Without You

[Baby_Girl89]

This is the second story I wrote for my fic cl[arse]. Enjoy.

<div align="center">Without You</div>

“Jonah we need to talk,” I say to him as I walk into our bedroom.

“This doesn’t sound good,” he says back. I sit beside him on our bed and then he puts his arm around me. “What are we talking about, Jos?”

“Well as you know we’ve been together for a little over six years now,” I say staring at my hands twiddling my thumbs around one another.

“Yes, six wonderful years and I’m the better for it,” he says giving me a light squeeze.

“Don’t try and sweet talk me Jonah.”

“But I’m not…”

“Please let me try and say what I need to say,” I say looking up into his eyes.

“What is it Baby?” he asks creasing his eyebrows in concern. After a moment of my silence he says, “Joslyn?”

I take a deep breath. I don’t want to say what I’m going to say, but I know that if I don’t do it now, I never will and then I’ll never get out of the purgatory of our lives. “Jonah, I love you, with all of my heart, you know that, but I can’t take this anymore.”

“What can’t you take anymore? Baby talk to me.”

“I’m trying, but this is really hard,” I say trying to keep down the knot in my throat from getting anywhere. I look down at my hands again. He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he senses what I’m about to say. I’m hoping he knows how to stop me. He stays quiet, holding my hands and rubbing them trying to comfort me. “Jonah,” I say looking up at him again. “I think it’s time that I finally give you the space that you’ve been craving all your life.”

[Baby_Girl89]

“What…what are you saying?” he stammers. He lets go of me and turns his body toward me.

“I’m saying I’m moving out,” I spit out before I can change my mind. My eyes start wandering around the room. I look at the kite he never flies or let his kids use, just hanging on the wall. I look behind us and see my computer and our TV just sitting there begging to be used. On the side of the wall sitting on the floor full of clothes is our laundry basket with a mix of clothes neither of us can find the time to wash. My papers from when I was still in college are still scattered along the floor. And there are boxes on top of boxes from all the things I’ve bought during our time together, a major pet peeve of his. In an instant all of these images vanish as I hear him break me from my memory burning.

“Why?” he asks.

I look back at him. Hurt clearly pulsating from his color changing eyes, presently a greenish grey. “Honey, it’s been six years. If you’re not even ready to commit to an engagement with me by now, I don’t know if you’ll ever be ready to get married again. I mean I know you’ve told me that it’s gonna be hard for you to get there again after Maria left you, but six years? SIX years? I’m beginning to think it’s never going to happen for us. So I think it’s time that I finally give you the space that you’ve been craving for. I’m not saying that you can’t see me anymore, I’m just saying that well, I won’t be living here anymore. I’m… gonna move into an apartment here shortly and then I’ll be out of your hair. I’ll give you the information that you need to find me, but I just can’t live here anymore. Like I said before it’s been six years, if you’re not ready to marry me by now I don’t know if you ever will be, and I can’t just live here and not be your wife any longer. If you change your mind I’ll let you know where you can find me. Just give me a few days to move out and then I’ll be gone. You’ll finally have a chance to experience being on your own, especially since your mom moved out to live with your brother a while ago.”

[Baby_Girl89]

“But that was supposed to make things better for us. You can’t just go now I love you.”

“Jonah, darling, I love you too, but I just can’t do this anymore, I’m gonna go. I’m sorry.”

“Isn't there anything I can say to change your mind?”

“You could finally ask me to marry you.”

“You know I can’t do that right now.”

“Well then I guess there’s nothing you can say. I’m leaving.”

“I guess I have no choice, but to let you go. Just remember that I’ll always love you, Joslyn.”

“I’ll always love you too Jonah.”

I get up off of the bed and start to gather my things. I already managed to get myself an apartment and today I’m going to sign the lease. I don’t want to, but what else can I do? I start taking things to my car. Every time I walk into the bedroom I see Jonah just sitting there staring at the ground. On my fourth trip in I say, “Well think of it this way, at least you’ll have a clean room again,” it’s a weak attempt to get the ice broken, but it’s at least an attempt.

“That doesn’t even matter to me now. I’ve lost you.”

I sit beside him again and take his hands in mine. “Jonah, you haven’t lost me. I’ll still be a part of your life if you want me to be, but I guess I feel we may need to take a step back. I’m giving you the chance to finally experience the one thing in your life you never had the chance to before. I thought that would make you happy.”

[Baby_Girl89]

“How can this make me happy? I won’t be able to see you every night when I go to sleep. I won’t be able to wake up and kiss you good morning. All at once you’ve just taken everything away from me. This was exactly what I was afraid of when I couldn’t marry you.”

