Enter The Black Oak: Chapter 5

THREE DAYS LATER Maddie and I navigate our way arm in arm through a busy Saturday morning flea market in Chelsea. The last few days have gone by in a haze of nausea, bad wine and headaches with Maddie trying to get me to eat as much as my stomach will take and making me laugh with tales about recent dates that are supposed to uplift me. They secretly make me depressed about the prospect of dating again, and of course, about no longer being with the man I still feel flowing through my veins, despite myself.

After the barrage of text messages, emails and letters that Jack has been bombarding me with and the desperate-sounding voicemail messages he’s left over the last few days—none of which I’ve responded to—I seem to have become the unwilling host to some kind of warped battle between rage, panic and despair. The anger comes in bursts that leave me paralyzed, but right now, I just feel that hollow sadness that makes your insides ache.

As I amble listlessly down the bustling street with my darling friend, through troops of chatty traders and clouds of canny customers, past charming pieces of antique furniture, lamps and vintage clothing, I try not to think about my damn marriage woes, and just be for once.

“Wow, great chair!” Maddie sings as we pass a vendor selling vintage-looking furniture.

“That’s a Boston Rocker. Mid-nineteenth century,” replies the vendor, a middle-aged lady with wild grey hair and a burgundy feather boa. “It’s a lucky chair, that one.”

“Oh, yeah? Can I try it?” asks Maddie.

“Sure. That’s what it’s there for.”

I smile as I watch my friend climb onto the tall, elegant rocking chair. “Man, that’s gorgeous,” I enthuse. “It’s just what you’ve been looking for.”

“How much?” asks Maddie, her square-shaped porcelain face luminous as she rocks back and forth in the handsome chair.

“I want to get $350 for this one. It’s an antique.”

“Hmm.” Maddie raises an eyebrow and shoots me a look that I know too well—a look that signifies that she’s about to get into her special brand of serious, hard-core haggling.

I respond with a grin and let her know she can find me on the bench on the other side of the street, not just because I get embarrassed by my friend’s unorthodox negotiation techniques, but because my leg is aching slightly and I need to sit down. Besides, I’ll be of absolutely no help to her in the bartering process which I’m spectacularly inept at. She grins back, her sparkling jade-green eyes suggesting she’s going to relish the challenge.

I head over to the bench and sit down, breathing deeply as I try to tune out the sensory commotion—the waft of car fumes mixed with the aroma of cheap street food and the shouts of boisterous New Yorkers enjoying the pleasant June weather. Instead, I feel my phone vibrate again. I hesitate for a moment, knowing it will probably be another message from Jack. I don’t know why I keep reading his damn messages. I loathe feeling so weak, so fragile, so scared of the power that he has over me, of the love that I still feel for him, of the ecstasy that I feel when I’m in his arms. I hate that my thoughts keep coming back to him and that every message I read or hear makes the bitter black stone inside my chest melt a little and allows the invisible magnet pulling me towards him to get stronger and stronger until every step away from him takes a concerted physical effort.

I take my phone out of my purse and read:

Please call me. I can’t go back to the apartment again without you there.

Can’t go back to the apartment?

He must be in Brooklyn. When I say Brooklyn, I’m not talking about the trendy, gentrified part, but a rough, neglected area neighboring Queens where men stand on street corners doing questionable deeds and women do whatever it takes to make ends meet and say a prayer when their sons go out late at night. Every Saturday morning without fail Jack goes back there to his uncle’s boxing gym. The very thought of it takes me back to the sight of his bare-chested, hard-as-nails body scrapping with rough, tattooed, blue-collar boxers, who try everything within their power to beat the white-collared investment banker out of what used to be Jackson, the Brooklyn boy.

Most of his colleagues on Wall Street and the billionaires he mingles with at various functions have no idea that he spent the first nine years of his life in a dirt-poor blue-collar Brooklyn family with some unorthodox ways of making money and an intimate knowledge of the prison system. In their defense, with Jack’s looks, accent and assertive self-confidence, he couldn’t look more like he belongs to the elite of Manhattan if he tried. Climbing his way up to the position of VP at a fledgling investment bank within three years of starting his trading job there has only cemented the powerful image he gives off so effortlessly. The reality is that beneath the designer suit and the composed, implacable stare that he wears on Wall Street, his muscles are thick and dense, his abdominals sculpted, his pectorals rock hard and his instincts dangerous and lethal.

