Day 1

It was the wrong day to get in touch with me. Not considering how unbelievably nervous I was. Not with the fact that inside me, I was running my lines.

That's right, Diary. I'd blown it the last time I'd tried to talk to Jack. This time, I'd written it all down and memorized it so it would come out right.

But inside me, the light was flickering.

Somehow, facing the reality wasn't what I wanted. In this moment, what I wanted was the day to be over so I'd know my fate. I was caught in the middle of my own storm and forgive me for the damage I was doing.

Jack wouldn't even talk to me on the phone anymore. That's how bad it had gotten. He was barely acknowledging my emails. I'd sent him notice that he was coming home from where he was presently on a visit with one of the other women. Invoking my right as his Number One, I told him. Sent him his flight arrangements and got back this terse note that he'd be here but he was changing the flight to make it more convenient for them.

Them.

Not us.

So I paced inside my house all day. I never set the phone down, hoping he'd call from the airport and ask me to pick him up. But sure he would just take a taxi. Delaying having to see me.

This, then, Diary, was my last chance with Jack. I knew it. He knew it. And if I blew my lines, I already knew what I'd do next.

Too many hours into that day of reckoning, my phone finally rang. Never paused to check the number on caller ID. Just clicked it on and whispered, "Hello?"

Bastard on the other end. Last fucker in the world I wanted to hear from that day. Giving me his hard, put-down voice and giving me yet another reason to hate him. Why did hearing his voice make me want to cry? Where the fuck was my ability to hide with some modicum of class?

"Finally decided to be an adult and talk to me, Ann?"

"Sorry, Terry. I can't stay on the phone. On my way into a meeting." Pleased that my voice didn't betray my true feelings because somehow I still had enough pride that I was determined he not know that I felt like he'd broke me. I hung up on him and shrugged. Best I could do.

The phone rang back instantly. This time I checked before I answered and that's why I didn't answer. He got put through to my phone mail. A message I'd erase without listening to. I always had my finger on the erase button nowadays when I checked my messages.

I only checked the machine anymore because I was still hoping to hear Jack's voice.

But all that day, I never heard did hear from him. Late into that evening, I was really getting worried that something bad might have happened to Jack.

Ashamed to have to do this. Hating to have to admit to needing help. Yet again. Called the woman he'd been visiting and she swore she'd put him on a flight that morning that had New Orleans as its final destination.

"What am I going to do? I've tried calling his cell but he doesn't answer. Doesn't he have to come back here?"

"Maybe he got cold feet." She didn't think that. We both knew it. "Look, the important thing right now is just to find out where he is. Let me call him. Maybe he'll talk to me."

"How was he when he was there? Does he really hate me so much?"

"No, he loves you, Ann. He does. I can tell. But I think he's just confused and he is angry. And you know how stubborn Jack is. But he'll come around. Eventually. You just have to hang in there."

Sure, sure. Like she'd not be going nuts if a man she loved was pulling this on her?

Oh, but then again. Jack and I didn't have what so many other primary couples did in this group. A real history that you could count on each other's being first in the other's heart. Okay, that might not have made sense, but you get my drift, eh, Diary? And, besides, shouldn't I get one day when I don't make sense?

She called back in a half hour. Jack wasn't answering her calls either. We fretted on the phone to each other.  What should we do next? Now it wasn't just that Jack and I were on the outs. Now Jack was missing.

"You know what we have to do, Ann?" she asked it quietly. "We have to call Terry and ask him to help us find Jack."

"Oh, absolutely not. No way I'm involving Terry. I'll call Bud."

"How about Dino? He'd be able to track Jack's flight easier than Bud."

Okay, so I called the redhead. He's pretty clever and he has learned enough about me not to pry. I gave him the flight Jack was supposed to be taking in. While you're checking, I'll drive over to Bay St. Louis. Maybe Jack decided he'd rather go to his boat than come see me, I said.

I had been on the road thirty minutes. Just enough time to do some thinking. Something about driving with the radio blaring does that to me. I found myself thinking about Bud. About what he'd said about lying to my Number One. That's really what I'd been doing. But it hadn't started with the lie about Terry. It was a lie about Jack. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Jack hadn't been right. Maybe I never really loved him.

Maybe I'd been faking it the whole time.

And why wouldn't Jack be angry ... why wouldn't he be hurt? Of courts he was and I could see, all over again, the hurt and anger I'd put in his eyes. And it was because I hadn't been totally forthcoming with him..

