“I wish I’d never married her. I wish I’d met you first.”
As soon as he told me how he felt, the words were tattooed in my memory. Sometimes I couldn’t concentrate for hearing his voice say them in my mind. During the day, when I should have been concentrating on my work, I was thinking about Jake and wondering what he was doing.
At night, we met at my house and pretended to be the married couple that we wished we were. Sometimes we sat on the cool floor of my living room and talked about the stories we wanted to write and the books we’d read while over our heads the ceiling fan ticked and whirred. Sometimes we rented foreign films and, curled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn between us, watched them without ever thinking that soon Helena would come home and this would be over. Neither of us wanted to consider the future.
Every night I slept in their bed with him. Sometimes I’d wake with a start from the scent of her perfume and believe that she’d come home early and was on her way up the stairs. My heart would be racing and I’d have to remind myself how many weeks, then days we had until her return. Once I’d calmed down, I’d move closer to Jake and hold him while he slept on. The soft waves of his even breathing would lull me and I’d drift to sleep without waking again until morning.
“Can you meet me at my place later on?”
I shrugged without looking up. I was afraid of seeming too anxious, even now when we both knew how we felt about one another. “I can probably come by.”
He knelt by my table and stroked my knee. “Just say yes.”
“Alright, yes.”
He grinned at me and cupped my face in his hands then kissed
me quickly. I drew back without thinking. I couldn’t help it, I was so used to hiding how I felt for fear that someone, anyone would see and tell Helena.
But Jake didn’t care about our being found out. He touched my hair and said, “Don’t be afraid. . . this is probably the best thing either of us have ever done.”
And just then I believed him.
I didn’t doubt him when he said that he loved me, or that he wished he’d never married Helena. I was in love, I was loved. Nothing else seemed to matter.