Just before I hit the door, I turned to look at her, still sitting on the floor. “Whether or not you thought you were protecting me, you have no right to keep something like the fact that I have a child from me.”
“Jagger!” she cried out when I opened the door and stepped outside, her voice still calling after me as I got into my car.
I took my phone out of my pocket, shut it off, and tossed it onto the passenger seat as I pulled onto the street and headed toward my mom’s house. The more I drove, the more confused I became over the whole thing and realized nothing about LeAnn having a son—my son—made sense. LeAnn would’ve said something when she tried to get me back before Grey and I had gotten together. Shit, she would’ve said something when she tried to break us up those countless times. With all her games and lies, I knew without a doubt that having my child was something she would’ve used against me.
Pulling up in front of Mom’s, I glared at the Escalade parked behind Charlie’s car as I stepped out of the car and walked up to the house. A car pulled up to the house, stopping quickly, and I knew without turning around that Grey had followed me here. But I didn’t care to acknowledge or wait for her. My mom, sister, and fiancée had all kept something from me—and I would’ve never imagined that their betrayal would hurt so bad. Not bothering to knock, I opened the door and let myself in, my eyes immediately hitting Charlie as she stepped out of the kitchen. She turned around when she heard me, and a smile broke across her face.
“Hey!”
“Where’s Mom?”
Charlie’s eyes widened when she heard my rough tone, and she pointed toward the kitchen. “Are you—”
“Where’s Keith?”
“Sleeping, what’s—”
“Mom!” I snapped. I couldn’t let myself move from the front door. I knew if I got too pissed off, I would need to make myself leave. Just before I heard my mom’s voice, Grey came running up behind me, and I jerked away when she touched my shoulder.
“Yes, honey?” she called from the kitchen, her tone making it seem like my coming to her house was the most innocent action in the world.
“Jagger, what’s wrong?” Charlie asked before her eyes drifted to my side. “Grey?”
“Oh, Jagger, my sweet boy. Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to stop by?” My mom walked into the living room, a gentle smile on her face, like every time she was around anyone other than me.
“How could you?” I growled. “How could you all keep this shit from me! Why did you go after Grey like that when I told you to stay away?”
Mom’s smile faltered, but her voice was still deceivingly calm. “I don’t know what you could possibly be talking about.”
“Don’t try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw her checkbook; I saw the goddamn duplicates of the checks she made out to you!”
“Jagger, you couldn’t possibly think I would take money from her.” Turning around, she glanced at Charlie. “Go to your room, sweetheart.”
Charlie didn’t move, and I was past caring. It was time she knew too. “Don’t bullshit me just because Charlie is here!” I looked at Charlie as I pointed toward Mom. “She’s been trying to force me into giving her money for years. That’s why I buy everything for Keith—because what I did give to her went to her, and her alone. This whole I-love-everything-and-am-always-carefree-and-happy attitude is just an act. She’s made Grey give her five grand!”
“Don’t be ridi—”
“I told you I saw the damn duplicates!” I yelled at my mom, and Grey placed a hand on my back and gripped the hand closest to her with the other. Instead of flinching away again, I squeezed her hand and tried to remind myself that even though I was hurt that Grey had kept this secret from me, in Grey’s own mind, Mom really had given her no choice. “Grey told me everything. How at first you told her you’d been laid off and Mike took everything. Whether or not some douche named Mike took all your money, I know you sure as shit didn’t get laid off because you don’t work, and your SUV is still in the fucking driveway.”
“Jag—”
“There was never a Mike,” Charlie said softly, her eyes touching on Mom before looking at me. “Mom got married again three months ago to Robby, you met him here when you came to talk to me this summer.”
“What a surprise,” I growled, my gaze going back to my mom. “But that’s not it, is it, Mom? That’s not the worst part. You tried to use Keith as a way of getting money, didn’t you? You tried to say he was LeAnn’s and my son? I don’t even need to talk to LeAnn to know that is the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard! If it was true, you can be sure she would have been the first person to use it against me.”
“Jagger, that girl is lying to you to make you think—”
A harsh huff left Grey, but she didn’t say anything as her hitched breathing started again. “Really? You’re really going to try to utter that bullshit when she’s standing right here? Tell me who Keith’s parents are.”
“You and LeAnn,” Mom said immediately, and Charlie turned quickly to look at her—her eyes wide.
“Tell. Me. Who. Keith’s. Parents. Are,” I gritted out. As soon as Mom started repeating herself, I yelled, “Stop fucking lying to me! I know LeAnn would have said something! Charlie,” I barked, and turned my attention to her. “If Keith isn’t Mom’s, then who are his parents?”
Charlie didn’t say anything; she just stood there with a ghost-white face and eyes wider than I’d ever seen.
“Don’t try to pull your sister into this,” Mom hissed.
“You don’t want me to pull her into this? You did that all on your own when you told Grey to ask Charlie about Keith!”
Charlie’s eyes flashed to Grey before going back to Mom. “What did you say?” she whispered, her tone full of horror.
“I told Grey the truth,” Mom said simply.
“What truth?” Charlie asked louder.
