This was supposed to be a short, stream of consciousness piece from Anna's POV. But as usual, it kind of morphed into something more. And then Jacob wanted to have his say.
Thankyou to all those people who are still hanging with me. There are still a few surprises to come in my Jacob & Rachel world and of course, we have a wedding to plan now!
By the way, you will need to have read Six Miles if you are to make any sense of this whatsoever, as this piece runs in parallel to that one.
The soundtrack to this story is incorporated into it, so I'll let you work it out for yourselves!
...
The wheels of the Airbus A380 on the direct flight from Geneva to Washington DC left the tarmac and retracted up into the body of the aircraft as it surged up into the night sky. Jacob glanced over and seeing her stony face, reached across and took Rachel's hand in his. She smiled at him. For all her tough girl stance, he knew she didn't really like flying. He was glad to be leaving Geneva at last. It had been a tough couple of weeks.
...
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and to be loved in return'
Anna opened her eyes and stared into the blackness. What was that line from?
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn,' she thought to herself, 'is just to love and to be loved in return.'
For a reason she couldn't quite explain, the words made her eyes sting with tears. She felt her chin crumple.
What the hell was wrong with her? Who wakes in the middle of the night thinking of a line from something they couldn't remember or explain, and start sobbing?
And she couldn't even blame it on PMS.
'Is just to love and to be loved in return.'
Well she certainly loved. It was a shame she wasn't loved in return. No, that wasn't right. She knew she was loved. Just not in the same way.
'The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and to be loved in return.'
Her chin crumpled again and she finally gave into the emotion she was inexplicably feeling. What beautiful words. The tears spilled out of her eyes and began to run down her face.
Jacob.
Shit, shit, shit. Come on Anna, don't wake up in the night crying about Jacob. Not again. Surely.
Not now.
How many tears could she waste on him? How many had she already shed? How many more would she cry until he finally let her go?
She knew he didn't understand. He didn't understand how she really felt. Shit, she didn't understand how she really felt. And she certainly didn't know why. Or why now.
She sighed, rubbed her hands over her face. She knew she'd never get back to sleep now. She reached over and touched the clock on her bedside table. The numbers lit up revealing the time to be just 11.30pm. Fuck, she'd only been in bed for 2 hours. Had wanted to get an early night for a change. Sunday night was her favourite time for catching up on some sleep. It set her up for the week ahead.
I'm not going to get back to sleep now. I bet I'm just going to lay here thinking, she thought crossly. Thinking, she was sick of thinking, sick of thinking about him.
Fuck off Jacob. Fuck off and leave me alone. You don't love me. She reached over and grabbed a pillow from next to her. Put it over her face. She was so angry with him for doing this to her.
'Just to love and to be loved in return.' Why did that line keep coming back to her?
It was what she wanted for him. She wanted him to love and to be loved. Wanted him to wake up every day in the arms of a woman he truly loved with his heart and soul. Wanted him to be happy. Wanted him to find love with Rachel. She wanted that for him. She really did.
So why did the thought make her so miserable.
Damn, she'd done everything she could to push them together. She'd flown all that way to DC on the pretext of being at a conference, just to convince Rachel to be gentle with him, to try and help her understand him, to try and help her understand the fragile state of his heart.
She'd spent the night with him, talking, talking, talking about Rachel. Talking about her when she really wanted to be having sex with him. Really wanted to be having sex with him.
God, don't even start thinking about having sex with him.
It didn't matter how many men she slept with, none measured up to him. It wasn't just his gorgeous body or his gentle mouth, it wasn't just his skilful fingers or his seductive tongue. It wasn't just what he did to her physically, it was what he did to her with his mind and with his heart.
No, no, no, stop it Anna. Stop this. Stop thinking about him naked. Stop thinking about him naked and hard and above you. Stop thinking about his dark head between your thighs. Stop thinking about the taste of him. Stop thinking about him making you come again and again with his mouth, his hands, his body. Stop thinking about him gasping your name against your ear as he came inside you, hard and fast and desperate. Stop thinking about kissing him for hours on the beach.
Stop thinking about the first time.
She realised a long time past that she'd been her own worst enemy. She never should have chosen him all those years ago. He'd been achingly beautiful back then with his mass of dark curls, his fine boned delicate face, huge green eyes, long dark lashes, sensual mouth. She would never forget her first time. Never. Never forget the first time with him. He'd been gentle and considerate, over considerate, desperately concerned that he'd hurt her. He'd touched her like she was fine china. She would never forget his delicate fingers on her skin, his mouth on the pale skin of her breast in the moonlight.
