Page 27 of Can’t Stop Now
Twenty-Seven
Jacob
As Jacob pulled the car away from Will’s house after dropping him off, tears streamed down his face. It was the first time he had cried, that much, in as long as he could remember. Crying wasn’t something he did, and he was overcome by the feeling; it was more visceral than he remembered, his whole body aching under the weight of his sadness. After a few blocks, he needed to pull the car over to the side of the road and regroup, pulling out tissues and steadying his breath.
He used the GPS to lead him to his hotel, about thirty minutes away from Will’s house, but realized he didn’t need it; the hotel was on the same street as Will’s house, just miles further down.
Jacob made it to his hotel room, driving the rest of the way there with the radio loud to numb his thoughts. Once he was inside the room, though, he realized how empty and incomplete he felt. He truly couldn’t remember what he had done before Will was around – or maybe, he didn’t want to remember it.
He heard the familiar buzz of his phone from inside his pocket, and his heart leaped. It’s Will , he thought, hoping that he was calling. But when he looked at the phone screen, Carrie’s name appeared. Disappointed, Jacob picked up, hoping that Carrie’s voice would be a welcome distraction. Maybe he could start to look forward to seeing Carrie again, get himself used to being with her again.
“Hey Carrie,” Jacob said, clearing his throat.
“Hi, Jake! Are you ok? You sound like you might be losing your voice or something,” she said, her voice energetic and perky.
Jacob coughed, trying to make his voice sound normal. “No, no, I’m okay. How are you doing, Carrie?”
“I’m doing good, I’m super excited to see you soon! I wanted to ask you something. So, I’m looking at the Ikea catalog for stuff that I’m gonna buy for my apartment in LA. And like, I know you’re gonna be in San Diego but I was thinking you’d probably be at my place a lot on the weekends, so… I don’t know! I just wanted your input on what stuff I wanted to get. Do you have your laptop in front of you? I’ll message you links and we can talk about the different stuff,” Carrie said.
Jacob could hear in her voice that she was very excited. He didn’t care at all about what decorations she bought for her own apartment, but he knew he needed to try harder this time with Carrie. He opened his laptop, and she started to send him links to the things she wanted.
“So, this first one is the bed. Now, I can’t decide if I want the dark brown, or the light brown…”
Carrie kept talking, but Jacob couldn’t help but stop listening. He opened the links to the different bed colors she sent him, but as she talked, he clicked away, opening up Facebook instead. He realized he hadn’t signed in for a few days, and some photos with him tagged had been added. Apparently, Will had uploaded them the previous night. He must have put them up after he went back upstairs from the pool in Santa Fe , Jacob thought.
He opened them one by one, as Carrie continued to talk about furniture over the phone.
“…This pillow, I couldn’t decide if green or pink would go better with the…”
Jacob opened one of Will’s photos. It was from the Cleveland art festival, where Will had taken a picture of the crowds around the booths, overlooking the whole festival. Jacob could see the old antique dealer, and saw himself in the photo, talking to the guy about the antique lock that he never bought. Jacob smiled a little to himself.
“So what do you think of the vase?” Carrie asked, and Jacob had to answer.
“Oh, the vase…” he quickly went back to her messages and clicked on the last link she sent. “It looks great,” he said.
“Awesome! I think so too. Okay, now I’ll start sending over the fun stuff: light fixtures…” Carrie kept talking, and Jacob clicked back to look at Will’s photos.
The next few were from Chicago. Jacob realized that he hadn’t known Will had been taking so many snapshots with his phone. There were shots of the Chicago streets, the park they had gone to, one of the lake at night, with the lights shining bright on it. He remembered how Will had told him that night that he needed to be vulnerable, be open, and Jacob had told him that awfully embarrassing story. Jacob laughed quietly.
“I know, aren’t the little birds on that so cute?” Carrie said, laughing too.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Jacob said, not knowing what she was talking about.
From Omaha, there was only one photo. It was one that Will must have taken while Jacob had been absorbed in playing pinball at the bar. It was shot from the side, Jacob’s arms squarely resting on the pinball paddles, his face looking down intently at the machine. Well, at least Will can take pictures that make me look cool , Jacob thought, grinning.
“Jacob, I really want your opinion on this next one,” Carrie said, and Jacob clicked over to the link in her message. He opened it and saw that it was a painting of a mountain landscape. It was beautiful and seemed somehow familiar.
“What is this one? What mountains are those?” Jacob asked.
“Um, I don’t know. I just thought it was pretty. You like?” Carrie said.
Jacob scrolled down to the description of the painting. It said that they were the Flatirons, mountains close to Boulder, Colorado. That’s why Jacob recognized them: they had walked by those mountains just days ago, seeing them as they walked through Boulder.
“I… I really like that one,” Jacob said, his voice quiet.
“Great! Okay, here’s the next link…” Carrie went on.
Jacob clicked back to the photos on Facebook and realized that one of them wasn’t in public view, but was sent to his own private messages. He opened it up, and immediately knew what it was. It was the photo of him, standing and smiling on that street in Boulder, holding hands with Will as he stood on his tiptoes and planted a kiss on Jacob’s cheek.
Jacob swallowed hard as he saw the photo, and a tear fell from his eye and onto his laptop keyboard. God damn it , Jacob thought, feeling his emotions crash down on him once again. Carrie was continuing to talk about stuff that she wanted to buy from Ikea, and went on for minutes, not realizing that Jacob was crying on the other end.
The words that Will had said to him the night before rang over and over again in Jacob’s head. “ Because I’m fucking falling for you, Jacob. Or I already have fallen for you ,” Will had said, and he had left before Jacob could say anything more. Jacob pulled in a shaky breath, knowing he couldn’t go on like this, and realizing what he had to do.
“Jacob. Jacob? Are you still there? Do you think that last one would look good on our b—I mean, my bed?” Carrie laughed.
“Carrie,” Jacob said, his voice hoarse.
“Huh? What’s up, Jacob, is everything alright?” she asked.
“Carrie…” Jacob trailed off, pulling in a deep breath, “there’s something I have to tell you.”