CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Skye
Six Years Earlier…
I didn’t know such bliss existed.
Lying in Jake’s arms in the quietness of the tent, our bodies curled around each other felt even more sensual than the lovemaking I’d just experienced.
I had no regrets. Yes, I would be sad when he left. I would miss him. But I’d have this memory to hold on to while I went to college and moved on with the rest of my life. These few blessed hours would give me something to reflect on during the lonely nights ahead.
Because they would be lonely.
I already knew I couldn’t be with Trey this way. The feelings just weren’t there for me. Or the attraction. The need. Trey was my friend, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to lead him on. It wouldn’t be fair to me either.
Shutting my eyes, I listened to Jake’s heart under my ear, felt the rise and fall of his chest.
I’d be kind to Trey if he said something to me about becoming a couple, letting him down as gently as I could. Unable to bear the thought of hurting him, I prayed he wouldn’t get up the nerve to ask me. But I’d worry about that another day.
Right now, I concentrated on the magic of the moment. I listened to Jake’s breathing, matching my own with his. I should probably go. I absolutely needed to leave before it grew light outside and someone saw me sneaking out of Jake’s tent. I wouldn’t want Trey to hear about us that way. It would be horrible.
Jake sighed and turned, pulling me even tighter into his embrace. I’d go soon. I just needed a few more minutes of being where I most wanted to be. I snuggled closer as my eyelids fluttered shut. Just a few more minutes and I’d go.
***
A hiss jerked me awake. At first, I thought it was a snake, that Monty Python was on the loose again. But no, I was still in Jake’s tent. The hiss sounded again—the zipper of the tent door—and a voice called out, “Don’t tell me the party’s ov—”
Trey appeared through the opened door flap… and stopped. For as long as I lived, the look on his face would be burned into my brain. I reached for the blanket to hide my nakedness, but it was too late.
Surprise. Horror. Grief.
In that split second, his expression represented so many emotions, it would have been impossible to separate them all.
“Fuck!” he screamed, turning around, as if he couldn’t see us, it might not be real.
“Trey,” Jake yelled, scrambling for his clothes, but the sound of our friend running away was the only response.
We both dressed with rapid speed, Jake cursing the entire time. My heart was hammering. What would we say to Trey when we found him? Would he ever forgive us? Me?
We never got the chance to find out.
As we jumped into Jake’s car to chase Trey down, the unimaginable happened.
Trey in the middle of the road.
A driver with an alcohol level two times the legal limit.
The image of the car hitting him played on repeat in my brain.
I was in shock for the first week after Trey’s death. Aside from the funeral, I barely left my bed. It wasn’t until Mom forced me to get up and run a couple errands for her that I even bothered to shower or run a brush through my rat’s nest of curls.
Mom needed a few things at the grocery, so I trudged in, grabbed a cart, and began filling it up. At the checkout counter, one old lady was gossiping with another.
“And isn’t that Jake Truman leaving tomorrow for boot camp?”
My head snapped up at Jake’s name.
“Yes, he is,” the other woman said, “never expected to see that one in the military. I can’t even imagine what he was thinking to join the Navy like that. It’s so—”
I didn’t hear the rest. I abandoned my cart and ran from the store, still unable to believe Jake was going into the military. Tomorrow, one of the women had said.
Racing to his house, I didn’t think he was going to let me in at first. Only when I began pounding on the door with both fists, did it finally open. He looked terrible, even worse than the day after his worst bender.
“What do you want?”
Pain sliced through me at the cruelty of his words, the disgust in his expression, but I pushed past him and stepped inside his house. “So, you were just going to leave without saying goodbye?”
He shrugged and pushed his fingers through his hair before blinking at me with bloodshot eyes. “What does it matter?”
I stared at him, incredulous. “What does it matter?” My voice was high and squeaky, and I was forced to clear my throat before going on. “You’re my best friend. That’s why it matters. I love you. That’s why it matters. You said you loved me. That. Is. Why. It. Matters.” I knew my voice had taken on a pleading tone, but I couldn’t stop it as I begged, “Jake, please don’t do this.”