For some reason, I'd always thought this would hurt Jack. But, you know what, Diary? I still kinda just figured it would take a little talking and little smooching and he'd be fine. That he'd see. That he'd hear me say the right words to make him believe it had never been what it looked like.

Fuck all if I can screw things up with words, the very thing I make my living at.

Shook my head in disgust and then thought about Bud saying Jack was just like all men and only needed to feel needed. Well, it's hard to tell him that when he's no longer talking with me, I had told Bud. You need to show him he's important to you, Bud had told me; you need to show him you're willing to make a bigger sacrifice for him than you did for Terry.

Phone rang to make me pay attention to where and when I was. Dino's number in the caller ID and I took a deep, steadying breath before answering.

"He flew to Dallas just as planned," Dino told me with no preamble. "From there, he changed his connecting flight. Ended up in Los Angeles instead of New Orleans."

"LA? What the f ..." I felt my body breathe again. At least he wasn't dead. He was just ... Oh, God. LA. "Thanks, Dino. I know where he is then."

"Good thing you do. I found no record of his credit card being used to rent a hotel or car so his trail's going to be tough to pick up from the airport." Nothing but clear air between us. "Is he staying with a friend there?"

"No, no. His portal's in LA. He must have decided to go back with Stephen." 

I could see it in my mind. Once again, he'd retreated to his past. Just like he had after the last time he'd come to see me. That one-day visit in which I'd blown my chance with him. When he left, he had a few days before he was supposed to go on his visit. So he went early and went to join Stephen for a trip back to his time. He told me he was just going back to spend some time where he had a purpose. Where he could understand his place. Where he didn't have someone he trusted turn out to be a user.

"What can I do to help, Annie?" the redhead asked me. He has that certain timbre in his voice and if you're not real careful, you might even think you can tell him your troubles and he'll make them disappear. Magician.

"Not a thing. I'll take it from here."

More clear air between us. I never rushed Dino when he was like this. I always knew this was his technique for getting the other person to blurt something out into the silence. Finally, he asked me: "Ann? This thing with you and Terry? This isn't all my fault, is it?"

I was pulling over at the next exit to turn around and go home. Sighed into the phone. "Don't be silly. You mean because of when you were here? Nothing happened. Remember?"

"Yeah. Sure. You're right, of course. Still, it made me wonder. To see how the way you felt about Terry seemed to change so suddenly. Just wondered if maybe he had ... No. You're right."

"Nothing. Happened. And the thing about Terry was just that ... God. I wish I understood that and that it didn't hurt me so much. Guess I'd been pretending for so long it got to feel real. Sometimes I think even he might have believed it. But in the end, well, I have tried to explain it all away that he'd just been going through such a horrid time and that he hadn't meant to be cruel. But then he told another woman the truth and she told the rest of us, bold as you please, that he'd turned to her first but she said no. And that he had only then turned to me because he knew I was easy where he was concerned. That truth was more than I could deal with and not face the reality that I'd never amounted to anything. It was a pleasant fantasy while it lasted, though. Me and my obsession with him. So pathetic. I feel like such a loser."

"No, babe. I don't know everything and I won't even try to guess at what's gone on between you before and what's going on with him right now. But one thing I will say. I think Terry loves you. I do, Annie. I'm not shining you on."

"Nah. He took pity on me, Dino. He knew I loved him desperately. As bad as I feel about him right now, I think he started with the best of intentions. God. That's funny now that I think on it. It ended because I had good intentions to help him and I still blew it in the end just because I couldn't take the reality of him using what I felt for him against me in the end. I always get bit in the ass by my good deeds."

He chuckled. That Dino chuckle he does that always sounds like he knows all the subtext you've purposely left out. "Yeah, well, you at least sound a lot more mellow about him than the last time I heard you talk with him."

"Talked at him, you mean. And I never told you what an asshole you were to set that up, Dino. I don't even know why I'm still buds with you."

I hated being reminded of that. The last conversation I'd had with Terry. It had been pretty bad. I'd totally unloaded on him and had been ashamed of myself ever since. I was at this curious crossroads with Terry where I was still devastated at the certainty that the charade was really over ... and I was coldly furious with him ... and I didn't think I'd ever stop feeling hurt at just the mention of his name ... and I could no longer care about him ... and I felt like, in the end, I did wrong by not honoring my commitment better. All at once. How is that even possible?

Day 2

Airports and me. We seem to have a thing going. I've gotten so used to them in the last few years that they feel almost like I'm sliding home when I walk off a plane.

