Stuck On You

“I've never seen you happier...”

Joshua bowed his head and leaned away from me. There was a period of silence before he finally sighed and continued on with his thought.

“The way you talk about him, it's just....” he groaned, “I mean honestly I can't believe I'm saying this to you.” Joshua looked up at me and scooted away.

Maybe before I would have loved to see him squirm, but now, after a moment of bonding, it only felt right to spare him. “You don't have to say it.”

“No, you need to hear it.” He insisted. “I was a total shit bag and I never realized it. Even after we broke up, it still hadn't hit me. Franny made me see things in a whole new way. I've completely changed my life since I met her.” He leaned his elbows onto his knees. “I was relying on my parents signing over the land to me, but when things didn't go as planned I kinda went into a spiral-”

I cut him off, “kinda?” Joshua's eyes glared up at me.

“I hated everyone and I sure as hell hated you. I know you didn't like Franny, but she was a good person. She made me realize that I was throwing my life away. I got a real job and now I'm almost done with my Masters. It took finally accepting that things had changed for me to realize how unhappy you were. But, when I saw you with... him... I knew you found the right one.”

“Joshua” I cooed as I stared down at the ground. Things were getting a little too real for me to look up at him.

“As much as I want to trash on your beau, he believed in the good of a person and turned down another woman.” His knuckles lightly tapped my knees as he was trying to get my attention. I looked at him as he stood up. “I don't think I woulda done the same.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself.”

“I've gotta go.” He rubbed the back of his head as he walked away. “It was good seeing you, Lynn.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “you too.”

After Joshua left I found myself thinking about what he said. It was something I'd already known, but hearing it just gave me a reminder. For as long as I'd known Jonah, any time we spent away from each other was difficult, and now here I was running away from him. I'd been selfishly thinking about everything, I hadn't taken the time to look at the bigger picture.

I was starting to feel sick, so I left Woody's place before he came home. He called me frantically wondering where I was, but I told him something came up. Which was partially true. 

After I'd thrown up Marisol's Mexican breakfast I flung my weak body onto my bed and passed out. I was only woken when I heard my parents whispering to one another. My eyes fluttered open as I stared at their hazy figures.

“Honey?” My mom walked over to me, placing her hand on my cheek. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it's just morning sickness” My groggy voice mummbled.

I could hear the shock in my dad's voice, “What?” My eyes opened wide when I realized what I'd said.

I tried to play it off. “Yeah, Marisol made me breakfast this morning. I think it might have made me sick.” I flipped my head over, away from my parents, so they couldn't see my face.

They whispered to each other again. My mom asked if I needed medicine. I told her I'd be fine and that I just needed to sleep it off, so the two of them left me alone.

I hadn't planned anything the next day, but I really didn't want to see anyone either. I spent most of the morning in my room going through my things. Every time I came to town I'd always think about reorganizing my closet and getting rid of the clothes I didn't need anymore.

It didn't exactly go that way, I some how found myself deep in the corner of my closet going through a box of old pictures instead. I was interrupted when I heard the door bell ring. There was silence for a few seconds before the bell rang again.

“Marisol?” I called out. After another moment of silence I dumped the pictures back into the box and walked out of my room to the Juliet balcony. “Marisol? Are you gonna get that?” There wasn't even a sound of movement in the house. I figured she was off today.

The bell rang for the third time and I scurried down the stairs. Whom ever was outside was persistent on me opening the door.

I swung it open and found myself speechless. There, standing in front of me, was Jonah with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

I opened the screen door and immersed Jonah into my arms. I sobbed quietly as I buried my face in his chest. He hugged me tighter as his hand ran up and down my back in a calming motion. We stood there for a minute saying everything we needed to say without actually saying a word.

Jonah pulled my shoulders back to see my face. “You know I hate to see you cry.” He whispered and wiped the tears from my cheeks.

“I'm just so happy to see you.”

“In that case” He pulled me in for another hug, “keep crying.”

I smiled as I nudged his shoulder back.

Jonah and I went inside and sat in the living room to catch up with everything that had been going on.

“Are those for me?” I pointed to the bouquet.

Jonah looked down at them and then at me. “They're actually for your mom, but we can pretend they're for you....for now...” I tilted my head and gave him a look. “What? I didn't know what I'd be walking into...I honestly was expecting this to go a whole different direction.”

I sighed and took the flowers from his hands and set them on the table. We sat down, across from each other, on to the couch.

“So...” Jonah's body was turned towards me with one elbow perched against the back of the couch. He leaned his head against his hand and ruffled with his hair as he exhaled. “The network decided we had enough filmed material that I could finally take a vacation for a few days if I wanted.”

“That's great! But, what about award show prep? Shouldn't you be with your team right now?”

“I handed over creative control to Colin.” I stopped fiddling with the edges of the couch cushions and looked at him with shock. Jonah was such a control freak about his work it seemed completely out of character for him to be okay with someone else calling the shots. “I mean, just until I'm ready to resume the role again, that is.”

I felt guilty. Jonah was one of the few people I knew that loved what he did. It was literally his whole life. “You didn't do it because of me, did you?”

“I...” he saw the uneasy look on my face. “I did it because I knew it was the right thing to do at the moment. I couldn't go another day with what ever this is...” his hand gestured between the two of us, “that's going on.” He straightened his posture. “Lynn, you don't know how much it hurt me to know I wasn't there for you when you were in the hospital. I-”

Before Jonah could go on I cut him off and apologized for my emotional outbursts the last few weeks. I told him how I'd gotten more time to myself since I'd been home and it made me realize how badly I felt about everything going on. It never bothered me that he worked so much, it was just something I was using to get his attention. I was turning into someone I didn't even recognize. Someone who was jealous for all the wrong reasons. “You didn't trust me, Jonah, and that's what really hurt.” I finally stated the source of my problem.

Jonah went on to apologize too. He knew he hadn't been giving me the time I deserved, especially knowing that I was going through some changes. He admitted to focusing more on work to avoid the issues, which only made things worse.All the unanswered phone calls were from becoming restless and easily irritated. “And the whole Rebecca thing...” He said in a disappointing tone. “I should have listened to you, but I didn't want to. You weren't acting like yourself, so it made it hard for me to understand.”

We talked for a couple of hours until we had everything sorted out. I insisted Jonah not give up working his long hours, only because I knew how much it meant to him, as long as he didn't overwork himself and promised to be there when I needed him.

Jonah reached out and grabbed my hand. “You know you really broke my heart when you took off your ring.”

I quietly stared at my empty fingers. “I'm sorry, Jonah. I wasn't in the right state of mind.”

“Well, lucky for you...” He stuck his hand in his pocket.

“No!” I gestured for him to stop. “I want you to give it to me at a nice moment, not after making up from a fight.”

Jonah slipped his hand out of his pocket. His frown turned into a smile as he thought to himself. “Fine. I'm sure in some weird Lynn logic that makes sense.”

I wrapped my hands around his face and brought my forehead to his. “I can't believe I almost lost the man of my dreams.”

Jonah laughed. “You really think you can lose me?”

I scrunched my nose. “You're right, I'm kinda stuck aren't I?”

Jonah nodded his head as he leaned forward to kiss me.

That evening, when my parents finally came home from work, they were surprised to see Jonah. We all talked and caught up for a quick moment before I swept Jonah's hand into mine. We stared at one another as my parents stood across from us. "Are you ready?" I whispered to him.

He smiled as his hand let go of mine and wrapped around my shoulders. "I'm ready..."