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Chapter 10

Can I Be Honest

The next moments following that incident morphed into what felt to Janet like one big blur. So strong was her rage and her despair that she could not think clearly, could not see clearly, could not feel clearly. Talking to Phillip was out of the question. Talking to Jack was out of the question. Instead, she had managed to enter her room, collect the majority of Phillip's belongings, haul them outside as he called after her, and deposit them in the surrounding foliage before barricading herself back into the room for the remainder of the night.

Jack wanted desperately to talk to her, to be the arms into which she could run and the voice that would tell her everything would be okay. But Phillip had placed himself firmly in front of the bedroom door, knocking over and over and begging Janet to please talk to him.

"Janet, please," Phillip cried in between knocks. "Look, you have every right to be mad but please understand. I thought you were cheating on me!"

Vicky walked out of the other bedroom hesitantly. "Phillip, I don't know if that's the right way to go about this."

"Oh, now you're a woman of virtue," Jack snapped.

"Now, Jack..." Phillip warned.

"I'm sorry, do you have something to say, Phil? I'd be happy to hear whatever it is that you have to say," Jack added sarcastically.

"Jack, will you please just calm down for a second!" Vicky interjected.

"Calm down? Me? I am calm! I'm as cool as a god damned cucumber! I am peachy freakin' keen." Jack squeaked through gritted teeth.

"Look, maybe what we all need to do is to just have everyone sit down together and have a composed chat about all of this," Phillip suggested.

"A composed chat? That sounds wonderful, Phil. Let's have a composed chat about how, uh, you slept with my fiancé and left me and your wife alone to die in the wilderness. I'm all ears!" Jack continued while primly having a seat on the couch and crossing his legs. When nobody said anything further, he added, "Well? I'm waiting. Cool and composed."

"...I get the feeling you don't really want to talk," said Phillip hesitantly before exchanging glances with Vicky.

"No?" Jack asked as he stood back up. "You mean you think I don't want to talk about what you two just did while Janet is in there crying her eyes out, not giving a damn about any of your excuses?"

Vicky and Phillip both looked at one another and sighed before looking back at Jack. They knew he was right, and yet somehow neither one of them could shake the feeling that their reasoning hadn't been completely fallible. Both of them had been aware of the closeness between Jack and Janet when they entered relationships with each of them respectively. It had always been in the back of their minds. Any hint that there was anything more didn't turn out to be much of a shock. What was more of a shock was that, after everything, it had actually turned out to be nothing at all.

"Jack, can I make a confession?" Vicky asked.

"Another one?"

She ignored his sarcasm. "I...I guess I was always a little jealous of Janet. Of what the two of you had together for all those years before you met me." She paused a moment. "This isn't going to help matters any, but I certainly didn't go out of my way to help the two of you stay in touch after she got married."

"And I was as happy as a clam that you weren't anywhere in sight this past year," Phillip added.

Shut up, Phillip, Jack thought. He breathed in heavily, taking in their 'reasoning,' but somehow it didn't seem to be enough. It wasn't enough.

"What gets me is that instead of confronting Janet and me, instead of telling us what you were feeling, you did this." He gestured at the two of them. "Were either of you even the slightest bit upset at the thought that Janet and I were supposedly having an affair, or was it just an excuse to run off together?"

There was a pause before Vicky said softly, "Of course I was upset, but..."

"But?"

Vicky sighed. There was something she wasn't telling him. He ignored her, not in the mood to pry her any further, and turned toward Phillip. "Do you still love her?"

Phillip looked at Vicky again before looking back at Jack. "Look, it just happened, Jack, we didn't plan – "

"I meant your wife," Jack cut him off, his tone icy cold.

Phillip sighed, embarrassed at the misunderstanding. He relented. "Of course I do."

Jack swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat. It was so hard not to murder this man. Of course I do. Then prove it. Not one thing either one of them said would explain why they thought it was okay to let this all go, whether they had their suspicions or not. But it was proving more and more difficult to say anything without yelling, so instead Jack pulled his glare from the two of them and knocked softly on the door behind which Janet sat.

