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AMBER TURNS IN my direction and my eyes widen as if I am a deer caught in headlights just waiting for the car to strike me.
She turns back towards Jack. “You sound jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.” Jack’s voice raises an octave.
“This is getting good, babe,” Adam says to Wade before he gets up and heads for the minibar. “Is there any popcorn in here?” He scrunches his nose, digging around in the snacks, and I visibly shrink in my seat.
“Who the f**k is this guy?” Amber swivels around to point at Adam.
Adam looks as though he was going to answer her question when Amber interrupts him. “You know what, I don’t f*****g care.” With that, Adam is dismissed as if he’s a bug under her shoe.
The sound of a slap echoes throughout the plane. “Asshole!” Amber yells at Jack, and I can see the red mark form where her hand hit his cheek.
“What the f**k, Amber?” Jack’s hand covers his cheek.
“Amber?” I whisper to myself in shock. I don’t want to be here but there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
“You didn’t choose me, Jack. You got stuck with me.” I watch in horror as Amber yells, no longer even remotely trying to keep their argument private.
“That’s not what it was,” Jack tries to explain, but I have a feeling Amber has already made up her mind.
“Anyone can see the only person you care more about than yourself, is her.” Amber points a finger at me, and I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks. I can’t even look at Cash, but I feel his eyes on me.
“Amber, that’s not fair.” I watch as Jack follows her to the back of the plane.
“You can lie to yourself all you want, Jack, but I can see it, and so can everyone else.” I don’t bother watching them anymore, but instead, study the lines in the palm of my hand. “Stay the f**k away from me.” I hear Amber’s broken yell and the slam of the bathroom door. She is hurt and angry, and as much as I dislike Amber, I feel sorry for her.
The plane mimics Amber’s anger and shifts again more forcefully.
The stewardess appears from the front of the plane. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take your seats.”
I don’t move. My body feels like lead, welded to the metal skeleton of the plane.
“Is your wife in the restroom?” The stewardess asks Jack and walks past me towards the back of the plane. Jack doesn’t answer and the stewardess knocks on the bathroom door. I hear a faint f**k off from beyond the plastic walls.
My body feels weak and I don’t remember the last time I ate. I don’t think I had breakfast. That’s fine, because with the movement of the plane, I will have nothing in my stomach to throw up.
I watch as Jack stalks over to the bar and grabs a glass, pouring the amber liquid over ice.
I can’t watch him throw everything away. Not now, not when emotions are heightened and he still has a chance to make things right with Amber. We are not past the point of no return. “That’s not going to help anything,” I tell him, but not with the conviction I need to stop him. I won’t look at Cash. I can’t. I’m afraid of what I will see. Our marriage is like a ball of string and it feels as if it is slowly unraveling.
“Does he know?” Jack waves the glass in the air towards me.
My face hardens and every muscle in my body tightens. I am on high alert. “Don’t,” I warn him more with a silent plea in my eyes.
“That’s why you married him,” Jack accuses me. “Isn’t it?”
My fists are balled as I say, “I married him because I love him.”
“Bullshit! You let me f**k you and then you get married the next day.” Jack’s words hit me with the force of a tornado. I feel as though I’m being pulled up into the funnel and swiftly discarded like a rag doll.
“What the f**k is he talking about?” The pain in Cash’s voice pulls my mind from this wreckage.
“Where was I during all of this?” Wade asks, drawing my attention to him.
“Not now, Wade,” Jack says angrily, his energy focused on me, and I can feel it like a vice around my neck.
Whether it is a blessing or not and before I can address Cash’s question, Amber charges out of the bathroom and Jack looks shocked, as if he forgot she was on the plane. “I can’t believe I bailed you out of jail in Chicago.” That was when Jack drunkenly came to my hotel room and I wouldn’t let him in. He caused a fight with our security and landed both Cash and Wade in jail with him.
Jack says nothing. I avoid Cash, turning away, knowing this is the beginning of the end. Amber finally notices me with a look of pure disgust. I feel it deep inside, because I am not this person.
I am not the person she thinks I am.
I am not a homewrecker, and yet here I am, watching Jack’s marriage crumble in front of me, afraid to look at Cash because I know what I will see in his eyes.
Disappointment.
“Wow, this just keeps getting better and better.” Amber points at me and then looks to Jack for answers. “When?”
I watch as Jack looks down at his drink and I want to slap it out of his hands.
“New Orleans.” Cowardly, he looks at his shoes as he says it, and I inwardly crumble. My life is in flames.
“I should have known.” I’ve never heard Amber sound weak before, but there is a c***k in her armor and it’s Jack. As destructive as their relationship is, I can see now how much Amber loves him, or maybe how much she wants him to love her.
“You not only broke your promise to me, Jack, but you also broke your promise to Hayley.” The c***k gets bigger, and I want to throw myself into the chasm.
“It’s not like that!” Jack pleads, but I can see in his eyes it’s futile, superficial. No one can come back from this, not even Jack. “We can work through this.” I don’t know what he was expecting from me. He’s married and I’m married. This was never going to end well. Jack is single-minded, wanting what he can’t have, but that just makes him want it all the more.
“Don’t touch me.” Amber slaps his hand away as he tries to reach for her in desperation. “It’s not just the drugs, Jack.” Amber turns her gaze to me and she looks so sad. “I will never be her.”
Amber turns her attention to Cash who is standing beside me, an innocent spectator in this awful destructive scene. “I feel sorry for you,” she tells him. “Of all people, you should know better.” Amber takes a shaky breath and wipes the tears from her cheeks. She squares her shoulders as if trying to mask the pain. “Jack and Mia couldn’t give a s**t about anyone but each other. Everyone else is just collateral damage.”
“Amber, please,” Jack pleads again as he follows her to the front of the plane, and I’m left feeling broken and alone. Pain radiates like waves washing over me, and they’re coming from Cash.
The plane shakes again and I physically feel ill. The Fasten Your Seatbelt sign flashes furiously, and all I can do is focus on the letters as they go in and out of focus.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you sit in your seats and buckle up,” the stewardess says firmly to all of us. I shake my head to clear it. Cash does not sit next to me. Instead, he takes the seat opposite and stares out the window. Even though he says nothing to me, doesn’t even look at me, I can feel his anger like a weight pushing down on me. It is the worst possible feeling to know you have hurt the person you love.
“Isn’t this how Lynyrd Skynyrd died?” Wade’s voice cuts through the silence.
“Probably don’t want to mention that right now, babe,” Adam whispers to him.
I can’t stand the silence anymore. “Cash?” My voice comes out broken and raw.
He doesn’t look at me when he says, “Don’t talk to me right now.” His words sting like the nick of a knife. I can’t let it be. I can’t look at him from across the aisle and know that he is hurting because of me, because of what I did.
“Please talk to me.” My voice is trying to reach for him, desperately. He is no longer my safe place, my strength, but instead the very thing that drowns me.
He turns his head slowly to look at me. I see my betrayal, my lips on Jack’s, my fingernails on his back.
“I want a divorce.”
CHAPTER TWO A Life in Chaos
- Writer
