If I close my eyes…
Lying there in her tent trying to fall asleep, her mind took her back in time, past all the suffering. In some moments it seemed that it was only a short while ago, in others it seemed more like a lifetime had passed.
Take my time
I can almost feel your lips against mine………
She could imagine it….him being there with her, his sexy body next to her… and it was so real… his sweet moist lips hovering over her mouth, poised to take her breath away as he so often did when he kissed her.
If I close my eyes
Drift away
I can almost see us back there smiling……
Their honeymoon. Sweet ecstasy. Glorious sun filled days on the beach, cool drinks, hot romantic nights. Morning after bliss….
The sheer awesome wonder of being free to love, without fear.
But it’s too late
It’s too late
It was perfect. And then something changed. He was missing, presumed dead and it was never the same.
Baby I can’t reach you…….
Something was different from the moment he came out of the water, when he regained consciousness, he seemed confused, bewildered. That was her first clue. But he didn’t remember anything and she left it go, didn’t want to think about the possibilities, even when Hope, later found to be Gina had hinted at it in her sessions. She just didn’t want to believe it was possible. And now it was too late….. too late to save their floundering marriage, barely a year old.
It’s too late
Too late……..
It was incomprehensible, what she’s heard him say, “She can never know who got her pregnant. ” The fateful, soul shattering words came out of his mouth when he thought no one was within earshot, but she’d come back for a lipstick she must have dropped, and she was standing behind him when he said it.
He knew…. and the only logical conclusion was that he knew because he was the one.
We’ve drifted out too far
I don’t know where love goes……..
The fight that followed was the most catastrophic one she ever remembered having with any man. Thankfully, she only remembered the sane parts. In any case, she knew that when she returned from her trip to Africa, the marriage would be for all intents and purposes over, only the formalities left.
Or how we might have saved it
I only know it’s gone….
“Why, John…. how could you lie to me like this… month after month, when I pleaded with you to tell me what was bothering you?”
“I tried… so many times, I tried…”
Shaking her head, she told him that wasn’t good enough, “But you didn’t and all you’ve done since New Year’s Eve is lie to me… over and over again… I trusted you… I believed in you completely…. but that’s over now.”
It was time to let go of the dream.
And it’s time we moved on
It’s too late….
“No, Doc.. please…. I can… I can….”
“What, you can EXPLAIN! Is that what you were going to say? No, there is no explanation I will accept for this… betrayal!”
He told her anyway… tears streaming down both their faces, with the unspoken knowledge that when he was finished, so were they.
No use holding on
No more cryin’
We stand outside ourselves and watch love dyin’………
When she’d stemmed the flow of tears enough to speak, she berated him mercilessly, with an amazing calmness, “John…. you betrayed all of us, Bo, Hope, me… our children, the entire Brady family… And most of all… saddest of all is you betrayed *everything* that you and I have ever stood for…”
Ashamed and guilt ridden, he agreed, his voice a soft tearful whisper, “I know… I know I did…. ”
“Why, John… why did you do it?”
“For us, I thought.. I told myself that I was doing it for us… for all of us, ” he said wistfully, realizing that he’d even been lying to himself. It was a purely selfish act.
She looked in his eyes and voiced what he should have been able to admit, “No… it was for you… if it were for us, you would have come to me, John.. you would have trusted me, you would have trusted in our love… and you would have been honest with Bo and Hope from the very beginning. I can’t believe that you would rather go to Stefano and rely on his methods of mind control. Something you have experienced yourself, something that has caused you more than a decade of torment, and you were willing to do it to Hope to protect your secrets… To save yourself from what…. the embarrassment?”
He had no answers, no real defense. They were excuses. That was all, for he knew there was no way he could justify his behavior. Shaking his head, he said nothing, only wept soundlessly.
Cause it’s too late
Too late
Baby I can’t hold you……..
” I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t even want to hear your name… you make me sick!”
