After she finished cleaning, Jemma went back to her room to finish packing. She checked through the drawers of the dressers and desks to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. That was how she spotted her scrapbook in the bottom dresser drawer.
“Hmm. How’d I miss this?” She took the book over to the bed with her and lay it on the bedspread. She ran her hands over the red and white cover. Without really wanting to, but not being able to stop herself, she turned to the section it most hurt to look at. Her eyes fell on a picture of Davis’s Acura, and she slammed the book shut.
She folded her body close to the window and rested her forehead on the windowpane. She sat like that for a long time. And eventually came to the conclusion that as much as she’d tried to deny it to herself, Mary was right. She was running again.
Later, still staring out of that window long after her neck was stiff and sore, she realized that the solution she’d come to was a bad one.
***
The next morning, Jemma stared at the phone. She knew what she had to do, but that didn’t make her any less afraid to do it.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, she picked up the phone and dialed a number.
A tart voice greeted her from the other end. “Dale, Bigby, and Associates.”
“Hi, Amerie. This is Jemma,” she said to the receptionist she remembered from her summers at Dale Bigby. “Can I speak to Dana?”
She fought not to talk herself out of it while she waited to be connected to Dana.
“Dana Marks.” Her crisp, assertive tone came through the line so clearly that Jemma almost looked around the room to see if Dana was in the room with her.
“This is Jemma. I’m really sorry, but . . . I’m not going to be able to take the position.”
“You’re kidding. You’re supposed to start in three days. We were expecting a new assistant director in three days.”
“I know, but I’ve had—well, something’s come up. An emergency. And I can’t move to Florida now. I’ll do whatever I can to help you through telecommuting until you can find a replacement.”
“Jemma, this is really disappointing.”
“I know.” Jemma winced. Dana was the type of person who could make you feel worthless without breaking a sweat.
After a terrifying conversation with Dana, which mostly consisted of Jemma apologizing several different ways, she was exhausted. She went back to bed, not wanting to face the fact that she had thrown away the new life she’d spent so much time and effort building for herself.
***
Jemma had found the courage to own up to what she wanted and, more than that, to go after it.
She waved to Ayn when she got out of the car, calling out in a cheery voice, “Hi, Ayn.”
“Hey.” Ayn waved back, looking over Jemma’s ensemble. Jemma still wore pink pajama bottoms and a white tank top along with her running shoes. She hadn’t taken time to change before heading to Davis’s.
Her smile finally faded once she thought no one would answer her knocks on the door. She almost turned away when the front door opened. An attractive, slim woman resembling Davis stood there, peering at her. She had to be Lydia.
“You must be Davis’s mom,” Jemma said.
“You must be Jemma.” A worried smile flitted across the woman’s face. She twisted her wedding ring around her finger a few times.
“You know who I am?” She hadn’t thought about Davis telling his mom about her. It hadn’t crossed her mind. Especially after the way she’d left him the last time she’d come to his house.
Lydia glanced behind her and then turned back to Jemma, something in her face having changed. “Of course. Come in, honey. He’s inside.” She seemed unsure about every word she spoke, but Jemma didn’t understand why until she walked into the house.
Chapter 30
Jemma stopped cold at the look Davis gave her. It was the closest thing to a look of pure hatred she’d ever seen on his face, and it hurt to have it directed at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, no warmth in his voice at all.
“I’m staying. I want to be here. I want to be with you,” she said.
He just stared at her. Her words had no impact on him at all. She hadn’t made a mistake. She couldn’t afford to think that way.
Lydia startled Jemma. She hadn’t realized the woman was still in the room. “I’ll be outside. You two should have some time alone.”
Jemma nodded. After Lydia walked away, she turned back to Davis and watched his face carefully. Even scruffy and unwashed, he was beautiful to her. But the look on his face wasn’t beautiful at all.
“You were right before. It could never work,” Davis said.
She reached out to touch his face, but he pulled away. “No. I wasn’t. We can’t control life, but we should cherish what we have while we have it. I’m sorry for the crazy way I’ve acted. I have . . . issues. I know. But I want to try to make this work. If you’ll try with me.”
Her heart pounded in her chest as she watched him. Not so much as one muscle twitched in his face. It couldn’t be too late. She’d finally realized that he was all that mattered and she couldn’t be too late. Just couldn’t be.
Finally, he looked away from her and said, “It’s done, Jemma. You should have gotten on that train this morning.”
She grabbed his hand. “No. We’re so close to all we’ve ever wanted and I won’t let you throw it away. Track ten, Davis. Lenny Kravitz. The CD I burned for you. Remember? I need you.”
“Nobody needs me. I’m nothing but a waste.” Davis’s shoulders slumped and he pulled his hand away.
“Wrong. You’re everything. Everything, anything, and the only thing that matters. You have to understand that. That night at the lake house. The nights we spent together here. Us making love. That was all I’ve ever needed. My heart is filled with you. I am filled with you. Every part of me.”
