12 | Ghosts of the Past

JEN'S EAR WAS PRESSED AGAINST THE FRONT DOOR as she listened in on what the men on the other side of it were saying. The noise was muffled, but only slightly, and she almost wished she couldn't hear him so clearly. The sound of his voice made her feel sick, her throat clamping shut like she couldn't breathe. There would never be enough breath in her lungs to scream at him like he deserved to be screamed at, to hurt as much as he hurt her. Half of her wanted to fling the door open and strike at him with all her might while the other half wanted to flee and hide forever so that she'd never have to see his face again. And these two sides of her were constantly grappling with each other so forcefully that it felt like she was being torn apart.

Dad was arguing with him, which Jen wouldn't have held him back from in other circumstances. But she grew tenser and tenser as their voices climbed louder and louder, eventually reaching a point where every single joint in her body felt like it was locked in place.

If they kept going like this, the noise was going to wake Mom up.

And then Jen was going to have to explain to her who the other man outside their house was.

Her hand slid down to the doorknob, encircling the cool metal as she braced herself to end things if they wouldn't de-escalate it themselves. She mouthed a silent prayer that they would.

But Dad's tone was nothing short of poisonous. "If you ever even think about coming near my wife or daughter again-"

She twisted the handle and flung the door open, forcing the two men into surprised silence. Jen must not have been a very imposing sight in her sweatpants and tee shirt, but she kept her chin high and looked at her father, trying to ignore the bile that rose in her throat at the sight of Victor.

"Dad, you need to stop." Her voice only trembled a little bit. She met his gaze, praying he grasped why she needed him to be quiet.

And then she turned to Victor, refusing to allow her eyes to fully focus on him but willing them to reveal all the coldness that she felt in her heart. "And you need to leave."

Jen's world did not spontaneously combust after she took a few steps back from Robert Caruso. But she did – though she hated to admit it to herself – feel a bit heavier. Her heart felt burdened once again, like all of the weight she had allowed herself to share with him had returned to its resting place on her shoulders.

Her cynicism towards life, the skepticism that his kindness had started to draw out of her, was back. It was that familiar exhaustion she often felt from trying to thrive in a world run by men – of feeling like she needed to hold something sharp between her fingers if she was walking alone, of being nervous every time she was in a crowded subway car that someone was going to step on and literally rub her the wrong way. Of grappling with the fact that even the good ones like Robert and Jude had probably objectified a woman at some point and didn't think twice about it because it was carved into their brains when they were just kids that it was fine – because they were brought up in a world where boys were taught that that was totally normal behavior and girls were taught to expect it and put up with it. Of being bullied by an older man to keep quiet about something that was his mistake. Of knowing that the leaders of her religion – the very thing that she believed was above all human flaw, that was holy and sacred to her – were at worst the same ones harming the most vulnerable or at best the ones who turned a blind eye to it and let it continue.

She didn't know what being a "good Catholic" was supposed to mean anymore, nor had she known anytime recently. Her mom was supposedly a good Catholic, but she cheated. Victor was supposedly a good Catholic, but he cheated. Dad was supposedly a good Catholic, but he was vengeful. Jen didn't know what she was supposed to make of any of that.

But her faith, confusing as it was, remained.

And she forged on, as she always did.

Seeing Robert was unavoidably awkward now. The letters came to a halt. She was dejected when, the day after they met at the museum to talk, he came into work without slipping a letter onto her desk. But as she stared at the spot where he typically would have placed it, it occurred to her that she had no clue what he would have written to her, or she to him.

After all, insisting that they shouldn't see each other outside of work meant they ought not to do anything that would make them want to see each other outside of work. So she'd survive without the letters. It was enough to see the little smile he'd still give her when she accidentally caught his eye, a reminder that they were perhaps still friends even if from a respectable distance. That if she truly, desperately needed him, she could still come to him.

Jude, fortunately and unfortunately, was very attentive. He came to catch up with her one morning at an inconvenient time—Robert was walking past and Jen's cheeks had turned rosy as her eyes flickered over to him for a quick second. Barely a week had passed since everything changed between them and she quite frankly didn't know how to handle it gracefully yet. She suspected he might not either.

And Jude had strolled over at just the right moment to give him a front-row seat to this occurrence. As he sat down in one of the spare chairs near Jen's desk – the ones intended for parents who were waiting on their kids or kids who were waiting to be picked up for an early dismissal – he was looking at her quizzically. When his eyes floated towards the hallway that Robert had just disappeared down, she knew he'd seen enough to guess what was going on.

He quietly said, "Something happened with Caruso." It was an observation, not a question.

She managed not to blush further. "Nothing happened."

"You've been sulking."

Jen gave him a small eye roll. "You know I don't sulk over men."

It was partial truth and partial lie. She didn't sulk over men – until now, apparently. She was starting to get on her own nerves, yet she couldn't bring herself to stop caring or stop wanting.

"You seem to be sulking over this one," he observed.

Were they not at work, she might have caved in and told him the whole story. But aside from the glaringly obvious fact that this was not the time and place for that conversation, there was also a very important truth in life that she'd learned not to contradict.

Never admit to a man that he's right.

