Exposed (Free Falling) (18 page)

I shrugged, running off a list to myself inside my head – subconsciously wanting to put distance between us sexually, avoiding the pressure of Jason wanting to live together…the fact that I’ve been spending an ungodly amount of my time thinking about AJ lately.  Instead of giving her my reasons, I replied, “Just a thought that crossed my mind.”

She removed her glasses and set them aside on the end table.  “Samantha…if you don’t want to be in your relationship anymore, you don’t need an excuse.  You
do
know that, right?”

I didn’
t respond, just sipped my smoothie and stared out the window.

Her next
statement caught me off guard.  “I’ve had patients in the past who’ve stayed in relationships to prove to themselves that they didn’t have commitment issues.  Your past with your ex may have you second guessing your integrity when it comes to relationships.  Do you ever find yourself being passive with Jason instead of standing up and speaking your mind?”

I thought about it.  “No.  Actually, it’s quite the opposite.  I’ve been on the defensive lately.  Not all the time, but the second Jason does something that I’d normally just talk through with him, I go from zero to sixty…almost like I’m
trying
to pick a fight with him.”

She left me in silence for a moment while she thought.

“What about the ex moving here? Has that happened yet?” She asked, jumping subjects – something that
I
usually did in our sessions, not her.

“He’s here,” I said flatly, trying to mask any and all emotion from my tone.  “Why?”

“Has there been any contact?” She asked next, ignoring my question.

“No, and there probably won’t be.”

“I’m gonna say for the thousandth time, I think that needs to change.  If there’s some truth to what you asked, you need to determine what’s at the root of you sabotaging your relationship.”

She saw me cringe at the word
‘sabotage’
.

“That’s basically what you asked me
, Samantha – ‘
Dr. Gill, is it possible that I
want
to think my boyfriend’s cheating on me?’
– thus giving yourself an excuse to act out and end the relationship minus the guilt you’d have otherwise.”

I lowered my head at her evaluation
and breakdown of my statement.  “What does talking to AJ have to do with anything, though?”

She forgot that I was a patient and rolled her eyes, which made
me chuckle.

“Samantha! Honey!  The moral of the story is: face your past, own it, and don’t make the same mistakes in the future that you did back then!  Whatever that means to you, sweetheart, you have to jump off this merry-go-round you’re stuck on!”

I continued to smile at my oh-so-professional doctor letting her Brooklyn/Italian accent slip out when she checked me out of love, not frustration.

“Listen, woman, you need to face this AJ guy and tell him whatever it is that you’re holding in. 
Whether it’s that you’re sorry, that you made a mistake, or that you love him –“

My eyes lifted to hers when she said that and got stuck there.

“
Whatever
it is, dig the words up from whatever grave you buried them in and SAY THEM, for heaven’s sake.”

I left Dr. Gill’s office in a haze. 
Love?  Where’d that word even come from?
  Up until now, she’d been all about
‘closure’
and whatnot.  Had something that I said made her suspect that I was still in love with AJ?  If so, she’d misread me.  Clearly.

I walked into my apartment, having already taken half a day from work because I was expecting a delivery of art supplies for my new studio this afternoon, I plopped down on my couch and found my thoughts still fixed on Dr. Gill’s summation.

Love…yeah, right
.

*****

By the time the delivery guys showed up, it was late enough that I could’ve gone back to work, grabbed Chinese food on my way home, and been on the couch watching
Good Times
reruns like usual.  Needless to say, when my door buzzed I was already hella irritated. 

Directing the men to the bedroom that used to be Angel’s, I went back to my post on the couch wearing a pair of Jason’s loose-fitting sweats and a tank top.  Glamorous, I was not.

I’d just hung up the phone from ordering a pizza when someone knocked at my door.  My first thought was that the gruesome twosome delivering my items were actually two-thirds of a trio and one had just gotten lost in the stairwell, but when I opened up, Jason stared back at me.

We hadn’t seen one another since our ‘date’ on Sunday and our conversations had been dry to say the least.  He looked like he was already expecting the less than enthusiastic greeting when I simply stepped aside and
motioned for him to come in.  The sound of either Ren or Stimpy dropping something in the studio alerted Jason that I wasn’t alone.  His expression was questioning when he pointed down the hall.

“Art studio delivery just got here,” was all I said back, plopping back down on the sofa.

When I didn’t say anything else, Jason sat down beside me and pretended to be watching TV.  However, the nervous energy that he was practically broadcasting was making us both uncomfortable.

“How
long’re they gonna be here?” He asked anxiously.

Frowning, I shrugged.  “
I
don’t know.  As long as it takes, I guess.  They haven’t brought everything in yet.”

He ignored my attitude and continued to sit, scratching his head every now and again, finally opting to remove his suit jacket.  From the corner of my eye, I watched him.  Something was definitely up.

The guys came from the back room laughing at some joke they’d told before entering the living room and then they walked out of my apartment, leaving the door open when they did.

Jason scooted up to the edge of the couch.  “We should talk,” he said hesitantly.

Without looking away from the television screen, I asked, “About what?”

“Us.”

That could mean anything.

The men came back inside, making as much racket as they could it seemed, and then thundered off to the studio again.

“What
about
us? I asked.

