All I’d learned was that he was in England, filming some movie about a coal-miner turned artist, and out with a different girl what seemed like every night. In true British paparazzi style, it was a lurid splash-fest of debauchery, with them lapping up his antics. It was so unlike the Jack I thought I knew. It was like he was deliberately having his picture taken with as many slutty looking girls as possible.
In one picture he was in some bar or something, maybe a nightclub, and he had one girl in a short pink dress and platform stripper heels draped at his back, and a girl in front who was holding his head and sticking her tongue in his ear. And he was smiling—that devastating smile of his, dimples and all, right at the camera. He had to know people would see it. That I would probably see it.
I’d stared at that picture for a good hour out of the seven, with a rock in my chest, and I couldn’t decide which was worse—wondering if he was doing it to hurt me on purpose, or if it never occurred to him it would hurt me to see him like that. By the time Jazz made her dramatic statement of disabling my Internet access, I was barely able to take much more torture anyway.
Pulling myself back to the present, I brushed my teeth and changed into my sleep shorts and tank. I lay wide-awake watching the shadows of swaying branches on my ceiling and listening to the creaking of my two hundred year old house and praying for sleep.
At some point I may have dozed off, but the chirp of my phone at three in the morning had me jerking upright and fully awake.
When my phone beeped, I’d been in a semi-conscious state, so I was unsure if it was in my dream. But seriously, who could sleep at a time like this? Realizing it was real, I lunged for it in the dark, aiming for the glow of the incoming text.
Jazz: Hey, K! Hope this doesn’t wake u, but had to leave phone on charge, just got back in from amaze-balls beach party. I’ll call u in the am. Hope all ok.
Jazz. Perfect. I quickly typed back.
Me: No, nothing is ok. Can you talk?
I got out of bed and went to sit on my little window seat I’d made from an old bench and lots of pillows and stared at the bright screen on my phone. An incoming call sounded less than ten seconds later.
“Thanks for calling,” I greeted her.
Jazz’s voice was breathy, quiet, and worried. “Word, what’s the matter? Are you ok? Is Joey …?”
“Fine, he’s fine. Sorry to freak you out. I’m fine, I just … Oh, God, Jazz. Jack is back in Butler Cove.” There was no other way to say it.
“Oh my God. Seriously? Did you see him or you heard? Wait, start at the beginning.”
“I saw him.” Looking out the window, I could see the silvery dark silhouettes of the massive trees in my front yard as a sliver of a moon made it through the cloud cover. The rain looked like it was finally over. I sighed and told her the whole story.
When I was done, she chuckled. “Damn, girl. Most of us could only wish to have an exit like that. How freakin’ awesome.”
“It wasn’t awesome, Jazz. It was a nightmare. And he just stood there. Smiling,” I added disdainfully.
She laughed again, with glee and a few cocktails. “Oh, it’s priceless! Just in case he forgot who Keri Ann Butler is, you managed to remind him like a two-by-four to the head. Especially with the wet t-shirt.” She giggled, and there was a muffled thump. Then she whispered away from the phone, “Sorry, go back to sleep.”
“Is that Brandon? Sorry to make you call me in the middle of the night.”
“It’s fine. You know that. I would have called you back earlier if I’d had my phone. Yeah, big choco-eyes over here has been hitting the sauce since the pool this afternoon. He is baked and done. I better catch forty winks myself otherwise I’ll be unplayable tomorrow. You gonna be able to sleep?”
I sighed and looked out the window again. I could swear someone was leaning against the trunk of the live oak by the driveway. I needed sleep, and the darkness and shadows were beginning to seem weird.
“Yeah, I’ll sleep now. I feel better just telling you about it. Like I’ve made it into a manageable event. Not sure what tomorrow will bring, if anything, but I guess I’ll worry about that then.”
“Look, you’ve done enough waiting and wondering,” Jazz admonished. “The last thing you need is knowing he’s around and waiting for him to show up at any moment. This needs to be on your terms, not his. You need to go see him, ask him what his deal is, and then get on with your life.”
The thought that I should be the one to seek him out surprised me for a moment. But she was absolutely spot on.
I remembered back to the week after Devon showed up on my birthday telling me about Jack, intimating he thought Jack was coming and then the pity on everyone’s faces as the days went by and there was still no sign of him. Not that I’d said anything to anyone, but they assumed. As did I, like the stupid, na?ve girl I kept proving to be. I assumed he would at least come back and apologize for the way he left. I shuddered at the memory of that time. I needed to face him and get closure as soon as possible, not sit around with his presence like a ticking-time bomb.
“Right?” Jazz asked.