Black Tangled Heart

by Samantha Young

  Nothing short of fire and brimstone could make me miss a week.

  Not even the changes in Jamie. The coldness. The distance.

  He hadn’t told me he loved me in weeks.

  Yet still I said it. It was the last thing I said before I left him after every visit. Just for a moment, something would spark in his grim gaze and he’d lift his chin in acknowledgment.

  I had to believe he still loved me.

  Prison was chipping away at who he was.

  Three weeks after he was put away, I got a call from the prison telling me Jamie was in the hospital. I had to leave a message for Lorna because she wouldn’t answer my calls, and she, thankfully, listened to my message and got the next flight to LA. We found ourselves paying vigil at his bedside for the next few days as he recovered from a stab wound to the gut.

  It was only after he was back in prison that he told me he’d deliberately stepped between the attacker and a guy called Irwin Alderidge.

  I’d googled Alderidge after our conversation.

  He was this billionaire real estate mogul. He had properties all over the world, but his home was in Los Angeles. He’d been tried and sentenced to seven years for paying millions in bribes to two elected officials to be his eyes and ears in California’s government. The government officials were also convicted. It was a high sentence for the crime, but the jury had decided to make an example out of Alderidge.

  Despite the large fine Alderidge received, the guy was still dripping in money. According to Jamie, that money kept him safe while he was behind bars. He paid the toughest sons of bitches in that place to watch his back.

  But Jamie had been keeping his ear to the ground, and some psycho little shit who tried to blackmail cash out of Alderidge decided he was going to shiv him. Jamie watched. Waited. And took the shiv instead.

  For the first time in my life, I wanted to scream at him. He’d almost died! And that’s when it all came out. That there were guys who wanted to hurt him. As much as it killed his pride, he needed protection. It was the shiv, or his life wouldn’t be worth living, he’d said.

  Thankfully, Jamie recovered, and his risk paid off.

  Turned out Irwin Alderidge wasn’t someone who let a debt go unpaid. I also got the impression from what my boyfriend had told me that Alderidge genuinely liked Jamie. They shared varied interests, were educated, and were avid readers. They spent a lot of their time keeping each other sane. Jamie didn’t speak about it, but I knew he’d witnessed things in that prison that haunted him.

  It wasn’t just isolation and injustice eating away at him.

  It was the whole damn place.

  That Thursday I waited impatiently in a booth in the visitation room, desperate to see him. He stepped into the room behind a guard and the constant ache in my chest bloomed, spreading through my whole body.

  To say I missed him was an understatement.

  I’d lost all the McKennas, and even though Cassie was a good friend, my family was gone. Sometimes it felt like I was just going through the motions. Wasting time until Jamie was out of prison.

  He looked tired when he sat across from me.

  I smiled and his eyes dropped to my dimple, his harsh countenance softening a little.

  “Decided not to shave today?” I teased into the phone.

  He scratched at his stubbled jaw with those long, big-knuckled fingers. I missed his hands. “It makes me look older, no?”

  I grinned. “It’s very sexy.”

  His eyes glimmered a little. “You’re very sexy.”

  My cheeks flushed.

  I missed sex with Jamie.

  It wasn’t the thing I missed most. I missed his laugh the most. I missed lying next to him at night while he slept. I missed waking up to find him writing, tiptoeing out of the room so as not to disturb him. I missed the way he used to look at me, like I was the one who made the world turn. Like I was the sun and the waves and the moon.

  I missed hearing him whisper, “I love you, Doe.”

  I missed the feel of his arms around me. The way a Jamie hug made me feel safe and loved and needed.

  But I missed sex with Jamie too.

  I missed the hunger in his eyes. The way he’d bare his teeth as he fucked me. The way he murmured my name across my lips as he made love to me.

  I missed Jamie.

  “How are you?” I asked as I always asked.

  “Good,” he replied like he always replied. “What’s been happening?”

  I regaled him with the dull minutiae of my life. At least it was dull to me, but Jamie seemed to enjoy listening to me talk. I told him about how my friend Tom had just found out Cassie was seeing a guy fifteen years her senior, and Tom was jealous as hell. He’d asked Cassie out a bunch of times over the last year and she’d said no every time, and now he knew it was because of this older firefighter named Cal.

  I was the only one who knew she’d been seeing Cal since our freshman year. Considering she was eighteen and he was thirty-three when they’d first started dating, they’d kept the relationship on the down low. But a few of her friends found out the longer their relationship went on, and now it was no longer a secret.

  Tom was not happy.

  “I think she’s afraid he’s going to tell someone. Cal might lose his job.”

  Jamie’s brow puckered. “She’s nineteen.”

  “Yeah, but people can be judgmental about these age gaps. He’s worried he comes off as some cradle-robbing creep.” In truth, Cassie had lied to Cal about her age when they’d first met. By the time he realized she was only eighteen, he was already in love with her.

  Jamie nodded slowly, but he frowned. “You haven’t mentioned Devin in a while.”

  My stomach dropped. Despite Devin asking me out freshman year, Jamie had been cool that he was still part of the group I hung out with at school. He’d never been insecure or possessive that way. He didn’t have to be. I loved him, and he knew that.

