"I loved you."
In a note that rambled on for two and a half carefully scrawled pages, those words toward the bottom of the last piece of paper were the ones that stood out the most clearly, carrying more weight than all the other tongue-tripping niceties put together. I loved you. The statement was simple, the implication strange at best, the sentiment bullshit. She could see him sitting uncomfortably at her computer desk, all his belongings that had found their way to her apartment gathered at his feet as he scribbled this note full of eloquent and arrogant attempts to absolve himself of responsibility.
He probably thought he had succeeded, but in reality she had absolved him. If he wanted to wear his badge of nobility and live out his life thinking he had "done the right thing," then so be it. But she in turn would go to her grave knowing it was a lie, and not really caring, when you got right down to it. David Marshall — his significance, his hold over her, his very existence short of the role he'd played in the life that now grew inside her — had somehow waned while she had been gone, ensconced among people who did matter. And he had left her with the one part of himself that was worth all her trouble.
She missed them already, terribly. It seemed that driving out of town the way she had, too fast and too determinedly, drowning out her heart's protests by blaring the radio and singing along at the top of her lungs until her throat was sore, had only postponed the invasion of the razor-edged hollow that goodbyes often leave behind. Now, alone in her suddenly less-cluttered apartment with this letter clutched in her hand, all she could do was miss them.
"Congratulate me; I'm officially shut of him," she told Jack when she called to tell him she had made it home safely. "If I could drink, I'd crack open a bottle of champagne to celebrate this momentous occasion."
"Right. How are you really?" he asked, immediately seeing through her bravado.
"Don't you get all psychoanalytical on me, Jack McPhee," she said warningly. "I am perfectly happy to declare my apartment officially boy-free. No more falling in the toilet in the middle of the night because you jerks can't remember simple anatomical differences when it matters."
"Hey, don't group me in with those guys," he said. "You and Grams broke me of that habit years ago."
"Of course." After a slight pause, she said, "He left me a note. Did you know people actually do that outside of bad movies?"
"No way. You're kidding."
"I wish I was kidding. Answer me this, Jack. In your entire life, and in your myriad tangle of relationships, have you ever been tempted to tell someone 'I loved you'?"
"Loved?"
"Loved. That's right, 'e-d.' If that's not one to take to the shrink, I don't know what is."
"For what it's worth, Jen, I'm glad he's gone. You deserve so much more. You deserve everything."
She laughed lightly. "Well, apparently the challenges of single motherhood are included in this everything of which you speak."
"I'm here," he said firmly. "Don't you forget that."
"Never."
After they hung up, the apartment seemed even emptier. She kept her hand on the receiver for a long time, fighting the urge to pick up the phone and call him back.
Beginning as far back as childhood, Jen had developed and honed an enviable ability to adapt to whatever unpleasantness life threw her way. The following months — filled as they were with emotions running the gamut from elation to despair, from excitement over something as pointed as feeling her baby move for the first time to a vague, generalized terror of what lay ahead — passed relentlessly. Minutes, hours, and days moved slowly but weeks flew by, as if time itself were an illusion that adjusted its speed depending on how closely she scrutinized it.
The idea that soon she would no longer be pregnant and would instead be a mother was still a foggy notion she harbored at the back of her mind. She supposed when her psyche was ready to deal with such implications, it would allow her to contemplate this inevitability for longer than a few moments without thrusting her into a state of earth-shaking vertigo. What qualified her, of all people, to be a mother? Certainly nothing she had learned from her own, who had been so blind to her daughter's needs that instead of trying to help her fifteen-year-old figure out a way to stop her premature downward spiral, she had sent her away to spare herself from watching it happen.
"You're probably more qualified than most people because of where your mom went wrong, Jen," Joey assured her one night over dinner at a restaurant near Jen's apartment. This was in her seventh month, and in the midst of a particularly severe patch of self-doubt. "You learned from her mistakes. You'll never send your kid to live with someone else just because she makes a few bad choices."
"Oh God, Joey, do you think my kid is going to turn out just like me?" Jen asked in a dramatic whisper, her eyes widening in alarm over the top of her tea glass as this new worry struck. "Because I don't think I can deal with that! I mean, I couldn't even fix myself."
Joey smiled indulgently at her friend. "Will you stop? Look at yourself. You did fix it, and you came out stronger for the struggle. You're making yourself crazy. You're making me crazy."
"Well, I guess it's contagious, because Jack told me the same thing the other day."
Joey laughed. "Speaking of … how is Jack?"
Jen frowned, stirring her tea around with her straw distractedly. "I'm not allowed to tell you that; you know the rules. Call him yourself. But by the same token, have you talked to Pacey?"
A shadow passed over Joey's eyes, and Jen almost regretted the question that had escaped her lips before she knew what she was saying. "Nice new way to avoid the topic of your impending motherhood. And no, not since we were there," Joey admitted reluctantly.
"Okay, so, why?"
"I don't know. I've been busy, I'm sure he's been busy."
"Really. Both of you are too busy to pick up the phone?"
"You are relentless," Joey said. "I'll be glad when this baby is born and we have our sweet, mild-mannered Jen back."
"I'm sorry, do I know you? I'm Jen Lindley."
"Very funny. Pacey can call me just as easily as I can call him."
"Except that you're in a relationship and Pacey isn't. At least as far as we know."
"What?" Joey looked up, her eyes registering surprise at that last. "He's not, is he?"
"Why would you care?"
"Jen!"
"I haven't talked to him in awhile either. But I'm quite sure Jack would have mentioned it. My point is, he's at a disadvantage here, not knowing if it's all right to call you, not knowing if Christopher is going to pick up the phone if he does. It's up to you, Jo."
"Are you ever going to give up on getting Pacey and me back together?"
Jen took a long sip of her tea and fixed her gaze on Joey's. "No."
Jen and Joey had spent more time together since their return from Capeside, and the topics that before had been taboo were now mutually acceptable, even encouraged. Wednesday nights were set aside to gather at Jen's and watch their old friend's reenactment (or massacre, depending upon who you asked and what their on-screen counterparts were up to at the time) of their history. The attempt to bury that past under camouflaging piles of the present had, for the time being, at least, been halted. It had never been very successful to begin with. And the closer Jen got to the turning point in her life that was circled in red marker on every calendar she owned, the less she understood what her motivations had been for wanting to forget the place and the people who had essentially made her who she was today.
She felt better, stronger as the days ticked by and the baby grew. Sometimes she was sure she could handle anything life threw at her, as she always had. On those days she was happy, secure in the knowledge that her future was a little more definitive than it had ever been before. And in the places where it wasn't so clear, she felt confident in her ability to face whatever lay in wait for her.
During these days of preparation and anticipation and ambiguity, Jen had no real concept of the brevity of time before her. And that, in itself, was a blessing.
