He gives me a thumbs up and I walk away from the scene which is making me light headed. Tears fill my eyes as paramedics remove the little boy from the car and I see blood pouring out of the side of his head as they move him onto a stretcher.
From the other car, a paramedic looks up. “I need Halo Flight ASAP!”
“On it,” another man shouts.
People around me seem to be moving in slow motion. The sounds seem to be fading and I feel like I’m walking on air.
“Jason!” I hear Brittany’s voice but can’t see her as darkness moves in from the sides. “Catch him!”
Several arms hold me then I’m lying on the pavement, looking up at the blue sky with three little wispy clouds floating through it like everything’s okay. It’s a beautiful day.
Some strange faces look down at me then there’s Britt’s. “Baby, are you okay?”
I can’t seem to answer her. I’m not okay. I’m not hurt or anything. I suppose I’m in shock.
She never lets go of the little girl as she kneels beside me. “It’s okay, Jason.”
But I know it’s not okay. I know there’s a man who is about to get a phone call that will fracture his world.
He may have been having an awesome day. He may have been having the shittiest day ever. All that doesn’t matter as he’s about to find his world is completely different. In a matter of minutes, there’s going to be people whose lives have been changed today.
And this could happen to me if I allow it to. If I allow myself to love, what’s about to happen to that man, this little girl’s father, could happen to me.
I don’t know if I can take that.
Chapter 7
BRITTANY
Holding the little girl in one arm as she lies her head on my shoulder, I take Jason’s hand. “Baby, it’s going to be okay.”
He doesn’t nod or speak. He just looks into my eyes then past me, up into the sky.
I feel this odd sensation of him slipping away from me. Slipping into another world. And then I realize he’s shutting himself down. Closing himself off.
“Jason, Baby, I love you,” I say softly as he continues to look up.
Running my hand over his cheek has him looking back at me. His eyes look a bit cloudy as he simply stares at me. Then, like some kind of robot, he sits up. “I’ll be fine.”
I get up as he does and find his body language very cold all of a sudden. “Stay over here, away from all of that over there, Baby.” I pull on his arm to get him to follow me away from all the turmoil.
Leaning against one of the policeman’s cruisers, I rock the little girl in my arms as Jason leans on it next to me. His arms are crossed as if he’s closing himself off.
A truck honking as it drives up the access road draws everyone’s attention as it screeches to a stop. A man comes out of the passenger side, screeching, “My wife! My kids!”
The little girl raises her head off my shoulder and shouts, “Daddy!”
The man makes a b-line toward me. “Abby!”
She’s wiggling, so I put her down and she runs to her father. I reach over to take Jason’s hand but his arms are still crossed. “Poor bastard,” he mumbles.
A few officers go to the man. I overhear one of them say, “Sir, are you the husband of Rose?”
The man nods as tears fall over his red face. Another officer takes his attention as he says, “You should come sit in my car. It’s cool in there and away from everyone.”
“I want to see my wife and where’s our son?” the man asks as he follows the officers to the car.
“Dead,” Jason mutters under his breath. “They’re all dead, dude.”
Taking Jason by the arm, I pull him along with me. “We can leave now. This is messing your head up too much.”
He comes with me but seems so distant. We pass the car they took the man and little girl to and the wailing coming from the backseat makes me stop and look over at the poor guy.
The word, no, keeps coming out of his mouth as his daughter holds him and cries. It’s a horrible scene that should never occur. Unfortunately, it does, more than once a day even, and all over the planet.
“His life will never be the same. All because he fell in love,” Jason mumbles.
I start moving again, pulling him along with me. “Death happens, Jason. Living a life with no love doesn’t stop that.”
“It stops you from being devastated.”
We get to the car and I take him around to the passenger side. “I’m driving.”
He gets in with no argument what so ever. I find that odd and the thing he just said is seeping into my brain and I’m not liking the words nor his actions at all.
Starting the car, I pull away and follow the other traffic that’s been diverted from the highway. Through the little median I go and end up on the access road. As I pass the truck, the man came up in I see Jason looking at it.
“I wonder what kind of day he was having up until that moment.”
“Terrible things happen all the time. It’s not for us to question,” I say as I drive away from the tragic scene.
“I’m not questioning it. I’m just becoming very aware of the reality of life.” He stares out the window and I notice how he keeps looking up at the sky. “You’d think the sky wouldn’t look so peaceful. You’d think the day wouldn’t be so beautiful. You’d think the powers that be might see fit to send a little rain down to show the sorrow for the loss of lives.”
“That’s not how things work, Baby.”
Pulling back onto the highway, I head toward our hometown. I think we should go visit some of the people who helped make us who we are. A couple of broken people in need of some real help.
He glances at me. “Still going home?”
I nod. “I think I’d like to give Mom and Dad a hug. Maybe see if my sister wants to bring her kids over and visit with them some.”
He looks back out the window. “I’d like to go somewhere else. Just have quiet time in a hotel room. Maybe buy a fifth of whiskey and try to forget I ever saw that back there.”
