Chapter 3 – Scott
“Scott?”
“Jesse? Are you okay?”
She didn’t sound okay, even though she was telling me that she was fine. Her words were slurring, and I was sure that she was drunk. I didn’t care, though. It was good to hear her voice. I’d kept my distance and drank another shot when I wanted to call her. Instead I’d been waiting. I hadn’t really thought I would ever hear from her again, though, and now I could feel my heart clenching with the sound of her voice. God, I missed her more than I could have imagined a person could miss another person. I shouldn’t have loved her so much, missed her so much, but I did.
“Where are you, Scott? Have you already moved on without me?”
“I can’t move on, Jesse. I love you too much.”
“You love me?”
It was then, when I heard the slight bit of hope in her voice, that I knew I’d said too much. She didn’t need to know how much I was dying inside to be with her. I didn’t want her to know how ready I was to give it all up for just one more night with her.
“How could I not love you, Jesse?”
“I love you too, Scott. But you don’t want me anymore. Why don’t you want me?”
It was a simple question, and the simplest answer was that I did want her. I wanted her more than my next breath, but then I remembered that I’d told her that it was over. It was because of my father, and although I was sure that she wouldn’t take me back, her words of love gave me a tiny bit of hope as well.
“I do want you, Jesse. It just can’t be right now.”
“Your father doesn’t approve?”
How did she know? I sat up straighter in the barstool that I was now calling home.
“Or maybe it’s because you don’t want to face me after I got the paperwork today. I thought that you were going to help me, Scott, but you were just another snake in the grass.”
Her words had me sitting up a little straighter. She was using the same words that I always used for my father, but she was using them for me. What paperwork made her think that of me? When I asked her, she was quick to tell me, although the slurring made it hard to understand. I didn’t have to hear every word, though. I could get the gist of it quickly. I did know my father, after all.
“You have to know that I had nothing to do with it, Jesse. I would never do that to you. I know how much the bistro means to you and your father.”
“Well, my father is dead, and yours is going to take what I have left of him. I don’t even know why I’m calling, Scott. I just wanted you to know that I wish I never would have met you. Ever since I met you, there has been nothing but problems. You really have ruined my life. Even though it was already going downhill, you helped it get to the bottom.”
I couldn’t stand to hear her say such things. I’d never been happier than when we were together. I didn’t like the idea of her thinking of me in such a way, but maybe she was right. I hadn’t made anything better for her, although I’d tried to. My intentions were never to harm her in any way, but just being who I was seemed to be enough. Just being my father’s son was enough to change her life for the worse. But I hadn’t known that he was going to try and buy her out. I hadn’t known about the taxes that were owed, and I didn’t think that she had either.
“You have to believe that I didn’t mean to, Jesse.”
“I believed that there was a reason a guy like you was talking to a girl like me. It didn’t have anything to do with anything else but money, though, did it?”
“What we had, money was no part of.”
“Well, that’s how you got your first date, so I’m not sure that I would agree with it. But what I can’t get is why. Don’t you have enough money? Why would you want my shop? It isn’t that big.”
“I don’t want it. I’ll make this right, Jesse, I promise you.”
She didn’t believe me, that was clear by the sound she made. The last thing that she was going to believe was that anything good was going to come from me. From then it wasn’t long before she was off the phone and I was left feeling far worse than I had before. I couldn’t sit there anymore, so I got up. My driver got up with me, but I waved him off. “I got this, Ernest. Don’t worry about me.” Handing him some money for a cab, I walked out by myself, trying my best to stay in a straight line.
Sitting behind the wheel, I knew I was too drunk to drive. It wasn’t going to be safe, but as I started the engine and put it into first, another idea came to my mind. All of this was for nothing. Every day that I spent working for my father was another day that I was wasting my life. This wasn’t the life I wanted, and now I had no choice. The one woman that I wanted was never going to want me again. It was all for nothing.
The more I thought about how helpless it all was, the more I knew that there was only one thing to do. As my foot went down harder on the gas, my mind was subconsciously looking for a place that was wide open. I needed to go fast, hoping that the speed would stop the winding of my brain. When I got to the outskirts of the city, I was going way over the speed limit, but it didn’t seem fast enough.
Pushing the pedal down harder, I started to feel better when everything around me became a blur. What if I just went off the road right now? I could end it all. I wouldn’t have to worry about Caroline, or my father, or the fact that I was going to have to go the rest of my life without Jesse. None of it made any sense, not really, but what did make sense was just being done with it all.
The faster I drove, the more it all seemed so much easier to give up than to keep on going. I wanted to give up, and I damn near did.
But I wasn’t going to. I hadn’t given up on anything in my life. While it seemed like it was never going to get better, I knew that I was going to have to fix it. I was a fixer, and I needed to fix what was going on with me and Jesse.
I took my foot off the pedal and I could feel the car start to slow down. I was still going well over ninety when I went over the hill and saw the headlights. I was going too fast to get on my side of the road, and when I made a turn towards the shoulder, I lost control. The last thing, the last thought that went through my mind, was the idea that I was never going to be able to make it right. While I’d thought about ending it all, as blackness moved into my vision, I knew that more than anything I wanted just a little more time. A little more time with Jesse.