by S. Massery
Colby and Jared rolled on the ground, each trying to get on the upper hand. Finally, Jared landed on top. He straddled Colby and hit him once, twice, three times.
“Jared,” I whispered. I said it again, louder, on repeat until I was screaming. I didn’t realize I was standing over him until I was close enough to grab onto his arm. “Stop,” I sobbed.
“He can’t fucking touch you, Charlie,” he said.
I thought you might be in love with him, Colby had said.
And Jared, months ago, had told me, He said something and you didn’t deny it. And I just wanted to say, I felt the same. Never stopped.
When Jared had said that, I had Avery.
I had been in no position to accept love from someone else.
When we were fourteen, Jared loved me? Does he still?
I look at the boy in my painting. I don’t have to ask if I feel the same way. It’s been there all along.
My next phone call is to Georgia.
“Hey,” I say. “I need to borrow your car.”
63
In the envelope Julianne gave me was the address of Jared’s apartment. It was like she had superpowers, because she knew that I would need it. I could blame her and my mother for repeatedly meddling later. Now? I have a man to confront.
When I pull into Everett—which is a lot closer to Seattle than I thought—I’m shocked at how big the city is. I think I was expecting something tiny. And yet, with the help of my GPS, I don’t have an issue finding Jared’s apartment.
I hope he’s here, because it will be awkward if he isn’t.
When I knock on his door, I don’t have a clue what I’m going to say to him. It depends on his reaction. It could go badly, I suppose. In the time that it took me to figure out what I wanted—Jared—he could have moved on. Some other girl could answer the door and shatter my dreams.
See, this is why I should’ve called first. Gave him time to tell his girlfriend about the crazy old neighbor.
That, and it didn’t appear that he was home.
I sat in my car and waited for another ten minutes before I gave up. I could try again another day.
Traffic crawls into Seattle, making the drive feel eons longer than it did when I was heading toward Jared’s home. The door to the gallery is unlocked, which is unusual. Robert should’ve been the only one here today, and he religiously locks it behind him. His darkroom blocks out sound, so there would be no way to tell if someone walked into the gallery.
But then, I hear Paul say, “I’m not sure where she is. She doesn’t have much of a social life, so I’m sure she’ll be back soon.” He laughs. I roll my eyes, because I know he means well. It’s true, though, my social life has been nearly nonexistent since I moved to Seattle.
I round the corner and freeze.
I would recognize the back of Jared’s head anywhere.
“Ah,” Paul says. “Charlie, this man was asking for you.”
I nod, struck mute, as Jared turns around. His look holds all the warmth in the world. It melts my heart into a puddle.
He holds up one of our fliers, and then shows me the back. His mother, I presume, had written, C is for Charlie!
I, in turn, hold up the note she had written with his address on it.
“You went to Everett?”
A smile breaks across our faces when I nod again. I’m not the only one who can’t stop staring this time.
Paul looks awkward standing there. “I’ll just, uh…” He turns, opens the first door to the darkroom, and closes himself inside without hesitation.
“We might’ve passed each other on the highway,” I whisper.
He takes a few steps forward.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were so close to me?” he whispers back. I realize, immediately, how much that information must hurt.
“Because I needed to sort through my shit,” I reply.
Inhale, exhale.
“And,” I say, “I drove to Everett to tell you—”
He shakes his head.
“Charlie, I don’t—”
“I love you,” I blurt out.
It’s awkward, and the words trip over my tongue and past my teeth. My cheeks turn bright red. Three words have undone me. It’s the first time I’ve said them first; it’s the first time I’ve meant it with my whole being.
We stare at each other for a minute before he crosses the distance between us and crushes me to him. He says, “Oh, Charlie.”
I close my eyes when he runs his finger down my jaw, and his other hand cups the side of my neck. His fingers brush into my hair at the nape of my neck, and it’s like I have a lightning storm under my skin, crackling wherever he touches me. When he leans down and presses his lips to mine, I know that his kiss is better than any I’ve experienced. I feel it everywhere, all at once, like I’ve been frozen and now I’m alive.
When he pulls away, I whimper. It elicits another smile from him, and he touches my lips with his finger. “I’ve been waiting way too long for that,” he says. “I’m going to kiss you again, and then we’re going to look at your artwork. I’m going to admire all of it and tell you how proud I am of you at least a hundred times.” He chuckles at whatever dazed expression is on my face. “And then I’m going to take you on a proper dinner date, and maybe you’ll invite me up to your apartment after.”
Everything happens exactly as he says.
I am perfectly okay with that.
“I did tell you our mothers like to meddle.” He kisses my collarbone. I’ve never fit so perfectly together with a person before; I didn’t know this kind of peace existed.
“You did. She came to one of our showings and bought a photograph and a painting.”
