62. Apologetic

            “You shouldn’t do that. Like, you really shouldn’t.”

            Krislynn groaned as she pulled the phone away from her ear and pressed it against the other side of her head. “You make it sound so easy. It’s not like that.”

            “It is like that!” Michelle barked. “It’s totally easy! Generations of women have done it in the past! Why can’t we? Look, I can’t speak for the rest of the male population because that would be prejudice, but Chase is an animal! You can’t just let him do what he wants! You need to train him! You need to push his nose down and say ‘no’ when he does something you don’t want him to.”

            “He’s not actually a dog,” she laughed, wondering how she even got pulled into this conversation. The rumour mill was apparently rampant in L.A and the news that Krislynn might have sort of started sleeping with Chase quickly travelled all the way to New York where Michelle was currently preparing for a show. She only called to gossip and confirm the matter, but when Krislynn casually mentioned that she might have been giving into Chase a little more than she should be, Michelle started on a spiral of feminist lectures.

            “Sex should be the equivalent of a treat. Only reward him if he does something worthy. Don’t reward him if he misbehaves!”

            Krislynn giggled. “Is that how you treat Seth?”

            “Why?”

            “Nothing,” she laughed. “Just that married life might suit you.”

      Michelle purred at her response. “Well, it’s true that my Sethie never misbehaves.”

            Krislynn burst into laughter at her brazenness, but when it was all said and done, there wasn’t anything wrong with what Michelle lectured her on either. Just because Chase wanted to get naked every possible moment of the day doesn’t mean she should encourage it by being submissive. She had to draw the line somewhere and she had to let him know where that line was.

            At dinner, Krislynn told Chase pretty much the length of their conversation in between bites of fries and homemade hamburgers. Of course, he wasn’t the least bit happy about Michelle’s interjections. “Why is it that every time you and Michelle have a conversation about me, I get turned into a dog?”

            “I don’t know,” she grumbled, adding in a sarcastic eye roll. “Maybe because there’re similarities?”

            “Uh… like?”

            “Dogs hump table legs… You hump table legs…” Krislynn took a fleeting glance at him, waiting for Chase to retaliate like he always did, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to banter with her today. Instead, he had an eyebrow raised with a sly smirk on his face that he wasn’t even attempting to hide.

            Chase shifted to his side and inched his chair closer to hers. “Are you calling yourself a table leg?” He asked. 

            “No! Wait… what? Did you… are you calling me a table leg?”

            He shrugged. “Am I?”

            “Are you?!”

            He shrugged again and inched his lips closer to hers. “Well you said I humped table legs right? And currently, my favourite thing to hump at night is…”

            “Obviously still yourself,” she retorted, pushing his face away with the palm of her hands. “Too bad cloning technology hasn’t been invented for humans yet.”

            Chase chuckled as he sat back upright and took a big bite out of his hamburger. “No comment,” he mumbled in between bites.

            “Seriously I can’t believe you would even say that. You say I’m your girlfriend, I’m your house cleaner, I’m your piglet and now I’m your table leg too? Honestly which one is it? Which one of these things do I actually mean to you?”

            He chewed thoughtfully before smiling at her. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I guess you mean a lot of things to me.”

            Krislynn lowered her gaze and smiled softly down at her plate before turning back to him red cheeks and all. “I’m still not sleeping with you tonight.”

            Chase showed her a dramatic groan just to appease her inaccurate expectations of him, but then changed the topic of the conversation. “So tomorrow night, is there something you want to do? I mean it is the weekend. I feel lame that we’re just doing this on a Friday night.”

            “You said you had things to work on.”

            “But still.” He wrinkled his nose at her as she stuffed her little mouth full of French fries, and wondered just how many she could fit in before she started choking, or her jaw had to dislocate so she could slip in a few more. “Let’s do something that requires a little bit more effort tomorrow. Is there something you want to do?”

            Chase waited patiently as Krislynn chewed the ten thousand French fries in her mouth so she could give him an audible answer. He wanted her to ask him for something crazy, something none of her previous boyfriends or lovers could ever do because they were either incapable or unimaginative or most likely, because they were dirt poor. Maybe she would like to spend the day on a yacht or even ask to go on a helicopter ride around L.A while they have lunch thousands of feet up in the air. Whatever she asked for, Chase was confident he could make it happen. Even if she wanted to travel across the world just to have dinner at a fancy restaurant, he was going to make it happen – though he had his doubts about her asking for something so extravagant.

            Krislynn was probably a really good investment for the common man. She was likely the most low-maintenance and cost-effective girlfriend ever. Too bad Chase had an exorbitant amount of money that he was willing to waste.

            Unaware of Chase’s impression of what she was going to ask for, Krislynn quietly chewed the food in her mouth as she thought it over. When the idea finally came to her, her eyes popped wide open like an animated cartoon character and she quickly swallowed the food in her mouth so she could spill out her thoughts. “I want to eat s’mores!” She shouted.

