The Devil's Gate

by Rue Volley

  I rolled over and stared at the stars on the ceiling once again before I forced myself up. I was still tiredand my muscles ached from the dreams that consumed me. I reached to my side and let my fingers glide over it. It felt sore as if the dream had been real. I must have flinched so badly that it made my muscles ache. I sighed and slid from my bed, happy to leave it behind. I had never even imagined allowing something like that to happen to me. It was so far from who I seemed to be. And Sam? No. Why would I allow him into something like that? I know that I don’t secretly want him.

  I stood in the mirror and looked at myself. I was thinner. My eyes darker. This thing with Jack was starting to wear on the outside of me, too. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I would be starting my new job next week and I wanted to do well, I wanted something to seem normal and stable in my life. I wish that Jack could be that for me, but is that really the truth? Am I lying to myself? I can’t even be sure anymore.

  I stepped out into the kitchen and stopped dead as I saw Jack sitting at my mom’s table. My mom sat across from him, the conversation calm and low. The words didn’t matter; his presence did. Why was he here?! How did he know where to find me?

  I parted my lips and stared at the two of them in shock. My mom turned and grinned at me. She looked calm, not like she had the night before when she was warning me about Jack’s family and how I needed to run. Perhaps she was being cordial as I knew she could be. Jack stood up and nodded to me.

  “Jack? What—why are you here?”

  He grinned as he cast a look at my mom and then back to me. “I’m sorry. My driver told me that you took a bus and I used some influence to find out where.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Not cool, Jack.”

  My mom stood up and walked toward me. She stopped and touched my face. “Just talk to him, Abi.”

  I whispered to her. “What did he say to you?”

  She sighed as she moved my hair. “The truth, honey, something I have needed for a long time.” I tilted my head and she left us alone in the room. I walked toward the counter and grabbed a cup of coffee, trying to absorb the situation at hand. He had tracked me down and shown up at my mom’s unannounced. I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to feel about that at all. Was it obsessive? Psychotic? Needy? All of which could be dangerous things.

  I turned and there he was, pretty as ever, sitting in the same spot that I had sat in for years as I grew up. He let his hands move slowly across the surface of the dark wood as he inspected it.

  “Your mother told me that your dad made this table.”

  I nodded to him as I sat down across from him. His hands paused as he surveyed it. He looked up at me, his blue eyes piercing me as they had in the previous night’s dream. My cheeks warmed as the dark room came into my mind.

  “Yeah—he made it when I was two years old. My mom wanted it and he would do anything for her.”

  He tapped his knuckle on the table. “Good man.”

  “He was.” I sipped at my coffee as Jack leaned back and studied me. I set my coffee down and sighed. “What are you doing here?”

  He took a breath and then interlocked his fingers on the table before him. He took a business stance with me although I wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “I know that coming here was intrusive, Abigail. But I needed to know that you hadn’t left us behind.”

  I swallowed as I eyed my coffee and then let my eyes lift to once again be held in place by his.

  “Us?”

  He nodded to me. “Yes, I think we have reached that point, don’t you?”

  I licked my bottom lip and quickly bit it. It flustered me to have him say words like that. Us was not something he had toyed with yet. Not in a serious manner.

  I pointed in the direction of the doorway. “Jack. This is my home. Where I grew up, and that is my mom.”

  He nodded to me. “I know that. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

  “Well—I don’t hate you, but this is odd to wake up to.”

  He leaned back and pulled his hands from the table. He let them rest on his lap out of my view.

  “Should I leave?”

  I paused. Should he? It would be so easy to tell him that I didn’t want him here at all, but it wasn’t the truth. He just looked so out of place as he sat in my old kitchen, in my chair, in a chair that the Abi that I thought I knew had been in so many times. This house was a safe zone for me. It housed my happiest memories as well as my most painful ones when my dad died.

  I closed my eyes, but then opened them as I looked down and Jack had his hand on mine. I looked up as his gaze didn’t stray. He needed the words; he did—for once he needed something from me. The control it gave to me made me feel something new with him. As if he had allowed me to dig just a bit deeper into the real him. I shook my head no as he stood and walked over to me. He knelt down as he turned me toward him. Taking my hands into his, he let his eyes study them as he turned them over and inspected the lines that criss-crossed my past with my future. He rubbed his thumbs on the palms of my hands and looked up.

  “I want you, Abigail Watson. I want you in my life. I’m sorry that I’m not what you would have asked for. I know that I have broken pieces inside of me—but when I see you, they start to merge again, and I can see the light all around me.”

  I parted my lips as his words penetrated my soul and settled into my heart. If this wasn’t Jack, then I hoped that I could get to know whatever version of him this was. It was soothing and felt real. His words so sincere and from a new place deep inside of him.

  “Jack—I love…”

  He placed his finger to my lips and stopped me as he closed his eyes. He leaned in as he removed his finger and kissed me, perhaps for the first time. Genuine and sincere.