He smiles. He has so many smiles to give out, and I feel compelled to match his expression with a smile of my own. “She is clever, we can give her that.”
“She gave me the painting,” I tell him. “She said it was…” I let my eyes trail down to his left leg. “She said it’s okay to remember you as you were.”
He kisses my temple. “Which one?”
I pull him standing, and he follows me into the living room.
“You painted one of our adventures. You always did fall behind so easily,” he laughs.
“You were too fast! I could probably keep up with you now.”
“I wanted you to follow me. I thought that if you did, it meant you liked me more than just as a friend.”
I step into to his side, loving the way he pulls me close. “I did, Jared. I knew it then, and you made me fall in love with the adult version of you, too.”
“I love you, too, Charlie. Every piece of you.”
The way he kisses me after that, I know we’re headed to the bedroom.
After, we lay in silence. I study his breathing, trace the taut muscles in his stomach, taste his skin; he breathes and sighs and rubs circles into my back. I’ve been debating telling him about the journal. The guilt of it is tearing me apart, and I don’t know how to shut it off.
“There’s one more thing,” I eventually say. “And I would understand if it changes everything.”
Jared pulls his head back so he can look me in the eyes. “What is it?”
I roll away from him, digging through the drawer in my nightstand until I find the notebook. “When you went away, I wrote to you. It… it isn’t pretty. I’ve recently reread them, and it shows…”
He gently takes it from me.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
Tears fill my eyes. “Because, Jared, you missed such a big part of my life. I missed a big part of yours that I’ll never get back. But I think you need to see this, to understand—”
He silences me with a kiss. Once on my lips, once on each eye, and once on my forehead, where he lingers for a moment. Then, he says, “I know who you were when you were a child. I know who you are now. Reading you in pain… I do want to know. And I will read it. But you need to know that this will not change my opinion of you. This w
ill not change my feelings. I love you, and that doesn’t just disappear.”
“I don’t know,” I say. A thought crosses my mind: if he were like Avery, this already would’ve turned into an argument. I shake my head to clear that mental image away. “It’s a vulnerable part of my life.”
He hugs me. “I know. It’ll be okay.”
I get up and slip on a shirt. “We need food,” I say. My cooking skills, since living alone, have improved. I hear the notebook rustle open as I walk out of the bedroom, and even after I’ve finished cutting the cheese and putting crackers on a plate—okay, my cooking skills aren’t that improved—I stay away from the bedroom.
Eventually, Jared comes looking for me.
We meet eyes, and the same amount of love is in his expression now. His eyes are bloodshot, though, and I raise my eyebrows. “You made me cry,” he accuses with a small chuckle. “Charlie, I’m so sorry for what you went through. I felt like I just went through the journey with you.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to feel guilty, okay?”
“I might, a little. You are not to blame for Colby’s manipulation.”
He looks at the crackers and cheese. “How about I make us some omelets?”
“Please.”
Our transition from single to taken and in love is seamless. He has a few months before the fire season starts, which means most of his job is at the office in Everett, organizing preparation, construction, and support for the structural fire crew. I busy myself painting. Because I can do it anywhere, I stay with Jared in Everett most nights.
Our parents come and visit, and I’ve never seen them so thrilled for Jared and me. They already love Jared, and my dad revealed, unsurprisingly, that our moms had been rooting for this match up for a long time.
The best part about my new life, however, is that all the people I love are with me.
One day, I turn to Jared in the middle of working on a latest creation. I say, “You were right.”
“About what?” he asks.
“I had settled in my life. I was content to just… let everything be, because it wasn’t messy or bad.”
He comes up behind me and kisses my neck. “And now?”
“Now, I am extremely happy.”
“I can work with that,” he answers.
Epilogue
Happy endings are hard to come by, but they are not impossible. I learned, as I grew up, that my parents had a good marriage but not a great one. I learned that happiness is fought for and hard-earned and shouldn’t be taken for granted.
I learned that family isn’t just blood. It’s who you let into your life. It’s who fills the missing pieces. It’s for whom you want to crack yourself open, who you feel can crawl into your darkest spaces and bring the warmest light.
In Jared, there was a darkness that emerged when the people he loved were in danger. In me, there was a darkness that hid all of my insecurities, deep inside of me. But, somehow, we figured each other out. We overcame our obstacles for each other, and because of each other.
In October, just eight months after we began our relationship, Jared proposed to me.
Washington was beautiful in the autumn, on the mountain we frequently hiked. Yes, I got into hiking. Jared had a special prosthetic made for more intense exercise, and I told myself, If he can do it, so can I. I wasn’t afraid to admit that he inspired me to work harder. We were all alone at the top of the world when he gave me his own special words.
