by Jewel, Bella
“You ready?” she says, taking a cape from the pile. I love that she didn’t touch her hair or makeup while she was gone, but just got dressed. She doesn’t feel the need to appear presentable for me—and, if you know anything about southern women, it’s that they’re always presentable. Hell, my Memaw used to say, “A good southern woman will always leave the house like she’s about to meet the love of her life,” and she’d been married to hers for some sixty years.
“I’m ready,” I say, bracing myself as those metal buttons snap closed around my neck.
“Alright then.” She picks up a spray bottle from one of those little buggies and spritzes it over my hair. I tense, more from the cold than anything. She combs through all the tangles with her fingers first, and then with what looks like a florescent pink grooming mitt. My scalp tingles from the attention.
“You should know I still ain’t giving you a buzz-cut.”
“Give me whatever you think I need.” I don’t mean for that to sound so suggestive, but when she looks at me like she wants to straddle my waist and fuck me in this very chair, I’m glad it did.
“I can do that,” she whispers, and all bravado I feel vanishes instantly when the first zinging snip of the scissors echoes in my ear. Panic spreads through me, but Elle is careful not to make any sudden movements, and after a while I stop shaking and breathe normally. Her presence is soothing, so much so that I don’t flinch when she presses the clippers to my nape and tidies up my neck. When she moves in front of me, my hand brushes her thigh. It isn’t intentional, the first time. I reach out and graze a fingertip over her soft skin, wanting to feel more of her.
She jumps as if I’ve frightened her, as if she wasn’t aware that she’s slowly been driving me mad every second of these past few weeks. I draw my hand away and ball it into a fist as I rest it on my thigh.
Ellie sets the scissors and comb down on the tiny counter behind her. She stares at my hands and slowly reaches out to trace her fingertip over the scarred knuckles. I want to pull away, but I don’t. Instead, my skin crawls as she works her fingers under my hand and unfurls my fist, drawing it back to her smooth thigh. The fingers of my free hand dig into the soft flesh over her hip as I pull her closer. A gasp escapes her, and I roll my gaze up to meet one filled with longing and what looks to be nervous anticipation. She stands, straddling one of my legs, and I lean forward, pressing my forehead to the softness of her breasts. She runs her hands through my hair, and I inhale deeply. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever get this close to a woman again, to her scent, her softness, or enjoy her willingness to let me put my hands on her, but then it dawns on me. Ellie Mason, a woman that looks more angel than human, is touching me, and my scarred hands grasp her body as if it belongs to them, as if she wouldn’t turn away if she saw the rest of me. The dread, the absolute horror of wanting her, of undressing in front of her and seeing the sheer repulsion on her face as she takes me in, is too much.
“No!” I grip her hips with both hands and push her into the counter, holding her at arm’s length. I stand, and hurry past before she can touch me again. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Jake,” she begins, but her words are cut short by the salon door closing behind me.
I shake my head and turn to flee, but my feet won’t move. It’s as if they’re glued to the spot and all I can do is sink my fingers through my freshly cut hair and bury my face in my hands.
Jesus Christ, I’m a fucking pussy.
I had my hands on a beautiful woman, giving me the fucking green light to touch her, and the only thing I knew in that moment was fear, absolute and all encompassing. It don’t matter that she’s a tiny little thing who couldn’t weigh more than one hundred and ten pounds; it don’t matter that I know at least eight ways to kill a man with my bare hands, and that any one of those options would work equally well on her. All that matters is that my brain recognizes her as a threat to my sanity and to the belief that when I’m with her, I’m just a regular man and not someone who has escaped a war zone, scarred and terrified of his own shadow.
She comes out of her house, approaching me cautiously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you into something you weren’t comfortable with.”
“Go back inside.”
“No. I’m trying to apologize.”
“You shouldn’t have to apologize for touching me,” I snap. “Someone as perfect as you shouldn’t ever have to apologize for that.”
“Jake, come inside and we can talk.” She moves closer, and I take a step back. I wish the look in her eyes didn’t destroy me. I wish I could take her face in my hands and kiss her, pull her back inside and fuck her right there in the middle of her salon floor, but I can’t do any of those things so I shake my head and I turn away.
“We ain’t got nothing to talk about, Elle,” I say, and I leave her standing on her front porch step as I run and don’t look back.
8
Ellie
I open my eyes to find my eight-year-old crouched beside my bed. His pretty baby blues bore into mine. This morning, what’s reflected in them is anything but pretty. His brow furrows and I swear if looks could kill, I’d have been incinerated in my bed already. “Mamma, why aren’t you out of bed?”
“Well, good mornin’ to you too, Spence.”
“We’re gonna be late.”
I sigh, knowing what I say next will be just the beginning of what’s sure to be one heck of a day, so I steel my nerve and say in my best mamma-means-business tone of voice, “We’re not going to the beach today, Spencer.”
“Yes, we are.”
“No, we ain’t.”
“Yes, we are,” he yells. “It’s already eight thirty. We should be there; Jake’s gonna be waitin’.”
