What if I Fly? (16 page)

“Will, is everything okay?” Her stomach is in knots. She knows he’s keeping something from her, something is very wrong.

The gut is never wrong.

“Yes, everything’s fine.”

He’s lying, I feel it.

“Are you coming tomorrow?”

He takes a long pause before he answers.

“Uh huh. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Okay…Will?”

“Yes?”

“I love you,” she whispers.

“Always. I love you, Julia.”

Julia stares at the phone after Will hangs up. He’s avoiding her.
Why?
She lies in bed, tossing and turning all night, the hours slowly passing by. It’s unbearable. What’s going on with him? Her heart is pounding against her ribs. All week she’s had the feeling something was going on with him, and their phone call earlier confirmed it.

Staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of her neighborhood settling in for the night, worst case scenario’s fill her head.

He’s met someone else.

He doesn’t love me anymore.

He doesn’t think I’m enough.

He doesn’t want me to move in with him.

It could be anything, and whatever it is, it’s bad. So bad, he can’t bear to see her.
But he loves me!
The voice in her head repeats over and over again.
Doesn’t he?

By five o’clock in the morning she can’t take anymore. She throws back her covers, tosses a change of clothes in her bag and takes the subway to Penn Station. She dozes on the train to DC but adrenaline is driving her forward.

Before she knows it, she’s standing on the sidewalk looking up at Will’s townhouse. She knows when she walks through that door something terrible is going to happen. Petrified to put her key in the lock, she sits on the front steps for a few minutes, her thoughts racing.

Then, with the dawn of sudden clarity, Julia gasps, tears filling her eyes. There’s only one thing Will would feel so guilty about he’d avoid her completely…and that would be sleeping with Avery. She rests her head in her hands, wiping the tears away.

Please God, let me be wrong.

It’s almost ten o’clock when she finally unlocks the front door and enters the foyer. She quietly investigates the first floor for evidence of Avery, but it looks the same as the last time she was here, no additions or modifications that she can see.

She drops her bag and climbs the stairs, the stale aroma of alcohol assaulting her as she climbs. The den is a mess, dirty plates and glasses, and several empty bottles of vodka litter the end table and floor.

When she opens the door to his room, she spots a few more empty bottles and his clothes are in piles everywhere. Will’s still in bed, lying on his side, and she crawls into bed beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist and buries her face in his neck.

“Will?”

He grasps her hand tightly, bringing it to his lips. He pulls her close and she doesn’t know what to do, so she holds onto him and goose bumps rise all over her body. Eventually he turns around but he won’t look at her. She stares at his scruffy face, the dark circles under his eyes.

“Will, look at me.”

He slowly raises his eyes to meet hers and sees pain and guilt reflected in them.

He did it. I was right.

Julia closes her eyes and shakes her head, her body trembling.

“No.”

Will wraps his arms around her, tears running down his face and she allows him to hold her for a minute. Two minutes.

“Please say you didn’t. No.”

He’s silent, but holds her tight. The silence is killing her. She grabs his t-shirt and shakes him.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Will, please.”

“I’m so sorry, Julia….I…”

That’s all she needed to hear. She covers her ears and rolls onto her back. She doesn’t want to hear one more word, wants to block out his voice. She squeezes her eyes shut and prays when she opens them, she’ll be back in her bed in Brooklyn, and this will have been a bad dream.

Eventually she opens her eyes and studies him.
Who is this person?
Will’s eyes, normally so clear and full of love are cloudy and pained, wet with tears.

“I have to get out of here.” She sits up abruptly, pushing him away.

“Julia…I’m so sorry. Please let me explain.”

“No, I have to go.”

Frantic, she sprints down the stairs, grabs her bag and flies out the door, running to the Metro station around the corner. She has to get back to New York, away from Will. She wants to get as far away from this place as possible. Waiting for the train to Union Station, Julia sits on a bench, her arms clutching her stomach and sobs.

Somehow she made it to New York, through a haze of tears, and was back in her apartment by three-thirty that afternoon. When her roommate Rhonda stopped home for a change of clothes an hour later, she found Julia disconsolate on the couch, surrounded by hundreds of used tissues.

“What happened, Jules?”

Julia shakes her head. She can’t say it out loud.

“Is it Will?”

Just hearing his name brings on a fresh wave of tears.

“Oh Julia, I’m sorry honey. Come here.”

Rhonda helps her to her bedroom and consoles her as best she can. Once Julia’s tears subside, she shares her heartbreak, describing to Rhonda what happened with Will.

“Well, I’m gonna to tell you what we’re going to do,” Rhonda sits up and makes her intentions known, leaving no room for argument. “You’re going to take a nap, then a shower and tonight we’re going to the party at Roberto’s. You need distraction.”

She’d forgotten about the party. It’s their big send off and she was supposed to go with Will. Julia rolls onto her stomach and buries her face in her pillow.

“Oh, Rhonda, I don’t feel like going to a party.”

“I’m not giving you a choice. You’re going. You have two weeks until graduation and you’re not going to sit in this apartment feeling sorry for yourself.” Rhonda stands up, “No, you’re going out with a bang, not a whimper. Honey, this is your time!”

The party is loud and packed with the friends Julia’s made over the past four years. This is their last hurrah before graduation and she’ll miss seeing them every day. Many are staying in New York and Julia made one decision this afternoon.

She’s accepting the position at The Cloisters. She’s cancelling the interview for her dream job at the Smithsonian.

