Jacob spent most of the trip wishing Gemma was being a complete bitch. He didn't just want her to be awful to him, he wanted her to be awful to other people too. He wished she was rude to waiters and waitresses, instead she--independent of him, because he did the same thing--carefully stacked up her plates for them. When someone at the theater was bumped into her, almost knocking her down (and turned out to be an old lady there to see the show because she'd been in it years before when it had first opened on Broadway), he wished she would have yelled at her, instead of asking if they could get a coffee or a piece of pie after the show to talk about it.
Mostly Jacob spent the trip hating himself, because there wasn't a single good reason he shouldn't have been in love with Gemma. He'd lay in bed at night and his eyes would tear up with his self-loathing. Then he'd get even more upset with himself for being such a jerk and he'd think about telling her he was a jerk and then he'd wonder whether he was any more special of a jerk than anyone else. If what he was experiencing was normal. If self-loathing was just a facet of dating and he'd somehow missed it until now; maybe it had been the failing factor, why he was still single at thirty-one.
"What are you reading?" she asked him at breakfast. Their hotel had a restaurant, which wasn't complementary, and then a breakfast buffet, which was included. He'd woken before her and gone down to the buffet, just because it meant free coffee and donuts.
He showed her the book, a legal mystery (Jacob didn't think of them as thrillers unless the protagonists life was in danger and, in this one, it wasn't) he'd gotten from the shelf in the room. They were staying at a hotel with books in the rooms. In New York City. Because someone was going to run out of things to do. Then again, when Jacob had gone to San Francisco the year before, he ended up sitting around the pool hating himself for reading a Michael Crichton novel, but it wasn't like he stopped reading it (or went out and did anything touristy).
"Is it any good?"
He wanted her to take the book, which was a reviewer's copy in hardcover, and bash his head in. He really did. He stopped himself in the middle of the thought and considered it and decided he was correct. He really did feel so bad talking to her, he wanted her to cave his skull in so he wouldn't have to be such a shit to her anymore.
But, of course, he just shrugged and told her it was "all right."
They went for breakfast across the street at a diner, which was better than the hotel restaurant for breakfast food. CHeaper too. But Jacob was spending way above the budget for the trip; he recognized his actions--he figured spending a fortune would make it more likely she'd have a good time and regret it less later--and accepted them.
She got the french toast and he got an omelette. She got orange juice, he got coffee.
He kept bargaining with himself during the breakfast, trying to make himself feel better, like less of a jerk. Like if he told her she'd somehow obsolve him of all the guilt, like she'd immediately understand and forgive him. Or maybe she'd just laugh and tell him it didn't matter.
Jacob was terrified he'd some day end up in AA--which seemed unlikely, given it being, essentially, a Christian organization and wholly dependent on one prostrating him or herself to a superior being--and he'd have to do the apology step and he'd have to apologize to her. He just wanted to get through the trip. There were plenty of things Jacob already hated himself for, plenty of people he'd hurt worse--there was the woman who had to take the morning after pill and she got sick from it and Jacob made her feel guilty for not having condoms (he figured, at the very least, Gemma was getting a nice vacation)--so knew he could take it, but Jacob didn't know very many nice people. With Gemma, he was probably exploiting the nicest person he knew, in fact.
He knew, even if he told her, even if she knew, she wouldn't hate him for it. She wouldn't even be mad about it. She might be a little hurt, but she'd understand. He didn't want her to understand. He wanted her to reach across the table with her syrup-coated knife and stab him in the hand.
It was during this trip, maybe for the first time, Jacob realized he really didn't like himself. He usually just let that feeling pass, not take too much off of him; but watching her eat her French toast, sip her orange juice, smile at him, talk about the trip, Jacob knew just what a jerk he was being to her. And he was never going to forgive himself for it.`
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