Having the pleasure of seeing him let loose on other men at the grimy boxing club usually leaves me so turned on that we invariably end up ripping each other’s clothes off the second we get back to our apartment. The last time I went there a couple of months ago—to do self-defense training with a female boxer on Jack’s insistence—we didn’t even make it that far. Jack dragged me straight to a cheap run-down hotel down the street from the boxing club where he threw me onto the bed, growling and glistening with sweat, tied my hands to the bedpost, ripped my panties in half and fucked me mercilessly in what was then one of the most primal, erotic experiences of my life. But then, somehow every experience with Jack feels that way. He is the most powerfully sexual, dominant and experienced man that I’ve ever known and even now, I can’t think about him without part of me wanting to submit to him.

I’m jolted out of thoughts of him devouring my neck with a mist of dew coating his hard limbs as he immobilizes my body by another message:

I love you baby. I can’t live in this world without you. Please read my letters. I’ll do anything it takes. Talk to me.

For a reason that makes my female ego want to throw up, the words soothe the constant anger that now lives inside me like some unwanted house guest I’m powerless to evict. As I put the phone back into my purse, my hand skims over the letter that Jack had couriered to Maddie’s place last night. Opening up the thick cream-colored sheets of paper, the sight of his distinctive handwriting leaves my heart stalling. I glance over at my friend who’s bartering with the vendor like some anime character on acid, unfold the pages and start to read. Certain sentences jump out at me like fireworks flashing before my eyes:

My rancor dissolves once again as his desperate words invade me. I feel contempt at myself for even humoring his statements—the type that most cheating spouses suddenly find themselves able to say once the damage has been done—but I can’t help but feel compassion for this man who has loved me so passionately and cared for me so devotedly. The thought of him in pain makes me feel ill.

As my eyes wander over his letter again, I spot Maddie walking towards me and fold it away, tucking it back into my roomy faux-leather purse.

“Well, my lady?” I inquire.

“She’ll take $180. I need to go get some cash out. I told her I’d be back in half an hour.”

“One eighty?! You should have been our realtor, Miss Green,” I say with a smile, getting to my feet.

She links her arm into mine and we stroll through the rest of the market towards the nearest ATM, picking up a bag of warm chestnuts on the way which we devour greedily. We come across a stall with some costume jewelry inside a glass display cabinet and stop for a moment to check out the sparkly visual feast. As I gaze at a gaudy ring topped with a blue gemstone, a gasp escapes my throat.

“What?” asks Maddie.

The blood drains from my face as my palms hit my cheeks. “Oh my God. I left the ring my dad gave me back at the apartment…”

The ring I’m talking about is a family heirloom given to me by my father four years ago for my twentieth birthday. It belonged to his great-great-grandmother and was passed all the way down to his mother who died a few years ago. It’s a gold band with a large Marquise-cut sapphire encircled by small diamonds. The ring is probably worth a pretty penny, but it’s not the monetary value I’m worried about; the sentimental value makes it priceless to my dad’s family. My father made me promise to always look after it, which is why I never put it with my other jewelry but tucked it away in a hidden panel that Jack had put into the back of our closet.

“Shit!” she shoots back.

“I have to go back and get it.”

“Why? Do you think Jack would do anything to it?”

“No, he wouldn’t… but if he finds it, he could try and force me to meet up with him to get it back—use it as leverage or something. It’s over a century old. It’s a family heirloom. It’s literally the only material thing that my dad has ever given a shit about in his entire life. I have to go and get it.”

“What, now?”

“He’ll be at the boxing club. He goes every Saturday morning without fail.”

“Jess, he may give it a miss this week now that his marriage has fallen apart,” retorts Maddie.

“He won’t. Even after his grandma died, he went, like two days later. It’s like therapy to him. He literally can’t function without it. I could get a cab, get in and out in five minutes.”

“Yeah, but what if he’s there? You know what some men are capable of when their wives leave them.”

