by Allie Able
“Get the fuck out.”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know what to say. I knew she would eventually start talking again, I just never thought her first words were to be telling me to get out.
I stand there in shock, shaking my head. “Baby, I’m not going anywhere. If you want to be alone for a little while I’ll give you that, but I’m not actually going to leave.”
“See? There you go enabling her again.”
“Lexie, that’s enough.” My tone is final and she knows it. She bends down to grab her purse, before looking over at Jenna.
“I’ll be back tomorrow and you’d better be ready to sit your ass on that porch.” She stomps towards the bedroom door and I move out of the way to let her by me. “If you don’t push her, she will never come back to us,” she whispers as she passes me. I hear the front door slam a second later.
I look back over at Jenna, but she has shut her eyes and is laid back against the pillow.
I don’t know what to do. I’m lost and I don’t know how to handle this anymore. She hasn’t opened her mouth and spoke since the accident and the first time she does it’s asking me to leave. Would she be better off if I left? Am I hurting her more by being here? I have no fucking clue. There is no guide book on how to handle this. I’m doing the best I can, but obviously that isn’t good enough. Am I enabling her? I’m not trying to. I’ve done everything I know to do. I’m gentle with her when I need to be. I am firm with her when I know she needs to eat and she refuses. I hold her every night and pray that she can feel how much I love her, because I don’t think she hears the words anymore. Every day I hope it will be the day she snaps out of it, but it seems like every day she slips farther and farther away. The way she stares through me like she doesn’t even see me scares the fuck out of me, but the scariest thing of all is that I’m pretty sure Jenna wishes she’d have died in that car wreck and that’s something I’m not sure she will come back from. How much longer can I stay here hoping she will one day open up to me? I already know the answer to that though. I will stay here by her side as long as it takes. I will fucking drown in her storm before I let her go at it alone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jenna
EVEN WITH MY EYES CLOSED, I can feel Parker’s stare. I can always feel it. What does he want from me? I have nothing to fucking say. I just want to be left alone, but he won’t do that. The numb feeling that I’ve had over the past few weeks is slowly starting to morph into anger. I don’t know why I’m so damn angry, but I am. I’m even angry at the fucking sun for shining. How dare it be so damn bright and happy outside when the inside of my mine is so dark.
I lift my head and open my eyes. I stare at Parker and wait for him to say something. He’s always apologizing and I can’t figure out why. Does he feel sorry for me? Well, fuck that.
“What do you want, Parker?”
He gives me a sad smile and shakes his head. “I want a lot of things, Freckles,” he whispers.
He looks so tired. He looks like he’s on his last legs and is ready to just throw in the towel. Are we hurting each other more by being around each other? I want to say yes, because just looking at the heartache and pain on his face reminds me of my own.
I lay my head back against the pillow and sigh. “Please just go away.” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to keep the tears at bay. I haven’t cried a drop since the accident and I’m scared if I start now I’ll never stop.
“If that’s what you want, baby,” he says in a soft voice.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, as I hear his retreating footsteps. I never knew what real pain was until this happened. Pain is when you’re slowly dying on the inside and you’re way too weak to speak about it so you keep silent and suffer alone. That’s all I want to do, suffer alone. I don’t want to bring anyone down into this pit of disrepair. I did this. I still don’t know exactly what happened that morning of the wreck. Occasionally I will get little glimpses into certain parts while I’m sleeping, but I can never make sense of them when I wake up. I do know one thing though: I was the one driving that car. I am the one responsible and nothing anyone says can change that.
It feels like I’ve just gone to sleep when I feel the bed dip under Parker’s weight. I keep my eyes closed, as I feel his hand gently touch my face.
“I’m so sorry, Jenna,” he whispers.
He has done this every night. Usually he stops talking and puts his arm around me, but tonight is different.
“You can tell me to leave. You can push me away, but I will always come back, baby. I won’t let you drown in your own storm. I won’t leave you here to deal with this alone. I love you and I will always love you. I’ll be here waiting whenever you’re ready to come back to me, no matter how long that takes.”
I don’t say anything. I’m killing him. He’s the one that’s going to end up drowning if he doesn’t leave. I don’t know if I will ever be the woman that he fell in love with again. I don’t even know who that girl is anymore.
* * *
“Are you ready to do some porch sitting?” Lexie asks the next day.
I look over at her standing in my bedroom doorway. I can’t figure out why she keeps coming over here. I haven’t said a word to her and most of the time I have my eyes closed, but she just sits there beside me, every day. Sometimes she talks about her day, other times she just sits in the silence holding my hand. I want to tell her to leave, but every time I turn to look at her, she is looking at me with those determined eyes and I know I would be just wasting my breath.
I continue to stare at her and she shakes her head. “If you don’t come to the porch with me right now, I will pick you up and carry you myself. Parker may not do it, but I will. Don’t test me, Jenna.”
