Caged Birds Don't Like to Sing

By the time I was stepping out of the cab, Ben was standing in the doorway. He was leaned against it and eyed me as sauntered over to the front door. I timidly looked up from ground to him once I was close enough to see the whites of his eyes.

“Hi,” I mumbled once I was at his front porch. I cocked my neck up so I could actually see his face. I always forgot how tall he actually was until I see him in person. He towered over me with his lanky stature and started to talk.

“What’s going on? You’ve been crying.”

My eyes must have been pretty red. I could feel my saturated eyelashes fall heavily into my eyes. I nodded and bit the inside of my lips, trying not to cry again. I hated crying, especially in front of others. Except I’ve been doing it a lot lately. It made me question how strong I really was. Or thought I was. Jackson had me questioning a lot of things about myself.

He opened the door wider to let me in. In habit, I walked over and dropped onto the couch. My hands cupped my face and my elbows sat on my knees. I could feel my cheeks being scrunched up close to my eyes as I rubbed off what was left of the mascara vigorously.

Ben now was leaning against the wall that was close to the front door. He seemed unsure if he should try to comfort me or not. I stared at the ground for awhile, hands holding my face. After the silence was long enough to be awkward, I looked at him. He still seemed at a loss.

“Have you talked to Jackson?” I asked. My voice came out sounding distorted through my squished lips. He nodded in return.

I raised my head up immediately. “Seriously? What’d he say?” I was suddenly alarmed. So Ben did know what had just happened. But what story was he told? My stomach twisted around and I became anxious to know what had happened. I wasn’t a cheater, not one bit. I knew how it felt to be cheated on. And I would have never done it to Jackson.

Ben scratched the back of his head as he walked over. Now that he had the clear idea what this was all about, he came and sat next to me. I immediately turned to him and was almost shaking with the anticipation of what he was going to tell me.

“Jackson said that he came to your office and you were cheating on him. He seemed pretty upset,” Ben said, discouraged. It seemed as if he believed what Jackson had told him.

“I wasn’t cheating on him!” I said curtly, throwing my arms up in the air with anger. “Johnny was just comforting me and hugged me.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Jackson said he was kissing you.”

I took my hands onto Ben’s shoulders, shaking him back and forth. “No! All he did was pull me in for a hug and peck my forehead”

“Still....” Ben muttered after being shaken angrily by me.

“Oh my God, Ben. Johnny’s gay!” I shouted this time.

Ben made a little ‘o’ with his mouth. Then he made a face. “Then why is Jackson worried?”

“I don’t know,” I pouted, putting my face back between my palms. “I really wasn’t cheating on him.”

“I understand completely now,” Ben said with a sigh of relief. “I didn’t think you’d cheat on him.”

“Thank you,” I said with an annoyed breath. At least someone understood.

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

I nodded. Ben grabbed his phone off from the T.V. stand and walked into the other room. I waited patiently for his return. My stomach had butterflies in it again, and not the good kind. The kind that had spikes on their wings that made you want to throw up.

I couldn’t make out any words that were being spoken from Ben. I didn’t know if I even wanted to hear them. I hugged a pillow tightly and rocked back and forth, trying to calm my anxiety.

Ben walked in moments later. As I tossed the pillow behind me, I abruptly asked, “What did he say?”

I sat up straight in my seat as he started to speak. “He’s still not getting it through his head. I swear he needs to learn more patience with these things.”

My shoulders slumped back down. “Great...”

He patted my upper arm lightly. “It will get better. Promise.”

“But I really needed to talk to him about something today.” I was planning on telling him all about Chase and who he really was in my past.

It looked like a light bulb had clicked inside of Ben’s head. “Jackson said he was planning on telling you something, too. Is it the same thing?”

I shook my head. “It couldn’t be.”

He shrugged. “You never know.”

I looked up at him. “Did he talk to you about what he had to tell me?”

“No. I have no clue what it could be.”

A whole new set of nerves set in. What does Jackson have to tell me? It couldn’t be that important since he rushed out so fast today. Usually when it came to extremely important things, he’d be more patient and tell me. With that in my head, I calmed down. It was probably just that he was going on another business trip or something like that. And he freaked out because he didn’t want to leave if I was cheating on him. Yeah, I bet that was it.

“I don’t know if I should go back now or not,” I contemplated out loud.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Let him settle down a bit.”

“I don’t want him to do something stupid while I’m not there....” I mumbled. I imagined him just going nuts and getting drunk and then cheating on me. I knew that wouldn’t happen. He told me that cheating was never right. That was probably why he was so upset with me.

Everything kind of clicked. I groaned and rolled back onto my stomach on the couch. I buried my face into the pillows.

Ben rubbed my back gingerly. “It’s going to be fine.”

I muttered random things into the pillow. I felt Ben get up and start to walk away. I curled up onto the cushions and closed my eyes. I just need to rest. Everything will figure itself out when I wake back up.

When I woke up, it was bright in the small room. The sun shone in my eyes and made me a little burning sensation. I rubbed them and started to get up.

Feeling groggy, I ambled around the room and made my way to the kitchen. Ben was nowhere to be found. All that was there was his phone laying on the table. I picked it up to check the time. It was nine a.m. Jeez, how did I sleep that long? I must have really needed it or something.

What else I noticed was that he had a text from Jackson. I looked around quickly to make sure I wouldn’t get caught then clicked the ‘open’ button.

You should have came over last night. It was awesome!

My stomach tightened up. What could Jackson have been doing that was so awesome? I hoped that my inkling that I had last night was incorrect.

I searched around for my purse on the ground. When I found it, I slung it over my shoulder and headed out the door. Enough time had already passed that Jackson would at least listen for a minute. I walked briskly down a few blocks until a place where I knew I could pull over a taxi. The air was unusually cold. Fall was now fading into Winter. I could see my breath as I breathed in and out of my mouth. I was getting extremely nervous.

