Tangled up in Pain

by Charlotte Byrd

  “Maybe?”

  “Under one condition.” He waits for me to state it.

  “I can write whatever I want. You don’t have a say in it at all.”

  “Of course.” He nods his head. “I want to point out that you did not have that arrangement with your content writing job, but you are putting this restriction on me. But, fine.”

  He smiles and starts laughing in the middle of the sentence. He pulls me close to him and kisses me again. His hands trail up and down my body and I feel myself starting to burn for him.

  I need to stay strong. “And if I want to write about sex or whatever else I can think of, I’m going to do that.”

  “You’re going to write about sex? Oh my God, I had no idea. I would’ve offered you this deal when we first met.”

  I laugh. Last night, I told him about my history as a sex blogger, a virgin sex blogger, and he thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  “Well, now that you have a little bit more experience, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

  I laugh, climb on top of him, and hit him in the head with a pillow. He quickly flips me over and presses his lips to mine.

  Unfortunately, our little pillow fight ends with a PG-13 rating.

  No sex.

  Just a lot of good making out and heavy petting, as they used to say. Jackson has a conference call to get to and there’s no time for anything more.

  As he talks to Avery on the computer, I put on my earphones, put on my favorite instrumental playlist of popular songs, and open a new document on my computer.

  I peruse through my journal and read the sketches that I wrote about the reclusive billionaire who lives alone in his mansion.

  They were based on Jackson, but they’re also not him at all.

  That’s what fiction is.

  It starts out based on some kernel of truth, but then the author lets her imagination run wild and the character suddenly becomes someone else completely new.

  Where should this story go, I wonder?

  If it’s a love story then it’s simple.

  They meet, they fall in love, they have problems, they overcome their problems, and they end up together.

  Or not.

  Though I’m partial to the ones that end well.

  I turn back to my computer and start to type.

  I start with a list of scenes.

  The beginning.

  Who is he?

  Who is she?

  How do they meet?

  What is their first night together like?

  And as I type, the words start to flow out of me.

  One after another. I lose track of time.

  After a brief outline is complete, I take the first scene and jump right in.

  There’s no better time than right now, right?

  Somewhere on my tenth or is it twelfth page, twilight starts to fall.

  My eyes briefly wander over to Jackson, who to my surprise is no longer at his computer but is reading something on his phone on the couch.

  I don’t watch him for long because I have my characters to get back to.

  They are aching for me to continue their story.

  It is pitch black outside when I finally decide to take a break.

  My hands are throbbing from hitting the keys too fast and too hard and my neck hurts, but I don’t care.

  “Wow, I really lost you there for a bit,” Jackson says. I smile.“Thank you…thank you for inspiring me.”

  Chapter 15 - Harley

  When I meet with him…

  It snows all day and all night, and the sun doesn’t show up until the following afternoon.

  The roads are still just being cleared, but my father insists on coming anyway.

  I’m now communicating with him through Jackson who arranges a meeting.

  It was originally going to be in town at the same coffee shop where they’d met, but then he thought that everyone would be more comfortable at our house.

  He ordered a lot of food from a couple of different restaurants and is just putting it into bowls and arranging it all on the island when my father rings the doorbell.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Jackson asks. That snaps me out of my trance and I go to get the door.

  It’s hard to say how I feel about seeing my father again.

  At first, I was excited.

  I did miss him after all of this time apart.

  Nothing happened between us so there was no reason for me to feel any negativity toward him.

  At least until I got here and discovered she was a part of the worst con in history.

  I mean, what the hell were they thinking?

  Agh, I feel my blood starting to boil again and that’s not why I agreed to meet with him today.

  I open the door and am greeted by a man who looks a lot happier than I remember him being in a long time.

  He gives me and Jackson warm hugs and puts the two large bags of groceries on the table next to all the takeout.

  “I wasn’t sure what you were doing for dinner, so I wanted to bring a couple of salads and chips and snacks.”

  I mumble a barely audible thank you as I take a moment to take him in.

  He looks a lot like that man that I remember existed when Aspen was still alive.

  He has a wide smile on his face, bright white teeth, a tan from hiking and skiing and spending a lot of time outdoors.

  There aren’t many wrinkles on his face, but the few that have popped up are ingrained into thick laugh lines.

  “Let me have a look at you.” He gives me another hug and then holds me out with outstretched arms as he looks me up and down the way parents do to toddlers.

  I laugh and push him away, but he pulls me in close.

  “So, I met your fella,” Dad says. “He’s one charming man. Much like myself.”

  I laugh.

  My dad has always had a way of lightening the mood, no matter what was going on.

  I’m glad that he hasn’t lost that, or rather that he has recently recovered that ability.

