Chapter Ten
Jona
Justine always comes back.
Even if the road she runs on is a million miles long, she’ll turn around eventually. But this wait is unlike any I’ve been forced through. As the weeks pass and my month-long deal with her is gone, I have to wonder whether the road is a million miles away, or if it is just Justine.
I try and keep my head out of it. I force my heart in a cage. I feel nothing again for anyone. I get up every morning and go to work, cramming sports cars down people’s throats who don’t need them. My bank account is the only thing that’s happy right now.
The rest of me is disgustingly empty.
The summer heat fades to the muggy feel of Crystal Gulf’s version of fall. When the air’s full of humidity and my heart can’t breathe through the steam.
I park my Charger in my driveway and rip my tie off just as someone whistles down the street. I look up, fighting the hope in my chest. But it’s only Monika. She skips over to me in a pair of jean shorts and an off the shoulder blouse. I groan inwardly.
“What’s up, sugar?” Not her fault I’m empty.
She smiles softly as she reaches up to kiss my cheek. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out tonight. There’s a party at the beach. Lots of booze and bikinis.” She widens her eyes and hugs my waist, biting her lip like it’s going to make me fall in love with her too.
Monika doesn’t know anything. Jacob promised to keep his mouth shut. But these past few weeks have been hell incarnate. I feel nothing. Nothing. But feeling a little less might not be such a bad thing. “Bikinis, huh?”
She giggles and nods. Then she drops her smile and touches my chest, careful not to hurt my hand. “I know something happened with your girlfriend. You won’t say what, but I know it’s her. But I’m still here, Jona. And I like you. Why can’t we … you know … hang out?” Her bright blue eyes bore into mine hopefully, intensely.
I gotta give it to her. She’s dedicated. But Monika doesn’t get it. If I feel nothing, she isn’t going to mess that up. I have to keep my emotions to the bare minimum. If they come out, I won’t come back this time.
“I’m not in the mood to date right now—” I begin, but she shuts me up by putting her hand over my mouth.
“We don’t have to date right now. We can hang out. Just you and me. I’ve wanted to hang out with you for a long time.” She bites her lip again and shoots me a sexy look. It’s weird, but she’s trying too hard at this. It’s in her eyes, they’re more intense than wanting, but I’m not in the mood to decipher her insides right now.
Hell. I can’t do this. Not with her. But Jus is a million miles away, and the idea of fading into another person even for a second is too strong of a pull to ignore. “You know who I am?” I check.
For some reason, she looks away before she answers. When she does return her gaze, I get this feeling she’s about to lie. “I know what I need to know.”
She doesn’t know anything. “We can hang out, tonight,” I stress.
She rolls her eyes, like yeah right, fucker, you’re mine now. “Sure, Jona. My friends and I were just going to go. I’ve been staying in one of the frats. You mind driving?”
“Jacob likes you.”
She sighs. “I don’t want Jacob. I want you.”
Jus was right. “I’m really fucked up right now. Are you—”
“Let’s go,” she growls, pulling on my arm. “I’ll go get the girls. You get in the driver’s seat.”
“Yes, sugar.” I hold my left hand up in surrender, watching her cute little ass bounce away to one of the frat houses.
She returns a few minutes later with her gang of jail bait. Young, hot, and perfectly aware of everything they want and how to get it. I feel like I’m the one at a disadvantage here for the first time.
“Where to, ladies?”
“Park at the cove. Ugh, I’m so excited. This party is going to be so crazy. And Melody’s brother’s on patrol tonight, so the cops aren’t going to be a problem.”
“Want some?” Monika taps my shoulder and takes out a little baggie of pills.
“Is that E?”
“Mhm.”
“Nah, I’m good.” I grab the bag from her and examine it. Pink, flakey. Weak shit. I hand it back to her. “You girls know what you’re doing, right?”
“Who brought my father?” someone whispers, making the other girls giggle.
“He’s way hotter than my dad,” someone else chirps in.
I groan. “This is bullshit. It’s dangerous.”
“Jona,” her friend says. “My sister went to college here. She told me all about you. Don’t try and act all good now. You’re the worst one in this car.”
I set my jaw before I snap on her. “You want me to pull this fucking car over?”
“Why, Dad, are you going to spank us?”
“You’d never be able to hang with me,” I grind out. “I’d have you all running home with your little virgin panties between your legs.”
They all laugh.
They have no idea who they’re fucking with. “You girls really wanna play?”
They all bob their dumb blond innocent heads. I’m going to teach them a lesson tonight. “Then we’ll play. Give me one of those.” I take the E and wait for everyone else to toss theirs back before I drop the pill between my thighs and swallow air.
The party’s already started when we head down to the beach. Thankfully, I wore jeans with my gray button down today. I don’t look like a full fledge douche. But I feel like one, especially when Monika grabs my hand like it’s hers. I know in reality I’m not much older than her. I’m twenty-two. She’s eighteen. We can do this if we both want to. But I know better. I understand the darkness for what it is.