She couldn’t pick me up if she tried, but I give in anyway. Maybe she’ll leave me alone for a few days if I do this one thing. I gingerly throw the covers back and move to the edge of the bed. I hiss in pain, as it starts to feel like my ribs are rubbing together.
Parker appears out of nowhere and reaches his hand out to me. I take it and he helps me up. He wraps his arm around my back and together we slowly make it out of my room and down the hallway.
Lexie already has the front door open, so Parker walks me straight outside and into one of my chairs. He grabs a pillow for behind my back and stool for my feet, before looking at my face.
“Do you need anything?”
“Sunglasses.” If I’m going to have to sit out in the fucking sun, I at least want to dim it.
He nods his head in response and goes back inside.
Lexie sits in the chair next to me and sighs. “Was that so fucking hard?”
I want to laugh. I actually almost smile, but the moment passes as quickly as it came and I answer her honestly. “Yeah, Lex. It was that fucking hard.”
She doesn’t look at me as she reaches for my hand. “I know, Jenna. I know.”
Parker comes back with a glass of water, two Tylenol, and my sunglasses a short time later.
“Parker, why don’t you sit with us?” Lexie asks.
I slide my sunglasses on my face and look over at him. He hesitates and looks out at my yard, before sitting down in the swing.
I don’t know how long the three of us sit on that porch and I don’t think any of us say a word the entire time.
Lexie eventually gets up to leave, telling us she will be back tomorrow. Parker stands up and goes inside to get one of my blankets. He drapes it across my lap and sits in the chair Lexie vacated. Together we sit in silence and watch the sun sink low in the sky.
“Maybe we were never supposed to be,” I whisper, breaking the silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe this is the universes way of telling us we weren’t suppose to be together.”
He turns in his chair and gives me a hurt look. “Is that what you think, Jenna?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore Parker,” I admit.
“We’ll
get through this.”
“I don’t want to get through this. I am perfectly content down here. I just want everyone else to leave me alone. Can’t you see that? I just want to be left the fuck alone.” My voice rises and Parker shakes his head.
“That’s not an option, Jenna.”
I am beyond frustrated. Why can’t he just get it? I am fucking killing him. Being around me will suck the life out of him more than it already has.
“It’s my life and I’m sitting here telling you to go. You can’t tell me what to do with my life.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Are you ready for dinner?”
I want to throw something and I want to scream. “Parker, I don’t want dinner. I want to be alone.”
“Well, too bad.” He stands from his chair and walks inside. I look out at my yard and sigh. I know he’s hurting and I don’t want to hurt him more, but I don’t deserve his kindness. I wrecked that car. I killed our baby. He will be better off without me in his life. We were a mistake from the very beginning. How can he not see that?
* * *
I just get out of the shower and Parker dries my hair for me. I’m trying to avoid looking at my naked body. I can’t stand the way the bruises look or the way my stomach still holds some of the baby weight. It’s all just too much of a reminder. I look at Parker’s face as he concentrates on what he’s doing.
Even after I said those hurtful things to him, he still came outside a little while later and helped me get inside. He sat me down at the kitchen table and we ate together before he helped me into the shower. He’s too damn nice to leave me on my own. I think part of him thinks this is his fault and this is him trying to make up for that, but I don’t want or need his pity anymore.
“I want you to leave tomorrow.” I whisper the words, but they seem to echo throughout the entire house.
He stops moving the towel across my hair and stares at me through the mirror. “You want to try a day by yourself? I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jenna. With your ribs and arm broken, it’s hard for you to do things.”
He’s pointing out the obvious, but I’ll be fine. Those pains I can handle. “No, I want you to leave Parker. I want you to move on with your life.”
He gives a tired sigh before stepping back and grabbing my nightgown off of the counter.
“I’ve already told you I’m not leaving you.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m not asking you to leave, I’m telling you to leave. I called my mom and asked her to come stay with me until I’m healed enough to do things on my own. I think it’s best if we both try to move on with our lives.” I’m lying. I didn’t call my mom and there will be no moving on for me, but he deserves that chance. He deserves to at least try to move on from the fucking mess I’ve made of his life.
His eyes look hurt. “When did you call your mom?”
“This morning.”
“And you just thought to tell me this now?”
I shrug my shoulders
He steps towards me and slips my nightgown over my head, helping me get my arms in it.
“You need more medicine on your face.” He walks to the drawer in the bathroom and gets the prescription ointment the doctor prescribed.
“I can do it.”
He sighs again and hands me the tube. He watches me as I apply it to every cut on my face before putting it back in the drawer.
“Come on, let’s get to bed.” He takes my arm and leads me to the bedroom. He fixes the pillows and pulls down the comforter, just like every night. I crawl in and he climbs in right beside me, only tonight he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t reach for me and he doesn’t apologize. We lay in the darkness, completely quiet, neither of having anything left to say.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Parker
I WAKE UP EARLY THE next morning and watch her sleeping form. I keep replaying her words from last night over and over again. Does she really think that we will be better off without each other?
