"I'm pressing fucking charges," Ron wrenched away from Marie, who drew back as if afraid of being suddenly struck. Stepping away from the annoyed paramedics, Ron stepped closer to the group of officers buffering Gideon. "I want him out of my mother's house. He is nineteen, I think, he should have already been kicked out."
Sheriff Grayson angrily turned, still keeping his restraining hand on Gideon's shoulder. "Ron Lattimore, I told you to stay over there," he shouted.
As if there wasn't a small team of men holding him in place, Gideon took one menacing step forward, forcing the whole group to move as one. "You fucking moron, it doesn't work that way," his voice thundered like nothing Jade had ever heard before, and his beautiful face grew dark and volatile. "If you would have stayed in high school, maybe you could comprehend that Henry adopted me, meaning I was his son, and this is my house. Check the deed if you don't believe me, you'll find my name right next to mom's," he goaded.
Visibly seething, Ron looked to Sheriff Grayson. "I want to press charges, family violence charges. We don't feel safe with him around, look at my face," he announced, pointing to the swollen side of his face.
Turning back to Gideon with angered frustration Sheriff Grayson began speaking angrily to Gideon, who began to argue right back.
This couldn't happen, shaking her head slowly, Jade thought of what would happen if Ron pressed those charges. She couldn't let that happen. Finally, finding herself through the fog of her fear, she forced herself to walk across the lawn towards Ron.
"Jade!?" Gideon, who had been keeping an eye on her the whole time, shouted as she moved. "Jade, get away from him, right now!"
She flinched at the sound of Gideon's roaring voice behind her but ignored him and continued towards Ron, who was now eyeing her suspiciously.
Stopping in front of Ron, she tried to look past the severe swelling to the left side of his face. "Please don’t press charges, Ron," she begged in a low voice. It was as much as she could manage with the constriction in her throat and the stinging behind her eyes.
"Sorry, sis," Ron still managed to sneer through the giant purple knot of pain on his face. "He isn't staying here. Maybe Mr. Star Quarterback or whatever the fuck he is will learn how life really is with a few nights in jail."
Desperate now, she reached out to him and took his hand in both of hers, she could see the startled look of surprise in his expression as well as his girlfriend Marie shift uncomfortably at his side.
"Please, please don't do this," Jade begged. "Dad…dad told us…he made it seem if you ever showed up after his death, it wouldn't be a good thing. Gideon is just trying to be protective of mom and me. I know he said some hurtful things but…" she let her words trail off, not sure what else to say to convince him Gideon was only being wary.
"Wouldn't be a good thing?" Ron repeated, his eyes going wide. "How would that bastard even fucking know?! Did he care to reach out to me when I hit rock bottom and was in the hospital? Fuck no, I had left six voicemails for him that day, and he didn't return not one." Snatching his hand from hers, he grabbed her wrist with his left and dug into his jean pocket with his right before producing three-round, engraved medallions and slapping them into her open palm. "Did he know I have been clean for three years now? He didn't give a shit, not when he had you and his precious fucking Gideon," he said the name with such loathing Jade felt herself flinch. "All I ever heard from people I knew was how Henry and his new son were so perfect. How Gideon picked up where I failed. Well, fuck you," he screamed, stepping around her to look directly at Gideon, who was being physically detained by all the officers to stay in place. "That's my mom! My real mom! Go find yours in the gutter where she fucking dropped you."
It took another hour for Sheriff Grayson to convince Ron not to press charges on Gideon and to stay at the motel in town and come back tomorrow, and though he finally relented, Ron looked to Sandra and pointedly to Gideon, promising he would be back home tomorrow—for good.
Sitting at the dining room table, Jade's chest felt hollow. She had never gone through anything like that before. From the time she moved in with her new parents, her life had been a wonderful routine of love and safety. When Henry died, there had been a crack in that familiar pattern, but she and Gideon had held on and did the best they could to ignore the change and press forward. Tonight, however, that comfort had been shattered.
Looking up, she watched Gideon standing at the dining room window that faced the front yard. He had watched the sheriff's department slowly pull away after Ron's beat-up minivan, their flashing lights fading into the darkness. He was still seething. She could see the tenseness in his broad shoulders from where she sat. Turning in her chair, Jade looked to her mother, who was sitting sniffling on the couch, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Sensing her, Sandra glanced up and met Jade's gaze. For a brief second, the watery grayish-blue eyes looked at her with pleading want for sympathy before widening in guilty fear at the anger looking back at her.
Jade could not suppress the surging tide of anger building up inside of her as she looked at her mother. Closing her eyes and pressing her lips together, Jade took a calming breath before opening them and leveling her gaze back at her mother.
"Why did you do it?" Jade asked. Her voice was thick with suppressed emotions, but in the still house, she knew her mother heard her perfectly. "Why did you tell him he could stay here without talking to us first?"
There was a warmth at her back, and Jade knew without looking that Gideon was now standing behind her.
