Page 43 of And They Had a Great Fall

“Google.” He said in a clipped tone. He barely glanced in her direction before he opened his door, exited the car, and slammed it closed.

She took a pause before finally getting out of the car. As she stepped out of the car and looked around, she also realized that, due to the weekday and the misty, cool weather, it was an incredibly private place where she saw no other cars or people.

Jake pulled a backpack out of the trunk of the car, put two bottles of water in the side pockets and slipped it on. She stood there awkwardly, watching him. He didn’t say a word.

“Have you brought me out to the woods to kill me, Mr. Soprano?” she tried to joke, knowing it would fall flat, but wanting nothing more than to return to the Jake and Kat of last night, before her stupid slipup. “I wouldn’t blame you,” she mumbled.

“Ha,” he said without a hint of humor, “so you do remember?” He stared at her for a moment, and the hurt on his face nearly knocked her to her knees. He motioned toward a path to the right, turned, and started walking briskly, his body language challenging her to catch up to him.

They walked side by side for a minute. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know what else to say.”

She knew he was hurt, and it was her fault. Multiple times, he’d laid his heart at her feet, and she’d walked over it, seemingly without care. She glanced over as they were walking to see Jake looking deep in thought, his face blank, showing her nothing. She was aware that he had the ability to control the outward expression of his emotion and that, more than anything, scared her.

“Please say something,” she said, putting her hand on his arm as they walked together under the trees. He moved his arm away from her touch.

He remained quiet and pensive, and Kat thought he might never speak. He drew in a deep breath through his nose. “Kat, I just need to know, is this why you keep pushing me away? Do you know how much it sucks to try to convince someone to be in your life? God. Even saying it makes me sound pathetic. Is it him? Do I just not measure up … to him? I think what we have … I don’t know … it could be something, but I can’t—I won’t—compete with a ghost.”

Kat fought back tears as she both longed for the past and was frightened for the future he wanted and pushed her toward. She didn’t look at Jake in the same light as Ben. Ben would forever be canonized as an amazing and tragic person; she hadn’t known him long enough to be aware of and accept all his flaws. Death, especially young death, takes broken pieces and smooths them together over time, making them beautiful, flawless objects. It was easy to think of Ben as perfect, someone to long for and put up on a pedestal. It would be impossible for anyone to measure up to his memory. Jake was right. No one should compete with the dead.

She considered her words carefully. “This city … this city is complicated for me. I haven’t been honest with you … but I didn’t mean to be dishonest … I just didn’t say anything.…” Now it was her turn to ramble. She finally blurted it out. “I’ve been here before, with Ben,” she said, speaking fast. “I didn’t say anything because it didn’t come up. You called and then I came here. I feel like I should have told you. But I didn’t know how to bring it up. Also, it was so many years ago, I didn’t think I would see him so vividly once I got here. So yes, he is on mymind, especially here—but no, you are not competing with him inside myheart.”

“Shit, Kat,” he finally said, his frustration palpable. He scratched his head and ran his hands through his hair, growing damp from the misty weather. “I wish I’d known. And I’m pissedthat you didn’t tell me. I can’t ask youeverything, you need to just tell me some things. I want to know them.” He looked over at her. “I can only imagine how hard it’s been to be here.”

Kat paused before answering. “It’s been hard. But, it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it might be. Jake, please understand, it’s been over five years since he died. I’ve lived a lot of life in five years. I’ve lived more yearsafterhim than I hadwithhim,” she mused.

He had only been in her life for three years.What kind of messed up universe is that?She had only known Ben for 11.1 percent of her entire life. Her fucked-up brain kept doing that math each year, and the percentage of time kept going down the longer she lived without him.

“Five years … enough time that he lives in my brain and my heart, but I no longer hope to wake from some bad dream and see him around every corner.” She paused to make sure he really understood that she had come here for him, not to live out a memory of Ben. “I would be lying though, if I didn’t admit that I feel, at times, forever broken.”