And over the years she'd watched him change and grow. She thought back to the charming, cheeky adolescent that she'd first met, first fallen in love with; always in trouble, laughing with his buddies, acting the fool. Away from them though, thoughtful and caring, deep and sincere in the way that only teenagers can be. That's why she'd chosen him. She'd seen through the teenage boy bravado, knew him to be sensitive and intelligent. And she couldn't resist his mouth. She could never resist his mouth. Could kiss him for hours.
She'd seen him rarely after they went away to college. They tried to keep in touch by letter but he was immersed in his work, discovering his passion and he rarely remembered to write or call. He was in New Jersey and she was in Palo Alto and that was the time before the internet. She saw him once or twice over summer breaks, at a party or at the beach, but it wasn't 'til they met up again as young academics that she realised he still held her heart. They reconnected, started a long distance relationship, but it didn't work. They broke up, got back together, broke up. This continued intermittently over time until nine years ago she innocently introduced him to Maggie, her best friend from grade school, an art lecturer at Stanford. She'd seen him light up as she introduced them and so began the painful process of having to watch the man she loved fall in love with someone else. She had let him go then because they were so obviously in love and she wanted what was best for both of them.
And now all these years later, she was faced with having to do it all again.
Shit, this was getting her nowhere. She wanted to escape, escape these thoughts, clear her head. She pulled back the covers and put her feet on the floor, feeling the coolness of the boards beneath her feet. A drive, I need to go for a drive. She shrugged off her pyjamas and pulled on a pair of sweat pants, a v necked t-shirt, a jacket and a pair of track shoes. Maybe she'd go for a run when she arrived at wherever it was she was going to go. Wherever that was.
Unlocking the door of her car, she slipped into the drivers seat, clicked in her seatbelt, and started the engine. Pulled out onto the road. She still didn't know where she was going, she decided to just follow her instincts.
But it wasn't long before she worked out where her instincts were taking her. They were headed for the beach. Shit, not the beach, how was that going to help her get him out of her mind. The one place that defined her teenage years. Defined him to her. Tied her to him with an invisible bond that had held fast for 25 years.
Monterey Beach.
It was less than an hours drive from Palo Alto, but it was already midnight. It was a good job she had no classes on Mondays.
She sighed. Maybe going back to Monterey Beach, the beach where they had spent their youth, where they had first had sex on the sand in the moonlight on a warm summers night, where she had fallen in love with him, would help. Maybe she needed to see it again to see that it was just a place. Just a beach, no different from all the others up and down the Californian coast, that it wasn't a place of mystery, that it was nowhere special. Perhaps that would help her.
She drove and drove into the night. No music in the car. Just words, tumbling around aimlessly in her head.
She thought about him back then. She thought about him now. How it was becoming harder with each passing year. How she loved him more with the passage of time. How, as he had become a sexy, self-assured man, her need to hold on to him grew. The flecks of grey in his hair marked the passing of their time together, but they suited him. Time suited him. Age suited him. She thought of his face. She knew every line, every crease on that face. For the most part knew every event in his life that had imprinted them there. The laugh lines around his eyes, the crease by his mouth that framed his broad smile.
What a happy life they should have had together. What a happy life they would have had together if it wasn't for the fighting. Because it wasn't just love and friendship and sex that framed their life, it was the volatility. She managed to press his buttons in so many ways and he would blow up at her with a ferocity that she'd never seen him do with anyone else. And when he got angry with her, she got twice as angry with him. She could always hear herself screaming at him. Wanted to stop it but never could. And when he left, as he invariably did, the slam of the door would imprint itself in her mind. Again and again and again she would hear the sound of that slam until eventually, they decided that they would rather remain friends than continue the relationship like this.
And so it happened, over and over.
She knew the true passionate love he'd once felt for her, had left long ago. His heart had left her long ago. But she needed to make sure that his physical body left her as well if they were going to be true friends. The physical passion of their relationship kept drawing them back together, but they had to get past that if they were going to keep the friendship. And in her heart, she knew that was what she valued most. And that was why she needed him to love someone else. She needed him to be her friend instead of her lover and to leave her alone so she could get on with her own life. Find her own love.
...
'Tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap"
Her eyes sprang open and she snapped her head to the right, glaring at him.
"What?" he looked at her innocently, eyebrows raised.
"What - the - fuck - are - you – doing?" she hissed, not wanting to disturb the other passengers.
...
