by J. Saman
I want that with him. I want him forever, I think. I can’t imagine not wanting, loving him. But this summer might have scarred me. It might have been my worst fears realized. Part of me is screaming to get out now. To leave this school and this life and go back to California. To save myself from the inevitable heartache. But I can’t make myself do it.
All summer it felt like a part of me was missing and instinctively, I knew that part was Jameson.
How do you walk away from the man who makes you feel like you weren’t really living before he barreled his way into your life? Like all you were doing was going through the motions, oblivious to how good it could really be. I feel complete in myself. I won’t even say he completes me or makes me whole, because I like to believe I am that without him. But he escalates me to an entirely different plane of existence, and now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t want any other flavor.
I want to go home with him. I want to say yes to everything he’s offering me. But instead, I ask, “Should we stop this now?”
He sets me down on my feet, taking my hand in his and placing it over his chest. “Do you feel this?” he asks, pressing my fragile hand onto the strong muscles of his chest, his heart thrumming beneath me. “Do you feel the way my heart is beating right now?”
I nod, staring at my hand that is covering his heart, my throat thick with emotion to the point that I have to clear it away.
“This rhythm is fear of losing you.”
Jesus. I can’t…breathe.
“This rhythm is something I’ve only ever felt with you. I’m crazy about you, Lyric.”
Tears build up behind my eyes, but I can’t let them fall. Not until he says it. I won’t cry over him until that point and I know, I fucking know, he’s not going to stay it.
Because he sees that line too and even though he’s showing me, expressing it, he’s not saying those three words that are not nearly as simple as some might have you believe.
His hand comes over my chest, pressing into my heart, his other hand grasping the bottom of my chin and forcing my face up to his. “I don’t think I can stop now. I know what you’re saying. I get it. I felt that too. The impossibility of us. But I know there’s a reason that you’re my first real girlfriend. I know there’s a reason that I don’t want to let you go.” He pauses. Takes a deep breath. “Day by day?” he asks, watching me intently, measuring my response.
“What if I can’t do day by day?”
He smirks, like he knew that’s what I was going to say. “Then we have a lot of months to figure out a plan.”
Chaos dances in my chest, seeping through my blood in a slow burning heat. It’s in this moment I realize that Jameson Woods will be the end of me. I just can’t figure out if that end will be in the form of salvation or ruination.
Chapter 13
Jameson
* * *
My phone sounds off like a fog horn, startling me out of my heavy slumber. I groan, rolling over to slap at it, only to realize it’s not my alarm. Lyric moans next to me, saying something I can’t hear, but can guess at, into her pillow. I answer the phone with a swipe of my finger, opening one eye to check the caller. It’s just numbers and though I know it’s familiar, I can’t place it in my hazy state. “Hello?” I say, my voice sounding and tasting like sand and ass—not the good kind at that.
“Jamie?”
I sit up straight, rubbing furiously at my eyes before I pull my phone away from my ear to check the time on it. 3:42. What the hell? “Dianne?”
“I don’t know what to do,” my stepmother says, her voice panic mixed with an earthquake.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I feel Lyric sitting up next to me, her hand on my shoulder, but I can’t turn to acknowledge her or answer her silent question.
“He’s not waking up. I heard a crash in the bathroom and when I got up to see what the noise was from, I found your father on the floor with blood coming out of the side of his head.”
Jesus! Fuck!
“Did you call 911?”
She puffs out a torrent of air into the phone. “No…I…” And then she falls silent like her brain has officially shut off and all higher logic and common sense are gone. “Why won’t he wake up?”
“Hang up with me and call 911,” I yell, terrified and helpless, losing the last shred of my sanity. Lyric grips my arm so tight that my head automatically whips in her direction. She’s on the phone, I realize.
“Yes, we need an ambulance. There is a man unconscious after hitting his head. His wife is unable to rouse him.”
I stare at her, listen as she relays my dad’s address to the operator on the phone. She locks eyes with me as she repeats what the operator tells her. That they’re going to get in contact with a local Greenwich dispatch and will have help sent over immediately.
“Jamie,” my stepmother screams and I realize that she’s been trying to get my attention.
“Lyric called 911, Dianne. They’re on their way. Just stay on the phone with me until they get there. I need you to tell me where they’re taking him.”
“Okay,” she sobs, crying harder and harder into the phone. “I can’t handle this. He’s the strong one. Not me. I’m not cut out for this.” She continues on and on and I don’t have words to comfort her. I don’t have any words for anything right now.
The lights are on and Lyric is up, moving about my room. My eyes mechanically follow her. She’s packing a bag. She’s throwing socks and boxers and t-shirts and jeans in it. My hairbrush and deodorant go in next and then she’s zipping it up.
“I’m going back to my dorm to grab a bag. I’ll call the airline on my way, but if there is no flight out of here in the next few hours into New York, I’ll call my father and get the jet here for us.”
Us. She’s coming with me. Lyric just called 911 for my father who is unconscious. Lyric just packed me a bag. Lyric is getting her stuff and calling the damn airline for me.
“Get up, Jameson. Go shower or just get dressed. Get yourself together and I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” She turns around and leaves. I watch her go, my heart so full and my mind so lost.