His lip curled up into a snarl. “Do what? Pretend that everything isn’t completely fucked up? Don’t you get it? Things will never be the same. Do you know what we did, Skye? We killed him! We might not have fired a gun or been behind the wheel of that car, but we killed him just the same.”
He was right.
Guilt ripped into me, taking over all the other emotions. “I’m so sorry.”
He scoffed. “Sorry for what, Skye? Sorry for coming onto me? Sorry for batting your eyelashes and begging me to fuck you?” His voice went high, mimicking my tone. “I want you, Jake. I’m in love with you, Jake. Make love to me, Jake, just one time. It’ll be our little secret.”
I felt the punch of each word and bile rose into my throat. “So, this is my fault?”
His jaw ticked, his nostrils flaring with the heat of his emotion. “I didn’t say that.”
“You practically did,” I shouted, my hands clutching my churning stomach. “You just implied that if I hadn’t initiated things with you that night, Trey would still be alive. How is that not my fault?”
“Because I said yes!” he roared, causing me to back up a step. “I took you to my tent and stripped off your clothes and stuffed my cock inside you all while knowing how wrong it was. It’s me, Skye. It’s my fault. I should have been strong enough to walk away from you, and because I didn’t, the best person I know died hating my guts.”
The horrible night came rushing back to me, and I remembered everything in living color. How I’d pleaded with him to be with me. How much I’d wanted him. How he’d said that if Trey found out, it would kill him. And it had.
He was right. Trey died because of me. Even after we had sex, I should have left his tent and gone home. But I’d stayed, wanting to sleep beside him, wanting to extend what little time we had left.
“I’m sorry,” I told Jake as I backed toward the door of his house. “You’re right. Because of me, Trey saw us together and ran. Died.”
Taking one last look at him, I turned and reached for the door. His voice stopped me. “Skye…”
I turned back to him, hope a living thing under my skin. But when I saw his face, all hope evaporated, turning into a ghost that would haunt me forever. “Yes.”
“Do me a favor.”
My heart twisted. Even now in his agony, he was so very beautiful to me. “Yes. Anything.”
“Forget I ever existed.”
I didn’t reply, just turned and walked out the door.
I tried to forget and ended up sleeping most of the time. As the weeks passed, I sank into a terrible depression that felt like quicksand pulling me under. The harder I tried to be okay, the more it sucked me down. Hours turned into days that turned into weeks, and still I laid there, trying to forget.
One morning, I threw up. I did the same the next day. And the next. The smell of food cooking in the kitchen would make me gag. Since I was so sick and was mostly sleeping, I didn’t really notice that my period was late.
Mom was worried and tried to make me see a doctor, but I resisted it too. I just wanted to sleep. I was so incredibly tired. The very effort of going to the bathroom left me exhausted. I missed another period, but by then, I was glad. It was one less thing I had to deal with.
One night, I had a dream. For the first time in two months, it wasn’t about Jake or Trey. It wasn’t about the grim reaper pounding on my door. Or guilt pointing its boney finger in my direction. In the dream was a baby. I was holding it, smiling down into the adorable face as it grinned back at me.
I woke up with a start.
As the hours passed, I couldn’t shove the image away. Couldn’t sleep away the knowing of what the dream meant. Mom was pleased when I took a shower and washed my hair. She looked relieved when I told her I was going out for a little while. I didn’t tell her where I was going and she didn’t ask, just told me to be careful.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I drove two towns away to buy a pregnancy test. I couldn’t be in denial anymore and needed to face this possibility.
Jake and I only had sex that once. Well, twice. And he’d worn a condom. But I also remembered how the condom had slipped off when he was inside me the second time. My high school’s sex education teacher had always said it only took one strong swimmer if the timing was right.
The timing must have been incredibly right, and Jake’s sperm must have been an Olympic champion because there I was. Alone. Peeing on a stick in the drugstore’s single restroom.
Three minutes had never passed so quickly or so slowly. I hadn’t known my heart could beat so hard. My stomach could roll so sickeningly without twisting its way from my body.
Positive.
I just stared at the plus sign, euphoria and misery battling an unwinnable war in my head.