It’s not fun to me anymore. It leaves holes in my past and blames me for them in the future.
“You want a beer?” Monika asks.
Guilt swarms me, and I look up at the stars. “No.”
“You promised. We’re hanging out tonight.”
But Chance. “We can still hang out—”
“Jona. She’s gone.” She pushes me in the sand and grabs a bottle from the tub full of ice in the sand. She twists the top and shoves it in my chest. “I’m here. Drink.”
Is this little blond chick really pressuring me to drink? I take the bottle with an impressed wink. “One.”
But one turns into two, and then three. Monika pulls me away from the wooden posts I’ve been hiding near all night and over with her dancing friends on the beach.
“Dance with me. It’s Sam Hunt. Come on.”
“I don’t dance.”
She turns around with her own beer and nestles her ass against my dick. Damn it. She moves her ass brazenly against me, singing along. I down my beer and try to push the desire to cry from my mind.
I’m over this part of my life. Right back to dealing with my nothing on my own. And I’m so fucking pissed off suddenly that I toss my empty beer bottle into the bonfire and grab Monika’s hips. I can fake dancing. I’ve been to a million parties. She wants to play; we’ll play.
She laughs, matching my moves. How could she just take off like that? We were trying. We had a second chance damn it! I grab Monika’s face and force it closer, smashing my lips against hers. She moans deeply into my mouth, tangling her fingers in my hair. I try to shove Justine aside with all my might, focusing on the swell of Monika’s tits against my chest, the feel of her silky tongue in my mouth.
But I’m too sober. I drag her to the makeshift bar and grab a bottle of vodka, tipping her chin back and pouring it between her pink lips. I chug from the bottle. Justine can run.
So can I.
The moon watches me all night, as I dry hump Monika to country music, and lick the vodka from her chin when she takes another shot. It watches me ruin my entire life like it always does. Doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t try to warn me.
“Condom,” I growl, pushing her against the side of the lifeguard tower.
She pulls one from her back pocket and matches my drunken kisses. “I’ve wanted you for so long. Even if I’m not supposed to,” she whispers.
You’re the only one. “I wanted him too,” I whisper, shoving my tongue in her mouth as I try to get her shorts off. “We were going to give him everything we never had.”
“What are you talking about?” Monika laughs and pulls my belt free.
I take the condom and yank her shorts down, putting the wrapper between my teeth as I help her with my jeans. But we’re so drunk, my fingers fumble, missing my zipper. “Come on, Justine,” I mumble, knocking her hands away.
“My name is Monika.” She pushes me away and glares, blue eyes glittering drunkenly.
“Shh.” I tip her chin back and kiss her a moment longer, picturing her burning brown eyes. The curve of her tanned skin. Her sultry, husky voice. The way she can bring me to my knees.
“What the fuck, Jona?” Monika glares down at me as I fall to my knees in the sand, sobbing.
“She’s my entire world. I’m nothing without her. I miss her so fucking much,” I admit, sniffing up my drunken snot. “What am I supposed to do without her? Without him?”
She buckles her shorts, unable to look at me. “We’ll find our own way home tonight.”
I watch her stomp away in the sand. I have no desire to chase after her. She’s not my reason for living.
“Justine!” I scream, ignoring the few people near the lifeguard tower. “Justine!” I shout, crawling to the water. “Justine,” I mumble pitifully.
It’s only ever been, Justine.
I pull out my cell and dial her number, but I know it’s pointless. Her cell’s in my room. She never came back and got it. When it goes to voicemail, I wait a breath.
“Hi, baby.” I settle in the sand as the party rages behind me. “You have any idea how hard it is knowing you’re out there without me? Hurting? Hungry? Alone? You’re killing me.” I can’t finish without breaking down. “I’m at a party right now with enough pussy to keep me busy for days, and all I can think about is that I never got to propose to you. Will you marry me, baby?”
My phone slips from my fingers. I fall into the sand.
Alone.
All alone.
***
I wake up to the sun in my eyes. It’s not hot, but it’s muggy. I groan and sit up, dusting the sand from my hair. My phone’s in the sand beside me. I can spot my Charger in the cove. The pain in my skull is unbearable.
I push to my feet and groan and moan over to my car. My arm is killing me. I cradle it to my chest and squint my eyes at the water. My stomach is roiling. I lean over and puke out my open door.
My cell rings as I’m heaving a second time.
“What?” I growl into the receiver.
“I wanted to check on you.”
I close my eyes in shame. “Monika. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says, but I don’t believe her. “You sound like hell.”
“I feel like it.”
“Look, Jona. Can we talk?”
I hate talking. “Yeah, I guess. Where are you?”
“I’ll meet you at the library.”
