Jackie asks. They’re scrunched together on Jonathan’s twin bed. Jackie’s head rests on his bare chest. He can feel her breasts along his midsection. “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about our spouses,” Jonathan answers. “I’m willing to make an exception this one time. I want to imagine what you’re doing tonight when I think about you. Which, I hope you know, will be every second of the evening.” It’s another opportunity for him to come clean with Jackie and tell her all that he’s been hiding—about his job, his marriage, his life. He could tell her that he’s ringing in the New Year with his father, that his marriage has been over for a month now, far longer than that in reality, that he’s unemployed and homeless, without a penny to his name. He’s not ready to come clean. Soon, he hopes, but right now Jackie’s love is his only hope of salvation, and he can’t bear to think about what life would be like if she also found him to be a failure. To paraphrase what Jack Nicholson famously said, Jonathan simply can’t handle the truth.
