by Jamie Canosa
Once again I was fighting a losing battle.
Beside the bed, a framed photo of Kiernan and I stood on the nightstand. His face smiled down at me, but I swear I could see the betrayal in his eyes. It cut deep.
Jade let out a quiet moan as I shifted sideways an inch, reaching out to lay the frame flat. I couldn’t bear to look at him with her lying there in my arms like that.
***
Jade slept deeply long after I’d followed the sun into a new day. It shined brightly through the bedroom window. One of those rare blue sky, white cloud days in the Northeast fall. Completely inappropriate for my mood. I wanted rain. Cold, miserable rain. And brutal hail. And thunder. Angry, growling thunder to match the storm brewing in my heart.
I felt the mattress shift where I sat hunkered down on the edge waiting for Jade to wake, hoping she slept forever so I never had to do what needed to come next. But slowly my sleeping beauty roused. I couldn’t look at her. If I did I’d be the one to surrender and that wouldn’t be any good for either of us. It was better to walk away from the war than to let it destroy you. Now I just needed to make Jade understand that.
She didn’t. I could see it in her eyes. The gleam of tears that brought out the moisture in my own. I was hurting her and it was killing me to do it, but I didn’t know how else to make her see. I wasn’t who she needed. I wasn’t enough for her. Every reminder of that was another scar on my heart. I had quite the collection. If I let her, Jade Carlson would be the death of me.
Dropping her off, I drove straight to the cemetery and parked outside the gates. It was as close as I could get, but I couldn’t go back to the clearing—not to their place—not for this.
“I’m sorry.” Hands locked like vices around the steering wheel, I glared at those gates with every ounce of hatred I felt for myself. “You trusted me to take care of her and I failed. I failed her. I failed you. I failed—” My throat closed up around the bitter truths. “I thought I was strong enough, but I’m not. She needs someone who can break down those walls and get inside that head of hers. Someone she trusts to get that close. You, Kiernan. She needs you. Not me. I’ll never be an adequate substitute. I can’t keep doing this. I’m too weak. I look at her and it’s too easy to forget she’s yours.”
I didn’t want to forget. Ever.
She made it so easy, though. Even now I felt the pull toward her. The overwhelming desire to go to her and take it all back. But that wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t open her up to accepting the help she needed. It wouldn’t give her the strength she required to overcome her mother’s putrid influences. And it wouldn’t change the fact that I’d gone from splintering her barricades with a battering ram to slapping at them barehanded. I was still out there. Still desperate to get in. But my will to fight had been depleted. Each time her defenses went back up, each time I had to start from scratch, it drained a little more.
If last night had proved anything, it was that I had nothing left. And that was unhealthy. Dangerous, even. For her. And me.
I needed to go. I needed to clear my head. Somewhere she couldn’t tangle it all back up again with just one look.
***
The rhythmic crashing of the Pacific went a long way toward soothing my battered nerves. The forty degree rise in temperature and sun shining on my face didn’t hurt either.
I was home.
Yeah, I started out an east-coaster and that was where I lived now, but California would always be where I belonged. It was a part of me.
Hot sand burned the soles of my feet and dug into every nook and cranny of my jeans. I wasn’t dressed for the beach with sneakers and socks dangling from my fingertips, but I’d packed in a hurry and without much thought. Without any thought. Shoving random articles of clothing into a suitcase, while reminding myself to breathe.
It was a clear day. Ahead of me, the water lit up a bright orange that blended with the deep pink spanning the horizon. Clouds streaked across the sky, reflecting varying shades of blue and purple against a yellow backdrop.
Gulls cried, children laughed, waves crashed. Sounds of life all around me. But it wasn’t enough to drown her out.
I’d slept on the plane, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady hum of the engines. Exhaustion chased away the nightmares for the first time in a long time. That didn’t mean I didn’t dream, though. And what I dreamt was almost more disturbing.
She was here. She was there. She was everywhere. I missed the sound of her voice. The smell of her hair. The touch of her skin. She was intoxicating. An addiction I couldn’t kick. She’d planted herself in my brain like a seed and grew and grew until she choked out every other thought. I couldn’t get her off my mind.
Her face. Her eyes. They haunted me.
Slowly the sun sank into the ocean and I felt as though I plunged beneath the waves along with it. If being with Jade was torture, then this was something else entirely. Hell, maybe.
***
The clock on the bedside table read 5:43 when I woke with a painful ache in my chest. This whole time-change thing was taking some getting used to. For the fourth day in a row I was up before the sun.
Rolling out of bed, I dialed room service for breakfast and wandered out onto the balcony to wait. I hadn’t gone out of my way to find anything too extravagant, but the suite I was staying in was nice. Decorated in the pale blues and whites you’d expect of a beach resort, it had a small kitchen well-stocked with appliances, a seating area with soft white leather couches around a large flat screen, and the bed was comfortable. But the best part was the view.
A large sliding glass door led to the balcony with a small wrought iron table and chairs overlooking the ocean at sunrise. A sight I’d indulged in every morning I’d been there. The beauty wasn’t lost on me, but without someone to share it with, it felt flat. Empty. Lacking that sense of awe and wonder I knew only one person could bring to it.
