There were other things he couldn’t yet tell her. When he did, he anticipated her reaction would be far worse than this.
He knocked on the bedroom door sporadically for three hours. Finally, he left and lay down on the couch, completely annoyed she wouldn’t talk to him. This master bedroom had a deadbolt lock that prevented him from merely undoing it. Who needed one of those on the master bedroom? It left Will stumped.
He tossed and turned on the couch all night. No blankets or pillows were offered and she kept them all in the bedroom with her. He finally gave up at five in the morning and went for a long jog to clear his head and remind himself he was doing the right thing. She was not ready to hear it. But the money was an inanimate object, and he could use it to give them all the things their lives previously lacked.
When he came in, he was glad to see she was at least out of the bedroom. She glared at him and continued to prepare her breakfast. He sighed when she would not raise her eyes to his. Okay. Silent treatment. Awesome. And new from her.
He showered and got ready to leave for the base. He had training today.
When he came out, she was doing the dishes. The dogs circled her. He stood there waiting for her to acknowledge him. But… nothing.
“Jessie? How long are you going to ignore me? We need to talk about this.”
Her eyes rose to his, raising her eyebrows in disdain. “No. I’m not ready to. You can’t make me. No matter how hard you try.”
He sighed and tried to reach for her. “Jessie, please, understand…”
She sidestepped him. “No. I mean it. Don’t try to manhandle me to get your way. Just stop it. I don’t want to talk yet.”
She turned and walked out the front door. He stared at her, utterly confused. He wasn’t sure what to do. Usually, when she was upset, it was over something outside of them. He could talk to her. Hold her. Fix it. Or just try to fix it. This, however, was caused by him. She was hurt. And mad at him.
He didn’t know what to do about having Jessie mad at him. He didn’t like it. His stomach started to hurt. Remembering her cold stare made his head pound halfway through the day.
She didn’t come home for dinner, but drove up to her sister’s to stay the night. She left a message on their machine for him. She didn’t even call him herself. She ignored all of his calls. He paced the house, and followed the care instructions she left for all her animals. He bought lumber for the doghouse she wanted built for Soldier. He raked the yard. He mowed it. He tossed the ball for Soldier. He went to bed alone, very annoyed and worried.
He went to work again, and came home to another empty house. His stomach was churning in knots. He was off the next day. What would he do? He cleaned the house. He got on the roof and scraped off the bits of moss, and cleared the rotten leaves from the gutters.
Later, Bella came out, asking for Jessie. He said she was visiting her sister. Bella tilted her head strangely, and at an odd angle. Finally, he asked, “Did she call you?”
“She did.”
“And?” he asked when she hesitated.
“And you’re having a fight, Will. I take it, it’s not something you’re used to?”
He lowered the shovel he was using to dig up a rotten stump Jessie didn’t like in the front yard. “No. She’s never been mad at me like this.”
“You understand that she feels you think she’s an incompetent, fragile, little girl.”
He shifted his feet. Since when did Jessie discuss them, or their life, or their personal issues with anyone else? But a stranger? Not even Lindsey? He didn’t know what to do with that.
“I don’t think of her as a little girl.”
“Then you’re going to have to learn to be less controlling. She isn’t one of your recruits. She isn’t one of your men. As an officer, you control a lot of things and people, right?”
“Yeah. Right. I don’t think of Jessie as another of my men.”
She smirked, “No, but you did not tell her about her own father’s estate.”
He didn’t like discussing private issues with neighbors. Why did Jessie call her?
Bella read something on his face. “You two are the most clueless couple when it comes to interpersonal communication. She could hardly get used to having a freaking friend! And you can’t get used to what girlfriends talk about. It’s normal that she called me, Will, complaining about what you did. Giving you the silent treatment? Sleeping on the couch? Just exactly what I’d do to Finn in those circumstances. She’s not melting down. She’s mad at you and punishing you by making you suffer. She’s being a normal, married woman, I hate to tell you.”
“Okay, I’m not used to her having a friend.”
“Besides your ex-wife, you mean? The person you picked to be her friend?”
“She’s mad at me about Gretchen now?”
“No. Just tired of you not telling her things.”
He went back to hacking at the stump, wanting to smash the shovel into the side of the house. Funny. To Lindsey and Bella and Finn maybe. To all of them, Jessie was just mad at him. Did they ever pull her out from bloody water? No? Well, he did. Multiple times. He feared she would kill herself on more than one occasion. He saw someone pushing his hand between her legs, which were tied to the floor. He heard her screams. So, no, it wasn’t as simple as him being a little controlling, or treating her like his soldiers, or whatever. It wasn’t funny to exclude him without letting him know how she was, mad or not.
She finally returned after he collapsed on the couch to stare at the TV. He did every conceivable chore he could think of. He stood up before she unlocked the door. She stopped dead when she saw he was right there. His jaw locked painfully, and he squeezed his fists. His anger was now as strong as her own. She had totally abandoned him.
He circled around the couch. “Nice to know you’re alive still.”
His tone was acidic. She flinched, but raised her chin. “I told you I was at Lindsey’s.”