“No, Spence, he isn’t. Go look out the window.”
He walks over to the window and yanks the curtains open, exposing the downpour and a very wet backyard. Spencer hates rain almost as much as he hates changes to his routine. I’d been up earlier and when I realized it was pouring, I decided to go back to bed and indulge in a few more minutes before Spencer woke up and I had to tackle a meltdown before breakfast on very little sleep. That was the wrong thing to do. I should have prepared better. I should have come up with solutions. Of course, they wouldn’t have made up for the disruption to our schedule, but it would have been something. I was just so tired.
Resigned, I get up and put my robe on. As I tie off the sash, I’m hit with the memory of Jake’s eyes undressing me while I wore this same pajama-set last night. It’d been such a long time since any man had looked at me that way, and later when he’d reached out and touched my thigh as I was finishing off his hair, it’d taken everything I had not to jump into his lap and ride him like a damn pony.
“You are being somewhere else. Don’t be somewhere else,” Spencer yells his frustration.
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” I shake all thoughts of Jake Tucker from my head and move closer to my son. “I’m listening now.”
“Don’t be somewhere else,” he shouts. His whole body tenses up—clenched teeth, balled fists, even his little button nose is screwed up as he stamps both feet into the ground the way a footballer does when running on the spot. “I hate it. I hate it. I hate the rain, I hate you.”
I crouch down on the floor in front of him, attempting to meet his gaze. “Spence, I’m here. I’m listening.”
“The sand will be wet; it’s not the same. It’ll stick in between my toes. It’s not the same. I hate the rain. It’s not the same.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know; you don’t listen.” He slams his balled fist into the side of his head, screaming the whole time. I reach out and restrain him with both hands, earning a blow to the face from the back of his skull as I turn his struggling body and pull him into me, his back to my front. He lashes out with his feet, kicking and bucking against me, and I know I’m going to have one hell of a bruised shin tomorrow. “Don’t touch me. You don’t know
. You don’t know. You don’t know!”
“Tomorrow we’ll go,” I whisper.
“It’s not the same. It’s not the same,” he cries.
“I know, Spencer, I know.”
I make soothing, shushing noises by his ear, and when he calms a little I pat his tummy and hum. I have a terrible singing voice, but I think Spencer likes feeling the resonance against his back. He frees his hands from my grasp and snags a lock of my hair. He rubs it between his fingers, over and over. It’s a sensory thing, and something he’s done since he was small to self-soothe. This is the only time I’m allowed to be this close to my son and though every meltdown destroys a little piece of my heart each time, there’s a stillness and a oneness to being able to comfort him, to hold him and stroke his forehead like this.
On the carpeted floor of my bedroom with the curtains drawn and rain pounding the roof, I find peace with my baby in my arms. I feel useful, and needed, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like a good mother.
Even if it is only for a little while.
9
Jake
It’s been two days since I left Ellie’s house, and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her and Spencer. Course it don’t help that I missed my run yesterday, because when I left Elle standing on her front porch I did somethin’ I haven’t done in a real long time. I went and got real familiar with a bottle of whiskey. I wound up passed out on my living room floor, and when I woke I opened another bottle and it fucked me harder than the first had.
After every tour of duty, I lost myself in the bottle a little more when I returned home. The last time, I almost didn’t make it back out. My buddies were dead. My family was dead. I had nothing to keep me warm but the night terrors that grabbed me by the throat each time I closed my eyes and the visions that wouldn’t go away whenever they were opened.
When Olivia had introduced me to Nuke, I’d quit drinkin’. I had someone who was depending on me and I wasn’t gonna screw that up, but right now, it’s too much. Too much everything. Too much hurt, too much desire, too much fear, and too fuckin’ many feelings. Elle calls to me like a siren to a sailor, but I can’t have her, so I’ve turned away and listened to a different siren song. Even now I can practically taste that deep, dark molasses flavor rollin’ over my tongue, and I’m fixin’ to quench this thirst because whiskey won’t say no to me. It don’t care about my scars or that I’m damaged goods. All it cares about is that I keep drinking.
Miserable and wet, Nuke and me head for home, crossing the footbridge over the duck pond. It’s been repaired since I was here last, and aside from the deep gouges in the tree where Ellie’s car had been it all looks good as new. That’s pretty typical of this town. If something’s broke, you fix it. Wish that applied to people, too.
I begin makin’ a list in my head of the good things that happened during the past three days, and then I tell my brain to shut the fuck up, ’cause it don’t matter. None of it matters. I don’t know what I was thinkin’, waitin’ here on a woman I hardly know.
Stupid.
I have nothing to offer her. Nothing but a broken man, an empty house, and a dog that deserves a much better life than the one he’s been given.
She does too. That’s why I have to walk away, because having me in her life will only cause her and her son misery. And she deserves better than that.