Of course, she wants to meet there. Why doesn’t she just tell me where my mother is while she’s at it? I’m not in the mood to explain to her why I don’t want to go there, so I tell her I’ll be there in ten and hang up.
Monika’s sitting in the computer area of the library when I come in, stinking of booze and regret. She looks so young. Her hair is in a ponytail, and her shorts finally go past her ass. I can’t pinpoint why she looks different, but she does. A lot less dedicated and more down to business. I sink down in front of her and return her soft, embarrassed smile.
“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” she says.
“Nope.” Yep.
She snorts. “The first time I saw you on the beach, I couldn’t believe that someone as beautiful as you had existed without me knowing it. I guess I’m just spoiled, Jona. I want something; it’s mine. You just wouldn’t let me have what I wanted. But,” she inserts quietly. “That’s probably a very good thing for both of us.”
I wink, sitting back. There’s no response I want to give to that.
“Last night showed me that you’re not mine. I mean I knew that already, but I know it. You’re hers, even if she isn’t here. But I do like you. I think you’re sweet and safe, and it would feel amazing to be close to a guy again.”
“Again?”
“I miss my brother.” She looks down and chews on the end of her pencil. “Mikael’s … AWOL. Again. I just want to get drunk and forget, you know?”
She has no idea. “Jacob’s sweet and safe too.”
Her smile is knowing. “But he isn’t you.”
That’s probably one of his best qualities. “Yeah, well, that’s a good thing.”
“Where’s Justine?” She rests her chin on her hand.
I shrug, glaring at the children’s section. The librarian today is younger, probably an intern from the college. “AWOL.”
“It’s so hard loving someone who fights your every emotion.”
My eyes shoot to hers. “Even harder to chase them.”
“Eventually, we’re either going to have to join them, or let them go.”
I feel sick by her comment. I won’t let Justine go. Never. If she wants to shit on my heart forever, she can. After all, it’s hers. “You let him go.”
“We’re twins, Jona. We have been like this,” she twists her fingers together, “our entire lives. There were times when we could even read each other’s thoughts. Like this one time in high school, I could sense that something was wrong with him, and I left class to find him. I found some senior jocks beating him in the boy’s bathroom. I saved him.” She’s crying.
“After he dropped out of high school, I felt it all the time. I just got used to it. I can’t always save him. But I want to. I want to devote my life to keeping him safe, but he won’t let me. I just want to love him.”
I clear my throat. “Where is he, do you think?”
“Who knows? He was in New York the last time I talked to him. But that was months ago. Mom and Dad can’t get a hold of him. Not that Dad cares with his wife. His cell is cut off.” She slams her textbook closed. “Selfish bastard.”
I’d do anything to wipe that angry, heartbroken look from her eyes. But anything isn’t up to me. “What do we do? Loving people who won’t let us love them?”
She grabs for my hand, tangling her small fingers with mine. “What choice do we have?”
Her vagueness feels like a blanket answer, throwing it everywhere and hoping it lands. Unfortunately, she’s right. What choice do I have? But to wait for my Justine to come back.
Her cell rings as we’re sitting there holding the others gaze. She lets my hand go and answers it with a roll of her eyes. “My stepmother is trying so hard.” Sliding her finger across the screen, she hisses, “Yes, Elisa?”
My back straightens. That name. That horribly-beautiful-painful-wonderful-life-ruining name.
For some reason, her eyes meet mine. “I’m fine. Nope. Yep. What do you have against Crystal Gulf?” She looks away at Elisa’s answer.
I look away at the library, tuning out her conversation. As she talks, I get up and head over to the children’s section. The library has changed drastically from all those years ago. Nothing’s the same. But this book. I pull it down and trace the title. It’s amazing to me how much it still offers escape. Fun words and lies. I open it and sink down, reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs like it’s going to save that little boy who didn’t know his world was about to crumble.
“What are you doing over here?” Monika’s voice is amused, joining me in the children’s section.
“When I was a kid, my mom dropped me off here.”
“That’s nice.”
I snort. “She didn’t come back. I haven’t seen her since I was five.”
“What?” Outrage seeps through her shock. “Are you kidding me? What kind of mother does that?”
“My kind.” Strangely, I don’t like her talking shit about my mom. Sure, she dropped me off, but that’s my problem. Not Monika’s. To some extent, I get why Mom did it. It’s the same reason why Justine hasn’t looked at me since she realized what happened in the bathroom. They hate me for reminding them of their pains.
A burning in my chest starts to spread. I barely survived being abandoned by my mother. I won’t make it without Justine. The idea of going back to faceless women and alcohol for the rest of my life—I’m not fooling myself into believing true love will ever happen again—I’ll never last. I’ll overdose, I’ll do something drastic, I’ll never make it out of it alive, and if I do, I won’t be even a quarter of who I am now. I’ll be an empty, shattered, self-hating, drug-riddled shell.
“She never tried to find you ever again?”
I shake my head, turning the page.
