With Harry and David’s help, she clambered carefully down to where Jess was sobbing and clinging to Jason’s hand as her friends looked on, some of them crying too. When she reached the girl, Stevie held her hand and stroked her hair, talking calmly and trying to reassure her that help was on its way.
“The ambulance will be about fifteen minutes. They’ve said not to move her but to make sure she is shaded and given water to keep her hydrated,” Dorcas called from above them. Water was passed down and a makeshift shade was constructed roughly using twigs and picnic blankets.
Fifteen minutes later, right on time, the paramedics made their way to where Jess was laying injured. She was given something to ease the pain, but agonised cries still rang out through the trees as her leg was straightened and fastened into a splint. Once she was strapped to a backboard, she was carefully lifted back up to where the ambulance had stopped.
“Am I okay to come with her?” Stevie asked as Jess clung to her hand.
“Of course…that’s no problem.” The paramedic smiled warmly. She climbed into the back of the ambulance and gave a reassuring wave to Jess’s friends and the rest of the staff.
“Call me when you have any news!” Jason called just as the doors were closed.
Chapter Eighteen
Day Seven Of Hell
It was three in the morning when Stevie finally arrived back to camp with Jess, who was now sporting a cast that reached from toe to thigh. Thankfully the break was clean and didn’t need surgery. She had been very brave, and her only bother seemed to be that her favourite jeans were now ruined thanks to her nasty fall and the need to cut them from her legs. Stevie helped her get into her dorm where her friends helped her change and get into bed. The poor girl was exhausted and desperate to get home to her mum. There had been talk of getting her home straight away, but after a call to her mum by one of the doctors at the hospital, it was decided that it would be easier if she could travel home with her friends, the proviso being that she was given ample room for her cast.
She arrived at Jason’s cabin without thinking. It was as if her heart and body were set to autopilot mode. Luckily, he had been expecting her and had left the door unlocked. She stripped down to her underwear and climbed into bed beside him. He enveloped her in his arms and mumbled in his sleep. The chance of a last night had been taken from them through no one’s fault. Overwhelmed by sadness at being held in his arms this way, she swallowed hard and tried to fend off the threatening tears. They had fallen asleep this way so many times when they were innocent teenagers—fully clothed and just holding each other. But this was different. This was the last time.
This was goodbye.
Tomorrow…or rather later today, she would say the word to him for the last time, to the man who she had given her heart to ten years ago and had lost it to all over again in the last week.
This was the end of Stevie and Jason.
“Love…my soul mate…love you,” came Jason’s mumbled voice as he nuzzled her hair. His words spoken whilst unconscious were her undoing, and the tears began to flow relentlessly.
****
Stevie awoke a few hours later. Jason’s arm was still wrapped around her, his chin resting on her head. She stretched to see the clock. It was seven already, and she still had to pack. Slowly and carefully, she lifted his arm, slid out of the bed, and placed it back down. She grabbed her clothes and hurriedly dressed as she reached the kitchen.
Dashing back to her cabin and managing to do so unseen, she began to pack her bag. The coach was picking them up at eight, and breakfast was being served early today. Once she had packed, showered, and dressed in the clothes she had left out, she made her way to grab a quick bite.
David made a beeline for her. “Hey, thanks for yesterday. I think it was best that you went. I’m just not sympathetic enough. Kids get sports injuries and I’m all Oh, stop whining, you big wuss, but something tells me that approach wouldn’t have quite hit the mark with Jess.”
She laughed. “No, I think you’re right there.”
“The coach has arrived anyway. The bags are being loaded up. We’ll be ready for the off pretty soon.” He gave her a knowing sad smile.
Dorcas thanked everyone for joining them at WFH and said that she hoped the accident on the hike hadn’t spoiled it for them. She was given a rousing applause, which seemed to set her mind at rest.
Jason was nowhere to be seen.
Once the kids were all accounted for and Jess was secured in her seat, David and Stevie thanked Dorcas and Harry for all their help.
Still no Jason.
David climbed aboard the bus and Stevie followed. Anger bubbled inside of her. After everything that’s happened this week, he hasn’t even got the decency to come and say goodbye. She stared out the window as the bus began to pull away. The kids waved frantically at Dorcas and Harry, shouting their thanks and goodbyes.
Suddenly, Jason appeared from the direction of his cabin. Her heart lurched in her chest. He was dressed only in his shorts and had nothing on his feet, despite the stones and dirt beneath them. He was running toward the retreating coach, waving his arms. A panicked expression across his face.
“Erm…Geoff…Geoff, stop the bus, mate.” David called to the driver. The bus came to a halt. He leaned over and whispered. “Stevie, I’m guessing it’s not me he’s after.” He gestured in Jason’s direction. She nodded and gulped down the lump of emotion lodged in her tight throat.
Shakily, she climbed down from the bus and walked toward Jason, who was now bent double resting his hands on his knees.
“God…I may…be fit…but…I’m no…fucking…runner…that’s for…sure,” he gasped as he stood there, and she mused on his ironic choice of words given their last parting.
She gave him a moment to catch his breath and glanced up at the back seat of the coach where David was just telling off the boys in the back for making kissy faces at them.
