by Chloe Cox
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and left.
chapter 21
As soon as Jackson stepped off the plane, he felt it. He always felt it when he came back to Cushing, Oklahoma: the past, weighing down on him, clamoring for his attention. He’d begged his mother to move, but only half-heartedly. She had friends there, as well as memories, and now that his father was truly gone—dead, not just on a bender somewhere between security jobs, but dead and gone and not about to bother anyone ever again—he supposed there was nothing for her to worry about.
She did like her cruises, though. Jackson grinned. He was about to send her on another one, this time to the Bahamas. She’d done Alaska in the summer, had sent him about a million pictures of glaciers. It made her so happy, and he liked to see her face when he gave her the tickets. He tried to do that as often as he could, but sometimes he just sent them in the mail, too busy with work to get away from the city.
Now was an especially crazy time to leave New York. The ArtLingua launch party, which they’d set up as a New Year’s Eve party, was the hottest ticket in the city, thanks to their publicist, Arlene. Every art star and tech guru in the city would be there, or would try to be. He should be excited. In just one day, he’d be on the verge of the next triumph, another step up on the road to…where, exactly?
That was part of the problem. He’d done what he’d needed to do, proved he could start and run a world-class business. He’d built something he truly believed could help people, a new thing that had not existed before he had conceived of it. And after this launch, he’d be even richer than he already was. He’d be a veritable star.
And he just didn’t give a shit. None of it mattered without Ava. He was like a ghost, a shade. Not even half of himself without her. Especially knowing it was his fault, knowing he’d hurt her. Scared her.
Knowing she didn’t feel safe.
Jackson had walked around the office on automatic, doing things that needed to be done, even if he didn’t really need to be the one to do them. The launch really had gotten to the point of planning where it was out of his hands—he was just micromanaging because he couldn’t be at home. She’d only been with him a short time, but already he could feel her everywhere. Could see her everywhere. Christ, he even thought he could smell her. He’d walk into the kitchen to get something to eat, and would remember her bent over the counter and the longing would seize him ferociously, and then be replaced by grief just as quickly. It wrecked him every time. He didn’t eat for two days until he finally started ordering out at the office. Even then, he wasn’t hungry. He only ate to appease his employees, who were starting to get worried. Jackson Reed was a hollow man.
And that’s why he’d come home.
He tried to shake it off on the walk to the rental car, turned the radio up all the way as he drove off. But once he got on those familiar roads, it was just no use. He knew those roads so well he didn’t need to think about it, didn’t need to occupy his brain, and thoughts of Ava rushed right back into the empty space.
Jackson pulled into the familiar driveway and just sat in the car. He’d come here because he needed help, because he needed to talk to the only person in the world who would understand what he was afraid of, but now he found that he dreaded doing just that. The idea of telling his mother, his own mother, that he’d frightened a woman? That he’d made her feel unsafe? He could barely face the possibility himself. Telling his mother… The thought that she might look at him and have the same fear Jackson did—that she might look at Jackson and see Jackson’s father—then he’d know for sure it was true. That right there ranked as his worst nightmare, hands down.
Jackson leaned his miserable head on the steering wheel. Ava had said she couldn’t trust him if she didn’t know him, couldn’t just trust how she felt. Which frustrated him all the more, because he had trusted her just based on that feeling, hadn’t he? Based on their connection?
But you didn’t trust her enough to tell her about any of this, did you?
The irony was, he kept his past to himself for precisely that reason: he didn’t want to frighten people. Especially women. And keeping things from Ava Barnett had had the exact opposite effect.
“I fucking hate irony,” Jackson muttered to himself. But there was no use being scared. He’d have to face all this crap. He had just steeled himself and opened the door when he heard the front door creak open.
“Jackson!”
Emmie Reed stood with her baking apron on, flour on her cheek, and her hands on her hips, pretending to be put out at an unannounced visit, but failing to hide her delight at the same time. Jackson gave her the biggest smile he could, and he was genuinely happy to see his mother. He had to brace himself as he watched her limp down the front steps, as he always did, remembering not to wince. Every painful step reproached him for not being able to stop the beating that had caused it.
“Mom,” he said, and wrapped his big arms around her.
“Let me go,” she laughed. “I’ve got to roll out this crust before it warms up enough for the gluten to do its thing and ruin it. Come on, come on, let’s go!”
Jackson followed behind her dutifully, not having understood most of what she’d said. His mother was a prolific baker, testing out recipes and contributing her own on various cooking websites with a kind of competitive zeal that Jackson admired. She’d get a flinty look in her eye when she was onto something good, and then Jackson would get a package in the mail full of something delicious. It worked out for everyone.
But to get to the kitchen, they had to go through the whole house. Jackson normally went straight to the kitchen door to avoid this. Walking through the old house brought with it the same assault of memories Jackson had felt upon touching down in Cushing, but about a hundred times stronger. He hated it. He’d watched his mother get pushed down those same damn stairs. He hated those stairs. Jackson caught himself actually hunching his shoulders, as though readying himself for an attack.
His dad still ruled this place, even from beyond the grave. It didn’t seem fair.
