Is There A Cure For What I've Got?

The next morning I was sitting at my coffee table with a large cup of coffee. Justin and I fell asleep shortly after I kissed him. The emotions, sex, and bourbon finally hit us all at once. I woke up to Justin kissing me and telling me he had to go to a meeting. I had another meeting at 1, but I didn't even know if I would be able to focus. Justin and I had sex. I looked down at my wedding ring and my heart dropped. How could I tell Jeremy? Would I ever be able to tell Jeremy? What does this mean for Justin and I? He's never going to leave Jessica. I know that. We both know that. How would that look? This isn't a fairytale. I was snapped out of my thoughts by my phone ringing. Jeremy was FaceTiming me.

"Babe, I miss you." He was smiling so brightly at me I immediately felt like shit.

"I miss you, too."

"I wish you were in Paris with me. I can't wait to get home to you and fuck you all night." My heart dropped into my stomach.

"I can't wait either."

"Do you wanna..."

"Do I wanna what?"

"Show me what I'm missing." There was no way I could pretend. Jeremy and I would have phone sex all the time whenever he was away. It would be weird if I didn't. I thought of Justin the entire time.

Everyone commented all day about how radiant I was. Even the woman taking my order at Coffee Bean. I had never gotten so many compliments about how happy I looked. Not even the day of my wedding. I walked around the whole day not knowing whether to feel guilty or as though I was on top of the world. At the meeting I said all the right things, everyone laughed at all my witty remarks, the museum looked more amazing than I remembered it, and I left feeling as though this was where I wanted to be. Who cares if I never even went back to New York. I thought about the prospect of never going home. And then I thought about the life I had created with Jeremy. Our beautiful, art filled life. Jeremy was by no means perfect, but would I ever do better than Jeremy? My doorbell rang and I walked over to answer it.

"Hi." said Justin. He was standing there in a white tshirt and jeans. He never looked sexier.

"Hey."

"Is it weird that I'm here?"

"No. Not at all."

"I know I shouldn't say this. But I've been thinking about you all day."

"I probably shouldn't say the same then."

"I know this is wrong and impossible in every way but...." We both frowned at each other.

"Do you want to come in?"

"Yes."

I let Justin in and we walked into the living room where he turned and stood in front of me. We awkwardly looked at each other for a while. I was swaying back and forth with my arms folded, biting my lip. Justin grabbed me by the shoulders and held me still.

"Please stop doing that. It's making me nervous...more nervous." His hand dropped back to his sides.

"Do you want a drink?" I said, failing to come up with anything else.

"Yeah. I do."

I went into the kitchen and poured us two glasses of bourbon. There was nothing else in my house and I figured we both needed something strong. When I walked back into the living room Justin was sitting on the couch. I handed him the glass of bourbon and we both took a sip before we sat there in silence for a couple of minutes.

"We should talk about what happened." I said, not looking at him.

"Cassy, look at me." I looked at him and he was looking back with the softest eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes that I had been staring into for what seems like my entire life. He moved closer to me and sat his drink down on the table. I did the same. He reached out and ran his hand across my cheek. I touched his arm and closed my eyes. When I opened them I could feel the sadness that had overtaken both of us. We knew what we were doing was wrong. We could never be together. Why wasn't that stopping us? He moved his face towards mine, our noses touching, his lips close to mine. I reached out and touched his cheek as well, tilting my head to the side, our noses brushing lightly against each other.

"I need you." His voice was deep and breathy.

"I don't know if I can." I said, our lips centimeters from touching. I felt like I was on drugs. My high was inexplainable. Both his hands were behind my ears now, my lips parted as I fought the urge to kiss him. His eyes were low, as though he was high too, looking at me as though he wanted to swallow me whole.

"Kiss me." I said, before my eyes closed.

That was all the persuading he needed. He kissed me and I was putty in his hands. He slid his tongue in and out of my mouth and soon the kiss was so intense I was moaning in his mouth. My hands found their way to his hair and he was pushing me back onto the couch. He kept lightly biting my lip and it was driving me crazy. His hand slid under my shirt and he was pinching my nipple. His lips moved from mine to my neck, then to my ear. "You're so sexy", he whispered in my ear. His tongue found my ear and I melted. His hands were sliding up my thigh, under my dress....and then my phone rang.

We both jumped. The noise rang out through the silence. Justin went back to kissing my neck, but my heart was beating fast.

"Ignore it", he whispered in my ear.

"I have to answer it." I grabbed the phone. It was Jeremy. I pushed Justin away from my neck and showed him the phone with wide eyes before I answered it."Hey babe." Justin rolled his eyes.

"Hey. You sound winded. What were you up to?"

"Oh I just had to rush to the phone before you hung up." Justin started sliding his hand up my dress again and his fingers brushed against my panties. I closed my eyes tight and bit my lip, resisting the urge to moan. "Tell me about your day."

