“Morning.” He gives me a hesitant smile, reaching out to trail the back of his hand down the side of my face.
Memories of last night hit me like a sledgehammer and I shoot upright, my anger relighting like someone threw gasoline all over it.
“Oak.” Jace senses the abrupt shift and reaches for my hand. I don’t want to let him take it, but when his warm fingers wrap around mine, I don’t have the strength to pull away. “I’m so sorry.” He shifts in his seat, tucking his left leg under himself so that he’s angled toward me.
“Heroin, Jace?” I croak, turning my face back toward his.
“I know.” I can tell he’s angry with himself. “I’m so sorry I lied to you. But I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to stop. The drinking. The drugs. All of it. I just… I had a really shitty day and I slipped.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I don’t know.” He reaches around, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just… I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now. Like I’m a piece of shit. Like I’m no better than my father.”
“Jace,” I stop him, my expression softening. “You are nothing like your father.”
“Please don’t leave me over this. I can’t… I can’t lose you, Oak. I don’t think I’d survive it.” There’s so much desperation in his voice that all my anger melts away.
“I’m not going to leave you.” I reach out, taking his face into my hands. “I love you, Jace. I love you so much that it hurts. But I won’t be made a fool of. No more lying. And no more drugs. Promise me now.”
“I promise.” He reaches up, settling his hands over mine which are still resting on his cheeks. “Last night was the last time. You have my word.”
“You scared the shit out of me last night. I was so terrified.”
“I never meant to scare you. I’m so, so sorry, Oakley,” he repeats for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Whatever is going on with you, whatever happens, I’m here. If you feel tempted to drink or to use, come to me. Let me help you.”
“I will.” He blows out a breath. “I love you.” He waits until my hands fall away before leaning in, resting his forehead against mine.
“I love you, too.” It’s a whisper on my lips. And I do. I love him more than anything.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Scared that he won’t be able to keep his promise. Terrified that this situation is already too big for me to control. And I’m downright petrified of what will happen next if I can’t keep him clean.
Chapter Nineteen
JACE
* * *
I startle when the door swings open without warning, pulling my attention from the notebook in front of me to where Oakley stands in the doorway of the apartment.
She’s dressed in pajamas, cute little plaid shorts and a light pink tank. It’s giving me a breathtaking view of her sun-kissed skin. Her hair is knotted on top of her head and she looks like she just rolled out of bed. As if she were trying to sleep and couldn’t.
I know the feeling.
“Oakley?” I question, sitting up straighter in bed, dropping my notebook on top of the comforter bunched up next to me.
“You wrote about me.” It’s not a question. She turns, closing the door before stepping further into the room. When she turns back to face me, I can see the tiniest pink hue coloring her cheeks. “You wrote about me,” she states again, as if I’m supposed to know what she’s talking about.
“What?” I question, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
“I saw your notebooks.” She points to the stack of boxes still sitting next to the door. “You wrote about me. A lot. Why?”
At first I’m taken aback… She read my journals? I’m not sure if I should be pissed or relieved. It’s not like I said anything in any of them that I wouldn’t have said to her myself a million times over if I had the guts.
“What do you mean, why?” I ask instead.
“You promised me. You promised you were going to get clean. That you were going to do it for me… For us. But you lied. You didn’t get clean. In fact, you got so bad that you nearly killed me. So, I’ll ask you again, why did you write about me?”
“You read the journals. I’m sure you’ve figured it out.”
“I didn’t read all of them. Just a couple of pages. But that’s not the point. I wasn’t enough for you to quit using. So why is almost every entry I saw about me?” She seems confused, angry even.
“I would think that would be obvious.” I push to my feet, but I don’t dare take even one step toward her. Something in her expression tells me she’s dangling on the edge and one false move could send her toppling right over.
I know Oakley. Even if she’s changed, I still know her at her core. And I know when to hold her and when to keep my distance. And right now is one of those times.
“Well it isn’t.” She crosses her arms in front of herself.
“Because I love you, Oak.” I blow out a breath, my gaze dropping to my feet. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“You can’t do that. You don’t get to do that.” Even from the distance separating us I can see that unshed tears fill her eyes. “Not after you abandoned me.”
“Abandoned you?” I draw back at her words. “I didn’t abandon you. You left.”
“After you almost killed me!” Her voice echoes through the small room.
I flinch. Even though it’s true, it doesn’t make the words any easier to hear.
“You don’t know how much I wish I could change that. How much I wish I could go back and do it all differently. I know I messed up, Oak. I know I lied to you and betrayed your trust. I know I fucked up the only good thing in my life. And while I deserve every ounce of your anger, rest assured that I’ve tortured myself enough to last me a hundred lifetimes.”
“I don’t get it,” she whispers after a long moment of silence passes between us. She looks sad, defeated, and fuck if it doesn’t twist the dagger already piercing my heart. “All these years. You could have contacted me. You could have gotten clean. And yet you didn’t. Instead, you wrote about it. You wrote about me, about loving me, about wanting me back. And yet at the end of the day I was never enough.”