Within the next ten minutes, I had called over a taxi and was on my way to Jackson’s. It took awhile to get there. The drive was pretty long and all the thoughts that were racking my brain made it worse. I just wanted to be home already. I planned what I was going to say in my mind over and over again.

When I finally arrived at the house, a weird sensation ran over my body. I immediately sensed something was wrong. I tossed a few dollar bills at the driver and got out of the car as fast as possible. I ran towards the house and threw the door open.

As I walked through the front door and through the hallway, everything seemed relatively normal. I took a sigh of relief that was cut off too soon once I entered the family room.

The coffee table was filled with empty bottles of booze laying all over it. Some poured out onto the table and stained the white rug under it. I walked over and quickly picked up all of the bottles so they weren’t dumping out even more.

I prayed at that moment that he had got wasted by himself.

It was still quiet. I looked around to see that everything was a complete wreck. I quietly, but impatiently, took off up the stairs. I checked the guest room. It seemed as normal as ever. That was some relief. But I knew I had to check Jackson’s room.

I walked down the hallway. It felt like it was taking forever and I was walking down an outstretched path. When I reached the door, my shakey hand took the knob and turned it slowly. I hurried in. I couldn’t see anything except for a bump in the blanket. I assumed it was Jackson.

I took a few steps closer. “Jackson?” I said out loud and in a hushed voice. Nothing moved. “Jackson?” I repeated, louder this time.

He popped up. His hair was frazzled out all over. He took a scared breath and looked around frantically. Two other girls, one on each arm, popped up right after. They looked as shocked as he was. They had the blanket over their bare chests.

I tried to gasp, but I couldn’t take in a breath. “What--”

“Marissa, it’s not what it looks like,” Jackson assured, holding his hands up and letting go of the two unfamiliar blonde women.

“It’s exactly what it looks like!” I screamed back. “At least I didn’t actually cheat on you!”

The other two girls’ expression changed. They went from scared and worried too seductive. They ran their hands all over Jackson and tried to push him back down in bed. I started to feel sick. Especially when he took to them and threw the covers over his head.

I lurched up. It was still light out. I whipped my head around. The scene was different. I was still at Ben’s house and on his couch. I ran my fingers through my hair, inhaling and exhaling rapidly. I wiped tears that were welling up in my eyes.

Thank God it was just a dream.

I seriously have to stop having these obscene nightmares. They made me sick to my stomach. I was letting my thoughts get to me. Each time the damn dreams were getting more and more real. That could have seriously happened. And it could be happening right now.

With that thought in my head, I jumped off the couch, grabbed my purse and took off. As I got out of the house, I checked my phone. It as nine a.m. and as I hurried to where I could yield a cab I could see my panting breath out in the chilling weather. I internally flipped out, remembering this was the way that the dream went.

Once I had called over a cab, I hopped in and spat out the address. Followed by, “The faster you get there, the more I’ll pay you.” That got him to speed up almost instantly.

The ride was quicker than it usually was. I was looking around frantically the whole ride. I tapped my hand on the ledge of the window impatiently. I handed over the dollar bills and got out of the cab once we pulled into the driveway.

“You forgot to close the door!” the driver called. I ignored it and kept going. The crisp, cold grass crunched lightly under my feet as my heart raced.

When I reached the house, I almost charged the door down. But I immediately went into the family room. To my surprise, it was exactly the way I had left it. Nothing was different or out of the ordinary.

I took some slow steps into the house, looking around. Maybe I was being a little paranoid. Okay, more than a little paranoid. Jackson wouldn’t do that to me. Would he?

I turned the corner into the kitchen. Jackson was sitting at the counter with a coffee mug in his palms. I let out the breath I had been holding in and held onto my forehead in relief. He was in his lounge wear; sweatpants and a T-shirt. I assumed he had just woke up.

“Hi,” I said quietly, stepping into the stool beside him. He didn’t look in my direction.

He took his hand around on the other side of him. He dragged out another coffee mug. It was a light beige color, unlike his usual black coffee. It must have had a lot of creamer in it.

“I thought you’d be here bright and early,” he muttered.

I took the coffee between my hands and moved it in circles anxiously. My eyes wandered around. After some silent seconds had passed, I finally spoke.

“I didn’t cheat on you.” My voice was hushed and raspy. I was still extremely tired and I took a mad-dash to the house. My breathing was still off along with my shocked heartbeat.

He took a breath before he continued. “I know.”

I was confused with his answer. I didn’t know what he had meant by it. If he had known, then why’d he freak out.

Jackson started to explain himself, “I mean, I know now. I overreacted.”

“It’s okay.”

He finally turned his face to me. He sucked in his lower lip before he spoke, thinking of the right words. “I feel awful about it. I should have listened at first. I am so sorry.”

“It’s fine...” I heartened, rubbing down his back. Now seemed like a good time to tell him what Johnny said I should have a long time ago. “There’s just something I need to talk to you about.”

Right after I said that, he shortly added on, “I need to tell you something first.”

I leaned back in the chair. I already had the notion in my mind of what it was going to be about. Regardless, I asked, “What is it?”

He took an unsure breath and then looked back down at his coffee. I got nervous again and furrowed my brows. This seemed like a bigger deal than I was making it. “Spit it out,” I said. I didn’t mean for it to come out as rude as it did. I was just freaking out.

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing but carbon dioxide came out. I chewed my lower lip anxiously.

“I--” he started to confess. He seemed a little embarrassed and worried. He pushed his coffee aside and fiddled with his fingers. “I kind of forgot to put the condom on.”