by Ashley Munoz
Fucking finally.
I knew in that moment that another man’s wife held my heart in the palm of her hand. With every beat, she could break it, ruin it. But as I wrapped my body around hers and slowly moved my lips up her jaw until I found that mouth, I couldn’t find a reason to care.
Scorching, that’s what this was. Her small gasp as I marked her skin had my fingers pulling her waist closer so she could feel me, feel what she did to me. Just as my lips were about to descend upon hers, she grabbed hold of my shirt and pulled me away from the door, making me lose my balance, forcing me to falter to the side. Within the blink of an eye, she opened the door and shoved me hard until I was tripping out the door.
Holy fuck. How…
“Enough people will see the signs and wonder if your business is even still open,” she explained while her lungs strained for air. She felt it too.
She tucked her hair behind her ears, crossing her arms. I righted myself, still wondering how I had just gone from nearly kissing her to being shoved out her front door. Wait…did she say…
“Signs?”
A rueful smile from those glossy lips. “Signs.”
Shit.
I stepped closer to re-engage this conversation, maybe with less clothing, but she slammed the door shut, and I heard the sound of the deadbolt sliding into place.
Fourteen
Gemma: Are you sure you want to do this?
Me: Yea…I’m ready.
Gemma: Okay, I’ll send you the address and the time for the interview. As your lawyer, I’m advising you wait until we have more of a grip on him, but as your best friend, I’m advising you to kick ass.
Me: Love you. Thank you. I trust you to still get what we need regardless of my social blip.
Gemma: I like your confidence and you’re right, obviously…but still. Be careful.
I lowered my cell phone and pressed the button on the right to turn it off. It was so much easier to type words on a screen than it was to walk out and make them happen, but I wasn’t lying. I was ready to do this.
It was gutsy, bold, and might ruin me, but I was banking on being real and honest. It was a trend these days, and I was hoping I could use it to help my cause. I was about to do something people just don’t do. It was societal suicide, but I didn’t care. Society had never belonged to me, nor I to it…and this was my way of breaking up with it, of saying Fuck you to everyone who ever pretended to care.
This was my swan song.
That afternoon, I drove over to the Collierville Cemetery and drifted slowly along the black asphalt, winding around green earth and grey stones. I felt a heaviness in my heart, so dull and so painful that it shortened my breath.
I followed Jessie’s directions on what section to head toward, parked, and then began walking reverently through the turf. Rolling hills bounded in every direction, little glints of color and white stone getting caught in stray streams of sunlight. Most graves were well tended, with plentiful arrangements and small balloons.
Finally, halfway up a hill, I found her plaque, tucked into the ground and shaded by a tall weeping willow. Pressing my knees into the earth, I focused on the white lettering, tracing her date of death with my finger. August thirteenth—I was already engaged by then, already living a luxurious, pampered life with more money than God.
My eyes stung as the wind picked up, a rare chill in the air fluttering against my tear-stained cheeks. I wanted to pour my soul out to the woman who was once a second mother to me. I wanted to throw myself on the ground and cry, sob into the grass, hoping somehow she’d hear me and know how sorry I was. Instead, I sat perfectly still, my shoulders shaking and my heart aching.
“What are you doin’ out here?” asked a harsh, rumbling voice from behind me, startling me so much I cursed.
“Jesus.”
Jace clicked his tongue. “Might not be a good idea to take his name in vain out here. This is holy ground.” He walked softly around the other plaques and settled on his butt, tossing his arms over his knees, a bundle of purple daisies resting in his clenched fist. I hadn’t seen him in days, not since he stood in my house, touching me, eliciting a response from my body so strong I nearly melted at his feet.
A lax breeze blew the willow wisps around as we sat in silence, a strange calm hanging between us. I wanted to talk to June, tell her about my life, tell her how much I missed her, but I couldn’t with Jace here. I was about to stand to leave when Jace let out a frustrated sigh, kicking his leg out, looking down at his mother’s grave.
“It’s slightly pathetic, don’t you think?”
My gaze flitted up, not sure if he was talking about me or to me. I couldn’t deal with a zinger from him right now, so I waited for him to continue.
“You’d think, in death, there would be more grandeur…” He flicked his fingers toward the stone with a grimace. “The rich pricks in this place all have these gawdy headstones, as tall as a kindergartener. Some even have mausoleums dedicated to their loved ones, but we…” He stopped, that muscle in his jaw jumping.
I leaned forward to trace the lettering again, feeling it comfort me somehow.
“I hate having to search the ground for her. I hate not being able to just see her name as I walk up. She deserved more than a plaque in the ground…”
Finally clearing my voice, I risked asking, “The headstone cost too much?”
He sneered. “That’s what I heard.”
My head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
His focus was off in the distance, his hair shifting slightly with the draft, his blue eyes cold and unfeeling. “I heard from my dad, when he came to visit me in jail…they couldn’t afford this. Even the fancy white lettering cost more than what they could afford at the time.”
My heart seized in my chest. “You missed her funeral?”
