When We Collide

by A. L. Jackson

  “Oh, God, Maggie, don’t do this.” I wasn’t going to allow this to happen. I tried to wrap her up in my arms to give her reassurance, maybe to give it to myself, but she pushed me away.

  “Just go, William,” she begged beneath her breath. She was back to hugging herself, weeping toward the forest floor.

  “No, Maggie. I’m not going anywhere without you. Tell me what the hell happened between now and last night.” I stepped toward her and she shook her head and took a step back.

  “Nothing happened.” She fumbled over what I knew was a lie, squeezing herself to force it from her mouth. “I…my mom…my sister, they need me here.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.” Hurt sparked a flash of anger somewhere deep inside of me. I inched closer, struggling to control it, to hold it in and to understand. “Tell me what happened.” It came out an accusation.

  She just hung her head further. “I’m not going with you, William. You deserve so much better than me. You’ll figure that out later. You’re better off without me.”

  I knew the only person she was trying to convince was herself.

  “You’re wrong. You’re all I want.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all she said.

  “No, Maggie, please. Don’t do this.”

  She backed away. Desperate, I locked her in my arms. She screamed as if she’d been hit. “Let me go,” she cried, curling in on herself.

  Rejection stuttered my heart and sent me reeling back.

  Six feet away, she heaved through the sobs wracking her body.

  All I wanted to do was comfort her, make her see whatever had happened didn’t matter, didn’t change how I felt about her. We could make it through this. But every time I tried to take a step, Maggie cried louder. I clenched my fists as I forced my feet to stay in place.

  “I love you, Maggie.” My arm flailed out toward her, helpless. “You’re supposed to be leaving with me tomorrow morning…you said you’d marry me,” I said, touching my chest, “and you expect me to just go?”

  “Yes,” she whispered to her feet.

  “No.” I raised my head higher and tightened my jaw. “I’m not leaving here without you. You love me, Maggie. Don’t deny it.”

  She shook her head, the auburn waves a cascading barrier obstructing her face. “I don’t belong with you, William. I belong here. With my sister. With my mom.” She sucked in a stuttering breath. “With Troy.”

  “No,” I released on an anguished exhale, my body slumping forward as her declaration ripped through my consciousness. “Please, Maggie.” I inched forward. “I won’t let you do this.”

  Maggie took another step back, finally lifting her head to look at me. Tears soaked her face. “Please...just...go.” She hugged herself tighter, the words strangled in her throat. “I don’t want you anymore.”

  I flinched and stood up straight. I swallowed down the heartbreak, and the anger flared.

  “Fine.” I brushed past her, hating the way her skin felt against my shoulder when I did, the way it lit as need and amplified the loss. The loss only increased with every step I took.

  “William, wait,” Maggie cried out from behind.

  I stopped and tried to gather myself before slowly turning back to face her. She stood with her arms crossed over her heaving chest, tears streaming down her face.

  The anger tempered, though it was still prominent in the heartbreak that poured from my mouth. “Are you coming or not?”

  A fractured sob broke into the night and Maggie shook her head.

  Stunned, I turned from the girl I should never have given myself to and let the burning anger bind up my heart as I forced myself away.

  Maggie wept from behind me, torment pelting my back as she cried my name again and again.

  I tried not to hear, to block out the only voice that had ever accelerated my heartbeat, vowing to never allow myself to be so stupid again. Blake had warned me and I hadn’t listened. Maggie Krieger was every kind of messed up, and she’d just torn out my fucking heart.

  I rammed my fists into my eyes, refusing to give into the emotion welling in them. Fuck. I was not going to cry over this girl.

  A voice screamed in my ear that it wasn’t her fault…she was just scared…she’d been hurt...something happened. I stumbled, clutching my head in my hands, before I swung around and punched the side window of an old car parked along the street. Glass shattered and I cried out in pain, barely loud enough to drown out the voice inside my head begging me to go back.

  Blood ran from the gashes splaying the skin on the back of my hand and dripped onto the ground as I ran down the sidewalk and around the house. I burst through the back door. My heart slammed an erratic beat, my world capsized. Latching onto the fury, I grabbed a glass from the counter and threw it against the kitchen wall. As it smashed and splintered in a thousand pieces on the floor, I roared to break the unbearable still of the house. The pain ebbed as the fury roiled.

  Pounding up the stairs, I tore the door open to my room, ignoring the fucking ridiculous ideas I’d had earlier of knocking quietly at my mother’s door, of pulling her out into the hall and telling her I’d fallen in love with Maggie and we were running away.

  A bitter laugh bounced off the walls of my room.

  Stupid, naïve fool. Did I really think I could have her? That I could whisk her away and make everything better, change her life, love her and she’d love me back?

  In the light from the hall, I stuffed the rest of my things into the duffle bag, cursing beneath my breath.

  The light flicked on overhead.

  “What is going on in here?” My mother’s scratchy voice cracked in panic.