There’s no way she’s moving to Washington, DC. She could get her own place to live, but she’d be breathing the same air as Will… and Avery, and she can’t bear the thought. It would be torture.

She managed to sleep for a couple of hours this afternoon, and Rhonda force-fed her a bagel before they left for Roberto’s place.

Club music is blaring through the speakers throughout his apartment, and for once Julia doesn’t mind, the heavy bass blocking out all thoughts of Will. A friend offers her a joint, but she declines that and a bevy of other mind-numbing narcotics in favor of alcohol. Rhonda, her self-appointed doctor, has been medicating Julia with endless drinks over the course of the night.

She is intoxicated enough to forget the pain for a little while, to laugh and dance. Drunk enough to say ‘yes’ to Brad when he asks for a slow dance and leads her into a bedroom. She doesn’t protest when he kisses her and feels nothing as he slides her underwear to the floor. She closes her eyes and is numb while he takes her body for his own pleasure.

She doesn’t feel a thing. The medicine worked. Julia slides to the floor, staring into the void and is empty inside.

This isn’t really happening
.
None of this happened.

“Take me home please.”

Brad helps her stand, adjusts their clothes and hails a cab to take them to Brooklyn.

***

A taxi pulls up in front of Julia’s apartment building at two in the morning. Will’s been waiting on the front steps for hours. After she left this morning he held the pillow that still smelled of her and stared at the ceiling. He stayed in bed until five o’clock then dragged himself downstairs, got into his car and started driving.

He didn’t have a plan, he had no idea where he was going until he reached Pennsylvania. Then he knew. He has to see Julia, he has to explain what happened with Avery.

He can see Julia in the backseat of the cab but she’s not alone. Will stands to get a better look and is stunned when Brad steps out of the taxi to help her, telling the driver to wait. Brad wraps her arm around Julia’s waist, holding her up as they approach her building.

Will steps out of the shadows, his face pained. It takes a second, but Brad recognizes him, chuckles and hands Julia off to him. Without a word, he gets back into the taxi and is gone.

I’m in hell.

Julia’s completely drunk and Will steadies her as she stumbles toward the door.

“Will?” Julia squints at him, confusion in her eyes, “Is that you?”

“Julia…” he whispers. “What did you do?”

She searches the street for Brad, then takes a step up, leans in inches from his face and sneers, “How does it feel?”

Turning away from him, she fumbles for the keys in her bag.

Will stands immobile, consumed with white-hot rage.
She slept with Brad?
His head’s spinning and he can’t think, only feel. Desperate to direct his anger at something, he punches his fist into the wall of her building, his hand exploding in pain, then sits on the step and hangs his head, blood dripping onto his shirt.

The pain in his hand is excruciating, but nothing compared to the pain in his heart. He did this to them. It’s his fault Julia did
god knows what
with Brad.

“Will, just go back to Avery,” Julia slurs, turning the key in the lock, then exclaims, “Jesus Christ! You’re bleeding,” she pauses and sighs, “Come upstairs.”

He sits on the side of the tub while Julia kneels in front of him and washes and bandages his hand. The sight of his blood temporarily sobered her up. Neither of them speaks while she wraps his hand. What is there to say? He slept with Avery, and she turned to Brad for comfort, or revenge. Either way, it’s his fault.

“You can stay on the couch tonight, but I want you gone in the morning.”

Julia pulls herself up and stumbles toward her bed, then passes out fully clothed.

Will stands at the foot of her bed and fights the urge to climb in beside her. She’d never know. Instead he grabs a towel and a couple of washcloths, lathers them with soap and carries them into her bedroom.

His hand throbs with pain while he washes her face, her neck, her arms, her legs. He takes off her dress and rids her of Brad, washing her body clean. She hardly stirs. He pulls her nightgown over her head and tucks her in, then sits in the chair by her bed and watches her sleep.

God, I love her.
He’d give anything to take back last Friday night.
Anything
.

Avery hasn’t left him alone all week. She calls, she shows up at his house. He’s ignored her so far. Yesterday her mother left a message on his answering machine. She said Avery’s in a fragile state and to be careful, she doesn’t want to pick up the pieces again. “Don’t do this to her, Will. She’s been through enough.”

Guilt is eating him alive. He’s never regretted anything more than opening his door to her that night.

He has no idea what he’s going to say to Julia when she wakes up. He wants to apologize and beg her forgiveness. He loves her more than he thought possible. Julia doesn’t love easily, he learned that during their ‘friend’ stage. Yes, she loves her friends and family, but the kind of love they share was hard won.

Julia’s guarded. It took her so long to open her heart to him, but once she did, she opened it completely. Will knows how difficult that was for her and he tried to never take it for granted. This morning, he saw it in her eyes.
She’ll never let me in again.
He will never feel the warmth of her love again.             

***

The morning sun wakes Julia a few hours later and she finds Will asleep in the chair beside her bed. For a moment she forgets what happened the day before and her heart fills with love for him.
Why is he sitting in the chair? He should be in bed with me.

The walls begin to close in on her as she remembers.

He slept with Avery. He isn’t mine anymore.

The full magnitude of his betrayal hits her, a giant weight pressing upon her, forcing the air from her lungs.

Once she catches her breath, she quietly sits up, not wanting to wake him just yet. Her body is leaden, her heart aching in her chest. She wants to lie in his arms, wants him to make it all better.
But he can’t.

She was right after all. Love does make you weak, it can destroy you.
Well, I won’t let him destroy me. I gave him my love, I can take it back.