Mr. Brightside - 13. Chapter 13

Mr. Brightside

Chapter 13

Jason stared, open mouthed, at Denise standing on his porch. Mentally exhausted, for a moment he thought he was imagining things. He had spent much of his time walking the streets of the Quarter thinking about her, and the sight of her seemed almost like an apparition his fevered mind had conjured.

He had realized today that he had, in fact, never really loved her. Jason had loved the idea of her; the idea that he would have the wife, kids, and dream life that would make him happy and his parents proud. He loved the idea of Brad being his brother and having a normal life. Somehow, he had ignored all the warning signs along the way telling him that marrying Denise wouldn’t be the easy path to happiness he had wanted it to be.

Even more than realizing his lack of love for Denise, Jason had even admitted to himself that part of her attraction was that he didn’t love her the way he had Shane; therefore, her power to hurt him, to rip his heart out was non-existent; conversely, he had never worried that he could her hurt deeply as well.

Jason, guiltily, had realized that he had never truly taken her feelings into consideration past acknowledging that she cared deeply for him. He had intended to be a good, faithful husband, forsaking all others, and he had thought that was good enough. To barter faithfulness and loyalty for love and a family.

But his talk with Paul and his time spent remembering the past had made him realize where his life had gone wrong. It wasn’t at the moment he had attacked Thomas and Shane. It had gone amiss much earlier. It had driven off the rails when he refused to admit, to himself and to Shane, that his feelings for Shane were more than just that of a friend for another. His life had suffered the moment he had chosen to lie. To lie to himself and others. To lie about who he was and what he really wanted.

Today, Jason had made the decision to stop lying; to end things with Denise, for her sake as well as his own. However, he hadn’t planned to put his plan in place so soon. He had placed the fateful incident at some comfortable point in the future. So much for plans.

As Jason stood motionless and silent in the walkway, streetlights illuminating the emotions playing across his face, Denise became ever more disturbed. She waited patiently for him to greet her, to hug her, give her a welcoming kiss, but nothing came.

“Jason?” she finally said. “Jason,” she repeated walking toward him.

As if waking from a trance, Jason started, and stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

“Denise,” he said. “What are you doing here? How did you get in my apartment?”

She reached him on the walkway. “Is that any way to greet your financee?” she said, and leaned in for a kiss. Involuntarily, Jason flinched away. Denise stepped back a startled look on her face.

“Why are you here? How did you get in?”

Denise was starting to get angry. After ignoring her for weeks, always too tired to text or call, and too busy with who knows what to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit, she had taken time out of her own busy school schedule to surprise Jason with a visit and a home cooked meal. Instead of a pleasant day with her finance, she had sat cooling her heels all day waiting for him to come home. And this….this was the response she received.

“Since I can never get you on the phone, and you won’t come visit me, I decided to surprise you. Is that such an awful thing?” she said. “ And I found your spare key. You and Brad always kept one in the mailbox, so when you weren’t here, I looked for it there.”

“You know I’ve been sitting with Shane at the hospital. I wanted to be there in case he wakes up; I don’t want him to wake up alone.”

“And that’s one of the things we need to discuss. I think it’s,” she paused as if searching for the right word, “admirable for you to want to help a friend, especially one like that.” Denise emphasized the word ‘that’ leaving no doubt as to her meaning. “But, really, is a friend you haven’t seen in years because of his lifestyle choices really more important than your fiancee?”

“Yes” was Jason’s first reaction, but he knew he couldn’t. Swiftly came the urge to placate Denise to say “Of course not,” but he couldn’t bring himself to lie again, so he said nothing.

Denise stood waiting for a response, and when none came, her eyes narrowed, and she turned on her heel, moving swiftly up the stairs and into the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

Everything in Jason urged him to leave, to turn around, get in his car and drive away. To retreat and live to fight another day, but something kept him tethered there, tethered to this present. He sighed and prepared himself to undo something that never should have been created.

When he walked through the door to his apartment, he paused, startled. It looked nothing like the mess he had left earlier. He hadn’t unpacked fully before he became wrapped up in the events surrounding Shane, and unpacking hadn’t become a priority. He had merely lived out of the half empty boxes and luggage he had moved into the two bedroom apartment, searching for things as he needed them. He had also neglected anything but the most basic tidying up, and when he had left that morning, his apartment had been covered in a thin layer of dust and littered with take out boxes and empty cans and bottles.

Now, however, the apartment was sparkling, clean and tidy with the scent of Pine Sol in the air. But more than that, books had been unpacked onto shelves, pictures hung, and the empty boxes broken down and stacked neatly in a corner.

“What did you do?” he asked, taken aback.

Denise had been standing in what would be, if he had a table, the dining area, her back to the door. She turned.

“What do you mean?” she snapped.

“I mean, why did you unpack my stuff?”

“As I was waiting around for hours for my fiance, who isn’t working right now, to come home from wherever he was, I decided to be a good mate and tidy up his pig sty.”

“You had no right, “Jason said, growing angry. “This is MY apartment. These are MY things. You don’t have the right to go through my private things.”

“Your private things….” Denise trailed off. “I am your fiancee; you shouldn’t have secrets. Besides, all I did was dust and unpack some books. I was showing you what a good wife I’ll be.”

Her peeved expression softening, she walked toward him and grabbed his hands in hers. “Look, you’re obviously in a bad mood; I’ve made some spaghetti. We’ll eat and talk. Okay.”

