Chapter 17

Bittersweet

It was cold and past noon and Manny Santos strode on her way to Jay's house with her hands in her pockets of her hounds-tooth coat. She was wearing a modest outfit of Emma's choosing. Her hands were sweaty as they were alternating between being balled up into fists breathlessly, she whispered to herself what am I going to do? She even wore a scarf to cover up her unsightly neck. For a moment though she stopped in front of the house with the red accents and black door the one level home they had spent many days nights and years before she got big. He knew her then, he always believed in her. He in countless wrapped her up in his arms whispering that he believed in her and her guilt made her sick to her stomach.

Determined, Manny marched up the front door with the nerve of an ox. The door bell is broken, she didn't exactly feel welcomed and she looked down at the welcome mat before she took the cold golden doorknocker into her warm hands and rattled it. She heard some movement while inside as she saw Jay open the door in just his boxers. He was half asleep, she had likely awoken him. Manny tried everything in her brain to keep her composure, whispering softly "May I come in?"

Jay was brought back to reality but complied, stepping aside and letting her step inside. He motioned her to come with him to the spare bedroom to allow Alex to sleep the afternoon away. After-all, it's the first time she had a nice warm bed in a long time. He didn't make eye contact with her, he just let her follow him. This made her stomach sink, had it all really been over last night and she was the only one lingering? Perhaps she wasn't the only one who needed to speak up. The lack of communication could have worked both ways.

She couldn't stand to see him silent as he sat on the bed, as he lit up cigarette for himself, "I checked your room, around eight or so when I had to take a leak and uh you weren't there."

Manny listened to him as they faced the open window. Manny took out a cigarette to smoke to calm her nerves. She didn't take her eyes from him as she put it to her lips and lit it for herself. However from the look of her fresh face she wasn't looking to please him romantically or anything. She looked calm, poised and clean from the looks over but inside she felt so dirty, sad and guilty. She knew she had to do the right thing but there was a nagging sensation inside of her that wanted to take the easy road and just roll into bed with him and pretend the nightmare that was last night never happened."I had to go and clear my head." Manny answered.

"Where did you go?" Jay asked, exhaling, looking as if he had all but given up, groggy at best. He inquired with an air of concern, "Emma's?"

"Something like that." Manny whispered muttering inaudibly, looking at Jay slapping her hand onto his hand with her free hand closing her eyes as he brought his attention to her. She gave it a squeeze as she bit her lips with her teeth as she figured out the words she wanted to say to him. Hot tears managed to form within her brown eyes and when she opened them as Jay looked closely saw the droplets, "We need to talk, and we've put it off for such a long time." He didn't say anything. He just stood there and looked blankly ahead, letting his cigarette go to waste as the smoke wafted toward the window. She simply continued, "I haven't been completely honest with you about my life."

"What do you mean?" Jay said taken back, turning his full and undivided attention to Manny.

"Yes, I feel like I need to be more honest."

"As opposed to dishonest."

"I've been dishonest." Manny answered, "I withheld things . . ."

"Spill." Jay said sitting like a pretzel turning himself to face Manny, not letting go of her hands, in fact pulling her closer to him on the bed, while Manny managed kept a safe distance, she squeezed his hand too but her half-hearted smirk of an expression told him otherwise. She sniffled a bit, before she took a drag out of her cigarette.

"Jay, I - I don't even know where to start." Manny whispered shaking her head, pursing her lips together and shifting eye contact with him.

"Start because you're giving me a heart attack." Jay reached over and ruffled up her hair, causing her to smile but quickly her face rested back to this harrowing expression, where she looked as if she were to blink it would result in tears streaming down her face. She came prepared by arriving without makeup. She knew there would be a lot of tears, she didn't want to start now. She just wanted to be able to spill it out.

"A few months ago, went to dinner in LA. Swanky place. I was interviewing with a director I had worked with in the past and I passed the bar on my way home and I saw an old friend." Manny explained, not leaving out a detail, "Ex-boyfriend, Craig."

"Yeah?" Jay confirmed that he heard, every word.

