I Am Jack's Life Ch. 18

"Sure," she said, she looked at the television.

Rick was asking why of all the gin joints in all the world, she'd had to walk into his.

Fate, you really are a twisted bitch.

I got a beer, popped the cap, and handed it to her.

As she reached out to take it, I saw something under where her hair was falling over her face.

I reached up to push her hair aside and she flinched. That was a little weird.

I guess reason started to penetrate the beer and misery fog, and I started to wonder why she was here.

"Beth, what happened?" I asked.

She looked at the floor.

I pushed her hair aside.

She had a black eye.

Looked like it had been made with a fist the size of a small dump truck.

I set my beer down on the counter and grabbed my car keys.

I was going to kill a guy. This was going to make my night.

"Jack don't!" she exclaimed and grabbed my arm.

I glared back at her. A lion roared in my stomach, the same one that had roared when I had seen Anna about to get raped. This would not fucking do. I was going to kill that asshole. Run over him with my car if I had too.

"Just..." she started to cry.

Ah fuck.

I sighed. I put my arms around her and just held her.

She lost it completely.

"Can I stay with you?" she managed to finally whimper out.

"Of course, fuck, Beth, of course!" I said softly; urgently.

She collapsed into my arms and I held her.

I held her the whole night. We fell asleep on my couch to blue screen my VCR left after it auto shut off from rewinding a movie.

I had a DVD player, but Casablanca wasn't on disc yet.

I woke up the next day to Miss Mittens trying to curl up on my bare chest and nestle onto my neck just under my face. Last I remembered, there had been a Beth head there.

I spit cat hair out and eased her off my chest so I could sit up. She complained with an angry mew but scampered off to behind the entertainment center where she loved to chew on the wires. Looking around, a whirlwind had been through my apartment. There were no beer bottles, or pizza boxes, or little empty boxes of Chinese take out rice drying on the counter. All the take out menus were stuck to the fridge with magnets. The garbage had been taken out. There were no dishes in the sink.

Often times you don't realize what a slob you've become until someone cleans up after you.

Beth came out of the bedroom, showered and changed. Her shiner was concealed with make up, but you could see the puffiness. She smiled brightly at me.

"Sorry, I hope you don't mind, but I attacked the bachelor pad!" she giggled.

I couldn't help it, I smirked a little in spite of the circumstances. Her smile had that effect on me.

"You didn't have to do that. I was going to clean it today. I don't get to it during the work week," I lied.

She waved me off, "It was no trouble, I didn't mind a bit.

She was awfully bright and cheerful. She even baby talked to Miss Mittens, shooing her out of the way gently as she replaced the garbage can liner.

I studying her a minute and then decided to tackle the tough stuff without further delay.

"How long?"

She looked back with a curious, but cheerful expression.

"How long has he been hitting you?" I said firmly. From nowhere, my father's tone crept into my voice. The one he'd used when talking to a principal back in the third grade when I was being bullied pretty bad.

Like I've said, I have no tolerance for bullies.

She looked away, and just like that, she was on the edge of tears again.

"Jack, can we not..." she started to say.

"How long?" I demanded firmly. "And how often?"

She gulped and leaned back against the counter.

"A couple of months..." she said softly.

Jesus Christ...

"Have you called the police?" I don't know where my tone was. Somewhere between concern for my friend and barely checked total rage I'm sure.

She nodded and brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear.

"I just got a restraining order yesterday in fact. I was going to stay at a girlfriend's house, but he found me... He doesn't know where you live," she said. She had this flat, defeated tone in her voice I'd never heard before. Ever.

"Well, that's a start, but you need to report this incident, violating his restraining order could lock his ass up," I said

She shook her head, "There were no witnesses, it happened very quickly. I just got out of there and ran to you as fast as I could."

I hate to admit it, that hit my ego button a little. Beth had ran to me for protection. Probably just to hide, but hey, I'm kind of stupid remember?

"Well you can stay as long as you need to. Do you have your stuff?" I asked

She ran over to me and squeezed me in the tightest hug I'd ever gotten from her in the nine years I'd known her. I wrapped my arms around her.

"I won't be any trouble Jack, it's just for a couple of weeks until I can figure something else out." She sniffled.

