It's complicated

Mr & Mrs

~

"His hands may have been on your shoulders but his eyes were glueddd to everything but.."
"Jake" Jane discarded her keys, pushed the hair back from her face and placed a trembling hand to the side of her head which was already beginning to ache with the scent of his jealousy.
Jealous? Whys he's jealous? Or is he even jealous?
Jane narrowed her eyes and scanned his body, stopping at his tightly clenched fists and compacted shoulders.
Ok, he's definitely jealous.
Jane blinked a few times at the sight before her. A few days or even weeks full of thoughts going threw her head in seconds.
It could just be another one of his games. Jake was always the childish one; Jane being a toy that he had abandoned for a newer, younger model. If someone decided that they wanted her, tried to 'play' with her or even showed her the smallest bit of attention, Jake would steal her back like the jealous, selfish, child he was throughout their marriage.
Maybe that's what this is.
Nearly ten years had past since their divorce, years of therapy had finally payed off. Jane was finally happy, business was booming, she was getting the beautiful kitchen she had only ever dreamt of and then there was Adam...the man she was slowly beginning to love.
Everything was going well.
Then Jake flew into her life again like the rather irritating pest he is.....a pest that just wouldn't go away......a pest that just keeps reappearing.
It's as if he could smell her happiness or even see it bubbling up inside her. His new life wasn't working out and he knew how quick and easy switching back to his old one could be.
And boom!
There goes Adam, a chance of happiness and probably years and thousands of dollars worth of therapy....all wasted.
But anything that goes up, has to come back down again.
His marriage with Agnes slowly dissolved, so much so, she threw him out on to the street.
And what do you do when something new fails...? You go back to the old way, the reliable way. Just like when technology fails you go back to the old way, whether that be using a pen and paper, reading a book or playing a family board game when the powers out in the middle of a storm. You go back to the old when the new fails, it's inevitable.
She could see it all again. The past thirty years of her life flashing before her eyes and what could be the next thirty.....appearing right in front of her.
He was suffocating her with his jealousy.
She blinked away the tears forming in her eyes, suppressed the sob that was threatening to escape her lips.
She would and could understand all these things if he just felt one thing....love.
But he didn't, and she knew it. It was impossible.
He'd traded her in for a younger model, practically ran off, left her to look after three young children and turned their twenty year marriage into something so unbelievably meaningless.
That's not love. That's hatred.
She'd never thought about it this way before....well until Jake began to have one of his not so unusual childish tantrums right in front of her.
Everyone has a breaking point and Jane had just reached hers.
Dr Moss was right. He'd told her that she would reach a point where she would over flow, overload herself and all the anger from the past ten years would come out in one unhealthy burst, and like most important things, it would probably happen at the worst possible time.
Jane often wondered when would be a good time to have an emotional and probably rather violent breakdown. But now she knew what Dr Moss had meant. The possibility of Jake being the one and only witness had never crossed her mind.
Jake better hope he leaves in one piece and not in a body bag headed for the morgue.
"Jake" his name slipped from her lips again as if she was making sure it was actually him in the room with her.
Something about her soft tone made him suddenly stop.
"What exactly is your problem?" Her hushed tone something he could barely make out.
"I..."
Jane raised her hand, telling him that she didn't need him nor want him to speak.
"It's like your allergic to my happiness" she narrowed her eyes as if she was making a last ditch attempt to understand him "you dropped back into my life like a bomb. Just when everything was finally getting back to normal you shook it all up again then left. Now you've come crawling back again just because your second marriage isn't quite working out as you had planned and I....I just don't want to do this anymore"
"But Janey I..."
"But nothing" she calmly cut him off again "I know your using me, I think I've always known and just gone along with it..."
Jane closed her eyes in fear that his 'puppy dog eyes' could change her mind. She'd thought he'd left the room until she heard a click....a familiar click.
He's locked the door.
Janes eyes crept open.
"This.." he dangled the silver key in the air. Jane cursed herself for keeping the stupid thing in the door. "..this is going up here.." Jake stretched up and placed the small key on the top of the wooden door frame.
"Now sit" he instructed.
Jane didn't obey, narrowing her eyes at his cheek.
"I don't know what you want me to say..or do Jake" Jane ran her hand through her hair.
"I want you to tell me what's brought all this on"
"It's been happening most of my life Jake, it's just taken me until now to fully realise it" Jane rested a hand over her mouth as she stared into an empty corner of the office.
"And that's what you honestly think I've been doing?" Jake finally pulled his hands out of his pocket to raise them in the air. "..,using you"
Tears filled Jane's eyes, stopping her from speaking. The look she gave Jake told him all he needed to know. It was the same look she'd given him whenever he'd missed one of the kids shows, the look she'd given him throughout their marriage....even the night she found out about the affair, Jake was sure he could see that exact same look through her teary eyes.
Jake took the long silence as a chance to close the blinds of the windows which surrounded the small office.
"Janey"
"You only call me that when your looking something" Jane sniffed back the tears.
"What if this time I don't want anything?"
"You always want something" Jane stood with her back to him, peering through a small window and keeping as far away from Jake as possible in such a small room. Jane only realised she had failed when she felt a hand wrap around her wrists from behind, making her move her head slightly to the side.
"She didn't kick me out because of the affair Janey"
Jane closed her eyes, her heart racing when she felt Jake's breath against the back of her neck.
"Then why did she kick you out?" Jane parted her lips slightly.
"Because she was watching us...."
Jane rolled her eyes, making a tear slip down her cheek.
"....and so she realised that your the one I love"

~