Chapter 8: Heartaches

Time flew for the happy couple, busy adjusting to their new life and organizing their future... Before they knew it, they were back to the hospital for Val to get his casts removed.
"Let's go skiing!" he joked as they descended the steps from the Hospital's front door.
Jenny gave him a dirty look and punched him lightly on the shoulder... but before Val could complain, she pulled him to her and kissed him. They almost tumbled down the stairs, but he expertly used one crutch to regain balance. Val still couldn't walk unassisted and would need rehab for quite some time, but at least he was more mobile and would be able to not depend on Jenny constantly. This meant it was time to set some plans in motion.
Val could work from anywhere, as long as he had his laptop and a good Internet connection. He had been working remotely for the past two years, with the occasional trip to the office when a face-to-face meeting was required, and all was going well. Jenny on the other hand could not. They had used the accident to request an extended leave of absence for her and gain time they needed to make a decision.
After a good deal of thought and much talking, they had agreed Jenny would quit her job in the big city and look for a new one at the ski resort village. She found out there were job opportunities for her there, and they could easily live on Val's salary until she got hired. Also, his health insurance would cover them both so there was no concerns in that regard. And with him finally being able to manage on his own, it was time for Jenny to make the drive to her old office to tender her resignation.
"Are you sure you are going to be ok?" Jenny asked over breakfast the morning of the day she had chosen to quit her job.
"I'll be fine" Val said taking the hand she had placed over his and kissing it lovingly. "Good old Charles will be home all day and he promised to check on me." Charles was one of their neighbours. "I invited him over for lunch."
After eating, clearing the table and washing the dishes, Jenny grabbed the car keys, her purse and kissed Val goodbye.
"I probably won't be back until dinner time" she said as Val walked; slowly; with her to the side door that opened to the garage. "I want to stop by my parents and I promised two of my friends I'd meet with them next time I was in the area."
"Say Hi to everyone for me, and drive safe."
"I will..." she then pulled him to her and kissed him long and passionately. "I'll miss you soooo much!"
"I miss you already, Princess."
She smiled warmly, let go of him and walked to the car. Val stayed at the door until she drove the car out of the garage. He then went to his desk, turned on his laptop and settled in his daily work routine.
A couple of hours of uneventful driving later, Jenny was parking the car behind the office building where she worked. She sat there for a few minutes, a bit nervous, gathering courage... she had never quit a job and wasn't sure what kind of reaction she'd get from her boss. Finally, she got out of the car and walked into the building.
To her surprise, and his merit, her boss was not upset at all about her leaving them. He was happy for her and even asked that she provide her new address as they would like to send a congratulations card for her engagement. She said goodbye to everyone in the office and left in very high spirits.
"Next stop, my parents' place" she said out loud cheerfully once she was back in the car.
Traffic was not bad at that time of the day and thirty five minutes later Jenny was pulling up her parents' driveway.
The visit was delightful... there was lots to catch up on, and of course not enough time. But she did stay for lunch and arranged for them to come visit her and Val at their new home. Her big brother was away on a safari trip in South Africa, so she had to content herself with leaving him a souvenir she had bought for him at one of the ski village stores along with a lengthy note that ended with an invitation to come visit her. Jenny's parents tried to convince her to stay longer, but she explained she had promised to visit some of her friends.
Again in the car, she texted Beth and her friend replied right away... but she was out of town and more than four hours drive away. Ok then, off to the next friend in her list... Nick was available and texted back proposing they met at the old coffee shop where they used to hang out. It was only 15 minutes away from her parents' so she agreed. When Jenny arrived Nick had already taken a table and was waiting for her  with his cup of coffee and a latte for her, the way she liked it and a small plate with her favourite doughnut.
"Good to see you again, Jenny" he greeted her standing up and giving her a hug.
"Good to see you too" she returned the hug and sat down.
Nick sat down across from her and stared at his cup. After almost a minute of awkward silence, Jenny's temper flared...
"You're avoiding my eyes again!" she said, a bit of exasperation in her voice. "What's wrong with you? You were acting weird last time I saw you when you came visiting me and Val."
