Jane eased the pair of barbells back down onto the floor and stood up straight, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead with a towel. Eight more reps, she thought to herself. She was nowhere near the goal her physical therapist had set for her at her last rehab session, but her legs were already starting to turn to jelly, and her arms had begun to shake uncontrollably.
She gave up with a sigh and walked over instead to the full length mirror, studying herself with a forced smile. She looked good, on the whole. She was 38 years old, but she’d always looked much younger than her age. She could probably still pass for 30 now. And not because she went for botox either – she was all natural, unlike most of the other women she encountered these days, now that she and Adam had returned to their old neighborhood in Beverly Hills.
If there was one thing to be said for a three-year-long coma – at least it had kept the laugh lines that had started to appear on her face from growing any deeper. At least she had that much going for her. Now she just needed to get back in shape.
Her therapist had been more than pleased with her progress so far. It had only been a couple months since she’d been in a state of complete paralysis. Now her motor skills were almost back to normal, with just a few nagging quirks – a slight weakness on her left side that led her to limp when she overdid it, and this aggravating tremor in her hands whenever she attempted to bear weight.
It was more than that, though, she had to confess to herself. Her energy level still wasn’t what it used to be. Even now, standing here in front of the mirror, she felt the urge to sleep prick at the backs of her eyes. She fought against it, forcing her eyelids open in an unblinking stare, unwilling to give in to the nap her body was demanding.
It was still amazing progress, she told herself. She needed to be patient. The sleepiness was another thing that had been improving steadily with each passing week. She could make it through most days without a nap at this point. Compare that to the night in the hospital when she’d first opened her eyes – she hadn’t been awake for much time at all before she’d been overcome by an unbearable weariness, an irresistible urge to sleep.
She still felt a lump in her throat every time she thought back to that night. There had been that initial burst of adrenaline. Seeing her daughter for the first time. Seeing Adam. Talking to him. Touching him. It must have been about an hour before her energy had run out. They were still waiting for the doctor to arrive from Boise. Adam had been absolutely terrified. He’d tried to hide it from her, but she could see the fear in his face – afraid if he let her fall asleep, she wouldn’t wake up again. He had crawled into the hospital bed and propped her up in his arms, giving her little shakes every time her eyes started to drift close.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he kept saying. “The doctor will be here soon.”
“I’m trying, Adam.”
“Come on. Just talk to me. Tell me—“ she’d watched as he cast about for a topic. “Tell me about our first date.”
“First date?”
“Remember?”
“When was that?” She’d closed her eyes to think, forcing them open again a moment later as he jostled her gently.
“Come on,” he’d whispered.
“I guess you bought me breakfast,” she’d mused. “After that first night together. You took me to that weird Ukrainian place.”
“Veselka,” he’d nodded. “I wonder if that’s still there.”
“Borscht for breakfast.” She’d stuck out her tongue at him.
“You had borscht for breakfast. I had pancakes.”
“You wouldn’t share either.”
He’d grinned at her crookedly. “No one forced you to order the borscht, little girl.”
“Who puts borscht on a breakfast menu?”
He’d only laughed in response.
“Then you tried to put me on the subway,” she’d continued. “Remember?”
“You kept missing your train.”
“You had me pressed up against a pillar on the subway platform. Every time a train pulled into the station, you started kissing me again.”
“I couldn’t—“ He’d broken off for a moment, tightening his arms around her. “I couldn’t let you go.”
She’d felt her cheeks grow warm from the memory of those endless, insatiable kisses. He had that same smoldering look in his eyes as he held her there in the hospital bed that night. She’d seen it in his eyes, hadn’t she? That desire. That intensity. Had she only been imagining it?
She’d closed her eyes and tilted back her head, waiting for his kiss. He’d given her another little shake instead. “Jane! Open your eyes!”
Her eyes had sprung back open.
“Come on. Stay with me.” Whatever she’d seen on his face before was gone then – replaced by near-panic. “Hold on, Janie. Just a little longer.”
She’d lifted one had, grazing his cheek with her fingertips. “I’m here,” she’d said.
“Don’t go. Please. Don’t go away again.”
She’d nodded and tried to smile as he let out a long, shaky breath. “Anyway, that wasn’t a date,” he’d said after a moment. “That was a hookup.”
“A hookup? If you end up getting married later, doesn’t that make it a date?”
“Nope. Nothing to do with it.”