You and I have something special, Charlie. I have loved you for an eternity, and I will love you until both of us have returned to ash. You are my light, you are my happiness, and you are my best friend. I never want to lose you. I never want you to want for anything. I love you because you understand me. And I understand you.
Charlie, if you asked me for the moon, I would get it for you.
I answered, I would never ask the impossible of you, Jared.
That is another reason why I love you.
He got down on one knee. The ring wasn’t in a box. It had just been in his pocket, and then it was just pinched between his thumb and index finger. It was a simple band with a row of inset diamonds that shimmered in the morning light. It was perfect. It was not a public display of romantic affection, and I felt myself fall even deeper in love with him in that moment. A moment where my heart skipped and then sighed, and it said, He understands.
Yes, I told him. I’ll tell you yes every day, for as long as we live.
I didn’t believe in happily ever afters until that day, but for once, I’m happy to be wrong.
The End
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Jared’s side of the story in Something Sacred!
Something Sacred
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Deo volente. God willing.
I rub at my chest as I get off the plane. The mountains hit me first, and then the air. Everything is bigger out here. Everything seems thinner, lighter, colder. Sharper. I am in the best shape of my life, and yet I still find myself gasping for air as I walk up the stairs into the airport. No matter. I read that altitude affects the lungs, but over time, they’ll adjust. I will adapt, just like I’ve adapted to every other sudden change in my life.
My mother’s voice telling me that Latin phrase.
Blood on the bathroom floor.
Get a grip, I tell myself. I grab my bag and step outside. A pickup truck pulls up in front of me, and the passenger window rolls down.
“You Jared?” the girl asks. She has long dark hair and pretty green eyes. I try not to analyze her beyond those two details.
I nod, wary, but she just leans over and shoves the door open.
“Let’s go, hotshot,” she snaps. Once I toss my bag in the bed of the truck and climb in, she gives me a tight smile. “I’m Cora Fletcher. Office manager and assistant to the superintendent. We’re gonna go meet him and then get you settled into your temporary housing for the next five months.” Her smile turns more wicked as she adds, “If you can last that long.”
“God willing,” I find myself answering.
“You religious, Jared?”
I shrug. God has always been a touchy subject.
She pulls away from the curb. “Well, some think God doesn’t exist out here. How can God let millions of acres burn every year?” Her fingers tap on the steering wheel. “Some swear they see God in the flames themselves. Retribution for sin. Cleansing holy fire.”
I shake my head. “Which are you?”
Cora starts laughing. “You just broke the first rule of fire camp—don’t ask where people put their faith.”
When I booked my plane ticket for Washington—replacing the district with the state, irony at its finest—I knew I was actively running away from my personal horrors in D.C. I loved going to school there and working as a firefighter to defend the city, even if it was only for a few short years. I loved the rush of running into a building that was unsafe for everyone else. That thrill wore off, and I needed something more. Here, I’m about to run into some of the largest fires in the country.
Cora clears her throat. “For the record, I didn’t want to come pick you up.” Her hands flex and relax on the steering wheel over and over. “But I’m the lackey nowadays. The boys have started training.” She glances over at me again.
I turn toward her, not one to back down from a challenge.
“What does your mother think about you being out here?” she asks.
I blink. “Um—”
She waves her hand in the air as if that will erase her words. “Never mind. I hate talking sometimes.”
I reach for the car radio, but the button doesn’t work. I click it again, flip through stations, switch to satellite radio, CD, AUX. I’m getting almost desperate in the need to fill this awkward silence. Nothing happens, not even static. I sit back in my seat and turn my attention to the mountains. They’re in the distance now, but we’re heading in that direction.
“What’s it like here?” Dam
n it, I can’t keep quiet.
She heaves a sigh and scratches at her head. “The land? Or the people?”
“Both.”
“It’s a lot different than Texas,” she answers.
I squint at her. “I’m not—”
“Yeah, yeah.”
We lapse into silence again. As the highway slants upward, and mountains loom before us, I start to wonder if I haven’t made a mistake. I should’ve just run home—but my home burned down when I was nine, and I haven’t been able to let anything go since that day. Every imperfect moment is burned into my brain.
Maybe Cora is right and the flames are God’s retribution, and we have to pay for our sins through his holy fire. Or maybe he’s abandoned us all.
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Thanks for reading!
xoxo,
Sara
Also by S. Massery
Something Sacred
Broken Mercenaries Series
Blood Sky
Angel of Death
Morning Star
Acknowledgments
This book was a long time coming. It had been my goal for a very long time to publish a story, and it could not have happened without the fantastic support in my life.
To Rebecca, who has read every word of every draft I’ve written: thank you for encouraging me to keep writing. Thank you for giving me positive feedback, for loving my words, for helping me develop my characters, and for listening to me talk out everything going through my head. Without you, there would be no story on paper.
