Page 33 of I Love My Mistake
Groggy and disoriented, I look at him, then at it. The preview text says from Amber that Jess is in trouble and come now. I jolt up to a sitting position on the couch. “Get my clothes!”
As Zach rushes around, I text back: What’s wrong?!
Amber: David cheated on her. She’s at my house.
Me: Oh fuck. On my way.
He throws my clothes at me and I scramble into them. “Zach, I have to go.”
“Yeah. I get it. Go.”
He’s holding my bag and keys by the door. And my boots, which he tosses to me now.
“You’re an angel and I don’t deserve you,” I tell him, as I wiggle into them.
“Damn straight,” he says, half-kidding. I give him a peck goodbye, grab my things out of his hands, run out the door, down the stairs and out onto the street, hailing the first cab I see.
When I get to Amber’s, I run out of the car and yell, “Hold the door!” to a redheaded teenager coming out of her building. He holds it, but barely.
“Are you a model?” he asks as he heads down the front stoop.
“Not now, kid,” I say as I pass him and grab the door before it closes. I turn around and yell back, “Hey, wait!”
From the sidewalk, he looks up at me. “Yeah?”
“I’ve seen you before. Don’t you live next door?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’re you doing in here?”
He shrugs “I’m bored.”
“Fair enough.” He walks away and I head to the elevator. Then it hits me that the last time I rode this, was the night I was torn to pieces. Jess has come on her darkest day, as well, so it turns out that Amber is the rock we both lean on.
Amber lets me in and we rush into the living room. Seeing Jess sitting on the couch, staring at the purple fairy, with mascara-streaked cheeks and swollen, dead eyes – is a shock to my system that I could not have prepared myself for. Me hitting a low like this, I am used to… but Jess? No… Jess is the happy one. She’s the goofy one who makes you laugh and takes away the edges. She doesn’t get cut by them.
From another world, she says, as I sit next to her, “Her name is Melanie. She was in my bed.” She turns to me. “My bed, Nicole! How could he do that to me? How could she do that to me… to another woman?” She looks forward and falls silent, pained and distracted by images in her imagination of her man in bed with another woman, images none of us should ever see.
I share a look with Amber and reach over and pull Jess into my arms, hold her tightly to me. When I let her go, she reaches for the wine. She puts it back down without drinking, and deflates to a half-lying position. I pull her legs up and hold them on my lap to help her know she’s supported. Amber sits on the chair, silently watching guard. I hear the door open to the bedroom, suddenly aware that Josh is here. I’ve not been here since they moved in, so it never occurred to me there was a man present. He comes in and leans against the wall. He and Amber share a silent conversation through their glances and I can’t help but wonder at them. How can anyone trust anyone with their heart, like they do?
We all stay like this for a very long time. There is nothing that will ever rip this memory away from me. These women are my family. And Josh? The verdict is still out.
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