Chapter Text
Samira watched Jack sink into the chair closest to him, “Sorry, I need to sit down.” He looked up at her warily, more with concern than anxiety. She assumed that she looked like a spooked deer. The kind that you wanted to comfort, but knew if you got too close, they would run.
“Did I do something…to make you have this thought?” he asked, and she felt herself shake her head. She didn’t seem to have full autonomy over her body. She was still trying to get her traction back, too much in her head about how much she related to Frankie. She had lived a life where all men eventually left. And even if they stayed, like Robby, then they would probably eventually start to dislike her.
But then there was Jack. Such a steady, sure thing in her life, even before they were intertwined in this sham, that felt less so by the day. He had never been anything but unfathomably present since he had come into her life, and it had always left her to wonder when he would also decide that his time with her had come.
“Eventually, you’ll leave,” she heard herself respond, laughing sadly, tears streaming down her face. “You’ll leave. They always do. You’ll get annoyed. You’ll start resenting me,and unlike other times, there’s a ghost that I’ll never live up to...” She hiccuped, losing more of her composure. “A wife, a real one, at that! That you loved and built a home with, and wanted children with. But, none of this was planned, Jack. But here I am! I just roam around day and night like a Barbie, waiting for you–”
“—Enough!” Jack yelled, and it stopped her in her tracks. He had never once raised his voice at her. Not even when they were working. If he got frustrated, it came out more in sarcasm than volume. It made her feel like a child in trouble, and she found herself finding respite in the stool beside her. Samira chanced a look over to the couch to see that he didn’t look better than her, face red and tears streaming down his face. “…Enough,” he said quieter this time.
The room was quiet, but the static against it was louder.
“Samira,” Jack choked out, which made her feel like the worst person on the planet. “Maggie was my everything. My sun and my moon, and I never thought that I would live a life without her. But I wasn’t really given a choice, and I assumed that those were the cards dealt to me. A forever widow at 30. I’m sorry that I can’t just magically erase those memories to make it easier for us, to make it more believable that I want to be here with you. I won’t. But the universe, for some fucking reason, gave me the opportunity to have something like that again.” Jack had moved from looking at the ground to staring at her with such intensity that she couldn't look away.
“If she was my sun and moon, then–,” he paused, looking out the window where the sunset had started transitioning to night. “Then you are my stars. I see you in everything, everywhere…and I will be damned, Samira. I will be absolutely damned if I let you run from this because you’re scared. Don’t you think I’m scared shitless? But I love you so much that it’s worth it. In every lifetime. You are worth staying for.”
Samira's body shook violently at his words, her breath coming out in brutal sobs. She could barely breathe. She closed her eyes for what felt like a moment, and when she mustered the courage to open them, they met the gaze of a concerned hazel eyes. Jack always found himself close to her, even when she rejected him.
“You have to breathe, honey. You’re going to work yourself into a panic attack.” She tried her best, but it still came out too shaken.
“Five things you can see, Mira. Come on, baby. Open your eyes.”
”You…the couch…the wallpaper…my hands…the fridge…”
”Good girl, four things you can touch,” he asked, and she followed through with naming things as he worked through the senses. Her breath was regulated again when they finished. They sat together, holding hands. Jack leaned over to kiss her on the head.
“I don’t want to leave you, but I think you need space.” He squeezed her hand once more, before exiting to the patio, giving her room to breathe.
She wanted him to stay, but she also knew that he was right. She needed space. Not because she was upset by what he said, but because his words broke any plausible deniability of their reality. They were two people who loved each other, but had spent so much time dancing around it that it took a drunken marriage to help them come to their senses.
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Beyond the patio, Jack could hear the buzz of vacationers enjoying their night, mixing with sounds of wildlife. He took a deep breath and tried to re-center himself, pulling away from the deep, emotional rush of laying all his cards on the table. While it wasn’t how he planned to share his feelings, he didn’t want to have any regrets about the words that needed to be said. She needed to hear what she meant to him, needed to be reassured that she wasn’t the only one to have something to lose.