10
Jake
Two years ago
Pain is everywhere. Blood is everywhere. My skin tingles; every nerve ending in my body feels like a live wire. Desert sand cakes my face. My ears ring, a constant keening scream that won’t let up. Beyond that, I hear their muffled voices speaking words I don’t understand, and that’s the crux of this whole thing. I don’t understand: why I’m here, why we were targeted, why my Lance Corporal’s head isn’t still attached to his body.
I blink. I’m no longer outside, but hanging suspended from a rope in the ceiling. Black eyes meet mine. They study me as if I were an animal in a cage. There is no joy in this for him. I am simply a means to an end. It’s the others who take great delight in my suffering. But I will not break.
“I am a United States Marine,” I mumble.
Laughter.
My muscles cramp and spasm from keeping the agony locked inside. I won’t let them hear me cry out. I will not scream. I will not give them that.
My whole body jerks as the man strikes me again, the barbed wire biting into my flesh. Warm blood flows down my ruined back, and I imagine it must look something like a rushing river over rapids made of flesh, sinew, and even bone. If they bleed me much more, there’ll be nothin’ left. With a smile on my face, I slump forward against my rope restraints and wait.
11
Jake
I don’t know how I wound up here, soaked to the skin and scratching at her door like a wild animal, desperate to get in. In a way, I guess that’s true. I do feel wild. Completely out of control. Consumed. By her, by the liquor I’ve been making love to these past few days, and by the thought of sinking myself balls deep inside her.
I glance down at the puddle I’m leaving all over her front stoop. From beyond I hear footsteps. The lock turns, and when she pulls the door back, I fall in a heap over the threshold and into her arms. I go down like a sack of shit. Fitting, really. I didn’t mean to pull her down with me though.
“Jake? Oh my God, are you okay?”
“No, angel.” I grunt. “I ain’t okay.”
“You’re soaking wet,” she mutters, coming up on her knees and leaning over me. “Did you walk over here in the rain? Have you been drinkin’?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I let the reek of whiskey on my breath and from the pores of my skin be my reply.
Ellie sighs. “You sit tight. I’m gonna get you a towel and then you’re going to come inside.” She gets to her feet and turns to leave, but I reach out and grab her ankle. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic, but it’s the only thing I can do to get her to stop because my jaw feels wired shut and I ain’t ever been much good with words anyway. “Jake, you need to get dry.”
“Stay.”
“The rain’s coming in. Let me go get a towel, and we’ll talk.”
“I don’t wanna talk. I just want to be near you.”
“Alright,” she says softly. She reaches over and closes her front door. The wind howls against it and I curl into myself, all the while keeping a tight grip on her ankle. “Where’s Nuke, honey?”
“I had to lock him in the bathroom.”
“Why?”
“I’m having all kinds of thoughts, angel,” I whisper. “All kinds of thoughts.”
She smooths a cool hand over my fevered forehead. I flinch, but she continues to touch me, seemingly unafraid of what I might do. “About what, Jake?”
“About you and Spence. About me and how I shouldn’t be here.”
“How you shouldn’t be here in my house? Or how you shouldn’t be here at all?”
“I can’t breathe. That house is so damn quiet, and yet all I can hear are the screams. Their screams.”
Her hand stills against my hair. “Whose screams?”
“They did inhumane things to us, Elle. I could have lived through all that, I coulda never broken, but I couldn’t handle the screams or the silence that followed the gunshots. That’s the shit that eats away at me from the inside out. The torture was nothing compared to waking up every day knowing you could end it all if only you had the guts to pull the trigger.”
She shifts closer and pulls my head into her lap. “Shh. You’re safe now. You’re home.”
Tears run down her cheeks but she pays them no mind. She just continues to stroke my forehead. Her fingertips trace the creases at the corners of my eyes, over my cheeks, and along the line of my jaw. I don’t pull away from her. Instead, I close my eyes and settle into her touch, allowing her to share a little of the pain that burdens me. I know it’s selfish. She has pain enough of her own; I can see it in her eyes. It’s not fair of me to ask her
to bear more. This woman isn’t even mine. I haven’t even kissed her yet. I won’t take that next step with her because she deserves better.
She deserves a real man. One who can protect her, not one who shows up at her door in the middle of the night, drunk and falling apart in front of her. Not one who’s ugly inside and out, who won’t take her and worship every inch of her beautiful body because he’s sick at the sight of his own. She deserves a man who’ll take care of her, who can give her and Spencer everything, enrich their lives and be present and supportive at the end of a long day, and I can’t be that man because I’m broken.
I gave everything I had to the Corps, and when I came back from that desert alone, scarred and forced to bear the evidence of their hatred of us upon my flesh forever, there wasn’t even a slither of the old Jake Tucker left over.
I got nothin’ left to give, and Ellie Mason, this angel who walked into my life and turned it upside down, this woman who saves me every single day and doesn’t even know it, she deserves everything.
And I am nothing.
12
Ellie
“Mamma, wake up.”
I open my eyes and see Spencer’s boring into mine again. For a moment I think I’m still dreamin’ or I have a serious case of déjà vu, because I feel as if I’ve lived this moment before. “Mamma, Jake Tucker’s sleepin’ on our couch.”
