by Tasha Jones
“What?” Allan looked down at her.
She shrugged. “That's just when a geographical region is suffering from too many nutrients.”
Allan chuckled. “Is that even a real thing?” he asked as he grabbed her hand.
Jackie laughed. “Of course it is,” but his skeptical eye drove her to try harder to prove herself. “I learned about it along tie ago in college,” she replied.
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you majored in fine art.”
She shrugged. “I thought I wanted to be a doctor for five minutes,” she replied.
He cocked his head to the side as he led her up a cobbled path. “And you decided it wasn't cool enough for you?” he teased.
Jackie chuckled. “Yup.” she replied, but she stopped when she got a good look at the house in front of her. It towered up three floors and across at least half an acre. A white fountain dominated the front lawn, the wind blowing through it and creating a refreshing gentle spray. Jackie squinted her eyes. “This is incredible... I should have dressier shoes.”
Allan rolled his eyes, grabbing her hand and dragging her up the stairs of the porch. “Oh please. You look like a flower,” he replied.
Even though she knew he was only trying to make her feel better, she couldn't help but smile at the compliment. “Aw. You really shouldn't have,” she replied as he pressed the doorbell.
She squeezed his hand in hers, covering it with her free right hand as she waited. She tried to come up with a good greeting, or a funny phrase to say, but the sound of her heart pounding was the only thing she could think of. Soon enough, she could hear heavy footsteps coming from the other side of the door. Jackie sighed. It was most likely a man, which meant she had time to cool down before she would find herself face-to-face with her new mother-in-law.
But when the door was yanked open and Allan yelled, “Ah! Jerry, I wasn't expecting you here!” Jackie felt less than relieved.
Allan stepped back, placing his hand on the small of her back. “This is Jackie Brown. My new fiancée.”
Jerry laughed. “He says that like he had an old fiancée.”
Allan laughed as well, but Jackie found it less than funny.
“He didn't,” he replied, looking her right in the eye.
Jackie's heart skipped a beat. Those green eyes were profoundly familiar. A lump formed itself in her throat as she struggled to figure out where it was that she had seen him before. He wasn't a friend, or an old coworker, or a college classmate. So how did she know him?
At the five second mark, the silence was starting to get incredibly awkward, so she pasted a smile on her face, extended her hand, and said, “Nice to meet you,” in her nicest voice.
He nodded once at her, a shadow washing over those dark eyes of his. He glowered at her, his face mirroring that same look of subdued recognition. Yet, the tension in his arm as he extended it back to her suggested that she was an old enemy; a forgotten nightmare. “Nice to meet you too,” he replied as he wrapped his hand around hers.
A chill ran down her spine as his rough skin enveloped hers. She had felt that touch once before.
Chapter Fifteen
Jackie sat on their patio with her glass of Peroni. Although her fiancé and future mother-in-law were deep in the throes of a conversation about the market in Westchester and how it has changed, or hasn't changed or how people think it's changed when it really hasn't or the other way around, what have you, she only had eyes for the man she was sure she recognized, sitting only a foot away from her.
“Oh I really do love this area. I don't care what happens to it. I'll stay here forever.” his mother, a tall woman with eyes just as beautiful as his and long, greying hair she had fashioned into a complicated up-do, replied to something he said earlier.
Jackie giggled, using the sound of her own laughter to drown out the anxiety that was threatening to control her. “Forever is a strong word, Mrs. Chase,” she teased. That was one thing she was good at; teasing.
The woman laughed at her, the sound of it pulling Allan's brother out of whatever mental reverie had consumed him. “I need to take a walk around the neighborhood. It's getting a bit hot under this cover,” he explained, standing up and straightening out his shirt.
If Jackie was going to figure out how she knew this guy and why he made her feel so god-damn uncomfortable, now was the time. “I'll go too. It will be a good chance for me to look around a bit.”
Knowing this was completely out of character for her, Allan looked up at her with his brows furrowed in confusion, but beyond that confusion, she could see that he was pleased that she was apparently making an effort to get to know his family. That was enough to assure her that she was making the right decision. “Sure, that makes sense,” he replied.
His mother nodded. “Then, when you get back, we can set up a dinner for my husband and I to meet your parents,” she explained.
Jackie smiled. It was little statements like that that reminded her that it was really happening. She was actually getting married. “There's nothing I'd like to do more.”
The woman laughed but raised an eyebrow, a mischievous smirk on her face. “I assure you that is an exaggeration,” she replied.
Jackie giggled. She couldn't believe how down to earth his mother was. “Well, thank you anyway,” she replied.
The woman nodded once. “Oh, of course, honey. Of course.”
Jerry stood up then and led her out of the room. She kept her mouth shut all the way out of the house, following him a couple steps behind; always a couple steps behind. She was trying to take in his walk, staring profusely at the way his hands clenched and unclenched; glowering at the tension in his muscle and the stiffness in his legs. She could feel something inside of her; a rage-like emotion that bubbled just beneath the surface, begging to be provoked, looking to be set free. But the fact that she couldn’t place it, or explain to herself what it was only made her more anxious. Logic told her that she had only known this guy for three hours, so why did she feel like she wanted to strangle him to death?
Eventually, they reached the front door. He opened it for her and motioned for her to go outside. Once the both of them had stepped out into the declining afternoon sun, he turned towards her. “So how long have you known my brother?”
Odd.
She would have assumed that, given that they were brothers, Allan would have told him about her long ago. But then again, Allan never mentioned Jerry to her either. “Are you two not close?” she asked. It took everything in her to force herself to speak to him. It was at that moment that she realized she was walking about a step a minute.