Blinking, Sandra gave them both a fearful, guilty look before looking down at her hands where she wrung the crumbled tissue until it finally shredded apart. Looking back at them, there was a sharp clarity in her eyes that surprised Jade.
"Your dad told me about your plan," she said evenly. "I think you both should do it. I think it would be good for you both to put some distance between yourselves and Ron for a while."
It was Gideon who reacted to that devastating blow first. "What are you saying? You want us to leave? Are you actually kicking us out?" he demanded, disbelief apparent in his voice.
"Gideon sit down," Sandra said, pointing to the chair next to Jade, there was a sternness in her voice that Jade hadn't heard in a long time. Slowly, reluctantly Gideon took a seat, sitting at the very edge of the wooden chair with his elbows on his knees, ready to spring up any minute. "Now just listen and stop letting that quickfire temper of yours get the best of you," Sandra rubbed her forehead with a weary sigh. "I'm not kicking you out, I would never do that. You're both my babies. I love you both more than you could ever know…" she breathed deeply, "but…I love Ron too, and I think he needs me. I never wanted to kick him out, but back then, he was doing so much and causing so many problems I just didn't know what to do anymore and let Henry take over. I think he has changed, and I want to be there for him now, but I don't want you two to have to…deal with him in the process."
"But I don't want to leave you, momma," Jade let the tears she had been fighting back fall down her cheeks before wiping them away.
"I don't want you to either," Sandra said, desperately turned completely sideways on the couch so that she was facing them fully. "It's up to both of you if you want to stay, but I can't turn my back on Ron, not again."
Gideon stood up. "There is no way in hell we can stay in this house all together with that piece-of-shit junkie."
"Gideon!" Sandra slapped her hand on the couch.
Gideon ignored her angry outburst and stepped closer. "And if you think I'm going to go and just leave Jade here with that creep, you're out of your damn mind."
Shaking her head, Sandra's upset face looked up to Gideon, trying to make him see her point. "I'm not saying—"
But Gideon was done hearing her, with long angry strides, he went to the door that led to the den and stopped. "So, you'll turn your back on us? You'll do the very thing we have always feared and get rid of us just because your real son has moved back? Thanks for that, mom," Gideon spat
the word as if it was bitter on his tongue before stepping out of the room.
That night Gideon did not return to wherever he walked off to before bed. Everything felt broken, it felt as if Jade's entire world had been shattered in less than twenty-four hours. Sandra had tried to explain to Jade and reassure her that she thought them enacting Henry's plan would be the best thing, but Jade could barely listen. She just wanted them to leave, that's all Jade could understand from the woman's words. She wanted them gone so that she could have a second chance with her son, not caring if her other two kids were being kicked out from the only home they had ever known.
It was late when she heard the door to her room open with its usual creak. Jade didn’t bother turning in the bed to see who it was, she knew. The door clicked shut before she felt the spot next to her on the bed dip and the long warm body settle in behind her. Tears stung and welled in her eyes as she felt the heavy arm draped over her hip and pulled her back into the warmth of the big body behind her. She wanted to yell at him for this evening, a part of her was still so mad at him, but another part was so relieved by his presence all she wanted to do was cry. Allowing herself to relax and mold into his hold, Jade let her tears fall freely.
Eventually, Gideon's deep voice near her ear broke the silence of the room. "You know we can't stay right?" he whispered, but she said nothing in reply. "It would just be more of this, day in and out," he explained, and she could hear the urgent need for her to understand in his tone. "I can't do this to us, not to you. I can’t leave you here as I go to school and work each day just hoping he doesn’t fight with you or worse…try something else. I could see the way he looked at you, I could see the way he looked around the house with satisfaction like he won the goddamn lotto. I'll end up killing him, Jade, I know it."
Jade didn’t say anything, she couldn’t. Her throat felt tight from all the strain of her tears.
"Please, talk to me," he begged his arm around her waist, tightening a little as he nuzzled into her hair, covering the curve of her neck. "Don't shut me out, tell me I'm not crazy," his muffled words vibrated into the tender nerves of her neck and shoulder. "Tell me I'm not overreacting. I just thought…"
Finding his hand pressed against her stomach, she laced her fingers with his and pressed him tighter against her. "You're right," she assured him tearfully. "You're not crazy. I saw the same look…it made me feel…scared," she confessed, remembering the way Ron's beady dark eyes went from scanning the living room and stopped on her.
Turning her over until she was flat on her back, Gideon hovered part ways over her, his amber eyes shining with determination in the dark. "I would never let anyone hurt you, do you hear me? I love you, Jade. I promise I'll keep you safe."
Jade nodded and turned her face into his chest until they were now both facing each other. With his heavy arm over her waist, he held her firmly to him, and she prayed he would never leave.
Just when the grips of sleep nearly claimed her, she felt another wave of sadness hit her as the reality of their situation sank in further.