“Well, we aren’t going to hide from the pain, Baby. You think you feel bad, imagine how the people who know them are feeling.”
“I am. That’s really all I can think about. When you love someone, it makes you a target for pain and anguish.” He clasps his hands together in his lap.
“You’re shutting yourself off, I recognize that look. I had it once. It’s not the way to let this affect you. You should be thinking about how little time there is and how you should enjoy it the best you can and try to touch as many lives as you can in great ways.” I reach out for him but he pulls his hands even further out of my reach.
“I’d rather not be touched right now.”
“I can see that. And tell me if you think that’s healthy, Jason?”
“Don’t care.”
I watch him out of the corner of my eye. His face is void of expression. His mouth is held tight and his body is rigid.
The thought sneaks through my mind that I am losing him. I have no idea of what to do.
Should I take him to a hotel like he said he wants? Or home to see his family like he should want?
I have no idea what the right thing to do is. I’ve never seen anyone this bad off. Not even I was this fucked up when I caught him with his pants down six years ago.
“I hope that baby isn’t mine. I don’t want one anymore,” he says.
I nearly pull the car over I want to knock the shit out of him so damn bad!
“You know what? That’s the most selfish shit I’ve ever heard. And what if I’m pregnant?” I shriek.
My loud words haven’t phased him. He sits silently for a while then says, “You thought I’d fuck around on you, anyway. What do you care?”
I take the next exit and pull into the first parking lot I can find. A Home Depot parking lot seems to be where we’re about to hash this out or go our separate ways.
I park then turn to him. “You need to snap
out of it. I know that scene was bad but damn it, you’re taking it too damn personal.”
“I love you and now I’m afraid of what that can do to me.” He looks out the window. “I don’t like the weight of that.”
“So, shutting yourself off and maybe losing me is a thing you find yourself thinking about doing? You’re going to let thirty minutes of awful take away a whole future of love, companionship, and your own family?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Take me to a liquor store and a hotel to let me drink this off my mind.”
With no idea of how to handle this, I put my seatbelt back on and find the nearest liquor store. Driving up at the drive-thru window I get him a fifth of Jack Daniels and head over to the nicest hotel I can find in the little town we pulled off the highway into.
With no hotels in the town, I find the nicest motel and go inside to get us a room. I feel as if Jason has turned into a zombie. Maybe this is how zombies are really created.
With the little keycard in hand, I go back to find Jason sucking on the whiskey bottle and he seems to be a little more relaxed. Which I will take as a good sign.
“I got us a king bed, and she said there’s a jet tub in the room. Maybe a nice hot bath in a bubbling tub will help you.”
Parking in front of the room, I turn the car off and pop the trunk. Jason walks toward the door and waits while I grab both of our suitcases.
This is so unlike him.
I take our things and open the door. He walks inside and falls onto the bed with a loud huff.
After making sure I locked the car, I sit on the chair next to a tiny table and look around the room. It’s okay but not near what we’re used to.
Jason’s eyes are closed as he’s laid out crossways on the orange bedspread.
“It’s crazy how these motels use the ugliest colors and fabrics to decorate,” I say.
“They don’t want you to steal it. They use this ugly shit on purpose,” he slurs.
Great! Drunk already.
I guess I should be thankful. Maybe he’ll go to sleep and wake up the real Jason again. This man isn’t him at all.
It occurs to me that I have never been through one tragedy with him. He may react like this to bad things anytime they happen.
Once I hear him making little snores, I get his phone and find his mother’s phone number. Maybe she’ll have some idea for me.
I feel a little odd about calling her and talking about him behind his back but I’ve never seen him like this and frankly, it’s freaking me out.
“Hey, Jason,” his mother says as she answers the phone.
“No, Mrs. Brennan. It’s me, Brittany.”
“Oh, hi, Dear. Are you guys on your way?”
“There was an accident. We weren’t in it but we stopped as it happened right in front of us. People were killed and Jason saw too much, I think. He’s not taking it well at all. He had me bring him to a motel room and after rapidly downing some liquor, he’s asleep on the bed.”
“Lord have mercy!” she says. “He’s so soft-hearted.”
“That’s what I wanted to know. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s shutting down. Saying he doesn’t want to love anyone and things like that.”
“Hmm. This reminds me of when he was young and his grandpa died. He and my dad were very close. Too close I think as I saw a change happen in him when my daddy died. Jason turned into a different kid after that. He was fifteen then.”
I sit back and think about what Jason had told me about getting into girls when he was fifteen and never finding any who caught his attention enough to make them his girlfriend. He was twenty-one when he set his sights on me. I was his first real girlfriend although he never could remain faithful.
“Do you think something as tragic as seeing dead people could change him again?” I ask as my stomach tightens.
“God, please don’t let that happen! He’s been so happy since he found you again, Brittany. He’s never sounded better in his life. He’s told me about his plans for your future. If this has derailed him, that would be awful.”
My heart sinks. “Do you have any ideas of what I should do to help him not fall into some kind of depression?”
