Page 6 of Worthy Now
Jake sighs, an exhausted sound, before he hangs his head and stares at the space between his feet. “I was determined to confront you. Pumped myself up to chew you out for the entirety of mydrive. That or fall at your feet and beg you to come back to me until you had no choice but to agree. I hadn’t quite decided on the right course of action once I got there.” We share a brief smile, but the light-hearted moment doesn’t last. “When I spotted you, it was like an invisible force was pulling me toward you. I had no control over my own body. I was halfway across campus when some preppy-looking dude walked up to you and slung his arm around you like he had every right to do so. He dipped his head, whispering something in your ear, and you looked up at him like he hung the damn moon. That’s when I knew. Coming after you had been a mistake. You were right where you were supposed to be, and it was pretty damn obvious you’d moved on. You looked radiant and happy and meant for greater things. I was only holding you back.” His tone is abnormally flat like he refuses to relive the way he felt that day. I want to tell him it’s not true. That he was never holding me back, but he continues before I can speak up. “It became clear that you never needed me as much as I needed you. So, I allowed myself a few minutes to watch you from a distance while I convinced myself it was for the best, and then I left. Made the thirteen-hour drive back without taking in a single landmark, headed straight for the river, and got so fucked up I forgot my own name. I’m not proud of it, but I was a damn mess for a long time after that.”
I reach over then and link our fingers, unable to go without touching him for even a second longer and silently thanking him for his willingness to offer me a piece of his truth. He doesn’t pull away and, for the first time since my return, hope blooms in my chest. Hope that we might be able to salvage this.
“The guy you saw me with is my roommate, Caleb. We share an apartment in LA.” Jake gives a small grunt. “He’s also one of my best friends in the whole world. My very outspoken, very flamboyant, and most definitely gay best friend.” The stunned look on his face brings a grin to my own.
“Fucking figures,” he laughs softly, shaking his head at the irony. “Guess we both believed what we wanted to believe about each other.”
“Quite the pair, huh?”
Taking a minute to come to terms with the recent developments, we sit in silence, simply holding hands and savoring our newfound connection. The bond we’d formed throughout our childhood is still there, and there’s comfort in knowing it probably always will be.
“You were wrong with your assessment, by the way,” I say when Jake begins fidgeting beside me. “I never moved on. It’s been seven years, and I still haven’t moved on.”
Jake expels a heavy breath and gently untangles his fingers from mine, like my touch no longer feels right.
“I’m seeing someone, Tessa,” he points out, and his matter-of-fact delivery feels like a bucket of ice water. “Alicia is a great girl. I care about her. She’s the first person I’ve allowed myself to care about since you. I’m glad we had this talk. You were right,” he tells me. “It was long overdue, and I needed this. But just because we gained some clarity doesn’t mean we can just pick up where we left off. I’ve been so angry with you for so long, and it’s gonna take more than one conversation to erase years of festering resentment. It will take me some time to accept that all of this could’ve been prevented if you’d just had a little faith in me.”
Angling my body toward him and willing him to hear the sincerity behind my words, I say, “I made a bad judgment call. I was stupid to believe her. I see that now. But you have to understand where I was coming from. I was young and impressionable and didn’t feel secure in our relationship. I doubted your love for me long before those two set us up. You never wanted to spend time with me anymore. Forever looking for the next party and getting angry whenever I pointed out that the drugs were becoming a problem. I’m not blaming you for your coping mechanisms. I just wish you would’ve leaned on me, instead of pushing me away. I couldn’t get through to you, no matter how hard I tried, and in away, it felt like I’d already lost you. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses, and maybe I am. But believe me when I say this. I’d give anything to go back in time and undo it all.” I pause to consider my next words carefully. I gave myself one shot at this, and I don’t want to mess it up by once again not thinking things through. “I need you to understand why I slept with Shane.”
“Please, spare me the details. I don’t need a play by play,” he growls.
“Just hear me out,” I plead, hoping the underlying desperation in my voice is enough to make him realize just how important this is to me. His jaw ticks, and he presses his lips into a thin line, but his single nod is all the incentive I need to forge on. “I would never, in a million years, have gone there if I hadn’t been under the impression that you cheated on me. I was devoted to you, Jake. I loved you so much, and when you came to me and told me about Jessica, you broke my heart. You hurt me so deeply. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move past it. Shane caught me in a vulnerable state and made me feel seen. He didn’t push me away. He wanted to be with me and listened to what I had to say. I didn’t know he had an ulterior motive, and I regretted it the moment it was over. Hell, I hated it while it was happening,” I say, remembering the way it had felt all wrong. How my skin crawled with every one of Shane’s touches. Because he wasn’t Jake, and I should never have let it getthat far. “When you told me the whole thing was nothing but a setup, I wanted to vomit. I was so disgusted with myself. For weeks, the guilt over what I’d done felt like a noose around my neck. I cried myself to sleep night after night, despising myself for how much I hurt you. And then I saw her walk out your front door. It broke something in me. Something inside me snapped. Here I was, drowning in a pool of self-loathing while you were happily banging the enemy. That’s when I started questioning everything we used to be, and I just needed to get away from it all.” I take a shuddering breath, wiping at my damp lashes. “And now I find out that I’ve been played once again, and I feel like such a fool. All these years I’ve been so angry with you. Turns out it was all on me. My insecurities cost us everything. They almost cost you your life, for God’s sake.”