Anna pulled into the beach parking lot. Got out of the car and walked over to the edge, looking down over the dunes to the sand and the restless sea. She stared up at the crescent moon and the stars. It was a clear night, chilly with a gentle breeze blowing off the sea.
She suddenly had the urge to write. It sounded too corny for words, but she needed to write him a letter. She thought of the technique, of writing a letter to someone and then burning it or throwing it away. It wasn't a practice that she recommended very often, usually only if her patient suggested it themselves, had always thought it to be a little clichéd But she knew the point of the exercise was to release your feelings onto the paper. The destruction of the letter was just a piece of trickery really, for effect, to tap into that love of mysticism that seems ingrained into the human psyche.
Even so, she walked back over to the car, and from her bag, pulled a notepad and a pen. She'd often wondered why she still bothered to carry a notepad around with her now she had a laptop and a Blackberry, but figured it was just force of habit from being an academic for all these years. You never know when you might need to take some real notes.
She took the notebook, bag and a towel and made her way down the soft sand of the dunes to the beach, stumbling every now and then as her feet sank in the soft dry sand. She laid out her towel on the sand, made herself comfortable in her favourite cross legged yoga position and, in the moonlight, started to write.
My Darling Jacob,
I'm writing you this letter safe in the knowledge that no one will ever read it. No one will correct my grammar or point out my spelling mistakes, as they've done all my life. And safe in the knowledge that you will never read it. Will never be privy to my deepest thoughts about you. Although, somehow I can't help thinking that everything I write here, you will already know.
It is time for you to leave me. Time for you to leave me and my heart. You have been the love of my life Jake, the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. But because we both know it can never be, it's time for you to let me go.
Something is changing. I can feel it in the air this very night. I can see it in the stars and the sea. I feel incredibly sad and incredibly hopeful all at the same time.
Sweetheart, I need you to find love with someone else now. Real, deep, passionate love. I need to know that there is someone that you fall asleep thinking of and wake up wanting. Someone who isn't me. I need to know that when I see you across a crowded room that I don't fill you with desire, regardless of who you are with. I hate you for ever telling me that Jake. I need you to feel that for someone else now.
I hate you for being so honest with me over the years. I hate knowing your thoughts, your dreams, your hidden passions. I hate knowing how much you want me every time we're together. I hate you for making me love you. I hate you for having this hold over me. I hate you for being the most wonderful lover I've ever had. I hate you for spoiling me for anyone else.
I hate you for making me let you go like this, not once but twice. I hate that you needed me so desperately when Maggie was sick. I hate that I couldn't help but be with you. I hate the way you looked at me the day she died. I hate you for being so transparent and open. My heart broke twice that day. It was hard enough being there as my best friend passed away but to see the man that I loved, lost and heartbroken and torn apart, was the hardest part of all.
I hate that you still keep coming to me when your heart is hurting. I hate that I have to give you up again. I hate Rachel. I hate her. I hate that she will take you from me, that I'll never again fall asleep with your beautiful body wrapped around me, will never wake to your whisper in my ear.
But I need her to do it. I need her to take you from me now. I love her because you love her and I know she is the best thing that could have possibly happened to you. I love that she is crazy and sensible and tough and gentle and silly and wise. I love that she loves you. I love that when I look in her eyes I can see that she will do anything for you. And I love that you love her.
I want you to have everything in life my darling. I want you to have happiness and fulfilment and children and pets and mess and craziness but most of all, I want you to have love. I want everything for you that I want for myself. I know that you are my soul mate Jake, but I know that this is not the life in which we are meant to be together. I know that you are here to teach me a lesson, and when I leave this life I want to have learned that lesson so we can be together in another.
I know you don't believe in any of this stuff and maybe, that's what this life is supposed to teach you. That there is more to life that what you can see and hear and measure and analyse. That life is not a science experiment. Maybe that's what I and Maggie and Rachel are supposed to teach you. We are all lucky to be a part of your life Jacob, and you are more precious to each of us than you could possibly ever imagine. But I feel that my part in this has been done.
I need to let you go now. Go and learn the rest of your life's lessons from Rachel. I know I'll always be a part of your life. Will always be your friend. But I no longer feel I have anything to teach you or to learn from you. Go, my friend, my lover, my life. Go and be with her. Go and let me be with whoever I need to be with next.
I release you Jacob. Please do the same for me.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and to be loved in return.
I will love you for all eternity,
Anna.
