After the Rain- Josh Kiszka

Chapter 16- Getaway

Ever since Jake had found me out, I had extremely tense. I knew I needed to tell Josh as soon as possible so that he could hear the news from me and not his brother, but it was as if I could never find the right moment to do so. When he had invited me on a weekend getaway, I had agreed immediately because I was so blinded by my consuming love for Josh, but now, in hindsight, I realized that it was a really bad idea.

Despite the fact that Josh and I had been dating for two months, we had never gone all the way. There always seemed to be a reason not to: Lina was around, Josh had to work early in the morning and couldn't spend the night, or as things progressed I would get all anxious and shut them down. Josh probably attributed my anxieties when it came to having sex to the fact that I had accidentally conceived a child; he never asked me to do anything that I wasn't comfortable with, which I appreciated him for, but I knew it would be unfair to him if I expected us to remain celibate now for the sake of keeping my secret. 

Looking back, however, I had been careless. How had I never considered that Josh might have recognized my tattoos? Luckily, anything we had done since dating had been in the dark. Now that we were going away on a private vacation, I knew the situation couldn't be avoided, and there was an even higher likelihood that Josh would find out. I had to come clean once and for all.

Josh picked me up from my apartment on Friday afternoon with plans to go to a luxury bed-and-breakfast about an hour outside of the city. He assured me that we would get to relax and unwind with little interference from the outside world, which sounded nice considering how overwhelmed I had been in the preceding weeks. Keeping this secret from him was really weighing on me and I wanted to use this time to be present with Josh and alleviate some of my stress.

Our plan for the night was to have dinner at a restaurant not too far from the bed-and-breakfast, and then spend the night in, just hanging out with one another.  While Josh was in the shower, I rifled through my suitcase that sat atop the dresser to find an outfit to wear to dinner. In my pursuit of what clothing I thought would be best suited for the occasion, my elbow bumped a pile of Josh's belongings beside my suitcase, sending them to the floor. Among the pile was a pair of his sunglasses, a journal, and a jacket. I bent to pick them up from the floor and the journal was face down, with its pages spread about. I picked the journal up first, and a smaller piece of paper fell from within one of the pages. I examined it out of curiosity and discovered that it was a photograph.

I turned it over to see what the image was, and my eyes widened.

The picture was of Josh and a girl. He had the same curly brown hair but his face was shaven clean, he looked younger. The girl beside him was young and had long blonde hair and a tanned skin— she was everything I wasn't. Her smile was so wide and bright, and her face was glowing. She was so beautiful and carefree that I hardly recognized her.

The girl was me.

 A flash of a memory from the night where it had all happened ran through my mind: 

'Here,' I said reaching for the camera. I leaned in close to him and flipped it around so that I could take a picture of the both of us. 'So we can be remembered together.' I said with a shy smile. He kissed me on the cheek, and I snapped the picture, just as the car pulled up to the hotel Josh was staying at.

Why would he keep this?

I couldn't believe he still had it after all of this time. That night must have meant something to him if he had gone through the trouble of having the picture developed, and kept it tucked away in his journal for almost two years.

It made me wonder if he had ever had any suspicions of who I really was over the course of our relationship. I decided that I was going to come clean as soon as possible.