Chapter Seventeen-
Derek never called me that night.
I don't know why I expected him to when he had been so angry.
He didn't call the next day, either.
I had definitely expected him to calm down and see that he was the one being an asshole, but apparently my expectations were too high.
The time alone with no contact only caused me to stew in my own feelings, to journal, to reflect, and then –even though for once I didn't really want to—to go back and read my mother's journals.
When had I become addicted to Derek?
When had he become so bad for me?
When had he become Mike?
When had I become my mother?
There were so many questions, and I didn't have any of the answers. I spent the whole weekend waiting for Derek to call, refusing to call him, and basically studying my own journals and my mother's, trying to find the pages where we both must have gone off course.
My conclusion was that there had been no big moment for me, no red flag that should have gone up. Somehow, Derek had found a way to sneak into my heart, completely without my permission and before I could have noticed.
That's the only way I could have allowed myself to fall in love—that most hated and feared state of human emotion.
The one day –in my studying—that I did find myself pulled back to was the day that I found the letters from my mother in the copy of Wuthering Heights in Mike's bedroom. I had such clarity that day when I came home and wrote about it in my journal. At that time, I had not forgotten that love was a bad force, wreaking havoc on otherwise placid lives, turning otherwise intelligent women into big emotional lumps of stupid.
It wasn't a position I had applied for, that was for certain.
But somehow I must have lost my way, because as I stared at my phone for the 800,000th time that weekend, I was definitely filling the position of Big Emotional Lump of Stupid.
When I thought about everything without all the emotional implications, I felt completely disgusted with myself.
When I thought of seeing Kayla's car in his driveway, I felt an emotional mix of anger and guilt—guilt at not trusting him and at overreacting, anger at being lied to and yelled at when I couldn't have known any better.
I spent the whole weekend fighting the urge to call him and apologize, and the only reason I was able to stop myself was because I couldn't come up with a plausible excuse to apologize.
The only reason I could come up with for wanting to apologize was: "I love him, and I just want everything to be good again."
But apologizing wouldn't make Kayla un-pregnant, so it couldn't truly make things good again.
By the weekend's end, I felt a melancholy kind of acceptance that our situation was probably just going to suck for a little while, maybe until we figured out a way to successfully deal with it, or maybe until it got to be too much and one of us just gave up.
Even though I was losing self-respect for every moment that I tried to rationalize what I had become, I never intended to be the one to give up. I loved Derek, apparently more than I loved myself, and I just wanted more than anything for us to work out, to be together no matter how difficult it may be.
The clincher was Sunday night when I tossed and turned all night, and finally fell asleep only to have a completely terrifying and realistic dream in which I was driving down a dark road, not even understanding why I was on it, and all of a sudden I saw Kayla's car coming in my direction from the other lane. I couldn't control myself, I just got flushed with emotion and then my foot was pressing down on the accelerator, faster, faster, straight at Kayla's car. I realized, before I hit her, what I was doing, and I tried to stop—panicked, hit the brake, screamed.
I woke up before the collision, but in the moment before the dream ended I could see Kayla's horrified face through the windshield as my car came flying hastily toward hers, and the second before I jerked awake, I realized it wasn't Kayla in the car, it was Sarah.
I didn't go back to sleep after that, and it definitely wasn't a dream that makes you wake up to peaceful thoughts.
I was appalled.
When I first woke up, tense with fear from the incredibly realistic dream, I actually wished momentarily that I had someone to go crawl in bed with.
Someone to make the monster go away.
But only I could make the monster go away.
For just a moment, I didn't get out of bed. I lay awake in the dark of my bedroom, for the first time in years having a memory of when I was four years old, hiding under my covers at night and trying to sleep, knowing that the monster was there every night, and only morning would make it disappear. I could still remember that feeling of fear. I remembered lying in my bed, helpless to make it go away, hating it for making me so feel afraid.
When I was four, the monster was something I just had to live with.