Davis looked away, but not before she saw a misery in his eyes that hurt her. “I can’t give you what you need. I’m Bill all over again. I mean, the other day when you came over and I was pickled drunk? That wasn’t proof enough for you?”
She took a step forward, but didn’t try to touch him again. “You’re not. You’re worth so much more than that. I—”
“No, Jemma. It’s done.”
A sharp pain hit her stomach. “It feels like I’m dying.”
“I don’t want to be with you.”
“Why would you say something like that?”
Davis shrugged. “I’m an asshole. An unemployed drunk. Just move on. Go.”
“I know the time we spent together meant something to you. We both do. You’re lying if you say it didn’t.”
“I can’t put up with this anymore. We were both right, just at different times. We really were broken from the start. And nothing can trump that. We were always a bad idea.”
“Romeo and Juliet were a bad idea in the eyes of some.”
“Well, they both ended up dead, didn’t they?”
“Davis, no. Don’t do this.”
“Jemma, yes.”
He turned his back to her and refused to say another word. After pleading with his retreating form as he went up the stairs, she gave up and made her way to the front door. His mother stood in the front yard. Jemma shuffled past her and toward the sidewalk.
She blocked the driver’s side door to Mary’s car. “Jemma, honey, can we talk for a moment?” Her kind blue eyes searched Jemma’s face in a pleading manner. Davis’s eyes.
“I don’t know what there could be to talk about.” Jemma sniffed back tears. “Davis just said all there is to say.”
“Please.”
“Ms. Hill, I—”
“Randall, but call me Lydia.”
“Lydia, then—”
“What would it hurt for you to hear me out? All you have to do is listen. If you don’t like what I say, I’ll walk back into that house and you’ll never have to hear from me again.”
Jemma studied
the chipped nail of her index finger as she considered Lydia’s words. Something inside of her relented because she still felt too much for Davis. What she felt threatened to overtake her resolve to walk away, but she stayed. Despite everything that’d happened, she wanted to hear what Lydia had to say.
“Okay.” She folded her arms over her chest.
Lydia nodded. A smile broke out over her fair features. “He’s trying to push you away, isn’t he?”
Jemma stared over Lydia’s shoulder.
“He didn’t mean it. There’s no way I can undo whatever my son did in there, but I know he thinks this is for the best. He thinks you won’t get hurt anymore if he pushes you away. He’s good at that. Pushing people away is his answer for everything.” She put a hand on Jemma’s arm. “But from what I’ve seen, and what I’m seeing now, it seems that both of you are hurting more like this.”
“He seemed pretty sure he wanted me out of his life a few minutes ago.” Jemma nodded toward the house.
“He’s miserable. Which he is a lot of the time, I know. But I found him asleep on the couch last night and he was talking to you in his sleep. He was asking you not to go—not to leave him. And you know what else? The look on his face when he first saw you just now. That’s the most life I’ve seen in him since I got here.”
“He was probably alive with the hatred he feels for me now.”
“No, Jemma. I’ve been around for a while. I’ve seen a lot of people give a lot of looks. Plenty of those looks were none too nice. He was alive with something else in that living room. Sure wasn’t hate.”
“Even if what you say is true, and even if he wanted my help, it’s not my job to save him,” Jemma said. She purposefully ignored the fact that he’d been a different person during the time they’d spent together. He’d seemed lighter and freer—maybe happier than she’d ever seen him before.
“It’s not your job to love him, either. But you do.”
“I’m tired of fighting with him.” She pressed her palm to her face and wiped tears from the corner of her eye. “One of us is always messing up, so maybe it’s not meant to be. If we were meant to be together, it wouldn’t be so hard for us to feel the same way at the same time. Our love is destructive.” She shook her head. “No one should be in a relationship that makes them this crazy.”
“You really believe that, Jemma?”
She shrugged. “Yeah.” She had to.
“Then why’d you come here today?” Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulders.
“Apparently, I’m a slow learner.”
“I’m afraid for both of you if you really believe that.”
“Why?”
“He’s disintegrating and you remind me so much of myself. Not the love part—Bill and I—well, that’s another story for another day. But the running away part. Take it from an old pro. Running never solves anything. You always end up right back where you started from. And usually worse off than the first time around.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I decided not to go to Florida. I’m not running.”
“You’re not? You can avoid your problems, avoid dealing with them, without leaving town.”
“Nope. I’m not.” She’d visited Lynette and Demonte’s graves. She’d gone back to the apartment complex. She cried. She’d thrown the fit she needed to throw. She’d made her peace. Mary had been there for her just as before. And the one in the house behind Lydia had been there for her, too, but that was done now. “There’s nothing here for me to avoid. Nothing at all.”
“Davis is here.”
“Davis doesn’t have anything to do with me. Nor does he want to.”
“You know he does. Just look at the way you try not to flinch every time I say his name. You look so sad. Just like him.”
“What does it matter if he doesn’t want me? Why should I torture myself thinking about him?” Jemma suddenly burst out.
Before Lydia could respond, their attention was drawn to the sound of something heavy clattering against wood. They looked toward the direction of the sound.
