Chapter Nine

The next day

By noon Carly had hers and the boys clothes packed up. She hadn't spoken to Jason since the night before. By the time she woke up he had left for work.

As soon as her eyes opened that morning the events of last night hit her full force and she burst into tears. Pulling the covers over her head she didn't even try to be strong or brave. Carly simply cried because she was losing her title of Mrs. Morgan.

When she was all cried out and feeling comfortably numb she got up, showered, pulled her hair in a ponytail, put on sweats and starting packing.

JASON COULD not concentrate during his meeting with Bernie. All he could think of was his wife, screaming at him about their fake marriage. And how he hadn't done anything to take away her fears.

He had let her down, and all because his own fear held him captive to the past. But there had to be a way to get back to the sweet feeling they shared all the months before now, before she saw those divorce papers.

He replayed in his mind the moment they decided to get married...

MARCH 2007

"What were you doing there?" Jason asked, his voice more frantic than she had ever heard before.

Carly could see on his face he had never imagined this moment, facing her after she saw him kill a man in cold bold. Not self- defense. Not in the heat of the moment.

He had stalked Ric, found out his schedule, knew when to be in the underground parking garage to put the gun at his head, force him into the trunk and then pop, pop, a few quick tugs on the trigger and Ric was talking to the devil in Hell.

No one was supposed to witness it, the whole thing took three minutes only, and at two in the morning Jason should have had that much time and more to spare without anyone else walking past.

Only Ric worked that late at his private law firm. His employees were long gone for the day.

"I saw your motorcycle turn in and made the cab pull over. I..this sounds silly," Carly admitted "but I wanted to ask you to give me a ride home. It seemed like a hell of a lot more fun that the cab."

"Fun?" the word was hollow. "Well, now that cabbie can make both of us. You're going to have to give a statement about what you saw."

"No, never. I'll say I didn't see anything."

"That would just make you an accomplice! This is not going away that easy."

Carly walked closer to him. "No one can make me turn on you."

"If you don't, all you will accomplish is getting just as long a prison sentence as I do." He ran his hand through his hair. "Just tell the truth. I'll deal with the fall out."

Carly shook her head. "I would do just about anything you ask me. But I will not send you to prison."

"You may have no choice. There is no privilege in a court of law for best friends. If you were my priest, doctor, hell even my wife they couldn't make you talk-"

"Then that's it, Jase."

"What?" he saw the look on her face. "You would marry me?"

"Are you asking?"

Their eyes stayed on each other. Jason said, softly, almost to himself, "No, not like this..."

She looked down.

"Carly," his voice was soft

"We'll figure something else out." she said "That idea was crazy, I know."

The tone of her voice is what decided it. She sounded so broken over the fact he would not trust her to become his wife and protect him at all costs. He had married Brenda for a much smaller reason, though to him making Carly feel safe had never seemed small.

Now Carly wanted to put it all on the line for him. And all he had to do was let her. It was easier for him to go to extremes for her, but to let her do the same seemed insane. She was the one he kept safe, not the other way around. And yet, in her own way, she kept him sane, loved, and secure as much as he did her.

He whispered the words that he hadn't expect to ever get the chance to say.

"Carly, will you marry me?"

MARCH 2009

Carly finished packing, and sat on the couch, flipping through a photo album. She wished she could leave this moment and go into one of those photos, and live forever as Jason's wife.

Hours later, there was a knock on the door.

"What?" she called out, grumpily.

Softly she heard, "It's me, Mrs. C"

Carly opened the door and saw Max, sadness shone from his eyes.. She had called him earlier and asked him to come and move her stuff to the Metro Court.

Seeing the pitying expression on Max's face nearly made her already red eyes fill with water again.

She swallowed and said, "I'll be okay." But even she didn't think it sounded convincing.

Max opened his arms, something he had never done before, and offered her a hug.

Carly hesitated a moment, then told him " This isn't a tragedy. I expected to divorce Jason one day."

But that was total lie. And she knew it.

She walked into Max's embrace and the tears started to fall.

"I'm sorry it didn't work with you and Jason, Mrs. C."

In a barley audible voice, Carly answered "You and me both, Max."

Jason came home to a silent apartment. Before he even closed the door he knew Carly was gone.

His eyes swept over the living room then moved to the stairs.

