At first, I’d driven myself mad searching online for answers about my father’s death. I’d researched everything there was to know about electric shock drowning, as if that would help, as if that would bring him back or make it any less difficult to hear those who knew him best say how tragic it was to lose him in a freak accident. I hated when they said that. I hated that stupid phrase and the fact that there was no comfort or clarity to be found within it. It was just a callous way to make sense of something that never truly would.
Next, my mother convinced me to try therapy. She’d finally gone, after all those years of shouldering what my father did to her. It seemed like his death had killed her and freed her in equal measure, and her therapist helped her address those feelings. Still, after just two sessions, I knew it wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to talk.
And so, I wrote.
Eventually, slowly, writing started to really help — especially once I declared English: Creative Writing my major at Palm South University. Once writing assignments started to come and I was tasked with reading other works of fiction that made my emotions feel more in reach, everything started clicking together, and I started to feel okay.
Mom helped, too — along with her boyfriend, Wayne. They’d met at the beach one morning when she came to watch me surf, and he’d been nothing but a positive light in both our lives. It was the first time in my entire life that I’d seen my mom in love, and I wondered if it took my father’s death for her to be able to love at all. Up until that point, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that Mom had spent nineteen years of her life in close proximity to a man who had violated her in the most personal way — all for me. She tried to keep us a family unit, to ensure I grew up with both parents in my life. Now, she was finally focusing on herself, and seeing that made me feel like it was okay to focus on myself, too.
I’d dated, just like she had — and by dated, I mean I let two different boys take me out to dinner and then take me back to their beds. Neither had filled the gap left by the last man who’d touched me, but they’d been a nice distraction, at least.
Ethan called me sometimes, too. I only answered his call once, the first time he called after I’d explained why I left — after I told him the truth about Jamie and me. He called less than a week later, drunk as a twenty-one year old in Vegas, his words slurring together as he cursed me for breaking his heart. I cried with him, ashamed of what I did to him and still in pain over my father. After that, I stopped answering his calls, too.
Three years.
I still remembered that day, the feel of it, the pain. It was as if I was a ball of yarn, and that was the day I’d become completely unraveled, my string frayed and worn. Over the past three years, I’d slowly pulled myself together, forming the same ball of yarn I’d been before yet one that was wound differently. I was almost okay again.
Almost.
In just two months, I’d be graduating college and heading to Pittsburgh, ready to start the next chapter in my life. I rode in one final wave with that thought reverberating through me. When my feet hit the sand again, my board tucked tight under my arm, I had an overwhelming urge to face one last challenge before graduation.
I dropped my board into the sand next to my beach towel and rifled through my bag, searching out my cell phone. It was hot in my hands, the sun warming it even through the cool February chill. I thumbed through my missed calls log and hovered over his name, finger shaking at the thought of dropping just a centimeter more to dial his number. Was I really ready to talk to him? What would I say? What could I offer?
I didn’t have the answers to any of those questions, so I sighed, flipping over to my voicemail log instead as I fell back onto my beach towel. I clicked on the message saved from my first birthday after I’d left California, my favorite message from him, and put the phone on speaker as I laid back and gazed up at the pinkish-blue sky.
Hey, B. It’s me… Jamie… but I guess you already know that, huh? He sighed, and I’d listened to that call enough to know exactly how long the sigh lasted before he spoke again. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re pushing me away because you think you should handle this all on your own. And honestly, I don’t know, maybe you’re right — maybe I’m not the person who can help you right now. There was a shuffling noise then, and I had theories about what it was — him running his hand over his face, maybe? Or was it the wind? Was he at the beach where we’d said goodbye? But I want to be. So please, just… call me back. I miss you. My chest always ached at that part. Happy birthday.
The voicemail ended, and I closed my eyes, letting the sound of Whiskey soak into my skin like sunshine, hoping it would be enough to keep me dry a little while longer.
• • •
“To college,” Jenna said, lifting her shot glass filled with chilled Patron high in the air. “May it remember us fondly as it kisses our sweet asses goodbye!”
“Cheers!” I yelled in unison with the table as we all clinked our glasses together before tapping them on the table and throwing them back. I hissed as the tequila stung my nose and throat, quickly reaching for a lime and sucking it dry.
“Shit, that burns,” Jenna laughed, her blue eyes watering.
“I hate tequila,” I agreed, dropping the dry lime in the bowl and reaching for my beer.
“Same, but it gets the job done,” Kristen said. Jenna and I both tilted our beers in a touché before taking a sip. Kristen slid off her bar stool and pointed at both of us. “Be right back, I have to pee.”
Kristen was my project partner in one of my capstone classes. We’d gotten to know each other a lot over the last few years, especially being that we were two of the maybe five minorities in the English: Creative Writing program. She was from Brazil, and I loved her unique outlook on literature — especially modern American literature. I was going to miss her, but damn was I ready to get away from Palm South University.
