And of course, my deacon’s bench filled with blankets and with the hidden compartment that has my identification and a quick getaway kit for if I have to bug out.
I lock it back up, mostly satisfied that everything at least seems to be undisturbed.
And then I flop on my bed and chew on a lock of my hair for a while, pondering what it might be like to go to Japan.
I might not have a choice.
And if I do go there, Tori told me there’s a possibility I could do a quick visit with my mom during a layover a month or so afterwards, if I’m willing to pay to make it happen. God, I miss her.
I’m sure Mom would be willing to do a double layover trip in order for our paths to cross without it drawing any attention.
I never realized how close she and I were until I couldn’t just pick up the phone to find out how to get a stain out of something, to ask for a home remedy for an ailment, or to just shoot the breeze. I wish I appreciated her more when I had unlimited access to her.
She’s remarried, has been for five years and to a great guy named John who has custody of his two teenage daughters that Mom gets along great with so at least she’s not lonely.
She says it’s not my fault that I fell for a bad guy who seemed good. She refused to hide with me when I told her I had to get away. He’d never even met her since we didn’t live in the same city, and Tori’s reports make it seem like nobody has bothered her, but I’m still not convinced she’s 100% safe.
I chalk her safety so far up to the fact that I’ve stayed away. Would a layover visit put her in danger? I don’t know if I can take that chance. But God, it’d be good to see her, even for just an hour.
It’s almost enough to make me want to move to Japan. Just to get that layover visit. But then I’d be alone. No Carly. No Stacy or Sonia or Sonia’s kids. No friends at Carmichael Consulting. No more Ally Kingston. I’d become some other person.
And no more admiring Jude Novak from afar.
Because that’s all I can possibly do where Jude is concerned.
If he gives up on me and leaves me in peace, I can maybe do that. Stay here and admire him from afar. Remember what it felt like to have him looking into my soul while he was inside me. Pull the little sound bites of the noises he makes when he’s fucking out of my memory banks from time to time while I look at him laughing and joking with Aiden across a dining room or patio table. And maybe even become friends, in a way. Should I strive for friends?
Become pals with Jude?
Right.
It’ll mean I ache; I already know this. And then some day sit at his wedding and watch him pledge forever to some girl in a white dress while knowing what it felt like to be brought to orgasm by him? Without having the memory of falling asleep in his arms, of waking up next to him because I passed out so instantly after sex that I didn’t have any reveling in the afterglow? I’d have loved to get some of that before he left. Having him gone before I woke was more than a little bit devastating.
This sucks.
It sucks hard.
Why couldn’t he have just wanted to fuck. Why does he have to be so amazing?
The sour feeling that comes on feels physically painful in my chest, my gut, my sinuses.
Because as much as I sort of regret sleeping with him because of the pain in the ass it has become, my biggest regret about all of that is not being 100% sober and not 100% awake to get time to soak in what it feels like to cuddle in bed with him.
Under the covers together. Skin to skin.
I remember every second of the sex, but I would go back and lie awake while listening to him breathe, maybe snuggling with him. Feeling that amazing sensation you feel when you fall into a synched breathing pattern sleeping next to somebody.
I crawl under my blankets to go to sleep but instead, I lie awake and ponder my future. Will I ever be safe in one place for longer than a little while? Will I ever be allowed to be me again? I’ll never be who I was, not after what’s happened and what the risks are, plus I like a lot about myself now, but can I ever be me enough to let people completely in again?
Damn you, Jonah Steele.
***
I dream of Jonah and me, together in the dark as he did his best to give me goose bumps over and over by trailing his index finger along my naked skin. A game. A fun one with shivers and giggles that wound up ending in sex.