He nodded solemnly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling my heart shred in half. He’d worked so hard for her pain medicine. He had been consumed with her getting better, with her making it. For her to die…and him missing it—it just wasn’t right.
After a few silent moments he stood, hissing at me, “You should be—it was your fault.”
The air whooshed from my lungs, as though he’d just hit me with a sledgehammer, right in the chest.
I couldn’t form words, couldn’t do anything but sit there and heave sputtering breaths. Of all the hurtful things Jace could ever say to me, that was the harshest. How was it my fault? What the hell had happened?
I spent the day cleaning, filling out applications for internships at different design firms, and waiting by the phone for my admissions counselor to call. I needed to keep my mind busy, keep it off what’d happened with Jace. It was too painful; his insults and taunts were too much. I had thought if I showed some courage with having that sign made, letting him know if I wanted to open a business that threatened his livelihood, I could, he’d back off.
Would I actually open a business like that? No.
Not in a million years, but I thought it would get Jace to soften, or retreat.
You should be—it was your fault.
His angry retort rumbled in my heart, scratching and digging into the very marrow of my bones. Needing some space from my room, my house, and especially my parents, I left.
The crickets sang to me like they used to, reminding me of home, of what I’d left behind, all the brokenness that was buried here. I pushed past the underlying feeling that I didn’t belong here anymore and continued walking toward the tall wooden castle, blanket in one hand, wine in the other. If I was going to face this place, it was going to be done with alcohol—although the closer I got, the more I wished it were something stronger than wine.
The night was cloudy, no stars, no moon, just the awkward safety lights they’d put in some time in the past few years. It was almost like the sky was shaking its head at me, telling me this part of my story was over and not to come back here. There was no magic in the air tonight, just darknes
s and a few clouds.
I ducked my head and climbed the rickety steps, carefully walking plank by plank across the bridge that rocked back and forth under my weight. I continued forward until I got to the ladder and then crawled into my spot. Not our spot, but mine.
It had been mine first. Now that I was home, it was time to start reclaiming things that had been lost to the wreckage of Jace’s and my relationship. I had been too timid then, too weak, but I wasn’t now. I might not have been the strongest, but I was stronger than I had once been.
I laid the blanket out, twisted the cap off my wine, and took a sip, looking around, wishing the stars were out so it’d justify this awkward rendezvous. At least then I could be stargazing, but no, I was just cloud stalking. It had been three days since my breakdown in the graveyard, three days of digging through news articles and Google searching Jace’s life, June’s…anything to tell me how it was my fault.
I found out Jace was sentenced to six months in jail for breaking and entering at the pharmacy, no possession charges. That was it. Six months, in and out…but Jace made that decision to steal his mother’s meds on his own. I had nothing to do with it…but maybe that was why he had decided to dump me. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to involve me in his new life of crime, but that couldn’t be right with how hostile Jace had been toward me since I’d returned, especially with his comment about it being my fault that he missed his own mother’s funeral.
Something had happened, something big. I needed more information, but I wasn’t sure where to start to get it.
“What are you doing up here?” That deep rumbling voice jarred me, and I jumped, just like I had in the cemetery.
“Holy shit!” I covered my mouth with one hand and my heart with the other, willing it to calm down.
“Always such a dirty mouth when you’re scared,” Jace muttered, crawling the rest of the way up the ladder and onto the platform.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I sputtered while moving to the side so there was distance between us. It was big enough for us to lie down, but now that Jace had bulked up in muscle, the space felt a little tight, and after what he’d said the other day, I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
“Clearly,” Jace said, nodding toward my chest.
Confused, I looked down and realized I was wearing a thin sweater wrap over my sleep tank. I had no bra on, and it was chilly, so my nipples were alert and saying a big hello to anyone who had a view of them. I pulled the cover around me, cutting off his view, and rolled my eyes. I hadn’t been expecting to see anyone, so fuck him and his judgment.
“What are you doing here…and why do you keep popping up at places I am peacefully visiting?” I asked, tilting my head to the sky, avoiding eye contact with him. Those thin white clouds hadn’t moved, the awkward safety lights creating a strange glow. Suddenly, I wanted to go home.
“I live here, come out here a lot,” he gruffly explained, moving his legs until they were thrown in front of him, taking up even more space. His comment about living here seemed non-threatening, but since I’d arrived, he’d been nothing but an asshole, so I knew it was a dig.
Memories fluttered between us whether we wanted them to or not, rising from the ashes like an angry phoenix…his smile, the warm balmy air that night we lost our virtue to one another…laughter and promises made under large white moons, blinking stars and onyx skies.
Happiness rolled around inside me, somewhat dislodged and out of place, but it was quickly obliterated by the memory of his face when he ended it all, how he’d chosen to do it here, in our sacred place, our harbor against the storms that battered us.
“You trying to figure out a new way to screw me over? Maybe you could kill my dog or repossess my truck.” Jace half-shrugged, not glancing at me but keeping his gaze on the sky, like he was looking for something.
Asshole.
“I was thinking of the last time we were here together and how cowardly you were that night,” I snapped.