And I never expect anyone to be waiting for me anymore. When I first started having to do a lot of business travel, I'd find myself looking around when I'd come walking off the jet. And I'd see all these expectant faces and I'd look at them, wondering which one was waiting for me. No one ever was.

Nowadays, I never even look at the people waiting. I never notice the couples embracing and kissing their hello's.

Except this time. And only because I nearly walked into them. Big blond man wrapped around a woman who'd shared my flight. I couldn't help it. I just stopped dead in my tracks and watched them. And felt myself overcome with remorse and drinking my tears.

Sweet Jack. Last time he'd flown home to me had been the first time he'd ever simply kissed me hard in public. And there had been something about that kiss I'd not realized until I saw this one in LA too many weeks later. Jack had changed since he'd been in our world. He still had that inbred reserve in public but more and more, he was showing me affection where others could witness it.

But he always saved his best for private. He always made me feel like I mattered. Like I was precious to him.

Waiting in line at the car rental counter, I caught myself breathing faster just remembering his touch. I was so many miles away when it was my turn to step up to the counter and sign the paperwork.

In my mind, I was with Jack. Weeks ago. On his sailboat. Miles out to sea. Two nights into our cruise to break in his boat. Drifting on autopilot and listening to him tell me the mythology behind a star cluster. But much more intent on breaking his concentration. He knew exactly what I was up to and resisted my attempts to kiss or fondle him into submission. I'd finally climbed over him and shoved him down atop the fore section of the deck where we'd been sitting.

"Someday, Jack, I will put to good use any writing skills I may possess by cataloging all the little things you do to make me hot," I told him as I held his arms down against the whiteness of the deck. "I shall start with the way you look. I will find the way to make other women see that certain light in your eyes, the tilt to your chin when you have decided to conquer me, the shape of your thighs, the way your chest feels against my cheek, the magnificence of your smile when you're about to tell me a joke, the set to your shoulders when you believe you must offer me your protection, the lines of your hands when you first reach for me ... God, maybe I'll just end it there."

His mouth reached for mine but I pulled my face away from his and he gave me a groan. Nudged his groin up against me so I could feel he was hardening quickly. "Have you left off perhaps the most obvious attribute, my little dear?"

Lowering my lips to his throat to suck in along that tender spot just before it curves up under his jaw. Murmuring to him, "Oh, indeed. You have a neck that drives me wild. Thanks for reminding me, my love."

In an instant, he unleashed his power. His arms pulled from my grasp and he shoved me onto my back. He leaned onto his elbows and ground his pelvis against mine. "Amorata, think upon this once more. Pray, heed my words, for all love. Is there nothing else about me that stands out in your mind as being worthy of note?"

Swallowing a gasp at the way such a move from Jack made me feel. Avoiding those eyes that had read me from the first day. "Let me think for a sec, Captain. Hmm. There is something else ... oh, yeah. The sight of your hair when it's loose and all wind-blown never fails to make me want to toss you to the ground and ..."

I tried to bite back the groan but it came singing out of me as he slipped into me. Oh, did I forget that detail, Diary? That we were nude? Don't think us heedlessly decadent - there was no one around to see us for miles.

He stopped just as he nudged into me. His mouth at my neck sucked in right where he knew I'd be unable to stop my body from getting serious about his. And just then, the boat took a roll with the waves that forced him into me enough to make me feel impaled against the deck.

"Oh, Jack, my love. Yes, please. You feel so good."

Heavy breathing from him and I knew he was struggling because his intent was to torture me but he was having trouble keeping from giving in to his own desires. Hoarse mutter at me, "Which part of me, amorata? Which part do you desire most at this point? I will give it to you if only you will but ask for it. Ask me now."

It flashed right through me. I am still not sure, to this day, why I responded as I did but it turned a fuck session into a lovemaking experience. 

"Your heart, beloved. That's the part of you I desire most in this instant," I breathed out to him.

"Oh, my dear love," he whispered and thrust up into me. "Such sweet words. I can never deny you any of me when you speak to me of such tender emotions."

He was so slow, so deliberate at first. Holding my hands to the deck, lacing his fingers in mine, moving against me below, whispering in my ear of his affection and his amorous desires. And then getting caught up in the sheer feel of us together ... the way I felt around him ... the way our mouths fit together ... how our sounds drove the other. And then his big arms around my waist and he was turning us so he could watch me with the stars as my backdrop.