“Ironic isn’t it? That the one thing you were afraid of happening during marriage is now happening because you didn’t marry me. But Jonah, you had to know that this was going to happen. I originally gave you four years to propose marriage and then I let another two years by.”

“I thought with that I’d have more time.”

“We’ve been living like a married couple for so long now, I think you’ve taken it all for granted. Besides, now you won’t have to wonder what it’s like to wake up to no one around to bug you and you’ll be in your own home instead of the hotel in Belen.”

“I guess, but I don’t know. I’ve gotten so used to having you around.”

“It’s not like I’m skipping town. You can still come to see me whenever you want.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” I give him a kiss and go back to work. Surprisingly he begins to help me.

“So where are you taking all of this stuff?” he asks.

“Oh well, I did find an apartment at Winslow Crossings, but I haven’t signed my forms yet.”

“Oh, have you been planning this for a while?”

“About a week now. I just kept hoping,” I say putting some things in the trunk.

“Can I finish helping you get all of this over there today?”

“Boy you sound like you want me out of here, more than you thought.”

“I just want to make things easier for you,” he says.

[Baby_Girl89]

“Right, well thanks, I can use the help considering all the clutter I’ve got around here.” We move all of my things out.

Now I’m sitting alone in my apartment wondering, if I made a mistake.

<div align="center">* * * * *</div>

The next day at work I mope. “What’s wrong?” Ernesto, my manager and friend asks.

“I moved out of my house yesterday,” I say.

“What? What happened? You didn’t tell me there was anything wrong between you and Jonah, Jos.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’ve been planning this for about a week. I moved into Winslow Crossings. I felt it was time to finally give Jonah his space, since he’s never once lived alone. I mean he always told me how much he desperately wanted to know what it was like to wake up and have his whole house to himself and live alone without worrying about anyone else or anything else. I thought I’d finally give him that. No girlfriend, no invaded life. Well I’m not really not his girlfriend anymore, just not a live-in girlfriend. But I tell ya Ernie, last night was the hardest night of my life.”

“Why did you really leave?” he asks.

“I just told you why I left,” feeling a little hurt at his accusation, even though I know he’s right.

“I’ve known you for four years now; I know when you tell me bs.”

“It’s not bs.”

“Well there’s definitely more to it than you’re telling me. But I bet I can guess what it is.”

“So why do you bother asking?”

[Baby_Girl89]

“So I can know for sure. So let me guess, you left because…he still hasn’t proposed to you?”

I just nod my head in agreement. “Well good for you. Make him realize what he’s missing out on without you in his life.”

“But he still has me. Just not in his bed every night.”

“He’s still missing out if you ask me.”

“Ernesto,” I say pushing his shoulder. I laugh for the first time in a week.

“Give him a week. He’ll come crawling back to you.”

“God you don’t know how right I wish you are.”

<div align="center">* * * * *</div>

A month p[arse]es by and he never calls me. He doesn’t even pick up when I call him. My heart aches at the thought that he’s realized life is better without me and he no longer wants to be in my life. I never even get the chance to see him in the grocery store by chance like I do every other person in this tiny town. I shop at Safeway, his favorite place to shop, just hoping to catch even a glimpse at him to see how he’s holding up, but I never see him. He doesn’t even order pizza from Domino’s anymore. I’ve never once taken a call from him or seen anyone go out on a delivery to his house.

I go into work today exactly a month from the day I left his home. I look at Ernesto as I walk in. “Still no call?” he asks.

I shake my head. “You were wrong, so wrong. I guess he’s realized life without me is better than life was with me or would be with me. And I still love him so much,” I say willing the tears fighting to be free back into my tear ducts.

[Baby_Girl89]

Ernie comes out from behind his cubicle like area and gives me a hug. “It’s all right Joslyn. Sooner or later he’s bound to realize that…”

I cut him off, I can’t listen to him defend my now ex-boyfriend, “Ernie, no, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep up this hope that he’s gonna get some sort of revelation that we belong together and that he should finally ask me to marry him. I guess it really is over.”

“So what are you going to do?” he asks as he strokes my hair and lets my tears fall on his shoulder.

“I don’t know.” I cry freely now. Luckily the two of us were the only ones working that morning or the gossip would float through town that we were together now. Truth was I never saw Ernesto as anything more than a friend.

“Jos, can I ask you something?”

“What is it Ernie?”

“I think this has been a hard month for you, and I’ve kind of been holding my tongue about something.”

“About what?”

“Well since you say that you and Jonah are officially over, will you go out with me tonight?” The look of shock on my face as I look up at him must be making him think that I think it's a bad idea because he rushes on to say, “As a friend of course.”

“Only as a friend?” I ask making sure there was nothing more to it. I knew he had a little bit of an attraction toward me that he had to push aside knowing that I had Jonah.