“He’s not dangerous in that way, honestly.”

She takes out her phone and fiddles with a setting, then puts it up to her ear.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I’ve hidden my number. I’m calling your landline.”

We both wait as she calls once and then a second time. No answer.

“He’s out, Mad. I have to go now.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No. You’ve got your chair to get. I can handle this. I’ll run in and out—five minutes tops. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh my God, you’re about as stubborn as I am. Will you stay on the phone with me while you go in, just so I know he’s not there?”

“Sure.”

She hugs me, her gorgeously plump arms filling me with courage, and I leave the flea market and head onto Sixth Avenue where I manage to hail a cab after a few minutes of gesticulating. As the driver makes his way to Central Park West, another cold sweat comes over me.

“Actually, can you go past the building?” I ask the cab driver as we approach the apartment. I don’t want to attract attention as I arrive and no longer trust the doorman or the concierge whom Jack has in his deep pockets.

As I approach the front door, I greet the doorman as breezily as I can, then make it past the concierge’s desk, grateful that it’s not the hawk-eyed Tom this time. As I reach our floor and the elevator doors open, I take out my phone and call Maddie.

“Hey Mad, I’m about to go in.”

“Okay, stay on the phone, sweetie. If he’s there, just run out.”

I slot the key into the lock and turn it as quietly as I can, steeling myself as if expecting to have to grapple with some wild animal ready to jump out from the shadows. The door opens and I peer inside.

Nothing. Silence. No lights. Not a sound.

I tiptoe to the kitchen, check the living room and the study and breathe a sigh of relief.

“Mad?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not here. I’m sure. His keys aren’t in the bowl. There’d be a light on somewhere. He’s definitely out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’m gonna grab my ring. I’ll call you in five–ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay. Be careful.”

I shove my keys in my purse and drop it by the front door. With phone in hand, I run upstairs to get the ring, trying to think if there’s anything else I should get while I’m here. As I open the bedroom door distractedly, my shock at the sight of the tall, shirtless figure standing before me in the middle of the room almost makes me fall backwards. I drop my phone as I meet Jack’s burning eyes with a gasp. Taking a tentative step back, I glance at my phone, now lying on the golden hardwood halfway between me and the man. Just as I think of turning to run back downstairs, Jack bends down, picks it up and takes a couple of steps towards me, holding it out for me. His eyes sear into mine as I hesitantly reach out my hand to take it back, brushing his palm with the tips of my fingers in an accidental gesture which sends a jolt of tingling energy into me. I grab the phone and put it in my purse, keeping my eyes fixed on him as if he’s some savage beast that could pounce at any moment.

“I… I didn’t know you’d be here,” I stammer, my voice wavering at the grimace of pain in his face and dark circles under his usually sparkling eyes. “I thought you’d be at the club.”

He shakes his head slowly.

I take a step back. “I… I should go.”

“Did you come for this?”

He reaches into the pocket of his dark-grey sweatpants and holds out the blue velvet box that houses the ring my father entrusted to me. My gaze flits to the ring and back to him and I nod slowly, unable to take my eyes off the dangerous animal in front of me. As he holds the ring out, my father’s face flashes before me and I ignore the menacing glint in my husband’s eyes, taking a step forward against my instincts. As I reach out my hand and take hold of the box, the beast suddenly lunges towards me, forcing me against the wall behind me, caging me in with his arms. He thrusts his palms against the beige wallpaper on either side of me and leans his face towards mine.

“Stop!” I shout, dropping the box as I shove my hands into his chest in a futile attempt to keep him back. The wedding and engagement rings I still haven’t had the courage to take off press into the rock-hard flesh of his pecs.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through this week?” he growls, leaning in so close that my back is forced against the wall as a high-pitched whimper escapes me.

“What you’ve gone through?”

“Not answering my calls, my messages. I’ve been going out of my fucking mind!”

“Yeah, actually, I think I know exactly what you’ve been going through. Though you don’t also have to deal with knowing your wife has been sleeping with other men for months and months.”

“Jess—”

“In fact, I’ve never looked at another man or let another man anywhere near me since the day we first kissed each other, so don’t try to pretend like you’re the injured party here. I’m not going to let you manipulate me anymore!”