Jeremy started telling me about everything he was doing in Paris, meanwhile Justin's fingers had found what they were looking for. I threw my head back against the couch and I was fighting every urge I could not to moan out loud. Justin's hand were fucking magical. I was afraid I was going to ruin my couch. Justin was watching me intently and I was gripping his arm for dear life. I could faintly hear my name being called and for a minute I thought I was dreaming.

"Cassy!" I jumped and realized Jeremy was talking to me. I'd almost forgotten he was on the phone. "What are you doing over there?"

"Nothing. Nothing. I'm just-" Justin's finger took a dip and My words cut off.  "Can I call you back? I really have to get to this meeting. I'm sorry I'm not paying attention."

"It's fine. I know you're probably busy. Call me back later."

And then Justin found my G spot. I let out a weird sound and tried to turn it into a cough. Justin was smirking at me

"Of course. I love you. I can't wait to see you."

"I love you too.  Bye." 

I could finally moan freely and Justin's fingers continued working their magic. The phone dropped to my side.

"Justin, we're having...an affair. This is becoming this whole thing." I said, sighing and closing my legs tight. "This is wrong. We're not cheaters."a

"I've cheated on Jessica before." He said, almost too honestly.

"So...this is just something you do?" I said, slightly offended.

"Cassy, you're not just some random. You know how I feel about you. How I've always felt about you. This isn't like cheating. This is like...coming home." He looked at me with those soft eyes again.

"You can't do things like what you just did. We can't do this when we get back to New York, Justin."

"Then can we...while we're in LA?"

"I'm really not comfortable with this."

"What do you want to do, Cassy? What are we supposed to do? It's already happened. Do you want me to leave? You want to pretend this never happened?"

"We can't pretend this never happened. I love you, Justin. I'm in love with you. I've always been in love with you."

I'd never said it out loud before and it surprised me to hear the words escape my mouth. Justin looked at me and then started laughing. Then I started laughing. We laughed until he wrapped his arms around my shoulder and I cradled into him, my hand resting on his chest. He kissed me on the forehead and pulled me closer. 

"I love you too, C."

"I know."

The next morning Justin and I were sitting in the kitchen trying to decide what to have for breakfast. Justin had carried me into my bedroom after I fell asleep and curled up next to me. I slept the entire night. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept an entire night. I was so grateful to him. To whatever this was. Justin was a security blanket for me, and sometimes I wondered if our attachment to each other was healthy. I often wondered how Justin watching my abuse as a child effected him, or if it had at all. Was he really in love with me or was his attachment to me his childhood need to protect me from any and everything. 

That morning I watched him sleep. I traced his eyebrows, the lines on his face, his jawline, his lips. I watched him until his eyes opened and I was staring into an endless blue. He kissed me and next thing I knew he was on top of me. He slowly undressed me, and then he made love to me. Believe me, I am not a cornball. But that is the only way I could possible describe what it is that happened. I knew Justin had slept with a lot of women during his life. A lot. I had no doubts about his abilities. But the few times we'd had sex the night of my graduation, the beach, against my front door, now this morning, every time it was better.

This time he was slow. There wasn't that past sense of uncertainty. Uncertainty of where he stood with me, or which ways he thought he was allowed to touch me. The certainty he had now made it more intimate. I was more relaxed, I wasn't in my head, I was completely receptive to everything. I was completely calm. Sometimes he would kiss me, sometimes we would giggle, and then we were intense. 

"I'm just informing you that I can cook a bad ass egg." said Justin, looking into the fridge.

I was sitting at the counter staring at him in just his boxers. 

"Prove it." I said.

Justin looked at me pointedly and pulled some eggs and sausage out the refrigerator. I had no idea what Justin and I were doing. As I watched him cook I wondered how often he made Jessica and all the times Jeremy made me breakfast. How could we continue to do this with two people who love us at home? How long were we going to be able to pull this off? My heart sank as I realized soon I would be back in New York, in my old life, pretending nothing had happened. 

"You're in your head again. Stop doing that," I said. I looked at Justin.

"I'm worried," I said in a saddened voice.

"Cassy," he said as he walked over to me and placed his hands on both of my thighs, standing in between my legs. He leaned down and kissed me. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He placed his forehead against mine and smiled that million dollar smile.

"It feels so good to hear you say that. Like my heart is going to explode out of my chest."

"Fucking cornball."

"You're calling me J again. I might cry," he said, clutching his chest.

"Stop it," I said, pushing him away from me.

"Are we fucking crazy for doing this?"

"Yes. We're fucking crazy."

"I'm trying really hard to fight the urge not to sing an NSYNC song to you right now." 

We both burst into laughter and he went back to cooking. I watched Justin cook us breakfast and every so often he would smile at me. After we were done eating, we were having coffees on the couch and having casual conversation.