“That I’ve been taking care of LeAnn’s son since day one, and it was time Jagger started paying.” Mom finally looked over at Charlie with a challenging stare, and immediately I knew she was lying again.
“Bullshit! You think I don’t know your manipulative looks by now? Charlie! Tell me who Keith’s parents are. Now!”
“I can’t!” she responded, her answer sounding more like a plea.
“Jagger, let’s just go. Please,” Grey begged. “She’s not going to tell us, this is just going to keep going in circles and getting worse.”
“Listen to your whore, son, she’s smarter than you are, and maybe this one will actually tell you when she gets pregnant with your child.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I roared, and took a step inside, but Grey pulled me back. “If this is how you’re going to be, and if Keith really is mine, then I want him.”
“You can’t have him,” Mom shot back, and held up a silencing hand when Charlie started to talk.
“You can’t even take care of him! I’ve been taking care of him since he was born anyway. Now I’m taking him, or I will go to court to get him from you.”
“You really think I’ll just give up custody of him because you finally decided to acknowledge that he’s yours?”
“I still don’t even think he’s mine! But I can be a better fucking parent than you’ve ever been!”
“You can’t take—” Mom began, but was cut off.
“Keith’s my son!”
Chapter 20
Grey
December 21, 2014
EVERYONE FROZE AT Charlie’s words. The only sounds in the house were Charlie’s quiet sobs as we all stared at her. Jagger and me in shock, Mrs. Easton with a look that was beyond my comprehension. She looked like the very incarnation of evil, and all of that evil was directed at her daughter.
“Shut up!” Mrs. Easton hissed, and I watched as Charlie shook her head back and forth.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for more than you could ever imagine,” she cried as she looked from Jagger to me. “Keith is my son.�
�
“Charlie, no,” Jagger finally said. “Don’t do this—don’t try to save Mom. She’s not the kind of person you think she is.”
“I know all about her,” Charlie responded with a sad smile. “We hid the pregnancy from you. It wasn’t hard since you were always with Grey that summer, and I just wore loose shirts the more I started to show and stopped leaving the house when it became obvious. Then you didn’t even come home that winter break after Keith was born—it wasn’t hard to play it off as Mom’s son. I’d given up custody before I even gave birth to him because Mom didn’t think I could handle being a mother. That’s why I never went away to college, and that’s why I don’t like leaving here. I can’t be away from him for long, and Mom refuses to give custody back to me.”
“She’s lying!” Mrs. Easton cut in. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just trying to take the blame so you won’t have to.”
“Just stop!” Charlie shouted. “Stop with everything. You are hurting everyone, can’t you see that?” She took deep breaths in and out, and we waited long moments for her to continue. “Grey, you know I loved Ben. I’m sorry for loving him when he was yours, just as I know Jagger was sorry for loving you when you were Ben’s.”
I went still. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. I wasn’t moving or blinking. All I could do was think about the couple of times Ben and I had been in Thatch in the months before his death, and that Charlie was now crying about her baby and because she’d been in love with Ben. Jagger turned to look at me when he felt how still I’d gone, but I couldn’t look at him.
A choked sob burst from her chest, and she dropped her face into her hands. “Spring break of your sophomore year at Washington State, you all came home. You all had gone to a party that first night you were home, and Jagger didn’t come home after, he went to LeAnn’s.”
“Charlie, where are you going with this?” Jagger demanded.
“Jagger,” she pleaded. “Ben came over sometime after the party ended looking for Jag, but he wasn’t there. Ben wasn’t drunk, but he was definitely tipsy, and I let him in to make him something to eat because I didn’t want him driving like that. We started talking about random stuff while I was cooking, and I finally asked him why he’d come looking for Jagger if they’d just been together . . . and that’s when he told me he hadn’t.”
The room went silent again except for Charlie’s quiet cries. Jagger had gone just as still as I had at her last few words, and Mrs. Easton had stormed out the side door a couple minutes before. I released Jagger and stumbled past him into the living room, where I sat down roughly on one of the couches, my eyes never leaving Charlie’s—and hers never leaving mine.
“He—”
“Don’t,” Jagger ordered as he sat next to me and gripped one of my hands. “Do not finish whatever you’re about to say.”
“No, Jagger, let her,” I somehow forced out. “I need to know.”
“Grey . . .”
Glancing at him for a split second, I tightened my grip on his hand before looking back at Charlie. “It’s fine.”
After another few seconds, Charlie continued. “Ben said he’d never been more confused in his life, and when I asked him what he was confused about, he said everything. He said he was confused about what he knew others wanted and deserved, what he wanted, and how he didn’t know what to do or how to feel about what he wanted. I tried to make a joke about it, saying he thought too much when he drank and that it was probably a bad time to start thinking. He just came up next to me and turned the stove off and said, ‘You’re right, and that’s my problem, I finally start thinking about everything I normally push away. But now I can’t stop thinking about it, and now I’m here.’ Before I could say anything else, he—uh . . . h-he kissed me.”
Jagger stood from the couch and began stalking around the room, but I couldn’t look at him, and I could no longer look at Charlie.
