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“She’s asleep.”
“I need to see her—”
“Wait!”I’d said. At his puzzled expression I added,“She had a hard night. She needs her rest.”
“I was a coward. I didn’t want her waking up by chance and saying anything to him. Not until I’d had one last night with him.” My mother and Franklin’s room was on the other side of the house, and she couldn’t walk more than a few feet unassisted without gasping for air. We were alone and safe andI neededhim.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait, Jas?”
“I can’t,”I’d said in a distant voice, pressing my back against my closed bedroom door, feeling the resistance of all the unfair things waiting on the other side to deal with us.“It has to be now, and please, don’t take it easy on me.”
I shook my head clear of the memory. “I don’t know what drove her from sleep, or how long it’d taken her to get to us, or even how long she’d stood there horrified, watching us,dyingbecause of us…” Cole and I had been so caught up in each other, so wholly lost in ourselves, in our desperate, fevered love, that neither of us had noticed her until it was too late. “What she must have thoughtseeingus like that.” Panic filled my voice, and I stumbled back over to the couch just as the ceiling and floor switched places on me. “You don’t know how we can be, ’Fia. You don’t know how we can get. She saweverything. And it tortures me every day—”
“Breathe,” she cooed, sitting next to me on the edge of the sofa and rubbing circles into my back.
“It kills me to know she died thinking she needed to save me from him. Thinking he took something he had no right to, when in reality he had my blessing. Healwayshad my blessing.”
“Mom!”I’d scrambled off the bed, tripping over the sheet to get to her.
“Mom?”Cole repeated, falling in beside me.
“Cole, get help,”I’d said, but he’d sat there on his knees frozen.“Cole!”I’d screamed, and he jumped into motion.
“I’m so–sorry,”she mouthed through blue-tinted lips, her sluggish stare moving over my shoulder to where Cole could be heard shouting into the phone.
“No. No, no, no,”I’d begged. Her breaths came through in tiny whistles, and I scanned the room for answers.
“What’s she saying, Jas?”Cole had cried.“What’s she saying?”
“Jasper?” Sofia asked, bringing me back from the past with a hand in my hair. I swiveled my head in her direction, my elbows still planted on my knees. “What do you mean by ‘took something he had no right to?’” She wanted to understand, she wanted clarity, an explanation for what I’d inadvertently revealed, but I’d given her enough for one night. And some things couldn’t be explained with words. Some things could only be understood by the people involved.
I kissed her forehead, lingering there a beat before standing.
“It’s getting late. Thanks for listening.”
“O-okay,” she stammered, confused by my complete shift and shutdown. Out in the hall I slipped into my shoes.
Sofia leaned with arms folded against the open entrance of the living room, tossing another glance up the staircase before whispering, “Do you want to leave Daniel for him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shrugging into my coat. “There’s no future for Cole and me. I won’t break the only other promise to her I can keep. I won’t break Franklin’s heart any more than I already have.”
“Well, what about Daniel’s heart? I may joke about it, but I don’t actually believe he doesn’t have one.” One side of her mouth kicked up, but the atmosphere remained heavy. “He deserves the truth, butyoudeserve more than him.” She said it as if a bandage were being ripped off. Like she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t for once say it in plain terms.
I exhaled, searching for the will to pretend I didn’t know who Daniel was. To spew the words dressed in denial about his character, and how good he was, and how he wanted nothing but the best for me.
He loved me, and I could see his potential to be a better man. I could almost touch it. And I understood what drove him. And some days I did love him. It was usually the days when I could find the strength to love myself. Those days didn’t come by often and were fleeting when they did. Truthfully, Daniel was the protective shield standing between Cole and me. The one thing I couldn’t ignore, the one thing keeping me from cementing myself to him again. It was the truth when I agreed to marry him, and it was even more so true now. It made me an even lesser man than him.
I couldn’t admit to any of that ugliness living inside me, though. Not to Sofia. No one as good as her could fight the instinct to condemn me for it. “Daniel just wants what’s best for me,” I said mechanically, and she hummed her disappointment.
“At least that makes one of you,” she said sadly. “I believe two opposing things can be true at the same time. I believe you can be good even while doing something you know is wrong. I believe you can love Daniel—in your own way—and love Cole, and love yourself, even while hurting all of you, because let’s face it, no one will be spared in this,” she said, already guessing at what my decision would be. “But I love you, anyway. I am not too good to love you, anyway,” she said resolutely.
I closed the gap between us, and she stepped into me, sending her short arms around me as her head met my chest. “I love you, too, ’Fia.” And before she could say anything that would call the good in me to the surface, I left, racing through the bitter cold for the subway station two blocks away, racing to make the second biggest mistake of my life with eyes wide open.
Jasper
CLUB BALE RESIDEDa few blocks west of the river in the Meatpacking District, a name adopted from the hundreds of meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses that used to inhabit the area. The neighborhood sat sandwiched between Chelsea and Greenwich Village. And although the now lively enclave was no longer a major hub for meat wholesalers, a handful still remained, aiding in maintaining a feel of authenticity.
Hustling down 14thstreet, cold and out of breath, I began to wonder if maybe Daniel had gotten it wrong. The streets were eerily empty and quiet, with the only noise being the wet, crunching sound of car tires rolling over salted, melting snow.