"Shh. As long as you need Beth," I said.

Her hair smelled nice.

Fuck.

Two weeks stretched into three and I have to admit, she brought me out of my own black cloud. It was nice having company again. It was nice having one of my friends around.

It was nice having Beth around.

I was a mess of conflicted feelings.

On one hand, I wasn't sure if Abby and I had broken up or not. I still had feelings for her, but they were clouded up with this weird confused anger and jealousy. I loved her, but I was very pissed at her, and was sure that she was probably out there pissed off her self and cheating on me. On the other hand, if we were broken up, then it wasn't cheating and I no rights to anything she did.

On the other hand, Beth, the object of all of my teenage desires was right here. All the time. I'd get home from work and she'd have dinner ready for us. We'd stay up watching movies together, cuddling on my couch. I'd wake up in the morning and she'd be sleeping on the couch, all cute and bed-heady. She'd wake up and have coffee with me before I left. She was omnipresent. I could feel all those old longings surfacing and tossing me about like a ship lost at sea. I had no anchor, I was a drift on the stormy sea of Beth.

She was a mess too. She was a trauma victim, which meant she wore all of her emotions on her sleeve. She'd be over joyed at the simplest things, from me complimenting her coffee making skills, to breaking down in tears because she'd accidentally put my dvd's away in a different order than I did, and I complained when I couldn't find the one I wanted.

It was a Saturday, one week before Abby was supposed to come home that the game changed again.

We'd been planning to go to the beach on my day off, because there is no season in Southern California you can't go to the beach. When at the last minute she changed her mind about leaving the house.

See, she hadn't done much of that. She got nervous just going to the grocery store, even though I lived no where near her Ex. Going outside made her panicky. That had been kind of the point of the beach thing.

"Can we just stay in and watch movies Jack?" she asked, her voice was deliberately casual. But I knew better.

"Nope. It's a beautiful day, we're going to a beach. I don't even care which beach. We can drive up the coast an hour, or down to baja," said with enforced joviality.

She sighed. I could tell she was afraid, but she needed to leave the house. This was a baby step.

"Go get your bikini on girl, we're leaving in ten minutes," I said without turning around. I was still continuing to pack our lunch.

She sighed behind me and went to the bedroom to change.

I'd been good. Nearly three weeks and I'd never even made a move on her, or glimpsed her naked coming out of the shower, or even did anything beyond our normal, nine year old, light flirty banter that was part of our normal conversation. I was even careful with that.

But I was looking forward to seeing her in a bikini.

Ten minutes went by and she hadn't come out of the bedroom.

I went and knocked on the door.

There was no answer, "Beth?"

"I'm fine!" she answered back through the door. Her tone sounded like she'd had to force lightness out with a shoehorn. She'd probably been crying.

"I'm opening the door," I said in the way of warning.

"I'm dressed, its fine," she said.

I opened the door and she was sitting on the edge of my bed. She didn't have the red rim of tears, but she didn't look emotionally stable either.

She was wearing her bikini top, and had a skirt on. She looked all ready to go, she even had a shirt in her hand ready to put over her top.

I smiled, "What's the hold up?"

She sighed heavily.

"Jack, I'm not ready, can we please just stay in today. I'll go tomorrow, I promise," she looked up at me, her eyes pleaded.

I sighed, but it was a sympathetic sigh, not a frustrated one.

I walked over to her and knelt down in front of her.

I put my hands on her knees. She was shaking slightly. That did it.

"Hey, it's fine. We'll stay in and watch movies, okay?" I said.

She pursed her lips together and nodded.

We stayed in and watched movies.

We were laying on the couch that night. Our picnic basket was empty on the coffee table. We'd had an indoor picnic, it hadn't been half bad really. She'd been a lot more relaxed, and we'd spent most of the day joking with each other and she seemed almost back to her old self.

She wore the bikini all day.

The last movie of the day started to run credits and I sat up to flip it off.

She got up off of the spot she'd been laying on my chest; she acted very reluctant to move.

I chuckled and teased her that she'd fallen asleep. She protested, but I noticed her stretch and yawn sleepily as I got up to put things away.

"That's the bed time signal I think," I said with a chuckle.