“Well it has been a while since we’ve had a nice dinner together to just talk and it seems to me that it’s exactly what you need right now.”

“Okay,” I nod, “We can do that.”

[Baby_Girl89]

<div align="center">* * * * *</div>

Later we go out to eat at the Adobe Inn Restaurant. I don’t have much of an appetite. “I know you wanna talk about this,” Ernesto says taking my hands in his.

I flinch; I’m not used to this kind of affection from him. We usually just pal around and talk about nothing. Our friendship is actually pretty shallow, all surface and no depth, at least not much. “I do. I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. How do I just move on without him? I gave him six years of my life. We lived together for five. I already started thinking of him as my husband and he just couldn’t commit to having it on paper. Am I not worthy of marriage?” The food comes, we ignore it.

“Of course you are. He’s just not thinking straight. Any man would be lucky to marry you. And now that you are no longer with Jonah I bet the proposals will start falling at your feet.”

I roll my eyes at him. I am no beauty, quite plain in fact. My eyes are boring, brown tilted upward, some would say almond shaped. My nose is small almost flat and my lips are of medium shape, nothing outstanding. My body may have curves, but I am a woman after all. Jonah and Ernie were both just odd, but I loved Jonah with all my heart anyway. “I highly doubt that. Besides I don’t know if I could just jump into another relationship right now. Besides who would want to be my rebound relationship, those things never go well,” I say looking up into his eyes. A look of hope I had once noticed earlier tonight disappeared. It was my turn to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Joslyn, how long are you going to wait until you move on? Do you think you ever will?”

[Baby_Girl89]

“I don’t know. This is my first broken relationship. I have no idea how long this heartache is going to last. Why do you ask?”

“Look, I lied today. When I asked you to come to dinner with me, I did so in the hopes that maybe we could think about being more.” I draw my hands away from him. “We are so good together. You make me laugh like no other woman ever has before. You mesmerize me when you sing to me. You comfort me when there are problems in my life. And just seeing you is enough to make me feel better on a bad day. Jos, I well I…”

I cut him off; I don’t want to hear what he’s going to say. “No Ernesto don’t say it.”

“Love you. And not in the ‘I love you, you love me friendship’ we always talk about. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since the beginning.” I thought about that first time I saw him at work. He was dressed in the usual Domino’s navy blue shirt and khaki pants and Domino’s baseball cap. He struck me as a very handsome man. He had startling greenish blue eyes. He had a soft line about his face and a little moustache above his lip, which worked for him. Some I suppose would describe him as a pretty boy.

“All of these other relationships I’ve been in since I’ve met you have failed because I couldn’t get over the love that I have for you.” He stops then and takes something out of his pocket. He presents it to me. In his hands he holds a little blue velvet box. He slowly opens it and shows me the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. “I was going to give this to you tonight. I was going to ask you to be my wife. I know it was an impulsive idea, but I knew it was what you wanted, to be someone’s wife and I wanted you to be mine.”

I continue staring at the ring. “Ernie, I don’t know what to say,” I start. I really am speechless. I had no idea that his love ran for me that deeply, especially since I didn’t think our relationship was that strong.

[Baby_Girl89]

“Don’t say anything,” he closes the box and puts it away. I look up to see him looking back at me. “I just needed to let you know what I had actually planned for tonight. But I know I can’t go through with it. You wouldn’t have said yes, but I needed to let you know before I say what I’m going to say now.”

“What is it Ernie?” I ask still trying to process the information that just landed in my lap.

“You should really resolve this issue with Jonah once and for all. If you two really are over it’s time you talk to him and find out, because as I understand it the two of you never truly used parting words. Maybe Jonah has actually been completely miserable this entire time and has just been afraid to ask you to come back to him. I don’t know. All I know is you two need to talk. And then if you two really are over, I think it’ll make it easier for you to move on if you so choose. And maybe you will end up with me. For now, I need you to find out if you have really left Jonah behind.”

“Ernesto, you are a noble man. Even after you’ve declared your love for me you’re encouraging me to go back to another.”

“Joslyn, I just want to see you happy. A man in love thinks of these things. I don’t want you to be with me if you’re unhappy.”

“Thank you.” The food sat there the entire length of our conversation untouched. Ernie gets the check and he pays for the untouched food after putting it into a box to take home.

He drives me home and walks me to my door. He stands there and stares down into my eyes. His eyes have a look of hunger in them, he looks like he wants to kiss me, but I cut him to the quick and reach up to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you for everything,” I say.

“What are friends for?” he asks with a smile. “Good luck.”

[Baby_Girl89]

“Thanks,” I turn around and enter my apartment. Hoping the next day would bring new promises.

