When I walked away from her, I did so with my heart in my stomach. Bile and acid ate it, making me burn everywhere. I was in the process of burying my father. My mother wouldn’t stop fucking crying, and my sister was being the biggest bitch on the East Coast.
I was aware that I had fucked up. I was aware that a good son would have been there. I knew I was a piece of shit, but I couldn’t rewind time, and if I could, I would go back to the moment I enlisted in the military.
That would have changed everything. I wouldn’t have gone to boot camp. I would have spent the summer after graduation with Jenny, loving her and being loved by her. Then I would have waited at home while she went to college. I would have been there to work on the farm for my dad, allowing him to retire and work when he wanted to. And once Jenny came home from college, I would have asked her to marry me. We would be together. We would have kids. Things would be as they should be.
But that wasn’t possible. Instead, Jenny and I were nothing to each other, and my father was cold in a casket waiting to be stuffed in the ground. I could never have kids, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be myself again mentally or physically.
Jenny’s car roared to life behind me, the engine sounding as beautiful as I imagined Jenny’s muscle car would sound, and I heard the engine switch gears when she pulled away from the curb and took off down the street.
The rest of the day was a blur. We returned to the house where people brought food and visited with my mom. I stood in the corner and prayed that Jenny wouldn’t come through the front door. Slowly, the crowd began to clear from the house, leaving me alone with Mom, Genie, Jimmy, their girls, and Ashley, who was packed and waiting for her Uber to take her to the airport even though I told her I would drive her.
I wasn’t sure how things would go once Ashley left. She was my support, had been since the fucking IED blew our shit to pieces. She assured me I would be fine without her, but I worried. My family hadn’t seen me have one of my episodes, and although it had been a long while since I’d had one, I worried that all the stress of the past few days would push me over the edge.
“Call me if you need me, okay?” she said as I loaded her bags in the back of a little Ford Focus her Uber driver was driving.
“I will.”
She put her hand on her hip and tilted her head to the side. “I’m serious, Josh. We’re in this together, right?”
I shut the trunk and nodded. “We are. I promise I’ll call.”
She leaned in to hug me, and I squeezed her. “Thank you for being here.”
“Any time. You can do this.”
“I hope so.”
I helped her into the back seat of the small four-door car. Before I shut the door, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
“You’re the strongest man I know.”
I chuckled. “What would Trevor say if he heard you say that?”
She smiled. “He knows what we’ve been through. He would agree. Trust me.”
“Let me know when you make it home.”
“I will.”
I shut the door behind her and stood and watched until the taillights of the car faded away. When I went back inside, Mom was already in her room getting ready for bed, and Genie was cleaning.
“I’ll get it. Get the girls to bed,” I said, taking the washcloth from her.
She let it go and nodded. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a bitch. I just miss him.”
She burst into tears, and I pulled her into my arms, letting her cry on my shoulder. Jimmy stood to the side and held the girls, letting us have a moment to mourn our dad.
I rubbed her back. “You were right. I should have come home. If I had, maybe he would still be alive.”
She pulled back and swiped at her eyes. “No. This isn’t your fault. Don’t you start blaming yourself just as I apologize.”
“But it’s the truth.”
“Daddy would’ve worked until the day he died whether you had come home or not. We both know that, Josh. Sure, you would’ve been here to help, but he wouldn’t have slowed down a bit. These things happen. It didn’t help that he smothered everything in salt and ate bacon like someone was going to steal it from him.” She giggled through her tears and swiped at her face again.
I chuckled. “He did love his bacon, didn’t he?”
We laughed for the first time in forever, and she leaned in and hugged me once again.
“Listen, I’m going to take the girls home tonight. It’s time I get them settled into their bed and try to get things back to normal. Think you’ll be okay here with Momma?”
I nodded even though I was nervous about how well I would handle things now that everything was settling down. “We’ll be fine. Get the girls home and get some rest.”
I kissed her on the forehead and hugged the girls. After I shook Jimmy’s hand, they left, and I closed and locked the door behind them.
The quiet house welcomed me, and sleep begged me to let it in, but instead of going to my room, I went into the kitchen and starting cleaning and putting away the food people had brought to the house. By the time everything was done, it was well after midnight. I checked on Mom and found her sleeping with her dress still on. I covered her before going for a quick shower. Once I was in my bed, the events of the day flew through my mind on a loop.
The funeral.
Jenny and her family showing up.
And Jenny’s little boy and the way his sweet little voice sounded when he called her mommy.
I clenched my eyes closed and begged for sleep to take me, but all I could hear was his voice. All I could see was her expression when she looked down at him and how much love she had for that tiny boy. And when sleep finally took me, it was with only one thought. That little boy could have been mine. I could have had a family of my own.
I woke gasping for air. The sounds of explosions ripped through my room, and it felt as if the walls were shaking. I tossed about under my sheet, ridding myself of what felt like cloth strapping me to my bed, and I jumped up, my mattress creaking and popped as if it were full of land mines.