I went straight back out into the pharmacy and bought a second test.
Positive.
On shaky legs, I left, walked across the street, and bought the biggest soda they had, downing it in long, churning swallows. When I could pee again, I went back to the drugstore and bought a third test.
Positive.
It hadn’t even taken the full three minutes for the plus sign to stare back at me. Under the observant eyes of the checkout lady, I bought a fourth test and left with it, deciding to wait until the morning to try again. “Good luck, honey,” she said on my way out, and I burst into tears.
Positive.
I didn’t tell a soul for another couple months, not until the bump began to reveal itself. After all, the only two people in the entire world I would have told such a thing to were gone. One by accident. The second by choice.
I considered all my options, swinging from joy to depression and back again.
I’m having Jake’s baby! one side of my brain squealed in delight.
I’m having Jake’s baby, the other side moaned in total despair.
Happy or sad, good or bad, right or wrong… I was having Jake’s baby. Alone.
By the time I finally told my parents about the pregnancy, I’d decided to keep the paternity secret. Even when Mom and Dad hounded me for the truth, I wouldn’t say. It was one of the reasons I left home and moved in with Cadence. That, and the disappointed looks they kept giving me. I knew they would never have kicked me out, and they would have helped me the best they could. Maybe it was my stubbornness, or maybe it was my lack of self-worth that wouldn’t allow me to stay with people I’d failed so completely.
Plus, I needed to get away from that town. Get away from the memories that haunted me everywhere I turned. I couldn’t go to a store or even look at a tree without remembering my friends. The mourning was terrible.
It didn’t matter anyway. By then, Jake had finished boot camp at The Great Lakes Naval Training Center off Lake Michigan and had gone off to the next levels of training, or so rumor had it.
Forget I ever existed.
I decided to leave Jake alone, let him move on with his life, not burden him with more guilt about what was growing in my stomach. I didn’t know if the decision was right, but it was the one I made. And when Jake didn’t come back, didn’t write or call or email or text, I knew he was really gone. Really didn’t want me in his life.
As my belly grew, I made another decision. I would funnel all the love I had for the father to the child.
Present Day…
I wasn’t sure how long I cried after Jake left, and I wasn’t sure what time it was when I fell into an exhausted sleep. But when I woke, I started crying all over again.
I wasn’t hurt. At least not badly. Not physically.
Emotionally, I was shattered.
I’d just tried to comfort him as he thrashed in the nightmare of his dream. I’d just laid a hand on him, and before I could blink, he launched himself up at me, his hands at my throat, squeezing down like a vice.
Nothing I did could make him stop. I clawed and kicked and hit. Tried to scream.
His eyes had been black, devoid of all emotion as he stared into my face, seeing and not seeing.
Then he blinked, horror spreading over his expression, and he let me go as quickly as he had clamped down. I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come in at first, and I thought he’d damaged my trachea and I’d asphyxiate right there on my bed.
In the horror of that moment, before the first sip of cleansing air entered my lungs and I began to cough, I thought of Jagger.
Not just how much I would miss him, but how he’d have to live with the knowledge that his father killed his mother — accidently or on purpose wouldn’t matter. Jake might even go to jail, leaving Cadence to take on the responsibility of a small child grieving the loss of both parents.
Then the air came and light returned to the dark world I was thrown into, and my next thought turned to Jake. I knew he didn’t mean to do it. I knew now why he left every night. I knew that what was wrong with him was even deeper than I first believed.
And I didn’t know how to make it right.
Beside me, my phone began to ring, and I dove for it, wincing as the muscles in my neck twisted in the process. I didn’t recognize the number, but I didn’t care. I answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Miss Skye Crawford?”
A deep sense of foreboding hit me at the man’s formal tone. “Yes.”
“Good morning, Miss Crawford. This is George Richards of Thompson, Black, and Richards. I serve as an attorney for Mr. Jake Truman, and he has enlisted my assistance in a few legal matters. I apologize for the early morning phone call, but he insisted it was urgent.”
I glanced at the clock. It was a little after seven a.m. “I’m sorry, Mr. Richards. What does that have to do with me?”
