Cash (Hawthorne Brothers Romance) (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jenna

I woke up to Cash’s face, his chin a little bit stubbly. He wrapped his arms around me, telling me good morning, as he was finally a free man.

“It feels so good knowing that you’re not leaving in ten minutes,” I said, grabbing his hand and holding it.

“Yeah,” he said, without much happiness in his tone.

“Everything okay?” I asked, looking back at him.

“Yeah, just a little tired. I think I drank too much last night,” he said.

“You didn’t seem drunk,” I said.

“Maybe I’m just dehydrated, then. I think I’m going to go get some water,” he said, letting go of me and getting up. “Do you want any?”

“Yes, please,” I said before sitting up.

I sat in his room for about ten minutes, alone, waiting for him, before I finally slipped out of bed and put some clothes on. What was taking him so long? It shouldn’t take ten minutes to get two glasses of water. I walked downstairs and saw him in the kitchen, his hand against his forehead. He looked upset about something. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry about the water. I’ll get it now,” he said, getting out a glass and filling it. 

He handed it to me as I walked up, but before I could take a sip, I had to know what was wrong. I knew I was right a few minutes ago in bed. “Tell me,” I said, looking at him with an honestly concerned expression.

“It happened last night. When David came up to me, it wasn’t just work stuff. Well, it was, but with other stuff,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re going to hate me, or at least be really mad. It wasn’t my idea,” he said.

“Babe, just tell me. I promise I won’t be mad at you, so long as you’re honest with me,” I said.

“David said the studio wants me to start basically right away on another movie. It’s a superhero movie, since those are so big right now, and they want me to do all this training for a few months so that I can get good at different types of martial arts,” he said.

“Well, that’s a little soon to start working again, but it isn’t filming, so shouldn’t the schedule be okay?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his head hanging down.

“Well, why not?” I asked.

“They want me to spend a few months traveling the world, starting in Thailand,” he said.

“Oh,” I replied, unsure what else to say.

I was in shock more than anything as I tried to process what he was telling me. Was he leaving me for a few months to go to Asia? I definitely wasn’t a girlfriend who held her man back, but I’d be lying if I said I was okay with him going. We were doing so well, and him going away would set us back so far. It might even break us. I didn’t want that.

“When do you have to let them know?” I asked.

“By tomorrow. They want me to leave like next week or something,” he said.

“And you’re just now telling me about it?” I asked, as I felt tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

“I just found out about it, Jenna. Don’t think that I’ve been holding secrets, please don’t think that,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s a lot to process in a short amount of time. I wanted to just do it here, train here, but they said no. They want me to be authentic so that the movie doesn’t suffer,” he said.

“It seems like an awful lot of bother to go through for one movie,” I said.

“It’s for at least four, maybe more, I don’t know,” he said, almost ashamed.

“Wow,” I said, before the waterworks started.

“No, please don’t cry, I never want to make you cry,” he said, coming over to me and pulling me into him.

I couldn’t stop crying, my eyes having been dry for the past year or two, but I just couldn’t control myself in this moment. I felt like my entire world was crashing down, and I couldn’t help but be upset. Cash would miss my graduation, I wouldn’t get to see him, and the time difference would be so fucked up that we’d barely get to talk or video chat.

“So are you doing it?” I asked.

“It’s just such a big opportunity. I don’t want to leave you, but I don’t want to look back on this in the future and think that I made a big mistake by not taking the role. I’ve dreamt about being a superhero since I was a kid,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Then do it,” I said, the words that came out of my mouth going against everything my heart was telling me.

“What?” he asked in disbelief.

“I can’t be the reason you don’t do something in life. If we weren’t together and had never met, you’d jump on this opportunity. The only reason you aren’t now is because you’re dating me. I can’t do that to you. I can’t kill your dreams and have you resent me forever,” I said.

“But what about us?” he asked.

“What about us? I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“I don’t want to lose you, Jenna,” he said.

“I’m falling for you so hard, but you’re going to be so far away and I don’t want to sit around wondering what could have been,” I said.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Maybe it’s best to just see if things pick back up again when you get back,” I said, clearing my throat.

“You’re breaking up with me?” he asked, backing up.

“No, I’m just saying that dating somebody who could just leave so quickly is a hard thing to do. I knew you worked a lot, but I didn’t know you would or could just leave so quickly,” I said.

“So you want to date other people?” he asked.

“No, that’s not it at all. All I want is you, and you know that, so don’t try to make me out to be some slut or something. I don’t know, I just don’t know,” I said.

I did know, though. I knew exactly what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was screaming on the inside, more at myself than at him or his stupid job, and I wanted to let those screams out. I was doing what I did in the past to protect myself, and that was by breaking up with somebody before they could break up with me, or leave me, or whatever you want to call it. Cash was leaving for a few months or longer, and I didn’t think I could take him not coming back or not coming back to me. At least this way I was safe, and he couldn’t break up with me.

“I don’t think you’re a slut, so don’t say that, please. I just won’t take the role, then. I’m not losing you,” he said.

“No, you’re taking it. I can’t be with you if you won’t take it,” I said.

“So I’m fucked either way, right? That’s what you’re telling me. Either I take it and you dump me, or I don’t take it and you dump me,” he said, his voice rising a little.