“Jessynia, you are going to listen to me!”

As his gruff voice vibrates through me like a high-speed train thundering through a small town, I push against him hard, irate that I’m finding myself in this vulnerable position, engaging in another of these dysfunctional exchanges. My efforts have no effect on a man of his physical strength.

“I’m sorry,” he says breathlessly, “for everything. Those things I said the other day, I didn’t mean a word of them. I was… ashamed and afraid.”

“I don’t want to hear this! It’s too late.”

“No. It’s not too late. You’re my wife, damn it. You belong to me. I’m not letting go of you without a fight.”

His words coupled with his towering male body and stern but breathtaking face leave me feeling weak. “And this is your way of solving the problem? Stopping me from leaving like some kind of neanderthal?! I’m not your possession, Jack. You don’t get to decide where I do or don’t go!”

I shove my palms into the bare skin of his chest, but to my horror, he grabs both my wrists with his hands and pins them against the wall, taking half a step forward so that his hard body is pressed against mine so closely that I feel his breath on my face and the hint of his thick manhood against my crotch.

“Do you really think you could get away from me if I didn’t let you?” he snarls, sliding his palms flatly against mine and interlacing his fingers with mine.

“Jack, stop! Please!” My eyes plead with his as the anger I feel quickly morphs into fear. A gasp escapes me as he moves his unshaven face ever closer to mine.

“I’m sorry.” His warm breath caresses my lips. “I can’t. I don’t like doing this, but there’s no other way you’ll listen to me and you know it. I need you to listen to me. Just listen, please.”

“Take your hands off me and I’ll listen!”

His lips skim mine and he keeps his position for ten heart-stopping seconds before finally uncoupling his hands from mine, taking a step back and looking at the ground as he starts to speak.

“That thing with—Jesus, I don’t even want to say her name—Lydia… It meant nothing to me. Nothing. It was escape, self-medication, nothing more. I can’t stand the bitch. She makes me feel sick.”

His words are cold comfort. I feel like I can taste Lydia in the room, as though she’s peering out from the corner with her unflinching brown eyes.

“Self-medi—? So much insight all of a sudden?” I spit out.

“I need you to let me talk, let me explain.”

“What is there to explain? I don’t see what you could say to ever make it go away.”

“Jessynia, I never thought that a woman like you could love a man like me. A woman so smart. So caring. So pure. So breathtakingly beautiful. I don’t know how to handle the way I love you. I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you with any other woman I’ve been with.”

“Jack—”

“I never imagined falling in love with a girl that I wanted so badly. That I wanted to protect. To care for. That I would die for. Kill for. I’ve spent my whole adult life screwing people over to get ahead. And you, you spend your life trying to do the opposite of what I do. Every day when I wake up and see you next to me, I can’t believe you could love a man like me. Sometimes it makes me feel like… an imposter. Like you’re with someone that you don’t really know.”

“Jack, I’m not some naïve bubblehead with her head in the clouds. I know what you do. I’ve worked in investment banking for God’s sake. Do you think I don’t know what goes on? And just because there are causes I feel strongly about, it doesn’t mean that I’m somehow better than you. I know who you are, Jack.”

“No. I don’t think you do.” His gravelly voice is low and dark and sends a cloud of trepidation deep into me. “I don’t think you know how dangerous my thoughts can be. You don’t know how many people I’ve betrayed to get where I am, how many people I’ve had fired, I’ve blackmailed, hurt, destroyed. You don’t know that I spend half my day trying to be civilized to people I want to fuck up. You don’t know that when someone hurts you, I want to destroy their life and the lives of everyone they’ve ever known, or that when a man looks at you, I have to stop myself from breaking every bone in his face.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything. Do you really think that I don’t know who you are? I knew it when I married you. A dozen different people warned me about you. I told you when we got married that I loved you without conditions. There’s no justification, Jack. None!”

