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“I thought you said Rachel was, and I quote, ‘just a piece of shit who fucked up your life and she’s no good for you.’ What changed your mind?” Jen questioned her friend while Rachel stared at Jen still in shock that she was still alive.
Dinah rolled her eyes. “Yeah well…I still believe she’s a worthless whore but she’s your worthless whore. I just want to make you happy. I‘m tired of watching your sorry ass mope around and cry over her. Something had to be done.”
No one spoke. No one knew what to say anymore, least of all Jen who, until now, had been dead in Rachel’s eyes. What could she say that wouldn’t seem like a rehearsed line that she had planned in case this would happen? Not a day had went by in those three months of being ‘dead’ that Jen hadn’t thought of Rachel. Countless nights she laid there only to fall asleep to her own cries. The mornings were just the same; she awoke to her own cries.
But at least she was eating again. That she could be proud of. And as Jen’s thoughts began trailing back across all that had happened in the past three months, Rachel touched her arm pulling her back to reality.
“Jennifer…” Rachel began quietly. “Why?” was all she could speak before she fell out into tears again.
She had to think before answering only because she really didn‘t know why. With all the time that she and Rachel had spent together, Jen knew better than to say ‘I don’t know’ because she knew that Rachel wouldn’t buy it. “To get away, to make you happy, to hide away as far away from myself as I could.” Was the only truth that she could think of.
“You think this made me happy? I’ve been suffering for three months now thinking that you were dead and that it was my fault and you think that it made me happy?!” She began screaming.
Jen pulled away and turned her head downwards in shame. Coming from an abusive background, she never did appreciate when people yelled at her. Still, she knew that she deserved it. “I have no excuses.” Shamefully she whispered.
“Believe me, I know that. There’s nothing you can say to make up for this.” Rachel turned her back for a moment and began yelling again. “I can’t believe you! You’re so damn selfish. How could you do this to me? How could you break my heart like that?!”
“Whoa! Don’t start about broken hearts, there honey!” Jen snapped out of her shameful state. “You think I was happy to go to school everyday and see you and Jessica all cozy together and begin so fucking happy. It tore me apart. I went home and picked up knives and sliced myself up like hell for you. But did you ever notice? Hell no! I didn’t eat for weeks on end. Finally somebody looked at me and saw me, and that was Steven.”
“You were in this?” Allen questioned of his friend. Steven crossed his arms over his chest and hung his head down before slowly walking off.
“Steven and I talked about moving here with Allen and Dinah. We both wanted so badly to get away from everything that we had two options, death or moving. Steven chose moving and I chose death. It just turned out that mine didn’t work.”
There was a strong and heavy silence that followed. Rachel walked slowly over to an empty park bench and sat down. Placing her head in her hands, she began crying. Dinah looked at Jen who was pacing then to Allen who was now sitting on the ground.
Dinah walked up to Jen and whispered sharply, “Do something! Talk to her.”
“What do you want me to say to her?” Jen whispered back.
“Oh good god!” Dinah’s voice rose. “You two are fucking pathetic!”
“Goddamn Jenny! Grow a fucking backbone!” Allen said from the ground. He had one leg pulled up and his arm was propped up on his knee. With his head in his hand he looked at Jenny sideways. “You’re the weakest piece of shit I’ve ever met in my life.” Though his words were calm he was being serious. He knew that if it hadn’t have been for him and Dinah, Jen would have kept running her entire life from Rachel and her memory.
“Now…” He began again, with slight agitation in his voice. “I did not spend a lot of money to buy Rachel a plane ticket and con her into coming up here not knowing why just for you to run and hide again.”
Jen stood there in the cold for a moment. Breathing hard, she knew that he was right. Her whole life and had been one escape to another and now she couldn’t run anymore. She was backed into a corner and forced to come out fighting. It was now or never as they say. Jennifer Anderson had to get some guts and be an adult for once. Or at least fake it for the time being.
Suddenly, she felt a drop of rain hit her arm and looking up she could see storm clouds moving in. “Come on.” She said calmly and dejectedly. “Let’s go to the house and talk.”