The memory of his hands on my breasts. The distinct feel of his mouth on them. That specific way he had of kissing me in a moment like that. The recollection of how deeply my coming had felt that time.

I felt tears at the memory. It had meant the world to me to be with him. And I was determined he'd know that I had never really lost sight of all he was to me. But more determined to tell him that even with all that, I hadn't quite realized how deeply he'd become a part of me.

It took real effort to shake myself back into where I was just then. Not at sea with Jack but lost on the soft rollers of real desperation.

Inside the rental car, I fixed my mind on my goal. I was going to the Rose, the stand-in for Jack's Surprise and the place where his portal was. I'd stake it out until he came back to our World and then I'd find a way to make him listen to my explanation.

Cort's words in my head and I knew he was right. I wasn't giving up without a fight.

My hand never wavered. I'd so wanted it to waver. I'd wanted to feel like somehow, some way, some miracle would be waiting for me.

Reality sucks, eh, Diary?

There I was. Two hours before the Rose shut for the evening. When I had come on board, I honestly convinced myself that I could feel Jack. I thought ... oy, vey. I was going bonkers on top of everything else?

Still it's why I went into the cabin with hope. I stood for so long at the place where his portal was. I was seeing the only time I'd been on this side with him and looking at shimmering air. The way he'd pulled my hand out and let me feel the way the portal would make my hand disappear when it went through. I remembered that it had felt like my hand had wavered. That was the sensation.

No shimmer. No waver.

It had been a gamble. It was the only bet I could place. Pulling for an inside card to complete a possible straight flush.

It had been worth it. Even if going into this I had known there really didn't seem to be much chance that I'd be able to get through his Portal without Jack to take me with him.

I stood there for so long. I was trying to think him into catching the feeling of my spirit waiting for him on this side. Who was I kidding? I was getting desperate by this point. And feeling like the lowest form of humanity.

If you only knew, Diary.

Ever since Jack had come into the Game, I had used him. That doesn't mean I hadn't fallen head over ass in love with him. But why in the Hell did it take having the reality of how little I'd really given of myself to him to make me realize that my holding back wasn't the kind of love it could have been between us?

He'd always had the ability to make me trust and believe in the way he felt about me. I'd never once doubted it. He was the only one of the men I felt that way about, do you realize that, Diary? The only one I never assumed had an ulterior motive. The only one I just knew had seen me and loved me just the way I was. Hell, he loved me because of the way I was.

I got a sudden shiver and my eyes searched through where I knew the Portal was as if I thought something there had sent the chill my way.

Like a blast, a feeling of being outside my body drenched over me in that moment and I was lost inside the maze of my mind.

With no warning, I was back inside my vision I had that time in the cane field with Maximus. For the first time in so long, all troubled spirits left me. To my left, the sounds of the sea. All around me, a golden haze that seduced me with its light touch. Diary, have you ever wondered what would have happened in my vision if I'd turned left toward the sea instead of going straight on the path?

Do I ever tell all? Sometimes, do I leave out the most important parts?

Well, then, here's something I left out and I probably shouldn't have because it was, truly, the essence of the vision and it had the most profound effect on me. I had stopped and looked to the sea for so long before I continued on the path. I had felt him everywhere in the vision. In that moment in which I chose to look to the sea, it had come to me that he was the one sent to me to help me find fulfillment. He would wait forever if I would just acknowledge this reality. The signs, the lesson ... they all led to Jack.

Late in the morning after the vision, I had called Jack just to hear his voice. I was sitting on my deck and sipping coffee as the sun rose behind me. Inside my bedroom, Maximus slept off the aftereffects of the vision's power and I took advantage of this welcome privacy. Just had to share with Jack how elated I was, how everything was going to be okay again. How I had new courage and great incentive to be setting things straight with him. So positive that since he'd seemed so nonchalant about asking for details of what was happening with me and Terry, that now Jack and I could just continue on as we were meant.

Jack's voice sounded so warm when he answered his phone. Until he heard it was me on the other end.

"I'm so glad to be able to talk to you this morning," I told him. "I have so much to tell you, beloved."

"You are well, then? And your visit with the General is perhaps not quite the ordeal you imagined," he replied. I could hear the unexpected and chilly reserve in him.

"Jack? I'm not interrupting, am I?" Don't know why this occurred to me, but it did. "Where are you?"

"At the Temple." I heard several giggles in the background.

