“Thanks for saying th—” I start, but Monroe cuts right over me.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be sued by my pool boy,” she says, her voice smaller and less confident than I’ve ever heard it.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose all my friends,” Calista adds, in a similar tone.
“Oh, never,” Monroe says. “Right, ladies?”
“Right!” the other three yell in unison.
“Because we’ve got each other’s backs, don’t we?” Monroe sounds like she’s leading a cheer, all that Monroe Coco confidence returning.
“Yes!”
Tiberius seems to finally realize how high he still is, because he looks down and withers in my arms. I take a glance down as well—still a good thirty feet off the ground—and see Emily standing below, like she’s going to try to catchTiberius if he manages to escape. She’s looking up at me with absolute terror on her face, and I don’t think that’s just for the dog’s welfare.
And I can’t take it anymore.
“I’m afraid I’ve destroyed my relationship,” I say, and all around me, the women fall quiet. “I’m afraid I’m hurting the person I love most in the whole world.”
“Go on, Jason,” Monroe says. “Speak your truth.”
Though I want to roll my eyes at how cheesy that is, I can tell by the wide-eyed look on Emily’s face that even though I’m not pushing the radio button, she can hear me.
“I’m so scared, Em!” I shout. “I know I’m not good enough for you, and I’m afraid every day that you’re going to finally realize it, and that this will be over. I’m afraid to move in together, because I feel like you’ll realize you can’t live with me, you don’t really want me, you want something better, and god, you should. You deserve better. I’m afraid to move forward and lose you, and I’m afraid if I don’t move forward, I’ll lose you, and that’s why you feel this disconnect. It’s not that I don’t want you, Em, it’s that I want you so bad, forever, and I’m afraid I can’t have it and I’m So. Fucking. Scared.”
The women all cheer, and Emily is looking up at me open-mouthed and I’m sure every camera on the cliff is now aimed at me, catching every word.
But damn it, I don’t care. I don’t care who sees, and I don’t care who knows. Geoff lowers me to within ten feet, and if I didn’t have the damn dog to think of, I’d unclip now and jump down, because I just need to be near Emily again.
“I love you!” I yell.
“I love you, too,” Emily answers. In my arms,Tiberius gives a desperate whine.
Then my feet are on the ground.Tiberius must feel the moment this happens, because he writhes wildly and I let him go.The dog takes off. I unclip and stumble back and Emily tackles me, burying her face in my chest. She’s crying and I’m crying and somewhere I hear a handler swearing as they try to catchTiberius, but I don’t even care, I’m so glad to have Emily in my arms. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “God, Em, I’m so messed up and I’m sosorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
I take a deep breath.
And I let myself trust that it’s true.
Nineteen
Emily
Jason and I are clinging to each other, and my heart is bursting out of my chest—from the sheer effing terror of seeing that dog nearly die, yes, but mainly from those things he said. From him shouting about his fear and his intense love and his insecurities and the future he wants.
There’s a whirlwind of conflicting emotions in me—sorrow and joy and desperation and a strange calm—but most of all, there’s just love. A love that wants to make all his pain and fears go away.
Now that I know what those fears are, now that I truly understand, I want to spend the rest of my life proving them wrong.
I can feel his tears in my hair, and mine are soaking into his t-shirt. I pull back and we meet eyes and his smile is tremulous. I reach up and wipe the tears from one of his cheeks.
For all that Jason has big emotions—big, loud, expressive emotions—I’ve never actually seen him cry. I think the one emotion he doesn’t let out, the one he balls up and hides away, is fear. And I think he’s been feeling a lot more of it over the course of his life than he ever knew.
There’s guilt gnawing at me that I should have known. I think I did, on some level. But my own fear made me get it all wrong.
I think we both got a lot of things wrong. But not being together; that’s never been wrong, even when we’re struggling.
