Jake

For a full minute after Janie leaves, I’m able to keep it more or less together. I try to go numb — God knows I’ve got enough practice at it. But the numbness doesn’t come quick enough and before I know it I’m imagining my father’s face when I tell him I blew it, and I can hear him already coming up with some other plan.

My hand aches, and it’s not until that moment that I realize I put it through the wall. The thick plaster and drywall topples out of the hole when I pull my hand out and falls to the floor, shattering.

I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have lowered myself to take part in Reginald’s delusional “grand plan,” and I shouldn’t have kept myself closed off from Janie like I did. All the guilt and anger just serves to illuminate what I already realized.

What I had with Janie wasn’t an act. I didn’t need to put on a mask to make her fall for me — I just fell for her and that was all I needed to do.

Flexing my hand, I sink down onto a stool at the bar, staring at my scraped knuckles. My whole life is told in that one image. Daddy says jump, and I ask how high, and deal with the injuries afterward. And what does he have to offer me? Money?

I don’t need it. I don’t need him, I don’t need the company. It’s not worth giving up Janie just to get a slice of the Ferry fortune — or even the whole goddamn pie.

Janie’s right; what she said before. Standing on her own two feet — she’s more alive than any woman I’ve ever known, and for a moment I managed to convince myself that I could have some kind of a future with her.

I could have.

Despite the fact that I know she doesn’t want to hear from me, and I want to give her that, I can’t help trying to make things right. I send text after text, and call her. No responses, and my calls go straight to voice mail.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“Let me explain.”

“I need to make this right.”

“Forget about the PR shit. I want to be with you.”

I stop short of telling her how I really feel — or, how I think I feel, anyway. How am I even supposed to know?

The afternoon comes and goes, and finally I get a response. When the phone goes off, I practically fall over myself to get to it, momentarily intoxicated by the hope she’s cooled down.

But, no. Of course not.

“Leave me the fuck alone.”

Reginald has no idea what he’s made me give up. I plan to tell him. But not sober. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? I want to throw my phone into the ocean outside and disappear. Could I? Is there any place I could go he wouldn’t find me? Or would he even bother?

Probably not.

It’s not in me to run away, though. I need something to distract me, to get me out of this hole. Previous experience has taught me that the best way to crawl out of this hole is to get into a different one.

I finally leave the beach house. Probably I’ll never come back here. As I stand beside the Benz I took from the garage to get out here, I consider burning it down.

No. Even if I was inclined to risk it — it’s been a hot, dry summer — the thought of destroying the memories that are in the place now is painful. Instead, I promise myself that I won’t come back here until I can come back with Janie.

When I pull away from the place, I fully expect it to be the last time I lay eyes on it.

A short drive and half a bottle of cognac later, I’m at a bar even farther north. I can’t go home yet, and going to Ferry Lights means being across the street from where Janie is probably seething hatred in my direction. Not sure I ever want to go back there.

Instead, I’m staring into the mirror behind the bar, at myself, just to see if I can still do it. Just barely. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe the cognac’s dulled my emotions to the point where I can stomach the sight of myself.

There are beautiful women here. Objectively, I mean, they’re gorgeous. We’re right on the ocean, and these women are the kind that never get into a two-piece unless they can rock it, and they are. A few of them pick up on my mood, I guess, and come by to ask what’s wrong. The first few I can’t even talk to, and in short order they leave me alone, casting nervous looks at me. A guy my size with an expression like the one on my face — I’m probably terrifying.

One of them, a tan brunette in a sarong and a bikini top, though, isn’t so put off. She watches me silently after she orders a drink, and I know the game she’s playing. “I’m not interested,” I tell her. “Sorry.”

“You look like someone just pissed all over your parade,” she says. “Come here to lick your wounds, big boy?”

I can’t even muster the energy to sneer at her. I just shake my head slowly.

“Must be girl trouble,” she sighs. “I can always tell. Or, is it boy trouble?” She arches an eyebrow.

She purses her lips when I finally turn my head to look at her, and drums her fingers on the bar. “Definitely girl trouble. What she do? Cheat on you?”

“No,” I tell the girl. “I fucked her, fell in love with her, and then told her she was worthless.” May as well have, anyway.

The brunette whistles, and finishes her drink.

“Wow,” she says when she puts the glass down. She stands from the bar, and the look on her face is a mix of pity and disgust. “I guess you deserve to be right where you are, then, don’t you?”

She walks away, hips swaying, and I can’t find a single fault in her assessment of me.

And I realize with a flash that I was never doing it for my father. That was only an excuse for my heart in case Janie didn’t want me.