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“Jonasthinksthey are, but he doesn’t have many real friends. After tonight, I bet he won’t have much to do with Ian. Most of his friends are business friends. People he has to work with professionally. Now he has the embarrassment of you muddying their relationship. I mean, seriously, what were you thinking?”
“I… I.” I had no words.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him. Bring him back up after another betrayal. That’s what I do. He used sex with you to cope and control everything around him.”
It didn’t feel that way. We both wanted and sought each other, or so I thought.
She continued, “It was a bit desperate, but I understand you have nothing and no one. Jonas told me as much, but I need you to help him now. Be a friend and stop trying to ruin all the progress he’s made since Dani left him. Let him go, and give him the chance to find someone willing to not be so self-absorbed. Someone to be with him in the way he needs.”
“I… I didn’t think,” I stuttered over and over into the phone, which was now disengaged.
The sting of her words echoed through my brain and pureed my heart. I didn’t even think of, or consider, how Jonas might feel about the mixed signals I gave to him. I did indeed break things off with him over the phone, then showed up at a dinner with his friend Ian, whom I had told him once I wasn’t interested in.
I was self-absorbed and unwilling to compromise. After all, Jonas had shared the pain he experienced with his mother’s illness, and his father’s bitterness—how alone he was and his need to control the boundaries of his relationships to protect himself from the pain he experienced at the end of his marriage. Would I have preferred he lied, used, and dumped me?
I was alone in my love for him, but in a way Jonas was alone with me, too. He gave what he was willing to give, but without feelings. He wasn’t hiding this from me, but I was hiding what happened to me from him.
I should leave him alone. He deserved, and could easily get, better than me—someone of his… class.
My worry quickly went to self-loathing and caused bile to rise in my throat. I ran across the hall and emptied my stomach. I brushed my teeth, then numbly shook a couple of sleeping pills into my hands and took them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‡
My alarm wentoff the next morning, pulling me from a deep and dreamless sleep. The fog of the sleeping pills clung to me, and when I opened my eyes, the sunlight through the glass of my floor to ceiling windows temporarily blinded me. I wiped my eyes a few times and rolled over towards the side of the bed closest to the window. I pulled my sluggish limbs to a standing position, making my way over to close the blinds. Last night’s gala and Jonas came back to mind.
Last Night. I couldn’t believe all that had happened last night. I had sex with Jonas, though we were supposed to be over. I kissed my new friend Ian back who probably heard me yell as I climaxed with Jonas on our date. My parents would roll over in their grave if they knew their daughter could behave so licentiously.
On the other hand, I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. Jonas was, and still remained, everything I wanted in my life. I wanted him on my terms, though. And as Melissa so willfully pointed out, I wasn’t willing to compromise to keep him. Why won’t I compromise? Would giving myself to him be such a bad thing? Maybe in time he would grow attached to me. Maybe in time he would fall madly head over heels in love with me.
I puckered my brows as I tried to work this through in my head and make up my bed at the same time. Jonas wanted a mutual arrangement, though his actions were far from impersonal in his quest for intimacy. How could he possibly not see that or how much his actions affected me? And was I thinking about how my pushing him away affected him? Were we both too selfish?
I needed advice So, I decided to call Mary, who was overdue an update from me. I smoothed the duvet in place, then picked up my phone to call her. She answered on the third ring.
“Lily… I’m.” Her voice broke.
This woke me up out of my haze. “What’s wrong?”
“Hans and I had a fight. I caught him with his skanky teaching assistant. I’m behind on all my papers and two are worth thirty-five percent of my term grade. If I fail, I can kiss my Ph.D. goodbye.” She started sobbing.
I sat down on the bed. Hans and Mary had a somewhat open relationship, which I knew Mary had taken advantage of in the past so I knew that wasn’t actually what was upsetting her. Her academic career was what I knew to be the true source of her distress.
“What can I do to help?”
“Please, could you come to Somerville? I can’t get my papers done.” She gulped.
“Yes. Of course I’ll come. I’ll have to ask Gregor for a couple days off. We can do one of our old power sessions,” I said as I walked over to my closet and pulled out a pair of denim jeans from my dresser. “I’ll try to take a bus or train. So, seven to eight hours?” I bit my lip.
“Okay.” She sniffed. “Would you bring your sociology research paper and syllabus from Dr. York’s class with you? Oh, and bring your papers from history and anthropology. Maybe email them to yourself and we can take a look when you get here. Oh, just bring your laptop, but get the research syllabi for sure, please.”
The corner of my mouth turned up. “Okay,” I said, pulling one sleeve out of my t-shirt. “Anything else?”
“No. But I’ll send you a text if I come up with anything else….” I could hear her sniffle. “I appreciate you coming out here. I know it’s hard for you to be here, after….” The implication of my parents’ death hung in the air, but went unmentioned. “I would have come down, but I have all this around me and I’m so upset. I….”
“Stop. Mary, you’re my best friend. I’m there.” I choked, my conscience bringing up Declan’s recent attack. I had to tell her. “I need to talk to you, too.”
“Oh. Something happen? I’m sorry for being so selfish. I didn’t even ask,” Mary replied.
