Page 10

He’s been gone all day. Everything was fine a few hours ago. Jake had gone to work this morning and picked Caylee up at five to bring her back to her mom's but that was 4 hours ago now, and I haven't heard from him since. All my texts have gone unanswered and after the second call, those have been sent straight to voicemail.

-elle

I call Jake again, my thumb hovering over the screen as it rings. Voicemail. Again. I hang up, my frustration rising to just below the surface as I set my phone down. I stare at the last cigarette he left me before I snatch it up and head out to the patio.

Stepping out into the cool night air, the weight of the silence presses in on me as crickets chirp and my heart beats loudly in my chest.

The patio is dim, the only light coming from the flickering streetlamp in the courtyard.

I bring the cigarette to my lips, the tip glowing orange as I inhale deeply, letting the smoke fill my lungs.

The burn calms my nerves for a moment.

I take another drag, holding it in a bit longer, before blowing it out and watching the smoke curl in the air.

He kissed my forehead as he said goodbye, and they left.

I knew the drive was only 45 minutes each way, so he should have been back by six o'clock, depending on traffic along I-5 through Olympia, and it’s just after nine o'clock now.

I worry.

It's what I do.

I'm a worrier, so I put my cigarette out and head inside to try calling again when I hear keys. The handle twists and Jake steps inside, his silhouette framed by the dim light spilling from the hallway. For a moment, I just stand there, unsure if I should feel relieved or angry or both.

“Oh, hey,”

Jake comes in and drops his key on the island in the kitchen.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. I—" he walks past me, ignoring me, and heads into the bedroom.

Okay then. I follow him, ready to lay into him.

“I got fired after I clocked out tonight, okay? Neighbors complained about the noise, and apparently, it's a one-strike system here. So yeah, they let me go,”

he laughs, the sound without any humor, “and because the apartment was part of the package, we have until the end of the week to move.”

“Wait, what?”

I don't understand. “It was a weekend, and you weren't loud after 10 PM.”

“It doesn't matter. I'm an employee or was anyways,”

he laughs again, shaking his head, “so what time it was doesn't matter.”

They weren't even loud. Caylee slept through the night with no problems. How could someone complain?

“I didn’t want you to freak out,”

he mutters, taking his shirt off and tossing it into the laundry hamper. “Figured I’d handle it on my own and tell you later.”

“Handle it on your own?”

My voice cracks on the words, the anger starting to bubble up inside of me, “Jake, we’re supposed to be a team, you don’t just handle it alone. Do you have any idea how worried I was? I’ve been calling you for hours—"

“I said I’m sorry, okay?”

No, he didn't.

I stand there, my feet stuck to the floor like concrete. He left me here to worry all day and now he just expects me to let it go. Where are we supposed to go, anyway?

Jake stands with his back to me, his shoulders perk up a little, and he turns around with a smile on his face.

“That’s why I've been gone, and my phone died,”

he runs a hand over his face, exhaling sharply. “After I dropped Bug off with her mom, I stopped for a drink with Brandon and ran into an old buddy of mine. He’s got an opening at his office, and he wants me to come back and meet his business partner.”

“So, you're leaving again?”

“Yeah, I came back to tell you and get my charger. If you were 21 you could come with me, but I have to figure out my next steps, our next steps, and a job is the first thing on that list.”

He grabs the charger from the wall and heads back into the kitchen.

“You don't want to at least talk about what happened last night before you go?”

The fact that he hasn’t even mentioned it, hasn’t even acknowledged how dangerous it was, makes me question everything. I thought I could handle this. I thought we could handle this. But not talking about it? Not even once?

The absence of that conversation feels like I’m not even worth enough to try. The fact that he hasn’t said a word about it sits in the pit of my stomach. I can’t shake the ache that comes with it, the ache of being left in the dark, alone.

Last night... God. The things he said to me, the way he looked at me, like I was nothing. I can still hear his voice in my head, cold and distant, and it cuts through me like a knife every time I let myself think about it. How can we move forward when he made it clear how he feels about me not having my son?

The anger is there, bubbling beneath the surface, but underneath it is something worse—doubt. Am I really supposed to just let this go? Am I supposed to act like nothing’s wrong? Every part of me screams that I shouldn’t, that I can’t, but here I am, arms crossed, feeling like I’m drowning in all the things I can’t say.

“Of course I do, but I’m out of a job and now I have not only my daughter to worry about providing for, but you too.”

“Can you at least leave me cigarettes?”

I ask, anger lacing my words as I follow him into the kitchen. I get it, I do, but he left me here without a word for hours.

He doesn't say anything as he pulls his pack from his pocket, counting how many he has left before dropping the whole thing on the island and grabbing his keys to leave. The whole interaction was less than ten minutes, and he was gone again.

I don’t know what to do with myself, so I start cleaning. I scrub the countertops until my fingers are raw. I sweep the floor until it feels like I could carve grooves into the wood, trying to suffocate the fire building inside me. The house looks spotless when I’m done, but I’m still raging inside. I sit there for a while, letting everything sink in before the tears start, and I crawl into our empty bed, alone.

I decide right then, in that moment, that I’m done. Done with the drugs. Done with lies. Done with everything that’s been keeping me stuck, keeping me from who I want to be. I can't keep doing this; I can't keep drowning myself in pills and alcohol. I can’t fix him, but I can fix myself. I swallow hard, my throat dry, and I fall asleep with a smile on my face.

I wake up sometime before 4 AM and shuffle to the kitchen for a glass of water, finding Jake on the couch, snoring lightly. On the counter lies a small, hand-picked bunch of flowers from the garden at the apartment entrance, it looks like, with a single chocolate kiss.

I smile as I lie down next to him, gently pushing him over enough to fit beside him. He reeks of alcohol and he's snoring, but I’m happy he’s back. He’s here, and that’s enough for now. His phone is hanging from his hand, lying on his chest, and the screen lights up with an incoming text from Bianca.

Ditch the bitch and come back out.