in bed at night. It's quite another thing to stare into the eyes of the woman you're falling in love with and tell her that you have to let her go.
There is a knock at the door. Her soft, sneaky knock, is a sound that he has grown accustomed to looking forward to these past weeks.
"Come in."
She checks once down the hall before she closes the door, as she does everyday. Then she approaches, bends to kiss him, and looks him in the eye with the confidence of someone who knows she's loved.
"I've missed you," she says.
"I've missed you too."
She sets her bag down on the floor, and looks at him. "What's wrong?"
"What?"
"You look like there's something wrong."
"We need to talk."
"Oh, that," she says, her face changing to something more serious, less confident.
"Listen, we knew we couldn't—"
"This is it, isn't it?"
"I think it has to be."
"But why?"
"I feel that if we go on any further then we won't be able to go back to our lives. We'll have to make tough decisions about our futures. Decisions I'm not sure I'm prepared to make."
She sits down on the chair by his desk. "I knew this was coming," she says. "I guess I thought we'd have until the end of the quarter. I just wasn't prepared for this to happen so soon. Certainly not today."
"What do you mean you knew this was coming?"
"Well, from the beginning I knew you wouldn't leave your wife. I knew when you didn't want me to take my engagement ring off that this was not going to be a long term thing."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I knew what I was getting myself..." she stops, trying to hold back tears. "I'm just going to miss you so much."
"I know. I'm going to miss you too. It's not going to be easy for either one of us," he says, sliding his chair over to console her.
"Wow. You think you're prepared for something, and then it just takes the air right out of you."
"I know," he says, kissing her.
"So, what now?"
"I don't know."
"We just end it like this. This abruptly."
"I don't know how else to do it."
She grabs her bag and says, "I could've loved you. We could've been good together."
"I know."
She buries her head in his chest. He puts his face in her cool, black hair and breathes it in.
"I'll never feel anything like this again—what I've had with you—will I?"
"Maybe not, but you can carry it with you. Besides, if you have something more permanent... Maybe it'll be less emotionally intense, but it could be more substantial to you in the long run, I thing."
"Right," she says, barely holding herself together. "I should go."
"Now? You don't have to."
"I think I do," she says, and wipes her eyes as she stands and goes to the door. She looks at him, her face soft with sadness, but still every bit as beautiful as ever. Her eyes are gleaming as she moves behind the door and leaves him alone.
As he sits at his desk chair, feeling empty and breathless, he can't help but wonder if she was right. Maybe it would've been better to keep this going until the end of the quarter. Maybe he could have...
There is that knock again. His heart jumps at the sound of it, and a light comes back on inside him—a light of hope.
"Yeah?"
And there she is.
She comes to him and kisses him hard on the mouth—a long kiss. A kiss that so thoroughly fills what was empty in him that he wonders if he will ever be able to endure without her.
"You owe me a story."
"What?"
"You told me weeks ago that you would tell me about Melissa at the right time. Well, now is the right time."
"I did say that, didn't I."
"You did."
Jacob leans back in his chair, trying hard to empty his head of the fact that Joelle is sitting on the edge of his desk, her beautiful long lines of legs crossed and dangling over the desktop. As much as he wants to embrace her, he knows that it has to be over. So, he takes a moment to collect his Melissa memories and begins to recount all that he can remember of that time.
He tells her about that first day in class, how he was attracted to Melissa immediately. He talks about those early days when he was desperate to find ways to get her attention, trying to learn, piece by piece, what it was that made this girl so attractive to him. He explains how, through the course of their early conversations, they slowly gravitated toward each other, and how quickly things took off after they had acknowledged their attraction. He tries to express the ferocity of their love, how much it consumed him, and how much, and how quickly, it took precedence over everything else in his life.
Then he tells her about his family, his upbringing, and the differences with her family and their wealth. He talks about how she was engaged when they met, how she was planning on breaking off her engagement during spring break, and that he had proposed to her the day before she left for her vacation in La Jolla. He tells Joelle that he was supposed to meet her there on the weekend before the break was to end, after she had broken the news to her fiancé and her family that the wedding was off and that she was newly engaged.
"I was upset that I didn't see her before she left, that she didn't wake me to say goodbye, and of course I've played over that morning a million times since then. I've imagined all possible scenarios, thought about what I would've said to her, but the truth is I probably would've simply kissed her, told her that I loved her, and wished her a safe trip. It probably would've been a banal send off, but at least I would've had one more memory of her."
"So, that was it. That was the last time you saw her."
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
"I talked to her that night on the telephone, and could tell that she had been drinking. Her voice always gave her drinking away. It wasn't a big deal, though. If I were about to break off my engagement, I would've had a few drinks too. So, I thought she was just building up the courage to break it off with her fiancé, but I really didn't know what was happening.
"We were supposed to talk again the next morning, but when I called there was no answer. I figured she was just at the beach, or that she was busy with family and couldn't get away. But, by that night, I had called the house several times and there was still no one answering. At that point, I changed my travel plans. Something wasn't right. I knew Melissa wouldn't snub me like that. She would've called me. So, I got in my car and started the long drive to La Jolla. I drove straight through to the next afternoon, only stopping for bathroom breaks and to try to call her again. By this time, I was dead tired, and building worlds of worry as I drove. But I tried to convince myself that everything was fine, that this would all end up having a simple explanation. Maybe it was some kind of minor family emergency, or something equally benign and she'd explain it when I got there, and we would laugh at the fact that I had driven all the way to Southern California, straight through the night, after only one day of not hearing from her. So, I was worried, but I spent a lot of time trying to construct plausible reasons for her absence.
"But when I got there, there were no cars in the driveway. There were no signs of anyone anywhere around the house. I went up and knocked at the door. No answer. I peered in the windows, and the room I saw was in complete disarray. Towels were strewn across the floor, drinks were spilled, and food had congealed and dried on plates that still sat on their table. I knocked hard on the window, hoping that someone was still sleeping and that I could rouse them.
"'Can I help you?' I remember hearing someone say, startling me. I turned and looked at this guy standing in the yard of the neighboring house. I still remember his face as clearly as I see your face now. He looked tired—dark circles under his eyes—and, though he looked friendly enough, he was looking at me like I didn't belong. I remember his clothes looked thrown on, and his demeanor suggested to me that he didn't
think anyone should be there. He was carrying a rake, but wasn't raking anything, which made me think he had grabbed it rashly. You know, just in case. To be fair to him, I probably looked like a vagrant, or worse, standing there banging on that window.
"'I'm looking for Melissa Stratford,' I said, 'I was supposed to meet her here.'" As I said her name, I could clearly see a change in his face, from inquisition to concern, and I can remember that my concern grew stronger with each step he took toward me.
"'I'm sorry,' he said, relaxing his rake. 'Were you a friend of Melissa's?'
"I immediately recognized his change of tense, and it confused me. I tried to ignore it. 'Yes, I'm a friend of Melissa's from university. She invited me here to meet her family.'
"I remember his next words so clearly that I can still hear them—spoken in his voice—rolling around in my head. He said, 'I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but there was an accident a couple nights ago.'
"'An accident?'
"'Melissa drowned,' he said and his face was stone cold solid now, sad but unmoving. "'What?' I asked, not quite grasping the news, even through its simplicity.
"'Melissa drowned. The whole family is gone. They all went back East, back home. I'm sorry.'"
"Oh my god," Joelle says, "What happened? How'd she drown?"
"I didn't know. I didn't really know how to reach the family. I knew their last name. I knew they lived near Boston, but I didn't know their address. I didn't have phone numbers or first names. You don't think about these things until you need them. But, really, at the time, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had known anything. I was so out of sorts