“He may make it hard, but you should try very hard not to leave him alone. I’m sure that’s what he’s asking you to do, isn’t it?” she asks.
“It is.” I look at him as he’s sleeping at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. “I’ll do what I can. I’ll make sure he or I call you tomorrow to let you know if we’re coming or not.”
“Okay, Darling. Bye now.”
I end the call and bite my lip as I strip away my clothes and go to Jason and start pulling his shoes off. Maybe lying naked with him, skin to skin will help him to see that feeling things like love aren’t bad things.
I hope so, anyway.
Chapter 8
JASON
It’s been a long time since the darkness took me over. I guess it was only a matter of time before it came for me again. Once, when I was a young teen, it took me away for about half that year.
That first time, it was my Pawpaw’s death that started it. I went black for an entire year when I hurt Brittany so badly she went away and never talked to me again. I wonder how she’ll take this.
No one knew about the darkness taking me over when Britt left. I left too and didn’t come back home until it had passed. It always passes. Maybe it won’t last that long this time. If it does, I wonder how long it will take Britt to be done with me.
I know it would be for good this time. I know she would never forgive me another chance if I mess this one up.
I lie here and feel her skin touching mine. She undressed me and pulled me around until we were together under the ugly orange blanket on the king-size bed. She’s wrapped around me and usually that would have me feeling excited and hot for her.
My body is as numb as my brain right now. Only little thoughts creep in now and then. Then those thoughts are quickly squished. I don’t want to think or feel anything.
Life is too hard. Too grim. Too painful.
Her hand moves over my arm, caressing and stroking as she murmurs, “I love you, Jason. Everything is going to be alright, Baby.”
I wish I could just stop this. I wish I could flip the switch that’s been flipped inside of my head. If I knew how then I would do it in an instant. I don’t want to lose myself again.
I remember hardly anything from that year after Britt left me. I stayed drunk or high and even when I was sober, I wasn’t in my right mind. The darkness always loomed over me. Covering me like a dark and heavy blanket.
“Just sleep, it will all be better when you wake up,” she whispers to me.
I know it won’t. I know this doesn’t just go away. It lingers, ebbing and flowing but never leaving me entirely. Not until it takes me to the brink, then it goes away. It has in the past, anyway.
Her lips touch my cheek as her hands flow over my back in gentle waves. This should bring me comfort, but it brings me nothing. I feel nothing.
I can’t imagine Brittany putting up with this for long.
I know I’m going to lose her now that she knows I can sink so deep so quickly.
Her touch is a thing I should be holding onto. I should me making a place in my memory for those times when I miss her.
A humming sound comes from her and I find myself sinking into sleep.
I wonder if she’ll be here when I wake up…
BRITTANY
Morning light drifts through the orange curtains of the motel room. Jason slept the entire night without moving a muscle. It almost as if he’s paralyzed.
I have no idea how seeing what we both saw affected him so differently than it did me.
I held him all night and still am holding him as he makes little snoring noises. Maybe he’ll wake up and be fine this morning. He has to be fine. He’s a very strong man. This makes no sense to me.
“Let me go,” he growls at me as his body tenses and he wake
s up very quickly.
“Okay,” I say as I let him go. “How did you sleep, Pumpkin?”
He rolls away from me and off the bed without answering me.
Pulling the blanket over my head I fight not to cry. I have no idea how to handle this.
The water in the bathroom starts up and I think he might be taking a bath. Maybe that will help clear his head.
The whiskey bottle is on the floor so I get up to see how much of it, he drank. It’s half empty and I take it and put it behind the television, out of sight.
The sound of the water running has me needing to pee really badly so I go into the bathroom and find the shower curtain pulled shut. “Are you okay, Baby?”
He grunts so I know he’s alive, anyway. After I use the restroom, I go to my bag and get the toothpaste and toothbrushes. Going back inside, I say, “I’m putting your toothbrush on the sink. What would you like to go get for breakfast?”
“I’m not hungry,” he says with a gruff tone I’ve never heard before.
“Well, you have to eat. Isn’t that what you always tell me, Baby?” I ease the curtain back a hair and find him lying in the clear water. “That’s a jet tub. You want to me turn on the jets for you?”
“No. Leave me alone. Bring me the bottle.” He doesn’t bother to look at me.
“Oh, you drank the whole thing yesterday. It’ll be noon before the liquor stores open,” I tell him and watch his eyes cut to me.
They go very narrow as he hisses, “Then get me some God damned beer then. Fuck, are you completely useless?”
My body tenses up. “Jason, you can’t talk to me like that.”
His lips form a tight line. “You have no idea what’s going on inside of me right now. I can’t explain it. I just need alcohol to quiet it or I’m going to run.”
“To where?” I ask as my heart pounds in my chest.
“Anywhere, as long as it’s away from you.” He closes his eyes and I pull the shower curtain back into place and leave the bathroom as tears fill my eyes.
I didn’t do a thing wrong. How come he wants away from me?
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