Images 37

Chapter 37

Ingrid was the last person that I had been expecting to just show back up in my life…oh she was still around, she was still in Edmonton but to actually have her here in the diner.

Wanting to talk to me.

I look at her and she’s changed a lot too. I mean we’re older both of us but she looks…hurt…tired…drug out like she’s been haunted by something.

Huh…gee…I wonder what that fucking was? Yes I’m mad and I’m mad and hurting…really hurting because she’s here. She just walked in and she wants to talk and it’s just that simple? I have this ache in my guts right now just looking at her. I’m so trying to hold it together and not cry right now.

“Talk?”

“Please…”

“Why?...why should I talk to you after what you did to me.”

“I…I…”

I cut her off. “Not here…not now…you’ll have to wait until I have time to talk…”

I start to walk away and I don’t want her to have this easy…and I don’t want her to chicken out as well and I come back with a coffee and a cinnamon roll. “Don’t leave…I’ll talk to you…but I have stuff to do…so…so don’t you fucking go anywhere.”

She stares at me her eyes a little wide and there’s the threat of tears there but…No…I’m not going to let them sway me…I thought I could trust her before…she’s got to earn that trust back dammit.

Both Nin and Holly are looking at me like I morphed into someone else. I really don’t get angry a whole lot about anything and I really don’t swear a lot either.

I’m getting orders and I’m doing stuff behind the kitchen with a serious mad on and holly comes over to me with Njinda. “Jenna…who the hell is she and what did she say that’s got you so mad.”

“That’s Ingrid.”

“What!?” both of them say it together and then Holly is giving her the evil glare that only your female best friend can and mutters. “We call Billy? Ask a favor?”

“No…” Okay that slows my anger down a bit. And I’m ashamed to admit the thought was amusing until y’know I really thought about it and realized that more than likely if I ever did need to…

The guys might actually make someone gone for me…

Yikes…

Really? Am I one of those girls?

Holly looks at me and rubs my sides and my back and so does Nin. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah, no…I don’t know…fuck…”

Both of them laugh.

“What? Why is this funny?”

Njinda smiles. “It is because you are swearing.”

“That can’t be that amusing.”

Holly smiles and gets some stuff on her tray. “Kinda is girl, you’re too sweet Jenna…I mean I think about you swearing and it just doesn’t fit.”

“Oh, so what did you think I’d be saying in a situation like this then?”

Njinda smiles and gets he stuff and puts on this pouty look. “Darn it, just darn it…this…this is just oh…poopy!”

And that of course gets both of them giggling I clench my jaw and look around to see if I’m being watched by like customers or something and figure I’m safe enough that I quickly give them the middle finger.

Which only make them more amused and sends me into the kitchen to mutter and to stew and generally be pissed off but also trying to look out at Ingrid who’s still there and looking pretty miserable and getting worse looking and even more upset.

I’m still doing that when Taylor comes up behind me and pulls me away from the stove area. “No…no, no…time for you to step away…angry and upset in the kitchen is dangerous.”

“Taylor…”

He turns me around and looks at me. “I heard…but this is not the place for you to be venting and trying to get it together…”

I try to be a little hurts and pissed even like this in his grip but it’s just a combination of Tay just being Tay and the fact that he’s right angry and upset is the last thing you should be in a kitchen that’s just full of hot stuff and sharp stuff.

“Okay…okay…fuck…”

“Hey Gordon Ramsay watch the language this is a place of business.”

He leans down and he kisses me and it’s like hitting the release valve off a pressure cooker…I feel all of the steam just easing out of me…I slowly feel that knot unwind in my stomach and he kisses me, softly and sweetly and just makes everything better.

(Sigh.) “I love you, you know that?”

“Yeah it might have been right around that time we were at that party…and there was like all those like people there and I had to like wear a tux and stuff.”

He’s smiling at me and he’s nose rubbing with me and talking to me in the whole like snowboarder like whoa stuff. He’s actually pretty bad at it. Bad enough that he’s making me smile well because he’s that bad and more so because he’s doing that to cheer me up.

He kisses me a little bit more and looks at me. “Go…go and talk to her, take her upstairs and get it over with you’re just making it worse.”

“Okay…okay… (Sigh.)…aren’t I the one that should be saying all the common sense stuff to you since I’m your wife?”

“Yeah…right this coming from you?”

I look at him and he looks and me and I put my head down and laugh into his chest a little. “Okay…I suppose lately I deserve that.”

“Uh-huh.”

I push away and I walk over to where she is and she really does look…she looks bad.

“Are you okay? Should you even be here you look pretty sick.”

