104
For the rest of the afternoon, I help Sarah clean the apartment in companionable silence; we’ve talked ourselves out, and there’s nothing more to say. I have so much to process on my own.
She keeps catching my eye and shaking her head at me in awe. I don’t think she can accept that this is how I am now, as though she keeps waiting for the old Emma to jump out, be in emotionless and commanding mode again, and pull out some tight tailoring and an iPad checklist. Her attention unnerves me, but I don’t want to freeze her back out again; she deserves more. I deserve more.
I keep checking my cell obsessively, but Jake doesn’t call or text. Every time I see the blank screen, I die a little more inside. I long for one of his song emails, a message, anything! I understand his silence; she’ll be with him. He has a lot to think about, talk about. He’s mad at me, and he’s overwhelmed. It doesn’t make this any less painful, and it feels like an eternity.
I spend an hour going through emails and work files before throwing my laptop aside listlessly. I can’t even begin to dwell on what the future holds, for my job, for Jake and a baby, or seeing him again. I’m trying not to focus on him, on her, on what we did. It’s like trying to turn back the tide somehow, and my head is my own worst enemy.
It’s like I’m in an alternate universe while sitting here in my apartment, yet it looks so different to me. The whole atmosphere has shifted since I opened up to Sarah. I feel like I’m home for the first time since I moved here, that this place actually feels like a haven from the outside world. I think back to my childhood room in Chicago; I never really felt like it was my home. I never connected with the city, the people, or my own mother; I was always on edge.
Sarah had been a force to be reckoned with. She was shy and small and looked vulnerable, so I swooped in to protect her because I needed someone to watch and take the focus of the lack of it in my life. Except she wasn’t that vulnerable at all. She let me believe it so that I had a purpose, a focus. That’s what I did; I fixed things, helped others have better lives than me, and organized things to make it all so safe and steady and predictable. Much like my mother does for her homeless shelter patrons. I was trying to fool myself, detach myself from my own life. It’s why I’ve excelled at my job, distancing from my own needs and emotions, robotically taking control.
Is that what my mother does? Are we more alike than I care to admit?
Jake flipped the tables on me when he brought my own life, flaws, and insecurities into the picture. He didn’t want a brainless PA to do his bidding. He wanted involvement from me, a two-way friendship. He wanted to delve into my life and fix things, something that others failed to do. This insane need in him to pry and figure me out, like a kid with a toy, is the first time someone took control of my problems and wanted to hear them.
He is like a child sometimes, so it’s hardly surprising that I posed a challenge and an adventure to him. I was probably the first young female to grace his presence who didn’t want to bed him, who hadn’t fallen at his feet drooling. It was perhaps refreshing not to have a girl swooning demurely all the time. I was real. We bonded as friends and got to know each other, never posing a threat to one another. It caught me by surprise.
That’s how he got in, by being the one man I have ever met who didn’t want anything from me. He didn’t desire me; he didn’t frighten me. His straightforward, laidback manner forced me out of my standard mode, constantly pushing my boundaries further into laxness.
I crossed the line, not him; I fell in love with him, and in turn, I gave him a free rein to chase me as another conquest. He is a hotblooded male, and that’s what he does. I removed the rules to our friendship by kissing him and opening a can of worms, spiraling into confusion, blurring the lines of what we were doing, and causing chaos between us. I only have myself to blame.
***
Marcus returns mid-afternoon, his short shift for the day over, and offers to take us both for a late lunch, which shocks me. The fight between them has been forgotten and replaced with giggles, and hugs like it never happened.
I still can’t warm to him, so I decline the offer, aware of Sarah’s eyes on me. She wants me to give him a chance for her sake, and I throw her a look that I hope conveys the message,
“Baby steps.”
They finally leave, giving me space to think and time to figure out how I’ll face Jake at work on Monday.
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