I swim to him and wrap my arms around his neck. His arms go around me, holding me tight.
“I’ll always be yours.” I kiss his cheek, licking the cool water drops off his skin with my tongue, trailing a lead of gentle sucking kisses to his mouth. “Back then, on that day, I wanted you to make love to me under the waterfall,” I whisper against his lips, casting my glance in the falls’ direction.
And without another word, I take off swimming for the falls.
Jake is hot behind me.
When we hit the cascading water, Jake takes me in his arms, kissing me like it’s the first time, and he makes love to me here under the falls, like those two teenagers wanted to all those years ago.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“He’s using again, isn’t he?”
Stuart looks sadly across the table in the coffee shop we’re in, and nods his head once. “Yes, I think he is.”
“You think or you’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he says without hesitation.
Stuart should know. He lived with Jake, the addict, before.
“Me too,” I sigh, stirring my coffee, I look down into my cup.
We’re in Boston and it’s two weeks into the US leg of the tour. And Jake’s using drugs again.
It’s become increasingly apparent over the last week.
I’ve never lived with an addict before, but the signs are pretty clear.
He’s not sleeping. His moods are all over the place. His temper is short. He’s drinking more than usual. Fidgety. I could go on.
After Lumb Falls, we went back to the hotel, happy together, and when we woke in the morning, everything was perfect.
Jake was Jake again. We spent time with his mum, and my folks. We all had a wonderful few days together in Manchester.
Then one night everything changed. One phone call changed it all.
Stuart received a heads up call from the press about a story that was going to be run the following morning. The press had found out about Paul’s death. They dug a little deeper and found out he’d been in prison, and just what he went to prison for.
There was no way to stop the story, although Jake and Stuart tried.
So we left Manchester that night, and flew to LA, to Jake’s house.
My first stay at his place, my new home to be, wasn’t exactly how I had imagined it would be.
Jake was tense and stressed. I was alone for most of the time.
When the story hit the news, I lost him. He became introvert.
I hoped things would get better once the tour started. Once he had work to focus on.
They haven’t. They’ve got worse.
He keeps disappearing off on his own, sometimes even without Dave.
When I question him as to where he’s been, he says he’s just been having time out to clear his head.
Basically, he’s out scoring drugs.
Jake’s distanced himself from me. From everyone. He only talks to bark out orders to staff on the tour. And the only time I see him resembling something near to the Jake I know, is when he’s on stage performing at the shows. But the minute he’s off stage, he’s back to the same.
He’s pushing everyone around him away, and I haven’t got a clue what to do. How to help him. I feel completely out of my depth. And so very helpless.
Helpless to the fact that the man I love is slowly slipping away before my eyes.
I’ve considered calling his sponsor, even his drug counsellor, but I feel like I’d be crossing some arbitrary line if I do.
I just feel at a loss.
You have no idea how hard it is to try to hold onto someone when they don’t want you to.
I’ve tried talking to him. He won’t talk to me. He brushes me off, telling me there is nothing wrong.
There clearly is.
The story coming out about what he suffered at the hands of his dad that night was the final nail in the coffin for him.
He could just about cope with Paul dying and the old memories and feelings that resurfaced for him, but this story coming out was too much.
I know he feels like he’s been exposed to the world as the weak man he truly believes himself to be. It’s crippled him, and the only way he knows how to deal with that emotion is to conceal it with drugs so he no longer has to feel.
The flip side of that, which he doesn’t see, is that he stops loving too.
He’s stopped loving me on some fundamental level.
It’s still there, buried somewhere deep within him. But for now, this Jake I’ve got here with me, doesn’t love me. Not really. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to, but because he can’t.
So now it’s up to me to try to find a way to bring him back.
I think he started using again around the time the tour began here in the US. On some level I think I knew, I just didn’t want to believe it.
But now it’s become too hard to ignore.
He went to take a shower this morning and when he came out of the bathroom, I looked up at him and there was blood running from his nose.
That’s when I knew what he’d been doing in there.
He downplayed the nosebleed. Said it was just because he was tired and stressed.