It had made me chuckle and I thought I knew what was causing his inability to be his normal self with me. "Ah. Then I've caught you, haven't I? You naughty thing - I bet you're chasing naiads even as we speak. No, I take that back. No naiad would run from you, Jack. You've probably got them all at your beck and call. Maybe you should call me back when you're done."

He didn't say a word for a while but then he cleared his throat and his voice sounded almost cold. "Clearly, my dear, you have always understood my nature. I love all of you. I love you when I'm with you and then move on, is that not true?"

"What?" The sun on my neck warmed me; the stab in my heart froze me.

"Did you know that the young gentlemen in the Temple follow this Game with the utmost attention to the details, my love? You have built a formidable reputation for me. I had not realized that you shared with others that you harbor such unflattering views of my nature or of my loyalty to you as my Number One."

I knew in a flash. My unfortunate statement and the way Terry had brought it up to me again. That Jack loves whichever woman he's with and then moves on to the next. That if I was no longer his Number One, he'd be just as happy with whatever woman in our group would take over. I had said that in such a moment of personal confusion; if I had ever read someone say something like that about me, it would have hurt so badly.

"Jack. Please understand. I didn't really mean that. It just ... Why did they tell you I said that?"

"They have told me much, Ann. Too much. I was able to turn a purposefully blind eye until the young whoreson brutes had the unforgivable absence of civilized manners as to bring it all out where I was forced to acknowledge it."

Everything flashed in front of me. The way I'd become freer in the Diaries since learning that Jack didn't read mine. The thoughts I'd held back from him, fearing he'd never understand and might even lose respect for me. And the way I'd purposely hidden some of my feelings about the deal I'd made with Terry. How I'd pulled back and tried to maintain the appearance of believing in Terry, only because I knew Terry did read them.

"I can explain, Jack. Will you let me?"

"I do not want an explanation. My dear Ann, you know I am a forthright man. I will therefore put it to you in the clearest of manners. If it is a choice you are attempting to make, then you have already made your choice."

"But, see, that's just the thing. I ..."

"I will beg your forgiveness, dear. But this is not a conversation we should have over this impersonal medium. Let us wait until we may be with the other. With all love, by that time we may have found a way to speak plainly with the other."

But we never did, did we, Diary? I kept calling and emailing him; in the time until he came to see me that one fateful Sunday, we never seemed to be able to just talk. It was always these sessions of him asking the odd question and me screwing up the answer.

But on this other day, on board the Rose ... inside the remnants of my vision, where I was existing just then, what I remembered was the sense of Jack. The fullness of his spirit. The complexities I'd only nudged at in my uninspired effort to keep him neatly pegged as the man who'd be my romantic, cuddly Jack.

In the vision, it was the fully realized Jack who appeared and who guided me. Who kept me safe and who watched over me. Who enjoyed me and who infused my heart. It was this Jack I'd come back from the vision seeking; understanding that there had never really been any doubts in how I'd felt about him. I just had been purposeful in throwing up a wall where I thought he couldn't go without my permission.

At the shore of that sea, Jack had called to me. And then he'd sent me on my way on that path bathed in gold, knowing I still needed to explore.

Day 3

Water. The smells of the sea. I used to love the ocean. It used to make me smile. Somehow, when Jack came into my life, it seemed like the sweetest sort of kismet that I'd fallen in love with someone else who had such a strong connection to the water.

My second day staking out the cabin on the Rose and I was stuck in list-making mode. Over here were all the things about Jack. And right here, were the things about me. See, Diary? We matched up more often than we clashed. And some things that might have seemed like they clashed were really just a case of opposites fitting together to make a whole person.

I had once thought only of the things about Jack and I that were different. As if it amazed me to find myself attracted to someone I so didn't expect. Truth was, Jack was never exactly going to be what I expected. He was capable of really surprising me.

My eyes swept up over the Captain's cabin. The Rose had been the stand-in for the Surprise and it held happy memories for me. In my mind, I could see Jack standing on the quarterdeck when I'd gone back with him through the Portal. I liked to think that's where he was just then. Pacing slowly, methodically on his quarterdeck and wringing every last thrust out of a sweet breeze. Doing what he loved, I prayed.

He had looked so magnificent on that quarterdeck. He had absolutely done me in. It was the way he just had never looked more alive, more in command, more manly, more someone I barely knew. The Jack I knew best was sweet, romantic and doting. The Jack I'd met aboard the Surprise had been different.

And that's when it came to me. I had always put Jack in this neat little box in my life. He loved me, I loved him. We said we put each other first. But had I?