He let the door swing close and the sound seemed louder than it ever had before. He turned to check the phone for messages and saw the piece of folded paper on the desk.

Picking it up he noticed his name was written in Carly's big loopy handwriting.

He didn't immediately open it. Instead he slowly took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. He went and got a beer out of the fridge. Sitting on the couch, holding the note, he swallowed the alcohol down in huge gulps.

In his mind he heard Carly say, You're stalling, Morgan

He closed his eyes. Stalling was good. Stalling might change something. She could call and say "Don't read that note. I'm on my way home." but he knew she wouldn't.

His own voice in his head chanted at him, She's gone, she's gone, she's gone.

Jason opened the note and read

I'm staying at The Metro Court. Send the papers there.

Love,

your wife

He read it a few times, looking for a way to make the few simple words explain this all to him.

Carly liked to talk. And even in her letters she went on and on. Yet this was short and to the point.

Jason couldn't blame her for leaving. The two years were up. She kept to her part of the deal. But in her angry words last night he heard how she wanted to stay his wife.

Things were going great between them right now but this marriage wasn't started because they were madly in love. The marriage and their relationship was two separate things to Jason. But he now saw he should have known they were very intertwined in Carly's heart and mind.

He hadn't given her the papers but when she found them all he had to say was " I don't want a divorce." it would have been easy. But it would have been admitting he believed they should stay married because of love. And the idea of that terrified him. He remembered laying in bed with her just last week:

Carly's body was turned to face Jason, as he rested against the headboard. Sometimes they talked afterwards, sometimes they just looked at each other- and said it all that way.

Her eyes were clouded with a sensual haze of satisfaction, her smile pulling him in on the secret they shared.

They had beaten the odds.

This moment was never supposed to exist: them, married, in bed together, smiling, with two sleeping happy little boys down the hall.

But somehow they had tricked fate and, without meaning to, managed the greatest magic trick in history- making a life out of the nothing more than unbreakable loyalty, undeniable heat, and the ashes of all their broken dreams. And it was a good life, too. Better than Jason had ever thought he'd have.

In that moment, when Jason brushed her hair out of her eyes, and she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, he didn't know what their relationship might look like a day later, a year later, or even an hour after that kiss. But he knew he wanted to find out.

No longer did he fear what they couldn't be. Though he couldn't claim to know, either, what they might one day end up. Jason and Carly, in his mind, were a work in progress. And that was enough.

She bit his lip. And he moved her onto his lap. The time to be sweet was over, and as he buried his hand in her hair and tugged her head back, laying kisses on her neck, she moaned.

Sitting on the couch now, alone and feeling all the warmth in him draining away, Jason thought

Damn, these two years flew by. Damn, Damn, Damn, How can it be over already?

It had been easy to be her husband but Jason knew that divorcing Carly would be the second hardest thing he ever did.

The first was giving her his blessing to marry Sonny. In that moment, he lost the right to hope she would ever be his wife, that Michael would be his son, that this penthouse would be filled with the love they had both so willingly gave him. Before that day, a part of him believed that Carly would come back to him, holding Micheal in her arms, that the plan would work for once.

Later he cursed himself for being a fool. For losing her love and his son.

But in the last two years he had all that and more.

And now it was done? Just like that?

Jason pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and stared at it. He could call The Metro Court right now and tell her to come back to him, to come home.

Jason dropped the phone and watched it land next to him on the couch.

If he stayed in this marriage and it didn't work out the ugly scene last night would be nothing compared to the fallout then.

This divorce was because the agreement ended, they could still be friends, explore a deeper relationship. And if they wanted to marry later, Jason reasoned, they could.

That made sense to him. To marry for love when it felt right. When he was sure he was strong enough to make it if it didn't work out.

Will I ever be that strong? He thought And will I even have a chance with Carly if I go through with this divorce?

Happy ever after, he always knew, was too much for a sinner to hope for. Carly thought they deserved it, Jason thought God wouldn't see it that way.

If only they had more time to not make a choice, to not push past the two years safety zone, to stay how they were. There I go, he thought, wishing again... what a waste of time.

But it had been nirvana.

An ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, and joy. And losing all that was not going to go down easy.

He stood up to go get another beer, and try to figure out how to go back or forward or somewhere, any place where he wouldn't feel like this ever again.