  So Devin and I were friends.

  Good friends, as far as I was aware.

  That’s why when he followed me into a bathroom at a party six weeks ago, I never saw it coming. He was wasted. He told me he loved me and that I needed to be with someone who wasn’t going to drag me down like Jamie. I told him to get out. That he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  And he decided to kiss me to prove me wrong.

  Cassie had talked me into taking self-defense classes just after Jamie was sentenced. Thank God she did.

  At first Devin was too strong, too big at six four, and I was so busy struggling to breathe through the kiss and the panic that it took a minute for me to realize he’d shoved his hand up my skirt. Fury kicked in.

  I grabbed his wrist and twisted it as hard as I could; then I disabled him with a swift kick to the nuts.

  Cassie wanted to kill him, and she just might have if I hadn’t talked her out of it.

  Instead, I went to the police and had Devin charged with assault.

  He got a slap on the wrist since it was my word against his. He lied to the cops about it all being a big misunderstanding, but then he tried to apologize to me. There was no coming back from either that moment in the bathroom or making me out to be a liar afterward.

  I’d cut him out of my life and most of our friends had done the same.

  Becoming a social pariah was a kind of punishment, I guess.

  What I hadn’t done was tell Jamie any of this.

  Over a year ago, I made the choice to tell him about Skye’s diaries. A choice I would never have made if I’d been able to see the future.

  I knew Jamie would confront Steadman, and yet, I still told him.

  I was part of the reason Jamie was behind bars.

  Cassie tried to rationalize with me, and of course, I knew that this was Foster Steadman’s fault, but I couldn’t let go of my guilt.

  Jamie scowled. “Well? Why haven’t you mentioned Devin?” His cheeks reddened before I could reply. “Has something happened between you t
wo? Have you fucked him?”

  I blinked rapidly, and shock made the phone slip in my hand.

  Had Jamie, my Jamie, really just asked me that? “Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t even raise my voice above a whisper.

  A manner of insolence took over his body, reminding me so much of fifteen-year-old Jamie. He leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes dark with jealousy. “You like sex, Jane. What am I supposed to think you’re doing out there without me? Especially when you never mention Devin anymore? And I know when you’re not telling me something. You got real weird there when I said his name.”

  “So, I’m screwing him?” Tears of fury brightened my eyes. “Because I like sex?”

  Uncertainty flickered over his expression, and he swallowed hard. “Well?”

  I glared at him in wounded indignation. “I like sex with you. There’s a difference. That you would even suggest otherwise makes me want to knee you in the gonads.”

  His breathing was shallower, and he shifted in agitation. “What aren’t you telling me, then?”

  But I couldn’t let it go. “Do you think I’d cheat on you?”

  “Is it cheating if I’m stuck in here for five to seven?”

  “Yes,” I snapped. “I am yours. You are mine. That has never changed. What the hell do you think I’m doing out there?” I gestured behind me. “My life is in limbo, Jamie. It’s not even living. It’s just wasting time until you’re out.”

  His own eyes were bright, and he shook his head at me. “I’m not asking you to do that. I don’t want that. I want you out there, being happy.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’m not happy.” It was the truth, whether or not he wanted to hear it.

  “Skye was right.” He sank back in his chair, looking so goddamn weary. “She warned me that the way we feel about each other would fuck us up in the end.”

  “Only if you lose faith in me.” I leaned forward, my hand pressed to the glass. I was terrified. Terrified of losing him. “I will wait however long it takes for you. Do you understand me?”

  Jamie swallowed hard, a shimmer glazing his eyes. He blinked rapidly as he looked away, swallowing again and again, as if swallowing back his emotions, until he had himself under control.

  “I love you, Jamie.”

  He glared at the ground but nodded tightly. Without looking at me, he pressed his hand to the glass where mine was and then put down the phone. He waited a moment, head bowed. His hand strained against the glass, he pressed it so hard.

  Standing up, he caressed the Plex as if caressing my palm and then walked away without looking at me.

  Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.

  14

  Two days later

  JANE

  “You do realize you’ve barely said a word in two days, ever since you got back from your visit with Jamie.”

  I looked up from sitting crossed-legged. The words in my art history paper blurred on my laptop screen, I’d been staring at them so long. The interruption from my roommate, Cassie, would have been welcome under normal circumstances.

  However, I’d barely said a word in two days because I didn’t know what to say. It felt like Jamie was slipping through my fingers, and I was terrified of losing him. If I didn’t talk about it, the possibility seemed less … possible.

  “I haven’t?” I evaded.

  Cassie leaned against my doorjamb. She wore a wry, unhappy smirk. “Come out with me and Cal tonight. His friend, Rig, is having a party.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Hmm.” She pushed up off the jamb. “Do you want to tell me what happened with Jamie?”

  “Nothing happened.”

  Something flickered over Cassie’s expression. Something like disappointment. “You know … in all the time we’ve been friends, I’ve told you almost everything there is to know about me. You were the only one I told about Cal in the beginning … And yet, you never talk to me.”