The breeze picked up as I carried my breakfast platter out, chilling me, and I had to laugh at myself considering how much colder it must be back home. Over eggs and bacon, I considered my future. I’d come to California because it was familiar, plain and simple. There was no reason behind the destination. Only the departure. But if I planned to make the move more permanent, there was one issue that needed to be dealt with.
My fork paused halfway to my mouth and I considered the fluffy yellow eggs. My appetite was gone. In fact, I felt a little nauseated. If California was where I belonged, then what about the chance to call it home again was making me physically ill?
As if I even needed to ask.
“Dammit.” The fork dropped with a clatter onto the dish and I shoved them both away from me. “She’s driving me crazy.”
I’d spent most of the past week jogging in the sand and lying in the sun, waiting for it to magically fix everything that felt wrong with me. Like a long lost friend. But it hadn’t fixed me. The time, and distance, and palm trees, and eighty degree days hadn’t fixed me.
Because I couldn’t be fixed.
There was something broken inside of me that couldn’t be put back together. I was irrevocably damaged. But if I couldn’t fix myself, maybe I could break something else instead. Someone else. Someone who deserved to be broken.
***
My rental car was a black Ford SUV and it was roasting in the hot sun, but there weren’t a lot of options at the airport and I honestly couldn’t have cared less. Tires squealed over the hot concrete as I made an all too familiar left and squinted as the tall glass building at the end of the street nearly blinded me with the midday sun.
Watching the numbers flash above the doors, ticking away the floors, I fisted and unfisted my hands, preparing for what I was about to do. He may be a coward, but he couldn’t hide from me. He had this coming and I needed to get it the hell out. A bright green 30 lit up and the doors slid open.
The entry was still carpeted in the same thick navy blue. The same gray walls. The same PS symbol carved from steel positioned abo
ve the frosted glass doors. It even smelled the same. I used to love this place. Revere it. Now, it disgusted me.
Slapping my sweaty palm against the glass, I shoved the door open and marched right past the men and women in their suits and skirts clustered in the waiting area to the receptionist’s desk. “Where is he?”
An impeccably dressed woman with pin straight, glossy black hair and small, beady blue eyes startled away from her computer screen. “Caulder? I haven’t seen you in—”
“Where is he, Karen?” I wasn’t in the mood to play catch-up.
“He’s . . . he’s in his office. Does he know why you’re here?”
“No.” I didn’t even know why I was there. I was running on pure adrenaline and nothing was going to get in my way. “Is he alone?”
“At the moment, but—”
“I’m going back there.”
“Wait. Let me buzz him and—”
“Now.”
She seemed to get that it wasn’t up for debate, replacing the phone she’d hastily snatched up back in its cradle. There was a moment of guilt where I wondered if she’d get in trouble for my interruption, but I couldn’t think about that now. I had one goal and it involved me getting into that damn office.
It too was exactly the way I remembered it. The floor to ceiling windows wrapped around the corner, encompassing two entire walls with dizzying views of the city. Gleaming hardwood floors offset by expensive, cream colored area rugs. A sleek black leather couch and matching armchairs grouped around a glass table, taking up one half of the space, while the other half was occupied by a large, intricately carved, handmade, solid oak desk. Not a single detail out of place. The only thing that had changed at all was the man sitting behind it.
He looked . . . older. There was a dusting of gray in his hair that hadn’t been there before. Dark circles beneath his eyes. A pallor to his skin, inexcusable to any resident of the ‘golden state’. And his tailored suit didn’t seem to fit him quite right anymore.
Slowly, his eyes lifted from the screen of his laptop, his entire body jerking with surprise when they reached my face.
“Cal?” I cringed hearing him call me that. That name was reserved for people I cared about. People I respected. People I loved. He no longer fit into any of those categories. “Is it really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Dad.” Just one more parent in a long line of parents who didn’t deserve the title they were given.
“What are . . . What are you doing here? Is everything alright? Your mother?”
Is everything alright? He was worried if everything was alright? Now? “Like you give a damn.”
“Caulder—”
“No. I came here to say something. And you’re sure as hell going to listen.”
“Okay, son.” He reclined in his high back leather chair and motioned for me to take a seat across from him.
I opted to remain standing. “Don’t. Don’t you call me that.”
“But you are my son.”
“Not anymore. That’s what I’m here to tell you. You disowned us when you left—”
“I never disowned you.”
“You disowned Kiernan!” There was a flash of satisfaction seeing him wince at the name of his other son. “And so you disowned us all. We’re a packaged deal. A family. You’re either a part of that or you’re not. You made your decision.”
“I had . . .” I watched him choose his words carefully. “. . . a hard time. But now that that part of our lives is behind us, I thought we could move forward. Together. All of us. Be a family again. I called your mother—”
“You son of a bitch! You can’t even say his name. Kiernan! Kiernan, Dad. Your son! Who got sick. And fought. And suffered. And died without a father. Because you abandoned him! Abandoned all of us.” Just looking at him sitting there like the king of his goddamned universe made my blood boil. “You had a hard time? You did? Mom stuck it out. She did her best. She never once gave up on him. Not once. She was there. Every single step of the way. She watched her son fight a losing battle. She watched him die. She put him in the ground. Where were you?” I cursed the silent tears streaking down my face, but could do nothing to stop them from falling. “Where were you?”
