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Still, one thing remains the same. I’m thankful for a Friday night. I have survived Knox’s second week of school, and I can breathe again. I’ve found my way out to the back patio tonight. It’s quiet. The only sounds are the songs of the cicadas in the trees and the roar of the ocean in the distance. The sky is black and covered in a blanket of stars. The sea breeze is calm and sticky. I love the way the salty air sticks to my lips. It’s warm out here tonight; and I am relaxed in the swing, my head laid back, my eyes closed. My thoughts are running in continuous motion, and I acknowledge the fact that I am miserable. My heart is broken. I’m drowning. Still, I relinquish myself to this calm, warm night, and I breathe.
The screen door behind me creaks open, and then it closes. I crack an eye open to see who is joining me. It’s J.R., and he holds an amber beer bottle in each hand.
“Hey,” he says, sitting next to me and handing me one of the beers.
“Hey,” I say, feeling a little guarded. I don’t think we’ve spoken since yesterday, and I certainly hadn’t expected for him to hand-deliver an alcoholic beverage that I hadn’t even asked for.
J.R. sits back in the swing, and he looks out into the darkness. “How are you doing?” he asks without looking at me.
I’m silent for a moment. I have convinced myself that he doesn’t give a hoot about me, but now, he’s here asking about my wellbeing. “I’m okay.” It’s a lie. I’m not sure I’ve ever struggled the way I am currently struggling. I feel like I’m on the outside looking into a life that I was meant to have.
He sits quietly, taking a sip from the beer glass. I take a sip from my bottle, too.
“I haven’t—wehaven’t—talked much since you moved in,” he says finally.
“No, we haven’t. It’s okay, though. It’s sort of a strange situation we’ve found ourselves in.”
“You’re not happy,” he points out.
At least, he’s paying attention.
“Knox is happy, so I am happy. I’m okay.”
“I want you to be happy, Rach.”
I glance at him and force a smile on my face. “I’ll be fine, J.R.”
He’s quiet again, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I can almost see the thoughts tumbling around in his mind.
“I’m angry, Rachel. I don’t know how to not be angry. I love you, and I know that; but when I think about everything I’ve missed—you, Knox—I can’t get past being angry.”
“J.R., I told you, I’m not here for us. You’re off the hook, okay?” I tell him.
J.R. shakes his head. “I don’t want to be off the hook, Rach. All I have ever wanted was to be with you.”
I take a sip from my beer again, trying to remain calm. “I think that, for now, you and Knox should concentrate on your relationship. I literally have nothing else to say for myself, J.R.” Every time we talk on this topic, I feel like he wants me to say something different. I don’t have anything different to say.
J.R. grits his teeth a little and then hops off the swing. “You made such a mess of everything, Rachel!” he snaps at me. The suddenness of the outburst startles me.
Still, I sit calmly, realizing that maybe he needs to yell at me. Maybe he should unleash it all on me because I deserve it. I deserve everything he’s ever wanted to say to me since he discovered I had left him. All the pent-up anger.
“I came home, Rachel. I had the whole thing planned. I couldn’t wait to see you. To see your face when I knelt down on one knee and asked you to marry me.” He turns his blue eyes, full of rage, to me now. “And then I realized you were gone. All of your clothes, everything. You were just…gone.” He grits his teeth and shakes his head. “I sat here for days trying to figure out what happened. What went wrong. What I did. You told me that you would never leave, and yet…you did. You left. Without a trace. Without a word. Completely vanished. Do you even know what that did to me? And that was just when I thought I had only lost you. When you finally do show back up, I realize that not only did I miss out on your life, but I missed out on the first part of our kid’s life, too. I’m pissed, Rachel. I’m so unbelievably angry that I’m not even sure what to do with it!”
I sit there, taking it. The honest truth pours from his perfect lips, but with each word comes a heaviness in my heart that keeps me from breathing. When I left him, I knew it would hurt him, but I never thought that I would have to look back into his blue eyes and see the actual pain I caused. It was selfish, and it’s not something I will ever look back on with pride.
“I thought about you every single day. I looked for you. I went to Kelley’s. I postponed tour after tour. I watched for you to pull up in the driveway. I prayed for it, Rachel. You never came.”
I wipe away a tear. “Why are you telling me all of this?” I whisper.
“You need to know how I felt when you left. And then, you’re going to tell me what you’ve been doing all of these years. All of the spaces in between. Everything. I have to know.”
“J.R., that’s a lot of talking,” I say.
“I’ve got all night.” He folds his arms across his chest, and then he leans against the railing of the patio. He’s glaring at me, still holding his beer.
I haven’t moved from my spot on the swing. “Fine.”
“The one thing I can’t figure out, though, is that if you truly loved me the way you said you did, how was it possible for you to do this? To disappear? To have our baby without telling me? I stayed in one spot on purpose. I knew you’d come back. I just had no idea you’d take so long to do it.” His eyes are wet, and his face is broken.
