Jackson's Girl: Being His Duology

by Charlie R. Love

  He planted a kiss on my head and did just that. He kept me close.

  41

  Past: Emily

  It was unfortunate that the happy days didn’t last. And there would be days I was feeling so low, I couldn’t even get out of bed.

  I felt restless and tired, when at night the nightmares plagued me, and during the days, my thoughts took over.

  There was no escape.

  I was drowning, only my suffering stayed with no ending in sight. I was floating about in a perpetual state of hopelessness.

  Did I ever mention I never learn how to swim?

  42

  Past: Emily

  I didn’t think anything was wrong until I woke up for the third time in a row, feeling sick to my stomach.

  I didn’t think things could have gotten any worse until I found myself sitting on my bed, with the pregnancy test on the bedside table, a positive sign blinking on the screen, telling me what was possibly the worst news I had ever received.

  I wanted to cry.

  Was I equipped to be a mom? I placed my hand on my still flat stomach and… I couldn’t feel anything. Nothing remotely maternal to the soon to be child Jackson and I had created.

  It isn’t a child, yet, an ugly voice told me.

  It wasn’t a child.

  Could I even be a mother? Was I capable of it? I knew this all stemmed down to one fear. What if I become my mom?

  The fear was something I could almost grasp in my hand. It wasn’t something I imagined. It was there. Each and every day, I could feel myself getting closer and closer to the idea of oblivion that my mom had so obviously craved.

  I was slipping.

  And the pregnancy test taunted me. Would it be the very thing to destroy Jackson and me?

  Somewhere in the distance, I heard the door slammed. I didn’t really register the noise for what it was until I heard footsteps bound up the stairs and a voice called out to me.

  I stood up and ran to the open door, but it was too late. Aiden was already making his way into the room.

  “Hey,” he said. He moved toward me slowly when he got a good look at my face. “What’s wrong?” He received the answer to his questions mere seconds later when his eyes made way to the white stick on the bedside table.

  He didn’t say anything. Then he walked over to it, and let out a sighed. He turned, and I knew he wanted to tell me congratulation. The smile on his face told me he was happy over the news, but then he found me crying and rushed over.

  This wasn’t good news.

  “Shh,” he said. “It’s going to be okay, Emily.”

  I shook my head and cried harder. How could it be okay? I shouldn’t be allowed to bring a child into this world. Not when I could barely protect myself.

  What a joke. Me trying to find the courage to be invincible.

  I wasn’t.

  I was fragile and weak, and I didn’t know how to be a mom. This baby was going to ruin everything. Everything that I had worked so hard for, it seemed so out of my grasp just then.

  Things weren’t supposed to come to this. We were supposed to leave Seattle behind and head off to Maryland in just a few short weeks. Jackson would go to college and become successful in life, and I was supposed to be able to leave Jerimiah behind and all that he had done to me.

  “Aiden,” I cried out. He moved back and took in my face. He cupped my cheeks with both hands and wiped away my tears with his thumb. “I need your help.”

  He shook his head. He already knew what I wanted to ask him. “Emily, you need to think things through. You might regret making such a rash decision.”

  “I can’t have this baby.”

  “Talk to Jackson about this.”

  “He’ll tell me not to do it.”

  “And I agree with him.”

  “This should be my choice.”

  Aiden looked sad. “No, it should be the choice you and Jackson make together. It’s his kid, too.”

  “It’s not even a baby, yet!” I screamed. Aiden flinched. “I can’t do this. I can’t be a mom. I’m slipping, Aiden. I don’t know what to do anymore. Ever since that day with Jerimiah, I could feel myself slipping, and I don’t know how to get out of it.”

  “What happened at your dad’s house isn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Jerimiah molested me when I was little,” I said.

  Aiden tensed. When I looked up, I found his eyes darkened in murderous fury. “What?”

  “Jackson keeps asking me what had Jerimiah done to make me so wary of him. And I always told him nothing. And I was telling him the truth. I didn’t remember. And I didn’t know how lucky I was to have forgotten, but the memories are back now, and they will not leave me alone.”

  “That’s what your nightmare is about, isn’t it?” I nodded curtly. “Why haven’t you said anything to Jackson?”

  “Because I don’t want him to look at me like a victim.”

  “Emily, you have to know he wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re looking at me like that now. I can’t be a mom, Aiden. I just can’t.” I pulled his arms, desperate for him to see, to understand. Could I ever make him understand how I needed to end this life before it even had a chance? Because somewhere, deep inside me, I couldn’t even justify it to myself, but I couldn’t have the baby and end up just like my mom. “This baby will ruin Jackson and me,” I said quietly. “I’ll resent him.”

  Aiden shook his head. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Promise me. Promise you’ll never tell.”

  One week later, Aiden drove me home.

  I pretended to be asleep, though I didn’t fool him. The ride out to the clinic was long. We had to leave town, afraid I might run into someone we knew.

  I thanked Aiden when he pulled up to the driveway. Jackson’s car wasn’t home. I refused Aiden’s offer to stay until Jackson return.

  I just wanted to be alone.

  I walked into the house I had come to love, and up the stairs to the master bedroom, where I climbed underneath the blankets.

  I didn’t make a sound as the tears flowed freely down my cheeks. And they didn’t stop until I heard the garage door open, and Jackson’s car pulling into the driveway.

  I pulled the blanket over my head when Jackson bounded up the stairs. I heard him pause in his steps when he got to the door, taking in the frumpy form of my body in the center of the bed.

  I pretended to be asleep and heard him walk over to me. He pulled the blanket down, and leaned toward me, planting a sweet and swift kiss on my shoulder. He didn’t linger. He walked out and closed the door quietly behind him.