Jude had still seemed highly unconvinced by her claims when he left her to go make sure that the library was prepped for his next class, so she wasn't all that surprised when Celie showed up at her door that evening. The guilty look on her face – as well as the grocery bag in her hand stuffed with all of Jen's favorite snacks – was a dead giveaway that she'd been sent by her brother to retrieve intel.

"We never finished that conversation about your coworker..."

Jen sighed – leave it up to the siblings to conspire against her – but opened the door wide enough for her friend to step inside.

Though nowadays they had been meeting most often at Spill the Beans, Celie was still a frequent addition to Jen's apartment and thus fit in quite naturally. Many of the items in the living room were acquired on thrift store runs the two girls took together, and she recalled the mocha-colored jacket that Celie shrugged off and draped over a kitchen chair as being an acquisition from one such outing.

Jen wasn't actually too perturbed that she had come to get information out of her—she didn't like keeping many secrets from her anyhow and sharing stories with a friend was at least an enjoyable way to spend one's evening. She considered pouring them some wine to accompany their chat but didn't want Celie taking the L home late at night while at all inebriated.

She started at the beginning, filling in all the gaps in Celie's understanding of the situation, of which there were many. Her dark eyes widened as Jen explained it all, but the latter suspected that this reaction had less to do with how things played out and much more to do with feeling surprised that it was Little Miss I-Hate-Men Jen herself who had gotten herself entangled in such a conundrum.

"So...you guys are just cutting each other off?" Celie clarified once Jen had wrapped up (Celie had called her very brief recount of the kiss "miserably dull," but Jen was much too shy to give a thorough play-by-play).

"For the moment, it seems," she sighed. "I don't know how to just be his friend right now."

She didn't believe that a kiss could be meaningless, though she'd tried to force herself to think that way many times before. She wanted that to be her way to cope with the affair – to convince herself that physical attraction alone wasn't a massive issue. She wanted to sell herself on the myth that her mother could never be in love with someone besides Dad.

It didn't work.

Celie nodded, twirling a small lock of her curly hair around her fingers. It was something she had the habit of doing while she was thinking. "Understandable," she said agreeably. "I just hate that you have to cut him off if he makes you happy."

Jen thought about how glum her mood had been for the past week and how different it was from how she'd felt when he took her out to dinner. They'd been smiling and laughing and sharing amusing childhood stories like they'd already known each other for years.

She'd always been so scared of putting herself out there, so she couldn't help but be a little bitter that finally doing it hadn't gotten her very far.

"I do, too," she mumbled, reaching into the bag of sweets that Celie had brought for a piece of chocolate. "But even if he wanted to risk seeing each other in secret, I can't be that kind of person. I can't...I can't do the thing I've spent so much time resenting my mom for. I just can't."

After all, it had clearly worked out so well for Mom.

Celie's eyebrows scrunched together like she was just now processing what Jen really was upset about. "Hold on—you're aware that casually dating someone you work with and cheating on your husband are two very different things, right?"

Jen let out another long sigh, her breath whistling through her teeth. "I know, I know. But if my boss found out..."

She couldn't even imagine what Nora's reaction would be. But somewhere in there, she'd probably make fun of Jen for the irony of it all. Celie wasn't going to be able to truly understand until Jen finally confessed the thing she'd been holding back.

"My boss...she's..." Jen wrung her hands together despite knowing that she really needed to kill the habit of doing it. "I didn't want to tell you this before because I knew you'd feel bad for ever recommending me for this job, but my boss's name is Nora Ambrose."

It took a few seconds for the connection to click in Celie's brain, during which her expression was blank. But then she froze, stopping her finger mid-twirl. "As in-"

"Yes."

"You should have told me!" she burst, but it was more of a shocked exclamation than an angry one.

"I know, I'm sorry," Jen offered, and she truly was. "If it makes you feel any better, she doesn't talk to me all that much."

This seemed to appease her companion slightly. She slouched back slightly, thinking. "...I guess that complicates things."

Jen nodded.

"And I imagine this must be a lot of feelings to manage at once."

For the first time in days, Jen laughed, and it was a reminder that all was not as dark as it seemed. "It is, but they haven't all been bad ones."

Celie was quiet for a long moment while she read Jen's expression. She wasn't sure what all her friend would find written there on her features; all Jen knew was that Celie was sometimes better at reading her than she was at reading herself.

But her eyes must have been telling a story of him, and not of her parents or Nora or anyone else, because Celie softly asked, "What's he like?"

Jen faltered. There were many words she could have used to describe him, but it dawned on her that there was one more thing in which she was certain.

He was so much better with words than she was.

So rather than say anything to Celie just yet, Jen climbed up from the sofa, walked across the room to where her bookcase was, and knelt down to retrieve something from the bottom shelf. She handled the old shoebox with care, though its contents were light as a feather and no harm would come from accidentally dropping it.

As she returned to Celie's side, she felt as though she were about to reveal something somewhat intimate, yet there was no fear in her heart as she held out the box of his letters. "See for yourself."

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A/N:

Hi everyone! Sorry if this felt like a filler chapter, but their dilemma obviously isn't going to solve itself right away. I hope you'll enjoy reading a couple of friendship and family-focused chapters in the meantime :)

Thank you all for reading and don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed it!