Tears streamed down her face as she wrote. She didn't try and stop them because she knew it would be of no use. She had never written anything like this before. Had never even considered some of this stuff. Suddenly she understood the value in this exercise. To be free and open and truthful, secure in the understanding that no one in the world will ever read what you have written. She read back over her words. They surprised even her. She wasn't even a believer in the journey of the soul through different lifetimes, yet she had written so passionately about it. Maybe she was just being lovesick and lonely and melodramatic. Maybe she should just write another one without all that crap in.
She read it again.
No, if that was what her heart felt, then her heart deserved to have its say. It was her heart that had suffered so much at the hands of Jacob Hood. The letter was going to be destroyed anyway, and if those were the words that had gushed out of her along with her tears, then they were the words that she meant to say.
She reached into her bag, took out the cigarette lighter she always carried, and got to her feet. She read the letter one more time, and kissed it.
"Be free now," she whispered into the paper, "be free and let me be free."
She flicked the lighter and, holding the letter in the air, held the tiny flame to the corner of the paper. It slowly took hold, struggling at first in the breeze. It took a few moments to ignite completely, and when the paper was flaming and threatening to burn her fingers, she let it go and it was taken by the wind. It broke into a million tiny pieces, a million tiny embers which fluttered off into the dark night sky like a million tiny stars.
"I love you Jacob," she whispered.
...
"Marry me." He breathed the words against her cheek.
Her body collapsed against him. He held her close.
"Marry me Rachel," he whispered, breathily. "I need our lives to be entwined. I need to be bound to you. Share this eternity with me. I love you."
...
Anna stood motionless on the beach for a while, arms wrapped around herself as scant protection against the cool wind. Eventually with a sigh, she trudged back up the loose dry sand of the dunes, back to her vehicle. It was 1am. She really didn't feel like driving all the way back to her home in the dark right now. So she climbed into the back seat of her car, locked all the doors and pulled the blanket that she kept in there over her. She thought about what she had written, what she had done, and strangely she did feel less agitated. More settled. Eventually she fell asleep, with the vision of the tiny embers dancing on the night breeze tickling her mind.
She could hear a tapping noise. It was intruding in her sleep. Go away. Go away. Let me be.
The noise got louder, more insistent. Finally she gave into it and sleep disappeared. She looked around groggily. The sky was light with the pale early morning dawn.
"Hello, are you ok?"
She heard a voice and looked around. She saw a man's face looking at her through the window of the car. She nodded.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded again, not really wanting to get out and talk to this stranger at the crack of dawn. He looked nice enough but she knew she must look like shit.
"Can you talk?"
She nodded.
"Would you mind getting out of the car so I can check you really are ok."
She frowned. He was dressed in a wet suit and carried a surfboard and she thought he was being very insistent for a surfer. But there was something about his manner that made her want to do what he said.
She fumbled with the locked door, finally opened it and stepped out into the parking lot. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her cramped muscles.
"Sorry to wake you like that but I was worried about you," he said with concern. "I'm Sam Knox". He held out his hand.
He was tall, probably about 6'4, and blonde. He had an imposing kind of presence. She took his outstretched hand, looked up into his concerned blue eyes and smiled.
...
Jacob was relieved to be standing barefoot on Bethany Beach at last, a gentle morning breeze blowing his hair, cool sand between his toes and the weak sun on his face.
He had been pleased that the flight had arrived on time at 5am and he'd hustled Rachel off the plane, to the front of the baggage collection and immigration queues, piled the bags and her into the SUV, took the keys off her before she could complain and made good time on the drive down from DC. He had things to do. Things to catch up with. People to tell. And when he'd done all that, he wanted to be alone with the beautiful woman who he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
Things hadn't been so clear to him when he got onto the plane in Geneva. But now, 12 hours later, he wondered why he had ever doubted it. He felt energised, positive, hopeful, more hopeful than he'd been in a long time. He was buzzing. He put his hand in his pocket, retrieved his cellphone, and turned it on. He'd avoided doing it until now, in case there was some emergency or reason that they couldn't come down to Bethany. He'd been determined that nothing was going to keep him away from here this time. There were a couple of missed calls from Frank Fuller, a voice mail message from his French colleague Bernard checking to see if he'd got home safely, and a text message from his sister Alex reminding him that they hadn't had a proper talk for almost 3 months.
Mmmm, he really should go and see her. Maybe he'd fly over. He could catch up with Alex and Anna at the same time. He stared at the phone. No, Anna deserved to know straight away. He keyed in a short message and pressed send.
...
