Forgiving Patience (38 page)

“Well, I think I’m going to find me a
seat. Good luck.” Georgia gave Em a hug, careful not to mess up the bride’s
makeup, and left the bridal room.

“Now, what did you just tell me about
crying?” Em scolded, eyeing Anna in the mirror.

“I know. I can’t help it. Just look
at you. You look so beautiful. Tommy’s jaw is going to drop when he first sees
you. It just really hit me that you’re getting married.”

“Can you believe it?”

Anna turned Em around to face her and
gave her a fierce hug. “You ready for this?”

* * * *

After seeing the gleam in
Em’s
eyes, Anna instantly pushed aside her feelings for the
day and forced a smile onto her face. She walked down the aisle with her head
held high. Standing at the altar, holding her friend’s bouquet as well as her
own, she avoided making eye contact with the best man. She knew he was there.
His presence was made known. She could feel his steady gaze on her, but she
willed herself to deny him the satisfaction of her looking at him. That didn’t
mean she didn’t want to, though.

When the ceremony was over she took
Jake’s arm, only a few inches separating them. She knew his attention was on
her as he reached for her arm, but her focus didn’t waver from the exit sign
hanging above the door leading into the sunlight.

She needed air. When they reached the
outside steps, she let go of his arm and turned her attention to fixing
Em’s
dress.

“Quit, Anna. It’s good, I promise.
Your duty as maid-of-honor is over. Go have fun. I love you.”

Anna couldn’t ignore the way
Em’s
eyes shot up to Jake when she said
go
have fun.
She didn’t
want to go have fun. What she really wanted was to shut herself into the powder
room and free the tears she’d been waiting to shed.

“You sure you don’t need anything
else?” Anna practically begged for one of
Em’s
chores.

“No, now go, and don’t forget we
never had that discussion about why you look so down today. We can’t talk right
now, for obvious reasons, but we will. In the meantime, don’t think so much.
Live life and stop trying to control everything. I love you, but you’ve got to
stop trying to plan out everything. Just be happy.”

Em had told Anna the reception
wouldn’t last longer than an hour or two. Anna was counting down the minutes.
While everyone around her seemed happy, she was falling into a deep despair.
She tried—God knows she tried to stay in the present and positive for
Em’s
sake, but she couldn’t stop her mind from going back
to the night before.

She had laid out her painful past to
the one man she might only ever love, and he didn’t judge her for it. He was
concerned, but didn’t look at her as if she were some damaged product. They’d
made love, and he was so gentle. Everything had been perfect until she’d had to
open up an old wound.

Would it have been better not to have
asked? Things might’ve been different right then. Instead of her feeling
depressed at her best friend’s wedding and watching everyone enjoy the perfect
day while she only wished for the day to end, she and Jake could be dancing,
stealing kisses, having wedding sex in the downstairs bathroom. But not now.
Everything had changed so quickly.

Anna made her way to the powder room.
Despite
Em’s
reasoning, Anna needed to think. She
entered the small bathroom and stared at her pale face in the mirror. She
looked like she needed to crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the night away.
Maybe she would do that. After the reception she would go back to the
apartment, take her little blue pill, slip between the covers, and not come
back alive until sunrise.

The door swung open, and in walked
Jesse. Her lavender dress fit snugly to her waist and then flared out. The
coloring looked radiant against her tanned skin. Against
Em’s
demands, Jesse had opted to keep her hair down. Em thought it was only because
Jesse loved to do the opposite of what she said. Whatever the reason, Jesse
looked amazing.

Jesse looked under the two bathroom
stalls to ensure that they were indeed alone. When she confirmed that they
were, she asked, “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing. Why?”

Jesse put both hands on her hips and
eyed Anna. “Don’t give me that bull. We don’t know much about each other, but I
can tell something is bothering you. You have the same look you had that day at
Cut and Curls. I have a pretty good idea of what it is, but I want to hear it
from you.”

Anna looked at the new stiff heels on
her feet. “Did Em send you?”

“No. I’ve been watching you mope
around here all day. When I saw you make tracks here, I followed you.”

Anna believed her. Jesse had no
reason to lie. It wasn’t in her nature to do anything other than tell it like
it was. She admired so many things about Jesse, and one of them was that Jesse
didn’t take any crap off anyone. Her backbone could hold up against a Navy
SEAL.

“It’s Jake.”

“Figures.” Jesse didn’t seem
surprised. “What did the asshole do this time?”

“I don’t want to keep you from your
brother’s wedding.”

“Do you honestly think I want to be
out there fighting for a bouquet? Hell to the no. Spill.” Jesse stood in front
of the swinging door as if standing guard.

Anna leaned against the sink, feeling
defeated. “He lied to me. Again.”

“About what?”

“Last night I asked him about Cara—”

Interrupting, Jesse said, “Shit. Did
you really want to know about all that? I thought y’all had gotten past that?”

“That’s the thing, we never did. I could
never bring myself to hear the gory details. But last night I was strong enough
to tackle the hard questions that needed to be asked. I needed him to tell me
everything—and he did.”

“So if he told you what happened,
then how did he lie to you? I’m not following.”

“He never slept with her.”

Jesse threw her hands in the air.
“What? Now you’ve really lost me.”

“It was a hoax. It was a way for them
to get back at Cara’s boyfriend for breaking up with her…and me too, I
guess—even though he didn’t come right out and say that last part. When she
went back to school and told everyone they had been together, he never denied
it. They never had sex.”

“Isn’t that a good thing…I mean, that
he was never unfaithful to you?”

