Now, suddenly, I was faced with passion.
There were, for lack of a better word, stirrings; something akin to when my leg fell asleep. The ‘stirrings’ weren’t pleasant or unpleasant. They just were. But, I had to ignore them; I needed sort through and comprehend the explanation for the cheating and the employment sabotage before I could focus on defining the depth of feeling which may or may not exist.
“I don’t understand, Jon. How could you cheating on me possibly bring us closer together?”
His grip on my hand increased and he clenched his jaw. He released a slow breath which whistled between his teeth before he confessed, “I slept with Jem.”
My jaw dropped, my lashes fluttered. I assumed I misheard him. My voice was a whisper, “Wha- what? What did you just say?”
I watched him swallow, his eyes seared me, his expression plain agony, “I slept with Jem. I slept with your sister.”
The beating of my heart reached a crescendo between my ears. “That doesn’t make any sense. Jem isn’t- Jem lives in…” I sighed. Jon’s mouth moved but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I thought maybe it was my name. I searched the table as though it held answers and said again, “This doesn’t make sense.”
His hand tugged on mine and roused me out of my internal indefinable state, he was mid-sentence when my mind engaged, “…called me and said she was in town. She said she wanted to surprise you so I met her.” His words were an avalanche, increasing in pace, the next more urgent than the last, “I hadn’t seen her since she visited us that one time in college and when I saw her I couldn’t believe it, she looked just like you. I mean, just like you. She is taller than she was before, she’s your height and her hair and her eyes are even the same color as yours. I thought it was you at first, from far away, but when I got closer I saw the differences and she doesn’t sound anything like you. She’s not anything like you, I know that now, but then… but then she was so interested in me, she seemed so like you but different- animated, uninhibited and I thought- I thought…”
We stared at each other for a long time, my mind playing catch up with his words. She looked like me. Her hair. The color of her eyes. It didn’t make any sense. Jem and I had always looked more alike than June and I, but Jem did everything in her power to change that. She cut her hair short, dyed it purple or bleached it. She wore contacts to change the color of her eyes. She had nose piercings and lip piercings and other piercings. It was true, the last time I saw her was going on six years ago; she’d been seventeen and I’d been nineteen. I looked basically the same.
The rest of his words fell over me: she’s not anything like me, interested, animated, uninhibited. When I thought of Jem I never thought of her as interested in someone other than as a means to an end and she was never animated. If possible, she was even more withdrawn than I was; I always thought of her as coldly focused. However, she certainly was uninhibited.
I sighed again. My forehead fell into my free hand. Jon took it as a sign to continue and I closed my eyes when he spoke:
“I drank too much but that’s not an excuse. I- I was drawn to her. She reminded me so much of you but it was different because-” he let out an unsteady breath, “I just wanted you. But you never seemed to want me like I want you, you’re always so detached. She- she acted like she wanted me and I-” he swallowed the last word.
I lifted my head and watched him. He looked truly undone. I cleared my throat and drew his attention to me, “Jon, why didn’t you ever say something while we were together? I never knew. You never told me there was anything wrong. You never said anything about me being distant.”
He licked his lips, “I tried. Really, I tried. At first, when we were first together, I just thought you would come around. I mean, I was your first boyfriend, I was your first… but then I thought maybe you just weren’t that interested in the physical stuff. I thought I was ok with that. If it meant being with you I thought I could handle it.” he had to take another breath and when he next spoke he sounded choked, “But now, I can’t stop thinking about you. When I said I ache for you, I meant it. Every day it’s like I’m counting the minutes until I see you and I think, maybe today. Maybe today she’ll change her mind, she’ll forgive me.” His eyes were watery and red rimmed, “Janie- can’t we try again? Can you forgive me?”
A sudden thought occurred to me, “Is this what made you leave that night- that night when I introduced you to Quinn? Does he know about this?”