Jessica closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears from coming. She stumbled slowly to her door to close it, and then quietly collapsed back on to her bed. She replayed the night's events in her head, the club music still pounding in her ears. She tried to shut it out, squeezing her eyes closed even tighter. She felt like she was on a boat, her bed slowly rocking beneath her. Nick's face swam through the blackness of her mind, she tried to block him out, but it was impossible. Jess prepared herself for a long night.
Across the hall Nick knew that he might as well give up all hope of falling back asleep. His girlfriend, Lacey, turned over slightly as he settled back into bed, mumbling quietly while wrapping herself around him, "Where'd you go babe?"
"Nowhere, go back to sleep," he said softly, running his hand through her hair. She mumbled incoherently in response, not needing much convincing as she fell easily back asleep. Nick closed his eyes and sighed, trying to make sense of the thoughts bouncing off the walls of his head. Jessica's voice echoing through his ears, "you're not my boyfriend anymore." Nick allowed his mind to slip back, back to the final days of his relationship with Jessica Day. He knew it was pointless, he knew he would never make sense of it all, and he knew that it didn't matter, but his mind was relentless, and his memories began replaying like a DVD anyway, not knowing that across the hall Jess was replaying her own memories of the end.
7 Months Ago
Nick walked quietly through the front door of the loft, and made his way silently to his girlfriend's bedroom. It was 3am and he had just finished a double shift at the bar, and there was no doubt in his mind that he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He glanced over at his own bedroom on the opposite side of the hall as he reached for Jess' door knob, wondering if he shouldn't just go to sleep in his own bed instead of risking waking her up.
Things between them had been strained lately and he wasn't sure why. He had been working a lot more than usual, and he feared that she was becoming bored. He had tried to talk to her about it, but he wasn't so good at telling people how he felt, and every time he tried to bring it up, she assured him that she was fine.
The truth was that he was in the process of trying to buy the bar from Shane's father, Carl. He hadn't told anyone, including Jess, because he wasn't sure if it was all going to work, and he was already notorious for not following through on things. Carl traveled a lot, having business' all over, so most of the negotiation was between him and Shane, which was beyond awkward, but Nick was trying his damndest to make it work. Shane was actually being relatively reasonable with Nick, as she knew that her father wanted to dump the bar as easily as possible, and he had taken a liking to Nick over the years, of course being unaware that he had slept with his daughter briefly. After punching some numbers, Nick and Shane had finally found a way to make it work for Nick despite the $30,000 price tag. By increasing his shifts at the bar by 30 hours a week, and giving all of his wages, not including tips, back to Shane and Carl, he would be able to pay $15,000 in six months. At that point Carl would sign ownership over to Nick, and the remaining $15,000 would be paid back to Carl in installments, as both Carl and Nick knew that he would never be approved for a loan with his ridiculously bad credit. Nick knew that as soon as he had ownership, the monthly profit from the bar would be more than enough to support him and cover his payments back to Carl, and as long as everything went according to plan, Nick would be debt free in less than a year. Not only that, but Nick was confident that once he took ownership, that he would be able to substantially increase profits. The problem with the bar now was that Carl and Shane didn't really care, but Nick knew that with some hard work he could really turn the place around.
He quietly walked into Jess' room, doing his best to keep from waking her as he settled into his spot next to her. She didn't stir, and her breathing remained even as he leaned over and softly kissed her on the forehead. He quickly fell into an easy sleep by her side, not knowing that she had only been pretending to be asleep.
Jessica sighed quietly, listening to the sound of Nick snoring softly. She rolled over and looked at him, wondering if she would be able to go through with everything. She knew that she had to, she was falling too hard already, and they hadn't been together for even six months. Her mind was set, she had to break up with Nick.
As she watched him sleep she thought of all the things that had brought her to this. She replayed the conversation they had had months earlier in an air vent. "Tell me there isn't a small part of you that's scared that I'm too much of a mess...". Nick had been right, from the very beginning. He had even tried to give her an out by "calling it", but Jess had gone against reason, and chosen to go all in with him anyway. Now here she was, almost six months later, lying in bed with a man that she had no doubt fallen in love with, that would never feel the same way for her. Tears started falling silently as she reminded herself of all the reasons why she knew she was doing the right thing. Nick was a passionate guy, but he was completely unreasonable. The things he was passionate about were completely ridiculous and accomplished no purpose. Growing tomato plants, writing zombie novels, trying to prove his manliness by having Thanksgiving in the woods. The fact was that Nick would never grow up. She had hoped against hope that he would grow to love her as much as she loved him. But she doubted his focus, and it was becoming increasingly clear that Nick did not love Jessica the way that she loved him. She had thought that maybe, there had been times when he looked at her, she thought for sure that he loved her. But she knew now that it wasn't true.
