by C. R. Ellis
Before settling on the one I was searching for, I studied the unopened ones—lavender, pink, maroon, red—as if just looking at them would be enough to absorb all the unread advice she’d penned for me.
My eyes lingered on the lavender envelope. It was hard to believe I’d never opened it. But I hadn’t needed her words to confirm what I knew in my bones, in the very essence of my being. I knew she loved me with each muscle in her body. With every particle of her being. With each labored breath she took. I could feel it when I went to the house we shared for thirteen incredible years. I felt it just by running my fingers over the box she’d painstakingly put together, knowing how much I’d need her strength in the future. She told me after her cancer diagnosis that she fully expected me to move on with my life, not to grieve her loss forever after she was gone. But I was eternally grateful for the letters and advice she’d left behind.
I put the lavender envelope back and retrieved the navy blue one. I’d read it so many times after New York that I had it memorized, but I needed her half-cursive-half-print handwriting to help me hear it in her voice.
Not even trying to stop the tears by this point, I carefully pulled out the letter and read it from top to bottom:
My Sweet Jasmine,
If you’re reading this right now it means someone out there has had the nerve to break your heart. I know some words on a piece of paper won’t heal your heart, but I hope this brings you some comfort when you need it.
I’m not going to offer you generic words of wisdom like, “time heals all wounds,” because, well, it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes we just learn to live with the pain, to adopt a course of treatment that allows us to survive with a patched-up heart. Now, I’m not saying that’s the case for you. But, if this is a break-up of epic proportions, then just know that you’ll have better days ahead, even if that doesn’t seem possible right now. Heartbreak can’t always be healed with time, but the pain will lessen bit by bit.
Here are your mom’s steps to moving on:
- Cry until your eyes can’t produce any more tears.
- Scream and yell if you feel like it – get it out.
- Get rid of photos and knick-knacks that only cause you pain now.
- Eat so much ice cream that Ben & Jerry’s will name a flavor after you.
- This one’s a biggie, Jas: Vent your pain and heartbreak to Jade, to Mary, to Dad, or to another important person in your life. Just talking about it is therapeutic. Don’t be afraid to let someone else help put the pieces of your heart back together.
- This one’s the most important part: Don’t let the pain, the anguish you’re feeling right now impact your future happiness. (Don’t roll your eyes; I’m serious about this one.) It’s easy to let the aftermath of a broken heart trick you into thinking that love isn’t worth it. It kills me to know that I’m not there to emphasize this to you in person. Promise me you won’t let heartbreak turn you into a jaded cat lady with a chip on her shoulder that keeps her from living the life she’s destined for. That, my sweet girl, just isn’t you.
Bear the weight of the pain, own it, and then let it go. Learn from it, grow from it, but never let it control you.
All my love,
Mom
I’d convinced myself that throwing up walls, avoiding heartbreak, and never letting another man hurt me was my “course of treatment” to patch my tattered heart back together. For years, I was angry enough with Mom for leaving me that I didn’t concern myself with the advice she’d deemed the most important. I was so blinded by my anger with her and with Dean that I couldn’t fathom how risking it all for love would ever be worth the pain.
Now I couldn’t stop hearing her voice saying the words she’d closed the letter with: “Bear the weight of the pain, own it, and then let it go. Learn from it, grow from it, but never let it control you.”
I’d gone years thinking I was the one controlling the pain, but maybe it was actually the other way around.
Chapter 20
Jasmine
My ability to function pre-coffee is similar to a toddler’s ability to juggle. Sooner or later, shit gets dropped.
Jasmine Winters on why she requires copious amounts of caffeine
By Tuesday, I was still trying to catch up on all the sleep I didn’t get Sunday night. Monday passed in another sleepless blur. I stopped at Starbucks on my way to work, and my usual barista took one look at my zombie-like face and didn’t even ask if I needed an extra espresso shot. Luckily, I was only working on finances and paperwork from the office, so I hadn’t even bothered with more than the minimum amount of make-up. Though, the sympathetic looks I got from a group of probably-majorly-sleep-deprived moms with strollers made me seriously second-guess that decision.
I walked back into my office after lunch to finalize some vendor contracts when Jade and Elliot trailed behind me and sat down in the chairs across from my desk. They’d both expressed concern for my unhealthy-looking raccoon eyes Monday, but hadn’t pressed the issue when I told them I didn’t feel like talking about it.
I looked up from the mountain of paperwork in front of me to meet their prying gazes. “What’s up?”
Jade picked up my now-empty coffee mug that said, “Don’t ask unless this mug is empty” in block red letters with caution tape printed across the top.
She checked the contents of the mug, muttering, “Guess it’s safe to ask her since the mug is empty,” to Elliot.
They had a silent exchange; presumably trying to decide which of them would bring up whatever it was they needed to talk to me about.
“Jade, you tell her,” Elliot insisted, picking up my paperweight that held a photo of my parents sandwiching me on my ninth birthday.
“But you worded it so much better, El,” Jade replied, pulling me back to the present.
I groaned. “Oh for Christ’s sake, she is sitting right here. One of you just tell me already!”
