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I’d learned that she’d been infatuated with me for years, praying for the moment she turned eighteen and that I’d maybe reciprocate her feelings. “Or at very least one night of sex.”
That one night of sex where I took her virginity turned into another night and another until it was almost every night and some days. Weekends away. Secret vacations where she’d told her parents she was away with friends. Sneaking out in the middle of the nightbecause she still lived at home at the timeso we could fuck in my car.
The sneaking around was fun and the thrill of the forbidden kept us both coming back for more but it grew to be more than that.
There wereI love you’sand talks of the future together. There were nights when we were drunk on tequila and each other as we whispered our vows of devotion. We’d been together two years and her parents still didn’t know. The only people she had told were friends at school that weren’t as familiar with our family dynamic and her cousin Chloe who almost lost her shit when she found out. And that was only because Trey had accidentally slipped up and told her during their pillow talk or whatever.
I’d gone so far down this road with her that I didn’t know how to explain it to my best friends who just happened to be her parents.How could I have let things go on this long without telling them? How did I let things get so far?How did I let myself fall in love with the one person I knew I couldn’t have? Shouldn’t want?
I went back and forth for weeks, wondering what was the worst thing they could do. They could forbid me from seeing her. But Whitney wouldn’t listen and suddenly there would be this irreparable rift in their family that I would have caused. Uncomfortable holidays and family functions, heated arguments, and tension so thick and able to divide a family. Not to mention, on top of all of that, I’d lose my best friends.
It wasn’t until Doctors Without Borders needed me on another team, this time in Mexico to help when COVID-19 hit that I decided it was time for Whitney and me to have a talk about us. The look on her face still haunts me when I told her the news that I was leaving and that it would be best to use this as the ending point of our relationship.
Three Years Ago:
“I can’t come with you…?” Her brown eyes are brimming with unshed tears, realization dawning on her that I wasn’t telling her to pack a suitcase. “Doctors are supposed to just up and leave their families?”
“Technically yes. If it’s your first time, you’re not allowed to bring family at all.” I wince, wishing I’d left out that part, knowing she’ll have a rebuttal for it.
Her brows furrow and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “But it’s not your first time. You opened that hospital in Mexico years ago…” She bites her bottom lip and under normal circumstances that visual would have prompted my mouth between her legs. “JP, I don’t want to be without you for eighteen months or possibly even longer.” She crosses her arms and curls her lips into a pout which is a look I’d been on the receiving end of many times and always ended with me giving her whatever she wanted. I flinch at her calling me “JP,” the nickname she’s had for me for years. She’d stopped calling me that when we first started this, opting to call me by my first name instead in an attempt to shift the dynamic of our relationship. She’d only called me that when she was feeling extra vulnerable or at times in bed when we’d tapped into her daddy kink.
“Whitney, sweetheart, you have school and a whole life ahead of you where you have to decide what you want to do. And furthermore, how would you explain being in Mexico with me? Do you think your parents would want you traipsing off to another country while the world is in such chaos?Idon’t even know what I’m walking into.”
“Classes are going to be virtual anyway next semester. But I can also take some time off. My parents would be fine if I was with you. They know you’d take care of me and maybe this is the sign we need to tell them about us. I mean, we’ve been hiding this for almost two years now. Maybe it’s time they know?” She lists off the exact counter arguments I knew she’d use. Ones that made sense in a perfect world. But our world wasn’t perfect. It was messy and intertwined with so many other players that would be less than pleased about the news of our relationship.
The idea of telling my two best friends that I’m head over heels in love with their daughter and have been sleeping with her regularly for two years has the anxiety slithering up my spine.
Kevin and Michelle Monroe have been my best friends since freshman year of college. I was roommates with Kevin that first year and Michelle lived across the hall. It was love at first sight for Kevin and Michelle and before long, the three of us were inseparable. I’d even dated her roommate for a while making the four of us annoying co-dependent assholes. I’d been the best man at their wedding, godfather to both Whitney and her older brother Mason and had been a part of every memorable date of their lives until now.
How was I supposed to tell them this? I’d lose the two most important people in my life outside of those I was blood related to, the two constants I’d had for almost twenty years.
But the trade-off was losing Whitney, and I didn’t love that either.
“Whitney…” I take a deep breath preparing to say the words that will undoubtedly break her heart. “It’s just not a good idea.”
“Wh-what isn’t?”
“Any of it. You coming to Mexico. Telling your parents. It’s going to destroy them, Whitney. Your relationship with them. My relationship with them.”
“But… what about your relationship with me?” The unshed tears from earlier are now cascading down her cheeks at full speed. Her heart clearly communicating to her tear ducts what was about to happen. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before opening them again. “Are you breaking up with me?”
My heart thumps painfully at the thought of not being with her. Not being with the most amazing, brilliant, kind, unbelievably gorgeous woman that I’d ever met. Be strong, Jacob. She needs this. She’s young and she needs to experience life. “I just don’t see how it can work, Whitney.” My words are quiet and soft. The tone I use when I’m making love to her. I swallow. “It was never supposed to get this far… I wasn’t… we weren’t…”
“You weren’t supposed to fall in love with me? Is that where you were going with that?” she says, her tone harsh and more biting than it had been before. “Or was this all just a fucking game to you?” I can see the pain she’s trying to hide beneath the anger but I won’t have her thinking that this wasn’t real.
“It was never a game and you know that. Sometimes things just don’t work out no matter how bad we want them to.” In its most basic terms, that is what this comes down to. We want to be together but it isn’t that simple. Our life isn’t that simple.
She stands, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t get a say in this at all? You’ve just made up your mind about this without a care in the world about my feelings? Let me guess, ‘when I’m older I’ll understand?’” The sarcasm drips from her voice, even though I believe that there’s some truth to her statement whether she thinks it or not.
“I do think time and some worldly experience will give you some perspective, baby.” The word slips out and I chastise myself when I see the anger fall from her face at the one word leaving my lips.
“You don’t want this.” She moves into my arms and wraps hers around me. “I know you love me.”
“I do,” I tell her honestly. I wasn’t about to lie to her after all we’d been through and I wasn’t about to let her think that this wasn’t going to be hard on me as well. “I do love you. But sometimes, love isn’t enough. Sometimes loving someone means letting them go.”
“I don’t believe that.” She squeezes me tighter and wipes her tears on my shirt. I rub her back as her shoulders begin to shake. “Please don’t let me go.” Her voice wobbles and I wish I could take her pain away. “I can’t do this without you. I need you.”
Her words cause a painful thump in my chest because in this moment, I don’t know how to move forward without her either. But, one of us has to be strong. “Please don’t do this,” I beg, knowing that she has the power to break me if I don’t shut this down.
“I love you,” she murmurs. “Please.” She sniffles.
I rest my chin on top of her head trying to keep the tears of my own at bay at the thought of it being over between us. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t believe this is the end.”
“Neither can I.”
I’m well aware that I haven’t said anything to Trey in a few minutes as the particular trip down memory lane that I’ve avoided for the past three years comes at me in full force. I clear my throat and the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“I’ll be home in two days.”