"Thank you Jack," she said as I put stuff away in the kitchen. I'd gotten better about my messes with someone staying with me again.

"For what" I asked.

"Not pushing me today. You never push. I love that about you," she said.

I shrugged, "You'll go when you are ready. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week. You'll be fine," I said.

She just nodded, "It's getting easier, I think. You make it easier."

I smiled.

We got ready for bed, she got her blankets and stuff out for the couch, and I went into my bedroom and shut the door. I got undressed and turned out the lights. I looked at my phone charging on my desk and suddenly thought about calling Abby. I swear to god I did. It was a sudden random thought: "I should call Abby." But then I thought it would be after two am on the east coast.

I swear to god I thought it.

A few minutes after my light turned out, my door opened. I looked up and Beth walked slowly into my room and shut the door quietly.

It was dark, and I couldn't see very well. "Beth is everything..." I started to ask.

She slipped into my bed, lifting up the covers and sliding under them. She slid her body up next to me.

She was naked.

She kissed me very softly.

It wasn't a lip brush, it wasn't a stolen kiss from an accident. It wasn't an almost kiss from a cheek kiss. It wasn't a desperate kiss on her porch before I left for Europe.

It was slow, hesitant. Like someone testing the water by sticking their toes in. It was full of longing, but also fear. Fear of rejection, fear of... I dunno, everything. But it was also very tender, and full of something else.

Hope.

My brain short circuited under the overload of emotions I felt. Kimmy, Anna, even Abby, they had always taken a back seat for my feelings for Beth. I didn't know where I was with Abby. Kimmy was married and about to give birth to someone else's baby. Anna... I didn't know where Anna was, and didn't want too.

Beth was right here, her lips were warm and soft, and the most perfect set of breasts I'd ever beheld in my young life were brushing lightly against my bare chest.

Sigh, I challenge anyone alive or dead to make a different choice.

I slipped my hand behind her head and held her there while we kissed.

Kissing became panting, and panting became urgency, and then I was laying her back and rolling on top of her.

I wasn't a monster, I knew she was still an emotional wreck, but I had my own needs; some of which had been building for nearly a decade.

I felt between her legs and she was wet and warm. She moaned and pushed against my fingers.

That was about all the willpower I had left.

I eased myself up and into her. I was very careful. Maybe too careful. I was terrified of hurting her for some stupid reason. She was not anywhere close to being a virgin anymore. I'm not even sure if she was when we met. But I penetrated her like she was made of tissue paper, holding onto my own need with tight reins.

She shuddered and clung, "God, you're so gentle," she breathed.

That did it, I lost it. My emotions swept forward in a torrential rush. I gave myself to her completely. I gently rocked back and forth with her. I wept, she wept. I let ten years of longing and wondering escape and kissed every part of her my lips could reach, and she surrendered to me just as completely. It was a far more emotional experience than physical. I have utterly no concept of how long it lasted, but it felt like it went on for days.

When it was over, she rolled on top of me and lay her head on my chest, like she was listening to my heart beat. I petted the soft brunette hair that had so often tormented me as an adolescent. We just lay like that for a long time. She fell asleep. I lay awake long into the night wondering about everything under the sun. I thought everything should have made sense now. I'd been with Beth, and it had been completely; no holds barred, soul touching, total, emotionally surrendered, sex.

Why did I feel like I should have felt more?

I didn't sleep much that night. I think Beth got the first good night's sleep she had in weeks, maybe months. I was glad for that. I loved her.

Just maybe not the way I thought I had, or wanted too.

The next morning I was making coffee at the counter. I'd just put Miss Mittens food down for her.

Beth came out of the bedroom wearing just one of my button down shirts I wore to work, which was about the sexiest sight I could imagine at the moment, we kissed and she slipped passed me to get a coffee cup. I could see when she reached up that she wasn't wearing any panties under the shirt. I felt weird. There was a sound at the door. The sound of a key turning in a lock.

In my apartment, the front door is set halfway between the living room and dining room, which is open to the kitchen. Directly across from the front door is the hallway that leads to the bedroom and bathroom, and then to right at the other end of the living room is the sliding glass door to the balcony.