The rush across my room had me tripping over things that I envision were body parts, wrecked and mangled all around me, and I slammed into my dresser, making the mirror sitting on top if it shake and threaten to flatten me.
Reaching up, I placed my hands on the sides of it to keep it from falling, and my eyes skimmed the pictures of my past that were taped around the edges.
Jenny.
My friends.
My life before it was detonated into nothing.
Light from the moon sliced into my room and illuminated my reflection. For a second, I didn’t know myself or the person staring back at me. Sweat coated my chest, my dog tags stuck to the center like a beacon, a reminder of being altered completely in a matter of seconds. My abs flexed with each quick deep breath I pulled in. If I hadn’t been in just my boxers, I would have ran from the house and breathed in the fresh air. I felt as if I was smothering to death.
Quickly, I pulled on a pair of jeans and snatched a T-shirt from the top drawer of my dresser. I grabbed my keys and then crept through the house, careful not to wake my mom. Once I was outside, I felt as though I could breathe easier, but I still needed to go. Movement was key. If I was running, whatever was chasing me couldn’t catch me. If I stood still, things would go to hell. It was the only way to keep the explosions and panic at bay.
I got in my truck and cranked the loud engine, hoping the noise didn’t wake my mom. I drove around town, taking in the places I hadn’t seen in forever and stopping at lights even though the place was a ghost town at four in the morning. An hour later, I found myself parked in front of Jenny’s place.
I didn’t pull into the driveway, but it wasn’t the first time I found myself parked outside her place since my injury. Just as it had been in the beginning back in Texas, knowing I was close to her helped my anxiety.
The old house looked the same. The porch was chipped and looked as though it was mi
nutes from falling. The screened door was hanging unevenly, waiting to snap back and take off your fingers if you didn’t move them quick enough. The only real difference was the garage. There weren’t as many cars and trucks parked out front, but I assumed that was because Devin and Jenny’s dad had moved their business to a different part of town. At least that was what my mom had told me.
My eyes skimmed their yard, taking in the toys I was sure belonged to Jenny’s son and the broken pieces of pottery that had seen much better days. The ranch fencing that had once looked nice was falling apart and into the ditch in front of their house.
Then I noticed other things. Like the new windows in the house. The roof had been replaced. Things were slowly being fixed there, and I knew it had to do with Jenny’s new sister-in-law, Lilly. Jenny had told me when Devin had first started dating Lilly that she was loaded. I smiled a little to myself, knowing the house was finally getting some love.
I cut the engine and sat back, relaxing in the seat and staring up at the star-filled sky. The crickets in the ditch next to me filled the night with their music, and on occasion, a car would pass me. I felt my panic and anxiety slowly melt away, and even if I didn’t want to admit it, I knew it was because I was near Jenny.
My body relaxed, and my eyes slowly started to drop. When I got to Jenny’s, I hadn’t planned on falling asleep, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up, the sun was blazing into my truck, and Jenny was pounding on the driver’s side window and glaring in at me.
25
Jenny
Caleb slept in the bed with me, which meant I didn’t get much sleep. I spent most of the night replaying the day’s events on loop. Josh and his expression when he saw Caleb. The fear I felt when I thought he had realized Caleb was his son. And the way he treated me with so much hatred as if we hadn’t spent a lifetime together.
With Caleb at my side snoring, I played on my phone instead of getting out of bed, looking at Pinterest and pinning things I would never do. It wasn’t until my dad tapped on my door and opened it that I sat up.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Josh is sleeping in his truck outside. Maybe you ought to go wake him and get him home?”
That made no sense at all.
“He’s sleeping in our yard?” I asked to be sure I had heard him correctly.
He nodded. “Well, not in the yard but just by the driveway. Go out there and talk to him. See if y’all can’t straighten things out.”
I snorted. “That’s not going to happen. We hate each other, Dad.”
“Fine. No talking, but at least tell him to go home.”
And then he left, closing the door softly so he didn’t wake Caleb.
I put my phone on charge next to my bed and got up to do as my dad asked. Without bothering with dressing, I went outside in my pajamas. A purple set with llamas all over them that Lilly had gotten me the Christmas before. Josh had seen me in worse, and honestly, he already had a bad opinion about the way I looked, so I no longer gave a shit.
My flip-flops slapped against the ground as I cut through the cool morning, and the dew on the grass wet the tips of my toes and clung to the bottom of my pajama bottoms. As soon as I cleared the bush next to my driveway, I saw Josh’s truck, which was parked where Dad said it was. The tires were barely on the road just beside the large ditch at the front of my yard.
Seeing his truck parked so close to my house reminded me of when we were younger. I envisioned him climbing down from his truck dressed to go fishing with his hat on backward and the fishing poles sticking out the back. I missed those days so much it hurt to even think of them.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen his truck in a while or anything. He hadn’t taken it with him, so it was always parked in the driveaway at his parents’ house. On occasion, I would see Genie driving it around town, which would send my heart into overdrive, thinking he was back.