Anna was sitting at a beachside café having a very early breakfast with a tall blonde police officer named Sam who was giving her a lecture on the dangers of sleeping in cars. She now knew he was 44, divorced, no children, had graduated from college with a law degree but after practicing law for 10 years, decided that he really wanted to pursue justice from a different angle and became a police officer. And he surfed every morning rain, hail or shine.
Her phone beeped and she slid it open. A text message from Jacob. He always knew the best possible times to remind her of his presence. So much for her heartfelt letter, she thought to herself, laughing. She knew it had been a load of hocus pocus.
She opened the message and smiled. Or maybe not.
"I asked her. She said yes." The message read simply.
She texted back. Closed the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her.
"Now Sam," she said "I have a burning question for you. What is this line from? It's been bugging me all night. 'The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and to be loved in return.'
He grinned at her. "That's from Moulin Rouge. The song was Nature Boy actually, by David Bowie."
She looked at him, surprised by the certainty in his answer.
"Come on, surely you must remember poor Ewan typing that line on the old typewriter. He was in tears. Makes me cry every time."
"Sam," she looked at him in confusion, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you gay?"
He laughed. "No, I'm not gay. There were plenty of women in various states of undress in that movie I might remind you. I guess I'm just um, well, romantic."
He shrugged, "yes that's is, I must be romantic. Come on, surely you remember. Ewan McGregor says 'This story is about love. The woman I love, loved, is dead."
"And then David Bowie starts to sing," and he sang;
"There was a boy,
a very strange enchanted boy,
they say he wandered very far,
very far,
over land and sea."
He had a sweet, strong voice. She couldn't quite believe that he was singing to her in a café at 6.30am.
"Come on Anna! And what about when he sang My Song to Nicole on the roof, surely you must remember that?"
He sang again.
"And you can tell everybody
That this is your song
It might be quite simple but, now that it's done
I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind
That I put down in words
How wonderful life is now you're in the world"
She smiled and clapped. He looked slightly sheepish but took a small bow.
'Oh yes,' she thought to herself, 'you are exactly what I need right now Sam Knox. I do love a romantic man. And you can sing. You sang for me.'
Now that was one thing that Jacob Hood had never done for her.
...
He flipped open his phone. A return message from Anna. Just one word.
'Thankyou', it read.
He frowned. That was an odd thing to for her to say. He shrugged his eyebrows and closed the phone. Thinking about it, everyone else could wait for a day or two. They didn't really need to know straight away.
He looked out over the rolling waves. He could see a long line of angry black cloud on the horizon. A cold front was headed this way and it looked like it meant business.
No, he needed to take advantage of the peace and quiet and fine weather while he still had it. Didn't need to get everyone else excited just yet.
He hoped the black cloud wasn't an omen. No, he was sure it wasn't. He felt too good right now to believe it could be a bad omen. He was still bursting with enthusiasm.
Right now he could think of a couple of very good ways to utilise his pent up energy and neither of them involved work or phone calls or leaving this place. He smiled to himself as he stripped off his tired travel clothes, down to his trunks. He couldn't be bothered going back up to the house to change into swimming gear now he was finally on the beach. Given that he hadn't slept for 24 hours, he knew he was going to crash at some point, but right at this moment he was buzzing with adrenalin.
He started jogging down to the water then broke into a run. He easily cleared the knee high breakers, before dolphining into the next couple of waves and finally diving fully under once he was deep enough.
Immediately, the water filled his ears blocking out the sound of the outside world. The water shocked his senses, it was icy cold, clean and bracing. It made him feel free and alive as he tasted the salt in his mouth and felt the chill caress every inch of his body. He stayed under for as long as his breath would let him.
As he finally surfaced, he gulped a much needed lungful of air and struck out parallel to the shore. His body automatically kicked into the familiar rhythm of his easy loping freestyle stroke. He'd swum this stretch of water in this same stroke so often that the movements were ingrained into the memory of his muscles, leaving his mind free to think of other things. As he swam, he tried to use the rhythm to focus his thoughts. The adrenalin was still pulsing in his veins and through his brain.
This swim was the first way he had planned to use his pent up energy. The explicitly erotic details of the second way he planned to use it were winding through his mind as he swam. He felt the interplay of his muscles as they powered his body through the water, and imagined how her muscles under her soft warm skin would feel under his hands when he made love to her in about 15 minutes time, 10 if he swam faster.
God he loved her, and the thought of spending every day of his life with her turned him on more than he could possibly imagine. He realised then, that what he'd really been looking for since Maggie died was a future.
He needed someone to love like a garden needed rain. Because love bought him hope for the future.
And that was what sustained him.