She took a breath and told him what had held her back this entire time. “Jake, I don’t know if I have anything left,” she started. “I think sometimes that I’ve just lost too many people. My heart is so used to losing and grieving that I don’t actually know how to live in the present. I wonder if I even know how to love.”

There, she’d said it. She was letting him see her darkest fear. The fear that she was incapable of letting herself go enough to love someone completely—especially someone like Jake, who wouldn’t accept anything less than unbridled, authentic love. A tear fell and she brushed it away and turned her head, hoping he wouldn’t see.

“Kat, I haven’t been fair to you,” he said as they walked. “I’m selfish,” he said, his voice tight.

Kat opened her mouth to contradict him, but he put up his hand and continued. “Listen, I am. I know that. I live a life focused on myself, literally,” he said, letting out a dry laugh. “I’ve been unfair to you. I asked you to come here just because I was having a hard time, which is the epitome of self-centeredness.

“And I disregarded the parts of your life that don’t center around me. To me, you only live in my mind from the moment we became friends, lovers … you exist from the moment you meant something tome. You had a life before me. God, I never think about that. Like, when I think about the time I learned you’d moved in next door, I conveniently only think about you and Becca, not even the time before, when Ben was alive. How fucked-up is that?”

He shook his head and continued. “I used to get updates in emails from my mom almost daily about the neighbor with cancer, his wife, and their newborn daughter. It feels surreal to me that I was so close and so far from your life at that time. I don’t connect that family to you.Youare in my mind, only as you, and you withme. You’remysafe place to land. I’ve asked you to jump into this with me, all the while ignoring your past, and that’s not fair.”

She appreciated his recognition of the differences in their lives, but she didn’t agree that it was selfish to disconnect her from his minimal knowledge of her life with Ben. It was one of the many reasons she existed so well in his orbit. His awareness of that time in her life was through others, but he hadn’t witnessed the horror of watching a family disintegrate. She wasn’t another man’s widow in his mind. She existed in a space between tragedy and the remaking of her life post-Ben, and Jake allowed her to be present only among the living.

“That’s not selfish,” she said, as she couldn’t help but reassure him. “I love that you see me, but as I amright now. It’s hard to have people think they know you … define you … by something that’s only part of you, but not the whole you.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, the sarcasm clear in his voice.

Kat realized that he did indeed understand the feeling of living in an alternate reality, locked into your own private prison of others’ seemingly intimate views of your life. They had a common understanding of a life before and a life after.

They walked in silence and Jake was the first to speak. “I want to know all of you,” he started. “You only let me see the controlled, perfect, safe you. I saw the messy, sloppy you last night, and I also want to know the profoundly sad you. I don’t want a version of you. I wantyou.”

He looked over at her as they navigated the trees and rocks. The rain started to drizzle around them. They were sheltered by the thick canopy of trees, but it added a somber quality to their conversation. Kat couldn’t speak. When talking about herself, the words never came easy. She didn’t know if she could ever let him see all of her. She didn’t know if she even understood all of herself.

He broke the silence as they walked. “I met him once, Ben. I’d been home from a shoot in Vancouver, stopping off in New York for the weekend. I met him in the elevator. I’d known who he was and that he was fighting for his life, but all I managed was a stupid ‘hi.’” He cleared his throat. “Um, I will say, even sick, that man looked like he could snap me like a twig.” He let out a small laugh, and Kat looked over at him and smiled. “Kat, tell me about him. I want to know who he was, about your life together.…”

She hesitated. “Jake, why do you want to know? It’s in the past,” she said, her words tentative. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She hadn’t talked to anyone about Ben since his death. She liked keeping him in the past. It was easier.

“Ben, and what happened to him, has everything to do with who you are today,” he said. “If I want to know you, really know you, Ineedto know,” he replied. His voice was firm and tinged with kindness.

---