Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
That was why I loved Skylar. She was wise. She understood that I didn’t really have a choice. Sure, in life, we’re free to do what we want, but when you’re trying to do the right thing, there is only one choice. It’s not always the easiest choice. Ivy was more like a child to me at this point than an ex-wife. She had no other family and deep down, Nina understood why I couldn’t just abandon her, why Ivy needed the continuity of seeing someone who cared about her at least once a week. Nina had always put aside her own needs to allow me to continue to look out for Ivy within reason. That was one of the things I loved about my wife. But I also understood that it would never be easy for her, and I carried a lot of guilt about that. There were rules, though. Visits were only once a week on Saturdays, and if we had a family obligation, that would always come first.
Mitch took a swig of his beer then turned to me. “Did Nina always know about Ivy?”
I bent my head back against the chair, thinking about the days when we first met and the can of worms he just opened up with that question. “No.”
Skylar smiled at me. She was one of the only people we were still friends with who also knew us back then. “Jake was still married to Ivy when he met Nina.”
Mitch looked shocked. “Say what?”
I chuckled. “You didn’t know that?”
“No. I had no idea.” He put his feet up on the coffee table. “I’d love to hear this.”
“I’ve heard Nina’s version, but I wouldn’t mind hearing yours,” Skylar said as she walked a sleeping Mitch Jr. over to a portable crib set up in the corner of the room.
I settled back in my seat and crossed my arms. “How much time do you have?”
CHAPTER 2
Past
The lights of the city illuminated the night sky as I looked out of Ivy’s bedroom window. This was always the most peaceful part of the weekend, when she would nap, and I would just watch her sleep before saying goodbye and boarding the late train back to New York City for the week.
Feelings of guilt always crept in right about this time because I’d once again be leaving her alone until the following weekend. There was always too much time to think here when Ivy was either sleeping or in one of her catatonic states. But I’d take these moments anytime over one of her paranoid episodes.
I contemplated what my life had become. It was unconventional to say the least and very hard to explain to anyone. Some days, it felt like there was no one else in the world who could possibly understand. So, very few people in New York knew about these weekends in Boston, knew about my life. You couldn’t explain this situation very easily to people in a way that they’d truly get it. The questions alone would make my head spin.
Why do you stay with her, Jake?
How can you fuck other women when you’re technically married?
Did you move to New York to get away from her?
The few times I’d opened up to the wrong people about Ivy, I’d regretted it. I didn’t need the sympathy or judgment of people who’d never walked in my shoes.
I was practically a kid when I met my wife.
My wife.
I looked down at Ivy’s back rising and falling as she slept. We were legally married, but she felt more like a child to me now than a spouse. This wasn’t a marriage in the intimate sense or in any way that might make a marriage pleasurable.
Ivy and I met six years ago on Huntington Avenue outside Northeastern University when I was a freshman. She was dancing alone in the rain, and I was instantly captivated. The more I got to know her in the weeks that followed, the more mesmerized I became. She was like no other girl I’d ever met. She played guitar and had some gigs at local venues. As cool as she came off, she didn’t have many close friends. I became her entire life. She was impulsive, reckless and had an aura about her that was contagious.
She convinced me to run off to Vegas with her one weekend. Before I knew it, I was eighteen and married by the power vested in Elvis.
Within six months, I knew I’d made a mistake. I truly cared about Ivy, the sex was the best of my life up until that point, and she intrigued me, but I knew that I really wasn’t in love with her the way you needed to be in order to spend the rest of your life with someone. Still, I told myself that we could make it work, that I could grow to love her.