Damaged (Crystal Brook Billionaires)

by Blake, Jessica

  “So if we got back together, I would have to know for sure that it was the real thing. No more fooling around.”

  A silence followed my statement. When she finally spoke, her voice was small. “You don’t think I could do that? You don’t think I could commit for the rest of our lives?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Could you?”

  She sobbed again. “I don’t know.”

  I exhaled and let my head fall forward. Hearing her in such pain was killing me.

  “All I know is I want you right now,” she said.

  I shook my head, even though no one was there to see me. “I wanted more from you than right now. I wanted the rest of time.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “You’re such a romantic.”

  I laughed ruefully. “You should see me now. You’d probably be singing a different tune if you saw the person I’ve turned into.”

  I listened to her cry some more.

  “Jess,” I said, “It’s not your fault. I didn’t mean that.”

  “It is my fault,” she cried. “I left you. None of this was your doing.”

  I inhaled sharply. “But don’t blame yourself. You have to do what’s right for you.”

  “I never deserved you. A part of me always knew that. You’re just too good of a guy for me.”

  She sniffled. I tried to imagine her wherever she was sitting, her dark hair probably ruffled and her usually perfect mascara running. No doubt she was still beautiful. She’d always been one of those women who couldn’t look bad even if they tried.

  Much like Gwen.

  “What did you mean when you talked about the person you’ve turned into?” she asked.

  “Let’s just say I’ve changed a lot over the last year.”

  “You don’t want a commitment anymore?”

  “No.” I paused to reflect on the word. It felt right. “It’s just not that simple. I can’t handle it. Or maybe I’ve just lost faith. I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did that to you.”

  “Don’t apologize. Everyone has to do whatever they need to do to make themselves happy.”

  “But I was your wife. I should have stayed and worked on being happy with you instead of going out and trying to find happiness everywhere else.”

  I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, stopping the words that wanted to fly from my mouth. The path she was outlining was exactly the one I would have taken. The thing was, I realized I couldn’t rightly ask someone else to follow the same path as me. Not if they truly didn’t want to.

  “The first thing you need to do is follow your heart,” I said softly.

  She fell into another silence, telling me my last comment had struck close to home.

  “Do you really want to get back together with me?” I gently asked.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. I just want things to be easier.”

  I laughed. “Don’t we all.”

  “I guess I should go.”

  I swallowed hard. Something about that statement seemed so ominous. I had a feeling it would be a long time before we spoke again — if ever.

  “Jess,” I said. “Merry Christmas Eve.”

  “Merry Christmas Eve, Jason,” she whispered.

  The line went dead.

  I stood slowly, a strange energy filling my limbs. So many times I’d dreamed of receiving that exact call from Jess. For so many days, I had hoped she would come back to me.

  And now that she wanted to, everything was different.

  We may have loved each other, but we really did want different things out of life. Perhaps my failing as a husband had been in picking a mate who wasn’t as sure about commitment as I was.

  Or maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault. What had happened had happened.

  My fingertips tingled as another fresh thought came to me. If I was so gung-ho about finding the right woman for me, what was I doing holding myself back? The one night stands and sporadic flings did nothing for me. For months and months, I’d told myself I just wasn’t ready for another real relationship. I had convinced myself I had nothing to give and no way to receive.

  But maybe it was only that way because I had decided it was so. Maybe, with one quick flip of the switch, I could make it the opposite way.

  I could be ready. I could be the decisive and committed person that I knew I was deep down.

  And I could start right away.

  *

  I was up with the sun, a strange and exhilarating energy running through me. Getting dressed, I slipped quietly out of the guest room. I didn’t have a plan yet for winning Gwen over, but just the realization that I was ready to pursue her had me pumped.

  Making sure I had the house key in my pocket, I reached out to open the front door. Just as I grabbed the knob, though, it flew open. Harry stood on the stoop, wearing a hat with thick plaid flaps on it.

  “Jason,” he said in surprise. “Where are you going so early?”

  I shrugged. “Just for a walk.”

  “All right.” His eyes ran across me, and I wondered briefly just how much he knew about my intentions. Not only did word seem to get around quickly in the Lawrence family, I sometimes got the impression that they were all in possession of some sort of sixth sense. The way Claire and Susan looked at me sometimes, I swear they knew exactly what was going on with me and Gwen.

  “What are you doing up so early?” I asked in return.

  “Salt.” He held up the bag I hadn’t noticed before. “I was worried I didn’t put enough down yesterday. You’re not going to miss breakfast, are you?”

  “I’ll try to be back soon,” I said. “I just need to stretch my legs.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “See you in a bit then.”

  He went past me into the house, and I hurried down the steps as quickly as I could without risking slipping on the ice and snow. I didn’t know where I was headed, but what I’d told Harry was true. I needed to get out and stretch, take in some fresh air and gather my thoughts.

  The houses I passed were quiet. I realized with a start that I was familiar with about half of them. I remembered their porches, their brightly painted doors, and their tacky Christmas decorations.

  And I loved them.

