Chapter Twenty-One
Jordan
When I was fourteen years old, Maisy Richards kicked me in the nuts at Ben Castle’s birthday party because she’d given me a handjob in the hall closet, then caught me making out with Sophie Jenkins an hour later.
It literally feels like your testicles have exploded and the flying debris is obliterating your insides like a dirty bomb, leaving you feeling pain of the unimaginable kind.
Up until exactly thirty seconds ago, I’d believed that was the most painful thing I would ever feel.
I was wrong.
Because standing here, seeing the crumpled look of devastation on Mia’s face after telling her that her mother—the mother who left her behind to be raised by a father who repeatedly beat her—is, in fact, the woman who raised me.
“I-I don’t understand…” She stumbles back, her knee making contact with the office desk with a sickening thud.
I reach for her, but she doesn’t even seem to have registered the pain, which only aids to show me how bad this is.
How badly I’ve screwed up.
“I’m so sorry.” I shake my head, disconsolate.
“She’s … my … your mom … dead.” Her hand grips her stomach as if she’s in actual pain.
“Mia…” I step toward her, needing to be close to her.
Her hand goes up, stopping me.
“Mia,” my dad says in his gentle ‘cop’ voice. “You should sit down. It’s a terrible shock you’ve had … sit. Let me get you a glass of water.”
She looks at my dad with a confused look on her face. Then her eyes slice back to me, and the way she looks at me … through me. Her eyes are ice-cold. The pain slides through me as easily as a hot knife in butter.
Then her eyes drift across the room to the wall, and I know what she’s looking at without me even needing to turn.
She’s looking at the framed photo of me, Dad and Mom. It was the last picture we had taken together before she died. The day I was leaving to go traveling.
Her face crumbles, and tears fall from her eyes.
She covers her face with her hands. I hear a sob emit from her, so painful it shatters my heart, leaving nothing but dust in its place.
I can’t stay away.
I cross the room in quick strides, and wrap my arms around her.
It’s only a second before she’s pushing me off with a strength I didn’t know she had.
“Don’t touch me … don’t ever touch me again.” She dries her face on her sleeve, turns and runs out the office.
I look at my dad for guidance because I literally don’t know what the hell to do.
“Go after her,” he urges.
I’m out of the door a second later.
I catch sight of Mia disappearing into her room. I run down the hall, expecting her door to be closed, but it’s not. It’s wide open.
I don’t go in the room out of respect for her space. So I stand in the doorway, gripping the frame to keep myself from going to her.
She’s pushing her feet into her sneakers and grabbing her purse.
“Mia?”
She ignores me, pulling her jacket on.
“Mia, please. Talk to me.”
She grabs her car keys, swings her purse over her shoulder, and without a word she pushes past me and walks quickly down the hall.
I’m at her heel, following, trying to talk to her.
“Please don’t go … just wait … I know how hard this must be for you … how much you’re hurting right now … but if you’ll just let me explain…”
She stops outside on the porch—the porch where I made love to her only a few hours ago, when I lied to her again—and slowly turns around.
The cold in her eyes, and the dead look on her face, tell me what I already fear.
I’ve lost her.
There is no getting past this.
I lied to her. I let her down. Men have been letting Mia down her whole life, and now I’ve just added my name to that list.
“Explain? You want to explain now? You’ve had DAYS TO EXPLAIN!” she yells. “DAYS TO TELL ME THE TRUTH, BUT YOU LIED … you lied.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “She loved you … not me – you. She left me with him. God, she must have hated me…”
“No, Mia. No. You need to hear everything, you need to let me explain.”
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING MORE!” she screams. Tears are streaming down her face, and her hand is clutching her stomach again.
My eyes are stinging from her pain. I rub them roughly with my hand.
“I have to go,” she says in an eerily small voice, her eyes sweeping to her car. “I have to get out of here.”
A fist of absolute agony twists in my chest.
She runs for her car, unlocking it on her approach. I scramble after her, grabbing her arm, trying to keep her with me.
“Don’t go,” I plead. “Not like this. Please, Mia. Just stay, talk to me. I can fix this. I will fix this.”
Her empty eyes lift to mine. “This isn’t fixable … I’m not fixable. I was broken a long time ago beyond repair.”
She yanks her arm from my hand, climbs in her car, and drives away, leaving me in a cloud of dust and agony.
I don’t realize I’m sitting on the gravel until I feel Dad’s hand on my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Jordan. I’m sorry that you’re paying for the mistakes Belle made a long time ago.”
I scrub my face with my hands, then get to my feet.
“No … I just … I can’t lose her. I have to make this right. I’m gonna go after her—”
“No.” He places a firm hand on my shoulder, holding me in place. “That’s not a good idea. If you go after her now, it could only make things worse. Give her time to cool down, process her hurt.”
“But what if she doesn’t come back?” The pain in my chest twists to pure fucking agony. I rub at the ache, feeling breathless.
“Her things are here, Jordan. She has to come back for them.”
“No.” I shake my head, knowing how she left everything she owned behind in Boston when she ran. “Material things don’t matter to her. She left everything behind in Boston, so a few clothes left behind won’t make her come back here.”
A look of concern twists his expression for a moment. Then he pats my shoulder. “She cares about you, a lot. She’ll come back. If she doesn’t, then we’ll find her.”
“How?”
He puts his arm around my shoulders, and starts to steer me back inside. “Have you forgotten that your old man used to be a cop? Finding people is what I’m good at.” He smiles, trying to be helpful, positive, encouraging.
I nod, not really feeling it because my fear isn’t not finding her. I’ll track the earth until the day I do.
No, my fear is what will be waiting for me when I do see her again.