AllFreeNovel
Share Us
14
KARTER. I pushed the phone into my pocket. I felt ill. I hadn’t heard from Jak in two days. One simple apologetic text message from him explaining his Commander called and he would be out of pocket for a week was all I had received since I left for the art show. On the night he proposed to me in the restaurant, something changed while I was in the bathroom. When I came back to the table, he was different. At first I thought he was nervous or having second thoughts, but it wasn’t that. He was hurting, I could tell. He didn’t say so at that point in time, but his Commander called while I was in the restroom. Now with Jak absent, the remark he made when he left bounced around in my head.
I love you Karter, and I always will. Nothing on this earth will ever change that.
It now caused me to worry about where he was and what he was doing.
Jak believed the separation from each other would cause us to understand the depth of our love. I needed no lesson to understand the love I felt for Jak. My connection to him was clear since the first day we met. The time we spent together did nothing but confirm what I already knew. Jak and I were tied together by a force much greater than the love most people feel for each other. Jak and I had something no one else did. Jak and I were somehow fused together as one.
Simply stated, I needed Jak to survive. Now standing at an art show with three hundred idiots wandering around looking at the artwork displayed in the exhibit, I felt as if I was dying. Without Jak, I struggled to breathe. My every thought included Jak in some way. I wondered where he was, if he was in danger, what he was eating, if he was thirsty, why he couldn’t text me, if he was in this country or if he had left. I wondered if he was being shot at or would be required to defend his life.
I never asked, and he never offered, but the scars on his body obviously weren’t from accidents as a child. They were from being shot. If Jak had escaped death as many times as I expected he had, in time the laws of average would catch up to him. The thought of losing Jak consumed me. Without Jak in my life, there would be no life. Without Jak I would die.
“So are you Karter?” A man in his mid-thirties asked.
“Say again?” I snapped.
Fuck, I sound like Jak.
“Karter? The artist? Are you Karter?”
I smiled a shitty grin and nodded. I was far from in the mood to chat.
“I love your tattoos,” he grinned.
You fucking idiot.
I raised my hand in the air and pushed against the edge of my engagement ring with my thumb, rotating the large diamond to the front of my hand, “Are you blind or just fucking stupid? See this?”
He shrugged and looked half embarrassed.
“My Navy SEAL fiancé gave me this. You know why?”
He scoffed, turned, and began to walk away.
“To keep fuck-sticks like you from hitting on me,” I barked.
The emotional cloud I was floating on the night Jak proposed to me was took me to a place higher than I had ever been. To be elevated to that height, to feel the degree of warmth from the love Jak and I shared, only to be dropped into the depth of the pit I was in now caused me to feel ill.
If something’s happened to Jak, I’ll just die
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone. I swiped my finger across the screen. Please. I pressed the text message icon. Please.
Nothing.
“Karter, there’s someone over here who would like to talk to you about your work,” Mr. Weinburg smiled as he finished speaking.
Frustrated, I pushed my phone into my pocket. Wearing a dress and heels made me angry in the first place, but wearing a dress and heels without Jak present made me even more disappointed. I tried to force a smile as I nodded and followed him across the floor.
“You must be Karter,” the man sighed as he extended his hand, “I’m Stephen Greene.”
He was dressed in a suit. It appeared he must have spent as much money having it tailored as he did buying it in the first place. And from the looks of the suit, it was by no means inexpensive. I looked down at his perfectly polished shoes and slowly up to his overly tanned face.
I smiled and reached for his hand, “The one and only.”
“I’ve perused the entire exhibit and everything I see which draws me in close has the same name at the bottom right corner. Would you like to guess who?” he grinned.
I was in no mood to play idiotic games with stupid people. I wanted Jak. I was almost in tears as it was, and I don’t ever cry. Frustrated and desperately needing to feel Jak’s strong arms around me, I opened my mouth and spoke my mind.
