“Why couldn’t you talk to me?” she demands, and if I know anything right now, it’s that I’m going to have to give her my rawest fucking honesty if I’ve got any hope of convincing her to give me another shot.
“I felt like a fucking failure. There I was with everything a man needs to be happy, including you, making the biggest movie of my career, and I couldn’t keep my shit together. I was overwhelmed by it all. I was drinking in the morning before work. I was drinking at lunch. I was drinking during dinner, after dinner, and throughout the fucking night just to keep a handle on the fucked-up thoughts running through my mind. I was scared out of my brain that you would leave me when you discovered it, so in the end, I fucking let you walk away thinking I didn’t love you enough to keep my dick in my pants when that was the furthest thing from the truth. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved another person, and I never, not once in our relationship, considered cheating on you.”
Her breaths are coming faster now. I knew she wouldn’t like this truth, but she’s angrier than I imagined she’d be. “And then you just let me keep believing that? For six years? You let everyone think that? Does Ashton know the truth?”
I shake my head. “No. The only person who knows the truth is my mother. She wanted to tell you, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“I don’t get it, Jack. I don’t fucking understand why you did this to us.”
“I did it because I watched you deal with the bullshit of Hollywood, and I watched it slowly kill you. There were days you didn’t eat, and days where you spent hours trying to fix your hair that didn’t fucking need fixing. Not to mention the hours you spent trying to find clothes you thought would make you look better, and all the creams and potions and fucking treatments you put on your skin. You tried to hide all of that from me, but I saw it. I saw all of it and I hated it. Walking away from all that was the best thing you did, sweetheart. You grew strong. You would eat those assholes for breakfast now. I have no doubt you could handle them and anything they threw your way now.”
“See,” she says angrily, “I thought that’s what I had you for.” She holds up her arm, showing me her tattoo. The one in my handwriting that says ad astra per aspera. jk x. The matching tattoo to mine that says ad astra per aspera. jc x in her handwriting. To the stars through difficulties with our initials added. “I thought we were together through everything.” She drops her arm. “I thought I had you to help me when I fell. You gave up on us, Jack. You gave up on me.”
“No, baby, I gave up on me. I didn’t trust I could get you through the difficulties. I know it’s a fucking cop out, but it’s the only truth I have for you now. I wish I’d been stronger then. I wish I’d been the man you needed. But I wasn’t, and I am so fucking sorry for that.”
She tightens her towel around herself, her movements as furious as she is. “Sorry isn’t good enough.” She shakes her head like she’s disagreeing with something. “I can’t look at you right now. I am so fucking angry with you.”
With that, she stalks past me and into the house while I watch her go, hoping like hell that she can find a way to make peace with all the shitty choices I made.
23
Jessica
Will: Jack still breathing?
Will: Should I take the non-response as a yes or a no?
Will: Fuck, are you in jail?
Will: I’m booking a flight to Grafton if I don’t hear from you in the next half hour.
Jessica: He’s breathing, but he shouldn’t be.
Will: Did he do something or is this just an ‘in general he shouldn’t be breathing’ statement?
Jessica: He told me he didn’t cheat on me.
Will switches to a call, which I answer only because it’s him. “I’m pretty sure I’m changing my sexual orientation to straight up lesbian now. No more of this bisexual business. I can’t trust dicks.”
“Right, so we’re just ignoring all those times you’ve told me you can’t trust vaginas, are we?”
“You’re right. I can’t trust dicks or vaginas. I’m switching to whatever they call people who only want vibrators in their life. And I’m buying a dog. In fact, you should find me a dog before I come home.”
“Do you want to talk about this?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to tell you all about Comic Con?”
“Fuck no.”
“Right, got it. I shall just sit here and wait for you to tell me what you want.”
“You rang me.”
“I knew I should have let Mira handle this one.”
“Is she there?”
“Yes.”
“Put her on.”
I hear shuffling sounds and Will telling Mira that Jack’s a fucking idiot before Mira says, “What did he do now?”
“He fucking didn’t cheat on me.”
Silence. And then, “What? As in when you guys broke up, he didn’t cheat then?”
“Yes! He didn’t fucking stick his dick in another woman that time he let the world think he did.”
“I mean, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“No! He shouldn’t have done it.”
“But he didn’t, right?”
“He shouldn’t have let me think he did.”
“Oh, got you. No, he shouldn’t have done that part of this, but I fucking knew he didn’t stick his dick in another woman. I told you I didn’t believe he could do that to you.”
“Well bully for you knowing that Jack Kingsley’s a one-woman man, but none of the rest of us knew.” I blow out a harsh breath. “We wasted six fucking years!”
“Oh, my darling, look at you go.”
“Look at me fucking go where?”
“Look at you sharing your real feelings with us finally,” she says softly.
“I’ll share my real fucking feelings with you. I’m really fucking angry with him.”
“Good, get it all out.”
“I want to scream at him, and slap him, and stab him with my fishing spear.”
“I didn’t know you own a fishing spear.”
“I don’t yet, but I’m getting one today if it’s the last fucking thing I do.”
“Hmm, should I be worried for Jack’s safety?”
“Yes! Fucking yes!”
“Okay, so what’s the plan now?”
“There is no plan. The only plan is for me to commit said violence.”
“It is very early in the morning. Maybe you just need some more sleep.”
She’s right; it is early. Just past six. But I do not need some more sleep. I just need the last six years of my life back, and for Jack to have not lost his fucking balls all those years ago.
“Put Will back on.”
“But we’re not finished discussing this yet.”
“We are. I need to talk with someone who doesn’t love Jack.”
“Right, so just before I do that, and also before you go in search of a fishing spear today, can we just quickly talk about the fact you feel like you and Jack wasted six fucking years? Like, you’re not planning on wasting another six fucking years, are you?”