Chapter 21

Davis

The punching bag swings wildly after my final hit. I’ve been pummeling it for the last hour, but as I unwrap my hands, zip up my sweatshirt, and leave the gym, I feel as if I’m the one who’s been pummeled.

I’ve somehow made it through the day though, and each one that follows will be easier. I return to my loft, strip off my gym clothes and take a long, hot shower, washing away the remains of the day.

I pull on jeans and a casual button down, but don’t tuck it in, then find my phone and dial the nearby Chinese takeout. I place an order, but when I hang up something feels eerily familiar and I can’t quite place it. I furrow my brow, trying to pull the memory to the surface. Then it’s there as I flash back to a few nights ago. When Jill said Chinese takeout was her favorite food. When she also said she thought about us so much it scared her. Then I remember last night on the dance floor when she very nearly told me how she felt.

“Do you think everyone knows?”

“Knows what?”

“How we feel.”

Those words echo loudly, clanging in my head, reverberating around my whole apartment. Like neon lights blaring on. Like a goddamn marquee in Times Square. The sign that was in front of me the whole time, but I didn’t see it until now.

We.

How we feel.

I rewind the night once more to be sure, replaying every moment with her, every word, every second. Then further, back to the diner when she told me she wasn’t going to spend time with Patrick anymore, then to the restaurant when she told me about the last guy she was with.

How she hurt him.

I’ve always sensed she’s hiding something, hiding her true self. I’ve always believed she wants to be seen, wants to be understood, wants to be known. And now, twenty-four hours after she ran away from me, my gut is finally talking to me and it’s telling me loud and clear there’s something else going on.

I’ve always known when she’s acting. She wasn’t acting with me.

Jill wasn’t using me, I was never a career move for her, and Michele’s advice isn’t the reason she took off last night. When she bolted it wasn’t about me, or us, or what’s been happening over the last several weeks. It was something that goes back much further for her. It’s about her, and it’s about why she hasn’t been close to anyone in a long time.

Whatever it is, I’m not walking away without understanding her.

I reach for my wallet, slip on a pair of shoes and grab a jacket. Then I leave, and hail a cab. On the way, I call the Chinese takeout and cancel my order. I don’t call Jill because I don’t want to talk to her on the phone. I want to see her in person.

Soon, the taxi pulls up to her building in Chelsea, and I’m at the door in seconds, pressing the buzzer.

“Hello?”

It’s not Jill’s voice.

“Hi. I’m looking for Jill. This is Davis –”

But I don’t even finish. I’m already buzzed up as a voice calls out through the speaker, “Second floor.” I head up the concrete steps, my shoes echoing in the stairwell. I reach the second floor, and I realize I don’t know the number of her apartment, but I don’t need it. There’s a woman with light brown hair holding open a yellow door.

“I’m Kat,” she says and extends a hand, and it’s weird that we’re shaking hands at a time like this. But formalities still exist even when the woman you love is running from the world.

“Davis Milo,” I say. “But you knew that, evidently.”

“I had a feeling you might be coming. Come in.” She ushers me inside and it’s strange to get a glimpse of Jill’s life and where she lives, and immediately I survey the living room with its old beaten up couch, a coffee table with a silver laptop on it, several necklaces, and a vase of flowers. There are framed posters on the wall of Paris and a photograph of the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

“She’s kind of a wreck right now,” Kat adds, then gestures for me to follow her down the hall. “She didn’t really feel like talking to me. But I have a feeling she probably wants to see you.”

I stop walking. “Really?”

Kat nods. “She likes you. A lot. And I’ve never seen her like this. She’s usually the happiest person in the world.”

I nod, but say nothing. Because she can be the happiest person, and she can also be the saddest.

Kat knocks on the door to Jill’s room, and I wait, more nervous than I’ve ever been. Because I don’t know what to expect.

“Come in.” Her voice is empty, devoid of any emotion.

Kat opens the door, lets me in, and closes it behind me, leaving us alone.