"So after dinner saw him at the bar, having drinks and dinner and we got to talking. We talked until closing time, catching up, swapping stories. And then, we ordered ourselves a cab and we talked some more. It was completely innocent, he was a gentleman when I went to his place, showed me around." Manny smiled avoiding eye contact while looking down at Jay's hands, unwavering, unmoving, he didn't speak, and perhaps it was for the best. "I had to leave, it was almost morning. As we hopped into the limo we were whisked away to my house and when I went to leave he kissed me. A-and all I thought of was you." She started to tear up at that last sentence, it wasn't until Craig kissed her was when she thought about Jay. In fact in that evening he was the last person on her mind. "And then I went home. Got on the first flight out of LA. I had to go. I couldn't be there. I thought, what did I do to make him think it'd be okay? Should I follow my heart or - just follow what I know?"

"Me or him?" Jay asked plainly.

She turned her attention to his face, his eyes stared at hers, they didn't sparkle, they just glisten with fresh tears inside. She sniffled once again, hoping hers wouldn't follow, "And I couldn't choose." And that's when she started to cry. "Then last night I just wanted to be assured, reassured that you love me the way you always did when it was new and exciting and - yet, I've never completely let go of anything. My trust issues, my shit my stuff it was always separate from our relationship. I hadn't seen the guy in six years and he comes walking into my life when I knew my life was going great. It really fucking was. I thought I knew everything."

"He tripped you up." Jay answered, hoping that was all it was. Deep down he was hoping for the best but internally expecting the worst was yet to come, inevitable his voice broke, "And that, is okay."

Manny let go of his hand and shook her head wildly, "It's not okay! It shouldn't be okay. How could I question? Quantify? I should know the way you feel. I should have paid attention. I did something selfish. I feel so. . incredibly guilty, Jay because you have been," her eyes watered once again as she continued, "you have been everything I've ever wanted in a guy. You were the greatest guy I have ever loved and I don't deserve you."

"How could you say that, Manny? There's nothing that would make me not want you. There is nobody else, Manny. No one could replace you."

"After you broke up with me, ask me where I went?" Manny yelled with the most conviction that he jumped at the thought, wiping her tears with her shirt. She carelessly tossed her cigarette in the empty ashtray, and made it. Afterwards she silently sobbed into her clothes.

Jay leaned over and pulled her into his chest, as he tried hard not to cry, to stay strong for her sake. However he couldn't, he just let her cry into him. He didn't care where she had gone, regardless if he didn't know he just didn't want to know. If he remained blissfully unaware it was enough. He couldn't lose her, not here, not now. He cooed as she fought him, "I don't have to know."

"Ask me where I went."

"No!" He exclaimed, fighting back.

She wrestled him, "I don't want to feel guilty. Jay don't make me keep this from you. I cannot, I will not do this anymore." For awhile she wrangled her way, but that wasn't to say he didn't make it difficult to emerge from his embrace. He was in this hopeless denial that all of this was just an apology. She took a breath as she was face to face with him, she wouldn't give up, her voice broke with exhaustion and great demand simultaneously, "Ask me."

He relented, he gave up, he shrugged his shoulders inquiring against his will, "Where were you?"

"I went to Craig's." She pulled herself off the bed, he didn't flinch at her for him to kick her out of his home but instead he was silent.

He didn't cry. He didn't mope. She didn't get a rise out of him. He didn't say a thing.

"Manny . . " He finally whispered, shaking his head exhaling in shock and surprise, in disbelief and utter betrayal but somehow he couldn't bring himself to hate her. He still loved her with every beat of his heart. All the while when he could think of something to say he just wound up shrugging his shoulders again at her revelation, but then finally he did speak, looking up at her, "What do you want me to say?"

"You don't have to say anything but I deserve it." Manny said still standing, crying, shaking like a leaf. She with her hands went to her neck. As Manny removed her scarf from her neck and revealed the hickeys on her neck, he shook his head in disbelief but he said nothing for a few moments. "Don't blame him, because I -" she shook her head, "I let him. I made him false promises too."

"Get out." Jay whispered.

She complied, without a word as she walked to the door, looking up at her before she walked out, "Have a nice life with, Craig. I can't wait for him to break you again." He took a breath, as tears fell down her face, "Your tears mean nothing, and I won't be there this time to pick up the pieces."

As Manny left his room, she shut the door and silently sobbed outside. Jay collapsed onto the bed but couldn't help to notice it was full of Manny's things. Angrily he went through the drawers pulled open the door causing Manny to fall onto the ground, "Don't forget all your shit too."