When I reached the driver’s side door, I stood there and watched him sleep. In sleep, his expression was lax. His long dark lashes rested on his high cheekbones, and his plump lips were open just a bit. I longed to feel his hot breath on my fingertips … to touch his soft lips and know that he was real. When he was softly sleeping that way, I could almost forget the way he acted at Sprints.
He was resting. He wasn’t staring back at me angry or spouting cruel words, and when I looked at him while he slept, I could almost see the boy he used to be in his relaxed features. He was just Josh. My best friend. The boy I loved. The one person in the entire world who got me.
I pressed my fingertips to the glass, and the heat of my touch against the cold windows left a mark. I closed my eyes, wishing it was him I was touching instead of his truck window. Then the memory of him talking about my weight moved over my brain, knocking me back into the correct headspace, and instead of lightly touching the glass, I found myself pounding on it with the side of my fist.
He jerked, looking around his truck after being abruptly awakened before he turned, and his eyes landed on me. I saw him sigh in annoyance before he reached out and rolled the window down.
“Why are you sleeping in my yard?” I asked before he could say anything rude and piss me off.
He looked around before lying his head on the back of the seat and breathing deeply. “This isn’t your yard.”
“It’s practically my fucking driveaway.”
He waved me off. “It’s too early for your shit. Go back in the house.”
The nerve of this motherfucker.
“Seriously?”
He turned my way, and his eyes moved over me face. “You look like shit. Did you just wake up?”
“It’s seven in the morning. What do you think? I ask again, why are you sleeping in my driveway?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I haven’t been home in three years. I went for a ride last night to see how much things have changed.”
“Your girlfriend didn’t want to come along?”
I hadn’t meant to say it. As soon as the words left my lips, I could hear how pathetic they sounded.
“Girlfriend?”
“Yeah. The girl at Sprints with you.”
“Again, not that it’s any of your business, but she’s just a friend.”
“Right. I bet they’re all ‘just friends.’” I used air quotations with my fingers.
He shook his head. “I’m not like you.”
In other words, he wasn’t a big mcslut muffin.
“Right,” I said, elongating the word. “I forgot. You don’t sleep around the way I do. Got it.”
His brows pulled down in confusion when I openly admitted what the town was saying.
There was no hiding from their gossip. As far as they were concerned, I was just a big ole whore. A nasty one, too. Apparently, I had let at least five different guys run a train on me in Texas and possibly a few girls, too. Who the hell knew? The story grew more elaborate every time I heard it. All that was missing was a large scarlet A on the front of all my T-shirts.
“Anyway,” I changed the subject. “Nothing’s changed,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest.
I hadn’t realized until that very moment that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
“I thought I’d come by and see how the old place looked,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Same old dump.”
Then he sat up and turned the key in the ignition, bringing his truck to life. His truck door rumbled against the front of my body, making me step away.
“That’s an asshole thing to say.”
It might have been old and a little run-down, but it was my home. I grew up there. Hell, he had grown up there in a lot of ways too. My home had never been too much of a shithole for him before.
“I’m an asshole, so it’s only natural.”
I snorted. “You said it, not me. Well, as you can see, this place looks the same. Some things don’t change,” I said, referring to his new shitty attitude toward everything.
He put the truck in
gear and looked over at me. His dark eyes skimmed my face before dipping over the parts of my body he could see. “Everything changes.”
I wanted to cover myself. I knew what he was saying without saying it.
You’re a fat ass, Jenny.
You’re not the same girl you used to be.
My eyes flittered across his expression in the morning sunlight. I could almost see the boy he used to be in his eyes before his features tightened, and his eyes thinned in annoyance.
“You’re right. Everything changes,” I said.
Then I backed away from his truck just as he began to roll up his window in my face. He sped away from the front of my yard, leaving rubber on the street as a reminder of him being there.
I stood in the yard with my arms crossed, staring in the direction he had gone.
He really was different. As much as I hated to think it, my Josh was long gone. In a way, I felt like I was grieving him alongside his father.
The screened door slammed behind me when I went inside. I slid my flip-flops from my feet by the door and went straight for the coffeepot.
“What was that about?” Daddy asked from behind his newspaper.
He was probably the only man left in the world who still had the paper delivered. I tried once to teach him how to read the news on his phone, but he wasn’t having it. The man had an eight-hundred-dollar phone Lilly had gotten him for Christmas one year, and he literally only used it to make phone calls. I had never even seen him text before.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I shrugged and took a sip of my hot coffee once I had sweetened and creamed it properly.
He hummed behind his paper, the sound of the papers shuffling when he turned the page before he spoke again.
“Maybe you ought to go over and check on Paula today. See how she’s holding up and if she needs anything.”
I paused, my coffee cup halfway to my mouth. “Wow, Dad, you’re not obvious at all.”
He chuckled. “I’m serious. All the Josh bullshit aside, she needs you now more than ever. Take Caleb over and let them spend some time together. You know how much she loves Caleb.”
Thick & Thin (Chubby Girl Chronicles Book 3) Page 17