  I continued to shove the few things I had left to pack into the bag. My tone was vicious, the words bleeding out in rush of hatred. “I’m done with this fucking hick town. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  “William...” She took two steps before she gasped. “William! Oh my goodness, what happened to your hand?” She was at my side, trying to tug my arm to her. Blood splattered across the bed and onto the carpet.

  I yanked it back.

  “Nothing.” I zipped the bag closed, slung it over my shoulder, and pushed past my mom, the bag knocking into her side when I did.

  She reached out with a desperate cry, “William, please, you’re scaring me. Tell me what happened.”

  Guilt hit me hard before Maggie’s face flashed, my words, tell me what happened.

  I almost sneered. “I just learned exactly why I wanted to get out of here in the first place.”

  I hit the hall, my feet thundering on the wooden floor. Disoriented, Blake stood in his doorway, blinking as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Grace was in his bed, gripping the blanket to her chest as if she were trying to hide herself.

  I felt sick with envy and hurt, my broken heart blotting out what these people meant to me. I plunged forward and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  “Will...what the fuck, man? Wait!”

  I had my car in reverse before Blake had time to make it out the back door. I gunned the engine, tires spinning and kicking up gravel as I tore out of the driveway.

  “William,” I barely heard Blake shout, my brother’s face contorting in pain as he tried to chase me down the graveled drive in bare feet. My mom just stared in wide-eyed shock in the halo of my headlights.

  Jerking the gear into drive, I floored the accelerator. Sickness clawed its way up as I sped up the street, turned left, and flew down Main.

  I fought recognizing the look on my mother’s face—tried to ignore what I’d done to the people I loved. I refused to acknowledge the shattered expression on Maggie’s face when she’d said the words that had shattered my heart.

  Five minutes later, the town I had grown up in disappeared behind me.

  I swore I was never going back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  William ~ Present Day

  That afternoon, I dialed my phone, pacing the
floor as I roughed a hand incessantly through my hair.

  God, what was I doing?

  “This is Bergstrom.”

  “Tom.” I cleared my throat. “It’s William Marsch.” I struggled to keep my voice steady, to slip back into the persona I’d projected for the last six years.

  “Will?” On the other end of the receiver, papers rustled and a door clicked shut. Tom’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. “What the hell happened to you? Kristina is smearing your ass all over the place around here. She said she fired you.”

  Of course she’d spread some bullshit like that. It was no surprise her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it I was the one who’d left her. I didn’t care to correct it. Let Tom believe whatever Kristina needed him to.

  He was one of the few people I had considered a friend in Los Angeles. We’d worked side-by-side, doing the bidding of Kristina and her father. For the most part, he was a good guy, but he was a shrewd attorney who could find a loophole in about any situation, and he wasn’t afraid to cut a few corners to get a job done. Exactly the type of guy I needed.

  Jonathan’s face flashed in my mind and the façade broke. “Listen, I need your help.”

  I sensed the shift in the air as Tom was hit with the realization I wasn’t calling to chit-chat or get the news about things happening in L.A. that I cared nothing about. “You in trouble?”

  “Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair again, paced the other direction on the hardwood floor. I didn’t know where to start or what to say.

  “Come on, Will, you’re making me nervous here.”

  Nervous. I laughed humorlessly. Tom had no idea the severity of what was happening, how I felt my life ripping apart and my sanity slipping.

  I squeezed out the words. “I think I have a son.”

  “What?”

  I exhaled and the truth dropped from my mouth. “I have a son…I need you to help me prove it.”

  “Are you kidding me, Will?” He sounded irritated, maybe skeptical. “You know I don’t deal in that shit. What do you expect me to do?”

  I rubbed my forehead.

  “I don’t know, something…Tom, I need you.” There was no one else I could trust, no one else who wouldn’t write me off as completely insane. I was sure I was going to sound it. I closed my eyes and let the past six years of my life pour out in a plea for help. I told him about Maggie, how I’d lost her, how I still didn’t know why, but I was sure it was because of Troy. How I’d known the second I saw Jonathan that he belonged to me. “I know they’re in danger, Tom, I just don’t know how to prove it.”

  The entire time, Tom remained silent.

  “I have to get them out of that house. Tell me you can help me.”

  I didn’t try to hide my desperation. Tom probably viewed me the callused man I’d been all those years, and there was no chance he would fully understand. I could only hope he considered me a good enough friend to put a little faith in my intentions.

  “Please, Tom. Just this once. I don’t have anyone else I can trust.”

  Tom released a strained breath into the phone.

  “Damn it...this is...” He didn’t need to complete the thought. We both knew how messed up it was.

  “I know it is. But I can’t sit here and do nothing.”

  “Let me see what I can dig up on the guy. I’m not promising anything. Without the mom asking for help, you don’t have much of anything to go on. If the mom isn’t cooperating, your best bet will probably be pursuing a paternity test.”

  I fidgeted, not wanting to go that route, knowing to Maggie it would feel like a threat. But if Tom couldn’t come up with anything else, then I’d do whatever I had to do.

  He scribbled down the information I gave him.

  “Hang tight for a few days, and I’ll see what I can do. You need to stay away from them until we figure something out. That kid isn’t yours until the State says he is.” He hesitated. “You’re sure you want to get into this mess?” His tone filled with a warning that told me I was crossing a line.

