Falling from Disgrace Read online

  “I’m not lying,” she swore.

  “You are lying!” Jack released her face and stepped away from her, the anger now coursing through him so violently he didn’t want his hands near her.

  “This is why I told you from the beginning not to get involved with me!” she yelled back at him. “You’re asking me for things I can’t give you!”

  “Bullshit! Don’t tell me you can’t, you’re choosing to close yourself off.”

  When he looked down at her, sitting there on the couch, appearing so broken and sad, he softened. Kneeling down at her feet again, he took her hands in his.

  “I don’t know about you but this doesn’t happen for me very often. I haven’t found someone I like as much as you in a very long time and I don’t want to give up yet,” he spoke softly. “But I’m not willing to be in a relationship that is one sided, Adrianna. Please, just talk to me. Tell me what it is you’re hiding and I promise you we can work it out.”

  Adrianna wanted so badly to believe him but she knew once he found out the truth he would run the other way as fast as he could. She would never be able to handle being rejected by him and so she would be the one to reject him first.

  “No,” she stated. “Just leave, Jack. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  He was hurt and disappointed but Jack didn’t have any more fight in him. He wasn’t going to push or beg any longer. He stood, looked down on Adrianna and said, “You’re throwing away something that could be really fucking great. I hope the next time you get the chance you don’t make the same mistake.”

  He stormed from her place, leaving her sobbing on her couch and slammed the door behind him. He was surprised when he almost collided with a tiny brunette dressed in a cream business suit who looked up at him with wide eyes.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled and side-stepped her, continuing on his way.

  Heather had been concerned when she came home and heard shouting coming from Adrianna’s apartment but it wasn’t her business, so she waited to make sure it quieted down and when it did, she turned to go into her home. Then she heard Adrianna’s door open violently behind her and she had been shocked to see a very handsome and angry looking man emerge.

  After watching him stride down the hall she lightly tapped on Adrianna’s door and then let herself in. She found Adrianna just as Jack left her, curled up on her sofa, crying uncontrollably.

  “Oh, toots,” Heather gasped, rushing to her side and pulling her into a hug. “What’s wrong?”

  Adrianna let herself lean on Heather’s shoulder and cry. She hadn’t done that since crying on her mother’s shoulder when she learned Rachel didn’t survive the accident and she hadn’t realized how much she missed being comforted until now.

  She couldn’t speak yet, her breakdown preventing her from doing so, and Heather just waited patiently, patting her back and whispering words of comfort, not caring that her jacket was getting soaked with tears.

  “I take it this has to do with the man who almost ran me over in the hallway?”

  Adrianna nodded and pulled away, hastily wiping at her nose. Heather left her, grabbed some tissues from the bathroom, and then returned.

  “Thanks,” Adrianna whimpered nasally.

  “What happened?”

  Heather listened while Adrianna explained how she met Jack the night they went to Loki’s together and had been seeing him. She told her how much she liked him but how it would never work out and that she had just ended it with him.

  “Why couldn’t it work out?” Heather asked, handing Adrianna another tissue to dry her eyes.

  “I don’t know. I’m just not a girl who’s suited for relationships.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Adrianna shrugged and her throat got tight again thinking of her answer. “I’m just not a good person, Heather,” she choked out and then started sobbing all over again.

  “Oh, honey, that’s just not true!” Heather pulled Adrianna into a hug again, feeling awful for the girl and wanting to console her.

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” she blubbered. “The accident I was in... it really messed me up.”

  Heather had always known there was something Adrianna kept hidden away from others. In the two years since she moved across the hall from her, she didn’t have friends visit, didn’t work, didn’t have a steady boyfriend, and didn’t go out very often. Heather knew there was more to that than just being shy, but she didn’t want to come across as a nosy neighbor and never questioned her.

  When Adrianna didn’t elaborate any more on what she meant by “messed up”, Heather told her, “You’re a sweet girl, Adrianna. You help the old divorcee across the hall with her laundry and keep her lonely ass company, that’s gotta count for something right?”

  Adrianna huffed a half-assed laugh and then pulled out of her only friend’s arms.

  “And you said you’ve seen him over the last few weeks so there’s something in there this Jack guy likes, right?”

  “He doesn’t know the real me,” Adrianna whispered.

  “Adrianna,” Heather continued, “when I look at you I see a beautiful, young woman who is fun, and smart, and just a little lonesome. I think if you’d just let yourself open up to people a little more, you’ll see that you’re strong and kind and worth someone else’s affections. Let this Jack guy in, open up to him and I bet he’ll see what I see in you.”

  “What if I do and he doesn’t want me?” Adrianna questioned.

  “Then he’s not worth your time and you’ll find someone else who is.”

