He steps back, looking like I’ve just slapped him.
I wish I had.
“You have to believe me,” he says quieter, his voice breaking. “Please, Tru. You have to.”
I’m panting for breath so hard I feel like my lungs are going to explode. I clutch my hand to it, the one still holding the skirt, trying to steady my breathing.
“I don’t have to do a goddamn thing,” I say low, wiping the still running tears from my face with the palm of my hand.
“I can’t lose you, Tru. Please.”
He reaches for me again, but I step out of his reach.
“Get away from me!” I cry. “I don’t want you near me ever again! And you don’t want to lose me? Well you should have thought of that before you went on your bender with your tramp!”
I drop the skirt in the case. Then I go to the drawers and get my underwear out.
“But you said you’d move to LA. We’re supposed to be living together. You promised me you would never leave me.”
I laugh bitterly, finally bringing myself to look at him. And when my eyes meet with him, all I feel is anger and pain lance straight through me.
“Yeah well things change,” I say calmly, using his own words from last night against him. “You changed everything forever the second you let her into our bed.” It hurts so very badly to say the words out loud.
“I didn’t–”
“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” I scream at him again.
Pausing for a moment, with my hands on either side of the open drawer, I cling to it for support.
Then after a few silent seconds, I carry on packing my things into my case.
Jake stands here, his hands in his hair, eyes fixed on my every movement.
I just wish he’d go. I don’t want him anywhere near me.
When I’ve got most of my clothes and can no longer stand to have him here watching me, I drag my suitcase past him and into to the bedroom.
Jake follows me.
I leave my suitcase on the bedroom floor and go into the bathroom. I quickly gather my toiletries up and come back into the bedroom to find Jake standing beside my case.
Ignoring him, I dump my things in and zip it up. I don’t think I’ve ever packed so quickly in my life.
I stand my case upright, ready to leave.
Jake moves before me. I drag my tear stained eyes up to his.
He’s crying.
I watch as he rubs his tears roughly from his face with his hand. I’ve never seen Jake cry before. It hurts my heart so much.
“Please don’t go. Just stay, talk to me, we can work this out. I know we can. I would never cheat on you – I swear to you. Just believe me, please. I love you so much. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. And I know I’ve screwed up with the drugs, but I would never cheat on you. You’re my best friend. You’re my everything.” His voice is broken, just like my heart.
For a tiny moment, I feel a wobble.
I could stay, we could work this out. Maybe this pain will stop, if I stay with him. Maybe he can fix this.
No. He’s had sex with another woman. It’s too late.
Wordlessly, I walk away from him and go back into the closet, to get my passport from the safe.
Jake is in front of my case, blocking it when I get back.
He sees the passport in my hand, and his face breaks.
“Please don’t leave me,” he begs.
“Move Jake.”
“No.”
“MOVE!” I try to push him out of the way, but he won’t budge, it’s like trying to move a wall.
He grabs hold of my arms trying to stop me, to keep me with him.
Fighting against him, I push him away from me, hitting him in the chest as I do.
“Fine. I don’t need my stuff – keep it.” I walk to the bedroom door, picking up my bag off the floor, I shove my passport in it.
“Tru please!” Jake comes after me, grabbing my arm, pulling me back to him.
“Don’t go. I can fix this – just give me a chance to make it right.” His voice is desperate, broken, just like his expression.
In this moment, all I can do is stare at him. There are so many words streaming through my mind, but I can’t seem to grab hold of a single one to say to him.
He drops to his knees before me, holding my hands like his life depends on it.
“I’m begging you.” He’s crying again. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t live without you.”
I weaken again, then I look up and see the bed, the messed up sheets.
Jake asked that girl to tell me the truth – to tell me that they hadn’t had sex.
She had nothing to lose by telling me they hadn’t, and she said nothing, but alluded to a lot.
And irrespective of her, I don’t believe him. I know who and what Jake is. I’ve always known, I just wanted to see something else for a time.
Now, I believe what my eyes saw.
My trust in him is broken – gone forever – and without that, we have nothing.
I look down at his beautiful face for a long moment, taking him in one last time.
Then I let him go.
“We started on a mistake Jake, so it makes sense that we end on one.”
I yank my hands free from his, leaving him knelt on the floor, I turn away and walk out of the room.
And out of his life.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I don’t want you to feel forced into doing anything my darling … it’s just the publishing house are being very insistent that the last show is covered as part of the biography. They’re saying they won’t run the book without it…”
Vicky’s soft voice is relentless down the phone.