He relaxed noticeably when they got to his mother’s warm kitchen, the center island cleared off and covered with flour, a big hunk of dough in the middle of it. Emmie Reed didn’t waste any time and went right ahead and started working on the dough.
Without even looking up, she said, “Now tell me what the hell happened.”
Jackson grinned. He’d gotten his mouth from his mother, that was for sure.
“It’s a woman,” he said.
His mother looked up, waiting for him to go on. “Of course it’s a woman, Jackson. None of ‘em have ever driven you back here ‘til now. What happened?”
He sat on a kitchen stool and sighed. “Ava Barnett.”
His mother’s eyes sparkled. “I remember that one.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. She was the only one you got excited to tell me about. If I recall correctly,” Emmie said, looking up from her flattening crust, “you were not actually an item back in the prehistoric era, or whenever it was. I take it that has changed?”
“For about a minute, yeah.”
Emmie rolled in silence for a time while Jackson watched her work, replaying the last few days in his head and trying to figure out how to explain it all to his mother. Finally, Emmie lost her patience and rapped the rolling pin on the counter to get his attention.
“Are you gonna tell me or not?”
Just out with it, Jackson.
“I scared her.”
Emmie looked at him. “What do you mean you scared her?”
No going back now.
“I mean I got angry, I got scared, because I thought she was leaving me, and I went to her apartment, and…I was wrong. I was all wrong. Mom, I’ve worked so hard, I’ve been so scared that I’d be like him, and now…”
Jackson couldn’t finish. What else was there to say? He stared down at his hands, the hands that had busted in Ava’s door, and experienced a fresh wave of self-loathing.
“
Jackson Reed, look at me.”
Jackson hadn’t been scared like this since he was a boy. And he was scared now that he’d turned into the man who had scared him then. If he saw it in his mother’s face, he’d know beyond the shadow of a doubt. He looked up.
His mother said, “What happened? Specifics.”
“I was upset. I shoved against her door, and it just—it gave way. It’s not an excuse. I broke open her damn door, and scared the crap out of her. And before that I tried to…I don’t know, micromanage everything. I was awful, Mom.”
His mother had tears in her eyes.
She said, “Listen to me. Of course you have some of him in you. He was your father—it can’t be helped. But you are not him. How could you even think that?” She laughed mirthlessly, wiping her eyes with the back of her arm, her hands still covered in flour. “You’ve made choices to be good, to be kind, to learn how to deal with your temper. You did that all on your own. You’re the man you decided to be, Jackson, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”
“I didn’t do it all on my own,” he said quietly. “I had help.”
“Well, whatever. You did it. Now what did Ava say?”
“She says I tried to control her. That I don’t respect her.”
His mother gave him a long look. “Was she right?” she said evenly.
“Of course I respect her!” Jackson said, his voice getting hot. Then he looked at his mom. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Well, that was a yes,” Emmie said, returning to her crust to add a little more ice water. “You are a control freak. What else do you expect, growing up the way you did? With what I let…”
His mother paused, frozen mid-stroke in her crust rolling. This was what she did to get a hold of herself when she got emotional in front of her son. He knew to let it pass.
At last, she put down her rolling pin. She said, “You had a more chaotic upbringing than I would have liked for you, Jackson, and yes, that has helped to shape you. You’ve turned most of those experiences into strengths, but control in relationships is dangerous. So you screwed up. Big deal. So fix it. You’ve worked so hard to become the man you are, and you should be proud of that, but what on earth makes you think that you’re done?”
Jackson looked at her like she’d just told him the meaning of life. At that moment, she had. He leapt up and kissed his mother on the cheek.
Emmie picked up her rolling pin, hiding a satisfied smile. “Have you told her about any of this? About your dad?”
“No, that’s the last thing I wanted to do if she was scared.”
If Jackson expected his mother to understand this particular reasoning, he was disappointed. Emmie rolled her eyes. “Christ, what a dummy.”
Jackson let out a surprised laugh.
“Ava called me a asshole.”
“Ha! She was right. Now get me some butter from the freezer,” she said, frowning down at the dough. “This batch is not, unfortunately, destined for greatness. Good thing I can always try again, huh?”
His mother looked very pleased with that last line.
“Touché, Mom,” Jackson smiled. “Anything for me to eat while you conjure up another pie crust?”
He was suddenly voraciously hungry. It was the first time he’d actually wanted food in nearly a week.
For the next several hours, Jackson wolfed down pieces of pie, pastries, and a whole bunch of things he couldn’t pronounce, and dutifully filled out comment cards for his mother’s websites on all of them. But his mind was at work while his body was otherwise occupied. He kept getting flashes of Ava, of things she’d said. They still made him wince, some of them, but he knew he was working something out.
What his mom has said kept banging around inside his head, too. You’re not done, Jackson. He had made so many choices in his life because of Ava, he’d felt able to make those choices because of Ava, and yet, he had hidden that fact from her. He owed the man he had become to Ava Barnett, and he had the actual, physical proof of that in his apartment, and he’d literally hidden it in his closet. He always thought it was to keep from spooking her, but maybe that was just a rationalization. Maybe he was just as scared and messed up as she was.