            Chase smashed his face into his palms. He should have known it would be like this. “I asked you what you wanted to do tomorrow! I didn’t ask you what you wanted to eat!!”

            “Yeah but that’s what I want to do and eat,” she countered. “Let’s make s’mores tomorrow. Or you know what? Oh my gosh, I got it!! I know what we should do!” Her hands made a mad grip for him and the tiny tugs on his shirt sleeve followed by her innocently pleading voice forced him to pay all of his attention to her. “Chase, let’s go glamping!”

            Immediately Chase was thrown back into his confused pose with his face buried in his hands. “Do I even want to know?” He asked. “What the hell is glamping? Is that even a real word?”

            “Of course it is! It’s like camping, but glamorously. I thought you would know what it is since it’s a hot trend right now.”

            “Among what? The hippies? I’ve never heard of it.”

            “Well it’s like when you’re outside like camping, but you have access to electricity and the basic comforts of like, home or a hotel. Like that. People make a big deal out of it. There’s this one glamping place near where I live, and they have these big spheres dangling from these massively tall trees and it’s like a hotel room inside.”

            Chase made a face, having a hard time following the imagery she was giving. “So it’s like a round globed treehouse that’s fully furnished inside with microwaves and tables and beds.”

            “Yeah! Exactly!”

            “Jesus. The stuff you Canadians come up with.”

            “I think it’s cool!” She said this with a pout that wasn’t even half convincing for Chase to feel the same way. “Anyways, that’s just an example. There’s lots of different ways to glamp. When I was a kid… glamping was just kind of a way for my parents to save money and hassle rather then run away for the weekend to go camping.”

            “Wouldn’t glamping be more expensive than regular camping though?”

            Krislynn smiled and shook her head; it’d been a while since the sweet memories of her childhood ventured into her thoughts. Although she only remembered a few where she spent with both her parents, the memories she did recall were immeasurably precious. “We used to do it in the backyard. Camping is actually kind of expensive you know. You have to buy the tents and the sleeping bags and all kinds of things to go on the trip. My dad used to just throw a whole bunch of blankets on our back lawn and we would fall asleep watching the stars. We would make a small fire and roast marshmallows and we would sing camp songs and stuff. Nothing glamorous the way glamping is supposed to be, but… I had a lot of fun.”

            The feeling Chase had when he looked at her was hard to explain. He didn’t want to do this for her just to impress her like his intentions only moments before. He just wanted her to be able to experience it again, something fun she did with her parents long ago that wasn’t possible anymore. Not that he could ever replace her parents, but even if just a little, he wanted to fill in that gap in her heart.

            “Alright,” he said. “Let’s do it. But I have no idea how to do this. I’m just going to put that out there.”

            “That’s fine!” She heaved happily, pounding a fist to her chest dramatically. “Just leave it to me!”

            “Fine.”

            Of course, when he agreed to this, he had thought what could possibly go wrong; all that Krislynn wanted to do was basically have a sleepover in his backyard and his backyard was more than spacious enough. It didn’t register in his head that kid Krislynn and grown-up Krislynn had very different ideas about how glamorous glamping should be. When he woke up the next morning, Krislynn had already started her day by wrecking havoc in his second guest room. He heard the noise and followed the sound only to find her inside with fabric everywhere and the mattress thrown off the bed rack.

            “What the hell?!” He shouted, his eyes on her limp ponytail dangling on the back of her head. “Why is… What are you doing in here?!”

            She didn’t answer him. “Quick! Grab your tools. We have to unscrew this.” She pointed at the metal bed frame and Chase didn’t have to hear any further to understand what her outlandish mind had planned. She obviously wanted to take it apart and set it out on his back lawn in full scare glamping glamour, but too bad for her, Chase Evans was not into these kinds of things.

            “What tool?” He muttered leaning against the wall. “Krislynn, you should know by now that the only tools I use are the ones in bed.”

            “Well this is a bed,” she snapped.

            “No, I didn’t mean it like… you know what fine!” Scrunching his face, he stormed in and took a look at the bed frame. He had no idea how to uninstall it because he always hired people to do these tedious things for him, but it couldn’t possibly be that hard right? He was Chase Evans after all. “What do I need? Like a screwdriver or something? I’ll just go out and buy one.”

            His remark was apparently outrageous to her. The fact that he didn’t even own a screwdriver was parallel to not knowing how to use a phone in this modern age to her. “You must be so happy,” she murmured, shaking her head at him with disapproval. “Your mom really raised you like a princess didn’t she?”

            “Don’t even start! You haven’t even fed me this morning yet, and you’re already sending me out on an errand. I’ve never met my biological parents, but I’m such a nice person, there’s a good chance they’re probably related to Mother Teresa.”

