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Exhausted, we curl towards each other on the bed, our fingers intertwined. The pad of his thumb makes circles against my hand. I reach out to smooth his hair and he closes his eyes against my touch.
“You are in me, on me, and all around me,” I whisper back to him as his thumb stops moving and his breathing grows heavy.
A single tear drops from my cheek and onto the pillowcase.
SLOWLY, I SLIP out of Jack’s grasp and carefully move off the bed so I don’t wake him. He looks peaceful as his chest rises and falls with the pattern of his breathing. In the darkness of the bedroom, I hastily throw random clothes inside my bag and zip it up.
In the doorway, I take another look, noticing the empty space next to him. This house has felt more like home to me than any other place. I remember every moment we spent here. Even the bad memories have a place in my heart. Maybe I was foolish to think that we could be happy forever, that fate would allow us this legacy, but there is no destiny or divine path… only choices that we both have made; changing our trajectory that sometimes led us in different directions.
I know when he wakes up and I’m not next to him it will destroy him. If I stay, he’ll resent me for being the one to come between him and Hayley, even if he doesn’t recognize it now. He’ll hate himself for choosing me over his daughter. Even knowing all of this, it still kills me to leave.
Even though I have memorized his every feature, I can’t seem to look away.
So I watch him breathe, his body finally at peace, his eyes soft and his lips slightly parted. I think about the last five years of our life together. Our album is nearly done, a legacy of our life together. All of the pain, the heartache, and the love, recorded on one single album.
We argued over every song, coming to compromises that were hard-won, and poured our souls into that album. I loved every minute of it, and nothing I have ever done or will ever do will compare to what we created together.
My hand shakes as I grip the doorframe. I watch the tremors as they ravage my fingers and travel to the back of my hand. I don’t know if it’s caused by the emotional state I’m in or if it is a manifestation of my disease. Little things like this have been happening lately, and it scares me. I wonder if this is the beginning of my end.
I know I’m living on borrowed time. Someday soon, I won’t have to question if a tremor is just from me being tired or if my disease has finally woken up. I know I will have to tell Jack, but I’m not ready.
I will never be ready.
Jack stirs in his sleep so I grab my bag and quickly walk down the hall, snatching my shoes from by the door and slipping them on. I take one last look around the beach house, my sanctuary, the place where Jack and I found each other again, before I open the front door and slowly step out.
My car is parked in the driveway, and I throw my bag in the backseat before sliding behind the wheel. My hands grip the steering wheel as my whole body shakes from the adrenaline. I back out of the driveway and head down the darkened street.
I feel like a thief in the middle of the night looking to get as far away from Venice as I can. In my heart, I know that neither time nor distance could ever truly separate us. His name is tattooed on my soul for eternity.
I reach the I10 and take the on-ramp. I roll the window down so I can feel the fresh air.
I look at my reflection in the rearview mirror and see the tears that cling to my eyelashes, and the dark circles from lack of sleep. The light reflecting off the silver of a CD protruding from the player catches my eye. I don’t keep CD’s in my car and I wonder what it is. Curiously, I place my fingertip to the edge and gently tap it in. The display lights up and the familiar sound of a piano begins, the most delicate of keys, before the unmistakable sound of a Fender guitar breaks me open inside.
Tears well in my eyes when I thought I had none left. These aren’t the hot tears of anger or the clear pools of heartbreak - they are the sweet tears of a woman in love. In the console is an empty CD case with a note attached.
In me, On me, and All around me Demo is written in bold black letters. Underneath it, written in Jack’s handwriting, Listen to what we've created together.
I’m floored because Jack insisted on recording the album on analog. He was always old school when it came to music, preferring to hear the imperfections because that made it authentic. It makes it all the more special that he would put our song on a CD so I could listen to it.
He must have meant for me to find it in the morning. To find it now, in this way, is like a sign telling me that fate has other plans for me.
My fingertips reach my swollen lips and I trace them, remembering every kiss, every promise spoken, and every tear that was shed and swallowed whole. When I hear our voices blend together in the chorus, I know that I could never leave him. We are intertwined and woven together like the fabric of time, always finding our way back to each other.
I am reminded of the promise I made to Cash that I would live. He sacrificed everything so that Jack and I could be together. Whether we deserved it or not, that didn’t matter. If I learned anything from him, it was that running away didn’t solve anything. I didn’t have time on my side to wait and let things happen on their own.
For the last five years, Amber has done everything she could to come between us, and she's been using Hayley to do it. Jealousy and hate have a way of corroding you from the inside out. I left because I didn’t want to be the reason that Jack and Hayley didn’t have a relationship. I didn’t want him to regret being with me.
Listening to this song Jack and I created, I realize that I’ll be damned if I let Amber come between us any longer. Jack has a lot of flaws, addiction being one of them, but I knew this - I always knew this, and I can’t turn my back on him now that he needs me the most. I will fight for him with every ounce of life I have left, because he deserves that. We deserve that.
There is an exit a mile up the road and I can use it to turn around. My grip on the steering wheel falters, the tremors traveling from my fingers to my whole hand before making their way further through my body. A cold sweat breaks out over my body.
No, no, no, I whisper as I cling to the sound of Jack’s guitar and the lyrics that define our relationship for the last two decades, and knowing that I’ll be lucky if I even have another decade left.
No matter how much I wipe the tears from my eyes, the road is still a blurry mass of black asphalt, and lights from an oncoming vehicle blind me as I start to lose control of my body. I can see it all as if time has stopped, the moment before the impact, the second before the world goes black, and I reach out as if to stop it… but there is no stopping fate.
I am reminded of something Cash said once, even if all the lights went out in the world, you would struggle not to shine.
The wind and the sky
