“Ah ha!”
“What?” I’m both intrigued and annoyed at being kept in the dark.
He walks back to me, taking my hand. Whatever he’s found has clearly pleased him. His smile is bright and his eyes wide. He looks more like the Jesse that I used to know than he has done all week.
“Come with me, but be really careful,” he instructs jokingly before continuing, “We don’t want you to drown.” Giggling, I follow his lead. He loops his arm around my waist, and keeps it strong so that I don’t lean too far forward.
Compared to the top, the underside of the footbridge looks like it’s been neglected for many years. The white paint discontinues under the bow, allowing decade old graffiti to remain preserved. It’s suddenly clear what he’s been searching for.
“Look,” he says, pointing above our heads.
I follow his extended finger to the roof of the underside. Encased within a black heart are the initials, ‘MC and JJ’, and scrawled underneath are the words, ‘forever’.
“You had to sit on my shoulders to write that,” he explains. There’s no need. I remember. I’m just surprised it’s still there.
“You wouldn’t hold still.”
He chuckles. “Yeah well, I was a little distracted by the feel of your thighs wrapped around my neck.” I slap him lightly on the chest, giggling with him.
I haven’t used the footbridge since Jesse left, let alone felt the need to explore the memories here. This was our meeting place during the summer months when the water levels were low enough. I was normally in town a lot earlier than Jesse so I’d wait for him here rather than intruding on his house.
If I’d have come here a few weeks ago it would have been a painful experience. But now, with Jesse by my side rather than lost in my memories, it feels therapeutic. I can see where we once were and how far we’ve come. Was that his intentions?
“Is this why you bought me down here?” I ask.
“Yeah, I wanted to see if it was still here.”
“I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“Sweets, I remember everything.” He kisses my hair and tightens his grip.
I bring my arms around his waist, locking them and simply enjoying him being here with me. It feels like only yesterday that I thought I’d never see him again. Well, I guess it hasn’t really been that much longer. But, it still feels a little like a dream. An incredible dream. I have to keep touching him and smelling him so that I can determine that he’s real. He smells amazing. His usual aftershave is mixing with the coastal air to transform into something fresh and engaging. I bury my head against his chest and indulge in its sweetness.
“You remember the last time we were here? We were finishing the last of the booze.” I manage to say lightly, despite the fact that I’m talking about the last night I saw him.
“That wasn’t my last time here.” I glance up at him. He meets my gaze. Gone is the spirited Jesse of moments before. His eyes are brooding.
“It wasn’t?”
“No, I came here after I’d decided to leave, before I ran into Joanna. I just wanted to get my head together.”
“Why here?”
“I’ve always liked it here. It reminds me of you.”
I try to smile at his sweet words but knowing that he came here to escape whatever had happened at his house saddens me. I still don’t know what happened that night. He’d left my house in the early hours of the morning after we’d finally consummated our relationship. The last time I saw him he was happy, his smile was as big and bright as the moon that shone down and guided him home. I can only speculate at what awaited him.
I contemplate asking him. It’s the one thing we’ve yet to talk about and yet it’s the thing that has bugged me the most over the years. He put up with so much abuse at the hands of Dale, so what finally tipped him over the edge? I’m desperate to know. I’m not sure why. If he ever manages to tell me I know that it’s going to be difficult to hear, but I want to know everything about him, not just the good bits. I want to know what hurts him and I want to feel it for him, to shoulder some of the pain.
We’ve been quiet for some time. The silence between us growing and despite it being a comfortable silence, I know its purpose is to hide what we’re both thinking about.
That night.
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to talk to me about that night…that morning you left?” My voice cuts into the silence like a window being opened in a speeding car. The noise that has been sounding out around us rushes in along with my words. The trickling water of the stream and the rattling of the leaves seem to have doubled in volume. It’s as if I imagined the silence. Or perhaps my Jesse-bubble is simply sound-proof.
