The road to love (editing!!)

Chapter 24 - U-turns

Jessie’s POV

In an effort to try and forget about Dean and his icy treatment of me, I’d been spending more time with Jake and Sharon in the last week, though not both at the same time.  Sharon still did not trust Jake, despite all my best efforts to assure her of his good intentions these days.

Sharon and I did girls’ nights out, while Jake mostly visited me for lunch dates.

Even though both had tried their best, I was still not over Dean.  My love-starved heart had hoped to catch a glimpse of his dark head in the traffic in the morning, but so far I’d not even spotted so much as a head-light belonging to his beautiful car.  With every start of my car to take on the morning traffic, I had hoped to fix thing between us.  By the time I’d reached the office that hope had dissipated into a whiff of smoke.

Oh who am I kidding?, I thought as I stepped into my office for another day of work.   Dean was done with me.  If he’d wanted to fix things, he would have contacted me by now and not be ending my calls.  I once again felt the anger surge through me at his blatant rejections without even giving me a chance to explain.  It was obvious to me now that he never felt for me what I had felt for him.  He was a player, used to having a different girl on his arm at every event.  To him I was nothing but another notch on his bedpost.

The truth was that I was even angrier with myself that I had allowed things to get to this point.  This pitiful, rejected person was not the Jessica Jones who I’d wanted to be.  I had always been professional, calm, collected, good at my job… not some crybaby slobbering after a man who didn’t deserve her!

Making a decision to start taking my life back, I took out my cell phone and sent Dean a final text.

You made your point, though I never got to explain. I’m done trying. I won’t contact you again. Jessie

I felt the tension roll off my shoulders after pressing the send button.  Suddenly the world seemed brighter again and I was ready to get right on back to living - without Dean Parker in my life.  With a song on my lips, I settled at my desk to start my day’s work.

Dean’s POV

“You are the biggest idiot on the face of the earth,” Bianca was sneering at me, madder than I’d ever seen her.  We were sitting in my office after work.  I was giving her a lift again, so she came over a bit earlier to save me the trouble of picking her up during rush hour traffic.

In the heart of Cape Town, this was murder.

I’d just shown her the piece in the paper of a few weeks ago, after she demanded to know what happened between me and Jessie and why we were no longer together.  Why I’d kept it, I didn’t know.  Maybe I needed to justify why I’d cut Jes out of my life so suddenly.  I was currently ignoring her messages, not replaying to her texts and emails.  Maybe I’d needed a reason to explain to my father why I had her taken off our marketing campaign.  I couldn’t bear to have her near me or even involved in anything with my name on it at the moment either.

“You don’t deserve that girl, you pompous ass!”, Bianca was huffing again, getting me mad in the process as well.  I know she was my best friend and had more say in my life than most, but this reaction of hers was totally uncalled for.

“Just HOW am I the ass here, Bianca?!” I got up angrily and shoved the paper with the damning piece of creative journalism back in her face again.  “Look, just look at what she did behind my back!  She took me for a fool, played with my heart, all to get to my father’s finances!”   

“You seriously believe this crap?” she asked me heatedly, pointing to the offending paper.  “She’s a good girl, Dean, different from the bimbo’s you’ve known before.  She wouldn’t do something like this if she didn’t have a reason – but I don’t believe that reason to be money!  She’s the type who’s going places and she’ll get there by her own means.  What she was to you was genuine, real.  You’re an idiot to throw that away because of unjustified rumors in a filthy gossip column.”   She angrily threw the paper in the trash can next to my desk, dismissing the subject with that action.

I sat back in my chair, all the anger having left me again, leaving a feeling of emptiness in its place.  “The fact still remains that she did all that behind my back, B.  The worst is that I had no idea, I didn’t see it coming.  Why couldn’t she just tell me what was going on?”  I dropped my head in my hands, feeling the tension in my shoulders during this action.  “I fell for her, Bianca, hard.  I believed she was the one, but she betrayed my trust.”

Bianca calmed down enough to place her hand on mine, trying to console me in my hour of need.  “How do you know she betrayed you?  Did you ever ask her why she did what she did?  She had to have had her reasons?”

“She gave her explanation when I confronted her, but I didn’t believe her,” I answered, feeling a bit guilty that I did not at least really listen to what Jessie had tried to tell me.  Now I can’t even remember what she’d said.  I was just so mad at her, still am I guess.

“Dean, you are my best friend and I love you, but I think you totally overreacted to the situation.  You have to take into consideration where you got your information from.  A gossip paper!  I mean, puleeassee!!,” Bianca said, flicking her hair back over her shoulder in a show of disgust.  “These people live on sensation, pulling everything out of proportion, not caring who they hurt in the process as long as they sell their papers.  Have you learnt nothing during your life in the limelight?  These guys will twist anything and everything to suit their needs!  I just simply will not believe that Jessica is a money hungry tramp.”

I cringed at Bianca’s strong choice of words, though I had to agree with her in some part.  It just didn’t sound like the Jessie I knew.

The Jessie I’d fallen in love with.

I stared out the window in shock as the realization hit me.  Yes, I was in love with Jessica Jones.  Unfortunately the knowledge just made the whole situation that much worse.  If she’d been one of my flings, I’d just have shrugged it off and moved on.  But she was more than that.

“Maybe I should listen to her side?,” I asked Bianca, feeling a bit like a school boy caught cheating at a test.

“Ya think?” she answered sarcastically before jumping up to grab her purse. 

My eye caught the blinking light on my cell phone on my desk as I got up to leave with her.  I’d been so busy today that I hadn’t had the time to return any calls or check my texts.  I slid my finger over the screen and felt my heart flip as I noticed a text from Jessie.  At least she hadn’t given up on me yet.  I could still talk to her.  I scrolled down to her name to read the text.

You made your point, though I never got to explain. I’m done trying. I won’t contact you again. Jessie

I felt my body go cold.  I’d pushed her too far... “Shit, it’s too late,” I swore before handing the phone to Bianca to read the text.

She gave it back to me after reading the dismissive text, a frown on her usually smiling face.  “Yeah, not good.”  Placing her hand on my arm, Bianca looked at me sternly.  “A moment ago you wanted her back, Dean.  Are you serious about this?  About winning her back, I mean?”

I looked my best friend in the eyes.  “Yes.  Yes, I am.”

Bianca smiled and whirled around towards the door.  “Meet my outside in 2 minutes.  I’m going to powder my nose, then we’re going for a drink so we can plan how you can fix this situation.  You can be sure there will be a lot of groveling involved from your side, D, and maybe a grand gesture of some kind.”  Reaching the door, she turned to me again.  “Personally, I hope she makes you suffer first… a lot.  I wouldn’t let you off so easily if I was her!” 

Huffing, she exited the office with her hair flying behind her and I swore I heard her mumble something that sounded suspiciously like “idiotic men!” while leaving.

Shit.  I need a drink… a stiff one.  I messed up big time and I had no idea how I was going to fix this.