Jenna has always been so strong. She’s tough as nails and has a prickly exterior. That’s the first thing that drew me to her. All of that outer strength is really just hiding a very broken woman and I’m not sure how to handle it. Am I sad that we lost our baby? Absolutely. I would give anything on this earth to be able to fix that, but I can’t. If I’d have lost Jenna in that wreck too, I’m not sure what I would have done, but it feels like I’m losing her anyway. I want us to get through this, I want this to just be something terrible we went through in life, not the moment that defines the rest of our lives. I want to marry this woman and have more babies with this woman, but all she wants is for me to leave her alone, so that’s what I do.
I run my fingers down her cheek before standing from the bed. She’s not getting rid of me this easily. I will fight for a place in her life until my last breath, but I am going to give her time—time to figure out her new normal on her own. Maybe that’s what it’s going to take to make her realize that even though she lost the life growing inside of her, she didn’t lose her own life.
I set her phone beside her bedside table, along with a bottle of water and some Tylenol before making my way to the front door. Coconut meows when she sees me and I give her head a rub. “Take care of your mommy. I’ll be back soon.”
I hop in my car and drive home. I still don’t feel like going to the office. My mind frame is not in the right place to be dealing with client files right now. I glance at the dashboard and the clock says it’s seven in the morning. I decide to go home and shower, before stopping by the coffee shop on my way to work.
There aren’t many people in there by the time I walk through the doors. Lexie greets me with a confused look.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, eyeing my suit.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, but I need something more than a ‘yeah’, Parker.”
I sigh. Why did I come here again? “Yes, everything is fine. Jenna wants some time away from me, so I’m giving her that. She called her mom yesterday morning and she said she was coming to stay with her for awhile.”
Lexie cocks her head to the side. “She called her mom?”
“Yes, Lex. Can I please get some coffee?”
She blows out a frustrated breath, before turning and making my coffee. “You are a fucking idiot,” she mumbles under her breath, but I ignore her. I grab some cash out of my wallet and toss it on the counter, as I grab my coffee.
“Have a good day, Lexie.”
“You too, Parker.”
When I walk into the law firm, Tammi is surprised to see me. She follows me back to my office and tries to ask about Jenna, but I give her a pleading look. “Can I just get some work done please, Tammi.” I don’t want to think right now, I just want to work. I just want to get my brain off of it all.
She nods her head with an understanding look. “Yes, Sir. You definitely have plenty to catch up on.” She spends the next twenty minutes catching me up on all of the case files. The damn thing about it is that no matter how hard I try, Jenna is always on my mind.
* * *
“Sir, you have someone here to see you.”
I look up at Tammi and shake my head. “The office is closed, Tammi. Tell them to come back tomorrow during normal business hours and you can go ahead and go home.”
Home. My home isn’t a place, it’s a person and I’m not welcome there.
“He’s very persistent,” she says nervously.
I glance at the clock that reads almost seven in the evening and then glance at her. “We closed two hours ago.”
She nods her head. “Yes, Sir. I know.”
“I’m not going away, asshole. Might as well let me in that fancy office of yours.”
I roll my eyes, recognizing the voice. “Let him in Tammi and then you can head out for the day. Thank you.”
She nods her head and walks out of my office. Two second later, Zach is standing in my doorway smiling.
“What do you want, Zach?” I run my hands thr
ough my hair and close down the case file I was just reviewing.
“Hey, Parker. Good to see you too.”
I just stare at him as he makes himself at home in my office.
“I’m still curious as to how you came into this money,” he says looking around.
“That’s none of your business.”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Fair enough. You can remain mysterious if you would like.”
I chuckle. “Seriously, what do you want?”
His face becomes serious and he sits forward in his chair. “Lexie called me. She went by Jenna’s house, but no one answered the door. She was worried.”
“Why didn’t she call me?” I ask, reaching for my phone.
“Calm the fuck down and listen.”
I shoot him a glare and look at my phone anyway. No missed calls. Surely Jenna would have called if something was wrong.
“Listen, Parker.” Something in his tone has my eyes shooting back to his.
“After my mom died, you know Lexie and I had a tough time.”
I don’t know if he is looking for an answer, but I nod my head anyway.
“Well, the thing I regret the most about that is leaving Lexie to deal with it on her own. She wasn’t the same woman that I knew. She was a shell of her old self, but I had convinced myself that I was the one ruining her. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing and I know our situations are completely different, but I think you’re making a mistake letting that woman be alone. I don’t know Jenna that well. It seems that the only person she has really opened up to in this town is you. She was different with you. She was happy. I think she is probably blaming herself for losing the baby and trying to push you away. I could have that all wrong, but from the bits and pieces Lexie has told me, you are letting her do that.”
I glare at him and shake my head. “I’m not letting her push me away. I’m giving her time to figure out her feelings.”
“Alone. You are letting her figure out her feelings alone. She just went through some traumatic shit. She’s probably not going to come out of it the same woman, but she’s still your woman, right?”