It was 3:48 a.m. when I pulled myself out of bed, because I couldn't even try to go to sleep after that. I was haunted by the dream, by the feelings that it stirred within me. I went through the trailer turning on all the lights, refused to look out the windows, and absorbed myself in doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen. The dream had actually upset me so much that I couldn't even journal, because I didn't want to ever see what I had seen in that dream again.
I waited until 5:04 to go wake up Alex.
As consolation for waking him up at "the ass-crack of dawn," as he muttered at me, I made some breakfast.
We sat at the table in the dead silence of morning for a good ten minutes, cutting up French toast, listening to the sound of the knife grating across the porcelain surface of the plate, the only sound either of us made as we cut up our food.
"So, not to sound ungrateful about being cooked for or anything, but is there a reason you pulled me out of bed at this ungodly hour?" he finally asked me.
I had spent every second since 3:48 thinking about it, but I still couldn't find the words, so I just nodded.
"Are you okay?" he asked, a frown marring his brow as he froze for a second, fork suspended in the air.
I swallowed, trying to make the strange lump in my throat go away. I started to speak, but I felt my eyes begin to burn, so I stopped and nodded again.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "You really…don't look okay at all."
Since my only options were to speak or eat, I crammed some French toast into my mouth, buying myself a little bit more time.
Watching me, Alex allowed his fork to finish its journey to his mouth and he also took a bite, but his green eyes never left my face.
When I finished chewing I took a sip of orange juice, and, gathering my courage, said, "Did you mean what you said to me the other day?"
He blinked. "I'm…going to need you to be just a little more specific."
"When you told me that you would send me to an out-of-state school if that's what I needed to…get away—did you mean it?"
He slowly lowered his fork to his plate, and the moment seemed to hang in the air forever before he finally said, "Yes."
Feeling at once relieved and depressed, I let out a small sigh and nodded. "I'd like…to take you up on that offer."
He didn't say anything, but just finally saying it aloud made tears well up in my eyes, tears that I didn't want to let fall.
At first, I didn't know what he was doing, but he suddenly stood up from the table and walked over to my side, gently pulling my arm to indicate for me to stand.
Confused, I stood up and just kind of watched him uncertainly.
Then he wrapped his arms around me and lightly pressed my head into his shoulder.
He was hugging me.
For all that I was trying to hold my composure, that seemed to break it, and before I had time to even comprehend that I was crying, I was sobbing violently into my dad's shoulder as he rubbed the back of my head and promised me everything would be all right.
I stayed home from school that day.
I didn't feel that I could handle facing Derek so soon, and Alex was off that day, so he suggested that I just skip that one day.
I didn't argue. I needed the day off.
Alex spent the day tiptoeing around me like I was a very breakable porcelain doll, but he was trying valiantly not to let me know it. I could tell he wanted to ask me about it, what had finally pushed me over the edge, but the dream was still too fresh, the fear and horror of it still too real. I wondered, in the brief moments that I let it cross my mind, if that was what my mother felt like when she drove head on at Sarah all those years before, sealing all of our fates. I couldn't think about it for long though, because just seeing that flash of Kayla's face and then Sarah's face, that moment of realization…it made me shudder, and I had to distance myself from the memory.
To Alex's credit, he seemed to know better than to ask.
While I played hooky that day, Alex and I sat together on the couch for hours watching Rosemary's Baby and The Omen, although I may never understand why Alex thought these would be good heartbreak/mourning movies.
It worked though. For those four hours, I didn't feel like crying.
It was approaching noon before he finally turned the television off and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
I nodded my head and said kind of slowly, "Actually, I want you to tell me about her."
He hesitated. "Jamie?"
I nodded again. "Yeah. Tell me about the Jamie you knew."
A soft smile touched his lips, the first one of the morning, and he said, "Where do you want me to start?"
There were so many unanswered questions, so many things I didn't know about her, about him—about them. I didn't know where to begin.
"Did you really love her?" I asked after a pause.
I saw him tense just a little, but since I would be granted anything I wanted on that day of heartbreak for me, he managed to sigh a little and nod.
"I didn't realize how much until she was gone. That's how it usually works," he said, attempting to smile.
"Did she know?" I asked.
