The Light in the Wound (21 page)

Jesse called from the airport the day he left for Boston. He sounded sad, but resigned. I held on to every word he said on the phone, hoping for a hint of regret for what he had chosen over me. In the end, I didn’t even believe that he had ever loved me.

“Iss, it’s me.”
Please God. Make him come back.

“Hi Jesse.”

“I’m boarding in a few minutes. I couldn’t leave without hearing your voice. I miss you. Nothing’s changed. Nothing ever will. I know I’ll figure everything out eventually. I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did. And now you won’t fight for me.” My voice was shaking.

“Why is it a choice, Isabel? Why are you making me choose?”

Once again, I managed to aggravate him. “Because I deserve the truth from you.” I staunchly kept my stand.

“And what do you think is the truth?”

“You want to be free. And you want me. But you can’t have both.” And with that, I hung up the phone. I wondered if I could ever speak to him without sobbing or bawling my eyes out. His words just tore the Band-Aid off my wound and poured kerosene all over it. He hadn’t even given it a chance to grow a scab to heal and protect it.

Alicia and I left for our three-day trip to Hong Kong the following day. She was lethargic and quiet during the first day of the trip. I managed to coax her back into her normal self after a full day of shopping and eating at all of our favorite places. Every single step of our trip made me think of Jesse.
He would have loved this bed, he would have loved this cool shower, he would have loved this food, he would have looked great in this shirt.
Alicia tried to cheer me up, but like me, she was convinced that we needed this time apart from each other.

“Ali, what’s wrong? You just don’t seem like yourself, and you’re being overly cynical about things.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Isabel. I just think that you should move on from that self-serving, selfish asshole.”

All in all, we really enjoyed our trip together. The three-hour delay at the Customs line served to remind us of just how much damage we had done while shopping through the streets of Hong Kong together.

Alex and I were also in constant communication with each other. Betty was away on a European trip with Leigh and her parents. I think she left him in charge of me because somehow, he had a plan of action every single day. He was a man on a mission to help me kill time. He hung out with me at the club almost every single day. Well, I hung out at the club and he constantly stalked me. Not that I really minded. He was the most caring friend anyone who has had her heart torn out of her chest could have ever asked for.

On the day the magazine cover was published, Alex thought it would be funny to walk into the house with 100 copies all wrapped up in a big red bow. I ran down the stairs as he excitedly stood by the door with a huge bundle of magazines in his arms.

“Oh my gosh! What’d you do?”

“I would’ve bought more, but the lady down the street only had 100 of them. Come see how beautiful you are.”

“Ha. A little overboard, don’t you think? I’m sure we could’ve shared a copy between the two of us. And maybe one to send my mom and Evie. You could’ve just released all those copies out into the world.”

“What? And let the whole world see my best kept secret?” We stood facing each other, separated merely by his outstretched arms still holding the bundle of magazines.

“What secret?”

“You.”

As soon as he said that, an overwhelming tightness formed in my chest.

“What does it matter when the person I want doesn’t want me?” I reached over to take the pile from him and laid it on the table.

As weeks passed, I finally decided to get back on the horse. No, literally. The first time I did it, Alex had offered to lend me one of his family’s Polo horses. I was excited to try Wendy late one night for a quick run around the field. I wasn’t aware that Wendy had been exhausted from a Polo match earlier that afternoon and wasn’t too happy about being ridden again after only a few hours. She let me mount her, but once I was strapped in and ready to go, Wendy was on her heels galloping faster than I had ever experienced, trying to throw me off in retaliation for placing her back on the field. The horse groomsmen were poised to run down the arena to help me control her. They feared that Wendy would buck me off during her wild run and throw me down on the grassy ground. Riders were never afraid of the fall. It was the possibility of being trampled on that posed the risk. My helmet flew off as she galloped and no matter how hard I pulled at the reins, I had totally lost control. It took quite a few minutes, but my yanking on the reins and squeezing with my legs finally got her calm enough to slow down to a canter and then to a trot and ultimately to a walk. I was crying by the time the groomsmen reached me to help me dismount from a very perturbed Wendy. While they thought it was because the horse’s bad behavior had spooked me, my tears were more for myself and for Jesse. In getting back on the horse, I had done what he had forbidden me to do when we first started our relationship years ago. This was my way of finally saying goodbye to him.

Nighttime was the most difficult part of my day. The silence in the large house was deafening. I thought about my mother and wondered whether this was how one got addicted to sleep medication. Did the nights get so unbearable that you tried to find ways to bridge the gap to daylight? Jesse’s family had also become a huge part of my life and I missed them terribly. In the years we were together, Bernard would drop me off to have dinner at their house after class whenever Jesse was busy with his council meetings. His father filled a gap in my life that I never realized existed. I wondered what they thought of me now and whether they were missing me too. Jesse did mention to me weeks ago that his father and mother had blatantly told him that letting me go was the wrong decision.

Somehow I managed to find a way to combat the stillness that plagued my nights by cranking up the central stereo system throughout the house and dancing around in my bedroom and up and down the staircase until I was so tired that I would roll right into bed after a hot shower. I thought of it as my mini-workout, and the loud music somewhat helped me to remember that there still was much living to do outside of my loneliness. Last week, I failed to hear the intercom buzzing and was dancing around so furiously that I actually bumped into Alex, who was standing by my doorway. He immediately folded me into his arms, and we stood in the noise for five minutes while he held me. By the time the song was over, I had soaked up another one of his designer shirts with the usual waterworks.

I finally gathered the strength to take down the pictures of Jesse and me that were scattered at various points around my bedroom. Mellie and I filled a large box up with mementos and picture frames, as well as four large handmade scrapbooks. This was where the past six years of my life had ended up. In a box to be sealed and stored away. I wished that my heart were that easy to pack up. Once again, my thoughts brought me to my mother and all of her subsequent marriages. How was it so easy for her to pack her previous husband away and move on to the next one?

If there was one singular remembrance of our relationship that signified the love I had for this man, it was this: a picture taken by Ryan at a party years ago. I was seated on a bench, with my legs crossed, my right hand on my lap and my left arm extended upwards. Jesse was standing with his back toward me as he was in conversation with someone else. His right hand was holding mine. There was a distance between us the length of his extended arm, and yet, I was looking at him with so much love and adoration, patiently waiting until he turned back to me. Something in me had changed since then. Postponing my future for him was no longer an option.