by Jamie Canosa
His eyes went wild “You, Angel! I let you in. I trusted you. But you don’t trust me.”
“I do—”
“Not enough. You’ve never trusted me enough to let me in.”
“I’ve let you—”
“No. I’ve had to knock down those damn walls you hide behind, again and again. You’ve never opened them and let me in on your own. Not once. I can’t keep doing it.”
“Caulder . . .” Was that true? I couldn’t think straight. My brain, scrambling to find the right words to say, kept coming up blank.
“I’m sorry, Jade. I’m so—”
“Don’t.” I didn’t want his damn apologies. “If I’m so damaged—”
“I didn’t say that. Angel—”
“Don’t call me that!” He was giving up on me. On us. Before I even realized there was an ‘us’ to give up on. Throwing back the blankets, I eased my weak body from the bed and gingerly set my foot on the floor.
“ . . . Jade.”
Where the hell were my jeans? God, it was humiliating rummaging around in my underwear while Caulder sat back and watched.
“Jade, you have to understand. I—”
I took another step and my toes caught in the rug, tugging on my ankle in a way that made my next breath hiss between my teeth.
“What’s wrong with your foot?”
“Nothing.” I took another careful step, but now that he was focused on it, the limp was impossible to conceal.
“Your ankle’s swollen.” Without pants, that too was a little difficult to hide.
“I fell on the stairs.” Refusing to look at him, I continued the hunt, determined to collect enough garments to cover myself with at least the illusion of modesty and get the hell out of there before my face could get any hotter.
“Last night? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I had bigger problems last night.” And I had bigger problems now. Like finding my freaking clothes.
“Dammit, Jade.” He stormed out of the room, and I used the momentary privacy to flop down on the floor and reach beneath the bed for my pants.
Tugging the elusive denims over the softball sized joint proved more difficult than I’d imagined, but I was motivated. As I welcomed the comfort of the warm material of my sweater wrapping around me, I was relieved to spot my sneakers near the door. The part of my brain that hit the floor a little too hard the night before thought I might actually make it out of there without having to face him again, but Caulder’s presence filled the room, nearly knocking me on my ass before I’d even regained my feet.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“I have to wrap that ankle.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It should be x-rayed. But I know you won’t agree to that, so at least wrap the thing. You’re not leaving here until it’s done.”
“Fine. Give it to me.” I held out my hand. “I’ll do it myself.”
Caulder reluctantly handed over the thick ACE bandage and retreated to the doorway where he leaned a pair of crutches against the frame. Thankfully, he refrained from commenting on the half-assed bandaging job I did.
“Jade, you don’t understand.”
Damn right I didn’t. I let him help me, and I lost. I didn’t let him help me, and I lost. I was beginning to think I couldn’t win. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to anymore.
Caulder stepped forward to steady me when I stumbled across the room, but I waved him off. “No! I don’t need any help.” Not from you. Not from anyone. “I’m fine.”
Scooping up my shoes, I hobbled along the hallway and down the stairs, pausing just inside the front door to slip one on. My hand closed around the doorknob and I found myself listening for his footsteps, equal parts relieved and devastated when they didn’t follow. How pathetic could I be?
Anger coursing through my veins, I threw open the front door and stepped into the biting cold of the morning wind. And cursed. Caulder had driven me there. It was going to be a long walk home.
I hadn’t made it twenty feet down the drive, hopping and swinging and trying not to trip over my own two feet, when I heard the crunch of gravel coming up behind me. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t say a word. And neither did Caulder as he pulled to a stop beside me, just tossed my crutches in the back and lifted me into the passenger seat.
I could have done it myself, but arguing required communication, something that had been broken between us.
I got a grand total of five words in parting. “Be careful on the stairs.”
And he was gone.
Fifteen
The thoughts in my head spun faster than the wheels on my car. I didn’t have the gas money for directionless driving, but that hadn’t stopped me from cruising around town. A couple dozen times.
Eating up the miles, I cycled through the events of the night before and this morning, again and again. Gone further back, picking apart every last word, look, action. I’d analyzed it all, frame by frame.
The endless driving was just my way of trying to clear my head. To settle my thoughts long enough to think any one of them through to conclusion. I hadn’t planned on going anywhere in particular, but when I saw the turn-off coming up on the side of the road, I knew where it was that I would end up.
Wispy clouds stretched over the moon, their gauzy thickness doing little to conceal its eerie glow. Out of breath, I sank into a puddle of silvery grass. Navigating the less than well-defined path on crutches hadn’t been one of my brighter ideas. Each painful step a penance, an apology for why I was here. But I’d made it.
I barely noticed the icy bite of the cold wind on my sweaty face. The only sound was the gurgling of the river, my grief ebbing and flowing like its swirling currents, and the rustling of leaves. Only a few still clung to their branches, making the blackened silhouettes of trees stand like skeleton guards to my peaceful retreat.
“I’ve lived here my whole life.” I plucked a blade of grass and rubbed it between my fingers, watching the frost crystals melt away. My breath formed a tiny white cloud that hovered before my face, but I focused on the grass. Bending it, folding it, tearing it to shreds. “You’d think I’d be used to the cold by now.
