Beautiful Disaster (Page 97)

Nothing really new, but getting the confirmation of my suspicions is a lot less satisfying than one may think. I force myself to calm down as there is no sense in dwelling on that now – and I have a feeling that this is not the part he really needs to tell me, and as I won’t hear the rest if I beat him to a bloody pulp now I restrain myself from even telling him just what I think of that whole move.

"That about concluded my first ever therapy session. Well, she did tell me that if I didn’t find anything else to talk about we could always analyze why I felt the need for actions like that any day, but she didn’t bug me again with it when I showed up the next week. And like this the next appointments went. I mean, I didn’t really talk that much about the three of us, but about my sexual history in general. I think I surprised her when I told her that I didn’t keep a black book, or that I didn’t think I’d slept with a three digit number of girls. I’d even go so far that by the time I told her that I wasn’t freaking out over admitting that I had liked my one time experimenting with another guy that I really had no need to be there except to pacify Alice. I also don’t think either of us really expected that we’d make any kind of progress. I just talked, she listened, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t told anyone before. At least until the night the four of us went to that club, you know, where Bella had another spell of lethal foot-in-mouth disease and you ran off later?"

Even if I had wanted to forget, I couldn’t have, and at my curt nod he goes on.

"She was really upset after that, when she left with us a while later. She was trying to hide it, but you know how bad Bella is at that. We stopped at a coffee shop because Alice wanted to get a cup, and while we others waited outside Bella rounded on me and got in my face, asked me just where I got off on still trying to ruin your relationship. At first I didn’t even understand what she meant, until she nearly screamed at me that I should just stop riling you up. I didn’t even know what to say, told her I’d just tried to make meaningless small talk with you, at which point she started crying.

I was totally at a loss then, and she only got a sniffling, ‘Don’t you even see what you’ve done?’ out before Alice returned, which made Bella shut up again.

"I tried to ignore the unease creeping up in me then, and when the next week her birthday party went by without any problems I figured she’d just been drunk and ready to lash out at me as she couldn’t do the same to you.

Then neither of us had much time to really meet up, and I thought everything had more or less settled when Bella called me to fetch Emmett because Rose was in the hospital already. And after that I couldn’t really keep on pretending that everything was still okay."

He stops there and scratches his head, his gaze once again on the floor.

"Like you said, I told Alice about the accident that night. Figured she would at least throw a fit, but she was all calm and concerned, insisted that of course she wasn’t angry or something, and it wasn’t the end of the world that we wouldn’t have kids on our own. And because things were going so well I also told her that my whole sleeping around was in parts due to that, and the rest just idle whiling away my time until I could be with her."

He looks up at me then, at the same time happy but so utterly frustrated.

"You should have seen her. It was as if suddenly the whole world made sense to her, all the pieces of the puzzle had aligned the right way. She was over the moon with joy and kept kissing me, and told me that I could just cancel the next appointment with my shrink because obviously I didn’t need it anymore. And all through that the only thing I could think about was that whatever she said, I really needed to talk to Sheila about what had happened in the hospital.

"I called her the next day, affirmed that I’d be there at our usual day and time, but I told Alice I had canceled it. When I went that day I told my colleagues that I was leaving early to buy a present for Alice, one that I’d gotten the day before. Because sometimes she calls -" he stops there, then clears his throat. "She called at my office to ask if I was still there.

Presumably to surprise me, but I know that she was keeping track on me.

Of course I didn’t want her to worry, so more lies to keep her happy it was.

"That was the first thing I told Sheila about. And the moment I started talking it all poured out of me. How much I loathe that she has to know every day what I do, who I talk to, who I meet. That I know that she reads my emails, checks my phone, even called a few of my co-workers when something didn’t add up, like an impromptu informal brain storming session at the bar around the corner. That I’m trying so hard every day to make it all right, and whatever I do, it’s barely enough to make her happy.

"And from that I seamlessly went on to recounting what had happened that weekend, and in the club, and all the other times the four of us had met, and how I’d even started to dread meeting Bella because I just knew Alice would be in a foul mood for days afterwards. Now on top of that Bella was suddenly so angry and downright hostile with me like never before, not even the day she kneed me in the junk, which made it so obvious to me that nothing was getting better. Just you acting vaguely like a friend was a good thing, and only when I told the doc about that did I realize just how much it bothered me that we weren’t even talking anymore, let alone hung out. I think I was a veritable mess that day and really felt like I deserved it.

Before that I really didn’t comprehend what I’d done, didn’t fully know.

"Of course I asked Sheila what I should do, and for a moment I even expected her to gloat at me, but she only shrugged and told me that the first step in making things right always comes with starting at the lowest point. She advised me to talk to Bella, because why ever she was angry with me I knew she’d get over it fast. But I didn’t even know what to say to her, so Sheila gave me some homework. Even made it sound so easy.

"’Sit down with a notepad and just write whatever comes to your mind. And keep writing. Not with the goal to tell anyone, but only between you and that notepad. Write everything down that you wouldn’t even admit to yourself. Then burn it. Start anew. Until you find the things you can and want to tell her.’

"Sounded easy enough, so the next weekend when Alice wasn’t at home again I sat down with a bottle of vodka and set to work. Didn’t write anything for hours, but when I finally started, it was frightening how much I found to write down. And that’s pretty much when I realized what I’d done, and how much I’ve been lying to myself."

This time when he stops he looks about as miserable as he sounds, and although I’m convinced that he has every right to feel like shit, I still can’t help being at least a little sympathetic. As if he can read my mind, or at least part of my reactions from my body language, Jazz chuckles dryly and repositions himself against the wall.

"Don’t feel too sorry for me yet, the best part I still haven’t told you."

"I’m not exactly feeling sorry for you, don’t worry about that," I shoot back, satisfied with the amount of resentment ringing in my tone. Jazz shrugs a bit uncomfortably, but then goes on.

"Be that as it may, I couldn’t just burn the notepad. It was as if those scrawled pages held all that was true about my life that no one else knew about. I didn’t want Alice to read them so I went to work on a Sunday evening to lock them in my desk, but couldn’t do anything at all on Monday because they seemed to be staring at me accusingly. So I called Sheila, feeling insanely stupid about that in itself, and practically begged her to read them. I was so insanely glad when she agreed, I dropped everything I’d tried to work on before and just walked over to her office to drop the pad off.