All I needed…
Was for someone to hug me.
To hold me.
To tell me that everything will be okay.
And that
it’s
not
my
fault.
43
Holden
The sun’s just beginning to rise when I get back to the house. Both mine and Mia’s trucks are still parked in the driveway, so it doesn’t seem like Jamie’s left, and if she has… well, then that’s the fate she’s giving us.
For minutes, I sit in the RV parked behind the house, my head resting on the steering wheel because I’m not ready.
I’m not ready to face her, and I’m not willing to lose her, but that choice isn’t mine to make.
I don’t know what happened.
It’s a thought that’s kept me up all night, driving circles in my mind while I drove circles in her RV.
I don’t know what happened.
And the worst part is, I don’t think I’ll ever know.
It’s like history repeating. Only this time, I have the ability to prepare myself mentally... if that’s even possible.
I lift my head—just enough to see the sun peeking over the tree-lined horizon—and ask God my one question: Why did you make it so easy to fall in love with her?
God doesn’t answer because God isn’t real.
God is merely a symbol of hope…
And an excuse for all the wrongs in the world.
Heart heavy and mind numb, I heave out a defeated sigh, push open the door, and step outside. I round one corner, and then another, knowing full well I can’t say goodbye to her, but understanding that at some point… I’m going to have to. And when I do, the pain will be unbearable.
“Hey…”
My head snaps up, and I stop in my tracks when I see Jamie sitting on the bench, hugging her knees to her chest. “Hey…” I respond, slowly moving toward her. I lift her keys in the air. “I filled the gas tank, made sure there was enough air in your tires. I didn’t want you…” I trail off when she pins me with her tear-soaked gaze.
Wiping at her cheeks, she cries, “I’m ready to talk now.”
My lungs expand, kicking back in, as if reminding me of their purpose. I sit down carefully beside her, leaving enough room between us for her to decide how close she wants to get. “Are we problem-solving or am I just listening?”
Turning away, Jamie focuses on the flower boxes we’d built and planted a few weeks ago. The silence stretches between us, but I don’t speak because I can tell she’s already at the top of the cliff, peering over the edge, and the last thing I want to do is push her.
I watch her, though. I stare at her profile as if it might be the last time I’ll ever get to do it. I’d spent so many mornings just watching her sleep, wondering if her soul was at peace in her slumber. Tears well in her eyes, and she’s slow to blink, letting those drops of liquid heartache cling to her lashes. Her chest rises, broken by her withheld sobs, and then her mouth parts, and I hold all the oxygen in my lungs and wait.
And wait.
“My therapist says I have something called dissociative amnesia.” She trails her eyes to mine. “She says that my brain blocked out certain parts of our attack to help me cope with it.”
I run a hand over my mouth, try to hide my reaction to her words—to the breaking of my heart at the sound of her quiet cries and her sniffs to combat them.
“I still don’t remember it fully, but right after it, when we were questioned by the cops, I… I couldn’t recall much of the attack. It wasn’t until your mom and Joseph showed me the police reports that—”
“What?!” I slide toward her. Just an inch. “When?”
“All I remember is the pain,” Jamie murmurs.
“When, Jamie?”
“You were in Boston with your dad to check out your campus, and they came to see me while I was at work. It was so weird,” she almost laughs. “I thought they were just coming to visit me, to make sure I was okay since you weren’t around…” She cries now, another sound to add to my heartbreak. “I sat with them at our table, and I was smiling like an idiot… so happy, you know… but that’s not why they were there…”
My rage is instant, and it forces me to my feet. “I’m going to fucking—”
“Holden!” she cries, tugging down on my arm. “I need you to listen.”
I sit back down, try to control my emotions. “What did they say to you?”
“Please, calm down.”
“I am calm,” I grind out.
“Holden…”
I attempt a breath, and then three more, while I clench and unclench my fists.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Two simple tasks I’d been doing my entire existence, and yet, right now, it seems impossible. “I’m okay,” I assure her, cracking my knuckles. “Tell me what they said to you.”
After watching me a moment, making sure I won’t explode, she says, “Your mom told me that Joseph had bought an apartment near your campus, so that she could visit whenever she wanted. But, she knew that once she told you, you would ask me to move in there with you, and she said that…” She breaks off to suck in a breath, let it out slowly. “She said that under no circumstances was I to say yes.”
“Why would she…” This doesn’t make sense. None of it does.
“They also told me that they weren’t happy with law enforcement’s progress on our case, so they’d hired a private investigator to find our attackers. The PI started asking around town if anyone knew about it. Eventually, people started pointing him toward this low-level drug dealer who was going around bragging about it.”
“We’re not involved in drugs, Jamie. That doesn’t make sense.”
“We’re not,” she’s quick to say, her eyes unfocused as they shift away. “But I know someone who is.”
Beaker.
She continues, her tone flat, lacking any emotion. “The PI mustn’t have been very good because he stopped investigating after that. He didn’t connect me to Beaker or anyone other than that one drug dealer. So I guess, in a way, it’s understandable that your mom accused me of being an addict.”
I let my head fall into my hands, my fingers curling, grasping at my hair. “Jesus Christ.”
“Meth and heroine, she assumed. And, of course, she believed I had a drug debt I couldn’t pay off, and that’s why they came for me. For us.”
“Jamie, it wasn’t your fault,” I breathe out.
Something in those words, or the way I say them, has her breaking down again. “I didn’t believe them at first,” she cries, “because it doesn’t make sense.”
It still doesn’t.
“And then I got up to leave, and she yelled at me in front of everyone at the diner… she said…” she breaks off to breathe. Then swallow hard. “She said, ‘My son had a gun held to his head because of you!’ and I just remember collapsing back in the seat because…. because I didn’t know about a gun.”
I did. I put it in the police report.