Claire doesn’t let it go. “Did he do something to you while we were in Italy?”
To my grave, I promised myself. I’ve already broken that promise once, but what do I have to gain by telling her? It will only cause her more pain, and I don’t want to do that to her. At least, not anymore.
“West.”
“You don’t want me to do this,” I whisper.
She’s tearing up, which is weird because before this whole Blake thing, I’d only seen her cry at Grandma’s funeral. “Tell me. Please.”
I throw a nervous glance over to the guy across from us, but he’s bobbing his head along to some unknown rhythm.
“It was my fault,” I tell her because I still fully believe it was. “I was mad at you because you told Mother about my little problem and she sent me to that shrink. So, when Blake started flirting with me, I just went with it. Encouraged it, even. At first, it was all for fun. But the longer we spent together, the more aggressive he became until…”
“So…” Claire’s voice is hollow. “Thanksgiving wasn’t the first time?”
I shake my head, too ashamed to speak.
Claire is a statue, frozen in time with a face of marble.
And I think this is the perfect way to end a week during which I’ve chased everyone else away. I might as well keep it well rounded and get rid of my sister. Everyone close to me just keeps getting caught in the crossfire of my idiotic decisions.
“I’m sorry,” I finally find the strength to say. “I didn’t want to do it, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s my fault it happened. I’ve never wanted to take back something more in my life. Claire, can you—”
“Stop.” Claire raises her hand in-between us.
Here it comes, the backlash that’s months overdue. I wouldn’t blame her if she hit me, shouted, stormed out of the mall, and stranded me. There’s nothing I deserve more.
Claire wraps her arms around me, pulling me in so tightly it takes me by surprise. Maybe she’ll just strangle me here and now. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“I’m so sorry,” she speaks into my ear. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
I’m stunned, not to mention squished within an inch of my life, so I just let her hug it out. Claire stole my line. It’s me who should be apologizing, so why is she?
She clings to me for a long enough time that headphone guy gives us a weird look.
“That motherfucker,” she finally says, releasing me to arm’s length. Her eyes are red and blotchy. “I’m going to rip off his fucking dick and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, I swear to God.”
“Wait.” I rub the pain from my ribs. “You’re not mad at me?”
“What are you talking about, West?” Claire is incredulous. “You said it yourself, you didn’t want it. You told him no. There’s nothing else you could have done without endangering yourself. I’m just…” She stops, nose scrunching as she cries. “I feel so terrible I brought him into our lives. You didn’t deserve any of this.”
“Except I do,” I tell her. “I can’t help but feel like I deserve all of it.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m horrible,” I tell her, “and I just fuck up everything I touch.” I rattle off the list. “I caused the fight that led Lock’s mom to try to kill herself. I’m such a shit friend to Chels. I can’t do anything to please our parents. I mean, I ruined your marriage before you even had the wedding, Claire.”
“O-kay.” Claire blinks a few times. “We’re going to circle back to a couple of those, but as far as my marriage is concerned, I’d say you did the opposite of what you think. You saved me from living the rest of my life with a rapist. So, as fucked up as the whole situation is, all I can do is thank you for that, West.”
I guess I haven’t really thought of it that way.
“Now, what was that about Lock’s mom?”
I’m spilling all my secrets today. I tell her about the party and how I accidentally ratted him out to his mother. How I drove him to his aunt’s when he was covered in blood, and how we talked in my car. I tell her about the days we spend together and the way he makes me smile without trying. How he always sees things from an objective perspective while I’m always bogged down with feels. I tell her about the amazing afternoon we had, rehearsing the kissing scene. And I tell her what it felt like to hear him scream and see him fighting to save his mother’s life.
“I didn’t see him for weeks after that,” I say, “other than passing him in the halls the few times he was at school. That’s when Clay came back into the picture, to fill the Lock-shaped void. Except he didn’t, and I just made everything ten times worse. Lock and I were just starting to reconnect, and now I feel like I’ve lost him forever.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, West. Forever is a really long time.”
I smile, but it’s short lived. “What can I do, Claire? I just feel lost.”
“Talk to him,” she tells me. “When he’s sober, preferably. Tell him how you feel, and then prepare yourself for all the possible outcomes. That’s really all you can do.”
“That’s not true. I could always just run away. I hear the circus is lovely this time of year.”
“You’re terrified of clowns.”
“Oh, yeah. Fuck.”
We’re both laughing now, which lightens this weight that’s settled in my stomach.
“I have a feeling things will work out,” Claire says, patting my leg. “And just remember that if they don’t, you can always come talk to your awesome big sister.”
“Do we have another sister I’m unaware of?”
“Keep it up and you’re walking home, smartass.”
“No, I’m too cute to walk.”
Mom looks different. The doctors tell us she’s having a good day today. Jill brought her a birthday gift—a new sweater—and we’re sitting in the common room of the hospital’s fourth floor, eating slices of her favorite chocolate cake.
“I made you this, Mommy.” Jack hands over his drawing of a pirate ship.
“It’s beautiful, Jack.” She smiles at him. “But, where am I?”