And he did owe her an explanation, on top of everything else. But how could he possible explain all of this? Hell, he wasn’t sure he could convince her to take his phone calls ever again; she sure as hell hadn’t taken them yet.
What could he possibly…
“Oh shit,” he said, leaping up from his chair.
“Language.”
“Sorry, Mom, I just…I gotta make a phone call,” he said, ham-handing his phone. He paced while he waited for her to pick up. “Lillian? Yeah, I’m coming back tomorrow morning. There’s something I need for the launch. You know the Moreau?”
“Of course,” Lillian said.
“Send it back. I have a different idea.”
chapter 22
At a loss about what to do with a broken door and not wanting to stay at a place that no longer felt like home anyway—if it ever had—Ava called her sister. Together, the two women managed to move everything of immediate importance into Ellie’s living room out in Brooklyn, and Ava put the rest in temporary storage.
“What’s your roommate going to say?” Ava finally asked. She walked in circles around Ellie, who had collapsed on the couch. Ava felt like if she stopped moving, she’d have to think, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. There were too many dangerous thoughts lurking in her mind like giant, menacing icebergs, just waiting to sink her.
“About that,” Ellie said slowly. “You can have the spare room. It’s an office right now, but it’s got a futon, and you can set up your easel.”
Ava looked around. There were two bedrooms. “The spare room?”
“So, Colette isn’t my roommate,” Ellie said. “She’s my girlfriend.”
Now Ava sat down.
“What?”
Ellie cocked her head. “You don’t have, like, a problem…?”
“What? No, I just…how did I not know this?”
Ellie scrunched her feet up on the couch and picked at a thread coming out of her sock. She looked just like Ava did when she got uncomfortable. “None of us are so good at sharing personal stuff, Ava,” she said. She meant the Barnett women. “I was going to tell you at dinner. I told Mom. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Ava said incredulously.
“Does it have to be?”
Ava thought about this. No, obviously, it wasn’t itself a big deal to her, but suddenly finding out there was this whole side you never knew about to someone you love, someone you’re supposed to know…
Ava couldn’t miss how that particular insight might be relevant to her own life, but she couldn’t quite go there yet, even in her own mind. Thar be icebergs, she thought, and looked up to find Ellie staring at her with big, scared eyes.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you, it just…” Ellie said, trailing off.
Ava sighed, and reached for her sister’s hand. “I think I actually get that part. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
Now Ellie smiled. “Ava Barnett’s famous sixth sense,” she said. “Yeah, how’d that work out for you, mind reader? You didn’t see that one coming?”
“Shut up.”
“You know, you do have blind spots with some people.”
“That’s pretty obvious at the moment,” Ava said.
“No, but I mean it,” Ellie said, extending herself across the couch with her feet in her sister’s lap. She was noticeably more comfortable now than she had been just a moment ago. I guess coming out will do that, Ava thought, secretly shaking her head.
“You have a pretty big blind spot when it comes to Mom, too. No, Ava, listen, please,” Ellie said. Ava had stiffened immediately. “You’re great and perceptive with people, and you adapt immediately and just charm the pants off them because you see right through them—I know. I’ve always envied it, even though I know you got it from
having to predict when Mom would fly off the handle, which actually sucks pretty hard. But I feel like that’s led you to think that you see everything, and you just don’t.”
“I’m actually pretty aware that I don’t see everything, El,” Ava said softly. “After today.”
Ellie winced. Ava hadn’t offered details about what had happened, and Ellie hadn’t asked, in the great reflexive Barnett tradition of Not Talking About It, but Ellie had seen the busted up door.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ellie asked.
“Not yet.”
“Ok.” Ellie put an affectionate foot on Ava’s shoulder, just to gross her out. “I’m right about Mom, though.”
“Ellie, seriously. You didn’t take the brunt of it. I’m not saying that to, like, pull rank, but—”
“But you are. Shut up for a second, seriously, and listen to me.” Ellie got on her knees, leaned forward, and grasped Ava by the sides of her face. Ava was so startled that she actually did shut up.
“You are Mom’s favorite. Don’t argue with me, and don’t think it’s something I’m upset about. I’m only saying it because you still think Mom was, like, I don’t know, trying to destroy you, with all the stuff she did. I don’t think she was. I think she was desperate, and lonely, and drunk, and she would get afraid of losing you, too, every time she lost anyone else, and she just… I think she just wanted to keep you close, as fucked up as that is.”
Ava didn’t know what to say. Ellie fell back on her side of the couch, somehow spent, as though she’d been waiting to say that for a long time.
Ellie looked shyly at her sister. “Don’t say anything, don’t… I mean, you don’t have to agree with me. Just please think about it, ok? As, like, an option.”
“As an option,” Ava agreed, still mildly stunned. There had been a whole lot of revelations and surprises for one day. She was suddenly exhausted.
“Sleepy?” Ellie asked.
“God, yes,” Ava said. She put her head in her hands. “Oh shit. I didn’t call my boss.”
Ava had no intention of going into work the next day, or possibly even the day after that. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so it wasn’t as though it mattered much, but Ava had been pretty absentee lately.
