“You loved the lights,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something.
“What lights?”
“The goddamn Christmas lights!” he shouted, and I squared my shoulders. “I was busy working to support you and your mom, and I hadn’t had time, but you—you wouldn’t shut up about it. You just kept crying and crying, and all I wanted was to make you happy, Jamie!”
It’s the fault in our fate…
Our one undoing.
All he ever wanted was my happiness…
Even when it costs him his own.
“So I got out the ladder in the middle of a snowstorm, and I started putting up the lights for you… but my foot slipped, and I fell.”
A numbness washed over me, like pins and needles throughout my entire body. I closed my eyes, wishing to be anywhere but there. “The pain pills,” I whispered. “That’s how your addiction started.”
“I lost my job. My career. My sense of stability. Lost all my friends… lost it all… because of you!”
That’s why he hated me so much. His rage and his fury were always aimed at me, but my mother was there to protect me. “Why didn’t you just kick us out?”
“Because I loved her.”
“You beat her. Daily.”
“I fucking loved her!” he roared.
Panic clogged my airways, and I got up on shaky legs to rush for the door. But I could hear him coming after me, only a step behind, and in that moment, I knew why Mom would freeze up when he was near. That fear is debilitating. I was almost at the door when he grabbed my arm, spun me to him. “I’m sorry,” he said, then repeated it over and over. “I’ll let you go. I just need to know one thing.”
“What?” I stammered, barely able to see through my fear.
“How is she? Your mama? Is she happy?”
I wiped at my eyes just so I could see him clearer, searching his eyes for a hint of deception. Surely, he knew. He had to have. “She’s dead, Beaker.”
The pain was instant—wrapping around my neck, closing off my airways. His chokehold was so firm it lifted me off my feet and pushed my back against the door, and I saw it then… what my mother often did… the monster in his eyes…
45
Holden
“Jamie, baby, please stop,” I choke out, prying her fingers from around her neck.
She drops her hands, rocking back and forth, her head shaking from side to side. She’s been talking, repeating words that make no sense, and she’s crying. She won’t stop crying. And I know she’s here physically, but mentally she’s there, and I don’t know how to get her out. I don’t know how to save her. “I reached for the gun,” she whispers, “and I got it out, and I tried—but then he took it from me, and he held it to my head and kept saying that I was lying, but I wasn’t lying, because she is dead, and I couldn’t speak, and all I wanted was to go home. I wanted to go home to you. And he pressed the muzzle to my temple, and I thought of you… of how you must have felt when it happened to you, and I’m sorry, Holden. I’m so sorry.”
Every single one of my muscles is solid. Frozen. “Baby, it’s not your fault.”
“And then there was a bang!”
I stop breathing.
“And I thought that he’d shot me, but I could breathe freely again, and I was standing on my own, and I swear to God it felt like minutes before he collapsed in front of me.”
My entire body is pulsing from the blood rushing through my veins. “Jesus Christ…”
“I thought that he’d bled all over me,” she says, finally lowering her hands. She looks around the front garden lit only by the dawn light, as if just coming to. “I could feel this warm liquid trickling down my legs, and I thought it was his blood, but it wasn’t, Holden. It wasn’t his blood. Because all of his was on the—on the—” She can’t speak through her sobs, the kind that wrack your entire body, like tremors in the aftermath of an earthquake. “All his blood was on the floor beneath his head, and his eyes were wide open, and…” Finally, she looks at me, her entire face wet, eyes bugging out of her head. Then she stands quickly. “Oh my god,” she sobs, pacing back and forth. “It’s all my fault!”
“It’s not—”
“How can you say that?” she shouts. “How can you sit there and say that?!”
I force my muscles to move, stand up, and stop beside her. “Baby…”
“I don’t want to leave here.” Her eyes are frantic, searching for something only she knows. “I love it here, and I love you and Maggie and your dad, and this place, and I thought... I thought I could face your mom, and I’d be okay, but I saw her, and all I could see was him... lying dead in front of me, and fuck, Holden, I never wanted you to see me like this!” she cries. “I’ve worked so fucking hard to fight this shit, and you were never supposed to—”
I take her face in my hands, forcing her to stop. “Marry me.”
“What?”
I repeat the words I’ve held on to since I asked her out on one date. “Marry me.”
She shakes her head in my grasp, a new set of tears coating her eyes. “Holden, you can’t just ask me to marry you to prove—”
“Prove what? That my love for you is unconditional?” I scoff. “That’s bullshit. What do you think a wedding is? Why do you think people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on them? So two people can stand in front of a bunch of family and friends to prove their love.”
“Holden…” she breathes out, and she’s here again. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. She’s standing right in front of me—a vision. A dream. And I know in my heart I could live a thousand lifetimes with every single broken piece of her, and I would never, ever stop loving each and every one.
“Do you realize how insane you’re acting?” she asks, and I can’t help but smile. “You’re asking me to marry you because you’re scared to lose me.”
I roll my eyes, heave out a sigh. “Come on,” I say, taking her hand and dragging her ass into the house. I move us to the kitchen, where I release her hand only to reach up to the corner of the top cabinet where I knew she’d never look. I pull out a velvet jewelry bag that’s been there since before our date. “Here,” I say, pointing to the dozen rings I just casually dumped on the wooden countertop. “Take your pick.”
She picks up one, sets it back, and then picks up another, her breaths shallow but even.
I watch her face, looking for even a hint of expression that isn’t shock. “After I left you at Esme’s, I swore to myself that if you came here, I would never let you go again. So the day after I got back, I was hanging out with Benny in his room, and I was on my phone, distracted, looking at engagement rings for you. They were all generic diamond rings, and none of them were you, Jamie, because you—you’re far from generic.”
Her eyes lift, lock on mine, and I still can’t tell what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling.
“Benny saw my phone and asked what I was doing, and I told him. I told him I wanted to ask you to marry me and that I was looking for a ring, but I couldn’t find anything suitable. So, he gave me all these gems,” I say, pointing to the rings. “And these gems, these rocks … they were you, Jamie. They were unique and quirky and beautiful.” I reach up, smooth some hair from her eyes. “I took them to Peg—Jimmy, and he made them into rings with old silverware.” I pick up one that was clearly a fork prong. “See?” I show her, and she nods. “Before you came back to me, I had planned on asking you,” I rush out. “I was just waiting for the right time, and maybe this isn’t it, but all I’ve done is wait. I waited… and I waited, and I’ve gotten nowhere and, shit! I’m doing it wrong.” I pick a random ring from the pile and take her hand in mine. And then I give myself a moment to breathe. To gather my thoughts. My words. And then I get down on one knee. “Jamie,” I start, looking up at her. Begging. Praying. “When we were sitting poolside at Esme’s, you told me that we’d both grown up, and we have. And growth is good, and I swear to God, I hope we grow old together, right here, surrounded by daisies and dahlias and moments and memories, and kids—if you want them—and—”