“No.. please, Marlena… don’t…. don’t leave me… please I’ll do anything…”
Memories of the moment when he was in Marlena’s place suddenly flashed in mind, Kristen begging at his feet for another chance when her web of lies was revealed. His heart was crushed with the overwhelming weight of his own guilt. He’d done the very same thing he condemned her for doing, lying to protect himself and hold onto Marlena, as Kristen had tried to hold onto him. Meeting her moist hazel eyes, he saw that same profound sense of disappointment, that same expression of humiliated disbelief at his betrayal of her trust, wishing that none of it were true. “I’m so sorry, Doc…”
Her bags at the door, she looked at him, almost with pity, shook her head sadly and spoke the words to a familiar song performed by a singer she liked,
“It’s too late
Too late
Now time will take its toll….
I don’t know where love goes
Or how we might have saved it
I only know it’s gone….
Crying, he nearly begged her to stay, “Please don’t say that…. you know that I love you, Doc… I’ll always love you…”
Again she shook her head, weeping harder than she ever had in her life. Leaving him would kill her, but it was what she had to do, “Yes, but not enough, John… you didn’t love me enough to tell me the truth, not enough to take the risk that we could handle it. After everything we’ve been through, I can’t believe you couldn’t find it in yourself to do that. When you’re so afraid you’re going to lose it… that’s when you find out what love really is, John… that’s when it’s put to the test and you failed…. we failed… it’s time to let it go…”
It’s time that we moved on
It’s too late…
He shut his eyes, as if that simple gesture could shut out the pain, could make it go away, and bring back the dream, the promise with which they’d started only one year ago. “Marlena… we’ve been through so many rough times… can’t we give it one more try?”
Too late….
“John…. the problems we had in the past were always external…. they were never inside of us… never because one of us was lying about something so fundamental to our relationship. If our dreams are dying, it’s because YOU killed them, John! You have no one else to blame for the suffering that lies ahead but yourself.”
In my dreams we turn it back around
And the love we’ve lost is found……
She was right, he destroyed the dream and now his life was a living nightmare. He was alone again, living in a hotel, his kids wouldn’t talk to him, he was ‘persona non grata’ at the Brady Pub, and she was off in some far away foreign country helping people in need. It was just like her to go anyway, to put her feelings away and reach out to someone else. Marlena was always true to herself, unlike him.
And I hand it all to you
But I know I’m only dreaming……..
He still dreamed of her every single night, of holding her, making love to her, going down on his knees to beg her forgiveness, Marlena agreeing to give him one more chance to make it right.
But he knew that’s all it was… wishful thinking…..
It’s too late……
As he boarded his private plane, he wondered if leaving were the right thing to do. The children were old enough now to tell him to get out of their lives, which they did in no uncertain terms. Marlena had made it very clear that when her mission was completed in Africa, she would come home to Salem, but not to him. There was virtually no one who wanted anything to do with him.
Except for Stefano…
How incredibly ironic *that* was! He’d offered to take John into his home, into his life, all with a taunting sardonic smile on his face. He said that as long as John did his bidding, he would have anything he wanted except for what he wanted most and could never have again. A life of love with Marlena.
Stefano was positively glowing with vindictive satisfaction, as he suggested that coming to live with him was John’s only real option, saying they had been friends once, close friends… and could be again, now that John remembered his life at Stefano’s side. Since there was nothing else, why not take him up on it?
Of course, John spurned him, but the bitter pain of truth pierced his aching heart. Stefano was right, he had nothing and no one else.
Should I stay
Should I wait…
He thought of stopping by the Penthouse one last time, to leave a note or… say goodbye to their home, to the memories… But what was the point, hadn’t they said all there was to say? Hadn’t he already destroyed their sanctuary? Why taint it any further with his presence….
Should I stand here by your door
I don’t know what for….
At last, Marlena began to drift off to sleep, strangely pleased for the memories that drifted by… and for her ability to finally, put them away for awhile. She was slowly beginning to have success with the difficult task of ousting him even from her mind.
You don’t live here anymore
It’s too late……
The Jarlena Journal 