The morning light had broken over the horizon, and Nick stared at it's color, at it's heat...searching for the answers he was looking for.  The only conclusion he had managed to come up with was that he was a total and utter idiot.  He felt horrible for the way he had treated Jenna last night, he had been an asshole to her and he knew it.  Somehow it had made him feel better, like taking out his frustrations on her was the only thing that could soothe the angry feelings that ran amuck inside him.

    He knew she had felt what he felt last night, he saw it in her eyes when he refused to see it in his own, and it scared him.  But he had to deal with it, they both did,  before they wasted  more time.

    Nick got out of the car that had been sitting in Jenna's driveway since just before dawn and listlessly made his way to her front door.  He knocked lightly, a part of him still hoping that she'd be asleep and wouldn't hear him, so he could have a few more hours to build up his courage.

    "Hi." She said when she opened the door to greet him, she hadn't been sleeping.

Nick looked at her, his face full of regret.  "We need to talk."

    "Yeah I know." Jenna replied, standing aside so he could come in.  "I was wondering when you'd finally get out of your car."

    "You knew I was here?" Nick asked, kicking off his shoes and sitting with her on the couch.

    "Yeah, I heard you pull in."  She took a sip of the coffee she had been holding when she opened the door, still avoiding his gaze.

    "So why didn't you come out?"

    "Same reason it took you two hours to come in."  Jenna said with a knowing smile.  They both sat quietly for awhile, Nick watching her sip her coffee slowly, knowing that it contained two spoonfuls of sugar, just a touch of milk, skim only and a tiny drop of vanilla.

    "Nick, I don't want to say it again." She finally muttered setting down the cup on the coffee table next to her.

    "You don't want to say what?"

    "I did it last time.  This time is harder, because we both know it has to happen.  I don't want to say it." He read her thoughts when she finally looked into his eyes.  He had been right, she felt it, she knew what they both wanted to avoid saying.

    "I need to explain a few things." Nick choked out, his throat growing dry and hoarse.

    "So do I." She sighed quietly, as Nick continued talking.

    "I don't know why he did it,  I can't even wrap my fingers around it, but Jen, when AJ told you I wasn't seeing anyone he was lying.  I was seeing someone, I had been for quite awhile.  She was the one who gave me that talisman you found in the couch, that's why I tripped out so much yesterday." He rushed through his words like they'd hurt him on the way out.

The color seemed to drain from Jenna's face.  "Are you still-"

    "No, I broke up with her when-"

    "When I came back." She finished, nodding with a regretfully somber face.

    "Exactly." He sighed, the silence returning between them.  All Nick could think as he watched her face and felt their silence was that AJ used her and manipulated her to his own benefit.  She hadn't known about Kayla, and he could see that her involvement in their breakup was bothering her.

    "Do you love her." Jenna blurted out.

    "I don't know.  It's complicated, but she's wonderful Jen.  She basically did what not another living soul in the world could do.  She got me over you." He said with a cocked grin.

    "Then she can't be that wonderful." Jenna said with more nervous laughter.

    "It's more than just that though...she makes me happy." Every time she became silent he became more and more nervous and regretful, what if she hadn't wanted this too, what if he was making another giant mistake to go along with the hundreds he had already made.

    "I missed you, don't ever think I didn't, that's why I came back Nick." Jenna confessed.    "And I do love you, but I'm in love with what we used to have, with what we used to be, before all the bad stuff happened...when it was just us.  I've changed too much to go back to that, so have you, that's painfully clear to me.  Why I thought we could just slip back into the past like the time we spent apart hadn't changed us, I'll never know."  She got up off the couch and paced her living room.

    "This is eating me up inside Jenna." Nick said as she walked back and forth in front of him.  "When you came back, I didn't even want to question it...I just wanted things to be back to how they were before everything between us got messed up.  I wanted that feeling I used to get when I was around you, and as much as I tried these past couple of weeks I can't find it again, at least not the way it used to be or the way I need it to be.  I could never stop loving you, you were the first person I ever really did love, but we aren't in love any more Jen."

    "I know." She sighed sitting back down.  "God, I screwed up your whole life by coming back here.  I destroyed a relationship and I did it for nothing.  I listened to him say I'd be happier back in Florida the way things used to be and I believed it.  I left the life I built for myself in Chicago and came back here on a whim, wondering if I really was giving up my happiness by giving you up and I ruined your happiness.  I'm sorry Nick...I wanted this to work again, I wouldn't have come back if I didn't think it could, and if I had known you were seeing someone I never would have come back at all.  I ruined her happiness too, I'm so sorry for that." He saw the tears well up in her eyes as she brought her hand to her face.  He sat closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

    "Don't apologize Jenna.  You didn't know, none of this is your fault." He comforted.  "At least we know.  We won't look back twenty years from now and wonder what could have been."

