My voice was low. “Thank you.”

Ivy stayed still in the same corner and was no longer saying anything. Experience told me she needed some time to come down from one of these freak outs.

After several minutes, I bent down slowly and reached my hand out even slower. “Baby girl, we need to get you home. Please.”

She had tears in her eyes as she looked up at me. “Jake?”

“Yeah. It’s me.” I smiled. “You’re okay.”

Ivy took my hand and let me lift her up. I grabbed the two sweaters that were strewn on the floor and hung them up.

She caught me off guard when she wrapped her arms around my neck. “I’m scared.”

The only thing worse than Ivy’s delusions were the fleeting moments when she’d become aware of her illness. I couldn’t begin to imagine the confusion and terror trapped inside her mind. It broke my heart when she’d look at me, her eyes pleading for help, because there was really nothing I could do to take the pain away.

“Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me,” she pleaded.

I held her tighter. “I won’t. I always see you, Ivy. I know who you are. Don’t worry.”

She began to cry harder onto my shoulders, and my own eyes started to sting. This would never get easier. I had no problem assuring her that I would always be there, though. How anyone with a conscience could abandon someone in her situation was incomprehensible to me. Everyone has a cross. Ivy’s and mine were one and the same. I was somehow chosen to help her carry it in this life. I’d always believed that.

We took the Orange Line train back to the group home. It was a quiet and uneventful ride. I stayed with her until about ten o’clock when I left to head home to my sister’s house. Allison, her husband Cedric and their twin girls, Holly and Hannah, lived in the Brookline suburb of Boston, about thirty minutes from Ivy. They offered me their spare bedroom for my weekend stays.

Before I got to their door, I turned around, deciding to head to the neighborhood bar around the corner for a quick drink to clear my head. After the day I’d had, it would have to be something strong.

Beacon’s Tavern was dimly-lit with a few televisions playing different cable sports channels. It was surprisingly empty and quiet aside from a couple of guys with strong Boston accents arguing over one of the games.

“Vodka straight, please, Lenny.”

The bartender poured my drink and placed it in front of me on the counter. “Haven’t seen you here in a while, Jake.”

“Just trying to stay out of trouble, I guess,” I said before throwing back the liquid courage. The vodka burned my throat as I downed half of it in one gulp.

Avoiding the bar had actually been quite intentional lately. My days with Ivy were always long ones. Because of my weeklong absences, I tried to make the most of my time with her. After leaving the group home on Saturdays, I usually went back to my sister’s for a late dinner of leftovers then slept. But occasionally, I’d hit the bar, and it usually ended up with my drinking too much. Waking up with a hangover on Sunday mornings when I had to return to Ivy’s was not ideal.

Lenny placed a second vodka in front of me even though I hadn’t asked for one. “A lot of guys would be just fine with your kind of trouble, pretty boy.”

He was clearly referring to the last time I was in here a few months ago when I left with an attractive blonde named Debra. She and a friend were the only two females in the bar that night and were being hit on by pretty much every single patron. At one point, this drunk dude was coming on too strongly, and Debra looked really uncomfortable. I walked over and pretended to know her, hoping to take his attention away. When he finally got the hint, she and I started talking and ended up getting along well. She was about ten years older than me and in the middle of a divorce. Like me, she said she wasn’t looking to get into a relationship but confessed that she hadn’t had sex with anyone since her marriage ended.

She asked me to have a night cap with her because her two kids were apparently with their father for the weekend. Debra ended up going down on me within the first two minutes after arriving at her apartment, and we had sex three times. She screamed so loudly when she orgasmed, they probably heard it at Fenway Park.

She kept begging me to fuck her again, saying no one had ever made her come the way I had. After that night, Debra wouldn’t stop calling and texting me. Even though I made it clear I wasn’t interested in getting involved with her, she insisted that she needed to see me again, basically doing a total one-eighty. That was the main reason I’d avoided coming back to the bar for so long since she only lived down the street, and I was sure she’d been back to look for me.

Briefly looking behind my shoulder, I shrugged. “Not interested in getting into any more trouble if you know what I mean, Lenny.”

Of course, the encounter with Debra was before Nina came into the picture. No other woman had entered my sexual consciousness since. Swirling the remainder of my drink around in the glass, my mind drifted to my roommate again as it typically did lately. I stayed lost in my thoughts for the better part of an hour before throwing a twenty down and exiting the bar.

The rest of that weekend was spent reflecting on the reality of my situation as it related to Nina. It was easier to think straight when we weren’t under the same roof. Even if I were to let something happen between us, it would all be a lie. She deserved better than a guy who wasn’t up front with her and could never fully be there for her. She deserved better than to be pursued by a married man. Despite the fact that she made me feel more alive than I probably ever had, it was becoming more necessary by the day to distance myself. It needed to start immediately. This was for her own good and ultimately, mine.