  I stood before my dad’s grave. Jack on one side of me and my mom on the other. I wasn’t sure what Jack had said to her, but something had changed in her heart. Her anger and inability to accept that I loved him had seemed to melt away. She simply said ‘the truth’ which had to pertain to Peter and how he suffered with his disease of the mind. Knowing my mom as I do, I could totally understand how her compassion for his condition would sooth her heart and help her move on. She deserved that and so much more. I just wish that I had known, that maybe she would have confided in me, but sometimes things happen exactly when they should, not one day earlier, or later, in time.

  I leaned up and placed the wildflowers on the top of my dad’s stone. I stepped back and wiped the warm tear from my cheek as Jack took my hand and held it tightly in his own. I looked at him and saw it, the tear running down his cheek. It stunned me. It was the first time that I had seen this type of emotion come out of him. It set me back as my mom took my other hand, and we all three stood in silence as we stared on at our inevitable end.

  Regardless of money or power, we all ended up right here in the end. Different stones, different names—same fate, something I was now starting to believe in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE TRUTH WILL NOT SET YOU FREE

  I stared at the two ties on the bed, one grey and one red. I rubbed my chin. Jack stepped up behind me and grinned. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I couldn’t help but smile. It had been the first time that Jack had spent the night in our apartment—but nothing happened between us.

  We had watched movies, laughed. Spoke to each other like regular people do. It was strange and then much needed. Jack had changed since we returned home. It wasn’t a complete turnaround, but he was allowing me to see more of him than he ever had before.

  Avery stepped into the doorway and saw him lean in and kiss my neck. She cleared her throat, and we turned to look at her.

  “Well, the bed isn’t broken, and I didn’t hear screaming, so I assume that this was platonic?”

  We both laughed as we stared at her. “He just spent the night.”

  “Like Sam?” she added before she could process how it would sound. Jack let go of me and stepped back as I turned to face
him.

  “Sam and I never did anything at all.”

  Avery rubbed her neck. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. Listen, Jack. It wasn’t like that at all. Sam is a friend, and he stayed here—right there in that bed and did nothing to Abi. Nothing at all. That tells you exactly what kind of guy he is—shit.” She shut her mouth as the hole just got bigger and bigger.

  I could kill her dead, seriously. Things were going from bad to worse in mere seconds.

  “He stayed in your bed?”

  I bit my lip and looked at Avery. She mouthed ‘sorry’ as she stepped back.

  I looked up at Jack and shook my head. “Okay, listen.” I took his hand and pulled him to the bed and made him sit down. I sat down next to him and pulled one leg up.

  It was time for the whole truth and nothing but. “I went to school with Sam. High school. Well, actually I think he was in middle school with me, but I didn’t notice. I met him the first day of my freshman year, and we became friends—sort of.”

  “What? School? And what do you mean by sort of?”

  I bit my lip and looked down and then back up to him. “I went to my senior prom with Sam and we made out in the back of his cherry red Mustang—like, made out pretty heavy.”

  “Did he?” he looked down and I shook my head no. “Oh no—no, he didn’t go anywhere near me with his mouth, not like…” I almost said you and stopped myself. Comparison was not a good idea. Jack’s expression told me that he was not happy at all. I couldn’t blame him.

  “What did you do with him, Abigail?”

  I looked up and took the breath that I needed just to end this and get it out. “Well, he tried to finger me, so I said stop—and he did. That was it. End of story.”

  Jack paused and then looked at my bed. “Until he decided to camp out next to you right here.”

  I scooted closer to him. “It was entirely innocent. He didn’t touch me; I didn’t even want him to touch me, he slept here the first time and…” I stopped. Damn it.

  Jack eyed me. “The first time…great.”

  I sighed. “This is so messed up; it sounds horrible and I promise you, it isn’t at all. He slept in my bed, twice. The first time he stayed I was dizzy, from a concussion that I…”

  Jack stood up and looked down at me. “Concussion? What the hell, Abigail? Do you even remember what happened when he stayed with you?”

  “Yeah, of course I do, I mean I kind of passed out when he put me to bed, but…” I stopped, it sounded so bad and I knew it.

  Jack looked down, he wasn’t happy about any of it and with good reason. I had not even bothered to tell him that I had been hurt.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Jack, it isn’t what you think.”

  He picked up his two ties and stared at them. “I think the gray one will do today.”

  He walked out of my room and I followed him. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. I ran around in front of him and leaned on it. He stopped and gave me a once over. I spoke, feeling that I needed to. “I wasn’t done talking to you.”

  He sighed and then fidgeted with the tie in his hand. “I am.”

  I stepped aside as he left me there, cold and about as far from the new Jack as we could possibly be.

  I stepped into the pub and scanned the small crowd. It was midday and I knew it would not be too busy until the evening crowd started to pour in. It didn’t take long to spot her. The new love of Sam’s life. Liv.

  I walked toward the bar and sat down as she turned and stopped dead. She looked down and then back up to me. Her expression didn’t settle well with me at all. She leaned down to grab a glass. Her voice was sterile and did not match her smile. She was faking it. “What will you have?”

  I tilted my head and decided to order something, not knowing why she seemed so agitated with me. “Um—beer. Dark.”