“Please…can we just talk for a second…out of view of the bus?” Jason’s breathing calmed. She glanced back at the bus where David was gesturing that she had five minutes. They walked toward a clearing in the trees where they would have more privacy.
Coming to a halt, she turned to face him, pointing in the direction of the coach. “I could lose my job if one of those kids says something about this.” Her anger returned. “You wait until I’m almost out of sight before you bother to turn up and then you make a huge scene and show me up!”
Jason held his hands up in surrender. “No…no…I set my alarm, but for some reason the battery died and so it didn’t go off. I was exhausted from waiting up for you until gone two this morning, and I overslept as a result of that, and I’m so…so sorry. But you have to know that I meant what I said when I asked you to stay. Please? Or…or go home and sort stuff out, and then come back here and we’ll work this out…please?”
His voice was filled with desperation, and she wanted to run into his arms and scream, “Yes!” at the top of her lungs.
But she just couldn’t do it.
Her mother needed her and long distance relationships just didn’t work.
Pulling her lips in to stop them from quivering, she closed her eyes, trying hard to compose herself as so many conflicting emotions fought to escape. Eventually she spoke. “Jason… We’ve been through this. My life is in London. Your life is here. This was temporary. We were never meant to be. We have to accept that now.” She opened her eyes, and he was standing too close for comfort.
His eyes widened. “Stevie, no. We were always meant to be. I just…I thought I could get over you…I was wrong…so, so wrong. I realise that now. We were always meant to be. Even when we were eighteen. I should never have left without you. I need to tell you something. Remember when we talked that time and I asked where you saw yourself and what was in your future?”
She frowned. “Yes…I was thinking about that yesterday.”
“Well, I was going to ask you to run away with me. I was on the verge of
telling you everything. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to you… It would’ve been so selfish of me. I didn’t want to drag you into the mess that was my life back then. What the hell did I have to offer you? But I wanted you with me, so, so badly. I’ve missed you so much I felt physical…pain, Stevie. You’ve got to believe me.”
Tears spilled over and cascaded down her face as her heart ached. “I do believe you. But back then, all I knew was that you were gone. I lost my heart and I lost the most precious thing in my life, Jason. I lost you.”
His lip trembled and his beautiful, warm, brown eyes filled with tears. One escaped, trailing a wet path down his unshaven face as he gazed pleadingly into her eyes and reached out to cling to her arms. “None of that matters now. I’m here. I had my reasons to leave, yes. And I felt I had no way out of things… L-like I’ve said before…I was…I was lost for a while that’s all…and lost things can be found. This week has proven that. Please don’t leave. We need more time. Please don’t go.”
His voice broke as he tried to get the words out. He gazed down at her. “I can’t lose you again. Please…I love you, Stevie. I’ve never stopped loving you. Without you, I know now that I’m just a shadow. It was like I was walking through life searching for something to make me whole again and to fill the hole inside me where my heart should’ve been. What I didn’t realise was that you were it…you were my heart. There’s a reason I’m nothing without you. I know I was an arse to start with when you arrived, but that was…that was just self-preservation. The happiness I’ve felt in the last few days has far outshone anything I’ve felt in the last ten years. That’s got to count for something…it has to mean something…hasn’t it?”
She reached out and touched his damp face. “I’m so sorry, Jason.” The feeble sentence was all she could manage. She pulled away and turned to leave, but remaining where he stood he grabbed out for her arm again.
“Stevie, I’ll do anything you ask…anything.”
She turned to gaze at him standing there, looking desolate, and knew the very question she needed to ask, as much as it would hurt to hear the answer. “Jason, will you come to London with me?”
He let go of her arm, hunched his shoulders, and covered his face with both hands as he began to sob. A heart-wrenching sound filled with the pain and anguish that would stop him from answering.
“I didn’t think so…and that’s okay. I really do understand. Goodbye, Jason. Take care.” She walked toward the bus on legs that had all but turned to jelly, not daring to look back.
David gave her sad smile and patted her arm as she re-boarded. Once she had taken her place, the vehicle began to move again. She looked through the glass to see a defeated and broken looking Jason watching her leave.
And crack went the final piece of her heart.
****
After the coach was out of sight, Jason trudged back to his cabin with a dull, heavy ache in his chest. His lip still trembled and his eyes were still damp. So much regret, so much sadness lay like a lead weight on his shoulders. Seeing Stevie after all these years had sent him into meltdown, but at the same time had filled him with a sense of hope again. Hope was something he hadn’t felt since long before he left her ten years ago.
He hadn’t told her how he felt until time had run out. But how could he? After all, she had made it clear on more than one occasion that this was nothing more than a fling for her.
She was over him.
And now that she had experienced with him the one thing they never had shared before he left—making love—she was still willing to walk away. Yes, she had shown emotion, but looking back now, he realised that was probably a little nostalgia.
Seeing her get on that bus had torn what was left of his heart out. Knowing he probably wouldn’t see her again felt like someone had stamped on his heart whilst it lay, still beating on the floor.
