Eva
I was both repulsed and pissed. Repulsed at the thought of sleeping with a sociopath like Justin. Pissed because I hadn’t trusted my gut. I had ignored the warning signs. Had dismissed those tiny hairs at the base of my neck that liked to stand at attention whenever I was alone with him. And now I was going to pay for being so fucking foolish.
I stared at the photos that I had laid out on the kitchen counter. There were eleven in all. Eleven moments that no one should have been privy to. Frustrated, I scooped up the photos, tossed them into the box and secured the lid. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t think straight, let alone try to figure out what to do about Justin and his disgusting proposal, not here, not in a place where I could still detect Jamie’s scent. He was still here, following me into each room that I entered.
I quickly changed, grabbed my keys, phone and purse and retrieved my luggage on my way out the front door. Being too lazy to unpack my suitcase and carry-on had paid off big. Once in the car I secured my seatbelt, only to be assaulted by a wave of sadness, one that pounded me from all sides. I wasn’t certain if I had been in denial or on autopilot but everything hit me at once, and I broke down and cried into my steering wheel. I had lost the only man I had ever loved and now his reputation and his vocation were being threatened. I may be hurt and angry that he had chosen his church over me, but I still loved him, and I didn’t want him to suffer because of what we had shared.
He will not suffer. You will not let it happen. You just need time.
Two days. I had two days to figure out how to prevent those pictures from being leaked. I had two days to figure out how I was going to nail Justin to the wall. Because he was going to pay. There was no way he was going to threaten me and get away with it.
I had two days to figure out how I was going to ensure that Jamie kept his promise.
The promise.
We might no longer be together, but I still wanted to know why he had made that promise. It nagged at me, taunted me. Why had he devoted his life to God? Maybe if I knew the answer, if I were given a solid explanation, then I would understand. And maybe then this unrelenting pain would become bearable. Before I could change my mind I withdrew my cell phone, texted my mother and asked her for Nathan’s home address. She didn’t question me about why I wanted it, though I had been prepared to lie and give her the pitiful excuse that I wanted to send Nathan and Liz a thank you card for the Christmas gift they had given me. Nathan and Liz’s address appeared seconds later on my phone. I turned the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
I had been so determined to learn the truth that I hadn’t prepared properly, and I knew that to be the case the moment Nathan opened the door and stared at me. That smart-assed glint in his eye that I usually encountered was gone. I saw true concern and what looked like sadness in its place. My eyes welled with tears and I silently demanded them to stand down. “I had a feeling you would come,” Nathan said, opening the door wider.
“He told you about us?” My voice broke and I choked back a sob.
“Yes,” he said, gesturing for me to enter. I stepped into his home and he shut the door behind me.
“Did he tell you that he ended things?”
“He called me this morning.” Those damn tears didn’t listen and they spilled over. Nathan disappeared only to return with a box of tissues on his lap. He handed me the box and I gratefully accepted. “He’s a fucking mess, Eva. I’ve never heard my brother sound so distraught . . . so lost.”
I would have thought that his words would have comforted me. That Jamie was just as torn up about this. But they didn’t. I wanted to be sick. He must have sensed my overwhelming need to vomit because he asked me to come into the living room and take a seat. I complied and allowed one of his comfy chairs to practically swallow me up.
“Did Jamie ever tell you why he became a priest?” Nathan asked.
“All he told me was that eight years ago he knew that the priesthood was what he needed.”
“That’s it?” Nathan asked.
“And that he enjoys helping people.”
“Eva, want to take a guess how long I’ve been in this wheelchair?”
“Um . . . I don’t know. Jamie never told me and I didn’t feel right asking.”
“Eight years.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“My drunk ass was too wasted to drive home one night after a party, so I called my brother to pick me up. Even in my intoxicated state I knew he was busy with a woman. But he said that he would come by later when he was . . . finished.” Nathan blushed. “Sorry.”
I wasn’t at all eager to hear about Jamie fucking another woman even if it was eight years ago, but I sucked it up and said, “Don’t worry. Jamie told me that he had an active sex life prior to becoming a priest.”
Nathan nodded, and I saw relief in his eyes for not being the one to have exposed that chapter of Jamie’s life, most likely. “Even though I knew Jamie would come get me I grew impatient and decided to walk home, which wasn’t wise since the neighborhood I was in wasn’t the safest. I didn’t make it a block when I was jumped by two assholes. They beat me until I was unconscious and then robbed me. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital, my arms both broken, my ribs cracked, and my skull smashed in. But from the waist down I felt nothing, no pain, just . . . nothing. Jamie was there by my bedside, looking like I was about to die on him and then the doctor gave me the news that one of those assholes had taken a metal crowbar to my lower back. I hadn’t seen my brother, not the one I knew, not the one who used to party with me, the one who wanted to practice medicine with me when we finished college, since that night. That man died that night.”
I pictured Jamie sitting in that hospital room, silently beating himself up, most likely wishing that it was him lying in that bed and not Nathan. “He’s never admitted it to me but I know he made some promise to God, to himself, to our mother in Heaven, that he would change. That he would abandon his wild lifestyle and serve God.”
“And you think he was wrong to do that?”
“I think he entered the priesthood for the wrong reasons. I think he did it out of guilt and that he is doing this as a sort of penance. That he deserves this. Don’t get me wrong. I think he is good at what he does. He is a good listener, can empathize with people. People trust him and are comforted by his words. And the way he speaks at Mass. I’ve seen him. I watch how his congregation responds to him. They’re not zoning out during his homilies or counting ceiling tiles, but legitimately hanging on his every word. Because that is how charismatic he is . . . how he has always been.”
Coming here had been a mistake. Learning that Jamie had chosen the priesthood as a way to atone for his actions, for not being there for his brother only made my heart ache more for him. Jamie must have been so devastated, so desperate, so broken to have made such a choice. “Why did you come here, Eva?”
“I thought that if I knew why he had made such a promise, why he had chosen to be a priest in the first place, then it would help me to understand. It would ease the pain of losing him.”
“Has it helped? Now that you know why he decided to be a priest, has it lessened the pain?”
“No,” I said without hesitation. I wanted to follow it up and tell him that I actually felt worse, but I kept that to myself.
“I’m not going to ask you if you love him. It’s obvious that you do. What is also obvious is that he is completely in love with you.”
I wanted to believe that. But I had heard Jamie loud and clear this morning. “He isn’t free to love me, Nathan. He said so himself.” I shook my head and tried not to envision how he had looked when he had uttered those words to me. “He doesn’t love me . . . he can’t.”
“Why? Because he’s a priest? Because he’s your stepbrother? He’s a man, Eva. Flesh and blood and with a heart that is breaking because he believes he can’t have you.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.” I couldn’t do this. Sit here and listen to Nathan tell me that the man who had broken my heart loved me. I stood and walked toward the front door.
“It sure as shit does matter,” he said, his voice firm.
The accusatory edge to Nathan’s voice stopped me in my tracks and I turned and faced him. “I love him, Nathan. I love him so much that I will not go to him and beg to make this work. Because I want him to be happy. I want him to be free to serve his parish and not be tempted to break his promise.”
“His heart isn’t with his parish. It’s with you!”
“I know he cares for me, Nathan. I saw it in his eyes this morning. I saw how much it hurt him to tell me goodbye. But you know what else I saw in his eyes? Acceptance. It was mixed with sadness and pain, but it was there. He hadn’t wavered in his decision. He hadn’t been on the fence. No, with somber confidence he told me he couldn’t do this anymore.” I turned back around and opened the front door, only to be smacked in the face with a frigid gust of wind. I looked over my shoulder and said, “Take care of him, Nathan.”