  I stiffened with discomfort. “That’s not true.” It wasn’t. Cassie knew I’d been left at a police station as a baby. She didn’t know about my adoptive parents because no one but Jamie knew that. But she knew about foster care. She knew about Skye. Lorna.

  I’d told her about Jamie and what he meant to me.

  That was more than most people in my life knew.

  “It is true, Jane.” Cassie sighed. “I saw how hard it was for you when Jamie went to prison. You’re strong, and you got on with it. But the last few months … it’s like you’re not even here anymore. You’re stuck inside your head, and I’m thinking that’s not a great place to be right now. So … talk to me. You can trust me.”

  The urge to confide in my friend was there. To tell her about how Jamie was acting. To get her advice. To have her, hopefully, reassure me that Jamie was just dealing with things that I couldn’t possibly understand but that it didn’t mean he didn’t love me anymore.

  However, trusting people wasn’t exactly my forte these days.

  I stared at her, mute with frustration. I wanted to trust her. But I was scared to.

  And more than that, I was terrified if I said the words out loud, if I told her about Jamie’s behavior, that by making it real I’d only be ushering on the demise of my relationship with the man I loved.

  As irrational as I knew that was, the fear choked the words in my throat.

  With a sigh of dejection, and not a little anger, Cassie bit out, “Fine,” and strode from sight. I heard our apartment door close behind her seconds later, and tears pricked my eyes.

  I should have told her.

  I should have reached out to my friend and maybe changed the course of our friendship over the years.

  Because I’d know, within only a matter of hours, that not voicing my fears over losing Jamie wouldn’t stop it from happening anyway.

  I stared at the crumpled paper through blurred vision. It felt like someone had shoved a knife in my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

  It was Jamie’s handwriting.

  I’d know his handwriting anywhere.

  The paper had wrinkles like it had been balled up. And then folded carefully into a square.

  It was short, succinct. No need to sign it.

  I looked up at Lorna. Her expression was flat.

  Like she didn’t care that she’d just delivered the kind of news that had torn my world to shreds. “He doesn’t mean it,” I whispered.

  Jamie couldn’t mean it.

  No. I felt my head shaking no, no, no.

  Lorna stood, staring dispassionately down at me. She’d flown in from the East Coast to visit Jamie and some old high school friends. She said he’d asked her to deliver this letter to me. Which she’d done, only hours after Cassie left the apartment. “He blames you too. Don’t you get that? If you’d just kept your mouth shut about those damn diaries, he’d be in his last year at school. He’d have a future.” Her voice broke. “You leave him alone, Jane. He’s all I have left, and I won’t let you hold him back anymore.”

  I was barely even aware of her leaving.

  I just kept reading the letter … over and over.

  Remembering our visits over the past few months.

  How he’d stopped saying he loved me.

  It hurt like grief.

  It was an agonizing pain greater than any physical pain I’d ever felt. I didn’t know how to breathe through it. I wanted a black shroud of numbness to fall over me and take away the pain.

  Jamie didn’t want me anymore.

  15

  Four Years Later

  JAMIE

  Twenty-six years old

  In a perfect world, she’d be as haggard and as ugly as her weak soul.

  Instead, Jane was even more beautiful than I remembered. Even more beautiful than the shots of her I’d seen online.

  My freedom was within reach. I was up for parole, and things looked good for me. From within the confines of prison, I’d found a literary agent who wanted to find a publisher for the book I’d written.

&nbs
p; Yeah, things were looking up for Jamie McKenna.

  I just wished seeing her wasn’t still a knife in the gut.

  No, correction: I’d had a knife in the gut.

  Seeing Jane was much worse.

  When they told me she’d requested a visit, I was shocked as shit. Four years ago, the love of my goddamn life ghosted me. The visits stopped with no explanation.

  I guess she didn’t need to explain.

  It was obvious. She couldn’t take that I’d changed. I knew I hadn’t made the visits easy for her, but I’d stupidly assumed Jane would stick by me through anything. What a naive asshole. The time apart was too much for her. What future did I have with a criminal record? She was only nineteen back then. What kind of life was it for her to wait around for her boyfriend to get out of prison?

  The rational part of me understood. The Jamie who loved her back then had even wanted that for her.

  However, Jane hadn’t even taken time to face me. To come to the prison and tell me to my face that it was over between us.

  Instead, she just never showed up again.

  Maybe I could have forgiven that, if she hadn’t reinvented herself as Margot Higgins and started spreading her legs for the son of the evil fucker who took my life for five years and ruined my sister.

  What was Jane doing here? I thought as I strolled across the room toward the booth where she was waiting. Had she heard I was up for parole, that I was probably getting out soon? Did that make me worthy of her time again?

  Fuck her.

  I sat down, staring at her. She had the phone pressed to her ear, waiting.

  Those stunning, hazel-green eyes stared into mine, and the longing I felt was so devastating, fury erupted from me. I grabbed the phone off the hook, held it to my ear, and didn’t give her a chance to speak. “What’s it like to fuck the son of the man who raped Skye and framed me for a crime I didn’t commit?”