"Jenny, don't get married" he blurted out of the blue.
"Excuse me?" exasperation turning quickly into indignation.
"Don't marry Val! Please... I love you, Jenny."
"I see this was a mistake. I shouldn't have come" her tone was icy, but Nick could see she was suddenly on the verge of starting to cry.
"Please, don't go..." he pleaded, placing his right hand over her left hand, as she put them both on the table to stand up.
Jenny jerked her hand away, but didn't leave. Nick opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off...
"How can you do this to me? We're friends! We've been friends like... forever!" she exploded angrily.
"Jenny, please..."
"Don’t!" she stopped him. "You don’t get to try to apologize. If you really cared about me, you would have never…" she couldn’t go on…
"I love you… I can’t help feeling what I fell." Nick said. "And I know you had feelings for me too. We had a connection…"
He wanted to say a lot more, but Jenny silenced him again with a stern look.
"Had being the keyword here" she said more calmly than she had thought possible given the circumstances. "Had like in past tense, Nick... long gone. And you let it dry out." She finished. And as she started to get up to leave, added "I guess you didn't love me enough to ask me out, to make me yours... but Val did. He loves me more than life and he didn't hesitate to build a future for us together. And I.. Love... Him!" And with that last phrase, she grabbed her purse from where it was hanging on her chair back and left without looking back even once.
What came after was a blur for Jenny... she was barely aware of getting in the car, starting the engine and driving out of the coffee shop parking lot.
As if the car were on auto-pilot, she kept on going, only once looking at a street sign to find the right entrance to the highway that would take her out of the city and towards her home. Jenny drove for some time until she saw a look-out point sign by the side of the road. There she pulled over and stopped the car... and started to cry.
It came as little sobs at first, but quickly built up to a loud unrestrained disconsolate crying. She cried and cried and cried, until her eyes were read and swollen, and her cheeks felt salty as if she had just stepped out of the sea.
A police officer drove by and on seeing Jenny leaning over the steering wheel with her face buried in her hands, decided to stop and check on her.
Jenny did not hear the police officer approach and was startled when she gently tapped on her window.
"Are you alright, Madam?" the officer asked.
Jenny rolled down the window and stared at the officer through tearful eyes. She blinked several times and then realized the officer was expecting an answer...
"Yes... yes, I'm ok officer." Jenny said in a trembling voice. And then added more firmly. "I've just received some very bad news..."
The police officer was reluctant to leave, but after a brief interview, she decided Jenny was not impaired for driving.
"I just needed to cry it all out, so I pulled over at this look-out point. I'm calm now." Jenny explained in a reasonably steady voice.
The officer nodded and returned to her cruiser as Jenny started her car again, but didn't leave until Jenny did. She then followed her, keeping a respectful distance.
The police officer escorted Jenny for a few kilometres, and once satisfied she was ok and did not need assistance changed lanes, pulled up besides her and rolled down the passenger side window. Jenny rolled down hers, not sure what to expect.
"Drive safe, Madam" the officer said. Then she sped up and disappeared in the distance.
Jenny was still quite shaken, so when she saw a small diner by her side of the road with an "Open" sign lit up, she stopped and went in. Other than a waitress- a woman in her early fifties- and an old man who might have been her husband behind the bar, the place was deserted.
"Sit anywhere you like hun, I'll be right with you" the waitress said as she walked over to the bar and grabbed a menu from a stack.
Jenny ordered a coffee and a slice of blueberry pie, and then walked over to the washroom to take a look in the mirror. She almost didn't recognize the cheery woman that had sat for breakfast at her home that morning with her future husband, in the unhappy red-eyed reflection looking back at her. She splashed some cold water on her face and managed to wash away the traces of tears from her cheeks, but there was no hiding the pained look in her eyes.
The waitress came to her table carrying the coffee and pie just as she returned from the washroom. The older woman took a good look at Jenny, and without saying a word sat at the table across from her. Jenny was a bit taken aback by this, but somehow found the company comforting so she didn't complain.
