During the wedding ceremony, I was happy to find Cindy and Jules, two other high school friends. It had momentarily calmed my nerves to escape from the constant fear I’d been feeling of unexpectedly running into Jackson at the ceremony.
But I didn’t.
I hadn’t seen Jackson during the wedding ceremony. I had tried to look around, without looking obvious. But I didn’t see him. After the ceremony, I walked with Cindy and Jules to the reception hall where the rest of the night would be held. Cindy and Jules were sitting at a different table, so I had to say goodbye to them before heading to my table.
This time, Jackson was there, sitting at the table by himself.
To my relief, he hadn’t seen me yet I walked toward his direction. When I approached the table, I drew in a deep breath to calm my nerves.
“Hi,” I said calmly and politely.
I saw his body stiffen at the sound of my voice and my heart sank at his negative reaction to me.
I tried not to let it effect me as I sat down next to him.
We sat there in silence for several minutes without anyone else stopping by our table. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I broke the silence.
“I know I may be the last person you want to talk to, but I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am to hear about the passing of your dad.”
“You’re right. You’re the last person I want to talk to.”
I shook my head, frustrated by how he’d shut me out.
“How many times do I have to apologize to you?”
“You don’t have to apologize at all,” he responded without looking at me. “There’s really no use to apologize. What we had is broken, and what is broken is already broken. There’s no way we can change that. An apology can’t turn back time to make things different, to make what had happened not happen. An apology doesn’t magically let me let go of what’s burned into my memory. I can never forget it. So really, you don’t have to apologize at all.”
I didn’t know how to respond to him. It was obvious to me at that point that his hatred for me was alive and well.
Then he spoke again. “You know there are eight other empty seats you can choose from, why do you insist on sitting right next to me?”
His directness took me by surprise and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying.
I wasn’t sure if it was out of spite, or if the drinks with Cindy and Jules earlier had caught up to me, or if I just wanted to speak from the heart, but I turned to him, and answered his question as truthfully as I knew how. “Because you won’t talk to me, you won’t look at me, and you won’t forgive me. Because I miss you. Very much. And every single day. Because for the last nine years, there hasn’t gone a single day that I didn’t hate myself for hurting you. Because I lost my first and only best friend in the world, the man I recently realized that I love and want a life with. And because if I didn’t at least tell you all this when I had the chance, there’d be another reason to hate myself every day.”
He sat there and looked straight ahead the entire time, but I knew he had heard every word of it.
Upset and frustrated that even after my declaration, where I let myself be vulnerable, he didn’t even bother to acknowledge me, I pushed back my chair and ran out of the reception hall in tears.
By the time I got outside, I was sobbing and thinking about going home. Today had been a nightmare and I didn’t want to live another second in it.
Just then my phone started to ring in my clutch. I pulled my phone out to see that it was a call from Uncle Tom.
“Hello?”
“Chloe.” Something about his voice sounded alarming.
“Uncle Tom, what is it?”
“I know you’re at the wedding, but can you leave now?” I knew immediately something was really wrong because he didn’t sound like his usual jovial self.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“It’s Betty,” his voiced cracked into a sob. “We’re at the hospital.”
When I heard the news, it was all too much for me to bear. Everything around me started to spin, making me feel dizzy, and as I saw a figure that looked like Jackson come out of the reception, the world went black.
CHAPT ER TWELVE
Spring 2006
Twenty One Years Old
I had a secret.
It was a secret that no one I cared about knew of.
It was a secret that would change the way those I loved would look at me.
It was a secret that would break Jackson’s heart.
So that was why it was the one secret I would take to my grave.
Shortly after I started my freshman year at University of Pennsylvania, because I needed a lot of money, and fast, I was forced to join an elite escort service for men. It wasn’t the typical escort service. In addition to the services a typical escort service would provide, this escort service catered to men who wanted to unleash their wildest fantasies while also maintaining a long term relationship with the girls they hired. These men wanted the long-term all-inclusive fantasy—the fantasy that they had a hot, young girlfriend or mistress who was willing to fulfill all of their needs, whenever and wherever they wanted.
I had a total of five repeat clients through the service I work for. For all new clients—those I’d only had regular sessions with for less than twelve months—we spend our evenings at either their place or hotels. But for my regulars, the clients that treated me like their long-term girlfriends, they also received the added benefit of spending their evenings in the privacy of my condo, which added to the fantasy that I was their girlfriend. Of my five clients, two of them were considered regular clients.
I’d never told Jackson that I was doing this. Since college began, our friendship had changed. I’d felt it, and I think he had too. When we talked on the phone, we’d flirt and talk to each other as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I’d never thought of us that way, but lately, the idea of us together, the idea of him loving me in that capacity seemed natural. The more time I would imagine him as my boyfriend, the more I realized I desperately wanted that to be a reality. So this weekend was important for us. During our last few conversations, things felt more intimate than before, and I wanted him to be beside me, to kiss me, to make love to me.
Because Jackson was taking the train down from Boston tomorrow night to visit me for the weekend, I had to tell my clients that I won’t be available this weekend. So my last scheduled date was this afternoon with one of my regular clients.
As I prepared for my client’s arrival, I started taking a few shots of vodka to help loosen me up for the date. When it was fifteen until the client’s arrival, I slipped on a red lacy slip grown with a matching red lacy panties. I knew it was his favorite, and it got him off faster than my other outfit. I dimmed the lights in my bedroom and turned the sex music playlist he’d picked out the night before.
Just then I heard the buzzer to my front door. That was his signal to me to get ready. I quickly put on my blindfold securely around my eyes and positioned myself in the center of my bed. The thick blindfold covering my eyes didn’t let in even a glimmer of light.
“Come on in!” I called out so he could hear my signal from the front door.
I heard him enter the front door.
“Hello?” he called out.
“I’m ready for you in here, baby.”
I heard him enter the room and an audible gasp escaped him.
“Do you like what you see? I’ve been thinking about you all day long that it’s gotten me so horny, I need you right now.”
“You have?” he asked in a ragged voice.