Ayn picked something up from the porch and scampered into her house.
Jemma looked up at the window to Davis’s room, wondering if he was in there at that moment. Thinking about the nights that she’d spent up there.
“Don’t give up on him. Please.” Lydia put a hand on Jemma’s arm.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” Jemma said softly.
“He’ll come around.” Lydia opened the car door for her.
“I doubt it.” Jemma got into the car. She rested her head against the steering wheel for a moment before she could pull herself together enough to drive away.
Chapter 31
Jemma went back to Mary’s house and walked straight to her room. Mary followed her. She threw herself across the bed, ignoring Mary’s unasked questions. Even though Jemma’s face was pressed to the bedspread, she knew Mary was standing in the doorway.
Mary finally broke the silence. “I knew something was funny when I woke up and my car was gone and your suitcases were still here.”
Jemma shrugged, still face-down on the bed.
“I thought you were leaving today.”
Jemma turned her head to the side so she could answer Mary. Her tone was wobbly and dead as she talked around the sob that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat. “I’m not. Not Derring, anyway. I’ll start looking for an apartment and a job tomorrow, I guess.”
“You know that apartment thing is not necessary. It’s not even going to happen. You’re going to stay right here with me or else hurt my feelings something terrible.”
Jemma looked over her shoulder. Mary didn’t look smug. She didn’t look anything.
Jemma said, “I decided maybe you were right about some things.”
“Was I right about Davis?” Mary took a few steps into the room.
“I dunno.” She clearly didn’t know anything when it came to him.
“I guess things didn’t go so well.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much done. He needs someone who’s not like me. And I need someone who’s not . . . like him. I knew it all along. I should have listened to myself.”
Mary gave her a pointed look, but didn’t say anything. She just walked out of the room and down the hall.
***
Jemma called Emily Rose Saturday afternoon. That was after she’d spent a good while on the phone fighting with her landlord in Florida to get out of the lease. She’d then lain in bed, staring at the wall and second-guessing every decision she’d made since not getting on the train. Although she knew she’d made the right decision, it was hard for her to see how and why it was the right decision.
Finally she decided to stop feeling sorry for herself and to talk to the person who would understand better than anyone else what’d happened.
Jemma poured the whole story out to Emily Rose. She felt better when she got out the last word about leaving Lydia standing there, staring after her as she drove away.
“That is—I don’t even have words. I should be there with you right now.”
“That’s my life for you. Now Davis doesn’t want anything to do with me, I have no job, and I still can’t believe I’m staying. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“Do you regret any of what happened?”
Jemma thought about that for a moment. She wondered if Lydia had been right and if it mattered whether she was or not. Regardless, Davis was not going to be in her life any longer. He was probably right about them being bad for each other. Still, she was glad she’d had a few perfect days with him.
She slowly shook her head although she knew Emily Rose couldn’t see her doing it. “You know what’s weird? I don’t. Not one moment. I’m glad I had the time with him that I did. And I’m glad I decided to stay in Derring. I want to be here. I wanted to go to Jacksonville for all the wrong reasons.”
“You know what I learned on my wedding day?”
“What
?”
“Love is stronger than stubbornness.”
“That supposed to make me think Davis and I aren’t done? Because we are. He made his decision. He’s probably right.”
“You say that now.”
“Yeah,” Jemma said, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “How’s New York? You like the apartment?”
“It’s fabulous. Huge. Well, for a one-bedroom in Manhattan, anyway. You’ll have to come visit soon. We have a futon and you’ll have to sleep there, but it’ll be fine. We’ll have so much fun.” Emily Rose went on to gush about the apartment more and more and Jemma was safe from any more talk about Davis.
Losing him for the last time was bittersweet. And no, she didn’t regret it. She’d meant that. But still, there was the pain of knowing she could never have again the thing she wanted most in the world. What Michael and Emily Rose had. And Meg and her fiancé. The thing she’d had at the winery. Not having it wouldn’t kill her. But losing it wouldn’t be easy to survive, either. One step at a time. One moment at a time. Wasn’t the first step admitting there was a problem? And she’d done that.
Emily Rose was wrong about one thing. Love was poison—a dangerous drug. She was addicted to something very bad for her that felt so good and she knew she couldn’t have that thing anymore. Learning to take seriously that promise she’d made to stay away from love was going to be a painful yet necessary process.
***
After taking Mary to work Sunday night, Jemma sat in the living room, staring at the dead television screen. There was nothing she wanted to see. To do. She just wanted to sit there and try not to think about all the no’s. No money, no job, no life, no desire to have one.
She must not have heard the knocking at first because when it did register, it was quite insistent and impatient. As if the person knocking had been at it a while and would knock the door down if she didn’t answer it soon.
With a heavy sigh, she got up, muttering about having no idea who would come there at nearly midnight. She looked through the peephole, saw Davis’s face, and collapsed against the door. She was so weak with shock, she couldn’t move enough to open it.
The Davis Years (Indigo) Page 23