  What would my life be like if I moved to Crystal Brook, if I dropped everything in New York and just suddenly relocated? Would I be like Harry at the Christmas tree stand, just an average Joe known and liked by everyone?

  Such a life didn’t seem half as bad as I once thought it was. Harry and the other Lawrences had a whole community to count on, people they could probably turn to no matter how bad things got. Back home I had Miles and the chef who came and put meals in my fridge three times a week. Oh, and Germain. Did a semi-personal assistant count?

  No, I realized. If you pay people, it doesn’t count.

  I thought briefly about my parents, wondering what they were doing. It had been so long since I’d spent a Christmas with them, it was hard for me to even imagine. When I was a kid, there had been several holidays that the three of us weren’t even together. Both my mother and father had been fond of taking lovers, and their rendezvouses took differing forms. One Christmas when I was sixteen, my Mom flew to Hawaii with her swimming coach, and my Dad went downtown with his buddies and current girlfriend. Luckily, I’d had Miles’ house to go to.

  The despicable quality of that day hadn’t been lost on me, though. I promised myself that if I ever got married, I would take it seriously. Once I found a woman and told her she was the one for me, I would stay true to that promise.

  Knowing that things hadn’t worked out quite so perfectly no longer depressed me like it used to. For so long, I’d beaten myself up over my failed marriage. I’d tried so hard to make it work only to watch it disappear like dust getting blown from my hands.

  But maybe it had to fail.

  Maybe my relationship with Jess had served its purpose and passed its time. Maybe new and better things were to come.
Just because my wife had moved on and decided she wanted something more didn’t mean I was like my parents. It just meant life was meant to change; to progress.

  For the first time I really got that. The epiphany put a skip in my step as I strode along, enjoying the marvelous morning all by myself.

  Most of downtown was closed. I walked the entire length of it and then circled back around, going through the courtyard and stopping to listen to the bell chime. When I made my second go of one of the side streets, I noticed that one of the shops that had been closed earlier was open. On the sidewalk, a signboard stood, advertising records for sale.

  Moved by something I couldn’t explain, I made my way into the dark space. The one window was small, lighting up the rows of frayed records near the front. More of them stretched down the walls of the shop, ending where the counter sat. A young man wearing a tacky Christmas sweater, that I think was supposed to be ironic, looked up from where he was organizing the magazine rack and nodded at me.

  “Hi,” I said, moving slowly down the length of the store.

  “Looking for a Christmas present?” he asked.

  “Uh, no.” I stopped walking and thought about that. “Actually, maybe.”

  I’d gotten the whole Lawrence family one big gift — an iron clawed coat rack. It had shipped there a few days before I’d gotten into town and was in a big box under the tree, waiting to be assembled. It wasn’t a very personal gift, but then again when I picked it out, I’d never even met Claire’s family.

  So maybe it was time to look for something a little more intimate.

  A small display case in the back caught my eye. “Hey,” I said, walking over to the corner. “You have VHS tapes?”

  He laughed. “A few. I don’t really know why.”

  I ran my finger down the selection that held less than a hundred tapes. “Are they in any particular order?”

  “Other than alphabetical, no. They’re kind of random, just whatever people drop off here.”

  “Hm.” I started to take a step away, but then stopped when a title caught my eye. Could it really be?

  Pulling the VHS tape out, I let out a short gasp of surprise. It was a tape of The Shining — the one Gwen had talked about.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  What were the chances?

  “I’ll take this,” I said, turning around and waving it at the clerk.

  He looked over from the magazine rack. “Oh, cool. The Shining. You know Stephen King hates the Kubrick movie, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

  He rung me up and I left the shop, the tape wrapped securely up in a little plastic bag. Everything about the morning seemed better. The snow on the ground was pristine. The air was fresh. Even when the wind picked up and blew down my coat, bringing a chill with it, everything was perfect and right.

  And soon life would be even better.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gwen

  I stared up at the ceiling of my old bedroom, the ache in my chest almost too much to bear. It had taken forever to fall asleep, and once I had, the dreams had come, a ruthless string of torment.

  In the first one, I was back in New York, at Mike’s apartment. I was laying on his yellow couch — the first place we kissed — as he sat across from me, singing a song on his guitar. Everything seemed perfect at first, but then his voice began to fade away, the words of the song becoming slurred. I sat up, trying to hear better, but the image of the man in front of me began to blur. He was fading away, slipping backwards into a whirlwind of colors.

  The dream was replaced by one of Jason and me walking downtown, hand in hand. Snow came down, surrounding us with its soft flurries. We swung our arms, smiling happily at each other in a way people never do in real life. Someone called my name, and I looked across the street, eager to see who it was. I searched the sidewalk in front of the yarn shop, but no one was there. Something else was wrong too. I could no longer feel Jason’s hand in mine. Frantically, I whipped my face around, but he was gone. Gone from my life forever, I knew.

  There were more dreams after that, so many tales of man woe they could have lasted me a lifetime. When I finally woke up, I was anything but rested.

