Being in a long distance relationship sucks. Especially a closeted one. I hate to spend my days constantly missing her. Or how every little things make me thinking of Jess. Even when we got to be with each other, we had to be careful in public. Sometimes I feel if I made the right choice by lying about our relationship at the first slip. Six months into a relationship with Jess and we barely spent a total of a month being physically together. Sure, there's Skype and all, but I miss her warmth and I almost forget how she smells like. And her tender touch and flaming kisses. I feel like shit when I'm without her. What makes things worse is now I'm shooting for my new movie in Ireland. My schedule is insane and sometimes I was just too tired to talk to Jess before I go to sleep. And the time differences didn't help either. I know she's trying really hard to keep up with my schedule. It's killing me when I see the dark circles under her eyes, whenever we have our late night skype session. I also can feel her desperation, even when she's smiling at me from a far.
I can also feel the distance between Jess and I, emotionally. The discretion has been hard on her. She didn't really understand it, the reason why I begged her to keep it away from prying eyes. I know that she thought that I didn't want to be seen with her. That she's not good enough to be seen with me in public. She thought that the public wouldn't agree with her as my girlfriend, not some other fabulous but fake celebrity. And part of those things is almost true. But my intention was to protect her. To shield her and our relationship away from them. To keep the only good thing in my life away from everyone to destroy. But it didn't work. It only strained things between us. And it kills me.
I've been drinking more nowadays. It helps me forget, how a part of my heart is thousands miles away from me. I keep myself sober enough at day, to get through the filming. But when the night comes, when I miss her the most, I'd be going under so deep I wouldn't remember anything the next morning. I would miss her calls, I would forget her only for the night. And some nights, I'd cross the line. I'd find myself waking up with some stranger in the morning and feel like hell for the entire day. Then I have to put up a smile in front of Jess at night, pretending that everything's all right. It's not. I'm not okay at all.
I wish I could just tell her, even though I don't know what I want to tell her. I can't say that I'm giving up, because I am not. I can't say that I've been unfaithful, not when I know I'd lose her that way. I can't say that I'm barely holding up here. I can't say that when I'm with somebody else, it's her name that I've been screaming desperately. Shit. Shit. Shit. I'm sorry, love. Should I let her go? I know the moment when I cant be truly honest with her about everything, it's the moment when everything's going to fall apart. And I can't stop myself. From loving her. From hurting her.
She knew that something is wrong with me. Her voice always filled with concern. The amount of love in her eyes broke my heart, because I knew I've been breaking hers without her knowledge. I hate to keep her in the dark, away from my demons inside. It's stupid, I know. Because what I really need the most isn't some brief hookups with strangers. I need her. Desperately enough to make me doing stupid things like this. It sucks when 'I love you' isn't enough to make everything okay again.
*
I slip away from the girl's bed quietly. I don't know what her name is. I don't want to anyway. It's not important. I'm sneaking out while trying to remember the events of the night before. And how the hell I ended up in this girl's bed. Nothing comes up. Just another blurry night. I sigh and walk out of the door. One more week and the filming will be done. And I will go back to Jess's arms again, where I will be finally safe and sound. A wave of guilt hits when I'm thinking about her. How could I do this to her?
I sit in silence the whole ride back to my hotel room. My head feels like it's going to explode. Oh, great. Another hang over. Just exactly what I need now. I press the palms of my hand against my temples, wanting to chase the pain away. The pain inside my head and my heart. Well, maybe I deserve it. I slip my sunglasses on and grab a cup of coffee before I go up to my room. Maybe I could sneak an hour or two of sleep before I go to work today. They don't need me before one o'clock in the afternoon anyway.
I almost dropped my coffee when I saw Jess in my room. She looks like hell. Her eyes are red and swollen. Her hair is messier than usual, like she's been tousling it the whole day. She does that when she's stressed. But what scares me the most is how the light is out of her eyes. It looks hollow and hauntingly sad. And I know instantly that I am the reason why the moment she finally looks up at me.
"Where have you been?" Even her voice is flat. "I've waited for you all night, but you never came."
"I slept at some friend's room, love." A lie. A big fucking lie.
She holds up her hand, to stops all of my bullshits. "Don't. Don't you dare lying to my face."
"Why are you here?"
"I missed you. And I was worried about you. But the main reason is this." She tosses her phone at me, which I thankfully catch mid air. It shows an article of my recent outing at some club. It has a picture of me, dancing awfully close with some twenty something beauty. Oh, God. Please don't let this happens to us. Not now. I can't lose her now. Well, probably not ever.
"Well, this is a lie. You know how crazy these bloggers are." I lie again, the one thing I've been really good at these days. "You're not supposed to believe anything in it. They would make anything up for news."
"Just like our relationship before, huh?" Her voice is barely a whisper, I almost didn't hear it.
"Jess, please just hear me out," I plead to her. But she stops me again. The pain in her eyes stops me dead.
"I didn't believe it at first," she says softly. "But I thought, what the hell, it wouldn't hurt to visit her and see how she's doing here. When you didn't come last night, I started to have my doubts. And then, a new article came up. The most recent one."
I scroll down and find the mentioned article. It's about the last night. Apparently I hooked up with an up and coming star last night. Saying that I'm busted it's a bit of understatement. They caught me on picture, kissing the girl passionately in the middle of the dance floor. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My heart starts to beat faster in panic. I open my mouth to explain, but Jess beats me into it.
"And then you came home this morning. Looking wasted and smelled like sex." Then her calm voice finally breaks. "I bet I could still taste her in your mouth if I kiss you now. I bet I could still smell her on your finger. I bet you couldn't even remember her name."
"Jess, I'm so sorry." I rush into her, trying to stop the tears that is starting to fall on her cheeks. She pushes me away, sending pain through my heart. It's the only time she denied my touch, probably won't be the last.
"No, don't you dare to touch me when you touched someone else last night." She takes a deep breath and stays silent for a while. I do not dare to say anything at all, knowing that it won't make things any better. But I can't take the silence anymore.
"For the record, I love you. I still do. I was stupid. I was weak. I missed you and I needed something to ease the loneliness I felt without you here. I'm sorry, Jess. Please forgive me."
She closes her eyes, as if to control all of her emotions inside. Then she opens it and gives me a sad smile. "You know what hurts me the most? They don't even know who I am, your real girlfriend. They said that your new girl is this beautiful movie star. The one who is worthy of your love. They didn't even know that you were cheating on me. Or how you're breaking my heart in pieces when you showed up on some gossip website with some pretty girl in your arms."
"I really want to believe that what we have is enough for you. I do. I love you just too damn much, Cara. I don't know how the hell I'm going to survive without you. I don't."
Then she breaks down and crying on her knees. I kneel by her side, gathering her into my arms and cry with her. Crying for our tainted love. We love each other immensely and yet here we are, still hurting and trying to keep the pieces of our crumbling relationship.
"I'm sorry that my love isn't enough for you," she whispers. "I'm sorry that letting you go is the obvious choice that I have to make."