Leaving her the first time had hurt like hell. But losing her this time was far worse. Losing her this time had been a choice he’d had no control over. She had chosen to walk away simply because she didn’t love him. She hadn’t said it, so she can’t have felt it.
He sat on his sofa in his quiet, empty cabin. The silence was deafening and so he leaned over and turned on his iPod. He flicked through the tracks and found the one he needed to hear. Listening to the words would torture him. He knew this. Yet he still pressed play.
“Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down filled the room and his auditory senses as he sat alone listening to the poetry of the lyrics and wishing he had just said yes to London. But he knew deep down he could never go back. Not to stay. And even though she knew his reasons for this and understood them, she’d made her mind up. He hadn’t been her choice. But he couldn’t blame her. He leaned forward resting his forearms on his knees as the tears came. His chest ached and his shoulders shuddered as her name fell from his lips in a sad and desperate plea.
He sat there for what seemed like forever, just staring at the vase of wild flowers in the middle of the table. They had made her smile. He was dragged from his memories when there was a knock on his door.
His heart leapt as adrenalin spiked in his veins and he dashed to open it. “Stevie?”
Dorcas cringed. “Oh…sorry, Jason, it’s just me.”
“What do you want?” he snapped harshly, stomping away from her into the middle of the room.
She stepped inside. “Just to see if you’re okay. Are you? You looked…devastated when she…when Stevie left.”
He turned to face her, his heart hammering in his chest. “Really? You think? Well is there any fucking wonder? She fucking ripped my heart out, Dee! She ripped it out and fucking stamped on it. I laid myself bare for her and for what? For nothing!”
She flinched. “Maybe she’ll see sense, Jason. Maybe if she loves you—”
He let out a derisive laugh. “Ha! That’s just it. She never said she loves me!” Anger rose up inside him as he grabbed the vase of wild flowers from the table and threw it at the wall. It smashed on collision, sending droplets of water and petals flying to the floor and making Dorcas physically jump. “She says she doesn’t want a long distance relationship before she’s even given us a fucking chance! I had no say in any of it. Maybe she was getting her own back for what I did. The bitch!”
Dorcas began to back away. “Look, I’ll leave you to calm down—”
“Calm down? Calm the fuck down? Really? I need to follow her, Dee. I need to get her to admit it. She does fucking love me! She must! You don’t share what we shared if you don’t feel something!”
Grabbing the scrunched up T-shirt he had tossed on the sofa the night before, he pulled it over his head. Grabbing his boots he yanked them onto to his feet and tied the laces quickly. He grabbed his helmet and his keys from the counter top.
“Jason, please don’t ride angry. Please calm down before you do anything stupid.”
“I’ve already done the most fucking stupid thing of my life, Dee. I left the one woman I’ve ever loved behind ten years ago and then I let her walk back in and out of my life within the space of a week. I’m a fucking idiot!”
He stormed past her and out into the clearing where his bike stood. Dorcas followed and watched with wide, fear-filled eyes as he mounted his bike and kicked away the stand. He turned the key in the ignition and set off hurtling down the long driveway, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
Although it was a warm day, the breakneck speed at which he travelled sent cold blasts of air across his skin. He exceeded the speed limit as he hurtled down the A9 putting his own life and the lives of others at risk. The further south he travelled, however, the more rationality overtook emotion. The more calm overtook the rage that had been burning inside. Numbness, apathy, and acceptance began to settle over him. As this happened, he began to slow the bike until eventually he pulled into a layby at the side of the road and came to a halt.
He removed his helmet and sat there, staring down the long, empty road, his chest heaving as
a sense of defeat washed over him. Alone again. He would go no further. How could he? She had stated her case clearly. And she wasn’t a bitch. She was just being sensible and making an adult decision based on her own needs. There was nothing wrong in that. He slotted his helmet onto the handle bar and rubbed his hands over his damp face. As much as he didn’t see the problem of the five hundred and thirty two miles that would lie between them, she obviously did.
So as hard as it was and as much as it would hurt, he would have to let her go.
Chapter Nineteen
Sitting on the coach and staring out of the window, Stevie fought the tears that threatened to betray her once again. The memory of his face as the coach pulled away hurt so much. It was one memory of Jason that she would very much like to forget but doubted that she would any time soon. She wondered what he was doing as she gained distance from him. Was he upset? Was he angry? Both, she guessed. And who could blame him? She had given nothing but mixed signals, despite the words she had spoken. She had no one to blame for her sadness but herself.
Slipping her ear buds in, she hoped to be relieved by something that would lift her mood, but of course every track had subconsciously been put on there because it reminded her of her first love. She pulled the buds out again and thrust the device back in her bag, vowing to wipe the damned memory and start afresh with a batch of new songs when she got home.
Glancing out of the window, she realised the sky had darkened just like her mood. A thick, heavy, grey expanse sat above the road and pelted the coach with fat raindrops. The clouds were crying the tears she couldn’t allow to set free. The journey seemed endless, and David had thankfully seen fit to leave her to her melancholy mood. As the mountainous backdrop receded into the distance, so did her feelings. Numbness took over, proving to her that she had in fact left the remaining pieces of her heart back in Scotland.
Reasons to Leave (Reasons #1) Page 16
