Broken Man (15 page)

That’s why I cannot see her again, Jack realized as he turned down the road to her apartment building and looked at Amanda one more time and saw the face of an angel, the spirit of a saint. She is the biggest reminder of all, the only woman I have ever met who can approach the woman that Brittany was, her presence serving as a constant reminder of what I have lost. I have tried to make it work, tried to give it one more chance, but it was just too much, the memories too painful.

I can’t do this, Jack realized as he found a parking space. It is time for me to move on.

* * *

Amanda pretended to wake up as she felt Jack park the car and she smelled the salty, sulfur air of Atlantic City.

She hadn’t slept at all during the three hour trip despite her exhaustion. Amanda needed time to think about what to say, what to do, so she just acted as if asleep, her head turned away, her thoughts directed towards him.

“Do you want to come up,” she yawned as she tried to act like nothing had happened.

“Sure,” he replied, ever the gentleman as he got out of the car to open her door and walk her to her apartment.

Amanda thought about their last encounter in the hallway as he followed her up the stairs and then opened the door. I need to take this slow, I need to find a way to get him inside, she thought as they approached her apartment. We need to talk.

“Thanks for taking me this weekend, Jack,” she turned to him as they reached her door and she tried to figure out what to say. “I had a good time.”

“Thanks for coming, Amanda,” he looked so sad as he tried to apologize. “I am really sorry for everything.”

“Don’t be, Jack,” she reached for his hand as she started to to cry. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You should never be treated that way, Amanda,” he again apologized. “It was so wrong of me. I hope one day you can forgive me.”

“You are already forgiven, Jack,” she replied as she put her arms around him and dried her tears on his shirt. “Do you want to come inside.”

“I don’t think I should,” he hesitated as he kissed her softly on the forehead. “I should probably get going.”

“Where are you going to go, Jack,” she looked up at him. “Am I going to see you again.”

“Sure, you will see me again,” she knew he was lying, trying to let her down easy.

“Jack, please come in,” she pleaded with him. “I don’t want you to go. We really need to talk.”

“Amanda, I can’t,” he wouldn’t give in. “It would be best for both of us if I just left.”

Amanda cried as she held onto him, not letting him leave. “No, it wouldn’t be, Jack. I know about Brittany.”

His body immediately tensed up, and Amanda watched his reaction change from sadness to shock to anger, and then finally, to absolute despair. She felt his sense of loss as she watched the tears form in his eyes, and at that moment, felt more for him than she had ever felt for anyone before. Maybe we can work this out, she thought to herself as she watched a solitary tear roll down his face.

“Who told you about Brittany,” she was stunned by his anger as he gently pushed her away.

“What does it matter,” she cried as she tried to take his hand. “Can’t you see, I am in love with you.”

“You are not in love with me, Amanda,” he said exactly what she didn’t want to hear. “You have only known me for three months, how could you even know you are in love with me.”

“Jack, I just know. I feel it every time I see you, every time I think of you, and I know you feel it too,” she looked into his eyes to see if he would actually lie to her. “Tell me, Jack, tell me that you don’t love me.”

The pause was excruciating as she looked into the sadness of his eyes as they registered what she was saying and thought about how to respond. Just be honest, Jack, she pleaded with him in her mind, just tell me that you love me, and everything will be okay, we can work through all of this together.

“I’m sorry, Amanda,” he finally replied coldly as he pulled away from her hands. “I don’t love you.”

Chapter Fifteen

Amanda closed the door to her apartment and collapsed on her bed, the emotions and feelings of abandonment from twenty six years finally erupting from her body.

She could hear the guttural sound coming from her vocal chords but couldn’t make it stop. “Why does this happen to me?”

Amanda had been alone for much of her life, but suddenly, every minute of loneliness and solitude seemed to suddenly flood her emotions as scenes from her life flashed through her brain. The death of her grandmother, the absence of her mother, all the time spent alone in that house, and then that miserable downtown apartment, trying to find a sense of community and comfort wherever she could. The men she had given herself to, thinking they would love her, that they would somehow make her whole. The disappointment of finding out time and time again that she had been misled, been used, been betrayed.

Amanda thought of the first man with whom she had been. She was just sixteen, working at the sleazy bar just off the boardwalk, her mother having disappeared for the first time. It had been a difficult time for Amanda, unsure what to do, how to act, who to trust.

Joe was twenty-four, a gentle giant, handsome and strong, capable of handling the door and out of line customers, however simple in his thought process. But, he loved Amanda, and he treated her like a princess, never knowing she was only sixteen as he walked her back to her apartment every night after work.

They talked about their hopes and dreams, anything to forget the misery of the job they shared. She told him about wanting to get her Doctorate, the dream of being able to help people, being able to make a difference. He told her about his goal of opening his own bar, about how he was learning the business from the ground up.

Amanda knew he was in love with her, and she was curious. Curious about her body, curious about how it felt, curious about love. Knowing she could trust him and feeling particularly lonely one night after work, she invited him up to the apartment, prepared to learn about sex, to learn about love.

The sex had been awkward, Joe more nervous than she, barely able to perform. She remembered kissing him softly and slowly taking off her clothes, the nervousness of being naked in front of a man for the first time, the touch of his hands on her body. She recalled the feeling of climbing on top of this giant, first a little pain and then some unexpected pleasure as he thankfully lasted for just a minute, unable to hold off his excitement, embarrassed by his performance.