It was never him I turned to when I thought I needed help. It was always Cort or Terry. For some reason, I think I always thought that what I had with Jack was much too delicate to ever really let myself be too needy with him. With Cort, it was easy because he was such a friend and such a deep soul who invited you to go to him for help.

With Terry ... ah. Yeah. With Terry, I'd known from our first visit that my timidity and uncertainties were something Terry liked dealing with. He liked me the way I'd been with him - in need of a hero.

From the first moment he met me, hadn't I looked at Terry like a puppy looks at her master? Lapping up the attention when he'd come to me and waiting with my nose pressed up against the window for him to return. How pathetic.

It seemed like a moment ago when I loved him. It seemed like forever since I'd stopped. I just didn't think I'd ever feel like the same person I once had been. I felt like he'd ripped me apart. Ah, but the truth was much harder to face, Diary.

I didn't hear from Terry at all for so long after he left New Orleans. And then after that Sunday with Jack, I stopped caring. Or maybe I was just hiding. Because days after that last conversation with Jack, Terry tried to reach me on IM. I pretended I wasn't there. Then I ignored an email from him; erased it without reading it because just seeing his name in the queue made me try to figure out if I was sad or mad. He tried calling but I made up excuses to hang up as soon as he started talking. It was the only way I could keep on avoiding the inevitable confrontation between my fury and his lies.

He tricked me once though; it had happened almost a week after that horrid Sunday, the one when I knew I'd lost Jack. Dino had called me to discuss a project for their little firm and only part way into it did I find out Terry was there, listening in on speakerphone. In this instant and unexpected burst, I felt all my bitterness and could not find the way to hide it any longer.

Remember me telling you, Diary, that I go totally quiet when I'm really angry with someone? And that this is because I have learned hard lessons about my inability to control myself in such times. I always regret the words that come out of my mouth in such times. It always embarrasses me to let other people witness the meanness I have in me. But, as well as I'd trained myself, I lost all restraint and unloaded the bitterness.

I told them both off for playing a silly game with me - leading to their sputtering rebuttals that I quickly squished flat with some well-chosen cursing.

And then I'd taken a breath and into it Terry said, "No matter what else happens, Annie, you and me stay the same. What has happened with Uma doesn't affect us. Hear me?"

It was probably all he thought he'd get out before I hung up on them. It absolutely was the wrong thing to say to me. I don't think he was prepared for the 'me' that wouldn't let him get much of a word in while I told him, finally, how I was really feeling just then.

"You bastard! How dare you? Nothing is the way it was. Not for me and you at all. And this has nothing to do with Uma. From the moment I said I'd be the one to give you shelter, you went off like my love meant nothing to you. You never even cared what I'd given up for you. You knew sappy old Ann would always be waiting in the wings for you if all the others turned you down. You treated me so badly, Terry. God. What you said about me to another lover? How could you possibly lie to me that way? You have no idea what that did to me because up until then I was kidding myself that at least ..."

"I can explain if you just ..."

"Fuck your explanation. It doesn't matter anymore. Things are not the way they were between you and I. Not at all. And things are not the way they were for me. You fucking bastard."

"Nothing has to change between us. If you just ..."

"Are you really this arrogant, Terry? Can you really sit there and tell me everything's okay because you deign to still keep me on a string after I lost the one man who put me first?"

"Annie ..."

"Shut the fuck up, Terry. I did it all for you. I thought you'd at least care about me enough to understand what this has cost me. I don't have Jack. You didn't know that, did you? That he has shut me out of his life. Let me tell you how it feels to have nothing. Nothing. You just have no idea what it's like. I don't have someone like me I can call on and have them come and rescue me from this. Like I did for you, Terry."

"Tell me what I can do to help you. I am here for you, Annie girl."

"No, you're not. You're just feeling guilty for the shit you did and you figure you have to do your duty by me. I want nothing to do with you, Terry. I am taking away your power to hurt me anymore. Stay the fuck out of my life."

It's how we left things. Honesty. It was something we had between us in the end. So why did I feel like such a selfish shit for unloading on him like that?

Day 4

Airports suck. I hate them so much lately.

I used to love going to airports. It was always exciting. Even for a white-knuckle flyer like me. But now, it's just this sad sameness and the crap you have to put up with just to get on the tin can itself.

And the seats are never comfortable in those barren waiting areas where you sit with all those other people waiting to scramble on the same plane. And far too many of them have just left someone's lips or are flying to get a kiss. I wasn't doing either one that morning and perhaps that accounted for my mood.