I do get up. I follow her instructions, but I can’t shower because Dianne, who is on the edge of her sanity, is still on the phone with me. I throw on a t-shirt, jeans and a hoodie. I listen as the paramedics and police arrive and to Dianne as she tries to explain what happened with my father.
My father is unconscious on the floor, bleeding from his head.
“He’s going to Greenwich hospital, Jamie,” she says after I’ve listened to them work on my father for far too long.
“I’m coming. Tell him I’m coming.”
The phone disconnects. I don’t even know if she heard me but I get the hang-up beeps. I collect everything I think I will need, my laptop, a few textbooks, notebooks, fucking pens. I shove them all into my messenger bag, grab the suitcase Lyric packed for me and then I’m flying out my bedroom door, stomping all the way down the stairs. I consider waking up Cane and Travers, but decide against it. I’ll text them later. I can’t answer the questions they’re going to ask.
I swing open the front door, a cool late fall breezing hitting me square in the face.
Lyric isn’t back with my Jeep yet, and I’m forced to wait when waiting is the last thing I want to do. The last time I saw my father was the day I came back to school, nearly two months ago. He took me to lunch before my flight and told me he was proud of me for all the hard work I put in over the summer. It was the first time he had ever given me praise like that. More than just a ‘good job’ or ‘keep it up’ or a pat on the back sort of thing.
This was real. This was genuine and it made me feel like a two-timing piece of shit. I told him about the company that Cane, Travers, and I have been working on, and once he got over the initial shock, he reminded me that his company would one day be my company. And then I’d really have my hands full. That lunch, in that small diner in midtown Manhattan, was one of my happiest moment
s. Because I realized in the cab to the airport that was the first moment my father saw me as more than just his son. He saw me as a man.
A man he was proud of.
Tears burn the back of my eyes, my throat so thick I can hardly breathe or swallow past it.
He has to be okay.
I catch sight of headlights headed in my direction. They’re stopped at the traffic light a few blocks down and I know it’s Lyric in my car. I stare at my car as I watch it idling, patiently waiting for the light to change because Lyric isn’t the type of girl who would blow through a red light, even in the middle of the night.
We haven’t talked about this past summer. Not once. Not even that day when we first got back and I told her about Saylor and about how much I missed her. She hasn’t asked any questions. She hasn’t said anything about what’s going to happen with us next, even though I know it’s already starting to weigh on her.
This Christmas will mark our one-year anniversary, but it feels like a million lifetimes have happened in between that time. The months fly by too quickly when I’m with her, and too slowly when I’m not. Time, man. I hate time. But I love Lyric and I’m at the point where I can’t imagine myself without her by my side. My future is set for New York and I know that eventually, she might be able to get herself there as well.
And if this summer proved anything, it proved that we can make this work. Four months apart have not impacted us. We’re as strong as we were when we left last spring. Maybe more so. Definitely more so because I’ve given up on the idea that she’s not my world. That the excuses of being too young and just wanting to have fun are just that. Excuses. Bullshit excuses at that. I’ve had my fun. I’ve slept with plenty of women. Not one of them made me feel a tenth of what Lyric does when I’m just standing in the same room as her.
The light still hasn’t changed, but she must get fed up or too impatient, because she drives through the red, down the couple of blocks before she’s pulling up in front of me where I’m sitting on the front steps. I get up, wordlessly toss my suitcase into the trunk and when I approach the driver’s side door, she shakes her head and yells at me through the glass to go around. I don’t have it in me to argue with her so I do as she says and when I get in, she turns to me for a second before twisting around completely, looking out the back window and pulling out onto the road. “I’m driving,” she says like she’s gearing up for me to fight her. “You have enough on your mind. I got us a six-a.m. flight to JFK, and my father’s driver is going to pick us up at the airport and take us to the hospital.”
“I love you,” I say and her head whips in my direction, her eyes wide and startled like she never in a million years expected those words to come from me. That sort of makes me feel like an asshole, because she deserved these words from me so many months ago. “I know this is the worst moment for this and I know I’m not doing it in some big romantic way that shows you just how much, but I can’t hold it in anymore. I love you, Lyric Rose. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me and as long as I live, with a world and lifetime of experiences ahead of me, that will never change.”
She’s smiling softly, looking out the windshield as she focuses on the road. She’s not a crier. She’s not one of those girls who gets overly emotional and breaks down. Instead, she pulls the car over to the side of the empty road, throws it in park and turns on me. “I love you, too. I’ve loved you for a very long time. So long in fact, I’m starting to get to the point where I don’t remember ever not loving you. Jameson Woods, you might be stuck with me.”
I take her face in my hands and kiss her. My tongue sweeps into her mouth and I taste her. I worship her. Devour her. If we weren’t in such a rush, and if the world wasn’t coming down around me, I would show her that her threat of being stuck with her is a promise I intend to keep. “Thank you for taking care of everything this morning. Thank you for taking care of me when I need you the most.”
