by M. Leighton
“Shhh,” I caution. “She’s okay. Just let me take her downstairs and I’ll come back up so I can explain.”
“No! You can tell me now. Is she okay? What hap—”
“Cami!” I snap, interrupting her. When she snaps her mouth shut and looks at me, I add. “Please.”
Cami’s violet eyes bore holes into mine as she narrows them on me. She says nothing for a few seconds. I’m sure she’s debating the wisdom of leaving her best friend in my care when I’ve been such an asshole. But she relents.
“Okay, but you come straight back up here,” she hisses.
I nod and continue on to the stairs that lead to the basement. I hit the light switch with my elbow and descend the steps into the cool quiet of the lower level.
I stop on the landing at the bottom. The light from the stairwell only penetrates the dimness a few inches in every direction. When I step out into the darkness, it’s somehow like stepping into blessed peace. The light has shown me too much trouble lately. I could use some darkness. Darkness where there’s only me and Jenna. And maybe one more chance for me to not screw it up.
From memory, I carry her to the guest suite Trick and Cami set up down here. I can barely make out the bed in the dying daylight seeping through the tiny window at the top of one wall. I head for it and lay her gently on the soft, pillowy top. She stirs very little.
I bend and press my lips to her forehead. I don’t know if she even has a clue she’s in the world right now, but I speak to her anyway. Just in case.
“Rest, Jenna. I’ll be right back. I promise,” I whisper. She doesn’t respond. A few seconds later, she rolls onto her side and I hear her breathing become deep and even. “I’ll be here every time you open your eyes. I swear it,” I say. This time, it’s more for my benefit than hers.
I make my way back upstairs. Cami’s waiting on the top step, arms crossed over her chest, hell in her eyes.
“Dammit, Rusty, what is wrong with her? What did you do?”
“Keep your voice down,” I tell her. “I didn’t do anything to her. Her father was killed in an accident at the orchard today.”
Cami’s gasp is followed by her hands covering her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Poor Jenna!” She closes her eyes and slides her hands up to cover her whole face. Trick comes around from behind me to pull her into his arms. I give them a few minutes, minutes for Trick to comfort Cami and for Cami to collect herself. She’s known Jenna’s dad for years. No doubt she feels some sense of pain and loss, too, not to mention the sympathy for her best friend.
When she uncovers her face and wipes her eyes, I continue. “Mom was down in the ER and she came and told me right away. Jenna had already left the hospital, so I went to her house. I found her out in the rain. She didn’t want to go back inside, so I brought her here.”
“I’m glad you did,” Cami says, kindness back in her eyes. “I’ll take care of her. I’m sure you need to rest. You’re not even supposed to be out of the hospital yet, are you?”
“I’m fine. And I’ll stay with her tonight, if you don’t mind.”
“You really don’t need to do that. I’ll make sure she knows—”
“No offense, Cami, but it’s not a request. I’m staying. Or I’m taking her with me when I leave.”
Cami eyes me suspiciously, but again, she relents. “Okay, okay. Can I at least go see her?”
“I’ll come get you when she wakes up, but I want to be there when she does.”
Cami nods, possibly in approval. I can’t be sure. “Fair enough.”
She looks from me to Trick, and then turns and walks slowly back toward the living room. I know she doesn’t like it, but at least she recognizes that I’m not budging on this. She can take it or leave it. Her choice. She chose to take it.
Smart girl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE- Jenna
Life, or what feels like the reasonable facsimile of it, has slowed. At first, it was a series of light bulb-flashes of time and sounds, of people and places.
There were the various rooms of my house. Then there were the empty windows of the rooms upstairs. There was Rusty’s face in the rain. Then there was the dashboard of an unfamiliar car.
I woke some time later, in a dark room, to the faint sight of Rusty hovering over me. We watched each other for an eternity. Or for a few seconds. I’m not sure which. I stayed perfectly still while the mattress beside me sank and stretched out beside me, drawing me into his arms.
There was more time after that. Hours or days, I don’t know, but I woke again in the same dark room. Beneath my ear was a beating heart and deep, even breathing. I lifted my head to confirm what I already knew. It was Rusty. Rusty had fallen asleep holding me.
Still, there was more time. Still, I don’t know how much. I woke, startled by a girl’s screams. It took Rusty stroking my hair, soothing me with his calming words to make me realize that the girl was me. And that her screams were mine.
I remember daylight after that. And Rusty. Still. Always, it seemed.
There was worry on his face and in his eyes. But there was something else, too. Something I refused to think about. So I slept.
There were vague impressions, too. Fingers on my cheek, lips against mine, words whispered in my ear. Something that made my heart sing and cry, all in the space of a heartbeat. So I dove back into sleep, into escape.
When I could hide no more, I woke to the sight of Cami sitting in the rocking chair in the corner. I watched her for a few seconds before I moved. She looked tired as she swayed gently back and forth, her head resting against the cushion, her eyes closed. I wondered briefly what was weighing so heavily on her.
Her head straightened and her eyes opened, locking on mine immediately. I knew then what was worrying her. It was me.