“You’re in the brig.” He giggles.
“The brig?” Mom gasps. “Locking up your own mother? Why, Captain Jack, you are truly the scourge of the seven seas!”
Jill and I laugh as the two of them debate just what traitorous acts Mom did to deserve her punishment. For the time being, it’s easy to forget where we are. And why she’s here.
Mom’s about to duel Jack for her freedom when Jill rolls back from the table quickly, muttering under her breath.
“What is it?” I ask as she passes me.
“Nothing,” she snaps without stopping. “Stay there.”
The other two barely notice her absence, but I watch as she heads off a tall man across the room. He’s wearing a sweater and jeans, so he’s not on staff. He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen him before.
I watch as Jill gets very animated, even threatening, in her body language—which is impressive seeing as she’s half the man’s height in her chair. The man doesn’t seem to care. He tries to step around her, but she’s fast to block his every move.
I strain to hear what they’re saying.
“—going to do to her? Have you thought that through, Jordan?”
Jordan. Jordan. As in Dad’s best friend?
I get up from the table. Mom looks over. “Where are you going, Lan?”
“I’ll be right back,” I say, giving them both a reassuring smile. Jack yells something that sounds like “Avast!” and I see my opportunity.
Jordan is almost to the exit by the time I make it to Jill.
“Is that who I think it is?” I ask her.
“It’s no one,” she answers. “Forget it.”
“Not likely.” I pass her, following the tall man.
“Lan!” Jill calls, but I don’t heed her. This is the closest I’ve ever been to the man respons
ible for everything bad that’s happened to my family. There’s no way I’m letting this chance pass me by.
I catch up to him in the hallway, waiting until the elevator doors are about to close to jump on at the last minute. Thankfully, there are three other people, so Jordan doesn’t give me a second glance. He’s holding a present, a blue bow resting on top of it. It’s probably for Mom, I deduce. As if a gift will make up for the years of lies and deceit.
We reach the main floor, and I stalk Jordan out the main entrance. He wraps the scarf from his shoulder around his neck and moves for the parking lot.
“Hey!” I call after him.
He stops, turning to look back. His eyes narrow, but it doesn’t take him long to put two and two together. “Lachlan?”
He hasn’t seen me in over ten years. I’m surprised he recognizes me.
I give a nod. “You’ve got some nerve.”
Jordan steps back up onto the sidewalk, a sad smile on his face. “So, you know.”
“About you and Dad? Yeah. I know.”
“But do you understand?” he asks, holding the wrapped present out in front of him. “Because the two are very different things.”
“I understand just fine, thank you,” I say. The last thing I need is for him to patronize me as if I’m a child. “I understand you ruined a marriage of sixteen years. I understand you made my father a cheater. That you were the reason he wasn’t there with us when he got sick. And as far as I’m concerned, you killed him.”
Jordan doesn’t argue any of my far-reaching accusations. I realize I’m being a bit dramatic, but I don’t care. He’s the reason for everything, and I’m not going to let him off the hook so easily. Not until he’s owned up to all of it.
“Anything else you want to add on?” he asks, not unkindly.
“Give me a minute.”
“While you think about it, do you mind if I speak?”
I don’t say anything.
Jordan motions to the bench a little ways down the sidewalk. Reluctantly, I sink onto one side, pressing myself into the rail as he joins me. I want to be as far away from him as possible.
“You’re angry.” He sighs, crossing one leg over the other. “I get it, Lachlan. I really do. You have every right to feel that way. But I feel like you’ve only heard half the story.”
“I have no interest in what you have to say.”
“Is that really true? If it is, then I’ll respect your wishes and leave right now. But seeing as you tracked me down, I don’t think that’s the case.”
He’s right. Damn it.
“Fine.”
Jordan is laughing as he sets the present on the bench between us. “You’re so much like him,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Jill does all the time.”
“Jim—your father—and I grew up together. Did she tell you that?”
I nod.
“Good. We were the best of friends, really, even from kindergarten. Always together, always getting ourselves into sticky situations. I was always full of mischief, but Jim was there to keep me out of trouble. But those aren’t the stories I want to share with you.
“It was a different time when your father and I were young. Especially here. And maybe, had he not met your mother, things would have been different for us in a few years. But meet they did, and once you were added into the mix, I knew I’d lost Jim in that way.”
“Then you should have left him alone.”
“You’re right.” Jordan nods, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “I should have. But let me ask you something, Lachlan. Have you ever been in love?”
West’s blond curls pop into my head, shining in a streak of sunlight.
I shake the thought off.
“The best way I can describe it is to say it’s like a virus. It lies dormant for years, just under the surface, waiting to strike at the moment of least resistance. And when it hits you—Bam!—there’s no hope. It’s taken over, spreading until every part of you has changed.”
“That sounds horrifying.”
