Five realizations

Jack stirred, fighting the process of waking up. Not yet. He didn’t want to wake up. Things were good as they were, he was good as he was. Why couldn’t he just sleep a little longer? But his brain had decided otherwise and was already way too active for him to ignore it. Too late. I’m awake. Refusing to open his eyes yet though, he slowly turned a bit, reaching for the other side of the bed and the warmth and comfort of the body lying next to him. Nina…

Abruptly opening his eyes, almost sitting up in bed, he realized two things. Number one, he was alone. Number two… - he had thought of Nina.

The first realization wasn’t that shocking. It wasn’t the first time he woke up alone. And being fully awake now, he remembered he had been working overtime the entire week and been so exhausted last night he had literally been asleep before his head had hit the pillow. Squinting against the bright sunlight that fell in through the window, hearing voices and noises from outside, he had to assume that he had slept the entire night plus half of the day. It was Sunday, and apparently a particularly nice one. No wonder he was the only one still in bed.

The second realization took him a bit longer to digest. Nina. It hadn’t been the first time he had thought of her either. He grinned to himself for a second. Certainly not the first time he had thought of her in bed. But he had thought of her the moment between sleep and awakening, the moment he had reached for the person lying next to him, or who he’d thought was lying next to him. He pondered the implications. It’s really not that hard, Jack, he mocked himself. He had thought of her because she was the person he had wanted to be lying next to him. Wow, Jack, you’re fast today, he noticed once more mockingly but then turned serious again. It used to be Teri. It had always been Teri. From the day he had met her, through all the years of marriage, until… Until today. Until this morning.

He sank back onto the sheets, letting his head drop back onto the pillow, staring at the ceiling. What was different this morning? What had changed since yesterday? It wasn’t the first time he had woken up and wanted Nina to be there, but usually only when he was already awake enough to know…no, to decide what he wanted. This was different. He hadn’t been awake enough to decide anything. Or know anything for that matter. He hadn’t even been awake enough to remember where he was, why he was there, what day it was…dammit, he hadn’t even been awake enough to remember who he was.

But he had known that he wanted to be with her. He swallowed. And not with Teri.

He sighed, closing his eyes and tilting his head further back into the softness of the pillow. And it was that moment that another realization hit him.

Coffee.

It was the smell of coffee that had woken him up. And while he already counted his third major insight – not bad considering he hadn’t been awake that long – the smell seemed to increase in its intensity. He closed his eyes once again.

He heard her footsteps when she was still in the hallway and counted in his mind. He would have been able to tell the exact moment she entered the bedroom, even if the smell of fresh coffee and the sound when she opened the door a bit wider hadn’t given her away. He could feel her eyes on him as she seemed to check if he was really still asleep, but he kept his eyes closed, sensing her coming a bit closer and then sitting down on the bedside, probably trying to determine whether she should wake him up or let him sleep.

Nina, he kept thinking behind his closed eyelids. Not Teri. And he couldn’t help but feel guilt and sadness washing over him, although neither showed on his face. Did this mean his marriage was over? Ultimately, definitely, inevitably over? Was this the way it ended? Was this the way his family ‘ended’? Just broke up? What would Kim say? What could he say, how could he explain? And Teri…

He could still feel her sitting there, watching him in his fake sleep, imagine the expression on her face. The slight frown that was probably there, because she wondered how he could sleep this long, how he could be this exhausted from work, thinking they needed to get away for a while. She had said something about going somewhere for a few days, over the weekend, but he hadn’t really said anything in return. He had felt he needed to figure things out first. Things he couldn’t talk to her about. Things he couldn’t tell her without hurting her. And he didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. If he could find a way to fix things without hurting anyone…but he couldn’t. There wasn’t.

He felt something touching his forehead, her hand gently stroking a stray of hairs away. He still didn’t move. He wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t ready to open his eyes yet because if he did, and looked at her, and if she was looking back, then everything he had felt and thought this morning, especially the very first thing he had felt this morning, would be irrevocably true.

He couldn’t help taking a somewhat deeper breath at this – he counted fourth – realization. But apparently she thought he was just stirring in his sleep. He felt her hand retreating from his hair, sensed her eyes resting on him for a last long look, and he thought he could actually hear her smile a little bit. And again he knew exactly what her face would look like. If he opened his eyes right now, he knew what he would see.

He felt her weight being lifted from the bedside as she moved to get up and leave, and it was then that his fifth realization hit him. It was time to face the truth. Or at least, now was as good a time as any.