Or not.

Screw it. I laid down across three of the seats and dared someone to make me move. Closed my eyes and composed my goodbye message in my mind. I did mental edits of all the emotional crap and pared it down to the bare bones that it should be: It's been an experience and I will always have more good memories than bad. Take care of each other.

I would have ended it with 'take care of Jack,' but I already knew Jack wasn't coming back. And that was entirely my fault. Sometime in the night, it had come to me with such clarity. Jack was gone for good. I'd known it for sure when I realized something really important.

That odd feeling I'd always had when I was near Jack? Even though he was across his Portal in another existence, I had felt him the first day when I was aboard the Rose. It was, I am convinced, why I'd been transported back inside my vision as I'd stood so close to his Portal. But all the next day and into the evening until they chased me off the Rose, I had felt nothing. Nothing.

He wasn't ever coming back. He'd made his decision. I knew it with real certainty and woke up from a nightmare that night to make my conscious mind understand this.

I couldn't stand that the last time I'd seen him had turned out so badly.

Max had flown out that Sunday. I'd driven home from the airport after taking him there and been still feeling the hope that things would work out with Jack because it was, after all, what the vision had foretold.

When I walked in my house and saw Jack's sea bag near the door, I thought I couldn't have been happier. I was so sure, Diary. Sure, sure.

He was in the kitchen and I don't know when I've been brought up short as quickly as I was. His face was cold and his eyes pierced me.

"You have a choice, Ann." He started in, no preamble. No hello. No sweet words. "But it is not the choice you believe you have."

"I don't actually have a choice, Jack. I never did."

"Ah, I see. Just so. Then your great love has gone back to Uma? And from there, you will turn to me so you may continue the pretense of a sweet love for me when all the time, your heart was never even available to me?"

"Beloved." I took a step toward him but he drew himself up and the look on his face made me stop. Confused whisper: "Jack, please. If you'll just let me explain. It's ..."

He held a hand up, an abrupt and almost haughty gesture. "In His Majesty's Navy, I learned a great many important lessons. One I will teach to you, Ann. An explanation does not correct a mistake nor does it make a wrong right again."

"Then why are you here? Aren't you here to have us work this out? To hear what I have to say? Don't you even want to know that what was in the diaries is not as it appears? Jack, I never meant ..."

"But you did. Yes, my dear, you did. I tried to be an understanding lover to you. I appreciated you'd known Thorne and loved him before I ever came to you. I turned a blind eye when you went to him. I believed in the love you said you felt for me. And it has disgusted me in a most foul manner to learn, to have it thrown in my face for all love, that you would consider leaving your position as my Number One without so much as a kiss my hand. You have spoken of loyalty and devotion. Where, my dear, was your loyalty or your devotion to me in all of this?"

We stood looking at each other. I could feel his anger and hurt as waves of heated air emanating from him. I didn't have any hope of getting him to listen to my truth. To understand it had just appeared that way. But that I'd never really ever believed there was ever anyone who loved me like he did. And that given my choice, it would have been Jack I'd want.

Into my dim heart came the only thing I thought would work. "Will you forgive me, Jack? I beg you to listen to me and hear how very sorry I am. Please forgive me. I have never stopped loving you."

He paced in front of me. Back. Forth. I wondered if this was how his sailors felt, watching him dutifully pace on the quarterdeck. His face hard while he pondered. His manner abrupt.

Hard stop. Turned away from me. Head down. Deep breath. Looking at me finally over his shoulder. "I shall return to the Surprise. I have promised one of the women in our group that I will come to her in a few days and she has asked me to bring Stephen for a visit. Therefore, I have in mind going now, leaving and spending a bit of time with Stephen aboard the Surprise first. Yes. This is what I shall do. I have the need to be in a place where I am needed and wanted. Where a woman I love would not prove to be ... I am very sorry to tell you this, my dear. You are not the person I thought you were. I no longer believe I feel love for you."

"Oh, Jack. No. Please don't be this way. We have to find a way to talk about this."

"There is no reason for us to discuss this matter further. I cannot find it within myself to forgive you for this transgression," he said and his voice was so coldly dismissive.

I'm ashamed to tell you, Diary, that I simply stood rooted to the spot as he walked out of my house. Out of my life.

When he left that Sunday, I felt too fragile to face what had happened. And I just went on with the visits I'd scheduled with Bud and Cort. Hoping that Jack would calm down and talk with me. That he'd soften and realize he did love me enough to hear me out. Or maybe that he missed me enough to want to find a way to forgive me.