“Don’t yell, please. I can’t be the reason you don’t do things in life. You deserve to follow your dreams, and your dream is to do this. When you get back, if you still want me, I’m here. Until then, I think we should be apart. I can’t sit around looking out my window like some Civil War wife wondering when you’ll walk up the front steps and back into my life. I think this is for the best,” I said.

“I can see there’s no changing your mind. I guess it’s over, then, at least for now,” he said, walking away. The sorrow in his voice broke my heart.

“I’ll go get my things,” I said softly before walking upstairs to his room.

I crashed, falling onto his bed, as I couldn’t help but sob uncontrollably. What did I just do? Why was I such a fool? This man was the best man I’d ever met, treating me so amazingly, and I just dumped him like yesterday’s garbage. I was abhorrent, and I hated myself right now.

A few minutes in, my makeup from last night likely now spread all over his sheets, I felt him grab me, picking me up, before he pulled me in tightly to him. He wrapped his arms around me, his chin resting on top of my head, before he kissed it softly. My head started to hurt from all the crying. 

I looked up at him, wiping my nose with my finger. All I saw was the look of a man with a broken heart. He leaned in, kissing me softly on the lips, as if for the final time. There was an eerie sense of peacefulness to it all, as if it were meant to happen at this very moment. When he let go of me, I packed up my things, and he walked me outside to my car. 

I tried to be brave, to be strong, but I lost it as soon as I got onto the main street. I pulled into a gas station parking lot, parked my car, and lost all control as I sobbed uncontrollably and wondered what I’d just done. I was a fool.

•••

Two days had passed and I swore this was never going to get easier. I know they say that you need time after a breakup for things to settle down and for you to get over it, but how long did I really need? I read somewhere that you need one week for every month you were together, but we weren’t exactly together all
that
long. I thought it hurt more because I was thinking of what I was going to miss out on, assuming that he didn’t come back to me.

Malia asked me if I did it because I wanted to date other guys. I got where she was coming from, since she said if I wasn’t going to try to date other men that I should just stay with him because either way it was the same thing, with me not seeing anybody else, but it just felt harder than that. He could just pick up and leave on a moment’s notice, especially after telling me he was here to stay, and that was the big underlying problem. 

I didn’t want to think that those sorts of things could ever happen. I wanted to dream that we would just be together. Sure, he’d sometimes have to go on location, maybe in Paris, or Dubai, or somewhere else for a little while, but I could go with him, and he wouldn’t just
leave
, especially after promising me all the things we could do together now that he was off. I’d have time to prepare. I’d have time to process it all. I definitely didn’t have that now.

I sat in class, tapping my pen against my thigh, and I felt my stomach growl like it hadn’t been fed in days. Really, it barely had; I hadn’t eaten all that much, mostly because I didn’t have much of an appetite even though I was getting hunger pains. I was depressed, sad, whatever you want to call it, but I knew it would all turn out in the end. I was going to get through it. 

I checked my phone, looking for what exactly I didn’t know, because Cash and I hadn’t spoken since I’d left. I was somewhat expecting him to text me, telling me he wanted to be with me and that he’d turned down the offer, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I was living in a pipedream on that one. I had to get on with my life, though, no matter how much it hurt, and burying my face in schoolwork was the best way to do that. The semester was almost over, and even though we still had about a month and a half left, the work was piling on even more.

I didn’t write many notes, mainly on account of how I was feeling, and the only reason I showed up was because this professor took attendance points and tacked them on at the end of the semester. I wanted to bolster my grade, especially now with the way things were happening, so I brought my body here even if my mind was absent. 

Class soon ended and I slowly picked up my bag. It felt like a bunch of rocks were inside. I was weak. 

“Want to meet on campus for coffee?” Malia asked over text.

“Yeah, I’m done now. When?” I asked.

“Now is good. I’ll see you over there soon,” she said, alluding to the only coffee shop on campus.

I walked all the way across campus, something a weakened woman shouldn’t do, shuffling my feet the entire way. I started to feel a cramp in my hamstring. Malia was already inside, sitting with her coffee and a blueberry muffin, when I set my bag with her and walked up to the counter. The baked goods smelled amazing and my mouth salivated and my stomach begged me to get it something. “I should at least try to eat something,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Can I get you something?” the barista asked.

“A medium hot chocolate with whipped cream and a giant cookie, please,” I said, as my cravings wanted chocolate and chocolate alone.

I stepped to the side and waited before she brought both over, the cookie a little warm from being heated up, the chocolate melting on the wax paper. “How are you feeling?” Malia asked as I sat down.

“About as good as I can, I guess. That’s code for not so great,” I said, taking a sip of my drink.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You could just text him, he hasn’t left the country yet,” she said.

“If I do that I’ll just feel like I’m caving on my feelings,” I said.

“Are you really, though? It seems like your feelings are pretty shot right now, and I think you just made a stupid mistake in the heat of the moment. You were so pumped about hanging around with him, and then he tells you ‘oh hey, I’m leaving next week and I won’t be back for a couple months.’ That’s heartbreaking news to hear for anybody,” she said.

“Yeah, I don’t know. He’s got so much on his mind right now, and I don’t want to add stress to his situation,” I said.

“I think that train has come and left the station, Jenna. I think it would cause him
less
stress for you to reach out to him,” she said.

I pulled off a small chunk of the cookie and slowly chewed it as I tried to wonder if she was right. Should I take that chance? Should I just suck it up and swallow my pride? I wasn’t exactly known for doing that sort of thing.