"Go away!" she cried.

"Janet, it's Jack," he replied, his voice now much gentler than it had been with Phillip and Vicky.

Before he could listen for a response, Phillip interjected. "Jack, I think I should be the one to talk to my w – "

But Jack's cold stare shut him up and he relented. Jack heard a click as the door unlocked. He hesitated a moment before opening it and closed it behind him.

...

Janet wasn't there. Jack's heart sped up briefly as he scanned the small room. Finally, his eyes landed on the top part of Janet's head, which was visible toward the lower left corner of the window. She had crawled out of it and sat on the edge of the porch that wrapped around the cabin. As he walked closer to the window he noted Phillip's belongings scattered around the porch, resting in bushes, and hanging from nearby trees. Further out the breeze cascaded over the otherwise tranquil lake and Jack shivered. The beautiful surrounding mountains seemed to loom now and he pulled his eyes away from them as he too crawled over the edge of the window. He silently sat down next to Janet, unzipped his hoodie, and placed it around her shoulders. They sat without speaking for a moment, their eyes focused only on the lake and the oblivious tourists with their boats and kayaks.

Janet was the first to break the silence. It was only then that Jack noticed that she'd been crying.

"I guess I really loused things up, huh?" The light bounced off of her tears as she probed his eyes with hers.

"Don't tell me you're blaming this on yourself." He reached for one of Phillip's shirts and began dabbing her tears with it.

"How can I not? This whole thing was my stupid idea. If I hadn't suggested we come here and play these stupid games, none of this would've ever happened."

"Janet!" Jack was visibly frustrated. "Do you really think people go around cheating on their spouses because of the events of a few days' time? Do you really think Phillip did this because he thought you were cheating on him, or do you think he did it because maybe things haven't been so great for a long time?"

Janet sat stunned for a moment. He had laid it all right on her and she hadn't been expecting it. It was clear that he was increasingly losing his patience – with her, with Vicky and Phillip, with everything. And along with it, he was losing his filter. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, then closed it again.

Jack sighed. "Jan, I'm sorry I just...did you not have at least a little feeling?"

She groaned in a crescendo. "Of course I had a little feeling! But I didn't think that a little feeling was gonna turn into...into..." She dissolved back into a heavy sob, and Jack handed her Phillip's shirt.

"Blow."

She blew heartily, then dramatically tossed the shirt into the nearest bush. There was another pause.

"Did you?" She finally asked.

"What?"

"Did you have a feeling?"

Another sigh. "Yeah...maybe...I don't know." Silence. "Janet, can I be honest?"

"Of course."

"It's just...I haven't been happy for a long time and I think the reason I really proposed to Vicky is because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I thought it would make everything okay. Ya know? That if I did that, then I wouldn't have to think about – then I'd officially..." He scratched the back of his neck in frustration, angry at himself for not being able to find the nerve to say what was on his mind.

"Jack it sounds less like you're being honest and more like you're trying to say something else entirely. I just have no idea what it is."

He looked at her and smiled sadly. No, of course she didn't.

"Can I be honest? Actually honest?" She said. He looked at her. "I'm desperate for my marriage not to fail. Because if it fails then that means I made a mistake. Even if I did nothing wrong, it means the time and the effort I put in to dating him and marrying him and being with him meant nothing. I took vows, Jack. How can I just abandon them?" She shrugged heavily and let her shoulders fall.

He looked at her for a long time. No, he couldn't tell her. My god she is stubborn. She is truly blind, he thought. He wanted to tell her that it was okay for things to not work out, that it didn't make her a failure, that her vows were essentially shot to hell now. But deep down he understood her old-fashioned way of thinking perfectly well. He had the same stupid old-fashioned rationale.

They were so damned alike.

"Are you saying you're going to forgive this man? You're going to give him another chance?"

"I don't know what I'm saying. I'm saying...I'm saying that none of this was supposed to happen. None of this was ever supposed to happen. This wasn't a part of the plan. I was supposed to get married, and I was supposed to have a happy marriage where I was respected, and you were supposed to stay in my life. You were supposed to be there."

