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Jackson
It had been months since I’d seen her last: months of thinking of her, dreaming about her, wanting her. I’d known her for a few years; I’d been in love with her for as long. But she was never mine to have. She was Dane’s. I was there when he died. I was the prick that took her grief as an excuse to lay next to her, in an effort to comfort her. I was the arsehole that held her in my arms as she cried because I wanted to feel her body next tomine.
I thought back to the day I’d left. Summer had recently found out that Dane had a child; he hadn’t been faithful to her through their marriage. She believed it to be only the once; I knew differently. I hated him for what he did to her. I hated that she loved him. I hated that I was a coward and never told her the truth. I’d watched her go from inconsolable to angry, and then sadness. I’d been with her nearly every day of that process. I’d held her hand at Dane’s funeral, at the solicitor’s when she’d discovered his child, and all the time I wanted to tellher.
Instead, I’d run away. I ran away because the feelings that coursed through my body whenever I was near her, were becoming harder to hide. How could she love me the way I loved her? If she knew me, really knew me, she’d hateme.
* * *
“What time is Summer getting in?”Iheard.
I was sitting on my deck, watching the sun set over the Pacific. Dexter was walking up the stairs from thebeach.
“Hey, want a beer? She gets in tomorrowmorning.”
I’d met Dexter when I’d first arrived in California. He was Australian by birth but left some years prior. Although I didn’t know his history, I was aware that he’d left under terrible circumstances; he’d fled, hoping to leave his demons behind. It was a surfer I’d met, D-J, who introduced us. D-J had stumbled across me one night while I was too drunk to get off the beach and up to the house. It had been the first or second night after I’d arrived. I was lonely; I was missing Summer and feeling pretty shit about bailing out on her. And I had just received a second text message from mydemon.
“Are you collecting her?” Dexter asked, as he took the beer I was holding out and sat besideme.
“No, thought I’d let her walk. Of course I’m picking herup.”
He gave me the look. Dexter had been a licenced therapist back in Australia; in Cali, he became the unlicenced therapist, the man everyone went to with their troubles and one of my best friends. But, boy, could he freeze with hisstare.
“You missed your session today,” hesaid.
“Is that why you’rehere?”
“Yes, you don’t think I choose to chase you around the coast, doyou?”
After D-J had tripped over my drunken body that night, he’d introduced me to Dexter. The first thing Dex noticed was the way I kept one of my sleeves down, the way I gripped the edge with my fingers to stop it rising. He’d grabbed my arm and slid my sleeve up. He never said a word as he reached for his medical box and took out an antiseptic wipe. He didn’t look at me as he cleaned the cuts to my arm. From that day on he’d counselled me. He’d got further in helping me than any of the expensive waste of space therapists I’d had backhome.
It had been Dexter that had encouraged me to contact Summer, to return one of her many calls. She was angry with me, but it took the knowledge that someone had my back for once in my life, for me to contact her. I was so glad that I had. She cried, and that killed me because I couldn’t put my arms around her, because I couldn’t wipe those tears from her cheeks. She asked me why I’d left but that wasn’t a question I wanted to answer over the phone. Despite what I’d told her, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to tell her face-to-face. How do you confess to the one you love that you’ve been living alie?
“So, I repeat, you missed your session today,” Dexter said, bringing me back out of mythoughts.
“I’m scared, Dex. I don’t know that I can be normal around her. That I can act that wellanymore.”
“Then don’t do either. Just be you. Maybe it’s time to be honest withher.”
“There’s too much I can’t tell her, she’d fucking hateme.”
“Then tell her what you can, for now. Tell her how you feel about her. You’ve told me many times that you think she feels the same, so why not open up and find out, once and for all, where youstand?”
“Because I don’t want herrejection.”
“Her rejection isn’t the same as you’ve had all your life, Jack. You walked away from her and that must have hurt both of you. But here she is, on a plane, about to spend three weeks with you. She certainly hasn’t rejected you as a friend—that’s your startingpoint.”
After finishing his beer, Dexter left. I replayed his words through my mind. Summer hadn’t rejected me as a friend, he was correct on that, but having her as a friend wasn’t what I wanted. But to have a relationship with her, should that be on the cards, was also impossible. I’d have to return to the UK and that was something I couldn’t do, not while he wasalive.
Just the thought of him had my skin itch, had the wounds on my body start to burn with a desire and need I swallowed down. Most days I controlled that desire—that need. Some days I couldn’t, I didn’t want to. It was those days that Dexter had helped me find outlets, as he called them. Like he did with D-J, like he did with all the misfits that found their way as if by instinct to Passion, the bar heowned.
I stood and stretched my arms over my head. The sound of the sea soothed me, the gentle lapping of the waves as they broke on the sand was a comforting sound. From the minute I’d stepped back on U.S. soil, I’d felt at home. I intended to stay; I just had to figure out a way to dothat.
I took the two bottles and dumped them in the trash before making my way to my bedroom. I kept the sliding glass doors open, so I could hear the sea as I stripped off my jeans and t-shirt. I lay on the bed, not bothering to cover myself with the top sheet, it was too warm for anything else and I didn’t like air-conditioning. I stared at a stark white wall just crying out for some of myart.
I drew, all the time. I designed and those designs either adorned my body in the form of tattoos, or walls, and I earned from it. I didn’t earn a fortune, but enough to survive. D-J thought that I didn’t charge enough for what I did, I was just happy to have my art appreciated. It hadn’t been for so manyyears.