“What are you talking about? You were always enough.”
“If that’s true then why did it take you four years?”
It’s a fair question and one I wish I had a good answer to. Addiction is a funny thing. Even when you want to break away, sometimes you’re just not strong enough mentally.
“Because I was scared,” I admit as if I’m just realizing this for myself. “After the accident, I tried. I tried to get clean. I went to rehab multiple times. And I swore to myself every time that it would be the last. That this time it would stick. But it never did. Because once I was out, once I was back in the real world, reality would come creeping back in. And the loss of you was so great that I couldn’t bear it.”
“But you could have called. You could have reached out. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid of what you would say if I did. If you shot me down, if you told me to go fuck myself, that would have been the end of me, Oak. I wouldn’t have had any reason to keep going. The thought of you, the hope that one day I would see you again, that’s all I had.” I shift my weight from one leg to the other. “That’s why I asked you to come see me in rehab. I confided all of this to Dr. Bennett, and she agreed that closing that chapter of my life was the only way I stood a chance. But then I saw you, and suddenly the chapter wasn’t closed. It was wide fucking open again. Because while yes, you were angry, you didn’t look at me like I expected you to. You didn’t look at me with resentment or hate in your eyes. You looked at me like you always used to. Like I was the sun in an otherwise black universe. And something in me, something I thought had died a very long time ago, was alive again. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect to be here. After you left that day, I swore to myself that I’d
work like hell to be a man that deserved you, and until that day came, I wouldn’t contact you again. But then Tommy died and there you were, like an angel sent from the heavens, standing in front of me. I shouldn’t have let you bring me here. And I shouldn’t have done anything that I’ve done since then. But with you, I can’t explain it. It’s like I have no control. You’re my drug now, Oakley. You’re the thing I crave above everything else. And when you’re standing in front of me, looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now, all I want to do is pull you into my arms and never let you go.”
“Four years,” she croaks, trying to process everything I just said. “And now suddenly I’m supposed to believe everything that you’re saying? What happens when you have a bad day, or something doesn’t go your way? How do I know you won’t sneak out and get high like you always used to?”
“You don’t,” I admit with a slight shrug of my shoulders. “I’m an addict. I’ll always be an addict. There will always be that risk. But I’m telling you, it’s different this time. Losing Tommy, finding you again, everything feels different. I’m not the same man I used to be.”
“People don’t change just like that.”
“How do you know?” I ask. “My fucking brother died, Oakley. My brother died. If I was ever going to have a reason to use, that would have been it. But I didn’t. And do you want to know why?” She stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. “Because of you.”
“Me?” One of her eyebrows shoots up in question. “All I did was give you a place to stay.”
“But you gave me so much more than that. Can’t you see? You are what I’ve spent the last four years fighting for. And now here you are, standing in front of me again. I would rather die before I fuck this up again.”
“What do you want from me, Jace?”
“What I’ve always wanted. I want you. All of you.”
“You hurt me.” Her voice is so low I have to strain to hear her words. “I can’t just let you back into my life like that.”
“But you already have.” She draws back, confusion marring her beautiful face. “I’m back in your life whether you want to admit it or not. Or have you already forgotten about the other night? How you begged me to take you.”
“I was drinking.”
“That’s no excuse and you know it. You wanted me just like I wanted you.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want!” Anger suddenly laces her voice. “Even if I could forget everything you put me through, it’s not just me.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused…
Is she talking about me? And if so, how is that at all relevant when I already told her what I wanted? Or is she afraid that if we try again and it doesn’t work out, that she’ll drive me back to the bottom of a bottle, or worse, at the end of an empty syringe?
“It’s too late, Jace.” Her voice catches in her throat. “I can’t take the risk.”
“Yes you can.” I take a step toward her but immediately stop when her eyes meet mine. Something behind their green depths is telling me not to move another inch.
She stares at me for a long moment, indecision weighing on her face.
“I’ve loved you for over half my life.” A tear slides past her thick lashes and trickles down her cheek. Fuck if it doesn’t take everything in me not to go to her and wipe the damn thing away. “But there’s too much at stake now. We’re not the same kids we used to be. I can’t risk everything I’ve worked so hard for on the possibility that you will stay clean. I can’t spend my life questioning your every move, wondering if every time you leave you’re going to relapse. I can’t let you take me down with you. Not this time.”
“Oak…” Her name is a plea on my lips.
“I meant what I said before. You can stay here as long as you need. But what happened the other night, it won’t happen again. This can’t happen.” She gestures between us. “I care about you and I want to do everything I can to help you, but I won’t go there again. As much as I want to, as much as I wish I could, I can’t.”
“Are you sure that’s what you really want? To give up on us?”