She came to the bed, curled up beside me, threaded her fingers through mine and we cried. Together. I don’t know how long we did that before I fell asleep again. When I woke she was in different clothes, standing in the doorway.
“Where’s Rusty?” I’d asked.
“He said he’d asked you for one day, and that you’d given it to him. And that he would come back if you wanted him to.”
My heart broke a little more. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it was already in a million tiny pieces and happiness hurt just as much as sadness. Or maybe because I couldn’t tell them apart. Maybe they are one and the same. Or maybe there can’t be one without the other.
After that moment, time sped up into a blur, a rapid succession of images and places, of fuzzy emotions and decisions, all set against the backdrop of an unimaginable pain and sense of loss. They ran together, beyond my control, like water colors in a cold, hard rain.
There were arrangements to make, morticians to speak to, songs to choose and gravestones to select. There were thoughts of telephone calls, but none to make, except to my brother, Jake. Although he’s always been as far away emotionally as he has been geographically, he promised he would come. That moment stood out among the rest.
And now, somehow, I’m here. In a cemetery. In the sunlight. In a dress I don’t remember buying, in front of a casket I can’t remember picking out.
My brother stands beside me, looking like a brooding, bitter version of my father, with his black hair, dark skin and amber eyes, and we address the dozens of people who have come to pay their last respects to my father. He nods politely and I say things I really don’t mean to people I really don’t know as they drift by in single file. I watch them come and I watch them go, and all I feel is…empty. And alone.
Even my mother’s jealous, vindictive sister, Ellie’s presence doesn’t shake me from my stupor. I recognize her trailer-trash hair and her trailer-trash dress when she steps up in line. I recognize the smell of vodka on her breath and the way she curls her lip in disgust. But still, I don’t feel like I’m present. Not fully.
I listen as she speaks, but I don’t really understand what it is she’s trying to say. And so
me part of me thinks that I don’t really want to. At least not today.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your daddy,” I hear her slur. “Have you already read the will and taken care of all the arrangements?”
I don’t answer. I simply watch her, wishing she’d disappear. Or that I would.
“Well,” she continues, “just let me know when to be there. I’m sure he’s made some provisions for you two, like a good father would, but that orchard should come to me. Rightfully. And since you kids don’t have an interest in living there like me and Turkey do…”
Some part of me, a part that I see and feel as if I’m observing it from a great distance, is getting angry. It threatens to penetrate my numb cocoon. But I resist.
“What’s this about, Ellie?” Jake asks, protectively stepping closer to me.
“Jake, honey, you know as well as I do that you two don’t want the orchard. And it should’ve come to me next anyway, so why don’t we just talk to the lawyers and have them sign it over to me and Turkey. You’ll feel better without having to worry about the home place.”
“The hell I will,” Jake bites. “My mother would roll over in her grave if she thought I turned the place she loved so much over to you.”
Even from deep inside my fuzzy reality, I see Ellie’s saccharine sweet demeanor dissolve into one of contempt. “We’ll just see what the lawyers have to say about that then. I tried to do this the kind way, but you’re making it awful hard to be nice, son.”
“I’m not your son,” Jake growls. “And we’ll see just who ends up with what. Now, take your raggedy ass on home before you really make me mad.”
I know I should feel angry. I can see it in the way Jake glances at me, as if waiting for me to speak up. Only I don’t. Because I can’t. I can’t feel anything right now. I simply watch, like I’m watching a game from the sidelines, as Ellie glares at Jake and takes her husband, Turkey, by the arm and drags him away. “Come on. I knew this would be a waste of time.”
The line begins to dwindle. As it does, one random thought chases itself through my head, over and over and over.
What do I do after this?
No answer comes to me. I shake hand after hand, and accept hug after hug until there’s no one left in line, and it’s just me and Jake standing in the cemetery, all alone.
It’s as I’m glancing at the gravestones that surround me, all glistening in the sun like so many black diamonds, that I see him.
Rusty.
Standing in the shade of a tree, he’s wearing a black suit, the jacket draped over one shoulder. His right arm is free, covered only in a white, unbuttoned shirt sleeve that fits over his cast.
I have no idea how long he’s been there, but some part of me says he’s been there all along.
Across the distance, we stare at each other. Then, little by little, like dawn breaking through the darkness of the night, feeling begins to penetrate—the breeze on my skin, the sun on my face, the pain in my soul, the certainty in my heart.
Everything in my vision, in my world, in my life, comes into crystal clear focus as I stand, holding my breath, staring at Rusty. Waiting. Finally, with clarity that only great tragedy can bring, I see Rusty. Really see him. I see the fear he’s lived with, and I see the insecurity he grew up with. I see the guy I fell in love with, and I see the man he’s become since fate stepped in and brought us together.
I take one step forward and I stop. And I wait. Unmoving, he watches me, so I take another. And another. And another still, walking until I’m close enough to smell the scent of his soap, swirling around me like a comforting fog.
“I know I shouldn’t have come,” he begins.
“Then why did you?”
“Because I couldn’t stay away. I had to know you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” I assure him, even though we both know that’s a lie. “Is that it? I mean, are you just gonna leave now?”