Jason blew all the air from his lungs again. 
“Never mind.  We’ll wait until they finish.”

Fine by me.

Still perturbed from our falling out days ago, I didn’t pay him any mind.  I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly and chuckled at the part of the episode where Florida Evans scolded Michael for taking a picture down from the wall to put up JJ’s rendition of “Black Jesus”.  The fact that my lack of concern didn’t even upset Jason a little meant that he was preoccupied within his own thoughts.

“Ok, ma’am, we’re all set here,”
Tweedle Dumb announced.

I faked a smile and took the receipt from his hand
, fighting the urge to demand a discount because they were so doggone late.

“If you have any issues, the customer service number is right at the bottom of that document.  Hours of operation are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.”

I nodded once.  “Thanks.  I’m sure I won’t need to call.”

The guy tipped his baseball cap at me and then traipsed out of my apartment followed by his partner.  I eyed the receipt and walked it over to the kitchen counter before going back to the couch, deciding to put off checking out the guys’ work until later.

“Ok, what is it?” I asked.  Jason looked at me and there was something about his expression that made my heart skip a beat.  Whatever he had to say was heavier than I realized, probably because I hadn’t really been paying him much attention since he got here.

Unable to look me in my eye
s anymore, the first thought that I had was that he was here to admit to something – maybe to tell me that all of my suspicions were true.

“This is about the
text,” was his first admission and I’m not gonna lie, my heart nearly stopped cold in my chest.  The hard role I was trying to play was quickly slipping away.

“Okay?  What about it?” I asked.

As I watched, he hesitated for a moment, and then continued on with his movement toward his pocket.  When he laid his phone in between us on the couch, both of our eyes were trained on it.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” I asked.

Again, Jason’s response didn’t come immediately.  He raked his fingers over his low-cut hair and tried to steady his breathing.  “I need you to look at something.  But before you do….there’re some things that I need to say to you first.”

My heart leapt to my throat
this time, but I didn’t speak.

Jason was practically shaking which made me extremely uneasy. 

Oh my god…there’s another woman.  I was right.

“There are three things I nee
d to say before you look at what I have to show you.  One: I love you with everything in me, Sam.  For real.  Regardless of what this thing I’m about to tell you might
seem
like, I swear I never meant to hurt you.” He paused in an attempt to stabilize his shaky breathing.  “Two: If I’d figured out a way to tell you this before, I need you to please believe that I would have.  You have to know that.  It was never my intention to hold this back for so long.”

How long had this woman been a part of his life!?!?
             

“
These past few days have just been a wake-up call for me.  I don’t know if it’s
because
you saw
the message, or if it’s because I saw the look on your face when you did.  I never want you to feel like I don’t have your best interest at heart.”  He glanced down at his phone again nervously and then continued.  “Three: I only kept this from you because I was…I was afraid to lose you.”

That last excuse
had an air of familiarity to it that wasn’t lost on me – they sounded so much like words AJ had spoken in the past.  Tears were already in my eyes as my gaze slipped away from Jason and down toward the phone where he’d apparently been keeping all of his secrets.

I picked up his cell and he had to unlock it for me, which was new.  Once upon a time, I knew the code, but clearly
at some point he changed it.  I wonder why.  At that moment, I realized that his offer to let me go through his phone Sunday was a mere bluff; he knew my pride wouldn’t let me stoop that low.

Reaching over my arm, Jason pressed the icon that brought up his pict
ures.  He scrolled past photos we’d taken with his family in L.A. at Christmas time, photos from my last birthday, pics of us together at the beach last summer, but then…right there in the bottom right corner of Jason’s gallery…..was a picture of a little boy…a little boy who bared a striking resemblance to
Jason
– green eyes and all.

The questioning look that I shot him said it all and he instantly started explaining.

“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t,” he said in a rush.  “I couldn’t figure out how to say it.”

“How about this, ‘
Sam, I have a SON’!”
I hissed, tossing the phone in his lap when I stood to my feet.

All I kept thinking was
‘
how’
!  We’d been together for two whole years and I had no idea he was a father?

“I mean…” My hands raked through my hair as I paced.  “How, Jason?  Where is he?  How did you hide a
WHOLE KID
from me for almost two years?”

He lowered his head, but didn’t answer.

“Does he live here?  Where is he?”  Do you even see him?” I shrieked, sounding every bit as judgmental as I meant to.

“No, h
e doesn’t live here.  And I see him when I can,” he said sheepishly.

I racked my brain to remember a time when Jason left town without me
and I couldn’t…because he hadn’t.  “Does he come
here
or something?”

Jason shook his head.  “His mom do
esn’t like the city, so no.  When I wanna see him, I have to go there.”

“
There
?  Where the hell is ‘
there’
?”

Jason hesitated and I stopped dead in my tracks to stare at
him.  With his head still hung toward the floor, he almost
whispered
his response.  “Boston.”

“
Boston?!?  Of course.”  I paced away again, reevaluating every second of Jason’s behavior while we were visiting for the wedding.  “Did you see him while we were there?”  As soon as I asked, I answered my own question, recalling a whole afternoon that Jason spent off on his own…or so I thought. 

“I did – when I left to go to the movies and the mall…I took him with me.”

That was what the text was about…The kids mother was acknowledging that it would be nice for Jason to see his son more often.