“I know. I know there isn’t. But the reason I hang out with trash like Lydia is because… that’s where I feel I belong, in the gutter with—”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“How could you understand?” he snaps. “You belong to the elite of this place. Your parents are renowned intellectuals, famous in their fields. They’re welcome in every well-to-do family in the city. It’s not like that for me. People like you don’t understand how it—”

“Right, maybe it’s my family’s fault that you’re a messed-up, cheating prick?”

He stares down at me, frustration leaving him in a loud exhalation. “No, it’s not their fault. It’s my fault. But I want you to understand how I feel. I wear the suit, make the money, look like these people, sound like them. They think I’m one of them, but I’m not. There are parts of me that even I’m afraid of. Part of me feels like I’m putting on an act. With them. With my work. With you. I feel like one day you’ll realize what I am and leave me and—”

“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,” I respond. “You’re the most self-confident person I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen you insecure or self-conscious since the day I met you. There isn’t a man on Wall Street that isn’t in awe of you. Every man and woman in the city bows down to you as though you’re some god. You’re just making excuses—rationalizing the fact that you don’t have the guts to do what it takes to make your marriage work.”

“I do have what it takes, but sometimes what I feel for you is so strong it makes me afraid. Every time I see a man talk to you, I feel like I’m losing control. I hate the feeling. The day that I saw you having lunch with Braden, I lost it. That was the day things started with Lydia.”

Braden is a friend I knew from Brown who had asked me out a few times before I started dating Jack, and whom I’ve always turned down.

“I had lunch with him once! He talked to me about his new girlfriend! A female friend of his joined us half-way through!”

“I know. But he wants you badly and you know it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want him.”

“Jess, I can’t control how I feel about you. And I hate being out of control.”

“And so what, you decide to cheat on me because you’re so afraid? I’ve never taken you for a coward before. You know full well there’s no other man I’ve ever wanted since the day we first got together. When I talk to other men, I barely even see them anymore.”

His eyes mist over. The ice-blue hue that used to make me melt is now a harsh glacier. “I want you back, angel. I love you, so much. The affairs are over… for good.”

“Over? Why are they suddenly over? How can I know that you mean it? How can I ever trust you again? You’ve destroyed all the trust in our relationship. Don’t you understand what that means?! It’s not something you can just order back like… cable. Can you imagine how you would feel if you found out that I was doing that to you?”

“I would end up in prison.”

“Yeah, and you expect me to just accept that what you did was a by-product of your existential crisis and move on, and everything carries on as usual?!” My face burns with anger—the anger of knowing that the man I adore has made it impossible for me to stay with him and keep my self-respect. “I mean did we not make love enough? How often have I ever said no to you?”

“Almost never.”

“Then why?”

“It was a mistake. It will never happen again.”

“A mistake?!” I shout incredulously. “Months of screwing the poster child for female sociopathy. Jesus, you call that a mistake? Can’t you even see what she is? Her only goal in life is to get a hard-on out of every man that walks past, to step over anyone who…” A tear escapes me as I start to picture Jack’s hands caressing her skin.

“I know what she is. She is a piece of garbage. The whole city knows it.”

“And you would risk your marriage for—”

“Look at me!” He leans forward and puts a hand around my throat, forcing my chin up sharply with his strong fingers so that I’m locked into his anguished eyes. “I can’t fucking stand that whore. I never want to see her face again. I’ve spoken to Robert. I told him I didn’t like her work style. She no longer works in the building. She’ll never go near me or you ever again.”

He wipes tears away from my cheeks as my now-hoarse voice falters.

“And who’s the other woman? AAA?”

A shadow distorts his face.

“Who is it, Jack?”

“It’s a woman I met at a conference.” His voice is uncharacteristically quiet. “Her name’s Andrea. She’s from the West Coast and she’s gone back there… for good. You’ve never met her and never will, and I will never speak to her again.”

I shake my head. I have no idea if I can believe a word of what he’s saying.

“And those things you said to me? You couldn’t just say sorry like most cheating husbands? You had to say the most traumatizing things to me, didn’t you? Things that are going to torture me for years—”

“I didn’t mean what I said. I felt ashamed and cornered…”

“I don’t know who you are anymore,” I whisper, wiping tears from my cheeks with my trembling fingertips

He moves in so close that his breath tickles my lips. “You know who I am. I’m the same man that’s been madly in love with you since the day we met. The man that dreamt of you every night of the year of hell it took for you to agree to go out with me. The man who will be there for you in sickness and in health, who will be by your side for the rest of your life. I can’t live without you. I can’t.”