He responded by dipping his face, hiding it from me. He didn’t reply for a while, and I took the opportunity to sip my wine, but the mood was uncomfortable. I kept thinking of how he looked that night in the bar with the woman tucked under his arm, how it was someone different from his date at the barbeque. The feeling soured in my gut; he’d turned into a playboy and had likely fucked half the women from here to Memphis. That sudden urge to leave gripped me, causing me to twist the cap onto my wine, nice and tight.
“This is stupid,” I muttered, grabbing for my blanket. Jace reached out to stop me, his large rough hand landing on my soft one. The difference was striking. He had stains from oil and grease while mine were manicured, soft, expensive.
“That night…” He stopped, looking down at my hand. I watched, unsure if I wanted to hear what he had to say. Such a big part of me didn’t. Such a big part of me had moved on, was over him, but there was this damn spark. It wasn’t just a spark of lust or love; it was curiosity too. There were too many unanswered questions rolling around in my head.
“Save it.” I pulled my hand free and stood, but suddenly he did too.
“Earlier this week you wanted answers…I’m here ’bout to give you one. Do you want it or not?” Jace asked with that same deep Southern drawl he reserved for when he was angry. His eyes looked like mercury as they searched mine, like he was out in space, searching for home.
I wanted to walk off, scoff, and flip him the finger, but I did crave answers.
“Fine.” I relented and sank back into my spot, this time crossing my legs, criss cross- applesauce style.
Jace let out a sigh, snagged my wine, and tipped it back. I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed with each gulp.
“That night, I had planned on talking to you about something else…when I texted you that morning to meet me at the spot, I had planned to ask you to run away with me.” Jace’s confession wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I was expecting excuses, justifications for why he’d felt right about dropping me like a bad habit.
Intrigued, I leaned closer. “What do you mean?”
Jace tipped his head back to the sky and let out a groan of frustration. “It all got so messed up. There are still some things I don’t want to tell you because it wouldn’t make a difference, but just know I didn’t want to break up with you.” He righted his head and leveled me with a serious glare, the safety lights making his blue eyes bright. “I never wanted to break up with you, Faith…but by the time I had straightened it out…” He trailed off. “Six months—that’s all you waited before you were in another man’s arms.” He bristled, looking down again, and this time my heart twisted angrily with hurt.
I hadn’t known.
I’d had no idea he wasn’t being honest.
“How could you hold that against me? You broke me…my mama was so worried she nearly committed me. I didn’t leave my house for weeks. I didn’t have an appetite, started losing a god awful amount of weight.” My tone was picking up decibels as the pain surfaced.
“Why did you do it?” He turned his entire body toward me, and I stared back, blinking in confusion.
“Do what?”
“Why did you run to him? Why did you only wait six months?” Jace seared me with his stare, showing too many of his own cards. I’d hurt him—unknowingly, but I had.
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Is that why you’ve been so mean to me? So cold? Because I moved on too fast for you?”
He scoffed and shook his head back and forth. “You claimed all these lofty feelings for me, but you sure as hell moved on pretty fast.”
I was stunned, totally speechless for a few seconds as I processed what he’d said.
“You break my heart and then get mad and hold a grudge against me because I didn’t stay pathetic and in love with you after you ended things with me?” I stood, shouting down at him with fury and hurt.
He stood too, towering over me with his jaw set and eyes in slits.
“Of course I moved on, Jace. I was heartbr
oken. I ran into the first pair of open arms that would take me. I wanted a refuge, a safe place to hide and heal from how badly you’d hurt me. I can’t believe you have the audacity to be angry about it all these years later.”
“But you didn’t just move on.” His blue eyes narrowed. He took a step forward, leaving barely any space between us. My chest was rising and falling fast; his wasn’t at all. Typical. He was always like a fortified wall against my flimsy, caving ones. “You married the first pair of open arms, Faith. Fucking married him. You didn’t rebound…you just moved on from me…from us, like we didn’t happen.”
“And you never came after me!” I shouted, angry that I was revealing that it mattered to me. At least I hadn’t let the rest slip; I wouldn’t recover if he knew what I had prayed on my wedding day.
I took a step back, needing air, needing something…anything. I searched his eyes, tried not to pull anything from them that he wasn’t offering, but he looked…he looked like he was drowning in regret. I swallowed and pushed my hair off my face, a sudden gust having blown it askew.
“You didn’t want me,” was all I could manage to mutter out loud. The truth was, I hated how weak I had been back then, how pathetic and hurt, how right Jace was. I should have dated Bryan, sure…but marry him? No.
I should have grown up; maybe then Jace would have found me. Maybe he would have spoken his truth, or whatever version of it he was willing to give, and we would have found a way back to each other.
“I needed you,” Jace whispered, so quietly I nearly missed it. It was full of pain and cracks, of just as much hurt…of all the same things I carried.
He needed me…the words rolled through me, falling like a star from the sky to the vast, open sea. It was there, but I couldn’t hold it, couldn’t grasp it long enough to make anything of it.