            Stifling a laugh, Krislynn shouted to him as he stomped out of the room and down the staircase. “Come on, don’t be mad. I just got overly excited about glamping okay? Look on the bright side, after this experience you can officially call yourself a real man!” She had no idea if Chase heard her last comment, but judging by his loud slamming of the front door moments later, he probably did.

***

            Jace hated the weekend. He never realized it before, and he never hated the weekend before either, but he realized suddenly that he started hating the weekend just recently. After a long week of burying his head inside law files or preparing for court, the weekend should be something to look forward to: spending time at home relaxing, or with his beautiful fiancée; however these things weren’t attractive to him at all.

            He used to enjoy his weekends. He liked to help out at the animal shelter or at the children’s hospital or catch up on his reading list, but since he moved to L.A and LaCienega moved in with him, his weekends primary consisted of spending time with her and doing whatever she fancied. It was a guilt reflex – he was aware of that much. During the weekdays, he spent unimaginable amounts of time at work because he didn’t want to go home early. Sometimes, he even spent the night in his office altogether.

            During the weekends however, he repented. He felt apologetic that he even had feelings of avoiding her so on the weekend, he glued himself to her and did whatever made her happy.

            It was an endless cycle. Spending the weekend with LaCienega wore him out and made him avoid her on the weekdays, but then the more he avoided her on the weekdays, the more he felt the need to make it up to her on the weekends which in turn, wore him out even more. The funniest thing of all? He didn’t even know about any of these feelings; he never even realized why he overworked himself when he didn’t even need to. They had always been subconscious to him… until now.

            Now the truth didn’t want to be encompassed by him anymore.

            It wanted to be spoken and told.

            Jace had always thought that accepting LaCienega’s love was the right thing to do since he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but maybe Chase was right after all. Maybe by accepting it, he was not only suffocating himself, but he was hurting her even more by causing her ceaseless amounts of loneliness and heartache. They had only been in a relationship for a few short years and he had already been subconsciously avoiding her. How much longer will he last before he completely broke?

            “Jace?” Jogging himself out of his thoughts, Jace looked up from his tea and smiled at the girl calling for him. LaCienega’s expression was fixated with concern, her eyes searching his carefully before she smiled after gaining all of his attention. “What are you thinking about so deeply love?”

            He laughed awkwardly, and he wasn’t sure how it sounded through her ears, but through his, they were tattered and distracted. “Nothing much dear. Are you enjoying your cake?” They had gone to a small café for high tea after a date at the art museum and LaCienega was sitting across from him with a semi-content smile.

            “Not as good as I hoped,” she remarked. “If it tasted half as good as it looked, I might have been quite satisfied.”

            He chuckled before taking a sip of his tea. “Well, what else is on your agenda today?”

            “Ah, that. I’ve booked an appointment at a boutique. We have to get you fitted to see if you’re better suited for a tuxedo or a suit.”

            “Why?”

            “Because we need to start preparing for the wedding silly. Michelle has been calling me lately to aggravate me. She’s only been engaged shortly, and she’s already sending her wedding invitations in to be printed by a professional. We’ve been engaged for a couple years ourselves, but why haven’t we picked out a date like she has? We should start preparing too.”

            Immediately Jace’s shoulders slumped and his smile fell off his face. Then he said one word that wiped the smile off of hers just as abruptly. “Why?”

            LaCienega stared at him. Then she shook her head and pushed away his words with a new smile, her eyelashes sweeping downwards as her gaze lowered. “What do you mean by ‘why’?” She chuckled with a wary amount of strain in her voice. “Isn’t that something natural? It’s just– ”

            He broke her off. “We’ve known each other long enough to be honest with each other, haven’t we? This wedding… Are we really going through with it?”

            There was a long moment of silence as he stared at her for an answer, but no matter how patiently he waited, LaCienega wouldn’t meet his eyes. When she finally reacted, she pushed a lock of dark hair behind her shoulder and stood up. “Let’s do it another time then,” she murmured. “It was silly of me to drag you out today. You have so much work during the weekdays. It’s rather insensitive of me to drag you out to accompany me when you finally get some time to rest. Let’s go. I’ll get the bill.”

            The ride home didn’t subside Jace’s thoughts. It was the first time he ever tried to address their relationship issue, and it was thrown aside much faster than he expected. He had always pretended that his relationship with LaCienega didn’t have a single problem – much like what LaCienega was doing – but now he knew better, and he knew he shouldn’t prolong it or ignore it either.  

            He tried speaking to her again when they got home. “LaCienega,” he murmured. “What I said earlier at the café, will you please consider it?”

            She smiled busily passed him and started for the kitchen, opening the cabinets like she was searching for something, but he knew better that she was simply looking for a distraction. “Hmm… What would you fancy for dinner later? Salad? Pasta?”