“What was our first date then?” She’d paused for a moment to think. “I guess we ordered pizza for dinner later, after you took me back to your place. Was that a date?”
He shook his head. “Still a hookup.” One corner of his mouth was curving up in a half-smile. “A very protracted, very delicious hookup. But still just a hookup.”
She’d smiled back at him and rolled her eyes. “So when was our first date then?”
“You tell me.”
“Hmmmm,” she’d sighed. “I guess you came over to my dorm. I took you out to dinner.”
“Took me out to dinner,” he’d chuckled. “You snuck me into your dining hall.”
“You liked my dining hall! You must have gone back six times for more mac n cheese.”
“I had to,” he’d shrugged. “I already used up all my meal money for the week on borscht and pizza.”
“So was that a date?”
“Yeah,” he’d nodded. “That was a date. Definitely a date.”
“What’s the difference exactly?”
“Between a hookup and a date?” He’d paused for a moment, considering her question. “It’s all about the order.”
She’d looked at him in bafflement.
“The eating has to come before the sex,” he’d explained. “Then it’s a date.”
She’d laughed up at him and then her eyes had opened wide as a new thought dawned on her. “Did you just date me for my dining hall?”
He’d smirked down at her in response. “Can you blame me?” he’d shrugged. “All you can eat!”
All you can eat, Jane thought bitterly. Too bad he seemed to have lost his appetite. “The eating has to come before the sex,” he had said. That was a fine theory, but it didn’t answer the question she still had – the question she didn’t quite have the nerve to ask him aloud. What’s it called when he buys you dinner and doesn’t lay a finger on you afterward? Still a date, Adam? Still a marriage?
It had been two months now and he still hadn’t touched her. Not once. They slept together in the same bed, but he never reached for her. Every night, he would lie there with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, and every night she knew it was a lie. She knew it from the sound of his breathing. She knew him better than anyone.
She had tried once to start something herself. Maybe he was just waiting for her to let him know she was ready. He’d been lying there, feigning sleep, and she’d reached across the bed and taken his hand. He’d opened his eyes and looked at her questioningly, and she’d silently placed his hand on her hip.
“What’s the matter?” he’d whispered.
She hadn’t answered. Instead, she’d slithered across the bed to him and cupped his face in both her hands, bringing her lips to his. She’d felt a thrill of triumph as his arm had tightened around her and she’d pressed her body up against him. He’d kissed her back, and she’d felt the stir of his arousal. She knew she had felt it. But he’d broken away again after a moment. He’d put his hands on her shoulders and held her body away from his.
“Goodnight, Jane,” he had whispered as he gently kissed her once on each eyelid. “I love you.”
Then he’d rolled onto his side and turned his back on her, and she’d fought back the tears of frustration as she’d listened to the sound of his false sleep.
It was because she was still weak, she tried to reassure herself. He was always on her case not to overexert herself. That was why he stopped that night. That was why he hadn’t reached for her once in the weeks since. Because he cared about her recovery. Because he loved her. Not because he didn’t want her anymore.
Not because his mind was on someone else.
Not that he’d given her any indication that his mind was wandering. Outside of their bedroom, he was all attention. If anything, he was smothering her, the way he was always hovering. He certainly hadn’t brought up the other one. The other Jane. It had gone unspoken between them – what she had heard that night in the hospital. The sound of his voice as he’d told that other Jane he loved her.
He was trying so hard to shield her from the truth. It was sweet of him, really. It hadn’t escaped her notice, the way he’d gathered up all the sheets and run them through the laundry the day he’d brought her home from the hospital. She smiled to herself remembering. He thought he was saving her feelings. It might have worked too, if only he hadn’t forgotten to clean out the lint trap. It had come as a bit of a shock when she saw what was left there. She'd never known him to go for the redheads.
Jane felt her eyes starting to drift closed again now. She snapped them back open, shaking herself, and then she crossed back to where she had left her set of barbells. Her head was starting to pound, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down, but she picked up the weights instead. Eight more reps. That’s what they said in rehab. She was going to finish the set if it killed her.
She gritted her teeth with determination, summoning every last ounce of energy, as she pushed the weights slowly upward through a sheer force of will.
Even if it killed her, she repeated to herself, as she felt her knees buckle and the pain flare at the base of her skull. There was no giving up. There was no other option.
If she had any hope of holding on to him, she was going to need all her strength.