But, after they were done, he was sweet and gentle with her. Amanda remembered how he had held her, the way he stroked her hair, the sound of his whisper as he told her he loved her. He was still the only man who had ever said those words to her, and she remembered how good it felt, even if she didn’t feel the same way about him.

It had been wrong of her to not give him a chance, wrong to break his heart. It had been even been wrong to give him hope. Although she never slept with him again, Joe never gave up on her and remained her friend. Always looking out for her, still walking her home every night, never expecting anything in return and continuing to protect her until the day she left that job, never to see him again.

I wonder what happened to Joe, Amanda managed to smile as she dried her tears on her pillow. I hope he eventually opened that bar, he would have been good at it. He really did love me, she finally realized how he had felt, his hopes shattered, his heart broken.

Maybe God was getting her back for having treated him so badly. The last ten years had seen her with a series of men who looked at her not as a woman but as a trophy they had won, sex not an act of love but a sporting event in which to participate. She had felt no love, no intimacy, until she had mistakenly glimpsed it with Jim, needfully interpreting his smooth manner as love rather than as the manipulation it had once again turned out to be.

How had she let him fool her? Jim had found her at her most vulnerable, the holidays approaching, her mother missing, her loneliness almost unbearable. He had appeared to be kind and considerate, a man who would finally care for her. She had ignored the red flags and fallen victim to his charms, fallen victim to her need to be loved.

Having finally experienced love, Amanda now realized how naive she had been. She remembered him trying to get her to do things she didn’t want to do, the sexual experimentation she would have welcomed if it had been accompanied by intimacy, trust, and tenderness. She recalled the humiliation she felt when she finally gave in, the way he would lead her on after he got what he wanted, looking forward to his next opportunity, manipulating her emotions as he pretended to love her.

But, it had all been an act, a well rehearsed plot line he had written many times before. Looking back, Amanda realized he had not felt anything even resembling love, their relationship eventually deteriorating into the sham it was, the unfulfilling sex just his ill gotten reward for a well played con. Still, it didn’t change how much his betrayal had hurt, how affected she had been.

Fortunately, it had all changed with Jack. There was no con with him, just a man in so much pain, afraid to risk his heart being broken again.

She thought back to the night before, to what she had experienced before it went so wrong. Amanda had never felt anything like it, the intimacy of the moment, the way her inhibitions and insecurities had disappeared in an instant. She remembered the way her body had surged as he touched her, the way her mind had so easily found peace and security as she finally discovered love. It was a moment she had been waiting to experience her entire life

Unfortunately, she also remembered the feeling of not being able to consummate their love, the emptiness she felt after having been so close. It had somehow brought back so many memories of her failures in the past, her insecurities overwhelming her once again, the final heart break occurring when he looked into her eyes and told her he didn’t love her.

But, Amanda knew that Jack did truly love her. There was no way he could hide the way that he feels, no matter what he had said. The way that he looks at me, the way that he touches me, I know that he loves me even if he says that he doesn’t.

How could it be over? How could they not be together? How was she going to go on?

As she rolled over onto her side, Amanda glimpsed the urn of her Mother’s ashes still lying in wait on top of the mantle, and she suddenly understood exactly what her mother had gone through, the heart break she had felt. As the pain traveled through her body, Amanda started to cry once again as she tried to find solace by talking with her mother.

“Mom, I can understand how you felt now, and I understand what you went through. Tell me what to do, how to handle this. I don’t want to make the same mistakes that you did, and I don’t want to have regrets for the rest of my life,” she paused as her emotions overtook her. “I have to be with him, and I need your help. Please help me through this. Mom, I need you.”

* * *

Jack walked into the poker room of a boardwalk casino, thankfully a stranger to everyone there. As he sat down at the table, he tried to sort through the thoughts in his head, unsure what he was feeling, what he should do.

He was angry that Mary had told Amanda about Brittany. How else could she have found out? That was supposed to be his secret, the reason he had disappeared in Atlantic City. Now, he knew for sure he could never see her again, her knowing his secret just another painful reminder of what he had lost in Brittany.

“I raise,” he said as he looked down at nine seven of clubs on the button and decided to squeeze three weak limp ins. “Make it fifty.”

He was also upset, primarily with himself for having put himself in this position. Why couldn’t he have just said no when she asked him to go out with her, why couldn’t they just have remained friends. None of this would have ever happened and everything would still be fine, his life still in order.

“One hundred,” Jack stated with authority as he moved a stack of chips to the middle and looked for a reaction from the two pre-flop callers who had checked the flop.

“I raise,” the first caller responded as the other player prepared to muck his cards. “Make it two fifty.”

Jack knew his top pair was no good on a flop of nine, five, deuce, all different suits. The check-raise from his opponent indicated he was likely up against a set or an over-pair, neither of which he could beat. But, he didn’t care, his mind distracted by his thoughts.

“I’m all in,” he heard himself announce.

The quick response let him know he was practically drawing dead to a set. “I call.”

What is really bothering me, he asked himself as he watched the board run out and his chips get moved to the other player. It is more than just Amanda knowing about Brittany, it is more than my screwing up by taking a chance with her, he thought to himself as he bought another five hundred dollars worth of chips. What is really the problem?

As he looked down at ace queen off suit in the cut-off, Jack heard a raise to fifty announced in first position. After two players called, Jack knew his hand wasn’t great to play four-handed and thought he might even be able to find a fold. But, in the mood he was in, he decided he might as well get it over with.

“I re-raise,” he announced. “I’m all in.”