“You told our machine. Twice. Not me.”
“I wasn’t ready to talk to you.”
“Oh, really? Well, that doesn’t give you the right to leave like that. Or worry me like that.”
He stepped closer to her. She glared at him as she stepped fully inside, trying to get through the entry and away from him. He blocked her. She pushed at his chest. “Move, Will. I don’t need you intimidating me.”
He spun on his heel, stomping down the hall and locking their bedroom door on her.
****
Jessie stared at the slammed door with her mouth open in shock. Will was being snarky with her? He never acted that way. He was always so calm and cool, annoyingly rational. It was the cause of more than one of her past tantrums. But he left her out in their living room. She was all ready to defend herself. Maybe finally yell at him with the words it took her three days to formulate. When she left, she was speechless. She could not speak to him because his betrayal ran so thick and deep. He wasn’t supposed to be the one who would hurt her feelings so sharply as this. But he did. And she couldn’t even find the words to explain it.
She sighed and greeted her animals. Her heart lifted at their contact, and wet kisses, and the cats’ purring. She sat down on the couch, deflated. She hated fighting with Will. And feeling disconnected from him.
She turned her head and lay down on the couch. It was still warmed from his body. She sighed as some tears trickled down, but sleep eventually overtook her.
She awoke to find his arms shuffling her around. She mumbled from a nearly drugged state. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s stupid that you’re sleeping out here. I don’t like sleeping without you. I do that too much as it is.”
With that, he slipped her into their bed. She barely opened her eyes, but cuddled against the side of him. “I thought you were mad too,” she said, still half asleep.
“I am.”
“You hurt me,” she said finally, after minutes of silence.
“I know. But I thought I had to.”<
br />
“That was supposed to be the point of us now; you don’t have to treat me special anymore.”
“Before or after I wash the blood off you?”
She closed her eyes. “This is exactly why I sometimes think you were right. Other people would be easier for us to be with.”
“Well, sure,” he said too quickly. Her eyes finally popped open to find him staring right at her. “Because we wouldn’t love them, or give a fuck what they thought or felt because we feel it all for each other. There would never be room for anyone else, now would there?”
She swallowed. “No, there is no one else who could even come close to touching how I feel about you.”
“Don’t leave me like that again. I don’t deserve that.” His tone was intense. She caressed his face. He was really upset, not just mad like she figured. He appeared quite distraught over what she’d done.
“Will, I’m okay. I mean, I’m mad at you. But it’s tolerable.”
“Well, how could I know that? You weren’t here. You weren’t here for me to at least know how you were. Give me a little credit. I watched you take razor blades to your skin. I still dream about what some black-haired, sadistic fuck did to you in front of me. And now you want me to just assume you were fine?”
Her breath caught, and she held his face. “Will, I’m fine.”
“Well, I’m not, okay? Worrying about you is a full time job sometimes. Maybe my judgment is wrong too. But acting as if I’m not justified to be careful how I tell you things is juvenile and short-sighted of you. Acting like you can’t trust me? Me? I don’t deserve that, either.”
“I don’t like being treated like a fragile mental patient that you have to cautiously approach with reality.”
“I know. But there was a time; you were my fragile, mental patient, and I couldn’t approach you with reality. Don’t deny what you were like. I feared your life more than my own in active combat. So while you’re all pissed off because I used poor judgment in when I told you the news about the man who had you raped, repeatedly, you’ll have to excuse my skepticism that you left me over it.”
His jaw was locked, and his eyes were flashing. His entire body went taut. Holy crap! He was really angry at her. Apparently, she’d never seen him truly angry with her before. He’d been annoyed, puzzled, disgusted, confused, but never truly angry.
“Lately you’ve been doing that way too much.”
“What?”
“Simplifying what brought us together. What I know about you. What happened to you.”
“I want to simplify it. I want to forget it and live here and now. Why would you act as if that were a negative thing?”
“Because it’s all still there, here, in us and between us. You can’t pretend it away. I’ve seen what it does to you when you’re not managing it. You’re not managing it right now.”
“Why? Because I’m choosing to work, live, enjoy friends and actually make connections with new people? Maybe you prefer me to be sad, broken, little Jessie Bains, so you can swoop in and fix me.”
His entire body stilled and tensed. He slowly lifted his head off the pillow. Her heart stopped. Shit! She’d gone too far. “Wi—”
He shook his head. “Jesus, I never did that. I never for one moment thought such a thing, or wanted that for you.” He suddenly flipped the covers off and stood up.
She sat up in the bed. “Where are you going?”
He barely spared a glance her way. “For a run. I can’t listen to this shit right now.”
“It’s dark outside.”
“I’m not afraid of it. You are. Enjoy your night.”
****
She paced her kitchen. His truck was gone. He simply grabbed his stuff this morning and left without showering or another word to her. She wasn’t sure what to do. They’d never really fought like that. She did things wrong, and pissed him off. But they didn’t usually fight. He never stormed out on her before with that remark: that he couldn’t listen to this shit.
Was this how they would be together? Was this why his first instincts were to leave her? How could two people stay together after experiencing the things they had? He was angry she was doing better? He didn’t trust her to hear the news about her father? Well, maybe, she didn’t want to always be reminded of how he found her.