I adjusted my graduation cap on my head, still annoyed that Jenna was making me wear it out all night. I always thought it was silly when grads did that, as if they were begging for attention or a pat on the back from every patron in the bars they attended on their graduation day. Still, I was in a good mood — I guess walking across the stage will do that to you. So, I indulged her, wearing my cap with a smile as we celebrated surviving the past four years. At least she’d let me change out of my gown and into a cute pair of jeans.
“So you’re booked the rest of the weekend until you leave Sunday night?” Jenna clarified again, her pouty lip protruding.
“Yes ma’am. Mom has a small family party planned tomorrow and then we’re driving out to the beach for the night and all of Sunday until I leave.”
“Well, I guess I can’t be mad at mother/daughter time,” Jenna compromised with a sigh. She lifted her beer to her lips but spoke again before taking a drink. “She’s going to miss you, you know.”
I joined her sigh. “I know.” Picking at the label on my beer, I thought about how close Mom and I had become over the last three years since I’d flown home from California. We’d grieved together, healed together, and grown together. I ended up living at home while I finished out my schooling at PSU, and as much as I loved reconnecting with Mom and growing even closer than before, I was ready to take on a new chapter. I was ready for a new city, for new people, for a new chance at finding myself. “She’ll be okay, though. She has Wayne.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. Lucky bitch.”
I laughed and Jenna smirked, clearly not ashamed in the slightest that she had the hots for my mom’s boyfriend. They’d been dating for almost a year now, and he was good for her — he was good for both of us. He helped me apply to grad schools out of state when I was terrified to leave, and I was forever thankful for that.
“I’m still mad at you, you know,” Jenna added. “Here I am finally coming back home and you’re leaving.”
“Maybe I’ll come back after grad school. Who knows.”
Jenna grumbled. “Just s
ave me a spot in your bed, okay? And for the love of God, don’t become a Steelers’ fan.”
“That’s baseball, right?”
Jenna groaned just as Kristen rejoined us and I laughed, uncrossing my legs just to cross them the other way.
It felt good to laugh, to have fun. It’d taken me so long to get back into a headspace where I could laugh. Losing my dad had fucked with my head more than I thought it would, and it was only in the last year that I truly felt myself learning to let him go — to let the guilt go. I loved him, and that was okay. I was angry with him, and that was okay, too. But now, it was time to leave him here in Florida and find out who I was — who I could be — in a new city and state.
“Oh my God,” Jenna whispered, dropping her beer to the table and tugging on the belt loop of my jeans. She leaned in close, her eyes somewhere behind me. “Don’t look, but Jamie is here.”
“What?!” I whisper-screamed.
“Who?” Kristen asked simultaneously, cranking her neck in the same direction as Jenna. She told me not to look, but of course I didn’t listen — how could I? A ghost had just walked into the bar, and I had to see for myself. As soon as I spotted him, my heart jumped, and the hole I’d felt growing since the last time I’d seen him filled, warming my blood.
It had been three years. Or had it been just yesterday? I wasn’t sure. I felt both measurements of time, noting his differences but feeling his familiarity even from across the bar. In Scotland, you can only classify whiskey as Scotch once it’s been aged in casks for a minimum of three years. I realized it in that moment that Jamie was a young Scotch now, a blended whiskey promising experience and flavor. My mouth watered and, like a magnet, his eyes found mine just as the door swung closed behind him.
He was with a group of men, all dressed in suits, and one clapped him on the shoulder before nodding to the other end of the bar. He nodded, but didn’t follow as they made their way in that direction. Instead, he kept his focus on me, tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure I was actually there, and then he took the first step.
I inhaled, holding that breath as Jenna freaked out beside me and Kristen looked between all of us wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, and I drank him in like I was privileged to do so as he crossed the room. His tie was loosened around his neck, the sleeves of his light gray dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, but it wasn’t what he was wearing that kept my attention. It was his auburn hair, slightly darker than I remembered and styled carefully. His broad shoulders, fuller than the night I cried on them three years before. It was his jaw, still so square and set, now shadowed with just a hint of stubble. And his eyes, a deep amber, shaded with fire and tinged with both pain and curiosity as he stepped into the space right in front of me. He didn’t look like my Jamie, and yet I still saw him there, under the surface. I felt him, that vibration from his presence. His scent invaded next, spicier, but with the same notes of honey.
Finally, I let my breath go, slow and steady as it left my lungs.
I’d turned on my bar stool, legs still crossed and hands folded tightly in my lap, and he casually tucked his hands in the pockets of his dress pants as his eyes raked over me.
“You changed your hair,” he rasped, his nose flaring as his gaze made the leisurely ascent back to my face. I felt want radiating off him like a heat wave, and my skin slowly defrosted the longer he stood there. My hair was bigger now, longer — flowing down to the middle of my back in the same soft, small spirals I’d always had.
“And you got a tattoo,” I mused. I could see the edges of it peeking out from where his sleeve met his forearm, and he glanced down at it with a barely-there smirk before he looked at me again.
For a moment, we just stared, both smiling, both adjusting to the new buzz blending with the all-too-familiar one. Then, Jamie shook his head, and a grin split his face. “You have two seconds to get off that bar stool and into my arms before I drag you off it.”