Even when they were in Jen’s house, things still felt cold around them. She handed out drinks and turned the heat up and tried to make everyone comfortable when nobody was going to be. What now? The only spot left to sit was the one next to Rachel, which was made on purpose. Dinah had made sure that no matter what, Jen was going to have to face Rachel and what she had done to her.
Not knowing what to do or say, she began speaking from the heart. “Rachel…” Jen’s voice was sad and she felt as though she was going to begin crying at the very thought of hurting Rachel anymore. “Rachel, I know that I can’t apologize because what I done was wrong. I just didn’t know what else to do. You didn’t need me anymore.”
The girl began crying. “That’s not true. I’ve always needed you.” She said through sobs.
Jen sighed heavily. Tears wanted to fall but she refused to let them. Taking the seat beside Rachel, she grabbed her former girlfriend’s hand within hers and grasped tightly. “It didn’t feel like you needed me anymore. You had this great life that I wasn’t a part of anymore. You were always happy and you were in love with Jessica…”
“No.” Was all Rachel said. Shaking her head for emphasis. When the silence got to be too much she finished her thought. “I wasn’t happy with Jessica and I certainly didn’t love her. At first it seemed like things were so great but they weren’t Jennifer. God they were so wrong…”
“Please tell me what happened…” Jen was hanging on Rachel’s every word. Unknown to them so was Dinah, Steven, and Allen.
“I always thought about you. Even when I went to Atlanta with Jessica. We got so drunk and we were in the hotel room about to have sex…” Rachel saw Jen turn her head away because the mention of them having sex hurt her very much. The girl tightened her grip on Jen’s hand. “And I called her Jennifer.”
Shocked, Jen questioned. “Why? What did she do?”
“She walked out on me and left me in the hotel room for the rest of the night. But from that night on I realized where my heart belonged. And that was with you.”
So many questions and thoughts raced through her body at that moment. So what did this mean? Did this explain why before she ‘died’ Rachel was more interested in Jen’s life? “What does this mean?” She finally voiced out her thoughts.
“It means that I still love you and I’ve wanted to come back to you for a long time now. I was just afraid.”
“Of what?” Allen asked before he could stop himself. That’s when the two girls realized that they had an audience.
“I was afraid that Jenny wouldn’t take me back. I was afraid of rejection. Afraid that she’d close the door in my face.”
Jen just sat there in fear and silence. She was nearly too afraid to speak but equally afraid that if she didn’t she might lose out on the one chance that she had been waiting several months for. What does someone do when the love of their life suddenly comes back? This is what Jen had been waiting for but now that it was here, she didn’t know what to do. There had been many restless nights where she dreamed up the ways that Rachel came back to her arms and in those dreams she had everything perfectly figured out. Every step and every breath was calculated in her mind so that she’d be prepared for something like this. Now all those plans were erased. So she said the only thing that she felt and could think of at the time.
“Rachel, I love you so much.”
When they first started fighting back in November, Jen use to listen to this song called “Back To Your Heart” and she would sing it in front of Rachel many times. But it came too late for them. Rachel never noticed, or so she thought. Jen began to sing the words that she written down in gold in her heart.
It's not that I can't live without you
It's just that I don't even want to try
Every night I dream about you
Ever since the day we said goodbye
If I wasn't such a fool
Right now I'd be holding you
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
Baby if I only knew
“That’s the song.” Rachel said in confusion, trying to remember where she had heard it before. “The song that you use to drive me crazy with all the time playing it over and over again.”
Jen laughed and looking up Rachel, Rachel could see the tears that had fallen from her eyes. It was the first time in a long while that anybody had seen Jen cry and the sight of it broke Rachel’s heart.
“What now?” Rachel scooted closer to Jen and pulled her into her arms. “What do we say now?”
Jen looked through watery eyes and began to laugh. “You think that I know what to do? I’m even more lost than you.”
“Well…the way I see it, we’ve got two options. We can either call it quits forever and I go back to Georgia alone. Or we can try again and you come back home where you belong.”
“Somebody sure as hell needs to decide something. You two are driving me crazy.” Dinah said with a sigh as she left the room. Soon after followed Steven and Allen leaving Rachel and Jen alone with their thoughts.
“What do you think?” Rachel said softly, knowing that Jen was deep in thought.
“I think…”