Jill’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. Her hair is pulled into a high ponytail and her face is scrubbed free of makeup. She’s clutching a letter in one hand and her phone in the other as she watches a video. Next to her on the red comforter is a brown box that’s been opened and looks to hold mementos, photos and letters.

“You’re here,” she says in a monotone.

“I’m here,” I say, and I have no idea if she wants me to stay or to go.

“My brother’s coming to town tomorrow,” she says in the same dead voice.

“Yeah?”

I lean against the closed door. I haven’t been invited in technically so I don’t want to sit next to her, even though all I want is to be with her.

She nods, staring at the screen on the phone. “Have you seen this video?” She doesn’t look up at me.

“What’s the video?” I ask, playing along, even though I really want to ask what the fuck is wrong, and why she ran out, and when’s she going to tell me what the hell is going on in her head. But the moment is a delicate one, and she’s not even truly present. She’s someplace else, and I have to find a way to bring her back.

“My brother. Well, his girlfriend. She was on the Helen show a couple months ago.” Then she plays the video on the phone and I hear the talk show host saying in an affable, friendly voice, “I can’t imagine you’ve had any trouble finding takers though. So where do we stand in your quest? You’ve been dating JP and Craig and this guy Chris, but we never saw the video from that date. Are you really going to go through with this? Are you going to walk down the aisle?”

There’s silence from the woman in the green shirt sitting next to Helen, so the host continues. “What I really want to say is can I help you pick out your dress? Maybe help you get a tiara for your hair, a little princess crown or something? And maybe we can schedule your wedding to the Trophy Husband winner to air on TV too?”

Jill stops the video, but she still doesn’t look at me. “They’re happy,” she says in a barren voice. “He’s so happy with McKenna. And Reeve is with Sutton. And then, look at Kat. She’s so happy it’s like she has extra servings.”

She lifts her eyes to me, and I’m jolted. I’ve never seen her so heartbroken. Even in all the scenes she’s played where Ava is bereft, she has never looked this ruined. My heart pounds with the fear that I’ve lost her. That she’s completely slipping away. Still, I have to ask.

“Are you happy?” I brace myself for whatever she might answer. “Were you happy?”

She just shrugs, jutting up her shoulders. Then she tosses the phone on the cover of her bed and grips the letter tighter. “How can I be? I can’t be happy. I can’t be happy because of this. Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? It’s not possible. I can’t have this,” she says, gesturing from her to me, the look in her beautiful eyes so immensely sad. This isn’t the woman I know. But this is the woman I fell in love with, and I want to do everything I can for her.

“Can’t have what, Jill?” I take a tentative step toward her bed, and when she doesn’t recoil, I take another step, then sit down on the corner of her bed.

“This. You. Us.” She says each word like she’s biting off something bitter.

“Why?”

“Because I’m damaged. Because I’m broken. Because nothing good can come from being with me,” she says, and now her voice is breaking, and tears well up in her eyes. She thrusts the note at me.

“Do you want me to read it?” I ask her, carefully.

“Yes.”

I unfold the note, well-worn over the years with tattered edges, and thinning paper. It’s a short note, on a sheet of lined notebook paper, written in blue ink with slanted, choppy handwriting.

Dear Jill,

I guess I always knew I loved you more. Somehow, I knew I loved you more than you’d ever love me. But I learned to live with it. I was OK with it just to be with this girl I was crazy about. And then you broke my fucking heart when you left me. You just ripped me apart and for no good reason. I don’t get it. I’ve tried everything to get you back, and all you do is tell me to leave you alone. You tell me to stop calling, stop talking to you. Well, you’ll get what you want now. You’ll get everything you ever wanted, and all I ever wanted was you. I can’t imagine being without you, but I am, so I’ll stop imagining.

I’m outta here.

Aaron

In an instant, I understand everything about her.

Jill

Nothing hurts anymore. Because I won’t let it. I can’t let it. I can’t stand feeling.

But then he lays the letter on the bed and looks at me with such care in his eyes.

“Jill,” he says, softly. “It’s not your fault.”