“Jack, don’t—”

“You fuel every cell in my body and every single thing I do in life. Every day I get up and go to work, I do it thinking about the life I want to give you. You’re the only woman who has ever made me want to be a better man. I didn’t choose to feel this way. From the minute I met you, I’ve seen your face every time I close my eyes. I feel you next to me when I’m alone in bed, smell you when I walk into every room—”

“And did you see me when you were screwing that vampire? I knew this was going to happen! People warned me not to go near you and they were right!”

“Jess—”

“Do you think you’re the only one that has options? The only one that gets hit on? Do you think I’m so desperate to have a man that I’m going to put up with him screwing—?”

He doesn’t let me finish and instead presses his body against mine and kisses me hard on the lips, using his tongue to lick the tears away from my mouth. He strokes the seam between my tear-soaked lips which part for him instinctively and my insides tingle as his tongue sends a jolt of pleasure between my legs despite myself, brushing against my tongue for a brief moment that has me feeling faint.

“Please,” he whispers, his lips caressing mine as he speaks, his saliva mixing with my tears. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. There is no other woman on this Earth I could have waited so long for. I can’t breathe without you. I can’t see colors properly when you’re away from me.”

Jess, be strong…

As his words dissolve the hard bundle of twisted roots in my belly, I can’t help but be transfixed by the stunning, haunted face opposite me. I stare into swirls of blue in his irises that look like they could contain the cosmos. He’s unshaven for the first time in months and his hair’s a disheveled mess, which only makes his brutal beauty more devastating. His gaze flits between my eyes and my mouth as he tries to control his breathing.

“Damn it, Jess, say something. You’re my wife. We belong together. I’ve made an appointment to see Dr. Vorigun for therapy. I’ll see him as long as it takes. I’ll do anything—rehab, counseling, medication—whatever I need to do.” His solemn, pleading eyes follow a tear that drips down my cheek and onto my jaw where it’s wiped away with a stroke of his thumb.

“Why? Why do you love me? Why continue with this?” I manage weakly. “As you told me, you can have any woman you want. We have an iron-clad prenup. Why even bother trying to save this thing? Am I going to have to be afraid every time you leave the house, every time you say you’re working late, every time you go on a business trip? I can’t live like that…”

“And you won’t. I will never hurt you again, baby. Please believe me.”

Time stands still as he lifts my chin, his eyes burrowing into mine. His fingertips trace my jawline and wander over my cheeks and onto my wet lips which he slides against with his. I feel fragile, my resolve weakening as I study his strong, savage face, razor-sharp cheekbones and wicked lips that conceal the tongue that knows every inch of my body. He’s the most mind-blowing man I’ve ever known and the current drawing me towards him is so merciless that if I stop resisting it for a second, I know it will pull me in… and under.

“Baby, I’ll do whatever it takes and wait as long as it takes.”

Come on, Jess. Don’t fall for this shit.

Kevin’s words about not letting Jack suck me back into the maelstrom echo in my mind. I’m kicking myself for even listening to him. I don’t want to fall into his trap, to be pulled into this dysfunctional relationship. I hate what he’s done. I can barely stomach looking at him. Part of me still wants to go medieval on his ass. And yet, I can’t hide the fact that his words are the only thing close to a glimmer of hope that I’ve felt in the last five days. The pathetic reality is that being with him is the only thing that takes away some of the pain that he, himself, has caused me, and every molecule in my body is willing me back to him in order to relieve the ache permeating my every cell.

His hand enters my hair and pulls me closer to him as his erection threatens me from behind his sweatpants. I know I should turn and run, but instead, I dissolve into quiet tears, collapsing into his arms. He holds me tightly, protectively, breathing in the scent of my hair as if it’s bringing him back to life. I feel safe in his embrace, as if the warmth of his body is the only thing keeping me alive and without it, I may just crumble into dust. I had always vowed that if any man ever cheated on me, I’d pack my bags and be gone faster than he could blink. During my last two years at college, I co-organized a dozen or so self-esteem and safety seminars for freshman students, lecturing them about self-worth, about teaching others how to treat you, about never settling for less than you deserve, and here I am, clinging on to my cheating husband like a life raft in the ocean.