Ah, there it was.

"What does this have to do with me?"

"You know perfectly well what this has to do with you."

"Do I?"

They glared at each other for a while, daring the other to say something. Something real.For once.

But, in true Jack and Janet fashion, nobody did.

Jack got up and began to mosey around the porch in an effort to work off his nervous energy. "Look, I can't make your decisions for you Janet," he finally began. "I can toss out ideas but at the end of the day it's up to you. If you want to give that...that Phillip another chance then that's on you."

Janet stood up now, too, ready to throw hands with Jack, only stifling herself somewhat because most of her angry energy was still very much reserved for Phillip. "And what brilliant ideas do you suggest, Jack?"

He pretended to think for a moment and produced a nonchalant shrug as if the idea hadn't been sitting with him for some time. "What if...I dunno...what if you and I...what if we moved back in with each other...or something?"

Janet balked at the idea. "What, just the two of us? Your idea is that I divorce Phillip and move back in with you?" she quipped sarcastically.

"It worked out perfectly fine before."

"We're not kids anymore, Jack!"

"So what!"

"So what?! What are people going to say, Jack, a man and a woman living together like that? Alone? Gee, why don't you just propose to me while you're at it."

She meant it as a joke but it caught both of them off guard. They both shut up for a good minute.

"Look, Janet, I'm sorry. I don't want to argue with you – "

"You never really wanted me to marry Phillip...did you?" she cut him off slowly. He opened his mouth to speak but she continued, "You said last night that you avoided me because you didn't like change. That you didn't know how to act toward me when he entered the picture. That's what you said," she huffed. "I guess you wanted me all to yourself, huh?"

He shrugged. "So what if I did."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I could kill you, Jack Tripper, you know that? You're infuriating."

"I'm infuriating?"

"Yes you!" she rolled her eyes again. Then slowly and more quietly she added, "Maybe you should've said something."

"Janet, what could I have possibly said that would've changed your mind?"

"Jack..." his name fell from her lips as she searched his eyes and it hung in the air for a moment before being washed away by silence. She looked down and fiddled with the wedding band that still clung to her left ring finger and sighed. Jack noted the gesture.

Janet slowly began to make her way back to the window that led to her bedroom. "I – I've got to go murder somebody else right now, Jack. We can continue this some other time."

He was going to let her go before something stirred in him so briefly that he was unable to stop it. She was halfway back through the window before he called out to her.

"Janet, wait. Janet?"

Her legs and feet were dangling over the edge as she hoisted herself up. She paused at his voice, her belly arched over the ledge, and looked out from under her arm. "Yes, Jack?" she replied with vague annoyance.

"So are you gonna...I mean what are you gonna...wh-wh-what's, I mean, what's going to happen between you two, then?" He stuttered, afraid to come right out and ask what he really wanted to ask: will you leave him?

Janet sighed and ignored his question to slide the rest of the way through the window. Once she was back inside her room, she leaned on the ledge and looked back out at Jack. She swallowed hard and stared at the ground for a moment. There was still the slight sensation of a lump in her throat. She was tired. The day had been too much...the entire trip, the entire few months had been too much. She slowly lifted her eyes back up to look at Jack, forced a half smile, and shrugged. "I don't know."

Jack was visibly concerned, and it was apparent he was growing anxious. "But Janet – "

"Jack, look, I have only had a short amount of time to process all of this. I just...I just want to go home."

"But where is home?" He was growing more agitated...not at her, at everything. If she went back to him – if she went back to Phillip – he would drag her off to New York for good.

She looked at him for a moment. To the unbiased observer, it may have appeared to be a look of yearning, some deep-rooted longing. She pursed her lips in an effort to fight it. "I have to talk to my husband right now, Jack." And with that, she turned and walked away from the window, leaving Jack behind to curse his cowardice – both past and present.

A light breeze picked up again and he wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. She hadn't given him back his hoodie.