  She smirked and grabbed a tall glass. She pulled on the lever and let it fill the glass to the top. She took her foam scraper and slid it across the top, evening out the foam as it slid down the side of the glass. She set it down in front of me. I reached for my purse, and she held a hand up to me. “It’s on the house.” I relaxed and took a sip of it as she crossed her arms over her chest. I tried to relax and then asked the only question on my mind.

  “How’s Sam?”

  She laughed, followed by an eye roll. Her arms relaxed, and she leaned up toward me. “You tell me, Abi.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I—I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him for a few weeks. I’ve been busy.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I feel like I’m missing something here.”

  She tapped her nails on the counter and then bit her lip. “You haven’t talked to him—at all?”

  “No—not at all.”

  She relaxed a little and inspected her nails. “Well, he dumped me.”

  “What?” I said as I set my glass back down, forgoing the second sip of it.

  Her eyes lifted, and she nodded to me. “Yeah—everything seemed fine and then boom, he stopped calling and when I finally talked to him, he said he had been busy. That turned into messages, and finally a visit here, where he told me that he just couldn’t see me anymore. Oh—and he added it’s not you, it’s me. Can you believe that?” she shook her head.“Jesus.”

  It sounded so unlike him. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Honestly, I didn’t.”

  She leaned up toward me. “You should call him, Abi.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because every time I was with him, your name came up.”

  I turned my glass and watched the bubbles rise through the dark lager. “I don’t know why.”

  She laughed as she leaned toward me. “You never forget your first love.”

  I took a breath and stood up to get away from her. I couldn’t be that to Sam. No way. He could have anyone in this world, why think about me?

  I stepped back and pulled money out of my purse and left it on the bar for her. I looked up at her and the words ‘I’m sorry’ seemed so ridiculous, but what else could I say? I didn’t cause this, did I? God, I hope not.

  I stood in front of Sam’s building and the size of it now made my stomach churn. I couldn’t allow this to go on at all. Sam was an amazing man and he deserved happiness. He deserved so much more and I never felt as if I gave him the impression that it would happen with me. In fact, we had talked at length about Jack and how I felt about him. Sam was like Avery, comforting—family, normalcy. I had relied on him, but had I done so too much? Somewhere the lines blurred, and it caused a glitch in the system. I had to correct it because it was eating away at me.

  I stepped up to the revolving doors and touched the side of my head as I peered in to make sure that no one was coming. I didn’t need a repeat of the last time. I pushed and spun through, coming out the other side in familiarity and light. I looked up and took in the sights of the building once again. I had not been here since Sam and I had had our one awkward meeting.

  I headed toward the desk, walking very slowly. The woman ignored me as she had before. She ended her call and then looked up at me.

  “I would like to see Sam Quinn.”

  She eyed me and then touched her ear. She spoke in a soft tone and then lowered her hand. “Go on up.” She looked to the elevator behind me. I grinned at her, but it wasn’t returned to me. I walked toward it and pressed the button. I left a small smudge behind. My palms were sweating and my heartbeat sped up. I hate confrontation, and yet I can’t seem to avoid it. It has always been this way with me and I despise it.

  The doors opened and I stepped inside. I pressed the button and leaned back against the glass wall. There was no hiding in this one. It was far from the elevator at the Ford building. I touched my bottom lip as the memory of Jack holding me up against the back wall, his lips grazing me, my legs steady on his shoulders, consumed my mind. It flustered me as it always would.

  I stepped from the elevator and stared down the hallway. I k
new that all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other, but before I could, I heard Sam’s voice to the left of me.

  “Abi?”

  I turned to see him. He looked different. His hair cut, long on the top, shorter on the sides and back. He now wore glasses, thick black rimmed ones. It made him look cuter than usual and I liked it. It suited him. I looked him over and then grinned.

  “Sam.”

  He stepped up to me and then held his hand out, so formal. I expected a hug, but I shook it.

  “You look well, how can I help you?” he asked me. Something had changed; he was business-like with me as if he had shut down that part of himself that laughed with me on the couch as we watched B-movies together. I sighed.

  “I went to the pub; I talked to Liv.”

  He looked down and then back up to me. “Oh.”

  “Yeah—can we talk? In your office, I mean.”

  He paused and then decided to allow it. “Sure—okay.”

  He walked along, not saying a word to me as I walked alongside him. It felt cold and unnatural. I hated it. I missed the Sam that I knew. The warm one who seemed brotherly and protective. Perhaps I had ruined our friendship. I felt the regret hovering all around us as he closed the door behind me and held his hand out toward the chair in front of his desk. I walked to it and sat down. I remembered the first time I had sat in here, concussion and all, and how he caught me before I hit the floor in front of him. That was the Sam that I knew, not this one standing at his window in front of me. He placed a hand in his pocket as he turned back toward me. His expression remained the same.

  “I suppose that she had nothing but bad things to say about me.”

  I pushed my hair behind my ear and looked down at my shoes and then back up in his direction.

  “No—she didn’t, I mean. She’s upset that you broke it off with her, of course. I’m sure she likes you, very much.”

  He walked to his desk and sat down behind it. It forced a decent barrier between us that I didn’t like. “Oh yeah—I’m sure she loves me, Abi.”