It had been two days.
Or, more precisely, 46 hours, 38 minutes and 54 seconds.
Two days since Olivia had made her choice.
I choose Vermont.
Jake was currently home alone, in the dark, laying on his couch. It was an unusually sunny, warm day, for February, but the curtains were drawn and cold, stale air hung around the apartment. Jake couldn't remember if he went to sleep the previous night or just imagined it.
His brain wouldn't turn off. Instead, the scene kept playing on repeat, over and over again.
I chose Vermont, with Fitz.
His heart was pounding, and he kept breaking out in a sweat. He had tried watching football, reading the news, browsing the web, but Jake found he couldn't concentrate for more than a few minutes. His hands lightly shook and twitched, and he couldn't lay down or settle in one spot for too long.
The TV was on, and he focused on a commercial about a new pill that supposedly combated depression.
Jake rubbed his forehead and wished he could be depressed. Depression made people slow, cumbersome, tired, and lethargic. It gave bodies rest.
No, he thought miserably. This was pure withdrawal.
He wished he could see her. Just be around her and get a little fix, but Olivia had banished him from OPA for a few days.
Until you take the time to process this, I think it's best if you stay home for a while.
Jake reached down and grabbed his phone off the floor. He dialed Olivia's number for the 5th time that day and waited.
For the 5th time, she didn't pick up.
The shaking suddenly got worse, and he threw the phone across the room in frustration. Just hearing her voice would have taken the edge off for a little while. That's all he wanted. Just a few moments of inner peace. But she won't even give me that, he thought bitterly.
The movie in his mind raced on, faster and faster, and his shirt was getting damp again as another cold sweat came on.
Suddenly, his thoughts of Olivia, the shaking, the sweating, and the constant feeling of anxiety all came together, and the ticking time bomb within finally exploded.
Unable to take anymore, Jake launched himself up and upended his coffee table. He threw a mug and watched it shatter as it hit the wall. He yanked out drawers and dumped their contents on the floor. This feels good, he thought, as he rampaged through each room like a violent tornado, knocking things to the floor, kicking over tables, smashing delicate possessions against the walls. The internal chaos had finally become external.
Twenty minutes later, Jake lay on the cool kitchen tile, breathing heavily. The floor was littered with cutlery and pieces of broken dishes. He was sure cops or a concerned neighbor would show up at his door at any moment. But then he turned and saw a kitchen clock he had yanked off the wall laying beside him, showing a time of 2:37 PM. All of his neighbors were still at work. Nobody heard him.
After catching his breath, Jake heaved himself up and surveyed the mess he made. He gingerly stepped around the sharp remnants of former dinner plates and surveyed the living room. He sighed. The rampage had felt good at the time, but now his withdrawal was stubbornly creeping back. And the mess he had to clean up was just the big, depressing cherry-on-top.
Little things were picked up first, like the wall clock, a few stray papers, and a very battered TV remote. Not that the remote could be used anymore, considering Jake had thrown a half-emptied wine bottle he and Olivia had once shared at the TV, which smashed the screen and rendered it useless.
Jake found himself craving something cold to drink, so he grabbed a beer from his fridge before sitting down on the floor. The papers were still in his hand, and he smoothed them out.
He frowned when he realized what they were.
The papers were parts of the dossiers he kept on David Rosen and James Novak. He started them back when the two were trying to break the Daniel Douglas story. Jake still vividly remembered the night he shot and killed James. The three bodies on the ground. A terrified David at his mercy.
He took a swig of his cold beer as he re-read his own notes. At the time, he found both David and James to be boring assignments. James was slightly more interesting, considering he at least changed up his routines once in a while. But David always kept to the same routines, went to the same take-out restaurants, bars, and drug store. He was painfully predictable, and Jake hadn't put much of an effort into spying on him. The only thing David ever did that slightly peaked Jake's interest was Abby, Olivia's red-headed friend.
Jake found he was curious to know if David was still seeing her. He looked up at his laptop, one of the few things that survived the rampage, and then back down at the papers. He knew what would happen if he put David under his microscope. It was a consequence some agents suffered from always having to look in from the outside. Their professional obsessions morphed into their real obsessions.
Jake was one of those agents.
He was about to put the notion to rest, but then he realized he wasn't shaking anymore. He wasn't sweating either, and for a few moments, Olivia hadn't been on his mind. The raging internal storm was finally calmed.
"Well, Rosen," said Jake quietly, and he grabbed his laptop. "I hope you're doing something interesting."