by Jane Lark
He wasn’t happy. The realization smacked at me.
“I’ll get ready.” I left him on the bed and went into the bathroom. I gripped the sink and breathed deeply, trying to breathe away the swamp of low energy that had settled on top of me. My head told me I wanted sex to escape it—to push this low feeling away, but Jason wasn’t in the mood for me to jump him—and we needed to confront Declan. I wanted to keep Saint.
I washed, then dressed in dark jeans and a black sweater. Then I pulled my boots on as Jason sat up on the bed. He’d just been lying there watching me for the whole time I’d been getting dressed. When I slid my coat on, he got up and walked over to the closet, then put his sneakers on.
He was still silent.
He was really off today. I remembered thinking about his stiff posture last night. He wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t relaxed, and he was in an odd mood.
My head ran through a dozen images from last night; I couldn’t think of anything I’d done wrong, or said wrong. But I was very good at doing things wrong. Maybe I didn’t even know. Maybe he was wary of me getting things wrong today? He didn’t want me to go.
When he put his arm around me as we stood in the elevator, his hand settled at my waist. It was reassuring—comforting. I leaned into him. I was a different person with him than I’d been with anyone else. I didn’t want that to change. I wanted to keep him forever. I wanted us to be the fairytale, but today it didn’t feel right.
His hand lifted on to my shoulder as we walked out of the elevator, then in the street he gripped my hand. I hung on to his, even when we walked through a busy crowd of people. I was hanging on to him because he was my sanity. He held me together, us together. Me, him, and Saint.
When we reached the office building, he looked back at me. “Ready for this?”
No. “Yeah.” I’d never been to Declan’s offices, he’d put me up in his penthouse for a year, but he’d kept me away from his businesses—and his wife.
The reception area was all cold and pale, shiny—clinical. Decorated in boring beige-stone tiles.
“Shall we walk up the stairs or take the elevator?”
“Stairs.” It’d give me more time to get my head around what to say. I couldn’t come up with any words, though, they’d slipped out of my head, and as we climbed the stairs the world shifted into slow-mo.
We stripped off our gloves at the top of the stairs and slipped them into our pockets, watching each other.
“Hey.” Jason clasped my hand again, his cold skin against my cold skin. “I know you’re down. We could go away and do this another day if you want? You don’t have to face him today.”
“No. I want to do it now.” He was protecting me again. He knew I didn’t find it easy to talk when I was down. But Declan knew that too. He’d know my threats would still count, even if I couldn’t get the words out right. Declan, more than anyone, knew how vicious I could be and how hard I could fight when I wanted.
“Come on, then.” Jason pushed the door open. He didn’t look happy about going in there. But then he hadn’t been at all happy for hours—days maybe—months maybe.
The office was open-plan and there were a couple of dozen people sitting at desks. I held on to Jason’s hand harder, wondering where he’d sat when he’d worked here, as he led me across the room.
I saw Justin. He stood up and lifted a hand, but he didn’t make any move to come over. Then I saw Portia as she swung her chair around to look at us. “Hi,” she said as we walked past.
“Is he in?” Jason asked in a quiet, deep-pitched voice.
“Yes.”
Jason looked ahead at an open door leading into the one office there was, at the far end of the room.
Declan had to be in that office.
I hadn’t seen him since the night he’d shown up at Jason’s apartment thinking he could trap me into going away with him, and before that, since the night I’d realized I’d hated what I’d become and decided to get away. The night that I’d stabbed him, to stop him forcing me into having sex. I hadn’t wanted him to touch me anymore. I’d smashed a mirror and stabbed him with a shard of it, in a moment of madness, when I was trying to get away.
My heart pumped hard and my limbs were heavier as we walked toward the room.
I could see Declan. He didn’t look up. Icy breath ran through my middle. The angel of fire had gone.
Jason didn’t hesitate, he walked in and pulled me with him. Declan was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of a shiny, dark wooden desk.
I knew him intimately and he knew things about me Jason would never understand. He’d been attracted to my mood swings, he’d found my extremes and my recklessness when I was high fascinating. They were the only reason he’d been interested in me for longer than a week. He’d known he could persuade me to join in all the games he’d wanted me to play with him and his friends, and he played with my moods like I was a game.
He’d used me and abused my sickness.
He hadn’t cared about me. But then I hadn’t cared about him—I’d just been too sick to know right from wrong.
Jason’s grip held tight around my hand, but he didn’t try to speak. He left the speaking to me.
I pulled my hand free from Jason’s, turned and pushed the door shut. I couldn’t lean on him in here, and I needed a moment more to think.
When I turned back, Jason’s hands slid into his pants pockets. He stared at Declan, but Declan stared at me.
“I’m going to have to get a security guard on the door of this office. Hello, Rachel. I didn’t know you were in New York too.”
His voice was light and mocking, and his tone implied that if he’d known I was here, he’d have come looking for me. I didn’t want him to look for me. That was why we’d made sure our lawyer was in a city as big as Portland, and that he never included our address in any communications.
“How can I help you, Rachel?” Declan added, with a condescending pitch.