He shook his head, a gleam in his eye. "No. I'm sure she never knew. The only person she wanted love from was Mike, and…I wasn't very good at loving her. In another life, we would have been happy together; just not this one."
I nodded in understanding, thinking the same rules applied to me and Derek. Under different circumstances, we could have been so happy together.
"I don't even know what to ask," I admitted. "I want to know everything."
"There's plenty of time, kid," he assured me. "We've got many years to come. If you can't learn it all today, there's plenty of time to ask."
"Tell me how you knew about the book," I said.
"Wuthering Heights," he said. "Well, your mother was a very literary woman, as I'm sure you remember. She lived and breathed the written word."
I smiled at the memory of her reading to me and nodded. "I know."
"She fancied Mike her love story. Even when it got really bad, she hung on to those clichés—love is all you need; nothing worth having is ever easy; love only once; good things come to those who wait—you name it. The tortured love theme…she thought it was fitting, maybe even romantic since they were supposed to be at the end of their rough journey. Years she had waited, and finally he was going to be all hers. He was such a lazy piece of shit," Alex said, shaking his head. "He wouldn't expend his energy on her. He took what was easy…and he threw away two women who loved him more than life itself. I know that Sarah isn't the good guy in your version of the story—I still fully believe she got pregnant intentionally to trap him and it's been 19 years—but she loved him, and she didn't deserve to be jerked around either. Jamie certainly didn't. Technically, Jamie was the mistress, but… she loved him with all of her heart. To her, it wasn't an affair; it was true love and he just finally realized it."
"Were they having an affair long?" I asked. "I found the letter from my mom to Mike, but…I kind of got caught, so I didn't get to finish the letter. It said he was supposed to leave Sarah for Mom, but she said he was married…"
Alex nodded. "They reunited. Not intentionally, they just kind of ran into each other, but they had this…intense passion for one another that I really don't like to think about," he stated. "Jamie and Mike were addicted to each other—they couldn't be together, but they couldn't leave each other alone. And for some reason, they couldn't seem to figure out that pattern, and they were just as damn surprised every time they didn't work out as they were the time before." Alex sighed wearily. "Until the last time, that is. Jamie did finally figure it out, but…it robbed her of this…sparkle that she had, this innocence and optimism that she somehow hung onto through everything. Jamie invested everything in Mike. She gave him all of herself, and all of her hopes rested on him. That was her biggest mistake, Nicole. Never let your hopes and dreams rest on a man, because they aren't reliable."
I nodded. "I think I'm beginning to see that."
"So did she," he informed me. "He was married to Sarah that time, and it was hard for your mother to even accept that she had stooped so low, but it was for Mike, and she decided just to put all her chips on him one last time. He promised her he was going to leave Sarah and be with her. He told her that he loved her, and he had never actually told her that—I think maybe that's why she decided to trust him again. She wanted more than anything to believe him, Nicole. But your mother, for all her hopefulness, wasn't a stupid woman. He fell back into the same pattern he used to fall back into—he would always withdraw from her when he realized he wasn't going to follow through on his promise. Throughout the years when she would talk to me about him, every time she would cry. That was how I knew something was different the last time—when she talked to me about him, about the affair and her doubts about him actually leaving, she wasn't crying. It was like she had run out or something, and I guess she had—she had run out of tears and hope and everything else. She was drained. She let him hurt her more than anyone else in her whole life, but she couldn't stay away from him."
There was a long pause, and I wasn't sure that he was going to go on, because something changed in his face. His jaw was tight, his eyes cast toward the ground, and if I wouldn't have known any better, I would have thought he was going to cry.
"There's something…that I want to tell you, and you're probably going to…get very mad at me. I'll understand, believe me, because I've spent years…hating myself for it."