  Jackson says that it will be a few minutes before dinner is ready and pours us each some drinks.

  I take my wine and he takes his whiskey to the large recliners near the fireplace.

  We sit across from one another and look at each other for a few minutes without saying a word.

  “How are you?” Dad is the first to break the silence.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look great.”

  I nod. “Seems like Jackson really loves you.”

  I blush a little.

  I was never one of those girls who felt comfortable talking to her parents about her relationships.

  “Well, it’s very new, but yes, I love him, too.”

  “He better not break your heart,” Dad says loud enough for Jackson to hear.

  “I’m afraid she’ll break mine before that happens,” Jackson pipes in.

  On one hand, I like how close and chummy Jackson has gotten with my dad after only one meeting, but that also makes me somewhat jealous.

  I haven’t had that kind of lighthearted and fun relationship with him for a very long time.

  And I wish it was something that I could have, too.

  But at the same time, I can’t just gloss over everything that has happened or everything that we’ve been through.

  He asks me about my work and my writing and I fill him in on some of the details.

  The novel is too soon to mention, so I focus on my freelance writing jobs instead.

  He listens carefully, asking questions and never once bringing up the fact that I work online and that I could do that work from much cheaper places in the world than Manhattan.

  I know that he’s biting his tongue, and I appreciate that.

  Conversation drifts to his work and his students.

  Surprisingly, he has as much passion for teaching now as he did when he was just getting started.

  He isn’t jaded or annoy
ed with the bored students; he takes that as a challenge.

  If no one wants to read the books that he assigns like Shakespeare or Hawthorne, he makes it his personal mission to make the books relevant to the kids’ lives.

  “How long do you think you will continue teaching?”

  I skate around the question of retirement because we both know that he could’ve retired already, except that he’d lost everything in the fire.

  Everything but a job and a paycheck.

  “I’m not sure. But I don’t have any plans for stopping quite yet. Not while there are still kids who don’t know who Mercutio is.”

  I laugh. “Dad, there will always be kids who don’t know who Mercutio is.”

  “I guess my job will never be done then. And I count myself lucky for that. Not everyone can say that their job will always be of use.”

  I nod.

  Yep, the man’s right.

  One short moment of silence is quickly filled up with conversations on a number of other topics.

  Current events.

  Politics.

  Pop culture.

  My dad is pretty well versed in all of those things and actually knows a lot more about what’s going on in music and Hollywood than I do since he likes to take an interest in his kids’ interests.

  We talk about practically everything under the moon except for that.

  Why did he lie to bring me here to Montana, and if it wasn’t her idea, then why did he go along with her lie?

  The food is ready and we grab a bit of everything from the plates, which are set up buffet style.

  When we sit down at the table, I can’t skirt around the edges of the issue anymore.

  I’ve suddenly had my fill of small talk. It’s enough.

  Chapter 16- Harley

  When we really talk…

  “Um, Dad?” I ask, taking a bite of my salad. “Now that we’ve caught up on practically everything…don’t you think we should talk about what happened?”

  The question catches him off guard.

  He has never been one for confrontation, and the way he makes nice is by just acting friendly and hoping that it will just go away.

  Well, it’s not going to go away that easily.

  Not this time.

  I don’t want to let it go until I get some answers.

  Dad looks at Jackson almost pleading, asking him for support.

  “Do you want some privacy?” Jackson asks instead.

  “No, definitely not,” Dad says. “The thing is, honey, is that I don’t really have a good explanation.”

  “So…how did it come up? I mean, who thought of this in the first place?”

  “Your mother did. It was her idea, and initially I didn’t want to go along with it, but she sort of wore me down. She kept telling me that it was the only way we could get you to come back here. You weren’t answering her calls at all. You were barely talking to me.”

  A little pang of anger builds in the pit of my stomach, but he raises his hand to stop me from saying anything.

  “I’m not blaming you. I’m just explaining where she, we, were coming from.”

  I feel my face turn to ice. “Why didn’t you just show up in New York?”

  “I wanted to…but Mom was…afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid that you would close the door in her face. She will never admit it in a million years, Harley, you know that, but she was afraid. She doesn’t deal with rejection well. So, when you stopped answering her calls…she just…shut down.”

  I ask him more questions and get pretty much the same answers back.

  I wonder if that has to do with the fact that it’s the truth or if he’s just repeating the same lies over and over.

  Either way, we’re not really getting anywhere.

  “Tell me,” my dad suddenly says, “tell me how I can make this better.”

  I shake my head.

  The truth is that I have no idea.

  It’s so…fucked up.

  I understand where he’s coming from. I sort of get why they did what they did, but it doesn’t change how hurt I am.

