Tears leaked down her face. It took a few seconds to pass before she seemed to snap back. Then she shot across the room, throwing her arms around him, hugging him, while he remained limp under her touch. She pulled back, frantic, as she searched his face, her hands pressing into his cheeks as if she were making sure he was really there. “It’s you… oh my God… it’s you. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
And Mom was crying, holding on to him as if he might disappear.
From across the room, I caught the expression on his face.
And I was sure he would.
NINETEEN
Jared
Cold slipped through my veins. Pictures of her face slammed me as if she were locked in time. One by one, they struck me, battered and beat my mind, like an everlasting penalty sent to taunt my spirit.
Laughing.
Smiling.
She was always that way – smiling, laughing, loving.
She’d been beautiful.
Good.
And I’d stamped out that light. A rose trampled underfoot.
A shuddered breath burned as I drew it in, my lungs pressing against my ribs. Fire clashed with the cold, and pain pelted my insides as needles prickled along my skin. I was always ruining the good.
Now Aly’s mother, Karen Moore, clung to me as if she’d just witnessed a resurrection of the dead. All I could do was stand there wishing for a way to disappear.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block all of it out.
What it was about Karen Moore that was such a stark reminder of her, I didn’t know. Maybe it was because they had been such good friends. Maybe because she had been the other mother in my life when I was growing up. Maybe it was because she was in so many of the memories that haunted my nights, laughing and smiling, too.
As if the girl owned me by some force of attraction, my eyes sought out Aly. She still stood near the door, worry creasing every line on her face. She was wearing that expression that said she got me, that she really fucking understood.
The good.
Maybe it was her. Maybe it was the way she’d managed to strip me bare and shred me thin.
Fuck.
Two warm hands pressed into my cheeks. I hated the way they felt, like welcome and forgiveness and all this bullshit that could never be, like maybe she understood, too, and it was about all I could do not to knock them away. I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to lose my shit. I was teetering right on the edge of that fucking cliff, and when I fell, I knew I’d be taking the people I cared about down with me.
“Oh my God, Jared, where have you been? How long have you been here? Why didn’t you let me know?” Questions tumbled from Karen’s mouth just as quickly as tears streaked down her face. Her attention jumped around the apartment, hunting for clues, before she turned her gentle brown eyes back on me, eyes that reminded me of too many things.
Guilt spun, stoking the agitation that was working its way free. Anxiety buzzed through my consciousness, clenching my jaw, fisting my hands. My head fucking pounded. That warning system was sounding off louder than it ever had, screaming at me to bolt. This time I was apparently in full agreement because all I wanted to do was grab my shit and go.
Christopher scratched at the back of his head, the same way he always did when he was put on the spot. “Uh, yeah, Mom, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I ran into Jared a few nights ago and I invited him to hang out here while he’s passing through town.”
Passing through.
The lie bled so easily from him, quick to cover that I’d actually been staying with them for close to three months. He cautioned me with a glance that said it was okay to correct him, but he was giving me an out. I could take it either way. The guy always had my back while I continually fed him lies night after night.
I almost spat the words. “Yep… just passing through.”
Aly’s face crumpled, like I might as well have kicked her in the stomach when I didn’t dispute Christopher’s claim. Shame pressed down on me from all sides, sucking every fucking last drop of air from the room.
“Oh?” Karen kind of frowned. “Well, I’m just glad you’re here.” Smoothing herself out, she took a step back, like maybe she’d just clued in on the fact that I was about to snap. She wiped under her eyes to rid herself of the evidence of her tears. A strained smile pushed to her trembling lips. “It’s been far too long. How long are you staying?”
Helpless, I could do nothing but cast a furtive glance in Aly’s direction. Of course, I got stuck there. She filled up my line of sight like a buoy bobbing in the water, just out of reach, while I slowly drowned.
I could barely speak through the fucking rock lodged in my throat. “Not long,” I said, and somehow I knew it was the truth, because I could feel it building. The destruction.
I don’t get to have this.
Because I owed my life.
I sat in the empty lot behind the same deserted building I’d found myself in almost three months ago the night after I’d first confronted Aly in the kitchen. I was slumped back against the coarse stucco wall, my head lolling from side to side. Alcohol soaked my senses, dampened them into a suffocating heaviness, like maybe I was being buried alive. But it did nothing to lessen the images, the pictures that had spun through my mind on an unending reel since the second Karen Moore had stepped foot through the door.
I rammed the heels of my hands to my eyes, desperate to blot it out. Colors flickered, visions streaming in this unbearably vivid light. I roared into the silence.
Motherfucking trigger.
Both of them.
Clutching the back of my head in my hands, I buried my face between my knees as I gasped for breath. “Fuck” scraped from my raw throat.
What had I expected, coming here? This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To punish myself a little bit more? There was no other explanation for the fucking impossible draw I’d had to return to this place.
Unbidden, Aly’s face lit up like a flare that struck behind my lids. My lids were mashed together tight, but the image hung on like it didn’t want to give way to the ones that destroyed me. The girl was like a second’s relief amid the insufferable penance I served.
God, I wanted it to be her. It skirted along the brink of my reality, the idea that maybe there was more, because, damn it… maybe I really did want there to be.
I let my head rock against the wall and lifted my face to the haze of the night sky.
But that was just a fantasy – and not the fairy-tale kind.
I didn’t get the happily ever after.
Still I didn’t want to let the idea go. I needed to feel her. Just for a few more minutes I wanted to let her touch take the pain away.
I stumbled to my feet and made my way back toward the apartment.
It was late. The city slept, the dense silence only broken by the drone of semitrucks echoing from the freeway and the random car speeding down the road.
The hour Karen and Augustyn stayed at the apartment had been complete hell. Aly had suggested we all stay in to catch up instead of going out, so I’d sat down at the kitchen table with them all. I’d done my best at forcing smiles and tossing out bullshit answers to all the inane questions Karen asked. Clearly, she’d been tiptoeing around the questions she really wanted to ask. The entire time, I sat there itching to run. If I’d stayed in the confines of those walls for one more second, no question, I would finally have hit the edge.
It only made me feel worse that the entire time Aly had again offered me that comfort she so freely gave. Though this time, it wasn’t in her arms, but in the way her eyes constantly washed over me, and in the one gentle brush of her hand she’d hazarded under the table. Like maybe she was telling me it was okay and she understood the misery her mother brought with her when she walked through the door.