“Yes, it’s good that he never slept
with her, but he let me go on for eleven years believing he had. He let me
think that he cared less about our relationship, and that it was easy for him
to find someone else.” Anna couldn’t control the mist turning to full-blown
tears.

Jesse left her spot guarding the door
and wrapped her arms around Anna. Her new friend had a standoffish posture, and
while Anna knew she was trying to be supportive, she could tell Jesse wasn’t
one to give out many hugs. She was a strong and very capable woman. Anna was
almost embarrassed for crying in front of her.

She vigorously wiped at her tears.
“I’m sorry. You probably didn’t know what you were walking into. Ever since
I’ve been back, I’ve been emotional.”

“Don’t apologize to me. You have
every right to be upset…angry even. But I still can’t help but be confused at
why you seem to be angrier at Jake now than you did when you thought he had
slept with that slut.”

“Isn’t she related to you somehow?”

Waving her hand in front of her face,
Jesse said, “Way down the line. It still doesn’t mean I can’t call her a slut.
If anything, it definitely means I can call her a slut. She was wrong to do
that to you. I just call them like I see them.”

“I like that about you,” Anna
admitted.

“It gets me into trouble sometimes.”
Jesse shrugged. “A lot of people think I’m a smartass.”

Anna almost laughed. “I know it might
not make sense, but I can’t get over the fact that he kept that big piece of
information from me. I’ve lived with the ache that he slept with someone else,
especially since he and I were never together. It made me feel that because I
never put out, he was ready to be done with me and move on to someone else. It
stung. I just don’t think I can forgive him.”

It was back to forgiveness. It was
one of the major reasons for coming back to Patience, and it was something she
considered overrated. She didn’t know if she could forgive any of it. Her past
abuse, her mother for not knowing what was going on in her own house, or Jake
for lying to her for eleven years.

Damn forgiveness.

“I didn’t know you two were never
together. I can see how you would feel that way. Men can be dicks sometimes,
but I was around Jake after you left. He was at my house a lot because of
Tommy, and he was heartbroken. One night, it was about two weeks after you left
town and my parents had gone to Savannah for a little weekend getaway, and Jake
was staying at our house for the night. He broke into my dad’s liquor cabinet
and found the hard stuff. Tommy had already gone to bed, leaving me with Jake.
He got to rambling on about past mistakes and some things that didn’t make much
sense. He said he never meant to hurt you and that all he did was miss you. He
actually cried. I was a little
weirded
out, but I
felt sorry for the guy. I took the alcohol away and put him on the couch to
sleep it off. The next day he never mentioned the conversation, and I never
brought it up. I guessed he didn’t even remember it. I could tell he loved you
to the point that it almost killed him. I’m not saying what he did was right,
because it was downright shitty, but he was hurt and confused about you
breaking up with him. He wasn’t in his right mind, and I believe at the time he
was doing what he had to do to cope.”

Jake had lost her in the same way
she’d lost him. But she wouldn’t have lost him if she’d never let him go in the
first place. Was she wrong after all these years? Did she cause all of the
heartbreak?

“I never meant to cause him pain. I
thought I was doing what was best for him. I like to think that I ended things
for good reasons, but maybe I was wrong.”

“It sounds like both of you made some
life-altering mistakes, but you are here together now. And the way I hear it,
y’all are setting the nights on fire.”

Anna gave Jesse a questioning look.

“Don’t look at me like that. What do
you expect the nosy citizens of Patience to do in their spare time?”

“I guess Jake and I walked into
that.”

“Yeah, you did. You should’ve known
that you and Jake would be the highlight of the town gossip.”

“What do I do now?”

“What do you want to do?” Jesse
asked.

Anna knew what she had to do to make
things right between them. She couldn’t leave town until she did. Jake and she
both deserved that much. Those teenagers, who were so in love and never knew
their lives were going to be anything but simple, deserved closure.

“If I don’t get to see Em before she
leaves, will you send her and Tommy off with my best?”

“I will. Oh, and Anna, forgiving Jake
doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with letting him off the hook.
Forgiveness is about you and your not allowing what happened to control your
life anymore. You have to let it go if you ever want to move on. Jake is a good
guy.”

That deserved another questioning
look.

“What?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but
when did you become so insightful?”

“I must have heard it somewhere.
Don’t tell anybody.”

Anna shook her head and laughed.
“Thanks, Jesse.”

“Go kick some ass, girl.”

Chapter Eighteen

Anna searched the fellowship hall for
Jake, but he was nowhere to be found. She waved Em and Tommy off before leaving
the reception. What reason was there to stay? Em was gone, off living her life
with her new husband, and Jake was missing.

She needed to talk to him and figure
out what was going on between them. She needed closure before she left Patience
again.

When did Jesse get to be so deep?
There was a lot to that chick. But she was right: forgiveness was about her and
her need to move on and not let her past define her life anymore. That could be
said for her past with Jake as well as not being defined by the abuse any longer.

She decided to go back to the
apartment, change out of her bridesmaid’s dress, and go to the house and wait
for Jake. He would have to show up there sometime.

The town seemed quiet, probably
because everyone was still at the church. She would miss the town, she would
miss Ms. Edna, she would miss Em and their girl talk, and she couldn’t deny
that she would miss Jake. He’d become such a big part of her life.

She turned the corner to Garrett’s
apartment and couldn’t have been more stunned. There it was…the Green Monster.
Her heart beat like a drum, and the mere sight of Jake sent a hot tingle
rippling down her spine. He had shucked his jacket, his tie was loosened, and
his sleeves were rolled up his forearms.