THUGLIT Issue One - страница 15

“What is it, Erica?” Jake’s voice was just as quiet as the singer’s.

I’d prepared a speech in my mind, but it slipped away. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I wish I knew what to do to help you, baby.”

Jake just looked at me with that hard, flat expression that came over him when he got lost inside his own thoughts. Normally, I could cajole him out of it, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to this time. He was too bitter and raw right now. He was dangerous at the moment, liable to do something rash if I didn’t pay very close attention to him.

“There’s nothing anyone can do now. What’s done is done.”

“It’s normal to have conflicted feelings in a situation like this. It’s…”

“Erica, please cut out the bullshit psychobabble. I can’t listen to it now.”

That made a lump swell in my throat. Jake almost never cursed, certainly not at me. He was more depressed than I’d realized.

“I have to go out there,” he muttered.

“You what?”

“I need to go home for my mother’s funeral.”

“Jake, she’s gone and nothing is going to change that. Going to her funeral isn’t going to help her. It’s just going to drag you back to a place you hate and bring back painful memories.”

“I’d rather have the painful memories than whitewash the past.”

“You’re so busy at work,” I pointed out. “They need you at the clinic. You can’t just leave them in the lurch.”

“Why? Because some starlet wouldn’t get her boob job? Or maybe some spoiled teenager wouldn’t get her bumpy nose fixed?”

“You’re picking ridiculous examples. You know you do wonderful work. Important work. Think of all the little kids you’ve helped.” Jake occasionally spent his weekends performing surgery, for free, on poor kids from the inner city whose parents could never have afforded to fix their cleft palates and other disfigurements.

He rubbed his temples. “It’s not enough.”

“Look, let’s make a donation in your mother’s honor. I was looking online, and there’s this one association that focuses on heart attack and stroke prevention for women.”

Jake stared at me for what felt like a very long time. “How did you know my mother died of a heart attack?”

“Oh, I…” I felt terrible for not telling him about the sheriff’s call sooner. But when he’d come home, he’d already known that his mother was dead, and he’d disappeared into his den before I’d had the chance to say anything. “The sheriff who found her called here, right before you came in. I was going to call you, but then I was thinking I should tell you in person, and then you came home and you already knew…”

He put his hand up. “I don’t want to hear it. Just leave me alone.”

I swallowed hard and backed out of the room. “Let me know if you need anything,” I said, pulling the door behind me. Just before it closed, I stopped and poked my head back in the room. “I love you, baby.”

Jake just stared at me. I shut the door and tried not to panic.

Jake surprised me late that night, leaving his den and joining me in bed. He didn’t want comfort or sleep. He wanted me. Maybe that was the only way he could forget his pain. By the time he was done, our sheets were sticky with lust and sweat, and I fell asleep in his arms, feeling at peace with the world.

In the morning, I woke up alone. Jake’s gym bag was gone, and I thought he’d gone to the club early to play squash. I was glad, because I thought that was a sign Jake had turned a corner, that the crisis I’d felt was impending was going to be averted.

But then I realized Jake’s laptop was gone. Sitting in its place on his desk was a white sheet from a company that made some sort of line-filling injectable gel.

I had to go home, it read.

I crumpled it into a ball and threw it against the wall. Home? He still thought of that hellhole in the sticks as home? That turned my stomach. What about our home together? What about our life together? I picked up the phone, looked at the numbers Jake had called recently, and hit redial. What did he think he was doing? Was he determined to ruin his life? Jake could be impulsive, acting first and worrying about consequences later. I had to save him from himself.