  I heard him downstairs in the kitchen, preparing dinner. And then I broke down once more, and wondered, once again, if I might have ruined us anyway.

  43

  Present: Jackson

  It was around midnight when he got back to the hospital.

  Lucky for Aiden, because he already went back to his house when Jackson arrived. It was only Grant in the room with her. Grant had become security for her over the years, someone who was always there, someone who, unlike him, didn’t press her for answers.

  He often found the pair together, sitting on the couch in front of the TV, where she would rest her head on his shoulder, and he was just… there.

  Grant stirred when Jackson slid the sliding door close behind him.

  “Jackson,” he said softly, though the darkness in the room made it hard to tell how Grant was feeling.

  “Any news?” he asked, in spite of himself, because he knew things were still the same.

  “She’s recovering nicely. The doctors said it is only a matter of time before she wakes, and there isn't much we can do.”

  Jackson stepped closer to the small form of his wife. She looked so thin and frail. She had lost a lot of weight in the recent months. “I’ll stay with her. Why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll call you if something changes.”

  The other man hesitat
ed. Then he asked in a monotone voice, “You won’t leave?”

  Jackson flinched. He deserved that. He shook his head and said, “I won’t leave.”

  And that was all there was to it. Grant got up quietly and left the room in the same matter. Jackson took the chair Grant had just vacated and grabbed her much smaller hands in his.

  He brought the back of it to his lips and gently kissed it. He memorized her hands. He knew the back of it better than he knew his own. So how could he not have seen it coming? How could he not see his wife was depressed?

  Something nagged at him.

  She was more than just depressed. And for the life of, he didn’t know why. “No more secrets, Emily,” he told her. Something he had once told her before. It felt like a lifetime ago. “I can’t go through this again, baby. I can’t face the thought of losing you again.”

  He choked on his words and buried his face in the crook of her neck. He dampened the skin there and didn’t move from that position until his back started to ache, and he knew he couldn’t hide away from the world forever.

  He kissed her neck before pulling back. “I’m mad at you,” he told her. “So mad, sweetheart. And when you wake up, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

  Jackson looked down at his lap, where the journal laid. He had brought it up with him to the hospital, even when a part of him didn’t want to read anymore.

  How could things have gone downhill so quickly? He was supposed to have caught on that Emily wasn’t okay.

  But he didn’t. After the first time he found her, when she admitted to needing help, he had thought things were getting better. That she was getting better. It was all a lie. The only thing he managed to do was give her time to find the guts to actually do it.

  And she did it.

  She had been so willing to leave him behind. Could she not see how much she had hurt him? Could she not see how selfish she was?

  He wiped away the tears from his eyes and looked down at her.

  “When you get better, you and I, we’re going to go away for a while. Somewhere that belonged only to us. And I’m going to make it all go away. I’m going to make it better, sweetheart.”

  He stayed as closed to her as possible, despite the discomfort his position made him. He should sleep. He couldn’t. Jackson would stay wide awake and keep a close watch on his wife.

  44

  Past: Emily

  In two weeks’ time, the house was packed up, and we were ready to go. The four of us. Aiden was coming along, and I was a mix of emotions, ranging from happy to disappointed and scared.

  I was happy Aiden was coming with us, though I suspected he was only coming because he was worried about me, and I wasn’t sure how I really felt about that.

  I looked around the empty house. Jackson had someone moved most of the furniture into the moving truck, on its way to the small three-bedroom house the four of us would share, and whatever didn’t fit, he had placed in storage.

  All I had was a suitcase filled with my clothes.

  Jackson came up from behind and wrapped his arms around my waist. “The house looks so empty. I think I might be a little sad to say goodbye to this place.”

  He nuzzled my neck, kissing the tender skin there. “This place will still be ours. I’m not selling it, and we can always come back here to live if you want. Or we can keep it as a vacation home or something. It doesn’t matter. It’s still ours.”

  I placed my hand on his forearm. “Ours.”

  He turned me around until I was facing him. “Perhaps a change in scenery will make you feel better.”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t only the nightmares that plague my mind, but the all-consuming guilt whenever I looked into Jackson’s eyes. Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to regret my decision, and maybe that was why it was so hard for me to accept.

  That I should respond so indifferently to something as taking away a life. I never thought myself to be capable of it, but I couldn’t be a mom, because I knew. I was drowning, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. If I had brought this baby out to the world, I would be repeating a tragic cycle, and become just like my mom.

  “I love you,” I told Jackson because it was the only thing I was sure of anymore.

  He leaned down and kissed me. “You know I love you.”

  “I never doubt it.”

  “You know I would do anything for you.”

  “I always know.” It was a shame, really, that I couldn’t say the same to him. Perhaps he loved me a little too much.

  “Are you ready?” he asked softly.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Jackson grabbed ahold of my suitcase in one hand, and my hand in the other. Then we walked out of the house. I never looked back once.

  Jackson majored in political science with a minor in pre-law.

  I had no idea he even wanted to be a lawyer, but the job seemed fitting for him. Grant majored in chemistry and Aiden in Business.

  As for me, I did as planned, and went on the nursing track. Just like my mom.

  We settled in the new house nicely. It was a fifteen-minute walk away from campus, and it was everything I had always imagined when I imagined leaving Seattle behind. It was quaint and homely. Grant was with me, and things were finally going as plan.

  Though college seemed to be my reprieve for a brief moment in time, I knew it wouldn’t last. The monsters stood in the far back, waiting for the next opportunity to attack. My only wish was that the damages they left behind weren’t permanent. That I can hope for the end in sight.

  Because otherwise, it would destroy Jackson.

  end.

  About the Author

  Charlie R. Love is an emerging author of new adult, romance, and YA paranormal romance from Colorado.

  You can buy her books here on Amazon.