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Exhaustion weighed me down, but I’d been unable to sleep from the thoughts still clamoring in my brain. The almost five hours it had taken me to get home from Manhattan thanks to traffic hadn’t settled anything in my head or heart. My split-path decision didn’t lay any more straightforward before me than before I’d walked away from Drake hoping for clarity.
My shoulders slumped, my eyes exhausted from all the tears I’d shed while driving in the opposite direction of him.
Did he hate me for leaving him without explanation?
I couldn’t begin to imagine his pain. Unlike me, Drake no longer withheld his thoughts and feelings like when we’d been young kids. He didn’t stash part of who he was on a back shelf for safety’s sake. He’d been open with me while I’d hidden the truth from him.
How could he not hate me?
Pain didn’t begin to describe the dull throb in my chest. It didn’t feel like the life-giving force of a heartbeat.
Until I figured the situation with Jacqueline out, it would be better to keep a low profile. I would utilize my usual self-restraint until I had a precise vision of what my future looked like with her.
Three months, she’d said they would be gone, but I knew she would get in touch with me countless times during their lengthy vacation. That was one thing I could trust her for, at least.
And didn’t that loyalty reveal how much she cared about me?
Rather than stewing on my usual annoyance her regular check-ins inspired, I chose to focus on the positive aspect. Why call if she didn’t care?
My fingers grew heavy, but I finished up Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, one of Drake’s favorites I’d fumbled through as a kid. He’d preferred the heavier classical music. Bach’s Moonlit Sonata first movement had come easily, as had the second, but I’d learned the third years after Drake had left me alone in New York. I was no virtuoso but had continued practicing long after I’d quit lessons during college.
Playing spoke to my soul, or at least, reminded me of Drake. Perhaps that was why I still sat on the bench and filled my condo with haunting melodies. To keep him close, the feeling he sat and listened like he used to.
My hands fell to my lap, and silence descended.
With the music’s fading went Drake’s ghost, leaving me alone once more in my agony.
Lifting my watery gaze to the window overlooking the capital’s golden dome glinting in the sinking sun, I allowed myself to just feel. Emotions given full rein, I sank into the experience of sadness.
The heaviness in my mind and tightness in my throat.
Lingering happiness bubbled beneath the surface, inspired by the contentment I’d felt being in close proximity to Drake.
Unease tingled along my spine with the knowledge of what lay on the horizon if I chose him without knowing Jacqueline’s thoughts toward who I was at my core.
My eyelids fell shut, and I hunched, tears spilling down my cheeks.
I just wanted my mother to truly love me.
I wanted to be accepted.
I wanted to be free to love who my heart belonged to.
Write her off and walk away had been Nancy’s recommendation. She’d done so but as a spouse, not a son. Jacqueline hadn’t carried her inside her body for close to a year, hadn’t borne her into the world, giving her life as she’d done with me.
Jacqueline, however, was the queen of decision-making. She domineered with her words and ordering those who’d upset her from her presence. Her fight instinct was strong as any I’d seen.
Me?
I was the prince of flight, a craven piece of shit who couldn’t stand conflict. Too many arguments had raged in our home when I’d been a child, too much poison spewed from lips that had never offered an antidote for healing after Nancy had been kicked out. Even the thought of a dispute made my skin feel like I broke out into hives.
Perhaps I ought to see a therapist, but what was the point of sludging through my childhood wounds again when I would never have the strength to stand up to Jacqueline?
I dragged my ass off the piano bench and started for my bedroom. I’d already showered, so it was time to close my eyes and escape into sleep were nothing but darkness mattered.
Hopefully.
A knock sounded before I crossed my condo, and I groaned.