"You have a big problem you need someone to listen to, don't you sweetheart?" said the waitress in a kind voice. "I've seen enough heart breaks in my time to know one when I see it."
Jenny hesitated... she wasn't in the habit of talking personal matters with strangers. But something in this woman seemed to make her feel comfortable in her presence, to want to open up...
"I'm a good listener, honey..." the woman said. "And once I've been told that often spilling out our hearts can work magic to lessen the pain in our souls" she added.
And so did Jenny. She told her about her engagement to this wonderful man she loved with all her heart. And she told her how then she felt torn apart at her friend's revelation. A guy she's been friends with since forever... a guy she had always trusted and valued like you only value a true friend. And the more she talked, the calmer she felt. By the time she was done talking, she had finished her coffee and pie, and felt ready to go back home. The older woman remained silent all the time, just listening with a gentle motherly expression in her eyes.
An hour later Jenny turned a corner into her street, and slowed down as she approached her house. As she pulled into her driveway she saw old Charles walk into his house and close the door behind him.
She didn't go into the garage... that door opener took forever, and she was too eager to wrap her arms around Val's neck and kiss him. She quickly got out of the car and run up the front steps into the porch.
"Honey, I'm home!" she called as soon as she opened the front door.
For a man that had had both legs in casts for a few months and was still in rehab, Val managed to cross the living-room surprisingly fast.
"I missed you so much!" Val said dropping the crutches and taking her in his arms. He kissed her long and warm and then added "Charles has just left."
"Yeah, I thought so" Jenny answered "I saw him walk into his house as I was parking in our driveway."
"After lunch, he insisted in staying to keep me company, He did the dishes and even brought me coffee to my desk while I kept working... It was like having a secretary." Val chuckled.
"I hope your secretary didn't get to sit on your lap." Jenny said affecting seriousness.
"Sweetheart, I could have Miss Universe for a secretary and not even once find myself interested in her. I only have eyes and heart for you."
On hearing those sweet words, Jenny broke down and started to cry burying her face on the side of his neck. Val felt completely lost... What had he said to make her cry like that. He was usually quite good with words, but the situation took him so by surprise he didn't know what to say. So he just hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. That seemed to do the trick as her crying turned into sobs and soon stopped altogether.
"Oh Val, it was so awful" she said before he could even ask.
He guided her to the couch as best as he could without the crutches, leaning on her, and waited in silence until she composed herself enough to explain her words.
"I saw a horrible car accident and it reminded me of how I almost lost you in your ski accident" she started. "I was sitting in the car, stuck in  very slow traffic on the highway on my way out of the city. A motorbike sped out of the highway on the exit ramp right by me, and got hit at the end of the ramp by a pick-up truck crossing the intersection at high speed. Both bike and rider flew, landing on a large truck carrying large glass panes, and... and..." she stopped to catch her breath. "The rider got decapitated by a piece of glass... there was so much blood!"
Jenny started crying again. Val tried to comfort her with soothing words not knowing that he was actually comforting her for a very different reason than he thought. For, Jenny was crying because she had lied to him and then felt sick to her heart at how easily she had done so.
Dinner was quiet... Val ordered pizza so she didn't need to cook. "She looks so tired" he had thought as he called their local pizza place. Jenny gave him a quick account of her job-quitting experience, her visit to her parents' and ended saying none of her friends had been available to meet her.
They finished dinner and went to bed early... Val was tired too as, being left alone most of the day except for Charles visit, he had to do by himself all the things she'd usually helped him with. It wasn't easy to go about his normal day with those crutches.
It didn't take long for Jenny to fall asleep. Val instead lied awake beside her, taking some time to enjoy watching his beautiful fiancé lit by the moonlight coming through the bedroom window. She looked like some ethereal  princess from a fantasy kingdom. He eventually fell asleep too, and had happy dreams of Jenny and himself with kids; their children; running around them in the backyard.
