In the darkness of our bedroom, she sleeps, her breathing mirroring the light fall breezes outside, and I inhale, unable to rest in a bed that isn’t really ours. It has the same feel, the same bedding, but it’s not where I have spent hours making love to my wife. It’s not where we have housed the most intimate moments of our marriage and because of this, I am forced awake with only the memories and mistakes of the past.
Unable to sleep, I quietly stand and open the doors to the balcony. While everything seems the same, the view, which is quite spectacular, is different. Miles of sandy beaches stretch out before me, the crystal clear water capturing my attention almost immediately, and I sit outside, allowing the air to breathe for me. The waves lap against the shore and I can’t help but think of the one thing that has been haunting my mind as of late: the lie I have told my wife.
In all honesty, I don’t know why I lied. She told me the truth and to be quite truthful, I believe that what she has done is worse. I don’t blame her, I never could, but she knew that I was alive. She knew and she nearly slept with her ex husband. So when she asked me if anything happened between Kate and I, I should have just told her, yes. We’d work through it and we’d be all right. But instead I chose to lie, like I did long ago.
I lean back against the wall and I close my eyes. Memories of that night on the roof fill my mind; the same roof in which Marlena and I got married under. I can smell her perfume coming towards me and before I open my eyes, I know she is standing beside me. Her scent smells of heaven; of lilacs and honeysuckles, of early morning sessions of lovemaking. Her scent smells of me after I have washed her upon my skin.
I open my eyes and hazel meets blue, expectations of love drawn in her eyes. Without a word, I grab her hand and pull her onto my lap, inhaling the sweet smell of her honey hair. I know I need to tell her, to face up to my sins before they come back to her, just like that night with Hope did.
“Did I wake you?” I whisper, my words muffled by her hair.
“No. I couldn’t sleep.” She takes my wrist and glances down at my watch. It’s a little past midnight. “It’s Belle’s birthday.”
“I know. Can you believe she’s already twenty-two?”
My wife laughs, although it seems almost sad. “No. It seems like just yesterday she was five. It feels like yesterday when I missed out on her birthday because Stefano had me or because I wasn’t myself or because someone had me locked up somewhere. I’ve missed so many of her birthdays, John. Did you know Belle and I made plans last year on what we would do tonight?”
I didn’t know this, however it doesn’t surprise me. Marlena and Belle always seemed more like best friends than mother and daughter. “What did you have planned?”
“For her twenty-first, Belle went out with her friends. But for her twenty-second, we were going to act like it was the first legal birthday she had. We were going to go out to dinner and then I was going to take her to a bar. She wanted to get completely wasted with her mother.” She smiles. “It’s not like her or even me, but it was one of those instances where I just wanted to feel young again. She always made me feel young.”
Marlena starts to cry and I wipe at her tears with the pad of my thumb. I think now may not be the right time to tell her, but she turns around to face me, reading me like a book. She switches her position and she now sits in my lap in the opposite direction, her legs wrapping around my waist.
“What’s wrong?”
I can’t help but smile at how well she knows me. “Why do you think something is wrong?” “You’re quieter than usual. And when you’re hiding something your breathing tends to be a little uneven. So tell me.”
“Maybe now isn’t the right time.”
She cups my face in her hands and gently kisses my lips. “We’re both up and I won’t go back to bed until you tell me.”
“I lied to you.” My voice is so quiet that she blinks, thinking that maybe she hasn’t heard me correctly.
“What?”
“When you asked me about Kate … I lied.”
I can see the fury begin to burn her eyes and she quickly gets off my lap to sit beside me. Her fists clench and then unclench; white suddenly becoming red again, and I want to cry at how much she reminds me of Belle.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No!” I pause. “But we came close. Twice.”
She closes her eyes, but the tears have already started to seep through. I go to wipe them away, but she senses my hand is near and slaps it away.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispers. She opens her eyes and gives me a look that petrifies me. It’s the look she had when I told her about Hope, the look I fear means she will leave me. “After everything we have been through, after all the lies and all the pain, how could you lie to me again? After I told you everything that happened with Roman, why did you decide to be dishonest?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.” It’s the truth, although not even honesty can get me out of this. I know that now.
“So you thought lying would hurt me less? You knew I would find out, John. What has changed between now and last month when I asked you the same question.” I try to sort the answers out in my head and I can’t. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t want to hurt you, Marlena. I knew lying about it was wrong, but in the moment, it was what I felt was right.”
She takes a deep breath. “What happened between you two?”
“Marlena–”
“Tell me!”
I don’t want to tell her. I know all it will do is hurt her, but I feel I have no choice. “I was devastated over losing you, Doc. You were everything to me and watching you die in my arms was the most painful thing I have ever had to deal with. I was distraught and while I had our children, I was alone. I didn’t think anyone could possibly understand the pain I was going through, but I guess Kate did. She lost the love of her life on the night of their wedding and I guess when it came down to it, we were both lonely. She missed Roman, I missed you … it’s not an excuse, but you did the same thing.”
“I didn’t lie about it,” she says, quietly.
“And I was wrong. Sweetheart, I thought you were dead. I didn’t want to spend our first night together talking about that. I missed you. I wanted you. I didn’t want to talk about the mistakes of the past. What can I do to make this up to you?”
“Do you love her?”
“Are you serious?”
“You’ve never slept with anyone you didn’t love.”
“She’s one of my closest friends. I love her in the sense that she understood what I was going through. I loved that for even five minutes I was able to forget just how much I missed you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I didn’t think I had too.”
I grab her hand and make sure she can’t let go, just yet. “If you’re asking if I love her like I love you, then no. I’ve never loved anyone the way I’ve loved you. I never will.”
“If you never found out that I was alive, if I really had died that night, would you have moved on with her?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters,” she replies, taking her hand back. “It matters to me.”
I rub my hands over my eyes, weary and feeling alone once more. “I don’t know,” I respond. “I really can’t tell you what might have happened. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know I love you. I know that no one person can make me feel the way you do. I know that while I was with Kate, the only person I could think about was you. I can’t make excuses, Marlena. All I can tell you is that I’m sorry.”
She grips my chin in her palm and squeezes. “If you lie to me again, I will kill you.”
I smile. “I know.”
She kisses me softly and I grab her hair in my hand, deepening our kiss. When we break her breath is uneven and heavy.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too.”
She takes my hand and stands, pulling me up beside her. “Come on, let’s go to bed.” I stand up and she pulls me into the bedroom. As the door closes, I hear her words muffled with the winds. “And believe me, I’m much better in bed than Kate!”
The Jarlena Journal 