"I can’t believe she would choose him over us Gideon, I just can't believe it," her words dissolved into silent tears, and she let herself cry into the warmth of his chest until sleep finally claimed her.
~*~
It took them nearly two weeks to get everything in order. For the first few days, Jade naively hoped that maybe they wouldn't have to leave, but that thought was quickly dispelled. Ron and Marie were unlike anyone Jade had ever met. There was something toxic about their personalities, something eternally angry about them, as if they had both been wronged so much, they could only ever face life with grim faces and a readiness to fight. Staying there was not an option.
Making dozens of calls and filling out mountains of paperwork, she and Gideon arranged for the remainder of her senior year to be taken virtually, a point Gideon made sure to brutally remind tear-streaked Sandra of the day he realized Jade would not get a traditional graduation. Securing a few more long-haul trucking contracts, downsizing their clothes and things, they boxed up everything they couldn't take and sent it over to Ebony and Gavin's house. Her friends were beside themselves at the new turn of events. Gavin and Gideon argued on the front lawn for what seemed like two hours, Gavin threatening everything from killing Ron himself and worse, calling his dad and his team of lawyers to swoop in and resolve everything for them. The offer was tempting, and she could see Gideon consider it, but when she met those amber eyes across the lawn as they sought her silent council, Jade shook her head. It was Henry's plan, and this was Sandra's house now despite Gideon's name on the deed. It would be so much easier to have Mr. Rosebank come in and solve all of their problems, but they knew they couldn't.
So, after tearful goodbyes with all of their friends and the rig packed with everything she could squirrel away in the tight cab, Jade sat beside Gideon as he turned the truck around in the drive and headed down the driveway away from the house. She could see the pain lining the hard features of Gideon's face as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. Everything he had worked so hard for was being left behind. The scholarship, his pick-up truck he had to sell, his friends, and the home they loved all gone, and Jade wondered if they made the right decision.
Chapter 8
"Ok, yes," Jade said, nodding as she scribbled the confirmation number the man on the phone was giving her for the shipment into the calendar sitting on her lap. "Ok then, we will be there tomorrow, March eighteenth, around nine."
Tapping the red end button on her phone, she sat it on the large dashboard in front of her seat. For the past two weeks, since they left home, the dashboard had become her dining room table and office. Looking up at the passing scenery, she watched as endless fields of snowy cornfields panned past her window. It was a dreary sight. In the distance, she could see little houses beyond the large red barns and imagined families cozied up in their homes for the winter.
Pain twisted in her chest, curving around her heart like a poisonous vine.
Turning away from the window at that thought, she looked at Gideon in the driver's seat next to her. The sleeves to his gray sweater were rolled up to his elbows showing off his wide, muscular forearms as he drove.
Pulling her gaze away, Jade looked back out the window in front of her as she spoke. "We have the Nebraska Furniture and More store load scheduled for pickup outside of Omaha, and since we will be carrying more than we discussed, they will increase payment to one thousand nine hundred and fifty. Once we drop it off in Madison, Wisconsin, we will then pick up the Herman Paints' load," she explained.
"Good," Gideon nodded, and she could see his eyes take a far-off expression as he mentally calculated gas expenditures for the five hundred miles. "Thanks," he added as she got up and made her way to the back of the cab.
Jade didn't say anything else, she couldn’t. Her chest felt tight and painful, she could barely breathe. Every breath hurt. Putting one hand out on the cabinet to her right, she steadied herself and forced herself to take in a huge gulp of air. The high-pitched ringing in her ear abated after a few more forced breathing exercises. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to move again. She had to keep busy, she firmly reminded herself. If she kept busy, she could push away the reality of everything, and she wouldn't have time for these attacks of crushing anxiety. Or at least that was what she told herself.
Having left her bunk unmade and mussed that morning, she stood next to her and Gideon's parallel bunk beds and fished around on hers until she found her laptop hidden under the thick quilt. Below her bunk, Gideon's was neatly made with all of his personal things either tucked into his cubby holes or safely secured in the netted pockets next to his bed. Jade stared down at the bed for a moment, and she could feel the dark thoughts creep back in as she scanned his tidy bunk. He had always been this way ever since they were kids. At home, his room had always been immaculate and tidy while hers went through random days of chaos before she organized it again.
He should have a
room instead of this stupid bunk. Staring down at the dark blue and gray quilt Sandra had made him years ago, Jade felt her eyes water as the feeble barricades of positivity she erected crumbled under the weight of her dire thoughts. Everything they had was gone. Looking around their new home, she cringed. Despite being a top of the line truck on the market, Jade couldn't stop herself from hating every inch of the cab right now. Their once shining future was gone, and it was replaced with hard vinyl-coated walls, a mini-fridge, a microwave, a small wall-mounted television, and two bunk beds. It was as if all of their dreams had disintegrated right in front of her, and she had been too weak to stop it from happening.
A Love So Wrong: A Forbidden Romance Page 10