“But I’m not. I’m not used to anything anymore. I don’t understand anything anymore. Nothing makes sense anymore. I used to know who I was. I used to recognize my life.” Tipping my head back, I scanned the darkening sky, watching as the light blue faded to dark and then into blackness. “I may not have liked it, but at least I understood it. Then you came along and . . .”
He was there. I didn’t know if he was always there or just when I was. Maybe he heard my heart crying out for him and he came. Or maybe I was selfishly intruding on his peace. Maybe he only existed inside of me and this place brought him out. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that it mattered. All that mattered was that I needed him and he was there. As always.
“I’m so confused. It’s been almost a—” Air leaked slowly from between my parted lips, easing some of the building pressure inside my chest. “It’s been almost a year and I still can’t make it all make sense. No matter how hard I think about it. No matter how many times I tell myself it’s true . . . I just can’t . . . I can’t believe you’re really gone.” The words came out so soft they barely reached my ears, but I was working under the impression that if he could hear me, he could hear me, and if he couldn’t . . . well, then it didn’t really matter.
“You blew into my life like this force of nature and you stirred up everything and now . . . now . . . How could you? How could you do that to me and then leave? How could you give me h-hope and then take it away? You ruined me. I’ll never get over losing you.”
I thought I’d felt it all. Run the entire gauntlet of emotional blows. The pain, the sadness, the guilt, the loneliness, the anger. The heart crushing grief. But this was something else. My heart felt like it was at war with itself. Threatening to squeeze the life from me.
It started with sm
all tremors. Spasms deep inside my chest that radiated outward, causing my entire body to tremble with the force of my misery. My breaths came in staggering gasps and I squeezed my eyes shut. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding painfully against each other as my lips pressed into a tight grimace. All of it a pointless battle to contain the emotion tearing through my layers of defense, determined to make its way to the surface. I couldn’t contain it. Couldn’t hide it. Couldn’t stop it. The tears squeezed beneath my lids and slid down my cheeks, hot and heavy.
I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was feel. I felt it all. And it hurt.
“Kiernan.” His name tore from my lips and burrowed straight down into the earth, dragging me along with it to what felt like the depths of hell.
Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes in a vain attempt to stem the flood of tears, I sucked in a deep breath, but it only choked on another sob. It hurt to draw breath. To speak. To exist.
Life hurt. Life without Kiernan was almost too painful to bear. But I’d found a way. Like I promise him I would. Or at least I thought I had. Until tonight.
“I don’t know what to do. What to feel.” I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud, but I’d grown to care about Cal. More than care about him. The way I felt about him . . . I didn’t think I’d ever felt that way about anyone before. Not even Kiernan. But how could I let that happen? “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do, Kiernan! I miss you so much. I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know how to make it stop. Please. Please. Make it stop.”
Curled in a ball on the ground in the middle of the woods, I cried my heart out until it felt like there was nothing left. Until the hysterical, shuddering wails turned to hiccupping gasps and I found the strength to lift my hand and wipe some of the cooling tears from my frostbitten cheeks.
I don’t want to leave you alone.
When I quieted enough to hear them, the words washed over me. Not from any exterior source, but straight from my heart. I would have recognized his voice anywhere.
I want all of those things for you, Jade. I want the joy, and the love, and the family, and the white picket fence, and all of it. Even if I can’t be the one to give it to you.
“But he’s your brother. I swear, I never meant to—” Tears clogged my throat, choking off my useless apologies. If Kiernan could see me now. How he must feel . . . He must hate me.
I want you to be happy. And I never, ever want you to feel guilty about it.
But I did. I felt guilty as sin. Because if I was honest with myself for half a second, I’d realize that I loved Kiernan Parks with all of my heart. But I was falling in love with his brother.
I want you to have whatever makes you happy in this life.
I shut my eyes and I swear I could see him right there in the bed beside me. The look in his eyes . . . He meant every word he said. He wanted—no, he needed—me to find happiness. And I’d promised him I would. But I doubted either of us expected it to happen like this. Would he take it back if he knew? Would he change his mind? Curse me and Caulder for betraying him?
The answer was so obvious that it made the question seem foolish.
“I loved you, Kiernan. Please believe me. I’ll always love you.”
It was late and the stars were beginning to dance in the clear sky above me. My breathing had settled into a deep, slow rhythm as I lay there getting lost in them, but I wasn’t going to be dumb enough to fall asleep again.
I knew I had to talk to Caulder. There was a lot that needed to be said between us. Fixed between us. I’d made a mess of things. In my hours on the road, going nowhere, I’d thought over what he’d said forwards and back. It made sense. How would I have felt if our positions were reversed? If there were things he needed—things I could easily provide—and he refused? If I had to watch him struggle for things I had an abundance of?
He was right. It was cruel. I’d made him suffer for the sake of my pitiful pride. It was something I’d have to work on. Something maybe we could work on together. But I was willing to try. Willing to give ‘us’ another chance if he was.