“Jona.” She rests her head on my shoulder. “What happened to you?”
“You’re looking at it.”
“But did you have a good foster family, or did you stay with extended family?”
“No and no.” I knew I hated talking. I close the book and place it back where I found it. “Where are you from originally?”
“Austin.”
“Why Crystal Gulf for college?”
“Honestly? I wanted to piss my stepmother off.”
I stare hard at the children’s books. “Why?”
“Every time anyone mentions Crystal Gulf, she freaks. Like total-freak-out-in-bed-all-day-bring-me-an-extra-pill freakout.”
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she says, mulling the answer over. “She’s a real sad lady. My dad loves her, though. Like madly-in-love-protect-her-from-everyone-even-his-daughter, love. He’s a psychiatrist, and she was one of his patients ten years ago. She has these really bad scars too on her inner arms and hands. Track marks. I recognize them from Mikael. Maybe that’s why I don’t like her. Because I know deep down the reasons she’s so sad is because she was Mikael once, and there are people out there who feel what I feel.”
I ignore my pounding heart. “So, you don’t get along with her?”
“Maybe I’m a brat to her, but I know how much it hurt Mom when Dad moved on from the divorce so quickly. She’s not a bad person. She’s just … weird, you know? Like she’s missing something. She’s also super clingy. OMG, is she clingy. My Dad has to tell her where he is at all times like he’s never coming back or something.”
“Your dad met her in Austin?”
“No, actually. He was filling in for another psychiatrist at the psych ward in Houston. It was for a summer because I remember living with only Mom that year. That’s where he met her. In prison,” she whispers, ashamed. But I swear her eyes bore into mine. I swear she wants to keep talking.
I force my lungs to pull in air slowly. Too much and I’ll pass out. “What was she in for?”
“Drugs, duh.” She pulls a white and green Dr. Seuss book down and flips through the pages. “He hired a lawyer and was able to get her sentence decreased due to her compromised mental health.” She makes air quotes like her pain is bullshit.
I bite back my rage. “What was her original sentence?”
“I don’t know. A long time, though. I don’t know the details. She’s really ashamed of her past, so she smiles really big now like I won’t see through it.”
“When did she go in?”
“Jona,” Monika snaps, looking up at me harshly. “Can we talk about something else?”
“No. Your dad married her?”
“Yes,” she whispers harshly, agitated. “Why the sudden fascination?”
“What was her maiden name?”
“I don’t know. It’s the same as mine now, so why does it matter?”
“Which is what?”
“Brickwell.”
“Elisa Brickwell, huh?” I turn that name over in my head. “Can you find out her maiden name?”
“Can you stop obsessing over every other woman instead of me?” She shoves me so hard I fall to my back. I don’t move, staring up at the squared ceiling instead. “Your turn. What happened between you and Justine?”
“We love each other, you know? Have so since we were teenagers. We cleaned up our acts. We were trying.” I sigh sadly. “She was pregnant, Mon. She lost the baby a few weeks ago.”
She gasps, grabbing for my knee. Her light blue eyes shimmer with shock and pity. “Jona, I had no idea. No wonder …”
I return my gaze to the ceiling. “She ran off like she always does when shit gets real, but this time feels different. It’s like I lost them both.”
“And I totally tried to take advantage of you.” Her shame is thick and palpable. She looks green. “I am so freaking sorry.”
I smirk. “Trust me, sugar. I’m twice your size, and I know how to say yes or no. You didn’t do anything.”
“We almost had sex.”
“Almost,” I tease, flashing her a grin.
“Don’t you feel bad?”
“Nah.” Yes. “Odds are she already replaced me.” Justine could never replace me. “It’s what we do.” We can’t keep doing this.
“That’s sick.”
“That’s us.” I push to my feet and give her my hand, pulling her to her own feet. “Let’s go get some coffee and food.”
“I have to study.”
“No,” I mutter, closing her textbook and stuffing it in her hot pink backpack. “You have to hang out with me all weekend and keep me company, so I don’t go out and get shit-faced and ruin my life worse. Cool?”
“Now I’m the babysitter?” she teases.
“A hot babysitter. Sounds about right.”
She punches my arm and takes her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. “Cut it out.”
“What? I’m not gorgeous anymore, huh?” I flash her a knowing grin, watching her cheeks fill with heat.
“Not after knowing what you’ve gone through in the past month. I totally get it now. We’re friends. I promise.” She holds up her hand in promise outside as we head to my Charger.
I bypass a taco stand in exchange for a southern barbecue spot. It’s busy this Saturday, the thick scent of hickory and smoked meat permeating the humid restaurant. We pick a table and comb over the menu. I’m thankful she’s here, a safe distraction now that the truth is out in the open.
“Hmm, he’s cute,” she whispers, tapping my foot and jerking her head to my left.