  I don’t really know if I can get over something like this.

  But at the same time, what choice do I have?

  They are the only parents I have, the only ones I will ever have.

  And spending this time with my dad really did remind me of the good times that we once had. It wasn’t that long ago that we laughed until we cried.

  It wasn’t that long ago that everything felt…normal.

  The way it should.

  Hell, even better.

  The way it is in the movies.

  Dad stays through dinner and then leaves.

  He takes off on a good note; we don’t talk about Mom or anything that brought me here: instead, we talk exclusively about skiing.

  I haven’t been since I moved to New York and it is one of those real Montana things that I miss with all of my heart.

  There is nothing like skiing the Rockies - the snow is like powder, the skies are bright blue, and the sun is almost always shining brightly even if it’s ten degrees below outside.

  When Dad leaves, nothing is really resolved, but something is mended a bit.

  The feeling that I have toward him now has less to do with anger and more just disappointment.

  If I can ever put it out of my mind completely, then everything will be fine again. That is if I’m capable of doing that.

  The following morning, the snow starts to melt.

  The roads have all been cleared, the major ones anyway, and Jackson asks me to show him around my favorite haunts.

  I suggest a few local points of interest, but he mainly wants to drive around and look at the mountains.

  I take him to the Bitterroot River and he falls in love.

  I nearly freeze my butt off standing here watching the snow banks and the trees surrounding its banks.

  “You know, it’s much nicer in the summer,” I point out.

  “We’ll have to come then.”

  I shake my head and smile.

  That’s not exactly what I meant.

  As he stands in awe admiring the towering pines and the eagles circling high above, he says, “Tell me about it in June then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said it’s much nicer in the summer. Describe it.”

  I close my eyes and try to remember how the grass smells as it grows, free of worries of ever being mowed.

  “Summer sets in quickly here, just like any other season. One day it’s cold and wet and the next it’s hot and dry and it stays like that for three months. The sidehills get so green, it hurts your eyes to look at them. Everything seems to speed up. The insects buzz louder and faster. The people ride around in every direction trying to use up every last minute of the day.”

  When I open my eyes, I am immediately greeted by the whiteness and the austerity of winter, which has its own beauty.

  “That sounds…beautiful. Will you come back with me this summer?”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I guess I’ll just come by myself. I’m sure your dad will be happy to show me around.”

  I laugh. That I am certain of.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Jackson says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You look like you’re about to turn into an icicle.”

  “Thank God! I thought you’d never ask.” We race back to the car and ask the driver to turn the heat up.

  Jackson wraps his arms around me, in an effort to warm me up even faster. After a few minutes, I finally start to thaw.

  “Where to?” the driver asks.

  “What else do you want to see?” I ask Jackson, blowing warm air on my frozen hands.

  “The Burke Ranch.”

  Chapter 17 - Harley

  When I go back…

  As soon as those words come out of his mouth, my world comes to a standstill.

  No.

  There’s no way that I am goi
ng back there.

  I haven’t been there since Aspen’s funeral.

  It’s a place that I intend to keep in my memories forever.

  It has hurt me way too much over the years and being there in real life will just make it completely unbearable to breathe.

  I tell Jackson all of this and he nods understandingly.

  “What if you go there and discover that it doesn’t actually hold any power over you? What if it’s just a place?”

  “But it’s not.”

  He shrugs.

  The driver again asks where to and I tell him to take us home.

  Reluctantly, Jackson agrees, and we make our way over the winding roads back to the chalet without saying a word.

  “Isn’t it enough that I met with my dad?” I ask. “That was huge for me. If it weren’t for you, I doubt that I would have.”

  “I’m glad you did. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be sitting here at all.” He looks out of the window and suddenly I realize just how much progress he has actually made.

  In all of this commotion, I had completely forgotten to ask him how he’s feeling about…not being in his house all day and all night.

  So, I do.

  “I actually feel fine,” Jackson says. “Much better than I ever thought I would. I thought that I would feel claustrophobic and out of control, but it’s actually very relaxing here. There aren’t too many people. No one is shouting. No one is rushing around. There’s very little traffic. And back at our house? It’s…heaven.”

  I’m glad that I was able to be there for him.

  I still have a hard time imagining what it would be like to never go outside for almost four years, but as soon as we pull up to our mountain cabin, as Jackson calls it, the prospect of going inside and not seeing anyone else for a year or two sounds…marvelous.

  “Wait, before we go in…“ Jackson places his hand on mine. “The reason I want you to take me to the Burke Ranch is that I want to see it with my own eyes. I want to see this place that has such an important hold on your family. On you and your history.”

  I clench my jaw and think about it for a moment.

  Jackson sits back and waits.