“This morning, I received a video message from Mr. Truman asking that I alter his will immediately to include you and your son. I’m also to set up accounts in your name, and a significant trust for your son. As soon as I am able to get a few details from you, you’ll be able to access the funds in the account as early as this afternoon.”
Panic seized my chest. “Mr. Richards, you said Jake sent you a video message?”
“Yes, Miss Crawford. I received it at six fourteen this morning. I must say that such an urgent request is highly unusual and—”
“How did he look?”
“Pardon me?”
“How did he look in the video?” I shouted into the phone.
“Well, he looked a bit haggard if truth be told, but otherwise very calm and rational. He was very specific in regard to what he wished to do with his vast estate. I found nothing amiss aside from the urgency.”
I jumped from the bed and began pulling on some clothes, my usual khaki shorts and tank top. “What else did he say?” Grabbing a thin cardigan, I yanked it on.
“Nothing besides the instructions. He seemed very certain about the arrangements he wanted made. I, of course, can’t give out specifics other than that he wanted you and your son included in his will. He left very few details, which is why I’m calling. Your son’s name is Jagger Daniel Crawford, is that correct?”
A scarf was hanging from the shelf, and I wrapped it around my neck as I stuffed my feet into the first pair of sandals I came to. “Yes. Did he say why the urgency?”
“Well, no. I, of course, have read of your new relationship and his paternity of Jagger in the news, and only thought he felt an urgency to make sure you and the child were taken care of should anything happen to him.”
Those last words rang in my ears.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Richards, I need to go,” I said as I grabbed my purse and headed from my bedroom.
“But Miss Crawford, if you could just provide your social security number and—”
I tapped the end button and burst into Cadence’s room. She jumped up, karate chop hands in place. She cursed, but relaxed when she saw it was me, then immediately grew alarmed again when she took a good look at my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Can I borrow your car, and can you watch Jagg for a few hours?”
She snatched up the keys from her bedside table and tossed them at me. “Of course. What’s wrong?” she repeated.
“I don’t know, but I need to find Jake. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.”
She was right behind me as I ran from her room. “Call me when you find him, okay?”
“Okay,” I shouted and ran out the front door.
Even for so early, I began to sweat as I ran to Cadence’s car, tapping Jake’s number on my phone. It rang and rang.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
“Miss Crawford, can you please tell me how you came to be in a relationship with Jake Truman?”
“Miss Crawford, is Jagger his son?”
“Miss Crawford, has there been a paternity test to confirm if Jake Truman is your son’s father?”
The questions rang out at me as Jake’s voice message clicked on. I hung up and called again as I clicked the key fob to open the Ford Focus’ door and slid behind the wheel.
Voice mail.
I tapped call again. Nothing.
Panic hit me like a train as the statistics ran through my mind.
In the latest study, roughly twenty veterans committed suicide every day. It was heart breaking. Our bravest heroes came back so broken they couldn’t see the possibility of living one more day.
Would Jake become a statistic?
A pap jumped in front of the car, snapping away with his camera. I waved for him to move, honked the horn, but he kept clicking away. I inched forward, tapping his thighs and he finally moved to the side, camera still clicking. The going was slow as they continued to try to close around me—until I was finally free.
Pressing the gas harder, I tore down the street, glad I was out before rush hour. I hit call again. Nothing.
I’d never been so afraid.
The last time I’d been so scared was the day I found out I was pregnant.
And now, as I pulled up in front of his building, I was filled with terror that what happened last night might have finally pushed him over the edge.
When I ran into the building, the elevator operator recognized me, wishing me a good morning.
“Jake’s floor. Please hurry.”
He punched the button, looking worried as he frowned at me. I knew I must look a mess. “Is there cause for concern? Should I notify anyone? Police?”
I stared at him. I didn’t know.
“I’ll call if I need you,” I promised. I didn’t want to embarrass Jake if I was overreacting and he was simply asleep, his phone powered off so he could rest. Or if I found…
I gave myself a mental shake. No. He was fine. He wouldn’t do something so stupid. He might’ve been broken, but he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.
Nearly twenty veterans kill themselves every day.