I glance over at a table full of guys. Sure moved on fast. What’s up with her? She’s herself, but she’s not herself at all. “Which one?”
“The blond.”
There’s only one, and he’s a huge jock. No doubt about it. Jaw you want to smash in. Nose you want to break. Blue eyes you want to make bloodshot.
“No.”
“No?” She gawks at me. “Jona, I already have a brother.”
“No.”
“I can so talk to him if I want.”
I shrug casually. I don’t trust men around her. She’s too naïve. “I’ll have to smash his face in, but if you want to risk it, fine by me.”
She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re ridiculous.”
Our waitress stops by, sweaty and hurried. I order a sweet tea—ignore the ache—and roll my eyes at Monika’s order of lemon and water.
“You know it’s probably tap, right?”
She scrunches her nose. “Don’t ruin it for me.”
“Are you spoiled?” I lean in to catch her gaze. “Does Daddy Brickwell give you anything you want?”
“He likes to make me happy.” She kicks my shin under the table. “Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging. I’m simply watching you squeeze lemon into your water like a noob.” I grab her last lemon wedge and drop it in my sweet tea. “Just don’t embarrass me.”
A snort blows from her nose. “You’re ten times more annoying than I initially thought.”
I give her a wink, earning an unwilling smile from her. I can’t remember the last time I had a girl that was a friend. It’s a different kind of relationship. More complicated but it’s nice to see the other side of things without worrying about running out the next morning half-naked and hungover.
We’re elbows deep in barbecue sauce and ribs when I let go of my self-control.
“What else do you know about your stepmother?”
She licks sauce from her fingers and picks up her corn, scowling over the top of it. “Maybe I should give you her number and let you talk to her.”
“Okay.” My heart speeds up, pounding panic and heartache through my body.
“Jona, stop it. What’s your problem with her?”
“Give me her number.”
She’s so close to snapping I almost, almost, back down. But she doesn’t know what she’s doing to me right now. I feel a second chance in the air again, but this one is going backward, and I’m starting to wonder how well I remember that day at the library. Mom told me to wait outside; she’d be back for me. But she hadn’t been back for me. It was hot outside, I was pacing. I was a fucking kid, for shits sake. The librarian brought me in, set me up in the kid’s section with a bean bag chair and a book, and she let me hang out all day until the library closed and the cops showed up.
“I’ll owe you,” I wager.
“Can me and the girls come hang out at your place tonight?”
Empty house full of nerds, or empty me in a house full of women I will never touch? “What is option two, Alex?”
“What?”
“Sure, whatever. Give me the number.”
“You have to buy some champagne,” she says, wiping her hands off and reaching into her backpack for her phone.
“And you have to give Jacob a chance.”
“I’ll think about it.” She pushes it to me. “Her name’s in my call logs.”
I wipe my fingers clean of barbecue sauce and then pick up her phone, eyeing the name for a few seconds before I press CALL. I silently thank Monika for being so damn naive. But her habit of asking the wrong questions makes me want to keep an even closer look on her.
Elisa answers on the second ring. “Please don’t tell me you changed your mind? I already put the order in.”
The phone falls to the table and lands in my macaroni and cheese. My heart implodes. My throat clamps shut, and my lungs stop breathing. I am still, ignoring Monika’s quiet, urgent requests to talk to her. Her voice catapults me back to every wound she sliced through my heart.
I snatch the phone before Monika can and hold it to my ear. “Elisa Kyles?”
There’s a long pause on her end. “Where’s Monika?”
“She’s sitting across from me. Naive as shit. Is that who I’m speaking to?”
“Umm.” She sounds extremely uncomfortable, her voice wavering. “I haven’t been Elisa Kyles for a long time.”
“But you were?”
“I … was. Who are you?”
I close my eyes, my answer on the tip of my tongue. But I know better. If I give the women in my life the chance to run, they will. “Her friend.”
“Her friend? Right. Look, weirdo, put my daughter on the phone now, or I’ll call the cops.”
Her ease to claim Monika as her kid enrages and hurts. “She’s not your daughter.”
“She has been since she was ten.”
“She your only child?”
There’s a sharp inhale on her end. “Put my daughter back on the phone, asshole.”
“Jona,” Monika says loudly. “What’s going on?”
Too loudly.
Blowing my cover.
Elisa gasps in—horror, shock, maybe both—and screams away from the receiver, like someone’s killing her on the other end.
“Jona?” Elisa whispers and every ounce of longing I’ve refused to feel is in her voice.
My rage wins out. “Don’t call me by my first name, stranger. Call me what I am to you. Nothing.”
She’s sobbing. “My, Jona?”
“I am not yours.” Monika’s frowning. Poor thing. “Are you fucking kidding me, Monika? The jig is up, sugar.”
Monika’s eyes narrow menacingly, and sadly and knowingly too.
Elisa’s sobbing is louder than my heavy breathing. She repeats my name between sobs.