Ingrid looks up at me startled a bit and she changes colors and she gets up and takes off at a run into the ladies room. I follow her and get there right behind her and she’s in one of the stalls and she’s hurling her guts up and it’s like she can’t stop.

I sigh and hold her hair back and it comes off in my hands…she’s wearing a wig.

Oh…

I look up and close my eyes a moment and even though I’m….I’m still hurt…I’ll always be hurt by what she did to me. I…I need to get past myself because I lived…I lived through it and I’m okay now.

And it’s the right thing to do…and I can’t help feel for her…no one deserves this…they don’t…

And maybe god knows this too. Maybe he knows the things that will get me past the hate…I open my eyes and wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes there and I reach out and I rub her back soothingly as she’s gripping the porcelain like it’s a life line.

That so sick you’re dry heaving and it’s not even dry heaving really it’s more like you’re having inside out spasms…it takes maybe a minute of those and I can feel the sweat starting to soak through her shirt and her blouse.

“Shhh…just listen to me...listen to my voice and take short little breaths.”

Ingrid’s doing that can’t breath through her nose…heaving thing where it’s hard to catch a breath some times because you’re just nowhere in control of the heaves. So…she heaves and there’s that after heave reverse lurch…you know that part where it’s like the tide in you goes back out before the next heave comes.

“Okay…breathe…”

I keep doing that and rubbing her back and her sides. Holly comes in to check on us looking like she was ready to fight or at least yell at her and I hold up the wig and just silently mouth…wash cloths…ice.

I take them when she comes back and the first thing I do is take the wet cloth and hold it over her forehead then I do the back of her neck until she’s breathing better

“What kind is it Ingrid.”

“O...ovarian…”

“What did they say?”

“To get my affairs in order…”

“I’m so sorry honey.”

“Fuck…”

“What?”

“You…fucking dammit Jenna it’s not fair!”

“Cancer’s never fair.”

“No! It’s not that! It’s you!”

“Me?”

“Yes you! I fucking hate you!”

I close my eyes but I don’t stop trying to soothe her…and she’s too weak to stop me I think but that hurts, it really fucking hurts.

“I know you hate me…maybe you always did…”

“I hate you because I fucking love you, you fucking cunt!”

“Ingrid…”

“No!...no Jenna…I hated high school…I hated getting tagged as a dyke because it was obvious to everyone but me! And by the time I had started to figure things out you were…you were fucking you! And you weren’t gay!”

“Sorry…I’m not…”

“Oh! I know…I fucking remember that.”

“Remember that?”

“That night…when you had really gotten to go all out and we had the make up just right and you were in the first dress that you’d ever worn that one…”

I hold her through another heave session. “I remember that night, we had so much fun and we got into your father’s liquor cabinet.”

“Yeah…and we got really, really drunk and that’s when I came out to you…”

“I remember that.”

“Do you remember after that?”

“We were pretty drunk Ingrid…”

“I told you that I loved you and that I’d do anything to be with you and you told me that you couldn’t, that you weren’t a lesbian.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah Oh…well you passed out…”

“Uh-huh…”

“Well…thanks to me giving you one of dad’s little blue helpers I had you anyway…”

“Ingrid…” I…I…that was rape…I mean…I was still pretty much Jaime back then but still… “Ingrid you shouldn’t have done that….it wasn’t right…”

She coughs and spits and she rolls over so she can sit on the floor and look at me. There is this look in her eyes.

Anger, pain, fear…guilt.

“Jenna…that wasn’t really the wrong part.”

“What?....god Ingrid want did you do to me?”

“Lied…kept quiet about everything…but I can’t…I can’t do it I can’t…My parents booted me out of the family for being gay and they won’t talk to me…Jenna I told them that I’m dying and they still won’t talk to me…”

“I’m sorry…that’s…” I reach out and I stroke her cheek, her face and these huge tears fall and spill over my hand…

“Hanna…Hanna found out that I’m sick…that I’m this sick…and she…she left me!...I thought she loved me…she told me that she loved me!”

I can’t…I can’t just sit there like that whatever’s been between us is just…I can’t not just…”

I pull her to me and I wrap her up in a big hug, a big a hug as I can. “I’ve got you…okay…I got you…the stuff in the past doesn’t matter…what happened doesn’t matter…You’re here and…I’m not going anywhere.”

She breaks down and starts to do that hard sobbing bawling and I rock her.

“Oh Jenna!...God Jenna the only things I got left are you and Gisele…and she…she…she’ll be all alone when I’m gone!”

“I’ll take care of her…it’ll be alright…”

“I know…I know… (Sniffle-sob.)…she’s your daughter.”