My heart was pounding in my chest as the elevator opened. My hands shook as I reached into my purse for the key he’d given me. A tear slid down my cheek as I stuck it into the lock.
With a final prayer, I pushed the door open and stepped in. The place was quiet. Too quiet.
“Jake!” My voice was a choked whisper, so I tried again. “Jake!”
He was sitting on the couch in his nearly barren apartment, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a gun in the other.
“Oh, Jake.”
He looked at me, his eyes swollen and raw. “I’m sorry.”
Mind racing, I rushed to him, one of my hands coming down on the one holding the gun, the other going to his beautiful face as I climbed onto his lap, straddling his thighs. “I love you, Jake. You have nothing to be sorry for. We’ll get through this. We found each other for a reason. I refuse to let you ever leave me again.”
“But, Skye. I nearly killed you.”
“But you didn’t. We’ll figure it out. I’ll learn how to wake you or not wake you when you dream. You’ll go into therapy in order to process some of this guilt. But you aren’t leaving me. You’re not leaving your son. I won’t let you.”
Slowly, I slipped the gun from his grasp, relieved when he didn’t fight me for it. I knew nothing about guns, so I held it gingerly, making sure the business end was pointing away from us.
“I don’t deserve you. Either of you.”
“Too bad. You’re stuck with us, so get used to it.”
He blinked, his eyes starting to focus. “What if I hurt Jagger?”
“You won’t.”
“But what if I do?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I just know.”
He shook his head, his hand still lying limply under mine. “Why do you trust me?”
“Because I know you. I’ve known you for forever and I’ve seen how much better you are even now. This is a blip, Jake. A blip on the radar, a cruel reminder that it’s time for you to get some help. Do you know how happy you’ve made me these past weeks? How happy you’ve made your little boy? Don’t give up on us. Please. Don’t run this time. Stick it out. And I swear to you, I’ll stick it out too.”
His shoulders shook with suppressed emotion, and he reached for the gun in my hand. I tightened my grip, willing to fight him before I’d give it up.
“Trust me,” he said, and I looked into his eyes. Saw the goodness there. The strength.
Still watching him closely, I let it go. Watched him pull back the metal piece on top, a bullet flying out, making me jump. He pushed a button and the thing that held the rest of the bullets fell onto his lap. He did something else to the gun, causing it to open all the way before turning it to me. I could see all the way through it, and I realized he was proving that it was empty. He tossed it on the cushion several feet away.
I was still sitting on him, and he rested his hands on my thighs, and I covered his with my palms, taking comfort in his warmth.
“For six years, I’ve known what to do. Even if my mind didn’t know, muscle memory kicked in, and I was able to do it anyway. I was good in the Navy. Strong and competent. Even with everything that went down with Trey, with you, I was able to push past it, feel like I was doing something important. My men knew they could count on me to have their backs. And just like that…” he snapped his fingers, “something went wrong in my head. I’d shake when I held a gun. I hesitated. I saw faces where there weren’t any faces. Danger where there was none.”
The fingers on my thighs tightened and loosened as I watched him relive those moments that haunted him in his mind.
“I became paranoid. I had these nightmares. Daymares. Nothing in the world looked right. I left the Navy. I was no good to them anymore. I thought I’d get over it, that time would heal all wounds.” He barked out a laugh. “They just festered, reopening time and again. It hurt, and I just wanted the pain to stop.”
Raising a hand to his jaw, I cupped his face, the stubble there tickling my palm. “One of the things that I remember most from my training is how our moods work. When we are in acceptance of the facts and possibilities in our lives, we can find peace and hope. But when we refuse to accept the facts and possibilities in our lives, we live in anger and depression, with ultimate depression leading to suicide. When you sat here with that gun, you couldn’t accept the possibilities that things could be better, different. Too many people feel that way.”
He turned his face and kissed my palm. “I think I’ve refused to accept a lot of things for a long time.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
“It seems wrong to just accept it. It’s kind of like flipping that person off, telling them they no longer matter.”