Dread formed in the pit of my stomach. "Okay…"
"I told you the last time was different," he said. "Your mother felt him withdraw and…I don't know what was different that time, but somehow…it was like she suddenly woke from a stupor, and she realized he was never going to follow through. She called me one night…it was actually the weekend before the accident, and she told me…"
Alex paused and cleared his throat, maintaining his composure. "She told me that she knew Mike wasn't going to leave Sarah, and she couldn't stand to be his mistress again. She told me that she wanted so badly to walk away from him, to just put him behind her. But she wasn't strong enough. She told me that. Even though she knew she needed to walk away from him, she still loved him, and she couldn't walk away on her own. She asked me to help her. She said that… loving him was killing her, and she just needed a fresh start, a new life. Jamie finally realized that Mike would never be anything but bad for her, Nicole, and she came to me, and she begged me to help her leave him. She asked me if we could just take you and go away somewhere and never come back, because that was the only way she could…"
I was completely amazed as I watched my father cry for the first time in my life.
"Hey, don't do that," I said, moving closer to him on the couch, not knowing what to do. "It's okay."
He shook his head, looking irritated at his own lack of composure. "No, it's not okay. She needed me. She needed me to help her get away from him, and she even asked me for my help… and I let her down. I told her no, that she was being…overly dramatic. That was Saturday night, Nicole. She died Wednesday." He looked at me, his eyes tormented with years of guilt. "I could have saved her, but I told her no."
It was my turn to hug him. "You couldn't have known what was going to happen."
"I shouldn't have had to!" he told me vehemently. "She would still be alive today if I would have just put you guys in the car and taken her away like she asked me to, but I didn't take her seriously. She asked me for help, Nicole. Do you have any idea…how it feels to know that someone you love died, and you could have stopped it, but you didn't?"
"You didn't know," I told him quietly as I hugged him, and this time it was Alex who cried into my shoulder.
We stayed there on the couch for a couple minutes as he regained his composure and I absorbed the new information he had just passed on to me.
Apparently her journals weren't complete. Not only was there nothing in there about that part of the affair with Mike, but there was definitely nothing about turning to Alex, asking him to take her away, to escape Mike's hold on her.
His earlier words ran through my head, his out-of-the-blue offer to send me to an out-of-state school if that was what I needed to rid myself of Derek.
"I wasn't there when she needed me," he finally concluded once he had himself back in check. "The only time she ever asked me for help in all of the years we knew each other…"
I shook my head. "It's not your fault, Dad. She was…in too deep."
"I know," he agreed, nodding. "But for the first time, she wanted out. Every other time she would get in too deep with him, she would just allow it to happen. She asked for help that time. She was going to try to get better, but she just needed to get away from him to do it. She needed somebody to help her be strong." He shook his head. "I was drunk that night, but I'll never forget that phone call. It haunts me," he said, offering a mirthless smile.
"Don't you think you've carried around that ghost long enough?" I suggested. "You know she wouldn't want you to blame yourself. It was her decision."
"I know," he said. "But she asked me to save her, Nicole."
Nodding, I said, "I know. Is that why you offered to take me away from Derek?"
"Trying to get it right the second time around," he offered. "I don't know what kind of cruel joke Fate decided to play on me by making me go through this twice in 20 years, but…"
"Don't worry," I said, feeling that I needed to be strong for him, if for no other reason. "We're going to win this time."
Nodding, he just looked up at me, sighing as he said, "We have to get the hell out of this town, Nicole. It's haunted."
I nodded in agreement. "We will. I promise, I'm not going to fall back in this time."
"We could go as soon as next week, if you wanted to. You could just transfer to a school wherever we're heading."
I shook my head. "I would prefer that we stay here until the end of the school year. If I have any moments of weakness—which I don't plan to, because I am going to avoid him as if my life depends on it—I promise I will come straight to you and you can…remind me. You can be my support system if there's any threat of relapse. We're going to be partners."
He nodded. "I like that idea."
"We'll save up our money, we'll discuss our relocation options, and when I graduate, we'll just move. We don't even have to tell anybody," I said, offering a smile.
"They'll just wake up one day and we'll be gone. A dramatic exit. I like it."
I smiled at him. "It's a plan then."
"Don't tell Derek," he implored me. "If he knows he's really about to lose you…"
I nodded, my smile waning. "I know. I read all her journals, remember? That's what Mike did when she would try to leave."
"How the hell did you end up with Mike Jr.?" he asked, shaking his head at me.
