Chapter Twenty-One
Jarrett
What’s happened to her?
She turns and runs like an animal in fear.
I’m not letting her get away this time. Not now, not as we’re just starting to find our footing together. We’ve each got our demons, our fears, our pain, but we’re stronger together. I can’t let her face whatever is bothering her alone.
I chase after her.
I catch her a quarter mile down the road. She’s fast, but not fast enough.
I reach out and seize her by the arm. She tries to shake me off, but I tighten my grip and pull her to a stop.
“You’re not going anywhere, Selena. Not until we talk and figure this shit out.”
Spinning, she hits me across the face with a right hook.
“Just let me go, Jarrett.”
She’s always had a good punch on her and a few stars flash across my vision as her knuckles crack me in the jaw. Anyone else, I’d hit them back. But her, I pull in close and wrap her up in my arms. Squeezing her tight against my chest.
“What’s gotten into you?”
She won’t stop trembling, she won’t stop struggling.
“What’s wrong?” I say again.
“Just shut up and let me go,” she says, still quaking in my grip.
“Not until you’re fucking honest with me about what’s going on,” I say. She won’t look me in the eyes, but I can see the moisture on her cheeks. She’s been crying. “We’re two fucked up people, Selena. We’ve ruined our own lives over and over again, it’s a fucking miracle that we have anything right now. But we’re stronger together. For the first time that I can remember, I feel like I have someone I can count on, someone who can help me get things under control. Like this might be a fucking second chance for the two of us.”
“Second chance? What a fucking delusion.”
“When this charity thing is over and my club’s finished with this business thing, I want to ask you to stick around. I want you and Jake to stay with me while you get on your feet.”
“What do you mean ‘stick around’?”
“I want to see where things go between us. I don’t think Reno was a fluke. You and I could have a future here — there are some good schools in town, and better ones down in Tacoma, which would be great for Jake.”
Something in what I say makes her howl like a wounded animal.
She spits in my face and hits me again.
“I have my own shit to take care of, Jarrett. I have my own fucking family to care for. And I’m not your fucking old lady,” she says. “Let me fucking go.”
The pain in her voice is worse than any slap in the face; I’ve never seen her this hurt. Even when she was a mess back in Reno, working herself to the bone, drinking and doing whatever she had to just to keep her and her son alive.
I let her go, though everything inside me is screaming out against it.
I need to trust her.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Let me go, Jarrett. That’s it. You can’t help me any more than that. Just give me space to figure my shit out on my own,” she says, then she looks me in the eyes. I can see every tear brimming in the corners of her eyes and pain deeper than I can imagine swirling in those hazel orbs. “Just trust me, ok?”
“I trust you,” I say without hesitation. I let her go and she takes a step back from me. “I don’t want to lose what we’ve started.”
She forces a small smile. “What we’ve started? You mean me crashing at your place? Or the times we’ve fucked? Cause that’s all this is.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. You’ve always fought your problems on your own. Except the one time you asked for help, when you were up against a problem you couldn’t handle on your own. And now I’m just to expect that, suddenly, the other time you come to me — after everything that happened between us, after you left me for dead — that there isn’t something that’s beyond FUBAR’d with your life?” I say. The blood pounding in my ears in rage is so deafening I can hardly hear my own scream. “I might be an alcoholic, I might have my own fucking demons, I might be violent, but I’m not fucking stupid.”
She rolls her eyes in a way intended to make me want to wring her neck, but the hurt in those hazel orbs is so glaring that not even her feigned disdain can hide it.
“You’re just a fucking tool, Jarrett. That’s all you are. Something I can use and throw away when I’m fucking done with you. And I am fucking done with you.”
“Then why did you come here? If it didn’t mean a damn to you, if I don’t mean a damn to you, then why the fuck did you even show up? What’s with this story about needing a place to stay so you and Jake can get on your feet? Was that a fucking lie? You’ve done fine on your fucking own. Hell, you’ve been doing it on your own your whole goddamn life. Tell me that, Selena.”
Her smile disappears and raging fire lights her eyes.
She spits in my face and storms off down the road.
“Get the fuck out of my way and don’t ever fucking presume to talk to me about my kid,” she shouts at me over her shoulder. “I’m not your second chance, Jarrett Hayes. I’m not your shot at a normal life. I’m just some bitch who used you, and you should just forget I ever fucking existed.”
I let her leave. She’s right.
For a man like me, there’s no such thing as a second chance.