And why? In a final insult to any last remnants of pride I have, the vomit-inducing truth is that without him my world feels empty and cold and scary, devoid of light and color.

Right now I have no fight left. I don’t want revenge. I just want this pain to stop and he is the only one who can take it away.

Later that evening, Maddie and Stella stand in the doorway of Maddie’s bedroom.

“Fuck him!” exclaims Maddie as I repack my back, barely able to look my friends in the face. “You cannot seriously be going back to him! I can’t believe you could let him manipulate you like that. That motherfucker!”

“I know, Maddie,” I manage with a despondent sigh.

“I can’t believe he could have wormed his way out of this. Jessie, wake up for fuck’s sake!” she shouts. “Of all the women to fall for his bullshit…”

Her words suck the air out of my lungs. She’s got a point. I doubt she knows how close I am to calling the whole second chance thing off. I’m incensed at my sorry ass for even contemplating returning to him. I’ve spent the day hitting myself with all number of clichéd theories about standing by your man to the point where my once-sharp brain feels like mush. I’m scared of the lesson I’m teaching him about what I will tolerate. Will I have any power left at all when I go back to him?

“Guys, you can’t imagine how ashamed I feel to be going back to him,” I say, zipping up my bag. “But I have to. I have to try… at least once.”

“We know you do, sweetie,” says Stella solemnly, enveloping me in a hug. I’m suddenly aware how lucky I am that Stella is one of the world’s least judgmental people. I had thought she would be the one reading me the riot act, not Maddie.

“He’s not going to change, you know,” shoots back Maddie, furiously lighting a slim cigarette.

Hearing Maddie, such a staunch supporter of marriage, conclude that my marriage is doomed makes my stomach churn.

“He may not, but I have to at least give him a chance. We’re going to see a therapist, separately and together, and—”

“So why do you have to go back there? Why not work on things while living apart?” Maddie throws her barely touched cigarette into a half-drunk cup of old coffee on a glass side table.

“I’ll be staying in the spare bedroom.”

The you-gotta-be-kidding-me eye roll suggests she’s not buying the idea that that’s the same as living apart.

“I promised him I’d try.”

“Promised him? How about the promises he made to you, huh? Do you remember those?”

Damn it, I hate that Maddie’s always right. And her sense of conviction can be persuasive as hell. I glance at Stella for support and she looks back at me with an encouraging half-smile on her resigned face. I can tell she thinks I’m making a mistake.

“Jesus, after everything I’ve heard you say to other people about self-esteem, about emotional abuse, about being independent—” Maddie’s voice is now shrill.

“She’s made her decision,” interjects Stella. “And we have to be there for her.”

“I’ll be there for her when we’re picking her up off the fucking floor again!” Maddie’s outburst turns into a deep sigh as she observes my forlorn face. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to save your marriage. I’d probably be doing the same thing.” She reaches over and hugs me tightly. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m just… I could just kill him… literally, with my bare hands, and a dull garden implement.”

“Mad, don’t think I don’t hate the fact that I’m going back to him. I hate this whole situation. My life has fallen apart in the space of a week. I’m trying to pick it back up in some way.”

“Hey, don’t listen to me,” she sighs. “Hell, what do I know? I haven’t managed to hang on to a man for more than a year of my life. I just can’t stand seeing you in pain.”

“I know. I don’t even know if there’s anything left to work with.”

“Look,” breathes Maddie as if wounded. “Despite what he’s done, the man’s obviously in love with you. I hate it, but I’ve never seen a man look at a woman the way he looks at you. Maybe there is enough good in there to give it one last try… Whatever happens, we’ll be here for you, no matter what.”

As Jack drives me back home an hour later, Maddie’s words ricochet around my head like a metal ball in a pinball machine, banging into me over and over again. Glancing over at my husband driving confidently through the streets of Manhattan, I pray that they don’t come back to haunt me.