<div align="center">* * * * *</div>

The next day I wake up to a phone call on my cell phone. “Hello?” I answer groggily.

“Jos?”

My eyes pop wide open, “Jonah is that you?” I ask.

“Yeah it’s me, can I come over?”

“Yeah of course. You know where I am come over any time.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Okay, bye.” [crap], I think, I have to get ready. I can’t look like this when he gets over here. I quickly jump out of bed and look for something suitable to wear. I find a red spaghetti strap dress that forms to the top half of my body and flows around the bottom half of my body to my knees. I know how much he loves my calves. I put my hair up in a pony tail to hide the mess I woke up with to keep myself from spending too much time fussing with it.

Then I go out into my living room and wait for the knock. Moments later I hear the hard rapture on my door, a thunking sound. “I’m coming,” I say getting off the couch and walking to the door.

I open the door and find Jonah in khaki slacks and a polo shirt. Clothes I’d never seen before. I look up at his face; he stands a foot taller than me. His face is clean shaven, his eyes are now the color of emerald, mesmerizing me. His right hand is behind his back. “Hi, you look gorgeous.”

“Thank you, you look quite handsome yourself,” I reply.

[Baby_Girl89]

His right hand comes forward and a bouquet of roses and carnations, my two favorite flowers, are before my eyes. “These are for you.”

I take them from him and say, “Thank you.” Then I ask, “So what are you doing here?” before I can censor myself.

“Can I come in first?” he asks.

“Oh I’m sorry, yes of course.” I let him in. My heart is pounding. This seems like a good sign. Who would bring flowers over to someone they’re going to break-up with? Then again he is an odd fellow. We sit on the couch. I place the flowers beside me and say, “So?”

“This past month has given me a lot to think about. I’ve been going to work a lot. I’m sorry I haven’t called you. And that’s why I don’t pick up the phone when you call. I always seem to be at work when you call.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I’ve been saving up a lot of money. And I’ve been thinking a lot about moving. Only there’s something in my life that’s still not quite right. Every night when I laid in the hotel in Belen after the train would get in, I’d just start thinking of my life and how happy I was, actually it was the same thing I was thinking on the train on the way over. But then I’d remember that you weren’t a part of it anymore.”

“Jonah that’s not true. It was never my intention to not be a part of your life anymore. I just didn’t want to live in your house anymore.”

“In any case, when I’d be on my way home I’d start to feel good again knowing that you would be at home waiting for me, until I’d get home and remember that you had left the house. Then I’d toss and turn in bed because you weren’t there for me to snuggle with. Then once I’d fallen asleep I’d have nightmares that you were with someone else. And then in the morning when I’d expect to find you in my bed to kiss you good morning, you weren’t there. After a while I kind of got used to it, but then I just decided to go to work more often than not like I used to. I didn’t like having my own space all the time. I missed having you there. And I hated not being able to tell you that I missed you and that I loved you.”

[Baby_Girl89]

“I missed being there and missed not getting to say those things either. Why didn’t you just call me from the hotel room?”

“I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to say. I mean what do you say to the woman who wants to marry you and you still can’t commit. It would’ve been a pretty awkward situation.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“There’s more,” he continues. “Then last night I received a call from my aunt.”

“Gossiping about what this time?”

“You.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Last night she was at the Adobe Inn Restaurant with some of her friends. She saw you there with some guy, she didn’t know who.”

“Oh goodness,” I say my heart pounding even faster. Maybe he is here to break up with me after all, I think.

[Baby_Girl89]

“Well she called me and told me that she saw him show you a ring, but you didn’t take it. And it got me thinking how you could move on so fast that someone would give you a ring already. But the fact that you didn’t take it obviously meant you weren’t serious enough about him yet. Then my heart started hurting. I started thinking about what it would’ve been like if you had accepted his ring. What would I do then? I know it seems as if I’ve been ignoring you, but I’ve just been working, trying to think things through and save some money.”

“For moving?” I ask.

“And for this,” he pulls out a box from his pocket. It’s red velvet. He opens it and the ring inside made the ring from the night before look dull and boring. “Joslyn, I’ve realized the error of my ways. I’ve realized that a life without you is no life at all. Please accept my ring and tell me that you’ll be my wife. I don’t need space, all I need is you.”

I look up from looking at the ring. I look deep into his eyes, which have now turned a light shade of blue, and see all the love that I cherished shine through them. “Yes, I will. I love you so much Jonah,” I say putting the ring on and wrapping my arms around his neck to give him a warm embrace of love. We kiss p[arse]ionately, as if we never would again.

Then once we part he looks into my eyes and says, “I love you too Joslyn.”

[Raevengeance]

awwwwww