Jesse doesn’t talk for a while. Maybe he too has been reminded of the world around us. My head rises and falls against his chest with his deep steadying breaths. When I glance up at him he’s looking into the lazy stream as it saunters past. His eyes reflect the cool blues of the water but the color is deceptive. He’s anything but cool right now. His body is tensing with every breath he takes and his hand around my waist is so tight it’s almost painful.
“What do you want to know?” he asks, calmly. Too calmly, as if he’s making a conscious effort to appear relaxed.
“Everything. But, when you’re ready. We’re forever, right? We have forever to talk about this.” I suddenly feel awful for bringing it up. There’s no rush for answers now that we’re together, and I don’t want to taint this place for either of us.
“We’re forever, sweets, but I’ve never told anyone about that night. I kinda feel like I should, like I need to get it out of me.”
“If you want that then I want to listen, but I don’t want you to feel forced…”
“I don’t.”
“Jesse…”
“…He pulled a gun on me, Mickey.”
I hear his words but I don’t digest them. Not immediately. The first thing I notice is the hatred carved into his features. His face is hard and mean but his eyes go deeper than that. He’s livid.
Then the words pierce my thoughts and I hear myself gasp. My hands leave his waist and I step away, not because I don’t want to hold him, but because I’m besieged with shock. My left foot steps back, but there’s no ground where I expect it to be and I feel myself falling. Before I can attempt to save myself Jesse’s strong arms are around me and he slams us both into the foundations of the bridge.
He leans into me, his breath heavy, matching my own, and asks, “You okay?” There is a slight panic echoing in his words, which is ridiculous considering what he has just told me. He’s worrying about me falling all of two feet into what is basically a puddle.
“Are you?” I counter.
“I didn’t almost get wet.”
“No, you almost got shot.” I can’t even believe the words when they come from my own mouth. They scare me, they terrify me. They leave both my eyes and my palms wet. I wrap my hands around his neck, his face, checking him over as if it happened just moments ago rather than ten years past.
“Mickey.” He takes my trembling fingers and brings them to rest between our chests. “I’m fine…now. I’ve dealt with it.” He sighs. “I’m dealing with it.”
“What happened?” I ask, not wanting to know.
He exhales, long and slow. “He was waiting when I got back, sat in his damn armchair chugging on gin in the middle of the night like it was warm milk.” Our heads are only inches apart but he doesn’t connect with me, with my eyes. He’s looking past me at the bare wall behind us, but it’s not bare to him. I imagine him watching it back like it’s a TV special.
“I thought he’d be pissed when he found out I’d took his drink for us. But, he was actually happy about it. He had his ammo. His face lit up when he saw me, like it was his fucking birthday. He asked me if I took it and told him the truth. I don’t know why, I had no intention to, but I told him I’d pay him back for it. He didn’t care. He asked me why and I told him we were celebrating.
” His features pinch together in disgust and he briefly touches our heads together, stroking my hair like he’s comforting me. “That was all the bait he needed. Next thing I know, he’s stood up and he’s nose to nose with me, telling me how I shouldn’t waste good liquor on a whore…like you.”
The comfort of his hand leaves my hair just before his palm slams into the wood behind us. I flinch at the aggression. I’m frightened, but not of him, for him. I know that he’s hurting and that’s how he deals with it. He needs to rid it physically. He hits the wall again and then pushes himself away from me. He sighs heavily and falls back into the wall beside me. Our bodies facing the stream but our faces turned to each other.
“I don’t care that he said that about me, Jesse.” I say calmly but feeling anything but.
“I do! I care, Mickey.” His tone is taut, along with his jaw, his expression menacing. “He wouldn’t stop taunting me, telling me that you may be a sweet piece of ass but he’d be damned if he’d let you drink his booze. When he told me that he’d make you pay your thanks, and insinuated what that meant, I couldn’t take it anymore.” He hisses through gritted teeth.