"Can I ask you something?" said Justin.

"Of course," I replied.

"Why'd you decide to marry Jeremy? I mean, you've always said you weren't someone that saw themselves married. So when I saw that you were married, and I guess now what's transpired here...why him, and not me?"

He was looking at me very seriously and I took a deep breath and sat my coffee down. I folded one leg onto the couch so I could look Justin in the face when I said what I had to say. He seemed taken aback by this gesture, and apprehensive. 

"Jeremy and I weren't together all these years. After what happened between you and I, I was pretty distraught. I realized that I didn't have any family. I didn't have anything attaching me to my childhood or who I used to be anymore. You know, being in the art world drugs are probably more accessible than they need to be. At a gallery showing I met a group of extremely wealthy kids who asked me why I looked so broken. I think maybe they thought I was interesting because of it or something." I laughed at myself. "I was drinking, doing cocaine, and I had developed a very serious pill problem. This went on for about 2 years. Then I ran into Jeremy at an art show."

I was walking around the gallery, the bright lights flashing in my red eyes, a glass of champagne in my head. I really only needed it to chug the 2 Oxys I had in my hand. I threw the rest of it back and threw it on one of the trays of a bypassing waiter. I'd lost cost of how many pills I'd taken that day but sometimes it made the art look better. In the corner of my eye a caught a painting full of a perfectly mixed bright red. I walked over to the painting. A painting that reminded me of blood and bruises. An abstract painting of neither of those things in particular. I tried to read the info but all the words were blurry. Maybe I should've stopped at that 5th glass of champagne. Did I eat today?

"Do you like the painting?"

"I wouldn't say like so much as disturbed by it."

"I'll take that into consideration."

I finally looked at the man talking to me and realized it was Jeremy. A guy I dated briefly years ago. I had never given him a real reason why I stopped dating him. I would never bring myself to tell him it was because of Justin. He deserved better than that. 

"Jeremy...hi."

"Cassandra. Looking as gorgeous as ever. If not very intoxicated. Do you need a ride home?"

"Uh, no. I'm fine. It was very nice to see you."

I almost ran away from him to find my friends. I found one of them in the bathroom doing cocaine and she invited me in to take some with her. I obliged. I just wanted to stop feeling things. I didn't want to talk to Jeremy and I definitely didn't want to ever think about Justin again. An hour later the combination of all the drugs had hit me. And it hit me hard. I was having trouble focusing, I was stumbling around, and I couldn't find anyone I knew. I found a corner and slid down on the the floor. I just wanted to go to sleep.

The next thing I knew two arms had lifted me off the ground. I watched through blurred eyes forms of people watching me, before I was put in the passenger seat of a car. When the person reached over me to buckle my seatbelt I realized it was Jeremy. Suddenly tears stung my eyes. I felt embarrassed. I felt like a shell of myself. 

"He sat me down and had a very serious talk with me the next morning. He told me I had a problem. He told me I needed to go to rehab. Reese and Josh said the same. I decided to go. I was there for about 4 months. Trying to just...deal with all my shit. When I got out of rehab he called me every day. I was consistently in a therapist's office trying to deal with abuse and blocking myself from the idea of serious commitment. I talked to him about why I had so few relationships in my life. About my father. Jeremy eventually started asking me out again. He was very persuasive. He didn't even order any alcohol on our dates, and he gave me space when I needed it. I gave him a chance and he chose to love me regardless of all of this. He provided me with a lot of chances I would've never gotten. I mean, we fight but really what couple doesn't? After one particularly bad fight, he flew me to a secluded beach in the Bahamas and he proposed to me. I said yes because...I didn't think anyone would ever love me more than he does."

Justin was silent for a long time. I just dropped a lot of information on him so I don't blame him. I mostly just hoped he didn't blame himself for any of this or that I scared him away. Although, I wouldn't be so surprised if I did.

"I'm sorry, Cassy. For everything that has happened to you. Everything." He took a deep breath. "I guess when I asked it was really coming from a place of jealously."

"To answer your question, I married him because I have a lot baggage and through the worst he didn't seem to want to abandon me."

This seemed to have stuck a cord with Justin.

"Are you saying I abandoned you? That I wasn't there for you when fucked up things were happening? You found some guy that stuck it out for a few years and suddenly you're fixed and ready to spend your life with someone?"

"Justin, I've never judged you for immediately going and falling in love with Jessica 3 seconds after you confessed your love to me. You think it was easy to watch you be in love with the quintessential White girl? Then you got married. You're still married. You love her. I've never judged you for loving her." I said, the last part really getting to me.

"Our lives would be so different if you had just told me the truth." he said, calming down.

"I think about that all the time. I feel terrible about it all the time. Now I'm having an affair because of it and I feel terrible about that too."

"I just wanted to love you."

"I know."