Jake cocks his head and hits me with a look laced with suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“I heard about the overdose.”
His eyes close in resignation. “Fucking Megan,” he mutters, massaging the space between his brows.
“Don’t blame Megan for this. You can’t seriously expect her to keep something like that from me. You almost died.”
“But I didn’t, and she should’ve kept her mouth shut.”
“Why?”
“Because I specifically asked her not to say anything. I couldn’t stand the thought of you coming back here out of guilt or some misguided sense of responsibility. Or even worse, out of pity. I wanted you to come home so badly. But I wanted you to do it for the right reasons.”
“What happened?” I ask softly, needing to know if my actions caused him to hit rock bottom. Jake chews the inside of his cheek, visibly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation has taken. It takes him so long to speak, I almost give up on an answer altogether. But when it finally comes, I hang on every word.
“Everything happened. You left, and my dad got sick, and I just kept falling deeper and deeper into this pit of despair I couldn’t seem to dig myself out of. I was already teetering on the edge when you guys first tried to intervene, but I wasn’t ready to admit it then. Things went downhill fast after my dad got diagnosed,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know why it affected me the way it did. I should’ve been glad to be rid of the guy. But when it came to my old man, things were never black and white. One day, I was telling myself I had things under control, the next I was flirting with a bag of heroin, wondering if it’d give me the relief the pills no longer provided.” He breaks off, cheeks flushed with a hint of shame. “I hate to say it, but I was a full-blown addict for a while. I had no intention of quitting. I simply didn’t care anymore. Butone night, I took it too far and woke up in the hospital, hooked up to a bunch of machines and feeling like death warmed over. They told me I was lucky to be alive. Carter was there when I first opened my eyes, looking like he’d aged about ten years overnight. I’d never seen him cry before, and it shook me to see him so distraught. And then Anna barged into the room, throwing herself at me and begging me not to leave her like mom did, and that’s when I realized what a selfish asshole I’d been.” His sigh is heavy, as he relays what was most likely a pretty eye-opening moment. “I was the one constant in my sibling’s lives. The one person they could depend on, and I knew my dad wouldn’t be around much longer. He’d been given a life expectancy of less than six months, and the end date hung over my head like a fucking guillotine. So, I detoxed. Worst five days of my life. A few hours into it, I actually wished I’d died; it was that awful.” The grimace on his face confirms this to be true, and even though I hate the thought of him suffering, I hope it left a lasting impression because I never want him to experience it again. “But once the drugs were out of my system,” he goes on. “And I could think clearly again for the first time in forever, things got easier, and I started counseling. Hit a couple of bumps over the year that followed, but I fought through it and I’m doing okay now.”
I was aware he’d gone through a rough patch but hearing him relay his struggles in his own words somehow makes it seem that much more real, and a whole lot more frightening. Things could’ve easily taken a different turn, and I can’t even imagine a world in which Jake Nelson doesn’t exist.
“I want you to know that I would’ve come home in a heartbeat had I thought you wanted me there. I almost did, both then and for your father’s funeral. But I was afraid being confronted with me would only make things harder for you. I took the easy way out, and I’m sorry for being such a coward. God, you must really hate me, huh?”
His soft smile is wrapped in sadness. “I don’t hate you, Tessa. Believe me, things would be a hell of a lot easier if I did. And I want to make it clear that I never once blamed you for my addiction. I take full responsibility for my actions, and to this day, I’m still ashamed I let it get as bad as it did. I let my friends and family down. Hell, I let myself down. Truth be told, it was the wake-up call I needed. When I woke up that morning and realized that my self-destructive behavior almost turned my siblings into orphans, I was suddenly painfully aware of just how low I’d fallen.”
He winces, like even just talking about this dark chapter in his life causes him physical discomfort.
“Anyway. That’s in the past. My life is good now. The business is thriving. My sister has turned into an amazing young woman. Jude received a football scholarship at UNT and is living the dream, and I finally met someone worth considering a relationship with and then—bam. You whirl back into town like a damn tornado, and suddenly everything is just so fucking complicated. It took a lot of hard work and years of therapy to get me to a good place. So, if you could please not mess with my head just when I’m beginning to find my footing again, I’d appreciate it.”
“I didn’t come back here to mess with your head, Jake. I’m here because my mom is sick.”
“Fuck, Tessa,” he exclaims, looking sheepish, and despite the seriousness of the situation, I can’t help but smile.
“You always did have a way with words.”
Jake barks out a laugh before his expression turns serious. It feels like he’s staring into the very depths of my soul when he says, “Your mother is one of the strongest people I know. She’ll pull through. You’ll see.” The words are delivered with such conviction that it’s almost impossible not to believe him.
