprised that Van and Amy showed up today? What the hell are you hiding from me?”

My lip quivered as I cried in fear of seeing him walk out my door. I suppose that it could have been worse; I could have been a real murderer. This was going to be bad enough. I knew Jessie and this wasn’t going to fly. I should have never agreed to tell him. I’d rather him walk away not knowing. I had to change my story. I had to keep the awful truth locked away if I had any hope of us being a family again.

Chapter 10

Jessie

She was stalling. I could tell that I wasn’t going to like what she was about to tell me, but I’d known that when I found out she’d been keeping something big from me.

I realize that people can change, but it’s the fact that she kept it from me for so long. I’d begged her to come clean, to trust in me; to trust in us, but she refused. Her inability to reveal her big secret made me feel like she probably kept other things from me too.

I knew Heather had a hard life. She’d pretty much mistaken sex as love for years. I’ll never forget our first night together. She trembled at my touch, because for the first time, she was with someone that genuinely cared for her. It wasn’t her looks that first attracted me to Heather. I guess I liked that she was broken and running. I wanted to take care of her and make her see that she could feel safe with me. I wanted to protect her, and even have a future together.

Had it not been for the truth coming out, I think we’d still be together, raising our son in a loving environment. Instead, we spent most of our time arguing and avoiding the obvious. We were a broken family. I got that part of it was on me, not being able to move on. I’d been betrayed by someone that I thought I could trust.

It wasn’t just her knowing Rick. It was so much more. She’d come to my town for dirt on him, not to seduce me. I got that. Still, what happened between us never would have happened had I known the truth. I could have sent her on her way and never looked back.

Her web of lies forced me to be in a relationship with her. I couldn’t walk away because we had a child. Now, after all this time, I was done trying to make it work. I wanted the truth or I was gone. Jacob would be fine. We lived close enough that we could share custody, if I decided to take that route.

Heather was crying, but after she poured a glass of wine, she sat back down and looked right at me. I watched her fingers rolling around the top of her glass as she thought about what to say to me first. “Jessie, if I tell you this, I know it isn’t going to make you stay with me. I know you and you are going to hate me, more than you do already. I just wanted to forget about it myself. It wasn’t just because I didn’t want you to know. What I did hurts to admit. I still can’t forgive myself for it. I can’t get past it.”

She cried even more, leaving me waiting for this big reveal. I was done feeling sorry for her. “Just tell me. Don’t you trust me?”

She nodded. “I’ve always trusted you. You’re a good man. You live by strict morals and I admire that about you, so much. That’s one of the reasons that I fell in love with you. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. You see the good in people and appreciate them for their flaws.”

“That’s because they’re honest, which is something you’ve never been. Don’t you get that? I’ve given you the benefit of doubt. I’ve stayed and tried to work things out, even after I found out why you showed up at my door. I protected you, shared my life with you, but you had more secrets. How am I supposed to be with you, Heather? You’re full of lies and secrets. Who would have the patience for that shit?”

She shook her head. “Nobody. I know it’s my fault, okay?”

“Just get this over with. I’ve waited all these years. Don’t you think I deserve to know?”

“Yes.” She looked down and then back up at me. “Can you just tell me one last time? I just want to hear you say the words, even if you don’t mean them. I know you don’t want to, but I just need to hear them.”

I knew what she wanted to hear. I looked right into her blue eyes. “I can’t.”

She cried more. “I deserve that.”

“You have five seconds to start talking to me and then I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day and I can tell that you don’t want to do this.”

“I’m sorry, it’s hard for me. Can you just be nice while I find the words?”

“How about you find the truth and spit it out!”

She wiped away her tears and took a big drink of her wine. “You already know who it has to do with. Nobody knows that he made promises to me. He told me we’d be together.”

“Who? Tyler?”

She smiled for a second. “I’d loved him since I was a little girl, but when we hit puberty, it became more intense, I guess because it was real for me. Every waking second of the day I thought about being together. We’d grown up together, shared the same friends, and interests. He was my first you know.”

“Your first as in you lost your virginity to him?” I could have figured that much, since she was so obsessed with him.