“Okay, okay. Look, we were talking,” Jade began, pointing back and forth from herself to Elliot, “about how much you’ve been working lately. We’re worried. I know you’ve been going through some stuff with Dean.” Pausing, as if to gauge my reaction, she continued, “We think you should take tomorrow off.”
My eyebrows shot up, but Elliot picked up where Jade left off before I could get a word in. “I’ll take care of your two appointments tomorrow, and then go to the meetings with Jade tomorrow afternoon. You’ve got two more weddings coming up this weekend, and you seriously need a day off. This is really more of an intervention of sorts than us asking you to take a day off.”
An intervention?
I didn’t necessarily think I needed an intervention per se. Interventions were supposed to be for stopping something that’s bad for you. I probably needed a Dean intervention more than I needed a ‘you’re working too much’ intervention. If anything, work was keeping me sane through all the Dean craziness.
I reached for my coffee mug before I remembered it was already empty.
Okay, so they might have a point about me working too much.
“I guess I’ve been working a little more than a normal person. And I could use a trip to the grocery store,” I said, nodding in defeat-slash-acceptance.
Jade’s mouth dropped in surprise, like she was expecting an argument, but she quickly snapped it shut. “We’ll take care of everything here, and you can just relax and get some sleep. Don’t suppose I could convince you to leave your cell phone here?”
“Not a chance, JP. Look, I’ll play nice and take tomorrow off for the sake of everyone’s sanity, but I’m going to keep my phone on and with me, so call if anything comes up. I mean it,” I demanded, looking back and forth from Jade to Elliot.
They both nodded compliantly, but I could tell it would take a disaster to get either of them to call.
I finished up the work I had left for the day in record time, suddenly appreciating the fact that I was about to have twenty-four hours to myself. I’d asked Jade and E
lliot if they wanted to go out for drinks, but Elliot was going to a spin class with her sister, and Jade had a date with Emmett.
Jasmine Winters, party of one.
I made it in and out of the grocery store in twenty minutes, just in time to get caught in the downpour of rain that fell from the sky. As the icing on the cake, before I got home, the rain turned into an actual storm, complete with lightning and thunder that practically shook the ground.
Cursing myself for breaking my buy-only-what-you-can-carry-in-one-trip rule, I ran upstairs to my apartment with half of my bags. I’d only bought the essentials: bagels, cereal, trail mix, pizza rolls, sandwich stuff, and wine. I opted not to bring an umbrella with me on the return trip to the car; it wasn’t worth sacrificing the hand to hold the umbrella instead of all the wine.
Turned out that was only the first mistake of the evening.
I got back up to my apartment and realized I’d left my keys inside. As in, the keys to get back into my apartment were now securely locked inside my apartment. Along with my car keys and cell phone.
Well, fuck.
I considered my options.
1.Run to the front office and hope someone was still there. (Doubtful – those assholes practically locked the doors at 4:59pm every day.)
2.Knock on random doors and hope none of my neighbors was a psycho axe murderer.
3.Wait for Dean to get home and ask to use his phone to call Jade so she could bring the spare key I’d given her for safekeeping.
4.Walk, in the rain, to Rae of Light and ask Joe to use his phone. Or just stay there and wait out the storm with booze.
5.Bust out some ninja-Spiderman moves and climb up my balcony. Break a window and then deal with repairing that instead of facing Dean. (Okay, not really an option, but it was a teensy bit tempting.)
I wasn’t overly excited about any of those options.
Realizing my best option was to wait for Dean, I sank down against my door and absently wondered what time Dean usually got home from work. Oh fuck, what if he has a date and doesn’t come home? Or worse, what if he brings some skank home with him?!
Those were both completely logical scenarios given the way I left things with Dean the last time we spoke. And yet…I was fully prepared to cut a bitch for even touching him.
The startling realization made me freeze. That was the action of a girlfriend, and I had no right to put myself anywhere near that category. I sucked in deep breaths in an attempt to suppress the panic bubbling inside my chest. Instead of letting myself analyze what the hell my sudden possessiveness meant, I decided to do the only sane, logical thing a person in my situation would do: drink my feelings away.
I pulled out a bottle of Riesling, thanking the wine gods for giving me the foresight to buy bottles with twist-off caps, and started drinking straight from it. Not my classiest move, but I was in desperate need of a distraction from the visions of Dean with another woman that were swirling through my head.
The more wine I drank, the less I wondered how much time had passed. Screw this. Why wait for Dean to get home with some bimbo on his arm when I can be my own knight in shining armor?
Ignoring the fact that I didn’t have an umbrella, I walked outside to look for a way to climb up to my balcony. Lightning no longer lit up the sky, so a million volts of electricity wouldn’t strike me down. Which totally made it okay, right?
Within seconds of walking outside, my fitted red Chanel dress stuck to my skin and my peep-toe heels were completely soaked. To a less determined (and halfway sober) person, that might’ve been a wake-up call to turn the hell around and go back inside. Good thing I didn’t currently fall under either of those categories.