  Moaning, I ran my fingers across my eyelids. Maybe I could just stay in bed until I needed to go to Freddy’s. Maybe my parents wouldn’t even miss me.

  Fat chance.

  The door opened and someone padded across the floor. By the silence, I knew it was Claire, and I knew she was staring at me. I couldn’t even find it in myself to care, though. I rolled over on my side, putting my back to the doorway.

  “You’re still in bed?” she asked. “It’s nine. Don’t you, like, wake up before the butt crack of dawn now?”

  I thought about telling her the word crack would have sufficed — she didn’t need to add a butt to it but didn’t care enough to speak. Instead, I grabbed the second pillow and yanked it over my face. The end of the bed sank as she sat down on it.

  “Don’t you have to go to work?” she asked. “The last minute Christmas shoppers are going to need their skinny lattes.”

  “Noon,” I mumbled.

  “What? I can’t hear you with a pillow on your head.”

  I removed the pillow and sat up to look at her. Still in her pajamas, she stuck a toothbrush in her mouth, her hair piled up into a loose ponytail on the top of her head.

  “I said noon.”

  She frowned around the toothbrush. “You look tired.”

  “It was a kind of intense day yesterday.”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and she removed the toothbrush from her mouth.

  “No,” I quickly said. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “Jason and I did not have sex.”

  “You’re right. That is what I was thinking. Okay, so then what did happen? You guys were alone at your place for a while. Did you at least dry hump?”

  “Hilarious. Nothing happened.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I climbed out of bed. “Can you loan me some clothes?”

  “I already gave you some pajamas,” she teased. “Just wear those. Jason will probably think they’re hot.”

  I glared at her.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yes, of course.”

  Going to her suitcase on the opposite side of the room, she pulled out a pair of leggings and a shirt, then threw them at me. I started to unfold them but stopped when I saw the front of the t-shirt. Nasty Bitch, it said, in bright pink bubble letters.

  “Why do you have this?” I asked.

  “Someone gave it to me as I joke. I’ve never worn it. I mean, why would I? I’m not a nasty bitch. I just accidentally packed it.”

  “Oh, so you think I’m a nasty bitch? Can I have another shirt?”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened between you and Jason?”

  “No,” I curtly replied, pulling off the tank top she’d loaned me the night before.

  She laughed. “Not even for a non-degrading t-shirt?”

  “Nope.”

  I pulled the Nasty Bitch shirt on, partly to prove to myself just how over Jason I was and cursed myself for storming out of my house last night without bringing a single thing with me. I wasn’t going to think about him. I wasn’t going to dwell on anything that happened between us, and I certainly wasn’t going to talk about him. I’d wear whatever was necessary to prove that.

  She laughed. “Okay. It’s your choice.”

  “You’re damn right it is,” I snapped, heading for the bathroom.

  *

  From across the table, Grandpa squinted his eyes. “Gwenie, what does your shirt say?”

  Danny and Claire both guffawed.

  My mother made a disapproving noise. “Claire, will you loan your sister a different shirt?”

  “No can do, Mom,” Claire said around a mouthful of waffle. “She loves it. She won’t take it off. I tried to make her, but she was all l
ike, ‘No, this is who I am now.’ I think she’s just trying to express herself.”

  Mom pursed her lips and set the platter of bacon on the dining room table. Everyone was at breakfast except for Jason.

  “Where’s Jason?” Danny asked as if reading my mind.

  Dad helped himself to a heap of bacon. “Saw him earlier this morning. Said he was going for a walk.”

  “He’s not leaving?” I asked.

  The whole table stared at me.

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked, his voice gruff.

  I searched for the right words. “I, uh… well, he told me last night that something was going on with work and that he might have to go back to New York today.”

  “Oh, no one’s going anywhere,” Mom said, bringing in the orange juice and then taking a seat. “Didn’t you look outside? It’s still snowing. The airport is as good as closed.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled. There went never thinking about him again. At least I could still try and ignore him.

  From next to Grandma, Claire shook her head at me.

  “He can’t take a walk in this weather,” Grandma said. “What’s the boy thinking?”

  “It’s not too bad,” Dad argued. “He’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe he slipped and fell,” Grandma continued. “It’s icy out there. He could have gotten hurt. Oh, Harry, we should go look for him.”

  “Grandma,” I seethed. “He’s fine.”

  “Does anyone have his number?” Grandma asked, ignoring me.

  I took in a sharp breath, trying not to be the nasty bitch my clothing proclaimed me to be and yell at my aging grandmother.

  “I just texted him,” Claire announced, setting her phone on the table. “Hold the search and rescue dogs. He texted back right away. He’s fine.”

  “Oh, good,” Grandma said.

  I shoved another forkful of eggs into my mouth, waiting for the conversation to move on to other things before speaking up. I had already broken my promise to myself to never speak of Jason again, and I didn’t want to make a habit of doing so.

  Claire cornered me when we both got assigned the task of taking care of the dirty dishes.

  “So,” she said, her eyes like bullets.

  “Nuh uh,” I answered. “I’m not talking to you.”