I was exhausted and miserable without Jesse. The sleepless nights were due to a mixture of events. For one thing, I was scared I was going to lose my job; but that wasn’t as awful as the fear that I might lose Jesse because of this. We’d promised each other that we were going to make it past this, but two months with no contact from a person was a long time. I was terrified that his feelings for me were going to change in that time we were apart while my own feelings only grew deeper and stronger for him. I couldn’t take the fear that gripped my heart, but I also couldn’t take the risk of both of us losing our jobs over something that had never actually happened. Neither of us would ever find jobs in any school district if we were fired because of a scandal, and if I ran to Jesse, I’d fuck up the entire investigation and then we’d both be left with nothing.
I was certain that Richard was watching us closely, and that scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t sure what he was capable of, but I was certain that he’d gotten the revenge he had wanted. This was why he’d been so quick to sign the papers, and I wondered how long he lurked around or who he’d hired to do his dirty work to snap that picture of Jesse and me.
I went to happy hour that first week, hoping for the chance to see Jesse outside of school, but he never showed. And I realized that I wasn’t in a “happy” kind of mood after that, so I declined invitations to sit and drink with my friends, preferring the company of my pillow, my tissues, and my memories.
I used the time to reflect on all that had happened in my life since I’d met Jesse.
He’d always been the one meant for me; I knew that now. But Richard had stepped in and mesmerized me with his charm. The more I thought about Richard, the more I realized that he wasn’t the one who had changed. I was.
He’d always been controlling. He’d always wanted things his way. He’d always been manipulative. And he was still the same way.
But he had loved me; at least at the time I thought it had been love. He took care of me and provided for me and made me promises. The problem was that I believed him when he promised me things, but he never delivered. He promised me a life full of happiness, but looking back at our five years together, I couldn’t really think of a single time when I’d really laughed one of those gut-wrenching laughs that leaves your abs sore for days. I couldn’t think of a time when he’d done something to make me happy that didn’t include buying something for me.
I thought of his promise to love and cherish me. It had never been about love for us. It had been about a big wedding and materialistic things. He never cherished me. He took me for granted, and so when I suggested a trial separation while we still lived together, it really hadn’t affected the way he lived his life. I still did his laundry. I still washed the dishes. He still had a clean house to come home to, with the added bonus of living in the same house with a wife who didn’t nag him because I didn’t even talk to him.
I had spent so much time blaming him for turning into an asshole, which he undoubtedly was, especially given my current situation. In reality, though, I had just grown up. I had changed. In my early twenties, sparkly jewelry and designer clothes and fancy cars were enough. But I grew out of that phase and realized that those things didn’t really mean anything. What truly meant something was love. It meant being there for each other, needing each other, suffocating without each other.
To me, that was Jesse Drake.
After I had that realization, I called my mother. I made plans to visit my parents that weekend. Weekends were the worst during the time I was apart from Jesse because I had all the time in the world to contemplate how depressed I felt. So I planned a quick weekend visit, and after my dad had gone to bed one night, my mom and I sat at the kitchen table.
“Do you remember when you told me that if I put Richard first, we’d be able to work things out?” I asked her.
She said she remembered, and so I continued. “I did put him first, but Richard never once put me first. Not once in the past five years.”
“So you’re really ending things?” she asked, avoiding the dreaded “D” word.
“Yes,” I said, nodding.
“Is that what’s got you all tied up in knots?” she asked, somehow instinctively knowing as my mother that it wasn’t.
I shook my head as tears filled my eyes, and I felt her hand cover mine.
“What is it?” she asked.
I sniffled and wiped my eyes, and then I told her the whole sordid story, from when I realized things had started falling apart with Richard, to the night Jesse took me to his place, to the scandal that was surely Richard’s doing.