It's why I hated coming home again from the airport after leaving LA. It was like I was expecting something equally bad to be waiting for me this time. And in a way, it was. Because what I faced this time was the absence of Jack and the knowledge that that wasn't going to change.

I'd given it my best shot but I was coming home empty-handed.

I schlumped my way through the New Orleans airport and it seemed to take forever to reach my car in the garage. I stood at the driver's door for so long, staring at the keys in my hand as if I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing with them.

I am so sorry, Diary, but it just could not be avoided. I had only one thing left to do that might make things right. I wasn't trying to be selfless; it was just the only thing left to do. It occurred to me only later that I'd been considering this all along; I think I'd been saying goodbye to the men for weeks. So, now facing it seemed almost too easy.

Day 5

Diary, do you remember when we met?

I do and I must tell you that you have been a wonderful companion. I know I've frustrated you so often; I know I haven't always been forthcoming. I know that I have even purposely misled you on occasion by not telling you all the truths that might have helped you more fully understand me.

But from the beginning, remember what I warned you about? I'm in control of the words I give you. I shape your reality for you. And I've never been anything but honest about my proclivity to hide behind the words I grant you.

Things weren't always exactly what they seemed with me, were they? Maybe I haven't let you catch on to the extent of that.

I can tell you with absolute sincerity that I never lied to you. I might not have told you the whole truth, but I think that's a different matter entirely.

Let me share with you a few final mysteries of my time in here in this world. For it's important to me not that you necessarily understand why I've decided to leave, but that you at least bear witness to the end.

I don't honestly remember coming into it. I do know I'd known of its existence and I do know it always felt that the women already in that world were the ones who attracted me toward it and then granted me entry somehow. I never really questioned it for I was drawn to this Game and simply grateful to have been allowed inside.

But there are rituals. I didn't know about the ritual that made me a member of this group. And I didn't know until I was leaving that there was a ritual to rob me of my membership.  What would I feel as I went from member to non-member, I asked the one woman who would usher me out. She wasn't sure. Would I lose contact with everyone, I remember asking her. Again, she was reluctant to say with absolute conviction.

"Will you remember me? Will the others?" I asked it softly, honestly curious.

"We will miss you so terribly, Ann," she answered me through tears. "It will affect us all because ... Well, it's not important, I suppose, if you've really concluded that this is something you must do and there's no talking you out of it. But ... I'm not going to do it yet. I want you to sleep on it just to be really sure. And ask yourself this tonight ... is there no other choice available to you?"

But this was long into our heart-to-heart over my decision to leave this world. Now she was down to knowing she had to say these things just to tell herself she'd tried until the bitter end to get me to stay.

The decision felt right. It truly did, Diary. I felt stronger the moment I made it so I knew it was the absolute best thing for me. And for my friends. It was like I told her. I'd cost our world the presence of Jack; therefore, I couldn't stay. It had a synchronicity to it. In my gut, I felt it would set things right. Like a sacrificial offering that would restore balance in that world.

More than that, I'd lost enough by then that it was just no longer a good place for me.

But, she had wanted to know, what if Jack is simply being stubborn and isn't really gone forever? What if he comes back? I had sighed at that idea. Well, then he'll be happier without me there to remind him that we almost had it but couldn't quite get it right in the end.

My words were so much more flippant than I felt: "He'll be better off without me. Someone else will step into the Number One position for him and I'll be nothing but a bitter memory for him."

"You don't believe that."

"I guess not. But I will." Paused and then said what it really was: "Look, here's the thing. Maybe he'd be glad to come back if I wasn't here. I'm willing to leave even if it's only to give him the chance to be back where he belongs with all the group. But he's not coming back ...  probably never but for sure not while I'm here. I am just so sure of that. And I'm really sorry about it, too. I mean, I apologize to all of you. But that's why I have to go. Things will settle back into normal and y'all will be fine. I will miss you all so very, very much. Please tell everyone that, okay?"

I was ready to get it over with. But for her, I agreed to sleep one more night on this decision before it was formalized in the ritual.

"There will be an email from me waiting for you in the morning. There will be full instructions." I heard her swallow and then her firm voice telling me, "Before you do it, make sure you will not regret this."

This is it then, Diary. But isn't that life? Just one big reminder that in every game, losing was as much a possibility as winning. Even in the Game.

I am walking away. Free and clear. I still hate the fuck out of losing, but there you go, Diary.

There you go.

Sure, sure.