He turned to look at her, a gaze so fierce and so specifically aimed at her that she had to stop walking. Her hand went straight to her stomach as spears of pain shot through her abdomen. She sucked in deep breaths to keep herself from doubling over in pain. “Why would you assume that?” he demanded.
She flinched. She had clearly hit at a soft spot of his; she just wondered at how that could be. “I only think that because you would have known about me by now if you were close.”
He gulped then turned to keep walking. “Yeah, we kind of drifted apart when I moved to California,” he replied.
“When was that?” she asked, because if he had been in New York, that would explain how she knew him.
“About four years ago.”
Jackie nodded. “Four years. That’s so soon,” she muttered.
He glanced at her. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“I know you from somewhere.”
“That’s impossible.” He practically spat the words.
Jackie kept her head down as she struggled to put her head together. She let her eyes flicker shut as she replayed his voice in her head over and over again. It smelt like beer and cigarettes and tasted like tequila. It sounded like house music and looked like strobe lights. She sucked in a shallow breath. That scar on her forehead tingled. A pang shot through that space in between her legs. �
��No. I think it is possible. In fact, it is probably quite probable,” she replied, trying to speak around that lump in her throat.
“Why are you obsessed with finding out how you know me anyway?” he demanded.
Jackie narrowed her eyes. “Because I think you already know.” As soon as she spoke that truth, another more devastating truth came to the surface.
He shook his head, and turned to keep walking. “It’s not important. I probably met you at a bar or something.”
Jackie rushed to catch up with him. “If it’s not important, then why are you so tense?” she demanded as she caught up with him.
“I’m not tense,” he replied defensively.
“I can see your muscles trembling,” she replied.
He stopped in his tracks. “Okay, what do you want me to say?” he demanded.
“That we met at the Roxie, on the dance floor.” She could hardly say those words without that terrible night replaying itself in her head.
He shook his head. “That was impossibly long ago.”
But Jackie kept going. Her heart pounded at this opportunity to confront her past. “I was wearing a blue dress and my hair was straight. You came up to me almost as soon as I had walked in and we danced. I remember liking you,” she smiled. It was odd, remembering those moments of happiness before the annihilation. “I remember really wanting to go home with you that night, but I was drunk… and I knew I was drunk, so I held myself back, but then you got impatient. You tried to force a drink on me,” Jackie stood stock still with her eyes closed. It was the first time she had consciously tried to remember the whole night; the first time that she was not going to run away from it and confront her past, freeing herself in the process. “So I ran away. I went outside and you kept saying all of those things to me. You kept trying to convince me to go home with you even though you knew you had already ruined your chances with me.”
You.
You.
You.
That word, that confrontation, that recognition was enough to make her rage just as much as she did that morning in that hospital bed, facing her parents and telling them that she had broken the law. She had gotten drunk at 19 years old and gone to a club. She had solicited the affections of a man and it had backfired. In all of those years, all of those wonderful moments with Laila… and with Allan, that rage had not frozen over. It had not gone anywhere and she feared it never would.
Tears streamed down her face as she continued to remember, continued to acknowledge. “You dragged me down that empty road and pushed me into an alley. I continued to beg with you even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. You had decided that you wanted me. That you would use me. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. I was stuck and lost… and gone. You ripped my favorite dress. I still have it though. You ripped my favorite dress and you fucked me. You raped me.” Her voice broke in the end.
There was no more she could say.
She was spent.
“I’m so sorry. I know it's no excuse but it was a really bad time for me back then. I was on coke and Oxys, and totally fucked up. The reason I moved to California four years ago was to get into rehab,” he whispered.
“There is no amount of sorrow-“ she replied, her voice rough and breaking.
“But I am so sorry.”
She shook her head. “I’ve already forgiven you. For years I hated you and what you did to me, but I realized the only way to move on with my life and not be imprisoned by my past was forgiveness… and your daughter-“ she started.
His gasp stopped her in her tracks.
Of course he wouldn’t know. How could he have?
But she kept going. “Your daughter will one day learn about how she was conceived, and she’ll forgive you too. Consider yourself lucky.”
Jerry was frozen, because never in a million years would he ever had presumed that his mistake of the past had become Jackie and Allan’s complete future.
Jackie did not wait for some other word of surprise to leave his lips. She turned and walked back towards the house, her stride long and fast. She slipped her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Allan’s number. It was getting late, and, unfortunately, they would have to cut this visit short if they were going to make it to Brooklyn in time to pick Laila up. Jackie had promised her ice cream that evening. She would never tell Allan what his brother had done to the love of his life.
He didn’t deserve to be burdened by that truth.
Chapter Sixteen
“All right, here we are.” Jack hung the last of Jackie’s paintings up on the wall of the gallery then turned, his expectant face looking for some approval.
Jackie turned to Allan, who stood next to her, staring down at her with a look of utter adoration. “Go ahead.” He urged her along, like a father sending his daughter off to school.
She smiled at him. “Well, since you’re in at least three of these, I require your opinion,” she replied as she took his hand and led her along with him.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I cannot tell you how thoroughly important that makes me feel,” he replied, before bending down to plant a kiss on her forehead.
“Come on, you lovebirds! We have an opening in 24 hours!” Jack yelled from the other side of the space.
Jackie chuckled then led him along. The two of them looked at all of her paintings, which started from her earliest ones; sketches made in art classes in high school and in between after school jobs. It then moved on to pieces that had been featured in showcases at Julliard and Tisch School of the Arts. They were all technical gods, meticulously crafted with the pen of a University and the watchful eye of a canon teacher.
Finally came her real art; her purges of pain and desperate attempts at stardom. They were pieces that reached outside of the canvas and screamed at the viewer. They were paintings that begged and tugged and poked and scratched. They were love and they were hate; rage and happiness.
They were Jackie and Laila… And Allan, together forever.
The End
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