by K. Ryan
How would he explain why his daughter has chosen danger and lawlessness over stability and order? How would that look? That boy is using you, he tells her. He'll take what he wants from you and then he'll throw you away like yesterday's trash.
"I don't know what to do," she sobs in Roark's arms. "He doesn't understand."
He strokes her hair and kisses her forehead. "I"ll figure something out. I promise."
"Please, Roark," her voice is thick and hoarse with tears. "You have to."
"I think I know someone who can help us."
AND SO THE postcards arrive. She makes the short trek every day to retrieve the next date they'll meet. The plan is simple enough: they'll take turns exchanging postcards to set the place and time. Her postcards are sent to St. Anthony's and his, to the PO box set up by Father Lindsay. Secrecy is a necessity. If anyone ever found out...no, she can't think about what would happen. Maybe they can't have a normal relationship, but this is the only way they can be together, even if all they have are stolen moments in a library.
She clutches the postcard to her chest, her cheeks flushed with excitement—it's been almost a week since they've been able to see each other and she's nearly scaled the walls going out of her mind. Proximity makes her feverish; distance makes her delirious. Her fingers trail along the call numbers until she finds the one she needs and she pulls a fraying copy of The Age of Innocence from the shelf.
Furiously flipping through the pages until she finds that faint pencil mark in the margins, her eager eyes skim the line: "Each time you happen to me all over again."
Warm, familiar hands snake around her waist and his breath is in her ear.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes," she breathes and closes her eyes as his lips ghost along her neck. "It's beautiful."
"I thought of you the moment I read it," he murmurs.
She can only nod. His touch is too distracting and too heady to waste on words. How can this continue? How can they ever really be together if this is all they have? She wants a life with him—God, she isn't even finished with high school yet and that's all she can think about. A real life. A happy life filled with love, laughter, and dancing in the rain.
THEY MEET AS often as possible. Sometimes only a day passes before she's in his arms again. Sometimes it's more than a few days, but the postcards always come and she always sends one back. She reads Shakespeare, Bronte, Keats, Dickinson, Browning, and Yeats trying to find the perfect message and the perfect words. In turn, he shows her the world—or at least, the world that Boston will allow.
They duck into movies and chase away the darkness with their arms around each other. They dance and sing along to old jukebox songs. They walk around Castle Island hand in hand, breathing in the salt and the sand. They go to Sox games, eat cheap hot dogs, and he buys her stale beer. He drives her to the Cape after she tells her parents she's staying with a friend for the weekend. He wraps his arms around her as they lay in front of the fireplace and whispers, "I love you, Jillian."
She believes him. She's never believed in anything more.
She gives him everything she has and he takes it willingly.
And when he slides a simple gold band on her left hand and murmurs, "Marry me," she says yes.
"I DON'T CARE!" she cries even though her dad's hands shake her. "I love him. You can't tell me I can't be with him."
"Yes, I can," he practically spits in her face. "You're a child. I'm your father. You don't know what you want and you certainly don't want this boy."
She shakes her head furiously and looks to her mom, who's gone pale with grief as she observes from the sidelines. "Mom! Please...do something. Anything. Tell him he's wrong. Please!"
Her mom's mouth parts, but she doesn't speak. Instead, she turns on her heel and walks back into the kitchen, where she collapses at the table. She shifts her gaze back to her dad, whose iron-clad grip only tightens on her shoulders. The ground opens up, ready to swallow her whole, but there's still some fight left in her.
"Dad," she starts slowly. "I'm sorry I've disappointed you. I know you wanted something different for me, but I love him. I'm going to marry him whether you like it or not."
Her dad lifts an eyebrow and he moves them backward until her shoulders hit the wall behind her. "If you do this, Jillian, it will be the biggest mistake of your life. That boy can't give you anything but a one-bedroom apartment in Southie. He'll take everything from you if he hasn't already, and he'll give you nothing good in return. A boy like that will be lucky to hold down a job for weeks at a time, especially considering the way he makes the bulk of the little money he has. How will you survive, Jillian? Did you think of that?"
She opens her mouth to tell him it doesn't matter. None of it—the money, where they'd have to live, how they'd have to live...she'd do it if it meant being with Roark.
"And what about college?" he presses on, pushing her even deeper into the wall.
She's trapped. Pinned between the life she wants and the life her parents want. Cornered by a reality she fought to escape, the reality she didn't want to face. Because deep down, she already knows what he's about to say next.
"That money your mother and I have set aside to pay for Penn? You can forget it. You'll never see a cent of it if you marry that boy."
"It doesn't matter," her voice shakes, but she summons as much steel as she can find. "We'll figure something out. If I have to go to community college, then I will."
A rough laugh vibrates from her dad's throat and he shakes his head. "So you're willing to throw it all away for...what? A boy you haven't even known for six months?"
"I love him," she whispers. That's all she has. Her love for him. It has to be enough to see her through this.