I blushed with a smile that mirrored his, looking down at my heels before easily stepping down and closing the space between us. The moment our bodies met, his arms wrapping around my small frame and mine resting around his neck, we both sighed, and peace settled in just as the rest of the bar came back into focus again.
I suddenly heard the loud rawr of laughter from the group of guys he’d walked in with, and the commotion of glasses and ice behind the bar. I heard Jenna clear her throat behind us and listened as the pop song playing grew louder and louder. Still, Jamie just held me, and I squeezed him back.
“Oh hey Jamie, nice to see you, too,” Jenna finally chided. Jamie loosened his grip and I slid out of his arms, reaching for my beer but not taking my seat just yet.
“Hi Jenna,” Jamie replied, smiling at her briefly before turning his gaze back to me. “So, celebrating tonight?”
He flicked my grad cap and I groaned, embarrassed. “Yes. I got a piece of paper that says I’m great at pulling all nighters and regurgitating textbook notes.”
Jamie chuckled. “Congrats.”
“And she got into grad school,” Jenna added. “In Pittsburgh.”
“Pittsburgh?” Jamie repeated, eyebrows shooting up before he tilted his head. “What’s my surfer girl going to do in a city like that?”
My cheeks warmed and I picked at the label on my beer again, tilting it to my lips instead of answering.
“And you?” Jenna asked. Kristen was still just staring at us, asking me questions with her eyes that I only answered with a shrug. “What are you doing back in Florida?”
“I’m celebrating, too, actually. Passed my CPA exam and accepted a job offer from my dad.”
“Really?” I asked with a wide smile, pride I wasn’t sure I was allowed to feel surging through me. “Wow, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks.”
Jamie wouldn’t stop staring at me. God, how I loved the way he looked at me — focused, and unapologetically so. Jenna went to ask another question but he cut her off.
“Want to get out of here?”
My heart thumped hard against my ribs and I fought back a smile. “You know I hate clichés.”
He shrugged. “I also know you’ll make an exception for me.”
“Oh? Do you now?”
Jamie tucked his hands back in his pockets, his stance confident. “I do.”
Chewing my lip, I kept his eyes a moment longer before turning to Jenna. She threw her hands up before grabbing her beer. “Oh for God’s sake, go. Go before he gets me pregnant with that fucking look of his.”
I covered my laugh with my hand, mouthing a sorry to Kristen before grabbing my purse off the bar. Her eyes were wide, but she smiled and tipped her beer to Jenna’s. “We’ll be fine. Go.”
And so, I turned back to Whiskey, feeling him close enough to taste after three years of being dry, and I smiled.
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Twelve
One Night with Scotch
I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT that moment.
I loved the way Jamie’s one hand rested easily on the steering wheel while the other held the gear shift. I loved the way the warm breeze whipped in through the windows of his new Jeep. I loved the view of my feet on his dashboard as the same roads we’d driven at seventeen stretched out before us. And most of all, I loved the easy conversation, and the easy silence — because we fit so well into each.
Years had passed, there were still words left unsaid, but all that mattered right then and there was that we were together. I felt it, I knew he did, too. It was a night meant for us, and I had no intentions of wasting it.
Jamie let me choose the playlist as we caught up, him filling me in on his dad’s firm surviving the recession while I painted the picture of how I’d ended up an English major. Peter Jennison’s Longing for Home album played softly in the background of our conversation, and I couldn’t help but note the difference in tone from the last time Jamie and I had been in the same place. We were
both grown now, both free from what had been wearing on us the last night we’d spent together. It was like the universe shoved us together at exactly the perfect moment, and I was thoroughly enjoying the alignment of the stars.
“I can’t believe you traded in ScarJo,” I commented, running my hands along the edge of my seat. His new Jeep was literally brand new, decked out even more than his first, and it was dark and edgy. The interior was leather and sleek, the dashboard advanced, and the paint job was matte black. Even his rims were a dark charcoal gray, and I loved the way he looked in the driver seat — relaxed, confident, sexy as hell.
He chuckled, adjusting his grip on the wheel as we took a turn. “Yeah, well ScarJo started getting cranky in her old age. I held onto her until about two months ago before giving in and upgrading.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was so hard to do,” I teased, waving my hand over the dashboard of his new baby.
He sniffed. “Yeah well, there were a lot of memories in that Jeep. I didn’t want to let her go, not until I had to.”
A heaviness settled in around us at that comment, and I felt it — I knew where the conversation was leading. We were past catching up on family and school and surfing. Jamie was about to ask me the questions I wasn’t sure I could answer, and my stomach turned with the thought of trying.
“You never came back,” he whispered. I just barely heard him over the music and I lowered the volume, pulling my feet off the dashboard and tucking them under my legs, instead.
“I know.”
“And you never answered my calls. You never called me back. You never…” his voice faded and his knuckles whitened around the gear shift.
“I know.”
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the leather and inhaling a long breath. He didn’t ask me why, he didn’t beg for an explanation even though I knew he needed one. We pulled up to a red light and I turned my head to the side, opening my eyes to look up at him.
The Pain in Loving You Page 44