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Present
Jase
I know I can’t fix what I’ve broken. Can’t even heal what I’ve severed. There’s a reason they tell you to not cut ties with the ones you love. The ache never goes away. The pain only goes on and on, and I severed that connection with my wife because I wasn’t man enough to deal with her heartbreak.
I don’t understand what she’s going through.
I’ve always prided myself in having a level head, not letting emotions get the better of me, but that created a monster in businessman’s clothing. A lesser man, a weaker man. One who doesn’t understand how pain works, how much sorrow a body and mind can carry, and what loss does to a person.
I might’ve lost, too, but I don’t understand the emotions Lo carries. I’ve always been able to not feel, especially when it comes to death. We all die someday, my dad always said.
Still, losing her, devastated me, but I had to be strong for Lo, had to bury her, and had to take care of our children. Lo never came back to me. She promised to come back, and she lied. She fucking lied.
It was after one of her clarity moments, I call them her “wake up” moments. They come when she’s having feelings. True feelings. Not robotic lies she tells everyone around us. They seep through, and she finally gives them life.
“Jason,” Lo whispers.
I look into her eyes, the brown of them glossed with emotion. Unlike normal, they aren’t empty. They’re clear. The fog is momentarily lifted.
The glossiness isn’t from hidden emotion, it’s from her truth, the one that comes when she least expects it. The ones that come in the form of salty droplets that pour like a rain after years of droughts, and it’s finally here. Her truth. Her wakening. Her rising.
My hands immediately go to her jaw, her smooth but strong jaw. I touch her skin, memorizing, holding this moment in my heart and mind. She lays next to me, her head on the pillow. She closes her eyes, as my hands glide across her cheeks.
“Hey, Peaches.” I let out a shaky breath, trying not to cry, trying to show her some strength, show her the love I have, the love she needs.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she whimpers, tears dripping, eyes closed in visible pain. Her tiny body shakes. She’s lost so much weight in the last year.
“Don’t. Don’t apologize. I know you’re hurting,” I hurry to respond, wanting to hold onto this moment for as long as possible. I’ve come to realize these seconds of clarity only last until the pain takes hold. Then, I literally watch the life drain from her eyes. I can even wave my hands in front of her, and still, she wouldn’t see me.
“I-I’m so sorry. I should be here. Should be aware. Should be a mom. I shouldn’t let the pain consume me.” She skitters out the words. Her gaze hovers over me, up and down with appreciation and love and something akin to nostalgia, it guts me seeing her this way.
Her palms come to my face, her thumbs rubbing the tears from my eyes. Shit. I don’t usually allow myself to break this fast, but there’s something so incredibly beautiful about seeing my wife come back to me, even if only for minutes. These moments are everything. They’re worth the distance—worth the pain.
“I’ll be better, baby.” I see a real smile, small as can be but a smile nonetheless, tilt at her lips. “I’ll come back to you. I will.” Hope simmers inside me, boiling me alive, toppling over all the other emotions. Over the fear. Over the anxiety. Over the reality.
I close my eyes in anguish, hoping it’s true, praying it’s true. Our kids need her. They miss her. I miss her.
“I promise, Jase. I’ll get better. I’ll be better.”
She lays the softest kiss on my forehead, breathing life back into me. Her lips are burning me, imprinting their mark, staying with me until she can feel again, until I matter again.
“I love you so much, Peaches. Come back to me, okay?”
She nods her little head, her face blotchy with emotion. The torrential downpour that is her pain leaks from her eyes. “I promise.”
But she never did come back. Her moments of clarity became less and less and less. They nearly disappeared altogether. That is, until she gave them to my brother for the following two years.
And then, seven months ago, my wife slowly came back to life, but it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t because of me. It was for him. It was his doing.
The moments she saved for me—how she’d kiss me like she used to, hold me with passion, lust, and desperation—those all went to him. Her smiles were for him. Her happiness and giggles, they were his. I remember when he texted me, happy for her, happy in general. It was right before my affair started. It was before I went to Nora like Lo went to Toby.
Lo talked to me today! he texts. Like the one before all the mess. His text infuriated me. I got angry, jealous that my brother witnessed it.
Oh yeah? I reply.
Yeah! She told me about her mom, about the pain. She confided in me, Jase. Told me about how she knows she’s hurting you and the kids. I think she just needed time. She’s coming back.
I didn’t respond. I let it fester. I let the bitterness fill me. Instead of her husband, she came back for another man, and it continued to happen. Time after time, it became less about us and more about them.
Seven months ago, when she tried to act like it was okay, like she didn’t kiss him, and didn’t ruin our marriage by icing me out, I had been too resentful. She believed I should’ve waited while she gave herself to Toby, but by then, I’d broken.
By then, it was too late for us.
By then, I’d let Nora into my life. She healed parts of me, parts Lo damaged.
Now, I’ve got to be a man and pick up the pieces. I’ve got to save her, save our marriage, and hope she comes back to me... as mine.
Because at the end of the day, Lo is my wife. She’s my everything. Nothing or no one can come between that, not even our mistakes.
She hasn’t texted me back all day, not that I deserve a response.
After Toby punched me, I left to go home early. My jaw and eye are bruised, and my lip is busted. I’ve had a bag of peas on it for the last hour. It’ll definitely draw attention from everyone at Ace’s pick-up lane. Not that he’d approve anyway. It’s not elementary, it’s high school. Lo told me once that he’s embarrassed to be picked up. Today though, I’ve got zero patience and even fewer fucks, he’ll have to suck it up.
If he was driving, he’d never have let me take him this morning. I’m sure he won’t be happy to see me instead of his mom, either, but he’ll be out of school soon, and I’ve got to get him. Then I’ve got to come up with some plan to fix everything. Especially our relationship. He doesn’t talk to me. Not that I have the right, but it hurts, knowing I’ve distanced us. We’ll have some time alone to talk since I didn’t take Jaz to Ellie’s today. My mom has her, and she should already be waiting for me at home.
I pick up Ace, the drive is silent. So much for patching things up. When I’m pulling up to my house, Ellie’s car is in the driveway.
Fuck.
Ace gives me a dirty look, one that could slaughter an entire nation without remorse. It doesn’t stop with his glares though. He opens his door before I’m fully parked, slamming it shut. The car shakes and he’s already rushing to the house. I hurry out, hoping Ellie isn’t going to start shit in front of him. Or at all.
She wouldn’t. Not in front of the kids, right?
She’s standing with her hands on her hips, staring at me with a feral look in her eyes.
Ace scampers inside, slamming the door, and the death glare he gives me before it shuts wrecks me.
Ellie struts up to me, her face heated. She seems different. So angry.
“I'm pregnant, Jason.”
Fuck that. It can't be.
I'm shell-shocked. This isn’t happening. I used protection. She said she was on birth control. There's no fucking way she's pregnant with my child.
“No,” I mutter, lost for words. “No.” My response is merely a whisper in the wind, drifting like a leaf in the fall, disappearing like a flower when the snow comes.
“It's going to be okay,” she coos, gripping my arms, her hands like vines, squeezing me, suffocating me, making me lose balance.
Lo will never forgive this. This will be the end of us.
She won't come back now.
She'll never forgive me.
She'll pick him.
The violent upheaval in my body makes me sick. I wanted to purge us of our sins, wanted to win her back.
But there's no coming back from this.
We lost a daughter, and now Ellie has my child inside her?
Fuck.