“IT. IS.” I shout at him. I push my hands into my hair, holding tight and hard to my scalp. “It is my fault. It’s there. In writing. In black and white. Letters don’t lie. I got this after the funeral. One day later in the mail. I had sat there in the cemetery, my brothers next to me, my parents there. We all knew him. He was my high school boyfriend, and he killed himself. Because of me.”

“It’s terrible, and it’s tragic, and I’m so sorry he made that choice, and I’m sorry for him, and for his family to have to live with that. But you didn’t cause it.”

“But I did! He said I did! I broke up with him three months before it happened. Because I didn’t love him,” I say, and hold my hands out wide, balling my fists in my frustration. With myself. “That was the problem. If I had loved him like he loved me, this would never have happened. But I didn’t feel the same things for him that he felt for me. And I ended it, but he kept coming round, and he got crazier and needier, telling me he couldn’t live without me, and he would track me down after school, and he would find me after cross country. And I kept pushing him away. I even met him down at the bridge in Prospect Park to ask him to please stop. But he wouldn’t. He kept showing up. And he started freaking me out so I went to tell his parents. I told them what he was doing, and the things he was saying, and how scared I was for him,” I say, and there are potholes in my voice as I recount the story, the day I will never forget from the very beginning.

Aaron had left me another note, and the tone had grown more desperate, ending with the line I don’t know what I have to do for you to love me again…

Those words had sent a ripple of fear through me when I found the slip of paper in my locker in the morning. My hands shook as I read the note, and my heart beat wildly out of control with worry, like a deer trying to cross a congested highway, not knowing which way to go. The bell had rung for first period, but I stayed frozen in place, my mind racing with what to do next. As the halls thinned, I turned on my heels and headed straight for the guidance counselor’s office. Because that’s what you’re taught to do. Say something. But she was out sick that day, so I tried another option. When he was at swim practice after school, I walked to his house, knocked with nervous fingers, took a terrified breath and then stepped inside when his parents answered the door.

I tried to explain what was going on. But I didn’t even truly know what was going on. Aaron had never threatened to take his life. He’d never hinted that he’d had enough of this world. But his behavior had grown so erratic, so confusing, that I had to let someone know about the notes, about the calls, about the desperate ways he kept trying to get my attention.

“I’m worried about him,” I said in a small voice as I picked at the worn cuticles on my hand. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he doesn’t seem like himself.”

His mom gave me a sympathetic smile, as if I were overreacting.

Now, I look at Davis, and he’s listening, patiently letting me tell the story. “And you know what they said when I told them that?”

He shakes his head. “No, what did they say?”

I take a deep breath, steeling myself. I’ve never said these words out loud. They’ve been buried so deep inside me I don’t know that I can exhume them because I’ve never told anyone what I said to Aaron’s parents. That I warned them. That I was terrified he was depressed and would do something to hurt himself. That he needed help. That he needed someone to talk to. “They said he was just a heartbroken teen.” I press my lips together trying to stem the tears that threaten to break. The lump in my throat. The stinging in my eyes. “That’s what they said. That he was just still wrecked over me. And that he’d be fine. And then, three days later, he took an overdose of pills.”

“Oh, Jill. I’m so sorry for your friend,” he says, and he reaches across the bed, but doesn’t take my hand. Just rests his near mine. All he wants is to comfort me, but I don’t deserve it. I swipe a hand across my cheek.

“He’s gone. He’s gone because I didn’t love him enough.”

“No,” Davis says firmly. “No. That’s not why he’s gone. He’s gone because he had an illness. He’s gone because he needed help and he didn’t get it. He’s gone because there were other things at play in his head, and in his heart. He’s not gone because of you. You did everything you could.”

“But it wasn’t enough!” I shout, and slam my fist into the bed. Then in a low voice, laced with pain. “It wasn’t enough.”

