Page 13 of Third Time is the Charm
God, she really needed to stop comparing the two.
It was just hard when they were really the only two men she’d let into her life. Turning on the stove to heat her teapot, she stared at Jane’s invitation again, praying that maybe now, if she could rewrite over her experience with Darcy with that of Col, her heart could finally manage to move on.
Her fingers began to trace over the words again, like they did every time, until she got to ‘Jane’and the thought dawned on her that she’d already RSVP’d as attending by herself.
Shit.
Picking up her phone again, she hit Jane’s name in her favorites, waiting impatiently as the line began to ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, are you busy?”
“One sec,” Jane replied. Her response followed by a bunch of shuffling in the background. “Sorry, I was just packing for our honeymoon. Actually, I’m glad you called, I wanted to ask you about something, but mine can wait. What’s up?”
Beth hated the twinge of jealousy that she felt every time Jane mentioned any part in this happy process. She and Darcy had promised three months; she’d told him she’d marry him no matter what.
God, she’d been so touchingly naïve.
“Beth? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, sorry, got distracted for a second,” Beth apologized. “Ok, I did something… I hope it’s ok. Please don’t be mad… but, is it at all possible for me to bring a date to your wedding?”
Silence.
“I know it’s so last minute. I’m sorry, I don’t have to. I didn’t even think when I asked him, I just…” she trailed off, not knowing what else to say.
“No! No, it’s fine. That’s not a problem,” Jane jumped in to reassure her. “Actually, one of mom’s friends just got in touch with me that she wasn’t going to be able to make it, so that’s fine. That’s not the problem.”
Uh oh.
“What’s wrong?”
Beth heard her sister sigh on the other end of the line. “I know… you don’t want to talk about what happened. I know whatever it was, was really bad, but are you sure this is a good idea?”
Beth took a sip of her tea before answering, knowing that she couldn’t assure Jane that itwasa good idea. “Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is that I need to start moving forward – in all areas of my life.”
“But, can you move forward if you haven’t addressed the past?” Jane asked quietly, even though the profound insight of her words was deafening. “I don’t want to push you, but you haven’t talked to me… you haven’t even just told me what happened that night. I don’t like to assume things, maybe you have talked to someone in Boston, but knowing you, if you haven’t been able to open up to me, I can’t imagine you’ve been able to open up to someone else.”
Beth listened to her sister with a lump in her throat. She had closed herself off from Jane, but it had been for her sister’s own good.And hers.She hadn’t wanted to remember it or relive it, especially when there were so many environmental triggers that brought her back there anyway.
She’d told Colin.
Mostly, she stayed silent out of guilt. She couldn’t tell Jane that she couldn’t open up to her, but she’d felt comfortable enough to tell Col what had happened. Beth wanted to believe it had been out of proximity… out of a momentary weakness to release some of the pain that she’d been feeling.It’s not like she’d cried and broken down in front of Col.But, she had told himcertaindetails of what had happened. No, Jane would be crushed to hear that Beth had kept from her something that she’d been able to share with someone who was comparably a stranger.
“I’m sorry, Jane,” was all she could come up with before the silence became painful.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Beth. I want you to do whatever you need to do to get past this; I’m just not sure that burying it in the hopes that someday you will be able to believe it never happened is going to be good for you in the long run – or even the short run. I’m afraid that trying to live pretending everything is ok, is going to come back and hurt you ten times worse than if you had just talked about it in the first place,” Jane continued, the sorrow and concern that she held for Beth painfully evident in her voice. “Please don’t be mad at me for saying this. I’ve just been waiting for you to open up and talk to me when you are ready, but then you call and ask to bring a date and it feels like you’re starting to move past the problem. But, how can you really move on if you’re just ignoring your broken heart?”
“I’m not mad,” Beth said, softly. “I don’t know what else to do. You have no idea…” She broke off as her voice choked, a few tears leaking past her defenses. “Sorry,” she continued quickly before the conversation could turn down a very emotionally distressing path. “I know I will need to address what happened at some point. Right now, I feel like just trying to move on and put my mind in a better place will better help me handle that point when it comes. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do or not, but I do know that diving back into what happened and my feelings for him will be something that I’m not sure my heart can handle; it will put my life back under his control because I’m not strong enough yet to push him away again.”
The calmness and honesty with which the words came out surprised her.It was true– whether it was right or wrong was a whole different issue. Being with Colin made her feel like her life was approaching some sort of normalcy.
How normal it was to be dating quasi-celebrity was beside the point.
“Ok…” Jane replied with resignation. “I trust you. I just don’t want to see you hurt more.”
“I know…” Beth sighed, her next admission forcing itself over the lump in her throat to be heard. “I know it seems wrong, Jane, but I hold onto this pride because these days it’s all I have.”