“I just want to know one thing before I hang up,” I grind out.
“No!” she explodes. “Don’t hang up.”
I ignore her demand. “Did you care that I wasn’t there?”
“Of course,” she cries. “Jona—”
“Of course?” I growl quietly. “Did you care that I was all alone, scared, hungry—broken? Did you care?”
“Yes, yes …” she repeats.
“What’s going on?” A man asks on the other end. “Elisa? What’s wrong?” he demands.
“Jona,” I hear her say, followed by his gasp.
There’s muffled noise, and then he’s talking to me. “Is this really her son?” I don’t answer him. I owe him nothing. “Look, son, I know you’re probably in a world of hurt all these years. You’re allowed to be upset, you’re even allowed to tell your mother to you-know-what herself. But you don’t know everything. How did you find her?”
I refuse to talk through my rage. The odd part is, I’m not reacting on the outside. To an onlooker, I probably look like I’m having a conversation I don’t want to have. And they’re right, but inside I am fire and ice, and my heart and soul want to rage against the people who put them there.
I don’t know everything? What a crock of shit. I know I was abandoned. I know that my only spot of happiness since I was five-fucking-years-old came from Justine.
I hang up before the bastard keeps talking. “Don’t answer if they call back,” I order. On second thought, I put her phone in my pocket. I don’t trust her anymore. I think back to that day on the beach when I met Monika. She’d come up to me. She pursued me, even after I made it clear it wasn’t going to happen. Showing up, texting me. Never taking no for an answer. My eyes narrow on hers. “You fucking actress.” No one can be this clueless.
Her innocence fades with the truth. It’s there one second and gone the next. Like I’d been looking at a mask the entire time. Justine had been right about her.
“She needs to know you’re here.”
I can’t process anything right now without wanting to scream. “You came to Crystal Gulf to find me?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know that?”
“No. I saw her stretchmarks on her stomach, and she has this picture … I wondered why she never mentioned a kid. My dad won’t talk about her past with me. And I know it’s messed up,” she admits, blushing the color of our barbecue sauce. “I know this is all messed up, but I love her, Jona. There’s always something missing. Always something dull in her eyes.”
“Wait, wait.” I sit back and run a dirty hand through my hair. “You came here to find me for my mom?”
How the hell is that possible?
“To Elisa and my father, I came to Crystal Gulf for college. And I did. That isn’t a lie. I am studying mental health and medicine. My twin brother is mentally ill and an addict. I didn’t lie about anything. I thought I’d play investigator while I was down here. I didn’t think too deeply into it. I applied to five other colleges. I would’ve gone to those easily, but Crystal Gulf was the only one who accepted me. I thought it was fate.”
“But how did you know about me?”
“I looked Elisa up. I found out that she did have a child. That she was from Crystal Gulf. Then I looked for you. Melody, my friend, her brother is a cop. He helped me look for people with the last name Kyles in Crystal Gulf. There weren’t that many, and you had a juvenile record. I didn’t know how to approach you …”
“Until we met on the beach,” I finish for her.
She nods slowly. “We walked right into each other’s lives. That’s fate, Jona, and you know it.”
I don’t know anything. “I didn’t want this.” I point at her, wanting to shake her for coming into my life and kicking up my past and present. “Who told you to come into my life and do this?”
“No one. My stepmother doesn’t know how to be happy, and I think you know why.”
“Yeah, I feel really bad for her.” I push away from the table and grab my keys. “Find your own way home.”
She catches up to me outside. “Jona, please.”
“No!” I scream, making her flinch and stumble back. “How dare you make her the victim?”
“I’m not minimalizing your pain. I’m not!” she insists, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. “Please talk to me. Please, Jona.” Her voice breaks. “Elisa is one of the best people I have ever met. There has to be a good reason why she did what she did.”
“What if there’s not? What if there isn’t a good reason? She was a drug addict who abandoned her son. That’s the only truth I have. And you aren’t going to come into my life and alter my past.” I walk toward her, making her take a step back. “Does your daddy know how his daughter had a condom ready in her back pocket for her step-brother? Does he?” I roar.
She closes her eyes in shame. “This sounds way more messed up than it really is. I thought I’d seduce you, get you on my side, but it backfired. I liked you. You’re attractive, funny, and sweet. I didn’t mean to fall for you.” Her eyes open, and the tears in her eyes make them glimmer like blue stones. “But you made it hard not to. I became obsessed with you. I even moved in to Melody’s frat just to be close to you.” She shakes her head, her entire face puce and ashamed. “I’m so sorry, Jona.”
“Truth be told, I’m not bothered by the almost-incest you almost made me commit. Just another part of my shitty existence. What I can’t deal with, is the insane amount of betrayal. I know!” I shout when she tries to defend herself. “You’re here on a peace mission. You’re here for good.”