I lay back on my mum and dads sofa, curling my legs up, tucking my feet under my bum, and stare up at the ceiling.
There’s a crack in the far corner. I wonder if my dad knows it’s there? I should tell him so he can fix it.
“…and I know this must be so hard for you, my darling, and honestly, I’ll go with whatever you want.”
There’s a long pause.
Oh, she’s stopped talking. That means I have to.
“It’s fine, Vicky,” I exhale. “When I said to you I would do it, I meant it. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“But I do, my darling.”
“I know, and I love you for it. And for letting me work from home this last week – well from my folks anyway.”
“You didn’t have to work at all.”
“I did. You’ve given me far too much time off as it is.”
“Tru, you’ve just had your lovely heart broken in the worst kind of way, you need time to get yourself together.”
She means publically.
It’s bad enough having your heart broken by the love of your life, but when the rest of the world is feeding off that heartbreak it makes it hurt just that bit more.
I squeeze my eyes shut forcing back the tears I can feel threatening. “Thank you, but honestly I just need to keep busy. Working keeps me busy.”
“I get that, honey. But this work we’re talking about you doing now – the bio, involves … Jake,” she says his name like it’s a swear word.
Which it kind of is to me right now. It makes me wince just hearing it out loud.
“It means you’re going to have to see him again. Spend time around him.”
I let out a light sigh. “I know.”
And this is why you never mix business with pleasure as I’m learning fast.
I knew getting involved with Jake while working for him was a little risky, but I ignored that small voice in my head because I figured it was Jake.
Jake who I’ve known and loved forever.
I never foresaw anything like this happening. That I would ever lose him again. So back then it didn’t matter.
Now it does.
Because not only do I have to go and spend time around him again, but I have to write this damn book about him.
I really have no clue how I’m going to manage to do it after everything that has happened between us.
I’m trying to look on the cleansing side of it. Thinking that writing about Jake will be therapeutic. A way of getting him out of my system and letting him go for good.
Well that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.
The publishing house is pushing for the book because I’m the one who has been cheated on by Jake, and they're relishing the thought of a book wrote about Jake Wethers by the woman he betrayed.
Hence the push to get me back to the show, and back to him.
I’m also not stupid. I know Jake is ultimately behind this; this is his way of trying to force me to talk to him, to see him.
The publishing house has been onto Vicky, saying the last show of the tour in New York has to be covered for the book, which is in two days. And if I don’t attend and cover it, they will pull the exclusive from the magazine and the book will be dropped.
That’s all Jake.
He’s got the publishing house doing his dirty work for him, pulling the strings, making it appear it’s them forcing this not him. But I know it’s him.
Jake’s very adept at getting people to do want he wants. I know that all too well.
And, it appears, he’s once again going to get me to do what he wants.
I hate that I can’t fight him on this. I want to. More than I can explain. I want to dig my heels in and say I won’t do it, but I can’t risk this for Vicky. The magazine is everything to her. And she means so much to me. She’s one of my closest friends, and I won’t let her down.
I haven’t seen or spoken to Jake since I left five days ago.
When I left the hotel room and him, I got the next available flight out to Manchester and came straight home to my mum and dads instead of going to London. I just wanted to hide.
Jake found me anyway.
I was being stupid. Of course Jake would know if I wasn’t in London there would only be one other place I’d go.
In hindsight, I should have checked into a hotel, but I was hurting and I just wanted my daddy and mama.
Jake was calling my folks house pretty much on the hour, every hour for the first day. My dad spoke to him. I refused to. I don’t know what was said.
I don’t want to know.
Oh actually that’s a lie, I know one thing. I overheard my dad telling my mum that Jake was going to walk out on the tour. That he was going to fly here to see me. Like he thinks he can just turn up here and I’d see him – not bloody likely – but my dad talked him down.
He said he would work on getting me to speak to Jake.
He’s had no luck so far.
Jake sends flowers every day. I bin them. He sends letters. I tear them up without reading.
I don’t want to know a thing from him, or about him.
But then it’s pretty hard going being who Jake is, and the fact that our relationship, or once was relationship, is current tabloid fodder for the daily’s thanks to his trampy little slut.
So now I can’t even go online or watch the TV for fear of seeing something new about us in the news.
The girl I found in Jake’s bed, Kaitlyn Poole is her name – I hate her, just getting that in there – sold her story to a US tabloid, and now it is worldwide news.
She’s claiming that she and Jake have been having an affair the whole time he’s been with me, and the press are lapping it right up.