chapter THIRTEEN
Therapist: It isn’t your job to help everyone be happier, Jay. Do you understand that?
Jay: It is actually my job as an actor to provide the audience an experience.
Therapist: So, when do you turn that off? When do you focus on you?
Jay: I don’t know.
Jay
I stormed off into the night air, trying to rid myself of my anger. Every darkened area on Mikka’s ribs had me wondering. Was that a punch? Had he hit her with something else?
I should have broken his jaw, beaten him to within an inch of his life. It was another regret I’d carry with me for a long time.
I roamed around the town I’d grown up in. I tried to forget what I saw, tried to get lost in my own memories and remind myself that she was her own person, that I couldn’t make everyone’s lives better.
I walked down the sidewalks, took in the homes with meticulous landscaping. Jerry, a man not much older than my father, knelt near some of his mulch and was pulling weeds. He didn’t look a day older than the last time I’d seen him doing the exact same thing.
The black paved road beside the sidewalk contrasted with the autumn leaves of the maple trees that surrounded it. It was the same road I’d sped down a million times in high school once I’d gotten my license. I remember begging a cop just two blocks away not to ticket me. He let me off easy, probably because he’d known my parents. Everyone knew everyone. The kids I once played with in the woods near my house were buying up the same homes we’d passed and the same yards we’d ran through.
Sandy fluttered up her sidewalk when she saw me, and I saw the same interest in her eyes I’d seen years ago. I entertained the idea of something with her as I accepted her invitation to dinner, but Mikka lingered in the back of my mind.
I was the friend of a victim, and I didn’t know how to do more without pushing her further away. I needed her to see her own value without shoving her face in it, without forcing her acceptance of the situation.
I knew it didn’t work that way. Yet when someone you care about is constantly hurting themselves by going back to their abuser, your gut reaction is to rip them away, to shield them even if they don’t want the help. The shield warps into a way to repel them from you though.
I was giving her space and letting myself cool down. I needed to distance myself, remind myself that she wasn’t a woman I wanted to get tangled in the sheets with. Sandy was supposed to be that reminder.
It didn’t work.
That was the funny thing about returning to your hometown. It reminded you of what you had growing up and it served to remind you of what you were missing then and now.
Sitting across the table from Sandy, I missed my Little Pebble.
“Sandy, I’ve got somewhere to be.” I cut our dinner short, folded some bills up to leave on the table.
The blonde woman pursed her lips but didn’t push me. She nodded and stood to hug me. “Let’s get together sometime soon?”
I nodded and left.
The night sky was dark enough with no city lights that the stars burst out all the constellations. It had me wondering about Mikka’s mother’s story. Was Yue Lao up there trying to untangle our red strings?
I peeked in on her when I get back. She breathed so softly when she slept, I was reminded of how tiny she was. I backed out of her room fast, afraid I’d lose my control. I wanted to rip her sheets off and make her let me examine the bruising again. I wanted to scoop her up and put her in my bed where I could watch the moonlight dance upon her skin as she slept soundly.
Most of the night I stayed up worrying about the woman that wasn’t mine but who I was starting to think should have been a long time ago.
“You were out late.” Mikka confronted me as we crossed paths the next morning.
“I caught up with some friends. How are you feeling? Your side still sore? Are your ribs…”
“It’s fine. It’s almost healed.” She turned to the small staircase and her hand gripped the railing tightly. “Our company called, Jay.”
With her eyes downcast, I knew what it meant. “If they want to drug test me, I said I was happy to do it. Did the package come with the supplies?”
She whispered, “I hate this. If I was trying the way you were and someone told me I had to check in with a test, I’d be so mad.” She ripped her hands from the railing as if the thought burned her. “It’s not fair that they’re making you do this.”
“It is, Meek. It’s fixing the trust I broke so many times with the media. It’s proving the point they need me to make to finish off this movie.”