"I have no idea," I told him. "But wait, what about Katrina?" I asked, remembering he had a girlfriend.
He rolled his eyes. "We're not telling her either. We're just getting the hell out of here."
"You should probably break up with her before we leave," I suggested.
Nodding, he said, "I probably should. Do you have any idea where we're going to be relocating to?"
This topic sparked my excitement a little bit, and I told him a little enthusiastically, "Oh, I have several ideas, but I'm going to have to talk them over with you. There are things to consider—budget, cost of living, the increased price of housing in the places I want to go to school…you may not agree to them."
"We can go anywhere you want, kid. Pick a spot of the map, I promise we'll figure out a way to get there."
Biting my lip, I said, "Well, if you don't have anything better to do…I have all of the schools bookmarked, it would only take me a second to pull them up and show them to you online."
Standing, Alex said, "Let's go find our next home."
I smiled and assented, making my way happily down the hall, forgetting for a little while longer the sad circumstances of our relocation.
Being strong for Alex was one thing.
Being strong in school when Alex wasn't there and Derek spotted me and came walking in my direction was quite another.
I managed to avoid him, ducking into the girls' bathroom when he tried to approach me, and I tried to figure out what I was going to say, how I was going to act. The fact that my throat closed up at the sight of him and my heart dropped to my little toe really didn't help me think quickly.
After wasting as much time as I possibly could in the bathroom, I made my way to class and slipped in just as the bell was ringing, earning an unpleasant look from the teacher. I sheepishly averted my gaze, but I wasn't really sorry—Derek was in that class, so I decided it would be better to be late than early, that way Derek couldn't talk to me.
However, I acknowledged as I sat down at my desk, after class would be a different story.
I couldn't avoid him forever.
Well, not yet.
In the long run, avoiding him forever seemed to be the plan, but there was still some time before I would be able to do that. In the meantime, I would just have to be strong—something it turned out I wasn't so good at being around Derek.
By the time that class I ended, I had myself so wound up that I felt physically ill. I knew Derek was going to approach me. For all that we had been fighting and he had remained stubborn, I could see it when he looked at me, feel the difference in his gaze.
He knew something was different.
Sure enough, as soon as class was over and I jumped up and tried to push my way through the other students, Derek grabbed his notebook and came traipsing after me.
I needed him to not chase me.
It was too hard when he did that.
"Nikki," he said, and I could hear the frown in his voice even though I wasn't looking at him.
I didn't turn around. I knew it was silly, because he would catch up to me anyway, but part of me wanted to give him some kind of advance notice for the bomb I was about to drop on him.
"Nicole," he said, reaching up and grabbing me lightly by the arm, forcing me to stop.
"Hi," I said lamely, not really looking at him.
His scowl deepened. "Are you okay?"
"Yep," I said, but my voice was just a touch too high-pitched to sound normal.
Oh no, I thought as I felt the tears start burning prematurely behind my eyes.
"Why are you running from me?" he asked.
The irony of how perfect his words were for what he didn't know I was preparing to do made my heart ache.
"Are you still mad at me about that shit with Kayla?" he asked.
"I don't… want to talk about her," I said tiredly.
"I don't either." He moved forward, hesitating just a second before he wrapped his arms around me, lightly hugging me. "Wanna just forget about that?"
My whole body ached to melt against him, and the burning behind my eyes got worse. Finally the moisture broke through, and I felt the tears begin to form in my eyes.
I just wanted to say yes and stay in his arms forever.
"Hey," he said, frowning as he saw the tears. He placed his thumb below my chin and tilted it up so I was forced to look at him. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, God, I can't do this," I said, pushing against his chest in an attempt to just get out of his tempting embrace. "Let me go, I have to get to class."
He released me, but he didn't let me go. "Nikki…"
I could feel desperation clawing its way up my insides, images of us together flooding my mind, thoughts about college—the future we were supposed to share together. Waking up next to him every morning, lazy afternoons as we studied for our classes, late nights as we ate Chinese food and bitched about work or classes. In that moment, I saw the life we would never live, the kids we would never have, the future that could never be.