“I am!” she shouts back. “I’m here to help my stepmother and my stepbrother. But it all got messed up along the way. Did she really leave you alone at the library?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it. Elisa is so good.”
“Not that good.” I shake her hold off and get in my Charger, locking my doors before she reaches for the handle.
She pounds against the window. “Jona!”
I speed away, so mad, so confused, and so in the past my present is starting to shimmer on the distance like it’s taunting me. I don’t want to go back there, but going forward means doing it without so much of what I want.
So much of what I don’t have.
***
Justine
The sun shimmers off the water and makes the walls teal.
It’s pretty, I guess, and I’ve been content to lie in bed for days, weeks, on end, but my body is starting to beg me for movement. If I get out of this bed, my feet will take me back to Crystal Gulf.
And no one wants that.
It’s early Sunday morning. Bach’s already up. He’s sitting at the table in his boxers, drinking a cup of coffee and flipping through paperwork. He gives me a tight-lipped look when I come in but otherwise doesn’t comment on my appearance.
“Mail came.”
For the first time in weeks, my heart leaps. I refrain from running over to the mail on the counter, but walk briskly, flipping through the pile for what I’m looking for. I tear the envelope open and scour it, looking for anything hopeful. When I find it, my throat burns from holding back my tears.
“I passed.”
He raises his coffee in congratulations and offers a smile, even though we agree on absolutely nothing these days. “You earned it, Jus.”
I think about how proud Jona would be, and it takes every ounce of control I have to keep my feet in place. I’ve been hiding out at Bach’s place. I broke every promise I ever made to the man I love, and we lost our second chance. There’s no way in hell Jona will want to see me. Even though I know I am responsible for his happiness as much as he is my own, I’m not ready to face him.
The moment I do, we’ll be catapulted back to the place we started. Beginnings can’t possibly work the second time around.
My GED weighs heavily in my hands. I’m excited and even understand the emotions for what they are, but it also feels like I’m missing something. I know it’s because Chance is gone and Jona’s waiting for me. Without my boys, this victory feels like it’s just for me. To do something for the betterment of myself, instead of simply trying to survive. But maybe doing the right thing wouldn’t be so devastating and terrifying if I had other options. And maybe the void inside of me wouldn’t be so bent on eating me alive if it knew there was an escape.
“Morning,” Harley mumbles, rubbing her eyes and clumsily grabbing for the coffee pot with her other hand. She’s wearing a pair of panties and one of Bach’s shirts tied at her waist, and there’s a huge hickey on her hip bone.
One glance at Bach and he shoots me a knowing devilish grin. “You tired, babe?” he teases, flashing that handsome grin at her.
Her cheeks brighten, and she gives him a naughty look back. “I was a little preoccupied last night.”
“Hmm. Whatever with?”
“My horny boyfriend.”
“He sounds hot. Is he hot? I bet he’s hot.”
She giggles and swats at him, sinking down at the table with an indulgent grin. “You’re lucky I love you, Bachmen.”
His smile sobers, softens. “I know, Square.”
They’re sickening.
I shuffle to the living room and sink into the sofa, chewing on my thumbnail as my eyes lose focus. Reality wavers like it has been for weeks. It’s easy to lose hours, nights, to the loss. My heart twists in my chest. It’s hard to exist when everything has abruptly dismantled.
“You know,” Harley says from behind me, and I cringe because she’s been up my ass for weeks dropping hints and advice. “I think it’s kind of messed up how you left Jona to deal with everything.”
I chew on my nail harder, glaring out the front window.
“You’re so strong, so resilient. I know this is hard. I know it, Jus, but hiding your head in the sand forever won’t make it any less painful. And poor Jona. You should have seen his face when he came over here.”
My eyes blur with tears.
“That man is wide open right now. He has nothing to lose or hide. What if someone else swoops in?”
Anger and heartache taste bitter on the back of my tongue, turning my thoughts into painful, scorching liquid metal. It hardens in my veins.
“He lost what you lost. You don’t see him running away. And what if you go back to him? Is he just supposed to take you back? What if you run again? You can’t run when shit gets hard. You stay, you stick it out. You fucking fight, because you have to. What if Bach ran every time he remembered his fears?” She hits the couch with her fist, making me flinch; my tears break free and slide silently and hot down my cheeks. “We’d never make it.”
“You don’t get it!” I snap, whirling around on her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“I don’t?” She cocks her head to the side. “Loss is loss. I lost my dad, I lost Dylan, I lost shit Justine, but when I had something to gain, I didn’t run away. I fought, even when it felt like I’d lose over and over again, I found a reason to keep going.”
“I can’t fight anymore.” I collapse on my side. “I feel like he took a part of me with him.” My hands knead my empty belly, and the thought of it no longer growing a life, sends me over the edge and into the abyss.
“When people go away, they leave holes behind. You have to learn to put a band aid over them. Grow up and stop running.”