I shook my head. “Acceptance isn’t like that. It’s being able to say that rocks are hard and water is wet. Trey is dead, and I hate it. It’s saying that I wish it could be different, but it isn’t, so I must accept that he’s gone and I forgive myself for the role I played in it all. I know it sounds silly, but I actually went to his grave and asked him to forgive me, talked to him about everything that happened, and it helped. I promised to live each day lifting up his memory instead of having it live in the darkness of shame.”
“That sounds so easy.”
I pushed his hair back, running my fingers through his strands. “It isn’t. It’s hard. Forgiveness isn’t a single declaration. Sometimes we have to say it over and over. I remember some church study thing when I was a kid. Mom dragged me to it, and I hated it at the time. I still don’t know how I feel about religion and all that, but I remember the teacher talking one time about how we should forgive each other seventy times seven times.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, it is. She said the number represented a boundless number of times, and I’ve thought about it over the past few years. I think it means that with some things, we have to forgive over and over again until we feel free from it. So, it’s a process.” I touched his hard chest, the muscles under it. “How often do you work out?”
“Every day.”
“So maybe your mind is like your muscle. It needs attention every day. You wouldn’t just stop hitting the gym suddenly and expect the muscle to stay the same, but we as a society expect our brains to just work properly without giving them the same attention. When I get my doctorate one day, one of my goals will be to help break the stigma surrounding mental health. I want it to be seen as seriously as a physical problem would be seen.”
Jake smiled. “You’ll do it too. I’m already feeling…” he shook his head, frowning again, “better isn’t really the right word.”
“Hopeful? Like you can accept the possibility of being better in the future?”
He stroked my cheek. “Yeah. That.”
He frowned as he seemed to notice my scarf for the first time. My heart started thudding harder as he unwrapped it, but I didn’t try to stop him. He needed to find forgiveness and acceptance with this too.
Hissing, he touched the skin of my throat. “I’m so sorry, Skye.”
I raised my chin. “I’m not.” His eyes snapped up to me, but I didn’t give him time to tell me I was crazy. Maybe I was. “If last night hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be sitting together like this right now. We wouldn’t be talking about things that could release us from the past so we can move forward into a future. There is a lesson in everything, Jake. It’s our job to honor the lesson and use it to do better next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“You’re right. There won’t be because next time I’ll know how to wake you differently or simply leave you alone if you’re in the middle of a horrible dream. We’ll both learn how to do this, make it work.”
He looked me in the eye. “I’ll go to therapy.”
I smiled. “I know you will. And maybe we’ll drive back home and visit Trey’s grave.”
He was silent for a long time, but I watched him process the option. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen Uncle Paul. It might be a good visit.”
“Yeah, it will. I haven’t been back home in months, so we could visit my parents too.”
Jake’s eyes widened, and his head fell back. “Quick, hand me my gun.”
I slapped his chest. “Not funny.”
“Sorry, it wasn’t, but I’m sure your parents hate me for abandoning you like that.”
“They actually didn’t know you were Jagger’s father until the tabloids spilled the beans.”
His eyes clouded. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to cause you any additional pain. And I promised to keep that night a secret, and I did for a long time. Except Cadence. She doesn’t count because I tell her everything.”
He grinned. “Cadence is good people.”
I grinned back. “Yes, she is. The best.”
He lifted a hand, and I pressed my palm to his. We linked fingers, and I felt my world click into place.
“Sorry in advance if my breath smells like a cat shit in my mouth, but I’ve got to kiss you right now. Is that okay?”
I grinned and wrinkled my nose. “I think I can suffer through it.”
He pulled me close until our lips pressed together. My phone rang, but I ignored it, ignored Jake’s breath as he cupped my ass in both hands. The ringing stopped, then started again, its shrill tone breaking into the intimacy of the moment. It stopped, but only for a second.
“You need to get that?” Jake whispered against my mouth.
I sighed and reached for my purse. It was Cadence.
“Hey. I’m o—”
“Do you have Jagger with you?”
Panic hit, quick and fast. “No, isn’t he in his bedroom asleep?”
Jake tensed, sitting up straighter.
“No. I’ve checked everywhere. Inside. Outside.” Her voice was a misery of panic. “He’s not here. He’s gone.”