“You gave up on us long before I did, Jace.”
“No, I gave up on me.” I close the space between us in three long strides, taking her hands in mine. She tenses at my nearness but doesn’t pull away. “Never you. I would never give up on you. You are the only reason that this is still beating.” I lift her hand and flatten it against my chest where I know she can feel the thud of my heart against my ribs. “You own this, Oakley. You own me. You always have.”
Her watery eyes dart between mine and she drags her bottom lip between her teeth.
I can tell she wants this. I can feel it in my bones. But something is holding her back. I just wish I knew what that was and why.
“I wrote about you every day because you were all I thought about every day. Every morning when I opened my eyes. Every night when I closed them. You were my first and last thought. Sober. High. It didn’t matter. It was always you.” I release her hand, but to my surprise she keeps it pressed to my chest. Reaching out, I trail the back of my hand down her cheek, the way I used to always do. “I don’t know how much or what parts of my journals you read, but I can promise you that those words are my truth. I wrote them for myself and no one else. They aren’t some ploy to worm my way back into your life. And I never would have shown them to you had you not found them yourself. But I need you to hear me, Oakley. I need you to hear me and believe me when I say that I love you as much today as I did four years ago. As much as I did thirteen years ago when I first saw you walking that ratty ass dog down our street. But that’s not entirely true either, because for how much I loved you back then, it doesn’t even compare to how much I love you now.”
I drop my hand, taking a small step back as I grip the hem of my t-shirt, tugging it upward. Oakley’s eyes go from my face, to the exposed area of skin just below my chest.
Her face pales when she sees the tattoo on the side of my ribs. The bent arrowhead dripping droplets of blood pointing directly at my heart. Oakley written in small lettering along the shaft in a swirling font.
“I got this a couple of years ago. In a weird way it made me feel closer to you.” I let my shirt fall back down. “Even when we were worlds apart, I’d run my fingers along the ink and feel like a part of you was still with me.” I tip her chin up, forcing her gaze to mine. “I can’t promise you the world, Oakley. I can’t promise that loving me again won’t come with challenges or that every day will be a walk in the park. But I can promise you that no one will ever love you the way I do. I’ll never stop fighting for you. For us. It’s all I want. The life we used to talk about. I’ve spent four years punishing myself for giving that life away. I’m done now. I want you. I want us. And I won’t apologize for it.”
“I…” She seems at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you feel the same way. Say you want this too. Tell me I haven’t lost you forever.”
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say these things. How long I’ve wished for it. How badly I’ve wanted you to be a part of our lives. But…” she stops herself, her back going ramrod straight.
Wait… Did she just say our lives? Before I have time to process it, she’s moving toward the door.
“I… I… I need to go.” She turns toward the door. “I have to go,” she repeats, her voice shaking.
“Oakley.” I reach for her but she shakes me off.
“I just… I need some time to think, Jace. Please. After everything, the least you can do is give me some time.”
“Okay,” I reluctantly agree. The last thing I want her to do is walk out of this room, but I get that what I laid on her was a lot. Probably a hell of a lot more than she expected when she came storming in here. “When you’re ready to talk, you know where to find me.” I attempt to lighten the mood, but no trace of a smile touches her lips.
A hard knot forms in my stom
ach. Maybe I read this wrong. Maybe her inviting me to stay really was only because she felt bad for me. Maybe the other night really only happened because she had too much wine. Maybe this whole time I’ve been seeing what I want to see instead of what’s right in front of me.
But as Oakley backs out of the apartment, her tear-filled gaze swinging back to me one last time, I’m fairly certain that’s not the case.
The door snaps closed moments later and the silence of the room engulfs me. I stand rooted to the same spot for several moments, my mind swirling around everything that just transpired.
I had planned to tell Oakley all of this at some point, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. Or for it to happen the way it did. Maybe it’s a good thing she found my journals. Maybe now she can see what I’m fighting for. Her.
But then what she said right before she sprinted out of the apartment comes back to the forefront of my mind. She said our lives…
Who does our entail and what the hell does that even mean?
Turning, I make my way back toward the bed, collapsing down on top of the lumpy mattress. Stretching out on my back, I tuck my hands behind my head and stare up at the ceiling, my mind going a hundred miles a minute.
I replay everything that happened over and over in my head, looking for clues or some sort of explanation. And then it hits me. When she said our lives, it wasn’t the first time she had said something to that regard. She said something about it not being only about her anymore.
The more I dwell on it, the more confused I become. Until suddenly something hits me and I sit straight up in bed, my heart beating so hard I swear it’s seconds from pounding straight out of my chest.
The playset. The car seat. The weird way Keira reacted when I told her she had a beautiful daughter… Suddenly all of the pieces are falling into place. But then, that can’t be right either. If Oakley had a daughter, she would have told me.
Unless…
I take a wild guess at how old the girl is and do the math.
Poison & Wine Page 15
