Seeing Julia Read Online Free Page A

his cell phone. Snippets of his conversation resonate with me. “Emergency…Peninsula Hotel…Possible drug overdose… Oxycodone…Ambulance…19 th floor.”
    Uncontrollable shivering takes over and I lean against the wall and give myself over to the cold. It numbs me further. I close my eyes unable to keep them open.
    “Does your friend Kimberley know that you took the Oxycodone? Open your eyes.” When I don’t answer, he grasps my chin through the open shower door.
    “No.” Like a child in trouble, I squeeze my eyes tighter and tremble even more. I blindly reach for the nozzle, but he slaps my hand away.
    “You have to stay awake, Mrs. Hamilton.” The frigid water temperature causes me to shake violently now and he keeps a firm grip on me by forcefully holding my head under the water.
    “I hate you.”
    “I didn’t get that impression.” I open my eyes to look at him.
    “I…hate…you,” I enunciate slowly, as if teaching him English. This inexplicable wounded look crosses his face and then it’s gone.
    “You’re sure you’re the real deal?” His implication cuts across my soul.
    “I’m not…what you think I am. I…loved Evan. He loved me.”
    I finally start to cry. Jake eventually lets go of me. I stare at him through my tears and glimpse the same haunted look from earlier. Two incongruent thoughts assault me at the same time: Evan is dead. I’ve just kissed and almost had sex with someone else, another man. The grief returns in full force at my own admission. I slide down the marble wall of the shower and let the water all but drown me. My cries of sorrow and this endless pain come from deep inside. The bathroom door opens and then closes. I’m thankful for the privacy in which to bear this horrible resounding heartbreak alone. The pain is worse than ever.
    ≈ ≈

    Indeterminable time goes by. I struggle to come to a stand and finally reach the faucet and turn the temperature from cold to hot. I wash the residue of vomit from my hair and face with a mixture of water, soap, and shampoo. Eventually, I regain enough sense of self to turn the water off. The black silk dress clings to me now, in ruins. Like me.
    I emerge from the shower, dripping water everywhere, just as he returns to the bathroom suite. He holds on to me and strips off my dress. Naked, I stand before him and tremble uncontrollably as tears stream down my face. I can’t stop crying now.
    Dispassionate, he wraps me up in a bath-size spa towel and pulls me along into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed and dazed, watching him search through my suitcase and the dresser for clothing.
    Tears still stream down my face. He returns to me a few minutes later, takes the towel away and pulls a black Van Halen t-shirt of Evan’s over my head and helps me shimmy into underwear and black jeans and coaxes shoes on my feet. Then, he towel-dries my hair and combs it through with his fingers. This ritual is done in complete silence and I close my eyes to avoid looking at him. I feel his hands on my face, wiping away my tears. With reluctance and this rising shame, I open my eyes, but avoid looking directly at him. Instead, I try to concentrate on the Monet replica on the wall behind him, while the room still shimmers.
    “I called an ambulance,” he says. “The vomiting probably helped, but you need to get checked out at a hospital.” With a resigned sigh, he sits down next to me on the bed. From the faraway recesses of my mind, I experience surprise at his conciliatory tone.
    “No.” My body sways against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Yes … you are. How do you feel?” His attempt at a clinical bedside manner saves my dignity.
    “Tired. I haven’t cried. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop. I was right about that.” He just nods.
    There’s an out of control resurgence in the sharp edges of grief that’s plagued me for the past week and a half. An endless supply of pain killers or kissing a stranger can’t take it