As odd as it sounds, Lucas fell asleep first that night. Jane was exhausted too, but she couldn’t stop tossing and turning. She’d look over at Lucas and feel such a familiar pain. A pain that she had felt time and time again. Remembering the words he yelled at her and the ones she swallowed. The blinds were so thin and broken, the lights from the parking lot lit up the room like it was dawn. It was a roadside motel, but the road sounded so close, she was imagining the bedroom directly in the street. With the cars driving around it, vibrating the floors to keep her awake. She didn’t want it to be daylight though. She just wanted to fall asleep.
As usual, old feelings started to swim in stronger. Guilt. Guilt about everything. The look on his face from the hallway, where she stood in her bedroom doorway with another man, screened across her mind. She flipped to face away from him. She thought of ways to tell him how sorry she was. How sorry she was for never telling him how she felt about him. That it could have saved them so much trouble. But then they wouldn’t be here together now, in this moment of unexpected magic. She flipped to face him again. Remembering now the first night they had together. How just the small sliver of timing changed the course of who they were going to be. This wasn’t the first time she had rewritten that first morning. In each ending though, she stayed with him in bed instead of running off to start her day.
But she’d come back from the fantasy and remember that she didn’t stay with him in bed that morning. And she’d revel at the idea that she can’t change the past between them. That this was just who they are. This is who they will probably always be. Bad timing and unspoken words that create every single feeling they’ve had. That is unless she can change this. Maybe she can tell him everything. Tell him all of the truth, even the truth about stories he doesn’t know yet. Knowing that this could really destroy everything they built to be here together. Maybe it was better for all of it to eat her alive than to nibble at both of them. But, they made it this far. They made it as far as 3 nights, only two fights, and a temporary stay at a motel bed five hundred miles away from their home. Everything they left behind… But she couldn’t think about that right now. They were here. If this love was so inviolable, then coming out with all of the truth will only strengthen it more.
She shot up out of bed, grabbed her journal, and with the light from outside the window lighting up her pages, she wrote him a letter. If this letter was written six months prior, this one wouldn’t have to be so long. Writing is more than natural to Jane, so once she started the pages filled themselves. Starting with the words, “I’m not sure if this is an apology letter or a love letter,” it was like the letter was waiting to be written. She told him all of her stories and smiled at the ones she wanted to write with him. She confessed to the wrongs she did to him and the regret she admitted everyday because of them. With great memory, she detailed past moments where she was falling in love. Chasing him through parties, their conversations over a cigarette (and admitting she hates cigarettes. that they were always an excuse for a moment with him), and wrote all of the words she didn’t say. The words that pulsed the loudest however, were her words of love. Pure, honest admiration for who Lucas is. Painting a kind and hopeful picture of who they can be together. If he loves her like she loves him, they can finally have what they’ve both always wanted.
After reading it 5 or 6 times, she tore the pages out of her journal and put them in the bedside nightstand to pull out when the time was right the next day. She couldn’t wait to express all of the love, and hurt, and hope she felt for him. Sleeping beside him once again, she peacefully fell asleep in his arms. At last, understanding the pursuit she needed to make for their lucky ending.
For the first time, Lucas woke up before Jane did. He’d never watched Jane sleep in the daylight before, so he had no idea how beautiful she looked like that. He traced the goosebumps down her back and brushed his fingers through her golden brown hair. She’d never let him do that if she was awake, because it’d ruin her curls, but he loved how soft her hair felt with his hands. He hadn’t really ever seen her look so natural before either. He was used to how she presented herself at events. Where she’d be dressed as a different character every time. An all black outfit so tight to carve her curves one night to bright and flowy dresses like the nice teacher from Matilda the next night, while ending the weekend hiding in oversized mens vintage t-shirts just to throw you off. So even this natural, half naked Jane with the sun shining on her through the hotel window, was a fresh look on her.
He wanted to smoke a cigarette, but he was afraid that if she woke up she’d think he was gone. He hated that feeling when she would do that to him. So he sat there, itching for a smoke but scratching her back in hopes it’d calmly wake her. Tracing her goosebumps with his fingers, he thought about the mess they left behind. He knew if he turned his phone on he’d regret it. Regret leaving and regret turning the phone on. The weight of what he left behind was going to follow him to wherever he was headed, but he had Jane. Isn’t she all he’s really wanted? It was her that created the life he had back home. The life that they had just ran away from. She turned and flipped off of his arm, still sleeping deeply. He really needed a cigarette now.
Taking his phone outside with him, he watched the cars go by. Almost sounding like waves, he found peace in the roadside view. With the light of his cigarette, he turned his phone on. It’s a friendly feeling, when you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t do. A feeling he used to feel even looking at Jane sometimes. He moved his cheek with a small smile knowing it wasn’t ever going to feel bad like that about her again.
In seconds, it all changed. Again. The flood of messages and missed calls sank the last hope he was standing on. Ignoring ones from friends, he couldn’t help but see what Mandy had to say. She only left him one voicemail. Not a single text or more than one missed call from her. This scared him. For something to make the loud, outspoken and honest girl that Mandy was quiet, meant it was a deep hole. Putting the phone up to his ear, he glanced over at the window of their room. Hoping to see her, he could only see his reflection. He was hunched over the railing, and began to crumble lower with each word of the 24 second voicemail from the girlfriend he had left behind for another woman.
Somehow, she managed to confess her deep love, hatred for him, and announce the secret history of Jane all within those 24 seconds. In a way so penetrating that his eyes became frozen on his car below. While thoughts evoke emotions, he had no thoughts. His everyday mind static was silenced. Everything he had been feeling the last month, diminished. Every single feeling.
It was 7:20 A.M. The sign above the highway ramp stated, East towards Dallas or West towards New Orleans. His long hair danced with the summer morning breeze. He looked almost mosaic, it would have made a stranger fall in love with him. But with a closer look, you’d see his eyes were dark and empty from this hole he dug. And remembering the fake future he had created for the next few weeks of his life, he snuck back into their room.
Sitting on the corner of the bed facing the window away from Jane, he shrunk smaller. This wasn’t like any of the other times that Jane had hurt him before. This was the first time since he met Jane, that he didn’t want her anymore. Looking back on it, he knows it wasn’t entirely her that made him feel so bad in that moment. And maybe a little part of him dreams of never turning his phone on. Just laying with her forever. Because he truly had real love for Jane, and there still won’t be any other love near this one. But he felt bad, and it wasn’t a friendly bad this time.
And knowing that this could be the worst thing he’s ever done, and there is absolutely no going back from this, he grabbed a motel pen off of the desk. Jane’s sketchbook was open, so he tore out a piece of paper, and wrote very few words to Jane. Enough words that they were dominant but with so little room for interpretation. He told her he would be gone when she woke up. That he was going in a different direction than her. And he’d leave her enough money to get back home. “You need to go home Jane,” he wrote “I don’t love you like I thought I did. I’m really sorry.”
After folding the small note in a way that her eyes would catch it on the nightstand when they opened, he left her behind and changed his direction towards New Orleans.