Jack’s phone buzzed in his lap, and he chuckled humorlessly seeing the callerID. Always the worst timing.
“Robby.”
“Jack.”
“You need something? I’m on my honeymoon that you forced me to be on.”
Robby laughed, and Jack felt his body loosen, hearing the familiar sound on the other end, “About that…I wanted to make sure that you still liked me, and that I shouldn’t be expecting a punch in a couple days when you get back.”
Jack sighed, “Anyone who punches someone who gives them a free vacation might not be the best person.”
“Well, it’s a good thing that you happen to be the very best person who deserves good things, as well as Samira. You both deserve the very best.” This new version of Robby was so open and so sincere.
Jack rubbed his forehead, irked at the way the lie had grown, so much that his best friend was absolutely fooled. It felt like now or never, “Robby, I need to be honest with you, and I need you to forgive me in advance.”
“Always, Jack.”
”Samira and I got drunkenly married, and it wasn’t planned. And none of this is real, or maybe it’s more real now, but it wasn’t when we left. It is—was a lie. I’m really sorry that you also got caught up in it. We were trying to protect our reputations.”
The line was silent for a little too long.
”Robby? Are you still there?” Jack figured he would be upset, but didn’t realize he would be this upset.
“Sorry,” Robby said. “I was just texting Trinity that she owed fifty bucks.” It took Jack’s brain a second to catch up, but then Robby was speaking again. “Trinity let the cat out of the bag after you left, and then we had a bet on when you would come clean. I said on the trip, and she said you two would keep it up after you returned.”
Jack couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, “What is wrong with us? Why is everything a bet?”
”It’s the culture, baby!” Robby joked. “We gotta have something to look forward to…Do you want to talk about it?”
Jack groaned, and it was Robby’s turn to laugh, “I feel like a teenage boy. But instead, I’m just a widow trying to navigate loving another woman.”
Robby waited a beat before responding, “It’s possible to love both, Jack. This isn’t how you loved Maggie. And, you aren’t going to love Samira the same way you loved Maggie. You can hold room for both. And, Jack?”
“Yeah?”
”The way you love each other is so good, and I would hate for you to let the way it happened to deter what it could be.”
Jack jokingly held his phone away to check to make sure he was talking to the right person, “Is this Michael Robinavitch?”
”Very funny, but if even I can see it, there’s something there. Something worth trying for at the very least.” Jack heard the door open behind him, and he turned around to Samira standing there shyly. Her hair was dripping wet, over one of his t-shirts that was over-sized on her frame.
“Hey Mike, I gotta go,” Jack said, taking in his wife.
”Go. I’ll see you both soon. Emphasis on together.” Jack heard the phone click, and he set it down on the chair beside him.
“Robby?” Samira asked him, and he nodded.
“Yeah, a happy one. He’s fifty bucks richer at our expense.”
Samira rolled her eyes, coming to stand closer to him, “Let me guess. The jig is up?”
”It is indeed, and here we are. There’s no reason to stay married anymore. I can call up—“
“—Enough. Isn’t that what you said to me? Stop this. Tell me what you want, Jack, and I’ll tell you what I want back.”
Jack took a deep breath before exhaling, “I don’t want to call my lawyer.” She inched closer with every word. “I want to give this a try. I want to wake up next to you. And follow you around the country. And stay at home and raise our babies. I just want to spend the rest of my life loving you, and being married. Real married.” She was close enough that their lips almost touched.
“I want all of that, too. I really want to be real married.” She pressed a small kiss to his lips, and he pushed against her. There was no urgency that had found them in the last few days. Their time of outrunning whatever this was had run out. All they had to do was be here, be present.
When they pulled away, Samira looked at him curiously, “Did you mean it or were you just speaking in metaphors?”
”What?…Oh. Definitely, not a metaphor.” He pulled her into his body, and she hummed against him, “My sky, baby. My whole damn sky.”