“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing”
As of late she’d been struggling and she couldn’t even begin to explain why. Sure, Pax and his parents dragging her around and forcing her to act like the perfect couple for the past week had been a handful (one that would continue with a Christmas show in the city later on in the day) and juggling trying to figure out how to finish Christmas shopping hadn’t been completely fun either. But regardless she should have been happy. The love of her life had been back for almost a month now.
Yet there were just things that felt unsolved. Something was off and she couldn’t put her finger on what exactly it was. It wasn’t because she wasn’t happy that he was alive, god no, her favorite place in the world was lying in bed beside him. That she couldn’t have denied if she tried to.
“When did you get up?”
His sleep filled tone filled her ears as he crept out of the bedroom and closer to the dinging room table. She felt him kiss the top of her head and yet she didn’t move or tilt her head to kiss him. Instead, she stayed exactly as she was, completely still.
“I don’t know, hours ago”
Eleanor had slept over Quincy’s the night before. Separating her from the boys on weekends was difficult. The way she idolized her cousins was completely unparalleled. The way they all should have been from the start.
As Jude sat down across from her she stared directly at him, she still felt like if she looked away he wouldn’t be there anymore, like this whole thing was only temporary.
“What’s going on in that mind of yours Beautiful?”
He picked up one of her hands and she felt herself jump at his touch. The movement was completely involuntary, her whole mind frame was actually. If she could have just continued to ignore it she would have. Would have crawled back into bed with him and lost herself until the afternoon came. But her brain hadn’t shut off in hours and sleep was a lost cause, being beside him just made it grow louder. She needed to say something, she knew that.
Biting on her lip she looked at him, her words attempting to formulate in her mind. Why was this conversation so difficult to have? They’d always had the easiest time talking. He’d always made her comfortable with saying what was on her mind.
“You’ve been in the city for months… you’ve been alive for years. Jude you… You’ve watched me and yet you couldn’t… if Eleanor wasn’t here would you have come out of hiding?”
They were both quiet instantaneously. Both lost in different thoughts she was sure. Part of her knew she shouldn’t have been questioning anything. That having him back should have been enough for her. For the most part it was, she just couldn’t prevent the burning questions from ganging up on her.
“Waverly…”
It was the tone that he started off with that made her regret her question. Before he could get another word out of his mouth she’d gotten up from the table and started to head back to his bedroom unsure that she really wanted to hear the words that were going to come out next.
Sure, running may have been something she was good at, but it was because she never knew exactly how to deal with things or the truth. That had been her problem from an early age. Here she was now opening up Pandora’s box and still trying to get away from the things that she herself had started.
“Waverly stop… Wave…”
Before she could reach the bedroom to either grab her coat or slam the door, she wasn’t entirely sure which she would have done, he’d grabbed her wrist to stop her. Making her stop and look at him without running away like she so badly wanted to do at this point.
“No Jude. You just said all you needed to say.”
Holding up a hand she attempted to yank her other wrist away, but he wasn’t having it, she could tell that he wasn’t about to let her walk away from their conversation. Part of her grew more frustrated by that fact. That he’d always tried to be the one to make her get to the bottom of things rather than just glossing them over.
“I actually didn’t Wave. This isn’t going to be just another one of those conversations you get to bring up and then walk away from. That’s not how we’re doing that this time around.”
The words out of his mouth made her stop moving then. She neglected her need to get away from him and instead she stood there completely still and silent looking up at him. This time around. She couldn’t even say that he was wrong for any of the other past times because it was exactly what she’d always done and what he’d let her go along with.
“No, I don’t know if I’d be back. Without me you grew up Wave. You’ve done better than you ever did with me. And I was afraid, I was afraid that coming back would have set you back into old patterns.”
Snatching her wrist away from him finally she crossed her arms against her chest defensively. Her anger with him only rose instead of dissipating as she stood there staring at him. At the ghost that had walked out of her life without saying a word, the one who would still be dead on all accounts if there hadn’t been a baby between them.
“Old patters”
She echoed, more of a question as to what exactly he meant by it than anything else.
“You cheated on me Wave. You cheated on me and pretended like it didn’t happen till you got caught in your lies and couldn’t get rid of it.”
There was no defending herself. The words out of his mouth were too entirely true that she dropped her eyes down to the floor. Two weeks of freedom that they’d been living in had fallen away and reality was suddenly setting in and causing them to deal with the issues that had only been dormant instead of dead.
“I… I did”
Her voice fell quieter then, with no trust in it to get any louder when the fact remained that he was completely right. Every word out of his mouth was true.
“And what about going off of your birth control? After I asked you… I begged you not to do it. I told you that it was something we’d discuss after we got married. Yet you did it anyway. You made a decision about our life without me.”
The mixture of anger and hurt in his eyes was unmistakable. These were the things that he’d kept to himself, the emotions that he hadn’t been able to express to her in three years unfolding like a wild snake that was about to murder its prey.
“I know”
What else was there to say? He was right. All of it, every word about it he was right on.
“I can’t… I don’t have a single excuse to make Jude. What I did… all of it… I…”
He walked away from her then, perching on the arm of the couch as he dropped his head into his hands in defeat. The words that had come out of his mouth she could tell had taken just as much of a toll on him as they had on her. Frustration emitted from him as he leaned there and she knew that there was going to be no simple fix to any of this this time.
“So no, I don’t know if I’d be back Wave. As much as I missed you, I missed all of you, I just don’t know.”
That was all she needed to hear, all she could take for the morning. While he sat there with his face dropped into his hands she grabbed for her jacket off the door handle. She wanted to get away, needed to get away before any of this got any worse. Not that she thought it actually could have.
“Look, I’m not walking away. I’m giving you space and time to figure out what you want Jude. I’m not going to stick around just because we have Eleanor, we can figure that one out. But right now, right now I’m leaving. I just… I need to go.”
The words were coming out of her mouth but she wasn’t thinking, she had no idea what she was actually saying as she walked out of the apartment and shut the door behind her, taking a second to lean against it as she willed herself not to break down.
She knew she never should have opened her mouth, never should have said anything about all of it. She’d been better off swallowing her thoughts down and hiding them rather than expressing any part of it. Now this was the disaster that she hadn’t wanted to get into.