She hadn't questioned at first why Nick had begun to spend so much time at the bar, she had taken him at his word that he had just began picking up extra shifts. But the conversation she had overheard the other night had left no doubt in her mind. She had thought it would be nice to surprise Nick at the bar, since he had been working so hard lately. When she found her best friend CeCe behind the bar and Nick nowhere in sight she wandered quietly to the back office where he sometimes could be found balancing a drawer or filling out inventory logs. The door was slightly ajar, and she could hear Nick's voice laughing softly. Jessica smiled at the sound of it, but stopped quickly in her tracks when she heard a woman's soft giggle accompany it. Jessica frowned slightly, and took a few steps closer, trying to figure out who could be making Nick laugh like that, and felt her heart sink when she saw Shane's slender figure through the crack of the office door. Both of them had their backs to the door, they were sitting on the office desk, drinks in hand. Jessica stopped herself from letting her imagination run away with her, and took another step closer so she could make her presence known, but she stopped as she began to catch their conversation.
"Well, congratulations, I knew we could find a way to make this work," Shane said softly clinking her beer against Nicks.
"I gotta tell ya, this has been one of the scariest things I've ever done, but I'm glad we found a way to make it work too," Nick replied, pulling his beer back to take a drink.
"Well, to be honest with you, I didn't think you had the balls to go through with it, but you surprised me Nick Miller." Shane said, a smile playing at her lips.
Nick would normally tell Shane to eat it, but as he had just signed an agreement that indebted himself to her and her father for at least the next six months, Nick thought better of it. "Well, I guess I'm full of surprises," he said instead, rolling his eyes to himself.
"So how are you going to explain all the extra time you'll be spending here?" Shane asked, taking another sip of her drink. Nick had made it clear that he didn't want Shane mentioning him trying to purchase the bar to any of his friends that were in there all the time, or especially CeCe now that she worked there.
Nick shrugged, "I dunno, I guess I doubt anyone will really notice," Nick said honestly.
"Oh yeah, what about your girlfriend?" Shane said slyly, gently bumping her elbow into Nick's side.
Nick could tell that the alcohol was starting to get to Shane, as she was becoming extra playful. He remembered that this was how they had ended up sleeping together months before. He wasn't worried about that now, but he knew he was going to have to get back out to the bar soon to get away from her. "You know what, what I tell my girlfriend has got absolutely nothing to do with what we have going on here, so don't worry about it." Nick said, jumping off the desk. "C'mon, I've left CeCe alone at the bar long enough." Nick said extending a hand to Shane to help her down off the desk.
Jess ducked quickly out of sight, her hands shaking as she quietly edged her way to the back door. When she finally found fresh air she let the tears fall freely. It couldn't be true, she thought as she shook her head, her hands coming up to cover her eyes. She stayed in that ally for another twenty minutes, sobbing quietly, before she finally resigned herself back to the loft.
That had been weeks ago, and in the days that had passed Jessica had tried to think of every possible explanation for the conversation she had overheard between Shane and Nick. But there was nothing, nothing except for the obvious of course, that Nick was having an affair. She tried to tell herself that she would have known if Nick was cheating on her, but she remembered Spencer, and how she had missed all the signs with him as well. She wanted to be mad, she wanted to be furious, but she just wasn't. Brokenhearted, depressed, shocked, all of these things summed up how Jess felt, but she just couldn't bring herself to anger. Nick had warned her, he had given her an out before they even started, but she fell for him anyway. She couldn't bring herself now, to put blame on the man she loved, knowing from the beginning how damaged he really was. But she couldn't ignore it either, she had to let him go, before she got to the point in their relationship where she wouldn't be able to walk away at all.
Jess watched Nick sleep till dawn, reminding herself of all the reasons why they couldn't be together. She got up slowly, took a shower, made herself breakfast, and waited for Nick to wake up. She saw him as she was finishing her cereal slowly make his way out of her bedroom.
"Hey," he greeted sleepily, "I didn't hear ya get up this morning." He walked around to the stool she sat on, placing a quick kiss on the side of her head. Both Coach and Winston had already left the apartment, she had asked them the night before to give her and Nick some privacy that morning. They probably thought that Nick was in for a treat, if only they had known, they might have warned him.
"Nick, we need to talk," Jessica started as Nick sat down at the kitchen table with his bagel.
Nick looked up slowly, and for the first time that morning became aware of how tired Jess really looked. This was it, this was what he had been waiting for from the beginning. He didn't say anything, he just kept staring at her, waiting for it to come. And then it did.
"I think we should break up."