"Well, then," he shakes his head again and runs a hand over his face. "You leave me no choice."
Fear coils down her spine and her throat closes. "What...what are you going to do?"
He lifts a shoulder. "The only thing I can. If you won't make the right decision on your own, then I'll have to make it for you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to your mother and I, Jillian, and I won't stand by and watch you throw your life away. In a few years, you'll look back on this and know I'm right when you're out of school and settled down with a man who'll know how to truly take care of you."
All she can do is shake her head.
"If I have to remove that boy from your life, I will."
Her eyes widen in horror. "No..."
"Whatever I have to do," he nods tightly. "I'll do it. All I have to do is make one phone call and he'll be brought into the precinct like that," he snaps his fingers together. "What should his charge be? Illegal fighting? Assault and battery? Kidnapping? Statutory rape, maybe?"
She sucks in a harsh breath and now she feels herself plummeting down into that dark hole. There's no stopping it now.
"Yes," her dad smiles sadly. "I know how old he is. Trust me, I wish I didn't have to play this card—for your sake—but I don't know how else to get through to you."
When he finally releases her from his grip and backs away, finally giving her some room to breathe, it doesn't matter. All the breath has already been stolen from her lungs. She sinks to the floor, hugs her knees to her chest, and gives in to the devastation as the first sob escapes her throat.
THEY MEET AT St. Anthony's this time because she needs somewhere they can talk in private, somewhere they can be alone and left in peace. He's pacing inside Father Lindsay's office when she finds him and her heart drops into the depths of her stomach. He knows. He has to know. He just doesn't want to believe it yet.
The moment she steps in the cramped room, his head snaps up and his sky-blue eyes sear through her. His touch warms her skin and she sinks into his arms, letting him shield her from everything she has to do, from everything she has to destroy.
"Jill," he murmurs in her hair. "Is everything okay? What's wrong?"
Tears sting her eyes, but they have to wait. At least until the d
amage is done, they have to wait. She squeezes her eyes shut to quiet the storm and when she opens them again, nothing but love and devotion stares back at her. Her heart shatters on the floor and the tattered pieces scatter along the cracks, too jagged to ever fully heal.
"We have to end this," she whispers and buries her face in his chest.
His hands cup her cheeks and he forces her to face him. "What?"
She sucks in a deep breath and says the four words she knows she'll regret as long as she lives: "I can't marry you."
Those sky-blue eyes cloud over and the storm rages on as lightning flickers across his face. "No, Jillian. I don't accept that. I can't accept that. It's your dad, isn't it? He's—"
"He's going to find a way to send you to prison," she murmurs, memorizing the feel of his arms around her because this is the last time. It's strange how easily you can take for granted something you were never supposed to have in the first place.
"What can he do to me?" Roark laughs harshly. "I don't care who he knows in the PD or in the courts. He'll never get me on anything that'll stick."
"What about statutory rape?" She can't believe she's even saying the words out loud, but this is what it's come to. "He could make that stick and you know it."
"He has no proof—"
She just shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. You know that. He'll find the proof."
Roark squeezes his eyes shut and scrubs his face with his free hand. She can practically see the wheels in his head turning—mulling over every possibility, every option, every way they might escape.
"Let's get outta here then," he whispers in her ear. "We can go anywhere you want. Do anything you wanna do. I'll take care of you...you know that's all I want. And then, when you turn 18, we'll get married as soon as we can."
That's a nice fantasy. It would be beautiful, if it could be a reality. Living on their own, finally free to be together out in the open, free to live their lives, free from her parents...she could have dinner ready every night before he comes home from work...they'd have that normalcy she craves. But what would that life really look like? How long would they survive in the afterglow?
For once, her dad might be right.
"It wouldn't last," her eyes close, squeezing a slow stream of tears down her cheeks. "Even if we could still figure out a way for me to go to school, if we leave now, I wouldn't even graduate high school. We'd have no money and nowhere to live, Roark. What would we do? Really?"
"I'd take care of you," he tells her, firm in his belief and unwilling to face what she already knows is true.
"How?"
When his mouth opens only to shut just as quickly, there's nowhere they can go now but down.
"How are you going to take care of me?" She presses on, rubbing salt in the open wound, but there's nothing left to do. "You'll get a job doing...what? Where will we live? And we'll pay for it with what money?"
Still, he says nothing and still, she pushes on.
"Do you really want to me to not graduate from high school?"
He shakes his head, but his eyes are a tortured black.
"And then you'll end up resenting me for the way I'll have to depend on you and I'll end up hating you for it."
This is it. This is the way it ends. He has to see that now. He has to see that they're drowning now, weighed down by the way they cling to each other, and heading right for the edge of the waterfall.
She's never felt heavier.
His touch slips away from her like a ghost and her eyes flutter closed at this new feeling. It's cold and it's dark and she wishes, more than anything, that they could be different.