  “I don’t know,” Adrianna spoke. “Shit like this is just too hard. I think it’s easier to just break it off with Jack now before he can do it later on when it’ll really hurt.”

  “Listen, toots,” Heather said more forcefully now. She moved an errant curl from in front of her eye and gave Adrianna the same look she gave to Trevor when she wanted him to know she meant business. “You’re talking to a woman who married her high school sweetheart and then learned he was having an affair with a dental assistant when she was eight months pregnant. Life sucks, shit isn’t fair, but we deal with it, don’t we? I’m a firm believer in what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and if you live your life not taking any chances because you’re afraid of what might happen, you might as well dig yourself a hole and bury yourself in it.”

  Adrianna sat quietly and let what Heather said sink in. Yes, Heather had been through a lot, but it was something she had gotten over, not having a physical reminder of it every day of her life. It wasn’t like Adrianna had that luxury. Every shooting pain down her back, every pill she swallowed, reminded her of the accident that killed her best friend and no matter how much time went by, those memories would never fade. Her best friend had been taken away from her tragically and eventually, Jack would leave her too.

  “He’s not going to want me once I tell him the truth,” Adrianna finally said.

  “You don’t know that! Look at it this way,” Heather continued. “You’re sitting here crying, broken up over him but it was you who told him to go away, right? He didn’t want to leave. Go to him, tell him what it is you’re afraid he isn’t going to like and if he can’t handle it you’ll be no worse off than you are now.”

  It dawned on Adrianna that what Heather was saying made perfect sense. And as bad as things were, Adrianna wasn’t ready for her life to end and she didn’t want to live the rest of it alone and addicted to pills. She wanted to get better. She wanted to be happy. She wanted her life back.

  “I didn’t think of it like that,” she admitted.

  “Sometimes it takes an outsider to help you gain some perspective.”

  A knock on the door interrupted them and Adrianna was hopeful that Jack had returned. It was the pizza he ordered though and Adrianna paid for it and then gave it to Heather.

  “Here,” she told her. “Payment for the good advice.”

  “Why don’t you come over and eat with Trevor and me,”
Heather offered. “My mother should be dropping him off any minute.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Adrianna told her. “I’m gonna go see Jack.”

  Chapter 7

  Adrianna didn’t knock upon arriving at the door to Jack’s apartment. Instead she just pushed it open, knowing somehow that it would be unlocked, as if he had been expecting her to show up. The truth was, Jack was not expecting Adrianna to show up at all, but he had been hoping.

  He was found on his living room sofa, still in the dark blue jeans and light blue t-shirt he had left her in. He was reclining on the piece furniture, its edges frayed and the armrests flattened from years of abuse, with his long legs stretched across the expanse of the worn cushions. Though he reclined, the only indication he was at rest was his bare feet, for his body was taut with anger and worry and, if he were going to be completely honest, the pain of rejection. He had heard Adrianna enter, but he sat silently, leaving the scowl on his face he had worn since storming out of her apartment. His eyes followed her when she entered the room, though he didn’t say a word. He just kept the scowl on his face and left it there when she stood before him; left it there when she climbed upon the couch to nestle herself between his legs.

  She pressed her cheek against the soft denim at his thigh, staring at the black screen of the television across from them. In it, she could see their reflection, two bodies, which despite the tension between them; lay languidly like a pair of sated lovers, comfortable in each other’s presence. It wasn’t until Jack’s hand finally came down to rest upon her head in his lap that Adrianna began to speak.

  “Four years ago my best friend, Rachel, and I were in a horrible car accident. I was driving us home from a party and we were hit by a semi-truck. The driver had been on the road too long and fell asleep at the wheel. He ran a red light and just plowed into us.”

  This having been the first time ever retelling the entire story, Adrianna was sure her voice would waiver and she would cry. On the contrary however, her words were slow but steady and her tears remained at bay. Her fingernails ran through the lines in Jack’s jeans as she continued.

  “My car was ripped in two, that’s how hard he hit us. Three vertebrae in my back were crushed as well as two in my neck.”

  She paused for a moment as the memories of that night came flooding back and the sudden pain in her belly caused her breathing to hitch. Her eyes closed to help her manage.

  Jack tried to offer some comfort by moving his hand now in soft strokes against her hair and when Adrianna didn’t continue he asked, “And Rachel?”

  She didn’t need to answer, for he felt all of the muscles in her body tense but still she shook her head slightly and replied, “She didn’t make it.”

  He breathed out a heavy sigh, one that conveyed he understood how much it must have hurt to have lost a friend. After that, he stayed quiet again, not pressing her to continue until she was ready.

  “I spent a total of somewhere around thirty-two hours in surgery over the course of ten days to repair the damage to my back and neck. Then I was in the hospital for about three months while I recovered. You’ve seen the scar on my back.” Adrianna took Jack’s hand and brought his fingers up to her forehead, about an inch above her left eyebrow, to one of the two dimples set permanently in her skin. “These are from the screws that held the halo brace in place for the ten weeks it took my neck to heal.”