A drainage pipe right next to my apartment ran the length of the wall from the ground to the roof. If I could climb up to the second story, I’d be in business. I ditched the heels and lifted my leg up to test the pipe’s stability. Satisfied it wouldn’t collapse, I pulled my other foot up to see if it would support my weight. It did, so I continued, alternating my steps between the pipe and grooves in the building. I made the mistake of glancing down after taking several steps and immediately wished I hadn’t.
I found out the hard way that drainage pipes were not made for climbing while wet when my right foot slipped out from under me, and gravity took its course.
Somewhere on the way down, my head met the pipe. Hard.
Pain radiated through my skull. I grabbed my shoes and stumbled back upstairs.
How the hell did this happen? Not only was I semi-drunk and completely drenched, but now I also had a giant knot forming on the side of my forehead.
Jasmine Winters, captain of the hot mess express.
Chapter 21
Dean
You can train for how to handle dangerous situations involving gunfire. It’s the dangerous situations without weapons that scare the shit out of me.
Dean Preston, pondering the future
I noticed the state of her damp, disheveled blonde waves first. The knot marring her forehead second. Third came the cling of her wet dress against her chest and thighs, followed quickly by the scowl my wandering gaze earned. Only when I drew closer did I see the empty wine bottle next to her.
My lips twitched in amusement.
“I’m betting there’s a good story behind all this.”
Jas rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “And here I thought you jus’ made detective to be the sexy poster boy for NYPD photo ops.”
I smirked. “I’m sorry, what was that? Did you say sexy?”
“Oh, shut up. You heard me,” she huffed, giving me another exaggerated eye-roll that nearly caused her to fall over.
I bent down to steady her and examine the bump. Her eyes darted behind me, surveying the empty hallway as I studied her injury. She almost looked relieved when she didn’t see anyone else.
“Expecting someone?” I asked.
“No,” she answered quickly. “I just, uh, never mind. Can I use your phone? I’m locked out, and Jade has my spare key. And can I maybe borrow a towel?”
“After you explain what that look was all about.”
“What look?”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “The one you had when you realized nobody else was in the hallway.”
“Oh, that one.” She paused and bit her lip, debating her next words. “I was kind of expecting you’d have a date or a slutbag hook-up, assuming that’s still your type. I mean, you said I bring half the city’s men into my bed, but after finding out what kinda heat you are packing, I’m betting you’ve boned your way through a lotta Austin’s eligible bachelorettes. So that look was definitely surprise. Not relief or—Hey!”
I cut off her ridiculous rant by scooping her into my arms and standing up.
“Put me down, you caveman ogre! I’m so capable to walk myself right now!”
I laughed at her poorly worded response that most definitely didn’t convince me to put her down. “Not gonna happen, Goldie. We’re going to talk about this, and since you’re without a phone or keys, I know you have nowhere else to be.”
“Fine. But I said I can walk myself. Did you hear me? Maybe you should clean these things out every once in a while,” she said before nipping my earlobe.
I stiffened at the contact. Fuck.
“Jasmine, stop. If you keep doing that I’m going to march you straight to my bedroom,” I warned, sticking my key in the deadbolt lock and twisting.
“Do it,” she challenged. “Although, we didn’t need a bed last time.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re killing me,” I groaned, unable to stop the memories of last time from going straight to my dick.
For the first time in the history of the world she listened to something I said and left my ear alone. Instead, she nestled her head into the crook of my neck, like the spot was made for her. I almost wished she was still torturing my ear; this felt more intimate and too damn good.
“You smell like seduction. Have I told yo
u that before?” she asked, inhaling deeply.
I chuckled softly and pushed open my door. “No. I think I’d remember that one.”
I walked straight to my couch and reluctantly set her down to go grab a towel and some ibuprofen from the bathroom.
“Here,” I said, handing her the towel before walking into the kitchen to fill up a glass of water. Remembering the rest of Jasmine’s stuff was still outside, I quickly tucked the empty bottle into the bag with the rest of her wine and grabbed her shoes before closing the door. I set her bag of wine down, grabbed the water, and walked back toward the couch before tossing her heels on the ground.
I held the water and ibuprofen while Jasmine finished towel-drying her hair. Somehow, the more she dried her hair, the messier and wilder it got. When she finally finished, I had to stop myself from blatantly staring. It looked a lot like her out-of-control sex hair from the night we fucked our way through her apartment.
“What?” She asked, arching a brow as she took the water from my hand.
Shit. So much for not staring.
“Nothing. So, uh, care to explain the goose egg? Or why you’re wet?”
“You would be cocky enough to think your mere presence gets me…ohhhh, you meant…not that.” She paused to pop the tablets into her mouth and take a swig of water. I didn’t even try to contain my laughter. She set the glass down and cut me a glare. “Can it, Preston. Do you want an explanation or not?”
I buried my smile and nodded. “Okay, I’m good. What happened? Let me guess, I should see the other girl?”
She pulled a blanket off the back of my couch and wrapped it around herself before pulling her legs up and curling them under her body. “Kind of. Except, the other girl in this case is the drainage pipe outside my apartment. I might have tried to climb it to get to my balcony.”