    "What's her name Nick?"

    "Kayla." He said with difficulty.  It had been the first time since she left that he had consciously said her name out loud, aware that he had probably mentioned her when he was talking to AJ, but it hadn't registered.  He watched the way Jenna ran her name over and over again in her mind, he knew she was doing it.  He was doing it.

    "AJ mentioned her before." She finally said, maybe the same questions he had posed to AJ were arising in her mind.

    "What did he say about her?"

    "I don't remember, but I know he said something about her."

    "When I went to see AJ yesterday to ask him about all of this and why he told you what he did,  she was there at his house." he confessed, a new understanding of his attitude yesterday washed over Jenna's face.    "She opened the door, barely said a word to me and went up to AJ's room to get him. For just that second I saw her, I felt it again.  That feeling I was telling you about.  I felt it looking at her face, looking in her eyes.  But then it just turned into this big ball in my stomach and I couldn't shake it, I still can't shake it. I'm angry, I'm jealous and I miss her."
 
    "I can tell." Jenna said pulling back from his hug, looking him in the eyes.

    "Jenna, do you remember what you said to me the day you left?"

    "Some of it."

    "You said maybe someday we'd both find somebody better." He watched as she closed her eyes slowly.  In sadness or in recollection he wasn't sure.  "I let you go too easily and I won't do the same with her.  She's important to me, more important than I ever let myself realize. I don't know about the better part because you'll always be important to me, but I found somebody that matters to me again and even though it's probably already too late I can't lose her, the way we lost what we had."

    "Then go Nick, don't waste your time telling me things I already know." Jenna pushed him from the couch, but Nick wriggled from her grasp and sat back down.

    "I can't just leave like that Jenna." He said with a shake of his head, taking ahold of her hand and sitting quietly.   "This is the scariest thing I've ever done." He sighed, leaning back into the couch.  "Jenna, I don't want to say goodbye to you.  Are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

    "Nick, we've spent an hour talking about why this is the right thing to do."

    "I know but..."

    "But what Nick"

    "Jen, you were the first person I ever really loved.  When you left I thought I was gonna die, even though I knew you were smart to do it, that I treated you like crap and I didn't deserve you.  But still, I was like a zombie after you were gone, I barely got over you leaving last time and now you're back.  How can I say goodbye to you after all of this?  What if it happens all over again?"

She smiled softly to him, her mothering persona returning, like it did whenever he started to freak out about something.  "Nick, first of all we never said goodbye to each other last time, I just left.  I said goodbye, you didn't.  And second, you said you barely got over me leaving.  But you did get over it Nick.  I just came back and complicated everything again."

    "Things are always complicated with us aren't they?" He said rhetorically, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling.

    "You should go Nick." Jenna said quietly after some deliberation.  Nick's forehead furrowed in worry, had what he said upset her?    "We can't break up if we sit around and dwell on it all day." She continued.

    "Break up." He repeated.  "You make it sound so final."

    "It is." She said seriously.

    "Yeah I know."  He sighed sadly,

    "Nick, go.  Please." Jenna said when he didn't get off the couch.  Her eyes averting his again.  "This is hard enough, I kinda wanna be alone."

    "Will you be okay?"

    "Will you?"

    "I don't know."

    "Exactly." Jenna stated as Nick got up from the couch and hesitantly made his way to the front door.  She waited by him as he put on his shoes and barely accepted the hug he tried to give her before he left.  She was trying not to cry, she was trying to be strong, he could see she was trying to pretend that this wasn't hurting her as much as it was hurting him.

    Nick looked back as he reached his car.  She stood in the doorway waiting for him  to leave, leaning against the frame, her arms folded across her chest and the wind blowing blond strands of  hair in front of her face, forcing her to tuck it behind her ears.  The scene played in Nick's mind like a movie, all he had to do was say the cliché 'can we still be friends' line and everything would be right out of a screenplay, but he wouldn't.  He didn't know if they could be friends, he knew her too well to even bother asking, because she didn't know if they could be friends or not either.    Time would tell.

    "Hey Nick." She said before he could get into his car.

    "Yeah."  He wondered if she'd ask the 'friends' question.

    "I'm sorry I screwed up your relationship with Kayla."

    "I screwed it up Jenna." Nick sighed.    "I'm always the one that screws it up."  She didn't disagree with him.

Nick waited until she went inside and shut the door before he got into his car and left, the urge to cry building inside of him.  He never imagined he'd say goodbye to Jenna, or that someone else would be the reason he did.

Chapter 14

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