“He was my first everything.” She looked up at me for a second. “When I was fourteen we were at a party. My girlfriends knew how much I wanted to be his girlfriend, so they planned a game of truth or dare. He thought that they’d dare him to moon someone, or eat something gross. He didn’t know that the dare would be to spend ten minutes in the closet with me.” She took another drink and shook her head. “I’d imagined kissing him for as long as I could remember, but when he came into that closet, I just froze. We were so close that our bodies were pressed together. I could feel his breath on my face and I just stood there. Ty grabbed one of my hands and told me that we could just tell everybody we made out. He said I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’t want to do. It was so sweet. I moved my lips toward his and kissed him. He never let go of my hand as we kept kissing and by the time the ten minutes were over, I just wanted to go back inside that closet with him.”

“So, there was a time when he wasn’t an asshole to you?” She’d told me things that he’d said to her. I knew he wasn’t nice when it came to Heather.

“Yes, he was nice. Ty was gentle and considerate. After that night, we made out a couple other times, but he wouldn’t ask me out. I was too afraid and only told my closest friends. When I finally got the nerve to do it myself, he showed up at school holding hands with Van. I was heartbroken and even went home from school sick. It devastated me. One day he was kissing me and then dating her the next. I spent hours making myself look beautiful every day and he dated a girl that looked more like a boy than a girl.”

I saw the jealousy pouring off of her as she spoke. “My friends kept egging me on though. They told me that Ty was just being nice to Van. They said he really didn’t like her. I believed them, so I wrote him a letter. I told him that I wanted to be his girlfriend. I waited three days to get a letter back. It wasn’t what I expected. He said that we could only be friends. He said that he loved Van and he wasn’t interested in me like that.”

“Let me guess. That’s when you decided to be the other woman? At age fourteen?”

She shook her head. “No, of course not! I cried for the first week, trying to hide my embarrassment from telling him my feelings. Nobody wants to hear the person that they love say they love someone else, even if we were just kids. For the next year, I tried to move on. All along I thought that one day they would break up and he would see that I’d been waiting for him. They had nothing in common anyway. He was the quarterback and I was the captain of the cheerleading squad. We were together all the time, but he never mentioned that letter. After every game I had to watch him getting a kiss from her. I watched him putting his arm around her and walking down the hallway with her holding hands. It never got easier, seeing them so happy when I was so alone. Each time he’d smile at me, I got my hopes up for nothing.”

“Why didn’t you just move on? I’m sure plenty of guys wanted to be with you.” I just didn’t get it.

“We lived in a small town. Everyone knew everyone. I was afraid that if I dated someone else, it would mess up my chance of being with him. There was that bro code thing and dating one of his friends would mean he’d never date me himself. I wasn’t willing to risk that. I needed to save myself for him, because I believed that one day we’d be together.”

“That’s pretty pathetic, if you ask me. You kept yourself from living, while waiting for someone that was unavailable.” She needed to see that. I hoped she wasn’t that naïve.

She wiped her eyes again and poured more wine. “I know. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop loving him. I tried. It just wouldn’t happen. Anyway, after another year or so passed, we both ended up at the same party. Ty had been drinking and he was pretty out of control. Van, being the good little student and daughter that she always was, had gone home early. After he made a fool out of himself by starting a fight, I took him into a room and tried to calm him down. It just so happened that it was someone’s bedroom. It was dark and we were alone. He laughed about the situation, at first. There we were, alone in the dark, like we were years before, except I was the only virgin in the room. Ty had been with Van. When it happened the whole school talked about it. So, there I was, standing in the room, alone with the guy that I’d been in love with since the third grade. I’d also had a couple of beers, so my anxiety was non-existent. Ty wouldn’t shut up about Van, so to make him stop talking I kissed him. I thought that if I was just good enough, if I was better than her, he’d want to be with me.”

“So you slept with him? That’s pretty bold, Heather. You gave up your virginity to a drunk guy to try to steal him away from his girlfriend?”

I placed my hands flat on the table and smiled. “Yeah, I did. I really believed that.”

“So did your plan work? Obviously, it didn’t?”

“Nope! We had awful drunk sex and then he left. The next morning he showed up at my house. He was crying and begging me to not to tell anyone what had happened between us. He said that Van could never find out, because he couldn’t lose her.”