She smiles against me, kissing my lips again. She doesn’t say anything back. She didn’t do all of that for me to thank her. She did all of that because that’s the sort of person she is. I kiss her eyes. Her nose. Her cheeks, her forehead, and finally, her lips. We part reluctantly, and she throws the car back into gear, then we’re racing off into the darkness.
“Did you book a return flight?”
“No,” she says with a small shake of her head. “I didn’t know how I could with so much uncertainty around your father. John, my father’s driver, is also his bodyguard and pilot. When I called him, he told me he’d fly us back whenever we needed. The plane isn’t scheduled for anything for a couple of weeks.”
“I’ve never been on a private plane.”
Lyric grins, her face illuminated in a blue glow that makes her look like some sort of beautiful sci-fi fairy. “It’s pretty rad. At least, my father’s plane is. I actually like it better than the one Robert has. It’s big with a seating area, a dining room, office, and a bedroom in the back.”
“Not bad being a rock star,” I muse, because even though Lyric doesn’t like to talk too much about her father in terms of that, she does with me. She’s told me about his career. About the album he’s working on and how he’s letting her produce a few of the songs. I think that might be her dream come true. She grew up in a world that most don’t know and only have the luxury of dreaming about. But it’s her life, and you’d never know it if you met her.
She does not scream rock star’s daughter.
Though that tattoo she got last year on her back is pretty badass.
“I wrote a song,” she says after a few minutes of silence, her words coming out as a whispered confession.
“A song?” I parrot. I knew she played around with other people’s stuff, but I had no idea she wrote.
“Yeah,” she says, cutting to me quickly and then back to the dark highway.
“What kind of song?” I push when she doesn’t say anything else.
“It’s sort of Sonic Youth meets the Lumineers, if you can possibly wrap your head around that sort of sound. I don’t really have words for it. Just the notes.”
I smile, reaching out and taking her hand. God, this girl. My chest clenches so tight I have the strongest urge to reach up and rub the spot. Just when I think I’ve seen all she can do. I mentally shake my head. There is no limit with Lyric. Nothing she’s not capable of. “Will you hum it for me?”
She laughs, the sound buoyant, and the heavy weight I’ve had in the pit of my stomach since I got that call feels just a bit lighter. “No. Definitely not. But when we get on the plane, I’ll play it for you. It’s on my computer.”
“I’m so glad you’re coming with me. Something isn’t right. It’s more than just him falling and hitting his head.”
Lyric’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “How do you know?”
“Because I heard the paramedics while they were working on him. He’s the only family I have left. No grandparents. My father was an only child, like me. My mom never had a father that she knew, and both her mom and sister also died of breast cancer.”
“Seriously?” she gasps, covering her mouth with one hand, her eyes filling with pain. “I had no idea. They must have had that genetic link.”
I nod. “Yeah. She died before there was regular testing for it, but I know that must have been it. In any event, my dad is it. Dianne is not my family.”
Lyric squeezes my hand. “Family is not always what you’re born into. You have me. You have Cane and Travers. You’re not alone in this world, Jameson. I know you feel like that sometimes. I see that darkness in you, but you’re not. Not even close. I’m not going to spew bullshit platitudes or words of comfort about a situation I have no knowledge of. Your father is going to be okay, but if for some awful reason he’s not, well, then we’ll get through it. Together.”
“I’ve known you practically my whole life, Lee. Since we were six.” I shake my head. “I always saw you. Always watched you and secretly pined after you. Every fucking guy in school did
. But I didn’t know you. Not really.” I lean over the center console and I bury my face in her neck. “I’m so glad you transferred schools.”
Her fingers glide up, slicing through my hair and holding me against her. “Me too. ‘I have waited a lifetime, spent my time so foolishly. But now that I found you, together we'll make history’,” she quotes. “Foreigner was never my favorite band, but those lines always stuck with me. I think maybe that’s us.”
“I certainly hope so, baby. I certainly hope so.”
Chapter 14
Lyric
* * *
When we land, my father’s driver is there waiting for us. I’ve known him since I was a small girl so when he wraps me up in a big bear hug—because the man is the size of a bear—I release the breath I had been holding since Jameson got that phone call.
Jameson is exhausted. I tried to get him to sleep on the plane, but he couldn’t. I think he was a little upset with me. I purchased first class tickets, because that’s all they had left next to each other. I was not going to have him sit in some random middle seat without me there with him. Even so, the comfort was nice to have and it allowed him to practically lay across my lap as I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to lull him to sleep. He listened to my song, and after he heard it, kissed me crazy while praising a genius I do not feel I possess, then he fell silent for the remainder of the trip.
He greets John with a friendly handshake, and then we’re quickly ushered to my father’s large Mercedes sedan. In addition to having an airplane, my father also has an arsenal of cars. He’s also one of the most generous men on the planet. I received a slew of texts from him once we landed and I turned off airplane mode, asking how we were, offering us the house to sleep in and food and whatever else we could ever need.
My father has met Jameson plenty of times growing up, but when he and my mother came to Tennessee, they fell in love with him. Even if he and my father did fight about who was going to pay the dinner bill for over five minutes. Jameson won. My overly possessive father, who is slow to like anyone his girls date, has accepted my boyfriend as part of our unit. And that means anything Jameson needs, my family is there to help with.