Dad stood and opened his mouth to spout some twisted apology or explanation that I didn’t give a damn about, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
“Families stick together. Through good times and hard times. They don’t jump ship and run and hide the minute shit gets real. That’s what cowards do. You were a coward. You will always be a coward. And you will never be part of our family again. Stay the hell away from Mom. Don’t you dare call her again.”
“She’s my wife.” Dad stalked around his desk, the first hints of anger flashing in his eyes. “And you’re my son. Nothing can change that. We can move past this. Forget about—”
“Screw you!” My fist flew before I knew what was happening. Pain flared in my knuckles, radiating all the way up my arm to my shoulder as Dad stumbled backward, landing on his ass on his Persian rug. “I won’t ever forget.”
I didn’t bother waiting for someone to call security. I didn’t need an escort. I could show myself out.
Turning my back on the man I once admired, I left him clutching his nose as blood spilled between his fingers. Every step I took hurt worse than the one before it. I hated myself for coming there. For seeing him. Speaking to him. And I hated myself for hitting him. Yes, he deserved it. He was a loathsome human being who deserved that and worse, but he was my father. And I’d struck him in anger. Was I really that person?
Sitting in the overheated car in the parking lot, I slammed my battered hand against the steering wheel. I’d thought coming here, confronting him, would make things better, but it’d only made me feel worse.
He’d abandoned us. Turned his back on the people he claimed to care about when they needed him most. But hadn’t I done exactly the same thing? Who was the coward now?
California may have felt like home, but I was wrong. It wasn’t where I belonged.
The AC filled the car with its quiet whoosh as I snapped the radio off and headed for the hotel. I needed to pack. I had a flight to catch.
Seventeen
*Jade*
Lights slid across my ceiling from passing traffic. Outside, a car alarm had been blaring for going on ten minutes. People were starting to get upset. Profanities were being hurled from open windows. I ignored it all.
The sun was coming up and I still hadn’t shut my eyes. I’d lain awake for hours, searching the darkness for answers I knew weren’t there. Sometimes there just weren’t any answers to be found. There was good in the world. I knew that. I'd experienced it, however briefly. But where there was good there had to be bad. To balance everything. Maybe I was just one of those people meant to shoulder the bad, so that others could experience the good. Things weren't quite so depressing if I looked at them that way.
The sound of a smashing window didn’t even faze me, and the car alarm dissolved into silence. Not the kind of silence I’d found in the pool with Caulder. This was a static silence, the kind that made my skin crawl and my brain buzz. It wasn’t peaceful. This place didn’t know the meaning of that word.
Clouds blotted out the sun, blanketing the room in shadow. Rain was beginning to fall, which would soon be forecast as snow. Wind rattled the window panes and made the curtain dance where it leaked in around the ill-fitted glass. One drop, then another, splatted against my window. Then a hundred more, running together, warping what lay beyond into little more than a swirl of dark colors and vague shapes. I blinked and realized that the inside of my room was equally as blurry.
I kept telling myself that I should get up, move around, do something. But why? Why bother? What reason did I have for getting out of that bed? When I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a single good one.
I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to think. My heart felt like a punching bag. Every time
I opened it up, it got pummeled. I just wanted to lie there—alone in my room—and let the moisture outside mingle with that in my eyes until it washed the whole world away.
But, as usual, life didn’t give a damn what I wanted.
***
“What happened to you?” Simon slipped around the counter to hold the door open for me as I struggled to get inside without dropping my crutches.
“I fell down some stairs.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
I made it through the death trap and breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m on shift.” It was the first thing to drag my sorry butt out of bed in days.
“You’re on crutches.”
Crap. I knew this was going to be a problem. I’d just hoped . . . What? That they wouldn’t notice? “Simon, please . . .”
I had to work. Not working wasn’t an option. Not if any of us planned to eat this week. And the gas bill was coming due. No gas meant no heat.
“Jade, I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass here. I let the whole car accident incident slide because I get the impression you need the money. But this . . .” He motioned to my entire pathetic self. “There’s no way. I’m sorry. Stew would have a cow.”
I bit my tongue against the words, but they spilled out anyway. “I’m going to lose my job, aren’t I?”
“No. You’re injured. He can’t fire you for that. I’m pretty sure there are laws against it.”
Yeah, but there were a million other things he could fire me for if he were so inclined.
“Alright.” My head dropped toward the floor and I lacked the strength to lift it again. “I understand.”
I turned to go, but Simon’s hand on my crutch nearly took me to the slippery floor.
“Sorry.” His arm came around my waist, steadying me on my feet before letting go. “Is it broken?”
“No. Just sprained.” That was my story and I was sticking to it. I’d just keep it wrapped and hop around for a while. It would heal. Eventually.
“Then you should be back on your feet in no time.”