Manny got up and attempted to fold the clothing of hers. Alex woke up with a start, she sat up and walked up close to see Manny sobbing as Jay went through the bedroom they shared and started tossing her things, breakables shattered as they missed the doorway and hit the wall. She cried begging him to stop.

"Jay!" Alex exclaimed.

Jay peered out the bedroom, he had since fallen onto the floor glaring at Manny, and then softening his expression when he looked to Alex, "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to sleep."

However when she saw Manny in tears in a pit of clothes and Jay tearing apart their bedroom he knew things were pretty fucking bad. Manny listened to Alex and nodded, she started to put together the clothes, folding them neatly. Alex knelt and helped her. She even went as far as to retrieve some plastic bags to put her things. Manny silently whispered, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." As Alex helped her with a few of the bags, she couldn't help but reassure the girl who whatever happens, her life would never be as bad as hers. At least Manny had a slew of loved ones to take care of her. None of it was her business but she knew eventually Jay would get drunk and cry on her shoulder about things or maybe not. Only time would tell and now she felt as if she wanted to be there for the girl she barely knew, only by rumors and the story that many had wasn't necessarily a story that was going to paint her positively.

As Manny struggled to carry the rest, she instructed Manny, "Wait."

Manny stopped in her tracks, putting down the bags, Manny dully crossed her arms noting that this was hard for Alex too, "Feelings don't just turn off over night, whatever it is sure he'll be pissed for a while but it won't last. I know him."

Manny offered her a sideways smile as she knelt to pick up the clothes, and stuffed them in the back seat of her car, "Why don't I give you a lift?"

"You don't have to . . "

"Look, I want to." Alex said, "for months I had no one and I know what it's like and I want you to know I am here for you, Manny." Manny hesitated but walked to the cherry red car. It was an older model, simple car a little banged up but it's not nothing she and Jay could fix, "Come on in, do it before I change my mind." Alex said from the driver's seat as she turned on the engine, it rumbled. Manny shrugged and hopped in the front-passenger seat as she reluctantly agreed to ride to Emma's with Alex. None of them observed that Jay was watching them back out of the driveway alone from the bedroom as tears fell down his eyes. Although that dissipated as they disappeared down the road as he fell back onto the bed, his bedroom in shambles as he covered his face, screaming loud of the top of his lungs in this collective mix of anger, pain, heart-break and everything clouding him at once. He couldn't take it. He noticed that Manny had left her cell phone, it was sitting where she was on the bed. He was surprised he hadn't chucked it. As he dragged his finger across the screen to unlock it he noticed in the recent calls was Craig's name. He clicked on it and the phone called him, he panicked and hung up just as he heard Craig's voice come on the line and say hello. Jay's mouth gaped when he realized that he had really blown things with Manny.

Meanwhile, in the car Manny was patting herself, her pockets, searching within the bags Alex was unnerved by Manny's sudden movements as she looked over at the emotionally scarred starlet. From the looks of it, Manny was pretty distressed about something within the last few moments. Alex's hoarse voice whispered, "Are you okay?"

Manny bit her lip and sighed closing her eyes, "I don't know where my phone is."

"Did you leave it at Jay's?" Alex inquired. Manny nodded, looking down at her shaking legs, "I'll go in for you."

At Jay's he just stared at the phone as it called him back, while Manny and Alex made the U-turn to retrieve the phone. Finally, annoyed with the repetitive ringtone Jay picked it up, "Hello."

"Manny, I've tried to reach you and then you called and then -"

"It's not Manny." Jay replied cooly, but he didn't seem all that well put together, not at all cool, calm or collective in any right or in any stretch of the imagination.

"Jay?" Craig questioned, "I thought you guys were broken up." Craig asked confusedly.

"We are, what's it to you?" Jay asked angrily and brashly. Manny finally arrived insisting that she go on and retrieve her phone, something wasn't right in the pit of her chest as she removed her seat belt, ran up the porch steps and let her self in. Jay was to into the call to listen for the door as Manny stood in horror, "I know everything, Craig and you better watch your back." With that he hung up the phone, and threw it onto the bed, Manny clambered in the bedroom as Jay left her be. On the way to get her cell phone she nearly tripped on the bed because there was still a pile to go through of her clothing. Once she quickly retrieved her phone she dashed out the door never to return again. She couldn't, there was too much pain for both of them. She re-entered Alex's car and they drove the way to Emma's in silence.