“I don’t want to, but I will if that’s what you want.”
“I’ve never wanted you to go, Rusty.”
“And I’ve never wanted you to go,” he replies. “But I knew you would. I knew you had to.”
“Then why did you say the things you did?”
Rusty takes a deep breath and looks off into the distance before he returns his gaze to me. “I was trying to do what was right. For both of us.”
“And now? What are you trying to do now?”
“Survive,” he says simply.
My addled mind isn’t working well enough to make sense of riddles, so I wait. Wait for him to explain.
“Jenna, I can survive without you. I can exist,” he begins, the words slicing through me like a knife through butter. “But it wouldn’t be any kind of existence that I’d want. You are what makes my life worth living. You’re the sunshine in it, you’re the laughter and the smiles. You’re the warm nights and the cool breezes. You’re like every good memory and moment and dream I’ve ever had all wrapped up into one. And if you go, you take the only living part of me with you. Without you, I might as well be dead. So, yes, I can survive without you. But that’s all I’d be doing.
“I don’t know how to apologize for being an idiot and an asshole, and for letting something as stupid as fear come between me and the only chance I’ll ever have at happiness. I don’t know how to tell you that I love you for every single thing that you are and every single thing you’ll ever be. I don’t know how to tell you that when my mom told me about your dad, I felt an ache in my chest—literally—at the thought of you somewhere, alone and hurting, and me not being there to hold you while you cried. I don’t know how to tell you that I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, just to hear you say you love me one more time. Help me, Jenna. Help me say the right things. Help me do the right things. Help me to be the kind of man you could spend the rest of your life loving. Because that’s who I want to be.”
As I stand, chest to chest, with Rusty, listening to his hoarse voice, letting the sincerity in it wash over me like a cleansing tide, I realize that it is entirely possible to experience the most agonizing pain and the most wondrous happiness at the exact same time in life. And that maybe it’s the presence of one that so magnifies the other.
I glance back over my shoulder, at the mahogany casket that’s gleaming brightly on the other side of the cemetery, and I know my father is looking on. Just like I’d always hoped, he’s here with me on one of the most important days of my life. And he always will be. I might not be able to reach out and touch him or feel his arms wrap around me, but he’s here just the same. I’ll carry him with me. Always.
With my first smile in days blooming across my face like an old friend, I turn back to Rusty.
“I don’t need any of those things, Rusty. I never have. All I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever needed is your love. As long as I have that, nothing else matters.”
“But I—”
“Shhh,” I say, placing my finger over his warm lips. “No. No more apologies. Life’s too short to go back, to look back. As long as you love me, that’s all that matters. That’s all that will ever matter.”
“I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, Jenna. And I’ll love you long after I’m gone from this world.”
I reach up and wind my arms around his neck, giving him a mischievous wink. “What took you so long?”
He grins down at me. “Traffic was hell.”
I laugh as his lips cover mine. And, in the sunshine, I feel my father smiling down on me—the two men I’ve loved most in my life, here with me. Always in my heart.
EPILOGUE- Jenna
Three months later
“I wonder what this is all about,” I muse out loud to Rusty as he flies through the curves and turns that lead to Cami and Trick’s house.
This is the first time we’ve been back to Greenfield in over a month. Jake, like a dog with a bone, is staying at the house, taking care of Einstein and doing everything he can to thwart my aunt as she tries to take our heritage. I’m
relieved that he wanted to do it. I still have trouble walking through the front door of that place. But that doesn’t mean I want to let Ellie have it. I just need time. And Jake is giving it to me.
As for Rusty and me, we’ve been busy—me with my new job, Rusty with physical therapy and getting his new garage set up in Atlanta. And both of us with making our new apartment “home.”
“I’ve got my suspicions. Since Rags won his last race—and I don’t even know how many that makes now—Trick has started getting all sorts of offers for breaking horses. And for breeding, too. Everybody wants a piece of Rags. But last I heard he hadn’t made any moves on anything. I’m wondering if he just has or is getting ready to. Either way, you know how he is. The guy’s about as dramatic and mysterious as my left nut. All this suspense has to be Cami’s idea.”
“Of course it is, silly. What guy is ever the dramatic one in the relationship?”
“Exactly, which makes me think it’s—”
“Wait!” I yell, holding out my hand to stop him. “I take it back. I don’t want to know what you think. I wanna be surprised.”
Rusty shrugs. “Whatever.”
I’m looking out the window at the passing landscape, just thinking, when we pass a little road I’ve never noticed before.
“Wonder where that goes?”
When Rusty doesn’t answer, I glance over at him. He’s looking in the rear view mirror. “I don’t know,” he admits, turning his eyes to me. “But how about we turn around, see where it goes and have some afternoon delight before we hear this big news?”
“No, we can’t do that. They’re waiting for us.”
“We won’t be long,” he says with a grin.
“Oh, so you’re not worried about me at all. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Are you saying you don’t think I can work my magic on that delectable body of yours in such a short amount of time?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I meant—”
“Challenge accepted,” he says with a grin, bringing the car to a screeching halt then making a U turn.