“You can stop fighting to take my son.”
“Our son.”
“My son, mine and Jason’s.” It felt so good to say that to Declan’s face. Saint was mine and Jason’s. I hadn’t wanted Declan’s kid. I didn’t want anything more to do with Declan. I’d kept Saint because he was mine, part of me. Declan had never come into the decision or my mind. He only even knew about Saint because Jason had wanted to do things the right way.
“He hasn’t anything to do with him legally.” Declan waved a hand in Jason’s direction. “He’s got no claim over the kid.”
Declan was a bully and a bad man.
I bit my lip. I wanted the right words. The words that would convince him. “You don’t want Saint. I know. You just wanna win a fight. Any fight. It doesn’t have to be this one.”
“The judge won’t listen to you, if that’s your argument. He just wants to win…” he mocked.
Jason’s fingers threaded through mine, holding on to me again. Telling me he was there, and he had my back.
I lifted my chin.
Adrenalin danced in my blood. “I wouldn’t say that to the judge, I’d tell him about our past and the things you made me do. I’d tell him everything. You wouldn’t just lose Saint if I did that. You’d lose your other kids, and your precious businesses and possessions.”
He laughed.
The shithead
Violent anger roared into life in my head, like a match touched to gasoline, screaming at me—screaming at him. I hated him. My hand itched for that fragment of mirror to stab into him, over and over; to pay him back for all the times he’d assaulted me.
“Well, that’s stupid,” he mocked again. “How do you intend to win like that? You’d look worse than me. You’d lose the boy. He’d end up in the social system somewhere if you said all that. You’re being foolish.” Declan’s eyes widened at the end of his words, and his eyebrows lifted, marking his point.
I’d forgotten how he used to treat me like stupid white trash. But he’d forgotten just how stupid I coul
d be.
I stepped forward. “Do you think that would stop me? Saint wouldn’t go into care; Saint would stay with Jason! And his parents! Saint has a safe home!”
There was a glass of water on Declan’s desk. I picked it up.
Normal people would’ve thrown the water. I threw the glass and the water. It hit his chest, then dropped on to his leg as he pushed the chair back, it fell on to the floor when he got up. The glass didn’t break but it must have hurt him, and his shirt and his trousers had gotten wet—he had a meeting in a half-hour.
I turned to go out, to get away from Declan. When I walked past Jason, I pushed his chest, knocking him out of the way.
I walked through the office, focusing on the door at the end, and when I was through it, I ran.
The door at the top of the stairs banged a second time. “Rach!”
I didn’t stop running.
“Rach!”
I shoved the door open and ran into the reception area. I needed to get out of this fucking building.
“Rach!”
I pushed the next door open to get out into the street.
A hand grasped my arm. Jason’s.
Tears blurred my view of his face when I turned.
“It’s okay.” His arms circled me and held tight. The panic eased, and the screaming in my head fell silent.
Everything was okay. He was here. Like he’d been the first night I’d run away from Declan. I wrapped my arms about his waist and ignored all the people on the sidewalk around us.
His hand stroked over my hair. “Why did you say that, Rach? You wouldn’t want to leave Saint…”
People walked past us—him holding me didn’t stop the world, or time—or Declan taking Saint.
I pulled away, breaking free from the sanctuary he’d given me for a whole year. But Jason knew me and he knew I’d do it just as much as Declan did—I’d risk it to keep Saint safe. “I would, if it stopped Declan getting him. Why did he have to do this?”
“Because he’s a self-centered, jealous asshole. You know it and I know it.” He’d used those words to make me laugh. I cried.
“It’s okay.” His arms wrapped around me once more.
But it wasn’t okay. Losing Saint wasn’t okay. “No.” I broke out of Jason’s arms. “We have to find Declan’s dealer! We have to get Declan arrested!”
Jason’s cell vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the screen. “Justin says, are you okay? Portia’s just been told to go out and buy Mr. Rees some new clothes.”
Oh my God. Jason hadn’t succeeded in making me laugh. But that did. It was a weird, crazy laugh, but it came from my belly. It was the thought of Declan, in his office, in his business persona, soaked by the nightmare girl from his hidden life. He’d hate it, no matter that he’d taunted me.
Jason smiled, suddenly and broadly, in the way he’d have smiled at me last year, when we’d first met, when he was uncertain of me but learning to like me. When we were becoming friends. His smile collapsed just as quickly. Then he shook his head as he looked back down at his cell to text something back.
“What did you say?”
“That you’re okay, but we have to find out who his dealer is and I’ve asked Justin if they want to meet us for dinner at Joe’s tonight. We can put our heads together again. There must be something we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Sorry.” The word slipped out as I looked at him.
A line formed a frown in his forehead and his lips twisted. “For what?”
“For putting you through this.”
Scarlet red bloomed in the skin covering his cheekbones, and his brown eyes looked more fluid.
“Are you unhappy?” The thoughts I’d had yesterday spun around in my head.
He breathed in, like he was thinking of the answer. “No.” But he’d had to think. Why had he had to think?
“Do you regret finding me last year?”