Jason pulled his hands from hers. “I’m not hungry.” He walked over to the sofa and sat heavily. “Look, I know you meant well, but I don’t like people going through my stuff.” He sighed, his anger fading and weariness setting in. “But you’re right. We do need to talk.”

Denise, worry in her eyes, came to settle next to him, her hand resting on his knee. The moment she touched him, Jason bolted off the sofa, and began pacing.

“Jason…..what is it? What’s wrong?”

Thoughts raced through his mind. How could he do this? Could he do this? Did he have the strength? And then he remembered his conversation with Paul and remembered what had happened the last time he put off dealing with a difficult situation. Just do it, he ordered himself.

“I…..I think this is a mistake,” he stammered. “I…..don’t think we should get married.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a mistake. I’m sorry….I …..I’ve realized we would be wrong for each other.”

“What are you saying? What’s happened? Ever since you’ve moved to this awful city, you’ve been different. Like you’ve been bewitched or something.”

“It’s not New Orleans,” Jason said. “It’s me. I’ve had time alone to think…...and I don’t think we could be happy together. I know I can’t make you happy, not in the way you deserve.”

“You do make me happy,” she said, tears starting to form in her eyes. “We’re a great couple; everybody says so. In fact,” she said, dashing the tears from her eyes and forcing a strained smile, “one of the things I came to talk to you about is moving up the wedding date.”

“Why wait?” she continued. “Lots of people commute from New Orleans to LSU. Or we can get a place that is between here and Baton Rouge.” She walked up behind him, and put her arms around him, resting her face on his back. “It’s the separation that doing this; we’ve always been good when we're together.”

Jason pulled away, feeling trapped. His heart was racing madly, his mouth was dry, and he felt like puking. This was so much more difficult than he had imagined. He turned to face her.

“No,” he said. “It’s not the separation….we’re just not right for each other.

Suspicion washed over her tear stained face. “Is there someone else? Is that it? Did you meet some whore on Bourbon Street?”

His instinct was to lie, but using every ounce of willpower, he answered her honestly. “Yes,” he rushed to finish as he saw her start to speak. “But, it’s not like you think. The other person….” he paused considering how to say it, “doesn’t even know how I feel….and I don’t have any reason to think they feel the same about me. But I can’t stay in a relationship with you, knowing I love somebody else.”

She slapped him, the sound of the impact ringing through the silent apartment. She then burst into tears, taking his face between her hands. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. “But….we can get through this…..we can get counseling from my pastor…” She sank to her knees, her hand catching his as she knelt, trying to pull him with her. “Let’s pray about this.”

He jerked his hand away. “I don’t want to pray about this. I’m sorry, Denise, sorrier than you can know. I should never have asked you to marry me, but I can’t change that. Why I can do, is be honest and give you the chance to find someone who will care about you the way that they should.”

Still on her knees, she looked up at him. “I won’t give up on us. I know God meant for us to be together, and I refuse to accept this. I know you love me.” She reached her hand out toward Jason. “Please….pray with me…..pray for help with me.”

He looked at her. He felt so old and tired. Here was yet one more person whose life he had messed up. “I’m sorry Denise. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to work it out. Stay the night if you need to.” He walked to the door, opened it, and looked back at the woman kneeling on the floor. “I’m so sorry.” Then he walked out and closed the door behind him.

Denise spent the next few hours on the floor, alternately crying and praying. Eventually, she composed herself enough to stand up. Checking her phone, she realized it was almost midnight. She tried calling Jason, but her call went straight to voicemail. Desperate for a distraction, she threw away the uneaten spaghetti and cleaned the kitchen.

Now that the original shock was over, one thing kept going through her mind. Who was it? Who was this little whore who Jason thought he was in love with? Denise hadn't noticed anything incriminating when she had unpacked earlier, but she hadn’t been really been paying attention, too distracted by her irritation at Jason's continued absence. Now, however, she decided to search the apartment for clues to the identity of her rival.

A search of the living room and Jason’s bedroom, though, hadn’t yielded anything suspicious. There was one last place, the second bedroom. Jason planned to set it up as an office eventually, but there wasn’t anything in it now expect for a desk holding his laptop and a chair.

Denise searched through the desk drawers, but there was nothing there but the usual debris of bills and old greeting cards. She then turned her attention to the laptop. She had used it a few times in the past and was gratified to see that Jason hadn’t changed the password since the last time. After it booted up, she was further excited to see that his email was open.

Denise searched it exhaustively, but found nothing of any real interest; certainly no suspicious messages, not even in the trash file. She discovered that his Facebook and Instagram accounts used the same password as his computer, but again, she found no suspicious activity. Finally, she looked at his browser history.

A sick feeling in her stomach, she followed Jason's path to PornMD and then to Bywater Bad Bois. With trembling fingers, she started the video he had watched. As "Jayson" and his partner began kissing, she lost control and ran to the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet before she threw up.

Afterwards, Denise sat huddled on the tile floor. Remembering the conversation with Jason, she realized he had never said it was a girl he was in love with; he had only said “some one,” “they,” “the other person.” She remembered her mixed relief and disappointment that he had never tried to pressure her to go further than making out; that he had never indicated that he minded waiting until marriage to have sex. She thought about how upset he seemed about his queer friend in the hospital.

Oh, my God, she thought. Jason thinks he’s gay. My poor baby is wandering in the wilderness. I have to save him. And she began to pray.