“The first week of the school year,” Jax chimed in.
I looked up long enough to glare at him over Jesse’s shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Probably because she was scared you wouldn’t support her.”
I might have felt like a deflated balloon, but so help me god, if Jax opened his mouth to say something like that again, I could find the strength to punch him square in his smiling mouth. “It wasn’t that I was scared you wouldn’t support me. I was more scared of what it meant and what might happen if I got it.”
“I don’t get what you’re saying, Rowen. Exactly why didn’t you tell me . . . Because you were scared of what might happen? What were you scared of happening?” Jesse’s hand settled into the bend of my neck, trying to get me to look at him.
I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t look him in the eye and say what I needed to say. “I was afraid of this happening. I was afraid of getting it. I was afraid of you finding out and feeling betrayed. I was afraid of what would happen to us if I took the internship.” I was turning into a rambling mess. “I was afraid of so many things.”
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll work this out,” Jesse reassured me when I should have been the one reassuring him. “If you take the internship, when would you start?”
I paused. That was the worst part. I knew that would be the part that would be the hardest for him to accept.
“The day after school ends,” Jax said when I stayed quiet.
Jesse glanced back over his shoulder, probably glaring at Jax the same way I wanted to.
“And when does it end?” Jesse asked me, trying to keep his voice level.
Scratch that former thought. That answer was going to be the worst part.
“The day before school starts in the fall.”
I wasn’t focused on Jax anymore. I’d forgotten he was there. The only thing that had my attention was Jesse. My gaze had slowly lifted until my eyes locked with his. What I saw in them sucked the oxygen from my lungs.
“The whole summer?” One fraction of his expression still looked hopeful, like he was waiting for me to correct Jax.
I’d lied by omission all year. I wasn’t going to lie to his face. “The whole summer.” My voice was as small as I felt.
That last remaining scrap of hope left Jesse’s face. Lowering his gaze, Jesse’s hand fell from my neck. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d gone from one nightmare to the next, and I was the one responsible for bringing him to the portal of each one.
“I need to leave,” Jesse announced suddenly, starting for the door.
“Wait. Don’t go.” I grabbed for his arm. “Stay and let’s talk this out, Jesse.” I gave his arm a tug, but my efforts were nothing when Jesse moved with that kind of purpose.
“No, Rowen. I don’t want to talk this out right now. I can’t.” He continued toward the door, refusing to look at me.
“Jesse—”
“Don’t, Rowen. Just don’t.” He paused and gave me a brief glance. What I saw on his face was something I’d never forget. Never. “I’m losing everything. That should earn a person some time alone.”
I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to throw myself in the doorway and hold him captive if I had to. I didn’t want to let him go because I was terrified if Jesse walked out of my bedroom door, he’d never walk in it again. It would be the last I’d see of him. I didn’t want to let him go . . . but I needed to. I knew I didn’t want to let him go for selfish reasons. I didn’t want him to go because that was what I wanted. My selfishness had done enough. Had done more than enough.
I had to let him go because that was what he wanted.
I let him go because that was what was best for Jesse.
It was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.
As soon as my hands dropped from his arm, Jesse continued for the door, shouldering roughly past Jax. Jesse didn’t say another word. He never even looked back. It was like he’d already put me behind him, like I’d always feared he would, and come tomorrow, he wouldn’t be able to remember my first name.
I’d always known that day was coming. As much as I’d tried to stomp out that fear, it had always lurked just below the surface. I always knew I would be the one responsible for tearing us apart because that’s what I did and that’s what I was good at. No matter how hard I tried to be something else, something better, I couldn’t keep the destructive part of me fully contained.
“Happy trails, Cowboy.” Jax flicked a salute down the hallway with that same stupid grin.
My fists balled at my sides. The night had been one sick, downward spiral. Might as well keep with the trend. When Jax glanced at me as I marched toward him, his face ironed out.
“If you don’t want to leave the apartment in a body bag, you better get the hell out now.”
Next to Jesse, I’d never seen a guy turn and move away from me as quickly as Jax did.
IF I DIDN’T have a calendar to remind me of the date, I would have sworn a decade had passed in those few days since Seattle. I thought I’d known hell for the past month; I thought I’d known despair as a young boy.
I’d been wrong.
The roller coaster of emotions I’d been on the past three days were like nothing I’d felt before. My whole life felt like it was in some state of limbo. Everything felt up in the air; nothing felt certain. I felt like I was losing everything I cared about, one piece at a time. It was like dying a slow death. A quick and clean break would have been so much easier.
Seeing the woman who’d given birth to me had been . . . well, there were no words to describe that. It had been like living one of my nightmares. Five seconds of staring into her face had reduced me to that same scared, lost boy I’d been years ago. Five seconds of being around her had been enough to lose myself. I couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten to Rowen’s apartment, nor could I recall how much time had passed. Everything from the time I’d escaped Mojo to the time Rowen found me was black. I had no memory of any of it.
Rowen brought me back. She was that one sliver of hope I’d clung to in my darkness, and hearing her voice and feeling her touch had been enough to break through the black walls surrounding me.
She’d saved me in that moment. Only to break me a few moments later.
“Clear something up for me, Walker. Are you most mad at her because she applied to the internship, lied to you about it, might take it, or won’t be here for the summer as planned?” Garth asked from across the campfire. We were on night watch again, and I thought he’d been asleep for a while.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Garth,” I replied, shifting into a more comfortable position. “In case you missed that the past fifty times I’ve told you that today.”
After leaving Rowen’s apartment and remembering my truck was a few hundred miles to the east, I’d pulled out my phone and did the unthinkable: I called Garth Black for a favor. He drove straight through the night, picked me up at the gas station I was camped out at, and managed to keep his mouth shut for the first half of the trip home. The second half, he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut and I’d answered too many of his questions. I had only told him about Rowen’s internship, but I regretted giving him even that much information.
He hadn’t stopped playing drugstore psychologist since we’d gotten back to Willow Springs. Thankfully, Dad and Mom had taken one look at my face when I came through the front door and not fired off question after question. They let me have the space I needed and let me get back to my everyday routine. But they would pretend with me but only for so long. I expected Mom to be camped out on the porch swing, or Dad to invite me to go fishing, any day. They were fine giving space, but they weren’t fine sweeping and keeping dirt under the rug.
“Sure you want to talk about it. You’re Jesse fucking Walker. You’d talk your way through the phonebook if you could get someone to listen to you.”