I wanted it so damn bad. In that moment, I wanted it more than anything, and that flood of desperation told me to just keep him, not to let him go. It would disappoint Alex, but in that moment I wanted to be back in Derek's arms enough that I didn't want to care.
"I love you," I whispered, trying not to let the tears flow out. "I love you so much."
He smiled a little and a little of that twinkle returned to his blue eyes. "I love you, too."
My heart constricted and I felt like something twisted violently in my chest. I knew my expression looked instantly broken, but I didn’t have enough control to stop the emotions from showing all over my face.
"What is it?" he asked, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," I said, the tears slipping down my cheeks. "I don't even know… if the easiest thing to do is tell you everything, tell you how I feel, or if less is more. I want to just tell you, and I want you to just make it go away, but you're not going to. I wish we could just go away. I might hate myself a little bit, but then I wouldn't have to miss you. I wouldn't feel like… I'm leaving a piece of myself behind forever," I said, my voice breaking as my tears started to fall harder.
His face fell and his eyes immediately dulled. He looked shocked, and as I raised my hand to wipe my tears away his hand fell away from my shoulder.
I missed the contact instantly.
"Are you breaking up with me?" he finally asked.
Since words were too difficult, I nodded, trying not to cry as hard as I needed to.
All he could do was stare at me.
"I can't do this," I whispered to him. "I can't… do what she did, Derek. I love you, I do, but it's not enough. I wish that it was, but it isn't."
His jaw clenched and his eyes turned a little cold. "This isn't about your fucking mother, Nikki. This is about us."
"Yeah, and we've just become Jamie and Mike, the second generation," I told him, seizing control over my emotions as I wiped away my last tear.
"I want to be with you, not Kayla," he told me.
"I know, and that's what I want too, Derek, but she's not going to let that happen. And… I want to believe—I wanted to believe that you wouldn't let her come between us, that you would love me and be with me no matter what, but you're proving that isn't true. You've already let her come between us, Derek, that's how I've had enough time to think about this. And… I can't live my life like that. I love you more than I was supposed to, and that scares me."
"You're leaving me because you love me," he said, nodding as he looked off into the distance. "That makes perfect fucking sense, Nicole."
"I never believed in love, Derek. Not until I fell in love with you. But I love you too much, just like she loved him, and you… you might love me, but you must not love me enough."
"Yes, I do," he stated, looking at me with irritation.
"Yeah?" I challenged. "Prove it. I'm all you want, right? The only one you need?"
He must have sensed there was going to be a catch, because instead of verifying this he merely stared at me, waiting.
"Run away with me."
"What?" he asked.
"You heard me. That's the only way we're going to be able to be together, so if you love me so much, prove it. Leave it all behind. Come away with me to college or to the poor house, I don't even care as long as I’m with you."
I waited for his answer, even though it had been said completely without careful thought or planning—it was just word-vomit.
"What do you say, Romeo? Will you run away with me?"
He just looked at me, that same dullness in his eyes. "You know I can't do that."
I smiled sadly and my eyes began to burn again. "I know you won't. That's not our book, is it?" I said to him, my lips curving up sadly. "You won't leave her for me, and unlike my mother I'm selfish enough to ask you to, because I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, but not enough to kill myself. I don't give a damn about Kayla. I wish she would have never been born, actually, because then this couldn't have happened and we could have been happy together. Isn't that terrible?"
He said nothing, just stared at a spot past my shoulder with a sad expression on his face.
"So, what do you think, Derek? Last chance. You want to turn your back on everything else and be with me?"
"I can't," he whispered.
I hadn't expected him to, but I think there was a small part of me locked away deep inside that wished against all reason that he would say yes, that he would tell me to go put as much in my car as I could fit and we would just run away together.
Completely unrealistic.
Most dreams seemed to be.
I nodded. "I didn't think so."
I wanted to give him one last kiss goodbye, just one more memory to hold onto, but I sensed that it would leave me feeling even more despair if I did, so instead I took one last look, squared my shoulders, and turned away, hoping he wouldn't come after me—and at the same time wishing he would.
He didn't.