“I didn’t know he was about to kiss me, because Ben and I had always talked, and I’d always been in love with him, but I never thought—I don’t know. But at that moment I just thought I was finally getting what I’d always wanted. He said, ‘Why do I want you so bad when I love her? And why do I love her when I know she should be with him?’ He asked if I wanted him too, and I told him how I’d always felt.” Charlie stopped when it got too hard to speak, and Jagger and I stayed silent waiting for the rest. “I gave him everything that night and the next, and I thought everything was finally going to be how it should be. Me with Ben, and Jagger with you, Grey. The day after that second night . . .”
“We got engaged,” I finished for her, and finally looked back up at her.
“Yes,” she whispered, her face full of a pain and sorrow I knew so well. “I was—I was heartbroken, I was pissed, I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t know why we were going to a party at your house that night, Grey, only that Jagger said he needed me there. When I heard you’d gotten engaged I knew why he said that. Because it was killing Jagger . . . but he had no idea it was killing me more than anyone could’ve possibly imagined. Ben came after me that night and I started screaming at him, asking how he could get engaged to you after all that had happened between him and me. He said what we’d done was a mistake.”
Her voice broke, and she took shuddering breaths to try to compose herself. “I tried everything, I asked how he could tell me that you and Jagger belonged together and then two days later ask you to marry him. I asked how he could be confused and reminded him that he hadn’t been drinking the second night we’d been together . . . I asked him how he could suddenly be so sure. He said if he were selfless, he would let you go, and let you be with the guy who’d always loved only you. But that he still loved you too much to let you go, and after everything the two of you had been through, he couldn’t risk losing his life with you for someone he loved, but wasn’t in love with.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my head dropping into my hands as tears fell quickly down my cheeks.
It felt like I was being suffocated, and I couldn’t figure out how to breathe again. My heart was broken, but I didn’t understand the feeling. My heart had shattered when Ben died, and Jagger had pieced it back together. Years later, Jagger became my new life, and I knew he was everything I would ever need or want from there on out. To learn years after his death that Ben had cheated on me days before we got engaged was the most confusing kind of heartbreak I’d ever experienced. Like I couldn’t be upset enough, because my world had already been rocked by his death. Like I’d been betrayed, but somehow knew that my heart hurt for Charlie too. Confused. Devastated. And somehow whole because of the man behind me.
“I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later, and told Ben before you came home after that semester. I didn’t know what I’d thought would happen . . . he’d leave you to be with me? He’d be happy, scared, or confused again? I didn’t know, but nothing happened. He hung up the phone when I told him, and every day after would send me a text asking how I was feeling, but that was it. He wouldn’t answer my calls, never responded to my texts, nothing. I tried to see him when you came back, but he made sure he was never alone if I was around. Then he died, and I didn’t know how I would ever move on from him. That’s why I was so mad that you were able to, Grey. I’m so sorry for hurting you. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
Charlie walked away when neither of us said anything, and Jagger came back to sit next to me on the couch and pull me into his arms.
“I had no idea,” he mumbled against my head once I’d stopped crying.
“I know you didn’t,” I whispered back. “Jagger, I’m so sorry that I kept what your mom was—”
“Don’t,” he begged, interrupting me. “I’m sorry I left, and I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He grabbed the ring on my left hand and began twisting it around my finger. “I’m upset that you felt like you couldn’t come to me, but after I calmed down I understood why you felt that way. I should’ve told you about my mom a long time ago. If I had, we could’v
e avoided all of this.”
I didn’t respond because while I agreed with him, I also couldn’t let him take the blame for something that was both our faults, and I knew he would continue to do just that. “What are we gonna do? About your mom, Charlie, and Keith . . . what do we do?”
“I don’t know, Grey. I just don’t know.”
Jagger
December 23, 2014
“I THINK I should go talk to Charlie,” Grey said a couple days later.
I stopped putting the dishes from our breakfast in the dishwasher and turned to look at her. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Yeah, I am. There are things I need to tell her, and things I need to make sure she understands.” Grey sat down on one of the bar stools and rested her chin in one of her hands—her eyes unfocused.
We hadn’t talked much about what Charlie had told us. We hadn’t talked much at all. After working a morning shift at The Brew, Grey had come home and pulled me upstairs to our bed. Without a word she shrugged out of her boots and jacket, and curled up on the bed still fully clothed. She’d said all she wanted was to lie down and think, and for me to just hold her.
Hours later and only a few words exchanged between us, I’d gotten dinner and brought it back upstairs to eat with her in bed. She lay between my legs while we ate, and for the rest of the night we only talked about the wedding and another show of my work in Seattle coming up. That is . . . when we talked.
She’d seemed better that morning and had sung to herself while she made breakfast for us, and I’d just been waiting for the moment when she was ready to talk. I hadn’t expected her to want to go straight to Charlie.
“I can call her—” I started to offer, but Grey stopped me.
“No. I want to go to her, not make her come to us.” Grey’s eyes looked off into the distance for a second, then she asked, “You know how you’ve always come to me when I was hurting?” When I nodded, she continued: “Well, right now Charlie is hurting, so I need to be the one to go to her.”
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