SHE DOESN'T SEE him again for six years. Moving to Philly for school made it easier, or at least, as easy as it could be. Being in another city meant she wouldn't chance seeing him, but sooner or later, the move back to Boston is inevitable. Mainly because her new husband is running for city council.
Valentino Moretti isn't a good man, but her dad doesn't know that. All he knows is that Val has ambition and goals—he wants to be mayor someday—and can provide a comfortable life for his daughter. If her dad knew how Val made his money, that Val is just as interested in her dad's legal connections as he is in her, that Val deals in intimidation and invests in the mob, her dad might feel differently. But instead, he's happily oblivious, thrilled beyond belief that his daughter has finally settled down with someone worthy.
He doesn't know the meaning of the word.
But if she couldn't marry the one she loves, the next best option was to marry the one her dad loves.
It's an accident—how they meet again. She wasn't looking for him and had long given up the naive belief that he would come looking for her. Instead, it's as easy as crossing the street.
There he is...beautiful as ever, taller somehow, filled out into the body of the man she always knew he'd become. And he's holding the tiny hand of a small boy, who, even from this short distance, looks like a mini-version of Roark with his light blonde hair and even lighter eyes—he has to be around four or five years old. Walking next to him is a blonde woman with a smaller boy in her arms, yet another clone. The woman is so gorgeous it's otherworldly and her heart lodges in her throat.
That should be her.
She should be the one walking next to him, laughing with him, loving him, and carrying his children in her arms.
Life is just a snarled web of injustices and this one is the most twisted of all.
Roark's steps slow to a stop as if he can sense her presence, as if he can hear her thoughts, and those achingly familiar light eyes dart right to where she's standing on the sidewalk.
His eyes widen, his lips part, and as they stare back at each other, the air shifts. Recognition isn't all she sees. There's a hunger there, a longing she hadn't expected. The light in his eyes darkens and then he turns the corner with his family, disappearing behind concrete as the distance between them widens.
It shouldn't have been such a shock. She'd known he'd gotten married, known he'd had children—her father had made sure of that. That was the first, but certainly not the last night she'd coated her pain in alcohol. After that, marrying Val was the easiest, most thoughtless decision she'd ever made. But seeing the evidence right across the street breaks the flimsy dam keeping all her long-buried feelings for him at bay.
So when she finds herself outside Na Soilse, her mind only focuses on the hunger she saw in his eyes. The same hunger that matches her own. She can't let herself think about anything else. But she's proud of him too—he really did it. Well, Shane and him really did it. She'd read about it in the paper a few years ago when they'd reopened the bar to highlight its wicked cool, Irish name.
This is dangerous, coming here. If Val ever found out—no, Val will never find out. She's here because she needs to know if there's anything between them, because she's played out the what ifs too many times in her head.
And because she's missed him more than she'd ever admit. Because she's cried herself to sleep so many nights she's lost count. Because she doesn't like the person she's become without him.
She walks through the bar as flashes of that first night here and everything that followed torment her mind. Everything is so familiar, even in spite of the expansive and impressive updates to the place. The life he's built here is staggering and it hits her like a slap in the face. Somehow, someway, he's become prominent in Southie—someone with connections, someone who's deeply respected in his community for what he's achieved in such a short time. Long gone is the scrappy street fighter with his head in the clouds and in his place, a confident, strong, and dependable family man.
It's not fair...if only she'd tried harder, fought harder, maybe he could've been hers.
Maybe he still could be.
She knocks on the office door, not knowing what she'll find or if he's even there, but the door flings open and he's only three feet away from her. So close, yet so far.
His sky-blue eyes steel over to a cloudy midnight and a tight ti
ck runs down his jaw. For too long they stand there, finally back in each other's orbit, but neither has any idea what to do with it.
Finally he speaks.
"Does your husband know you're here?"
She flinches at the vicious words almost as they'd struck her. What was she thinking...coming here? She should've known better than to butt into his life, but still, she just can't help herself when she snarls back: "No. He doesn't. I'm sure your wife wouldn't be too happy if she found out I was here either."
Now his eyes turn to stone. "Don't talk about Maura."
Just hearing her name on his lips sends something dark and ugly slithering down her spine. All she can think is mine, mine, mine.
So she strikes back. "So how long did you wait after I left? A week? A month, maybe?"
His nostrils flare and he dares a step closer. "That's none of your business."
It isn't, but that doesn't change anything.
"Why are you here, Jillian?"
She stares back at the man he's become and sees only flickers of the boy she loved. There's hardness to him that wasn't there before, something bitter and jaded, and she knows it has everything to do with her and the time they'd spent apart. It doesn't matter. She wants him anyway. She needs him anyway.
"I wanted to see you."
His eyes soften for just a moment and then they steel over yet again as he invades her space. Electricity sparks between them and it's sharper than it was seven years ago. Time and distance can be blamed for that and she doesn't want to waste either of those things anymore. Suddenly, he's backed her up against the door and his palms rest on either side of her head, caging her in...as if she'd ever want to leave.