When I don’t move, she growls. Harley stomps over to the front door and slips on her flip-flops, and then grabs her purse off the entryway table by the door. “Let’s go,” she snaps.
Her eyes are both burning and terrified; she’s as pissed off by me as she is afraid of what she sees.
“Where are we going?” I relent, giving in to her like I always do.
“We’re going to go spy on someone.” She grabs my arm and yanks me into the street and into her car, speeding south toward Crystal Gulf.
“You’re not taking me home, are you?” I contemplate jumping out of the moving car.
“No,” is all she says, jaw set. “I’m going to show you what you’ll become if you keep running. If you keep pushing everyone away—and it isn’t like we have a ton of family—you’ll become this pathetic excuse of a woman.”
“I’m not in the mood for show and tell.”
“Too bad.”
I sigh unpleasantly and gaze out the window, chewing on my cheek, on my lip, on my nail—I have this nervous tick I never had before. Uneasiness settles in my bones. The closer to Crystal Gulf, the harder it is to forget the blood that seeped from my panties. To shove aside the horrified heartbreak that blossomed in Jona’s eyes like a twisted gothic flower.
“Ask me something boring.”
I feel her gaze on me and sense her confused hesitation a second before she gives in. “What’s your shoe size?”
I smile sadly out the window. “Eight. What’s the nastiest thing you’ve ever done with Bach?”
“That’s boring?”
“For us, I think it’s perfectly normal.” I glance at her from the corner of my eye, smiling for the first time in weeks.
“Sadly, I agree.” But her lips lift slowly. “We had sex in the swimming pool at my mom’s house while my cousin Carolyn watched. Well, she pretended to be asleep, and we pretended not to notice her.” Her throaty laugh had me rolling my eyes.
“You rebel, you.” Even her kink is boring. “Do you want kids?”
“Yes. Not now, but I do. I don’t think Bach’s even close to ready to have kids. He still has nightmares. They’re less frequent, but he still has them.”
I frown. “Nightmares?”
Her sigh is reluctant and concerned. “You can’t tell him I told you that.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“Let’s wait until I take you where we’re going. It’s all tied together. Will you try to have another one?”
My heart crashes into my soul, desperate to find hope, but there is none left. “I haven’t even thought of it. I don’t want to replace him.”
“You’re not replacing anyone. You’re living your life.”
Isn’t that the problem? Living a life I’d already ruined time and time again.
When we get to Crystal Gulf, she continues across the railroad tracks. She drives down a dirt road and parks at the end near a field of dry grass and tossed items. I spot a broken dresser and toys in the field, along with empty bottles and old rotting car parts.
Harley gazes down the street intently. “You see that house? The one with the garbage can knocked over in front?” I nod, but she isn’t looking. She’s staring down that house. “That’s the house Bach grew up in. The one on the right is Dylan’s.”
I’d never been to Bach’s house. He never let me into that part of his life. “What does his house have to do with me?”
“Bach’s mother neglected him. His father was an addict and abused him relentlessly. My poor Bach.” She sniffs, glaring at the house. “When he was seven, he had a fight with his father, and he ran out back to hide in his father’s shed. His father locked him inside and set it on fire. He barely escaped alive. In his nightmares, he never does.”
And suddenly, like my own broken parts, I understand Bach Bachmen for who he is. A child who was abused but who is now a man who fights to survive. “How did he get out?”
“Hillary’s mom, Patty, pulled him out. He was passed out, though. And didn’t realize it was her until he and I met.”
“That’s messed up, but what do they have to do with me?”
“Bach doesn’t know I come here. He has no idea, or he’d flip. He hasn’t spoken to his mother since he was seven. She heard him, Justine. She heard him screaming and didn’t pull him out of that shed.”
That does it. My throat burns, and I try to fight the image of a little Bach with his sea green eyes begging his mother to protect him, to save him.
“She didn’t save her son. She didn’t pull him out of that fire. She almost killed the man I love more than anyone or anything in this entire world. Do you know how she got there?”
“How?” I hear myself whisper, listening to her words like they’re a lifeline.
“Because she ran. She drank. Bad patterns repeat their selves. She married a man who abused her son. She let that son starve, be alone, burn—she wasn’t a strong, beautiful, capable woman like you are. You have to stop running, Justine, or you’re going to end up rotting away in a house with a burnt shed in your backyard as the only memento that you even had a life. Do you hear me, honey?” She grabs my arm until I look at her; tears shimmer in her golden eyes. “Do you want your kid to ever feel the way you felt growing up? With a father who choked her and a mother who tried, but not hard enough?”
My head shakes automatically.
“Then you fight. You take your pain and turn it into magic. Can I take you home? To Jona?”
I crawl across the gearshift and fall into her arms. Harley holds me as I let it loose, letting me cling to her, letting me spill my heart all over her like she’s fine being drenched in my pain.
“Yes,” my heart whispers, taking control of my lips. “Take me home.”