But I was too worn out, too much of an emotional wreck, to even think about doing it tonight. And I wasn’t in any rush to leave.
This time felt important somehow. Like the closing of a chapter in my life. I wanted to linger there just a little bit longer, feeling the past gradually turn to mist and slip between my fingers. I wasn’t letting it go. Not exactly. But it was slipping away, nevertheless. And for the first time, I wasn’t desperately scrabbling to hold on to it.
***
I ran my hand over my hair for the millionth time and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sometimes when I stopped and looked—really looked—I didn’t recognize myself, anymore. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
My appearance hadn’t changed. Same lank, mousey brown hair, same sharp cheekbones, thin nose with the same little dent in it, deep set blue eyes shadowed by the same dark circles. I was still me. But what I saw had changed. The way I saw myself had changed.
It started with Kiernan, and Caulder had been a big influence along the way, but it was me that was making the changes. Little by little, I was finding things to like about myself. Like the thin line of deeper blue that ran around the outside of my iris and made my eyes look a little different, a little special. Or the half dimple that carved into left cheek when I smiled. I’d never noticed it before.
Today, I was going to give myself one more thing to like.
Digging through my closet, I pulled out the black knit sweater I’d spent half the night thinking about and tugged it on over my tee and gray stretchy leggings. I braided my hair to give it some kind of visual appeal and laced up my one boot, pulling an extra sock over my bandaged foot to keep my toes from freezing.
My hands shifted anxiously around the wheel at every red light I came to, but it wasn’t so much a nervous energy that fueled the movement as excitement. I didn’t know how this was going to go, or where it might lead us, but I knew how I felt. Now it was time to tell Caulder.
Except, it was his mother who answered the door. “Hi. Um . . . is Cal home?”
“Jade. Sweetie, come in. You shouldn’t be out in this weather. Especially on that foot. I can make you something to eat and maybe take a look at—”
“Thanks, Mrs. Parks. Really. But I kinda need to talk to Caulder. It’s important.”
“I’m sorry. You missed him. He left first thing this morning.”
“Left?” The way she said it didn’t sound like he’d run out for groceries.
“He didn’t tell you he was going?”
“Going where?”
“Sweetheart . . . did something happen between you two?”
Nothing much. We just both admitted there was something between us neither one of us saw coming. After spending the night in bed together. “No.”
“Then I don’t understand what’s gotten into him. He was agitated when I got home last night, but he wouldn’t talk to me about it. And this morning over coffee, he told me he was leaving. He was already packed. His flight left an hour ago.”
Flight? “Mrs. Parks . . . where did Caulder go?”
I’d seen this woman at her best, which was pretty much every time I saw her. And her worst. The absolute lowest moments life could throw at a person. But I’d never seen her look so nervous. The knot in my stomach grew tighter as she fiddled with her manicured nails and chewed on the inside of her cheek in an expression so familiar it hurt. Without a word, she’d steeled me for whatever it was she didn’t want to tell me. “California.”
But nothing could have prepared me for that. “California?”
Start showing your real colors, see how far he runs.
All the way to the opposite side of the country, apparently.
Sixteen
*Caulder*
A small hand rested lightly on my chest. Soft breaths puffed against the side of my neck. Jade was doing better. He
r fingers were still red, but that looked to be from a bad biting habit rather than the cold. Stress, no doubt. Her lips were pinched tight, but they were a pale shade of pink again. She finally felt warm. Hot, in fact. Sweat was beginning to spring up along my back and forehead, but I had no intention of moving.
I told myself it was because I didn’t want to wake her. She needed her rest. That much was true. It was also complete crap. I had no intention of letting her go because I needed her. I needed to feel that breath on my neck. I needed to feel the warmth in her body. Just remembering how she looked curled up in the corner of that lobby . . . I thought she was . . .
I should have taken her to the hospital. No matter what she said. To hell with my promise. But I’d been a selfish prick. I’d allowed her opinion of me to sway my decision away from what was best for her. And here I was, lying in bed with her, and she was practically naked. A fact I hadn’t overlooked, but was trying really hard to ignore. It was like every one of my fantasies come true, and yet I couldn’t find an ounce of satisfaction in it.
The entire night had been more like a nightmare. Watching her shake and shiver and cry out in pain. It tore me up. Shredded my heart. Seeing her struggle and bite her fingers bloody, stressing over bills that seemed so insubstantial to me. Knowing she lacked things as basic as food. It was torture.
I’d stayed away from her, trying to keep my word. Hoping that if I didn’t see her, hear her, I wouldn’t be tempted to break my promise. And, let’s face it, I stayed away to protect myself.
I couldn’t keep doing this. I’d been through it all with Kiernan. The hopelessness. The helplessness. I never wanted to feel that way again. But it’s exactly how I felt looking at her curled up beside me. Exactly how I felt every time I looked at her. She was never going to open up. Never going to let me in. I could fight, and fight, and fight for her until all that was left of me was a bloody mess, but she was never going to surrender to me and lower those damn Fort Knox defenses of hers.