He inches closer. “And it might not ever have been enough. You might have knocked on their door every day. You might have warned them every day. And it still might have happened. But you told them. You did what you were supposed to do. And I’m not blaming them, no one’s to blame. But you tried and they didn’t see what was happening, and even if they did they might not have been able to stop it. That’s the absolute fucking tragedy of all of this. That far too many people feel things only inside themselves,” he says, and he taps on his chest to make his point. “And they don’t tell anyone. They don’t share. He was going through something awful in his head and his heart and he didn’t know what to do. And now you are. And you’ve been beating yourself up for years over this, haven’t you?”

I sigh, a long, low keening sigh full of years of regret. “Yes,” I whisper.

“But you have to let it go. You have to move on.” He reaches for my hand, and I hate and I love that contact from him is what I need. I hate it because I can’t rely on anyone. And I love it because I want to rely on him. I let him take my hand and when he does, I don’t feel numb anymore. I scoot forward and throw my arms around him, bury my head in his chest, and let all the unshed tears fall, until his shirt is streaked with my regret.

“You have to forgive yourself,” he whispers as he holds me tight, rocking me gently. “Life is tragic. I know that firsthand. But things happen. And this happened. And all you can do is keep on living, because you did do everything you could. And sometimes everything you can do still isn’t enough, but that’s life. And that’s death. And that’s the way it is.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, as if I can hold in the one thing that’s still gnawing away at my heart. “But what if I can’t love you like that? What if I can’t love you enough? What if it happens again?”

He places his fingers under my chin and makes me look at him. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, the slightest trace of a smile on his face. “Jill, when I said I can’t imagine being without you, it’s a figure of speech. It’s because I don’t want to be without you. It’s not because I’m going to kill myself if I can’t. I like myself too much. Trust me, I won’t go quietly from this lifetime. I will be kicking and screaming. I will be fighting and working and loving until my last dying day. I want you, and I want you to be mine. But you have to know I only want you if I can have you, all of you. I want your body, and I want your heart, and I want your mind, and I hope you feel the same,” he says, then takes a beat to make sure I’m still here, still listening.

I meet his gaze head on, and he keeps going. “But if you don’t, I will survive, and I will keep on living. You don’t have to put me on a pedestal and love me from afar like you did with Patrick so you wouldn’t get hurt, and so you wouldn’t hurt somebody,” he says to me in the most tender gentle voice. But one that cuts through all my defenses and walls. One that understands deeply how I’ve lived my life for six years. I’ve never told a soul why I thought I loved Patrick, and yet he understands, because he knows me better than anyone ever has. “Because we will hurt each other, and we will fight, and we will argue. And sometimes it’ll be less than perfect. But it’ll be real. Every second of it will be completely real.”

Real.

That word echoes in my mind, and in my body, and all the way through to my heart. To my frozen, make believe heart that’s been on standstill for six long years. That’s been protecting me, and saving me from the possibility of heartbreak, the possibility of pain. But Davis is right. I did everything I could, and I can’t keep punishing myself by living a life of make believe. I might do it on stage, but I don’t want that when the curtain falls. I want a real life, and real love, and real pain.

I fidget with the collar on his shirt then play with top button. I am all nerves, but also determination, as I let go and place my hands on his cheeks, looking at him. My throat feels dry and raspy, and no amount of acting, or singing, or running has ever prepared me for what I’m about to say. I’m winging it, improvising and going completely off script, as I speak from the heart.

“I think I’m in love with you too,” I whisper.

He plays with a strand of my hair as he raises an eyebrow. “You think?”

I nod, and manage a smile. “Fine,” I say in a faux begrudging voice. “I know.”

Then I wrap my arms around him and everything—Every. Single. Thing.—about this moment hurts and feels right at the same time.

“Will you spend the night?” I ask. “But just to sleep. That’s all I can do right now.”

“Of course.”

I undo my ponytail as he takes off his shirt and jeans and leaves them on a chair in the corner of my room. He’s wearing only snug black boxer briefs, and even though I’ve been so ready to get him undressed, I’m glad he is right now but for a different reason. So I can feel the closeness with him, the connection between us with his warm body next to mine, skin against skin, as he joins me under the covers, holding me near all through the night.