“I pushed him away and I swung at him. It was a perfect fucking land, knocked him over. So, I took advantage and started hitting him. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I wanted to make him feel everything he’d done to me over the years and, Mickey, it felt fantastic.”
I turn my body to face him, leaning against the wall with my shoulder. I want to reach out to him but he’s still lost in the anger that he’s carried for so long. I want him to vent, to clear it out of his system, even though my insides are burning with my own anger and my eyes stinging with my own tears. I try desperately to keep them at bay. He doesn’t want my pity.
“When my mom came downstairs, she was screaming at me to stop hitting him. Something she’d never done for me before. I stopped. He was practically unconscious so I thought we were done.” He scoffs at what he’s about to say. “I had this ridiculous notion that perhaps it was the start of a change. Maybe he’d see that I wouldn’t put up with his shit anymore and that I could hold my own. I was apologizing to my mom when I heard the gun click.”
Any restraint I had in me has evaporated with his words. The tears stream down my face and I reach for him, desperate to protect him, to comfort him, even if I’m ten years too late.
Standing in front of him with my hands on his chest and my body leaning against his, I want him to feel me with him. I’m here, he’s not there. His eyes are frosty as he relives it but with every stroke of my hand I feel him coming to.
“You got out, Jesse,” I croon. “You got out.”
He nods, and breathes, and nods again. “My mom said nothing. It’s hard to believe that after having a gun pointed at my chest that was the hardest part. I don’t know if it was because she was scared or whether she didn’t care enough to help me, but that hurt worse than the pistol whip to the face. Both of them.”
He’s looking at me now, engaging me in the memory rather than reliving it. The anger has morphed into sadness. I think I prefer the anger.
“He got my eye,” he continues, pointing to a small scar on his eyebrow. I reach for it, pulling his face down to me so I can kiss it. “He stopped when I fell, but told me if I ever raised my hand to him again he’d have no problem pulling the trigger. I knew I couldn’t live under his control anymore, so I left.”
“I’m so glad you did.”
“Even if it led to me leaving you?”
I cock my head at him, confused and a little hurt that he’d think otherwise. “You really think I would rather you had stayed and put your life at risk than be without you? Do you think I’m that selfish?”
“No…no. I’ve just been worrying that you wouldn’t understand. That you’d think I didn’t fight for us…for you.”
His hands have found their way to my waist, and mine to his face. I’m so happy that there’s no space between us now. I never want to let him go again.
“I wish you’d never fought for me at all. If you hadn’t then you never would’ve had to have gone through what you did.”
“I couldn’t let him talk about you like that...I was defending your honor,” he adds, attempting a smile.
“Well, for future reference. Don’t.” I smile back.
“I will always defend you,” he insists, adopting a serious expression once more.
I sigh, not wanting to argue about his over-protectiveness. “Thank you for telling me. You really didn’t have to, but I’m glad you felt like you could.”
“I want to tell you everything. No secrets anymore, sweets. I want you to know my soul as well as I do, and I want to know yours.”
I couldn’t have put it any better myself. I want to know him inside out. The good and the bad, and I want to balance out the bad by making everything from this moment on as good as they can be. I want him to feel nothing but alive and happy when he is with me. His happiness is just as important as my own. More so.
“I love you,” he whispers before kissing me so cautiously that I could cry.
He turns so that my back is against the wall, his body perfectly pressed to mine, arms and legs entwined. I press myself against him harder, parting my lips to invite his tongue. He obliges, and we burn off the last of our accumulated passion in a hungry kiss. When he pulls away his breathing is ragged and his eyes are heated with fiery intentions.
“Do we have time?” he asks, hopefully.
I glance at my new watch and feel a pang of disappointment when I see that we don’t. I don’t need to tell him, my regret is obvious.
He shrugs. “Come on,” he says, pushing himself away from me.
In a split second he’s falling backwards, arms flailing wildly as he attempts to right himself. I don’t have time to grab him, not that my feeble strength would be able to compete with gravity. With an almighty splash he lands on his ass in the water. His hands are in his lap, resigned to being wet.