            “LaCienega…” He followed her inside.

            “You were telling me you haven’t had scalloped potatoes in a while the other day. Would you like that?”

            “Please give me a reply.”

            “How about soup? You mentioned clam chowder too.”

            “LaCienega.”

            “Oh, what am I doing? I will need clams if I plan to make clam chowder. I’ll need to head out for a moment.”

            Jace’s voice was too soft to reach her, but when she passed by, he grabbed a hold of her hand and it fell limp like a doll’s in his grip. “Please listen to me.”

            He could see the distress on her face by the way she kept avoiding his gaze as she forced on a smile. “Is there anything you need at the store? Oh dear, look at the time. I have to go if I don’t want to– ”

            “It was during my third year at Harvard…” The sudden change in tone caused LaCienega to drop her pretences and look Jace’s way as he grabbed a seat in front of the dining table and sat down. “I was volunteering at the children’s hospital during my free time. On one occasion, I met a little girl there who was going to go through an amputation the following week. She was only about eleven, but she had osteosarcoma… a type of bone cancer. They had to remove a part of her leg.”

            Jace smiled softly at the memory as he continued. “To that brave little girl, I asked if she was scared. Even now, at the thought of having one of my own limbs amputated, it’s a scary thought. It’s a scary thought for most people. But that little girl said this to me: ‘what’s a missing leg compared to missing out on the rest of my life? If I keep this leg, then the cancer will spread and kill me. Even though I can’t imagine living without this leg right now, amputating it is the right thing to do. If I keep it, I’ll only be more hurt later.’” 

            Swallowing the lump in his throat, Jace calmly pressed his hand against his heart as he raised his eyes to meet hers. “To you LaCienega, I’m that cancer in that leg.”

            “You’re not…” The tears that quickly welled in her eyes didn’t hesitate to trickle down her cheeks. “You’re not anything like that to me,” she cried, shaking her head.

            Jace only spoke softly and evenly to her. “Even though you don’t want to let this leg go, even though you’re scared because you can’t imagine life without it, keeping it will only continue to hurt you. At times like these…” He stood up and walked to her. “You have to be brave like that little girl…” Taking her hand, he made a quick slashing motion with it diagonally down his chest. “… and cut out the bad things in your life.” 

            “But you’re not the bad thing,” she cried. Her head dropped and she slowly sunk to her knees on the kitchen floor while Jace held onto her hand. “Like always, you’re the best thing! You’re the brightest thing in my life! You’re the first one I want to call when something good happens to me and you’re the first one I want to call when something sad happens to me. You’re the first one I want to see when I wake up in the morning and the last person I want to see before I fall asleep. Are you the only one who can’t see how much you mean to me?”

            She quickly shook her head, her dark locks swishing left and right as she searched for both his hands. “Is it because there’s something you don’t like about me? Is there something you need me to change? Is it because I brought up the wedding? Do you feel anxious because of it? Maybe it’s too soon. We just moved in. We’ll just postpone it. It’s okay! I don’t need to marry right away. I don’t need to be like Michelle.”

            “It’s not because of the wedding.”

            “Then what is it?” She begged. “What is it?”

            Jace stared at her sadly before he closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I just don’t love you,” he told her quietly. “So LaCienega, please… let’s stop, okay?”

A/N.: Sorrrrryy guys for the lame post. This chapter only ended up being like 75% of what I intended the chapter to be, but Im just so worn out by it. BLAH Jace. BLAH LaCienega.

Also, sorry it took me so long to update. >.< My wrist + lower arm healed fine so thanks to everyone who was really concerned about me. I just got really busy after bc I missed so many weeks of work and I had to make up for it. T_T Crazy man that hurt me hasn't shown up again so cross fingers I'm never going to run into him ever again in my life.

Also, I met this guy.... and everyone knows that Im crazy right? Ok good. Bc Im irrationally crazy and I meet this guy and hes like super nice and cute and his name is CHASE! And for some crazy reasons I was like OMFG, iits DESTINY!!! *face palms* Im so embarrased for this. I really am. Anyways, I was kinda, maybe, just a little hoping he would ask me out for valentines day you know? And so he's like "so... uh... what are you doing this weekend?" And Im like "Oh nothing much. You?" and he's like "haha nothing for me too." and then we start talking about cats and he's like "I'm allergic to cats." And im like "oh rly?" and then he's like "OH but my fiancee LOVES cats!" and then he killed me right there. I mean where did this fiancee come from?!?! You know what, Im done. I'm sick of admitting Im alone again THIS valentines day too!!! T_____T If I could travel back in time, the first thing I would do is go back in time and shoot the guy who made valentines day such a torture for us poor lonely unloved ones!!!!!!!!!!!!!