  “I’m already in it.”

  ~

  Heat rose to my cheeks. I’d grown so unaccustomed to this type of attention. The voices were off key and loud, echoing around the tiny room. The dining table that was normally pushed into the corner nook of the kitchen at Blake and Grace’s house had been pulled out and extended with a leaf. In front of me sat a cake with what looked like an uncountable number of candles blazing on it. Icing of most every color was spread over its top in a jumbled mess of decorations, random swirls and mounds, created at the hand of my nieces. I thought it was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. My family finished off the last line of The Birthday Song by drawing it out in a deafening roar. They were all laughing by the time they finished.

  “Happy Birthday, Will. It’s great we finally get to spend one with you.” Dad sat next to me with Olivia on his lap, his face tired, but relaxed and happy as he held onto his youngest granddaughter.

  From behind, Mom squeezed my shoulders and leaned down to murmur near my ear. “Make a wish, William.”

  This was the first birthday I’d been home for since I was a senior in high school. In my college years, my birthdays had been spent partying with my friends and the last handful had been spent with Kristina over expensive dinners in low-lit restaurants with few words spoken. There’d been no laughter or joy.

  As I looked around now at the caring faces of my family grinning back at me, I felt it. Joy. It came with a sadness at its incompletion, but I finally felt as if I belonged.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I swept in close to the table and blew out the twenty-seven candles, and with it, made a wish. It would have been easy to have made it selfish, the way I wanted it to be, but it came out simple. Please just let them be safe.

  Everyone clapped and cheered the snuffed out flames, shouting, “Happy Birthday.”

  Mom squeezed me in a fierce hug from behind. “Happy Birthday, Will. I’m so glad you stayed.”

  I glanced back. “Thanks, Ma.”

  Emma tugged at my arm to get my attention then crawled onto my lap. Blake smiled at me from across the table, pushing his chair back and stretching out in a more comfortable position as he blew out a contented sigh.

  “Dinner was awesome, babe.” He looked up at Grace who set a stack of small plates and forks on the table. Winding an arm around her, he hugged her to his side. She dipped down to give him a quick kiss and draped one arm around his shoulders when she stood back up.

  It was all so easy, so casual, so good.

  Blake and I hadn’t talked much since the revelation about Maggie and me last Sunday evening. The week had been spent in careful avoidance of the subject, as if we both needed time to deal with the shock, though his eyes were filled with unspoken apologies for the way he’d reacted.

  I wasn’t angry with him. I deserved it. How could I have expected anything different from him or Grace after the way I’d handled things?

  I hugged the little girl on my lap. “Thank you for my beautiful cake, Emma.”

  “You really like it?” she asked with a tiny grin when she tilted her head all the way up to look at me. Ebony eyes blinked up at me for validation. I dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I love it.”

  ~

  “Hey baby, why don’t you let me help with the dishes?” Blake folded himself against Grace’s back, his hands on her hips and his nose buried in the bob of raven hair.

  She leaned back on him. “I’ve got it…almost finished.”

  I had to look away. I was struck with a familiar feeling, so much like all those years ago, uncomfortable to witness such intimacy, but happy for my brother and Grace all the same. Not to mention that unavoidable stab of jealousy I’d come to accept was just part of who I was, a reminder of what I was missing.

  My mother and father had left a little over an hour before, and the girls were tucked away in bed.

  It had been a good day, and with a glance in Blake and Grace’s direction, I
figured I’d better call it a night.

  “Thanks so much for dinner, Grace. Tonight was great.”

  From the sink, she turned a genuine smile on me. It was obvious she was still feeling guilty, but we were getting close to what we’d once been—friends. “You’re welcome, Will. We loved doing it for you.”

  “Hey, man, don’t take off yet. It’s your birthday. Why don’t we go grab a beer?” Blake said without pulling away from Grace.

  I hesitated. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, we never get to hang out without the kids. It’ll be nice.” He pulled at Grace’s hips. “Why don’t we get a sitter, make a night of it?”

  Grace laughed, shaking her head as she turned and hiked herself up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Blake’s chin. “You two go on and have a good time. I’ll stay here with the girls.”

  Blake pressed her into the counter. “You gonna wait up for me?”

  Her eyes were full of playful apologies when she slanted them in my direction, and then she jerked them right back to her husband who hovered above her, demanding her attention. “How about you wake me up?”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” Blake mumbled at her jaw and Grace actually giggled.

  When Blake moved in to kiss her, I took that as my cue and headed for the back door. “I’ll meet you out at the truck.” Neither seemed to notice I’d said anything.

  I chuckled quietly into the stillness of the backyard. Those two had gotten much worse than I remembered—or maybe better. No longer was their affection filled with anticipation and hope for the future, now it was filled with fulfillment and peace. No questions. Confident in what they had.

  Resting my back against Blake’s truck, I relished in the starry-night sky. Insects droned. The familiar hum of this place covered me in comfort. Closing my eyes, I saw her face, felt her skin beneath my fingertips.