I cover my mouth, trying desperately to conceal my laughter. It just feels wrong to laugh after everything he has just shared with me.
Jesse stands up, allowing the water to cascade off him. He looks ridiculous, adorable and sexy all at the same time, and he’s laughing. He’s able to laugh.
“I guess I needed to cool off,” he chuckles.
With that, I’m balling. I can’t stop laughing. It’s loud and unattractive, but I don’t care. It’s cleansing.
“Oh, you’re laughing? Would you be laughing if you were this wet?” he asks, creeping closer with mischief in his eyes. His intentions are perfectly clear.
“Oh no. No, you don’t,” I warn, pointing a finger at him.
He makes a lunge for me and effectively catches my hand. Ignoring my squeals of protest he pulls me into the water. It only reaches a little up my calf and it’s warm, but my shoes are ruined.
“My shoes,” I pout.
“I’ll buy you a million more if you kiss me.”
“You can’t buy me, Mr. Jenner.”
“Even with shoes?”
I pretend to think about it for a second before I kiss him. It’s a silly, over the top kiss that ends with him dipping me, Hollywood style.
“Come on,” he says, and proceeds to give me a piggy back ride to my car.
It amazes me how he can be so intense one minute and so relaxed the next. I think that’s what I love most of all about him. He doesn’t dwell on his misfortunes. He doesn’t pity himself. The very fact that he has kept this secret to himself for all of these years is proof enough of that. I’m glad he’s told me, and I hope that it enables him to move on from such a scarring event, but I vow to spend the rest of our day talking about the here and now, not dwelling on the past.
After spending the last hour showering, exfoliating, and moisturizing I’m now working on my hair. I’ve dried it and I’m currently attempting to tease in some loose curls. It’s a lengthy process, but luckily Benji is preoccupied with Jesse’s tablet and its library of
newly purchased games.
I’m starting on my make-up when Jesse enters my bedroom wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his hips. Fresh from the shower, his hair is dripping wet and his skin is tinted pink with heat. His magnificence is verified by my physical response; my mouth waters and I have to take a large gulp before I’m even able to speak.
“Are you kidding me?” I fret.
“What?”
“You’re in nothing but a towel when I’m trying to get ready? Give a girl a chance, it’s very distracting,” I say teasingly, but meaning every word.
He strolls over to me with such grace that my bedroom floor could be his own personal catwalk. He leans onto the back of my chair and regards me through the mirror on my dressing table. Blue eyes penetrate the glass so intensely that it is entirely conceivable for it to shatter into a million pieces.
Leaning further into my already stimulated space, he places his lips against my ear. “I’d like to remind you that you are also in just a towel, and that’s even more distracting.” He kisses me sweetly on my shoulder and I close my eyes, savoring his touch. “Very, very distracting.”
Wet kisses line their way back up to my ear and I lean into them. My body is boneless as I succumb to his sudden seduction. His fingers feather the length of my arm as his mouth continues to tease my ear.
“You look amazing. I think you should just wear this tonight,” he croons into my hair and tugs pointedly at my towel. “In fact…” In one swift movement he has completely disrobed me. I gasp and open my eyes, meeting his wild gaze in the mirror before us.
“Jesse,” I breathe. “There’s no time.”
“There’s always time.”
I can’t refuse him, not when his talented hands have found their way to my breasts. I’m mesmerized by the reflected image of us both. My hands have snaked up into his hair, we’re entwined. We fit together perfectly and it’s a delight to see. Jesse sees it too. His wicked smile is evident of that.
Both of our eyes are trained on his teasing fingers as they tumble over the skin of my breasts, my ribs, my stomach, until they reach down between my thighs. I gasp loudly, both shocked and awed. I’m already hovering on the edge of control when he spins me around to face him. He’s on his knees between my legs, angled and ready, when a voice calls up from downstairs.
Forget Me Not Page 19
