Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(32)

“Get out,” she said, feet on the swing, curled and tangled at the ankles. “Just go.”

“Your car is fixed,” I said, scooping Jessica’s phone and envelope.

I walked off the porch without looking back. The slap of the car door seemed final. The roar of the engine and backing onto her sheer drop of a street seemed like continued punctuations in an ever long sentence. I rounded the corner, then another, up a hill, until I was at the top of hers again. If I went back around and she was still on the porch, I’d grovel. I’d pour my heart out to her. If I told her I was afraid of corrupting her, exposing her to my family, turning her into an unscrupulous monster, killing her, maybe she’d prove me wrong.

But she was gone. Part of me was glad she was protected from truths that could be used to draw forgiveness and love from her. But the rest of me felt cracked down the middle.

I parked the car at the side of the road by the freeway entrance because the crack had opened into a void, and I was falling into it. I couldn’t drive. I knew I’d done what I had to. I knew I’d been a man. Done it right. Taken responsibility. I vowed that my single life wasn’t going to be what it had been before. I wasn’t going to bed whoever caught my fancy. I would play it straight. No looking. No dating. No casual f**king.

Because who else did I want? Who else fit so right? Who else could heal me? Who else could I damage as deeply, hurt as fully? Who needed more protection from me?

Right there, in my car, I said good-bye to a piece of myself. I gave up on it because doing so saved Monica from being the third in line for ruination. Saving her was a dark glow at the edge of the void, and that void… My God, that void was endless, lonely, black with loathing, and I clutched the wheel, white-knuckled, as I fell down it.

Chapter 25.

MONICA

That was bullshit.

That was a guy who felt responsible for his first love dying.

The choice was clear. I could get upset or not. I could disregard everything we’d been through already and write him off, or I could do him the favor he did me when I walked away and be ready for his return.

I opened my text messenger to let him know I was there for him when he came to his senses. I didn’t hit send. The send button would deliver an immediate ding across the city, and he’d answer it (or not) and then we’d bounce texts (or not) but nothing would be solved. I’d prolong whatever agony he was going through.

I was fully awake, and though my second wind would be short, I had enough in me to give him something with the ghost of a chance of truly comforting him. I wanted to sing him a song. Make him music, and one ding wouldn’t cut it. He needed more dings. A chorus of them. A symphony. His phone needed to light up and make music.

I crawled out of bed and got my metronome. After placing it on the night table and setting it mid-tempo, I broke down a song into the beats of a send button without sending it.

I_a

m_h

er

e_und

er_

the

_r

ains

If each letter became the tap of a beat, time taken, and the send button punctuated each line, assuming the network functioned properly, his phone should ding to the rhythms of my hurt and my steadfast concern. Three/three/two/five/three. Sixteen beats. Four measures. No downbeats or dynamics with a phone ding, but I could play with the timing and give every fourth a dotted quarter for umph if I needed it.

I set the metronome and practiced tapping into my phone. I used the enter key instead of the send button. An hour later, I felt like I’d nailed it, and my second wind was wearing down. Now or never. I cracked my knuckles and began.

Chapter 26.

JONATHAN

Two in the morning. Still raining. I could have called any Asia office and caught them in time for a good balling-out over whatever. God help them if they called me with some crap they could manage themselves.

I wanted her already. Her body under mine. Her voice saying my name. Her all-consuming hunger for life. The first months would be the hardest. I knew that from losing Jessica. How could I compare the blip that was Monica to the ten years I’d spent with my bitch of a wife?

Even if I hadn’t believed it at the time, Jessica had run her course. That was the difference. My time with Monica had been cut off at the knees.

I already wanted to know what she was doing. Instead, I went into the shower and tried to scald the thought of her from me. I undressed in the bathroom, leaving my clothes on the floor like a slob.

My phone dinged once, then again. It was in my jacket pocket, draped over the vanity. Fucking Asia. The whole continent should fall into the sea, and by the urgency of the dinging, it sounded as if it was. By the time I got there, it had gone off another ten times, and a rhythm was appearing. The texts were coming furiously. The thing must be broken or stuck.

I finally got it out of my pocket.

The

_sk

y_

split

_ap

art

_t

ears_

fal

lin

g_

into_

the

_un

It went on. And on. It was Monica, singing me a song. I sat on the toilet, dripping, staring at my dinging, buzzing phone, and the seeming nonsense streaming across my screen. I could put it together if I concentrated. The effect was hypnotic.

The dinging stopped, then something came in a full sentence.

I_am_here_under_the_rains_the_sky_split_apart_tears_falling_into_the_unbreakable_sea_I_am_wider_for_the_rain_fixed_under_the_cracked_sky_waiting_for_you