Jenny's dreams, on the other hand, were... troubling. It was her wedding day and she was happy beyond measure as she walked down the aisle. Everything was perfect, every detail exactly as she had imagined they would be. The dream then fast-forwarded to the part the priest was saying "... and now I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride." Jenny leaned forward for the kiss and then looked into Val's eyes, but it wasn't Val she was about to kiss... it was Nick. And suddenly, she was no longer looking at the scene through her own eyes but from a third-person perspective as if she was having an out of body experience.
Jenny-ghost tried to push Nick and Jenny-corporeal apart but her hands went right through their bodies. She tried shouting "No! Stop! This is wrong!" but it was no use... no sound came out of Jenny-ghost's mouth. And it then happened... she watched in horror as Jenny-corporeal's lips touched Nick's in a passionate kiss. She screamed, and that was when she woke up, crying and covered in cold sweat.
Val was awake in an instant. His beloved one's distress pushing away all traces of sleepiness from his mind. Jenny was sitting with her knees drawn up and her arms around them... He placed a protecting comforting arm around her shoulders and she rested her head on his chest. He didn't ask any questions... he didn't talk. He simply hugged her, rocking her gently and humming a soothing tune, as you would to calm down a child that had a nightmare. This, combined with her tiredness and stress from the day worked like magic and Jenny was soon asleep again. Val kept his arms around her and wasn't long before he was asleep as well again.
Several hours later, Jenny's mind wandered into dreamland once more... It was night and they were sleeping, her back to Val, comfortably snuggled in his arms. She noticed he was wearing the pj she had given him last Christmas and was happy he liked it. Val stirred and she turned around intending to kiss him... and stared in horror at Nick's face instead of Val's. She was in Nick's arms, sleeping with Nick and he was smiling at her. Nick pulled her to him for a kiss...
She was so shocked she couldn't even scream... but mercifully she did wake up. She managed to control her urge to cry, lest she'd wake Val up again, and succeeded at getting out of bed carefully enough to not even stir him. She rushed to the kitchen, closing the bedroom door on her way out, and collapsed on a chair where she cried until she felt she had no more tears left to shed.
She felt so dirty... like a cheap cheating s**t. How could this be happening? She loved Val with all her heart. She belonged to him so completely and yet... She felt so ashamed! She'd have to tell him... tell him everything... the meeting with Nick, admit she had lied, the two horrible dreams... everything. He'd understand... yes, Val loved her and together they'd get through that nightmare. Their love would prevail and they'd have their "happily ever after".
But things didn't go quite as Jenny had hoped... not at all as she had hoped...
"What?!! No, no, no... this can't be happening!" were Val's first words as she finished telling him all that had happened.
They were sitting in the kitchen and had just had breakfast.
"And you lied to me!" there was both incredulity and pain in his voice.
"Val, please..." Jenny pleaded starting to cry.
"Don't!" he stopped her, got up almost falling as he neglected to grab the crutches and stumbled over to the sink resting his hands on the counter.
"No, this never happened!" he said with a tone of finality turning around to face her. There was fire in his eyes. "We will move to another part of the country, far from here... better yet, we'll move to another country. We'll move to Europe." Val talked in a frenzy almost not even stopping to breath.
"And you'll never see him again... not even talk on the phone, or email, or anything" he finally stopped.
"Val, it's not that simple" she said between sobs. "I... I dreamed of him... something's wrong with me, Val. Something's wrong..." her voice trailed off... Jenny dared lift her face to him; she had been staring at the table all that time; and the look on Val's face both hurt her infinitely and scared her.
"Val, please... we'll get through this... together... I love you" at this he looked away and started to sob.
Jenny wanted to walk over to Val and hug him, comfort him... if only she knew how to take away the pain she had just caused him.
"We have to move away... far away... so you can forget... so we can forget" his voice was no longer forceful, but there was both pain and anger in his tone.
"Val, be reasonable. It won't work. I'd have to cut myself off from all my friends... and my family too." She made a pause  trying to decide whether to say what she was going to say next or not. "And I don't think I want to" she concluded in a far calmer voice than she thought possible given the whole situation.
"I see" that was all Val said.
He then left the kitchen, but not before taking the crutches, grabbed his jacket and keys and walked out of the house.