In other words, there is no where to hide that you can't see from the front door. It was very poorly designed for ambushes and sudden gunfights if you ask me. James Bond would have hated my apartment.

Time slowed to a crawl. There was only one other key to my apartment besides mine.

Abby's.

I froze in place. My entire body turned to powdery snow. I started to crumble apart.

Beth didn't notice until the door opened and Abby said, in hopeful, happy, questioning, voice, "Jack?"

Abby turned and saw me standing in the kitchen in just my sweat pants, and Beth behind me wearing just my office shirt.

Her face went from hopeful joy, to ice, to black rage in seconds.

"Abby..." Beth said in quiet surprise.

Abby didn't look at her.

Her eyes were locked on mine. Behind the rage I could tell I'd just broken her heart. With a sledgehammer.

"Well Jack, I see you managed to complete the whole set," Abby said, and her voice was made of boiling acid.

Somehow I found my voice, "Abby, wait a minute..." I said I started to walk toward her, but I tripped over the damn cat, who screamed at me.

Abby was already out the door.

"Abby wait!" I shouted after her, shooing the very angry cat out of my way.

I chased her out into the hallway, she was running down the stairs.

"Abby!" I shouted desperately.

She turned and glared at me, her face was full of tears, "What, you insufferable jack ass? Surprised to see me home early? Or did you forget to mark the days on your calender!?" she shouted.

"It's not like that!" I shouted back.

"No, no I suppose it isn't Jack." She looked away and quietly tapped her fist a few times against the railing. She looked back, "I knew... I just knew it. I hoped, but I knew it, deep down I knew it," she said.

I was floundering for words. I had nothing. The power of speech had left me. My world was falling apart. I couldn't think. What was happening to me? My head felt like someone was inflating it with helium.

Abby said, in a voice that a leading actress in a movie would have sold her soul to capture, "I always knew it was never going to be me Jack. It was always her, from the very beginning."

"Abby!" I managed to gasp out.

"Goodbye Jack," she said and turned to walk away.

What had just happened? I couldn't make my brain work.

She walked down the stairs, and to save my life I could not think of anything to say to stop her from walking away.

I walked back inside and shut the door to my apartment very, very carefully, so that I didn't slam it. I was superman during solar flares; at any moment my strength could triple and I'd blow the door off it's hinges, or punch through the earth's crust. That would be bad.

Beth was still standing in the kitchen, her face was as white as a sheet. She stared at me in shock and fear. She was going to start crying at any moment.

I didn't know how to deal with that, so I just walked into my bedroom and shut the door.

I flipped the lock.

I should have used that last night.

It took almost an hour for my brain to begin processing what had happened.

It took about an hour after that to come up with a plan. Beth never made an attempt to talk to me. I could hear her moving around out in the living room occasionally, but she never said anything to me.

I picked up the phone and called the only person I could think of.

An hour later, after I was showered and dressed, I answered the knock on the door.

Beth was sitting on the couch. She'd changed into her own clothes, but still hadn't spoken to me.

"Hey Todd, hey Kimmy," I said, as my friends walked in.

Beth looked up startled.

They had little Todd Jr with them.

Oh yeah, Kimmy'd had a boy. He was damn cute too.

"Hey you," Kimmy said affectionately, and wrapped her free, non-baby carrier holding arm around my neck.

"What's going on?" Beth asked hesitantly.

Todd spoke up. He'd dated Beth off and on for four years, but I knew he was totally devoted to being Kimmy's now. Kimmy knew too, which was better. And important. "You're going to come stay with us for a bit. Kimmy could use help with the baby, and you need a place to stay, right?" He said with his typical 'Cheerful Todd in charge of the situation' voice.

Beth look at me with hurt and fear, I just nodded, "I'm sorry Beth, you can't stay here any more." I said firmly.

She started to cry.

I let Kimmy handle it and I just walked out of my apartment. I'd already explained everything to them on the phone.

I waited down in the parking lot. About twenty minutes later the three of them came down and loaded Beth and her stuff up in Todd's ... minivan?

He gave me the old bro slap, and I gave it back. It's weird to bro hand slap in front of a minivan, but Todd made it work. "I got this bro. You go take care of business," he said.

I just nodded. Thank God for Todd, you know? He got it.