  Jack’s fingers brushed back and forth across the damaged, puckered skin a few times before smoothing Adrianna’s bangs into place. They then went back to run through her hair.

  “I went through months of physical therapy and all of that to help me heal and just about a year after the accident I was fully able to walk and move properly again. The pain lessened as time wore on but it never fully went away which is why I have the pills you saw me take in my bathroom.”

  Jack knew that part wasn’t entirely the truth. At the beginning, yes, Adrianna took the pills for physical pain. But as time wore on, she had come to realize they helped keep the emotional pain in check as well. He knew the signs of someone addicted to painkillers all too well and he had seen enough now to know that Adrianna didn’t only take her pills when her back was hurting.

  “Did you ever see a therapist? Someone to help you with the emotional effects of the accident?” he asked her.

  “My parents made me,” she answered, “but no amount of talking to a shrink helped. There isn’t anything out there that helps you get over being responsible for your best friend’s death.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Jack said, moving to pull Adrianna to a sitting position. “Come on up here, sweetheart, and look at me.” When she was seated on his lap and facing him he placed his hands on her shoulders, looked her square in the eye, and continued, “Don’t tell me that you’re responsible for Rachel’s death. You said yourself that a truck driver fell asleep behind the wheel. If anyone is to blame it would be him.”

  Adrianna’s eyes, wide and sorrowful, held his for a beat and then dropped down to stare at the middle of his chest. She shook her head slightly from side to side and whispered, “She wasn’t supposed to be in the car with me.” Fat, salty tears began running down her cheeks.

  Jack brought his left hand up from her shoulder to cup her cheek and draw her attention back from his shirt to his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “She shouldn’t have been in the car with me, Jack,” Adrianna cried pitifully. “She wanted to leave the party early and have her boyfriend pick her up but I wouldn’t let her. I made her stay with me because I wanted to stick around waiting on some stupid guy. If Jason had picked her up like she had wanted she wouldn’t have been in the car with me and she’d still be alive today.”

  Sobs defeated Adrianna’s ability to talk any longer and so Jack pulled her to him, hugging her gently to his chest while she stained his blue shirt with her tears. He didn’t hush her or tell her not to cry; he just let her release all the pent up sadness and guilt that had been built up over the last four years; sadness and guilt that she tried to bury beneath pills and solitude, and sometimes alcohol and sex. Sadness and guilt that would linger no matter how much time went by.

  The tears continued for ages and Adrianna craved the sense of tranquility that would come from taking one of her Vicodin. Her tongue itched to have one of those magical tablets on it, quivering from the brief bitter taste before it would be washed down to where it could take full control of her senses. She didn’t move though. She just stayed curled beneath Jack’s arms willing herself to gain peace from them alone.

  When her crying ceased, Adrianna stayed still and quiet for so long Jack actually thought she had fallen asleep, but then she spoke again.

  “A while after I was released from the hospital I went to see Rachel’s parents. They hugged me and said kind words but I could see it in their eyes. They resented me for surviving the accident when their daughter didn’t. Rachel was their only child and I took her away from them.”

  Jack sighed again and wondered what he could say to erase the blame she had placed on herself for four years. Coming up with nothing he simply told her, “That’s not true; you know it’s not true.”

  But Adrianna didn’t know that.

  “After visiting her parents I went to see her boyfriend, Jason. He didn’t even try to hide the blame he placed on me. He came right out and said that if he had picked her up like he had wanted she wouldn’t have been in the car with me. He told me he was going to propose to her and that now his life was over simply because I had made Rachel wait with me at that party for Ethan to show up. It was him who called me earlier.”

  “People will say stupid things when they’re angry and hurt, Adrianna. That’s all that was.”

  “No,” she answered him, pulling herself up and away from his embrace. She scooted herself back so that she was sitting on his knees and shook her head vehemently. “It was my fault, Jack. She was with me, she was in my car. I killed Rachel!”

  Pissed off now, Jack looked
at her angrily and shouted, “Would you stop it? Thinking like that is complete bullshit! Do you realize that your way of rationalizing this could in turn place all the blame on that guy you were waiting for, what’s his name, Ethan?”

  Adrianna looked taken aback, confusion washing over her downtrodden expression. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Let me ask you something?” Jack continued. “This Ethan, did he tell you he was going to be at that party?”

  “What does that have to do with anything, Jack?”

  “Just answer me.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you had gone to the party expecting Ethan to be there. If he had shown up would you have told Rachel to let Jason pick her up?”

  Adrianna could see now where he was going with this and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like that he was trying to convince her that she was not responsible for her best friend’s death but she said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”