“No.” That answer was fast and spoken with an assertiveness that denied it entirely.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to say thank you or sorry to me. We’re in this together. That’s all. Come on.” His arm surrounded my shoulders. “Let’s go to Central Park for a walk. We can go to the zoo or something, forget about him and take pictures to show Saint.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rachel
When we walked into the hotel lobby, Jason went over to the desk. We’d spent two hours walking around Central Park in the cold, all wrapped up in hats, scarves, and gloves. He’d been quiet, but then I’d been quiet too, as we took lots of pictures to share with Saint, so we could teach him what animal was what.
“Have you got any mail for me? It’s Mr. Jason Macinlay.”
The woman turned around to check, then turned back holding out a small packet. “Yes, sir, it arrived today.”
“Thank you.” He took it from her.
“You’re welcome.”
“What is it?” I turned with him, and we walked away.
“It’s not for me. It’s for you.” He held out the packet.
I took off my gloves¸ shoved them in my pocket, and took it.
He pressed the elevator call button. The doors opened straight up.
“What is it?” I asked again as we walked into the elevator.
“It’s from Mom.”
I leaned back against the side and tore the edge of the packet open. My medicine. I looked up at him. A blush burned in my skin.
His eyebrows lifted. “Did you think I couldn’t tell? When did you take them last?”
“Halloween.”
“Why did you stop taking them?”
A need to defend myself swept in, a feeling I’d never had in response to anything Jason had said or done before. “Because I hate taking them. You said you missed the old me too. I hate feeling like a zombie. It isn’t me. I don’t like me on them.”
He sighed and looked up at the lights in the ceiling. It was like he was disappointed, or despaired of me.
The walls I kept about me, to shut others out, to stop them hurting me, set up another, higher, layer. I didn’t like him judging me. Jason was the one person who never judged me. Jason was the one person I didn’t need to keep outside my walls.
He looked back at me. “Rach, I never suggested that you stop taking your meds. You know damn well I wouldn’t have agreed if you’d told me. That’s why, I guess, you didn’t.” He sighed again. “Look, I’m not going to make you take one, it’s your choice. But remember why you were on them.”
A part of me wanted him to make me take one. I knew I’d been going a little crazy. But I didn’t want to make the choice to kill all the energy and emotion in me. Even if I made bad judgments.
The elevator doors opened on to our floor. I didn’t know what to do or say. What did he want me to say?
He didn’t say anything as we walked to our room.
He unlocked the door with the card key, pushed it open, and stood back to let me go in. He usually touched my ass or my waist when I walked through doors; this time he didn’t. Now I knew why he’d gone quieter and less smiley on me yesterday. He was unhappy. He’d said he wasn’t when I’d asked outside the office, but he was.
What did he expect me to do? What was he thinking?
When I got into the wide part of the room, where the bed was, I turned around. “Why aren’t you shouting at me?” I wished he’d do that, but he hadn’t even shouted when he’d found out I was pregnant with Saint, after we’d just started dating. Shouting, meanness, or aggressiveness, weren’t Jason. That behavior wasn’t in him. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be that person.
And I didn’t know how to argue with him. How to make him tell me what was going on in his head…
“Should I be shouting? Should I be angry? Would it make any difference?”
Please shout! Then I’d know what to do. I’d shout back. But… If he did shout it wouldn’t make anything different. “I don’t know.”
He walke
d past me and sat down on the bed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He gripped his head for a moment then let his hands fall down to his thighs. “I don’t think it would make anything better or worse.”
“You aren’t happy. You lied.”
He looked at me. There was an odd expression in his eyes.
“Maybe, I don’t know, Rach…”
“What?” I didn’t know what to do. He’d never acted like this with me before. “You’re confusing me.”
“I don’t know how to help you. I’m not a doctor. But I know when we had sex in that club the other night it felt wrong. You weren’t thinking about me. That wasn’t about us. You didn’t have sex with me because you loved me. It was the same the other day, here, after I’d gone into the office the first time, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer. He’d been holding on to this. Thinking about it for two days—judging me…
“I don’t like you when you’re like that. I don’t like it when you don’t value yourself. You know I don’t. I respect you. I want you to respect you too. I don’t want to feel like I’m using you, Rach.”
“I do value myself. I value who I am with you—”
“I… It doesn’t matter.” He stood up. “I’m going out for a run.”
He was running from the argument. It was what Jason did. “Shall I come? Do you want me to come?” I didn’t want him to run away from me.
“No, Rach. I’m sorry, I need some time on my own.”
I need some time on my own… He’d never said that before.
He slipped his leather jacket off and threw it on to the open suitcase, then took off his top and threw that down too. He toed off his shoes, and then went to a drawer to pull out some clothes to run in. He took them into the bathroom to get changed.
I sat down on the bed, the open parcel with my meds in it still in my hand.
I heard him use the toilet and flush it, then change.
He came out a few moments later and searched for his earphones. I didn’t speak to him, I had no words in my head. I was lost. He was unhappy with me.
He turned to look at me when he put his cell into his hoodie pocket. “I’ll probably be about an hour.” He put an earphone in one ear.