“It is.” Jordan chuckles, running fingers through graying hair that runs past his temple. “Horrifying and incredibly quick. But it’s also the most amazing feeling. I hope you’ll get to experience it in your life.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“The reason I’m telling you all of this,” he continues, “is because I need you to understand I didn’t plan what happened. When Jim took you and Jenny to Seattle, I forgot those feelings for him, knowing he had done the same. Months turned into years apart, and somewhere along the way, I learned how to live without that feeling.
“There were others who came along in those years, and I convinced myself what I felt for them was the same thing I felt about Jim, Although those were lies, I became very comfortable telling them.
“Ten years after Jim had gone out of my life, he was there again. Called me, out of the blue and told me he was in town and wanted to catch up. I didn’t think anything of it. We were just old friends, and it was all so innocent.”
He stops there, maybe lost for a moment in the memories of the man he loved. For a moment, I can see it too. Two people, separated by thousands of miles and society’s limited understanding.
“When I saw him…” Jordan speaks softly, eyes still distant. “I knew in that instant I’d never really gotten over him. That those feelings had only grown under the surface.”
A stiff breeze blows by, but I don’t think that’s the cause of the shiver running up my spine.
“The next morning,” Jordan says, looking back to me, “Jim left without saying anything. I can only imagine the conflict he must have been dealing with. A month went by before he spoke to me again. I’d never known a month could be so long. When he did reach out to me, it was to tell me he’d made a mistake. That email almost destroyed me. But the next day, there was another one. And another after that. Before long, we were talking every day.
“It went on for the next five years. Secret messages, late night phone calls, and a night together every year. Then, one day, it was Jenny on the other end of the phone, and suddenly, I was forced to come to grips with hurting her for almost half a decade.
“She was calm as she spoke with me. Her questions weren’t harsh or condescending, she only wanted to know the truth. And that’s exactly what I told her.”
He pauses again, tightening the scarf around his neck and tucking it into his jacket.
“I still remember the last question she asked me. ‘Do you love him?’” He pauses to clear his throat. “It was the easiest answer I’ve ever given. I told her it was only with Jim that I felt I was home.”
Another breeze blows by, and I pull my jacket tighter around me.
“I remember that day too,” I say to my own surprise. “Mom was so calm when he got home. She told me to take Jack into my room and stay there until she came to get us. I don’t remember there being any yelling, but the next day, I woke up to a note on my pillow and Dad was gone. I never even got to say goodbye to him.”
We sit in silence, an ambulance flashing its light as it pulls around to the emergency wing.
“I never thought for a second I’d get to be with Jim,” Jordan says. “Not like I wanted to. You can imagine my shock when he showed up at my apartment with a suitcase. I had your mother to thank for that, Lachlan. She gave me the greatest gift I could ever ask for—six incredible months with him. Six months of a home. And even though our time was cut far too short, there’s nothing in this world I would trade it for.”
“Was…” I stop, swallowing the lump that’s sprung up in my throat. “Was he happy? Those last few months, I mean. Knowing what I know now, it’s clear he was miserable at home, even though he tried to hide it.”
A faint smile plays on his lips. “I’d like to think he was, even though he missed you and Jack like crazy. Not a day went by he didn’t talk about the two of you. Or your mother for that matter. He was planning a trip for the two of us to visit Seatt
le when he passed out that first time.
“He was gone three weeks later. And there I was, all alone again just like before. Except this time, it wasn’t a wife and responsibilities that took him from me but something much more finite. The last thing he said to me was how much he wished we had all the time in the world.”
A tear rolls down my cheek, and I wipe it away quickly. The longer Jordan talks about Dad, the farther away my anger gets, replaced instead by a melancholy longing for him to be here. Not just for my sake but for Jordan’s too.
“There are no words, Lachlan, for how much I miss your father. No way to describe what it feels like to picture a future so clearly only to have it taken away from you. In some ways, I guess I deserved it. No matter what the outcome, I destroyed a family—your family—to get my happiness. And though I wish it didn’t have to be that way, I wouldn’t change it. I would say that I’m sorry, but it would be a lie.”
As much as I want to hate this man, I don’t. As much as I want to scream at him or maybe even get in a punch or two for the pain he caused us all, I can’t. Because I realize I do understand what he’s describing. Because it’s the same way I feel about West.
And that’s a paralyzing thought.
“I’m not here to seek forgiveness,” Jordan tells me, “because I don’t feel remorse for what happened, even though I know it hurt you and Jenny.”
“Then why did you come?” I ask, eyeing the wrapped box that serves as the barrier between us.
“To thank her. Jim and I were together only because Jenny told him to leave.”
“You mean when she kicked him out.”
“In a way, I guess. She forced him to face the fact he wouldn’t find happiness with her. But she’s the reason I got that time with him. So, no matter how she might feel about me, I wanted to give her this.” He picks up the gift. “A thanks for giving me all the time he had left.”
“I’ve been wondering why she did it,” I admit, trying to wrap my head around this new perspective of my dad. “If she loved him so much, why would she make him leave?”
“It’s because she loved him, I think. Even though he couldn’t fully reciprocate, she cared about him more than anyone else. So, she told him to leave to give him his best chance of being happy.”
Lock & West Page 24