Was this the start of it? Of losing everything they both always feared about a long-term relationship with one another? How could a love born in hell survive the rigors and drain of real life?
It was sometimes easier to be around Finn and Bella and the other friends, as they never looked into her eyes or tried to judge how she was feeling. They didn’t watch her when they told her negative things to see how she reacted. They didn’t wait every other moment for her to run off and do something crazy, or harm herself.
Will did those things. What if they really couldn’t sustain the love they found with each other against the dark forces between them?
The shittiest part of it all was: those forces were neither of their faults.
No, no, no! The thought sent her brain panicking like a ping-pong ball around her head. No. They had everything they ever dreamt of and nothing they ever expected to find. They were not going to lose it because of the past. Because of her. Because of him. None of that mattered. The whole fucking point of it was that their love grew despite everything, and in a place where nothing more than a nuclear wasteland should have existed.
She scratched her wrists. It wasn’t funny, telling her to enjoy the dark. That was not how Will ever spoke to her. He was always kind to her. Solicitous even. Cognizant of the things that were inside her. Things that easily reared their ugly heads and haunted her.
As they were starting to now.
She tapped her fingers restlessly against her thigh, and drew in a breath. She let it out and closed her eyes. What if he could never trust her? Or see her as normal?
Did it matter? Even if he never became totally normal with her, how the fuck did it matter? If he was willing to be with her, what the fuck did it matter if she was perfect or not? Or if he didn’t tell her something? So what? Was it better to be alone and miserable while rotting in some mental facility? Everyone who saw her knew that without Will Hendricks beside her, behind her, holding her up, she would have ended up in a sanitarium, probably sitting in her own shit as she rocked in a fetal ball and stared at the wall.
He was right, she quit managing it. She quit feeling it. She tried to bury it. But there was nothing about that, which could ever truly, totally be buried.
She paced harder.
She didn’t like this. It was scaring her now. Where she first was angry, now fear started to seep into her brain.
Pain shot through her stomach and blinded her head. She grasped the table to hold herself up. What if he left her?
She closed her eyes. Breathe. Be calm. Be rational. Be normal.
She opened her eyes. When the fuck was she ever normal?
She searched the counter in frantic movements until she finally found her cell phone. Her fingers shook, aching to grab something. Her head was blind with pain now. Her skin felt tight and achy over her body.
She mostly wanted to take out the scissors and stab them deep into her thigh.
He didn’t answer. His voicemail came on. “This is Will, leave a message.”
No! She needed to talk to him now. Right now. This instant. “Will. Please…” Please what? Don’t be mad at me? Love me? Come back to me? Don’t leave me? Don’t hate me for being a psychotic crazy bitch?
She hung up, but dialed four more times. Nothing.
Her heart was beating too fast. She swallowed over the sudden lump. Tears filled and fell over her face.
Alone. She was alone. She was…
Crazy. She was as crazy as people used to accuse her of being.
Don’t let me prove him right about why he couldn’t tell me. She stared down at her fingernails. The nail beds were white. She had scratch marks on her wrists and palms where she pressed
her fingers into her arm and hand. Normal people didn’t do that. She knew it. She was well enough to recognize that. But still, her fingers dug into her skin. Still, the desire to hurt herself grew stronger than her mental resistance.
But no. No. She was not that way anymore. She was better. She was so much better.
Why, then, was she staring at the scissors now in her hands?
She threw them out in the yard before running into their bedroom and ripping the bed apart. She heaved clothes off their hangers and tossed the shoes from the shelves. She fell into the pile and closed her eyes, pulling herself into a ball. She eventually turned on her back and stared at the ceiling… falling back into the old memories that never stopped haunting her. Hurting her. And destroying her.
Chapter Twelve
Will thought his heart might burst. He slammed on the truck brakes and screeched to a halt in their driveway. The body of the truck rocked forward as he came to a complete stop. He threw open his door and jumped out. His brain was chanting, Jessie. What had he done to Jessie? Her voice rang in his head, Will, please… Please what? He almost yelled it irrationally into the phone after he heard her voicemail and noticed her five separate calls. He left the base, citing a family emergency. It was. Who knew how he’d find her? He deserved it, didn’t he? Enjoy your night? How could he say that to a woman who had once been naked and getting raped before him? How could he? He didn’t know. Now, rational and calm, he did not know how he could do that to her. Or how to find her.
His mind went back to what he’d always wondered: if they could really make a relationship work outside the confines of loving each other. There were so many triggers. They couldn’t even fight like a normal couple.
He twisted the front doorknob. It was unlocked. Unlike her. He slammed it open and, in one glance, knew she was not there, so she had to be in the bedroom or bathroom. He knew the most likely place.
The bedroom was a mess. The covers were ripped off and her clothes were off their hangers and thrown about. But he found no Jessie huddled on the bed or crouched in the pile of clothes. His stomach knotted. The bathroom door was open, but there was no sign of her. Where the hell was she?
The Years Between (Sister Series, 1.5) Page 15