***
A sigh escaped her lips as Jane gazed through the filthy apartment window at the litter-strewn New York City sidewalk below. What a shithole, she thought to herself. Still, at least she was out of the homeless shelter. It had been a stroke of good luck, meeting her new roommate, Valerie, at the free medical clinic where they both were going for prenatal care.
“You gotta name?” Valerie had asked her after the third week in a row, eyeing each other cautiously from opposite sides of the waiting room.
“I’m J—“ She’d almost given her real name, but some instinct had told her to lie. “Amy,” she’d finished instead. “My name is Amy.”
“Nice to meet you, Amy.” Valerie had come over to her and held out her hand to shake. “So what’s your story? This baby of yours have a daddy?”
“Not in the picture,” Jane had muttered in response.
“Yeah, neither is mine,” Valerie had said with a shrug. “Let me guess. Jail?”
“Something like that.”
Jane chuckled at the thought. More like a mansion in Beverly Hills. She’d seen pictures of it in some magazine or other. She had quite the magazine collection going at this point. Val worked the register at a supermarket and she’d bring back extra copies after her shifts. “Another Adam Levine article,” she’d always say with a wink. “Why do you obsess over this guy anyway?”
“I dunno,” Jane would shrug back. “Same reason you obsess over Ryan Gosling?”
She’d tried to call Adam when she first found out about the baby. She’d spent a week building up her courage to dial the number for the house in Idaho, preparing herself mentally for all the possible scenarios. What if the wife picked up? Or Adele, even? But it was Adam’s voice she was bracing herself for – both dreading and longing to hear it at the same time. She’d gone over it and over it in her mind, rehearsing what she would say to him, and imagining what he would say to her.
What a waste of time. After all that, it wasn’t any of them on the other end of the phone - just three shrill beeps and an unfamiliar woman’s voice: “The number you dialed has been disconnected.”
No, her baby-daddy wasn’t in the picture, and he wasn’t about to be, either. It was a blessing in disguise that she hadn’t been able to reach him. If he ever found out about the baby, she knew how that would go. Who would the courts favor in that little custody dispute? Daddy Warbucks in his fancy mansion, or the mama sharing a one-room apartment on a sketchy block of Avenue C. The mama who came home every morning reeking of smoke from the bar where she waited tables and sang the occasional cover. The mama whose only man in her life was her good friend, Jack Daniels.
She reached for the bottle next to her now and had it pressed to her lips when she heard Valerie’s key in the lock.
“A little early for that, isn’t it?” Val said as she came in.
Jane smirked at her. “You want some?” she held out the whiskey toward her roommate.
Val made a face. “Honestly Amy,” she said, glancing nervously at the bottle, “You know what I said about that.”
Jane groaned. “Not this again.”
“There’s a free program downtown. My social worker was telling me about it.”
“I am not going to rehab, OK? I said no.”
“Just—if not for your own sake then for the baby, you know?”
“How am I supposed to get 70 days off work?” Jane retorted. “Anyway, I told you. I talked to the guy at the clinic, and he said I didn’t need it.”
“Did he know you’re hitting the tequila at four o’clock in the afternoon?”
“It’s whiskey,” Jane said, rolling her eyes. “And it’s just a sip. And anyway, he said I’m just depressed.”
Val laughed, tilting her head toward the stack of empty liquor bottles strewn next to the trash. “Depressed, huh? I guess that’s one word for it.”
“Whatever.” Jane said, setting the bottle on the table. “I have to get to work.”
No, Jane thought, it was a stroke of luck that she hadn’t been able to get ahold of her baby-daddy. She didn’t need him anyway. She’d make it just fine on her own, thank you very much. She had talent, right? Wasn’t that what Adam was always telling her? She should be a professional musician? She had the most interesting voice he’d heard in years?
That was her plan. Make it on her own. Pull herself up out of this shithole. If Adam Levine could be a star, why shouldn’t she? She had more raw musical talent than he’d ever had – he’d told her so himself. Why shouldn’t she get discovered? Make it big? And then, when she’d done it on her own and made herself as famous and successful as he was – maybe then it would be safe to go back.
She smiled to herself, picturing it. He would be proud of her. She knew he would. It was the one thing she had over that perfect wife of his. She could just see the look of admiration on his face when he found out.
She hummed to herself in the bathroom as she finished getting ready for work.
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no.
Where had that come from? Had she heard it on the radio? She couldn’t place it. She did a little dance to the music in her head as she ran a brush through her messy black hair and smeared on a thick coat of kohl eyeliner.
Yes, I've been black but when I come back you'll know, know, know.