I Found You

by Lark, Jane

  “I’ll see you tonight. I hope you’ll start to see things differently soon. You’ll find a guy who’s more suited to you than I am, Lindy. We weren’t right. You know we weren’t. If we were I’d never have been attracted to Rachel, would I?”

  That earned me another slap.

  I didn’t stay to hear what either of them had to say in answer. Fuck them. They could think what they liked. The whole fucking town could.

  I paid, then went outside to see Rachel pacing beside the truck and ranting to herself.

  She noticed me coming, and stopped as she looked up.

  “Dammit, Rach … ”

  Her eyes were still burning bright.

  Shit, how could I be angry at her? She was carrying a baby. She was the one who’d endured the crap from the guy who’d got her pregnant. She’d only been trying to defend me. But fuck, the sentiment had been misguided.

  I sighed and stepped down off the sidewalk, but didn’t move to the driver’s side. Instead I went to her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault! It’s mine! I shouldn’t have…” Her gaze dropped to the ground, her well of anger appearing to run dry.

  “What?”

  “Gone home with you that night, or flirted with you, or… Or had sex with you… Or––”

  I grabbed hold of her, and hugged her. “Honey, just shut up.”

  She was crying then, her head leaning against mine as her arms gripped about my waist.

  I felt out of control, and out of my depth, like I was treading water in a lake and the shore was a mile off.

  “Let’s get back in the truck and get out of town,” I whispered in her ear. “There’s a lake near here, it’s private property, but we all used to go there when I was young. Let’s go there?”

  I pulled away and smiled. She didn’t, but she nodded.

  Rach was the strongest, most vibrant and outgoing individual in the world. She was a person I looked up to. But then, there was this Rachel. The woman I’d met first. The quiet, guarded, haunted looking woman, whose eyes were pools of deep sorrow I could swim in if I wished to seek despair. This Rachel I just wished to hold, protect and defend––and love. God, I did love her. I wanted to take every hurt away from her. The emotion was a living being in my chest, it roared and breathed fire and grew hungry with need. I’d never felt this way with Lindy.

  Rach pulled away and moved to get in the truck.

  I sighed and then walked around the other side.

  I still didn’t know how to fix this, other than to press the eject button on my life.

  The lake was only about fifteen minutes out of town, and there was a place to park beneath the trees, and a walk that went around it. I think it was a fishing lake. Occasionally I’d seen other people there. A couple of times I’d been yelled at for trespassing and asked to leave. But it was the place we’d all hung out late at night, once we could drive.

  I parked up and switched off the engine, then just sat back.

  Rach’s head turned to me, her eyes asking, what now?

  I didn’t know.

  “Do you want to get out and walk round?”

  She nodded.

  I got out, but she didn’t move. So I played gentleman and walked about the truck to open her door.

  Again she didn’t smile when I did. But when I lifted my hand, she took it, and used it to help her climb down.

  I shut the truck door.

  It was a seriously cold day, and the track around the lake was hard packed snow. Snow also hung in the trees. It would glint in twilight.

  Keeping hold of her hand I started walking. “I’d teach you to skim stones, but that’s kind of pointless when the lake’s frozen.”

  She glanced across at me. “Who says I can’t skim stones?”

  I smiled again. “Can you?”

  “I once made one bounce three times. I bet I could get a stone to bounce tons of times on a frozen lake.”

  This was still the Rachel I’d met first, belligerent, withholding judgment and wary, but she was at least trying to shine through it and make me laugh.

  I’d already broken though these barriers once, but now, bringing her here, I’d made her raise them up again. I was pissed off with myself for giving her cause to go back behind them. Maybe Billy was right. Maybe we should just leave, and never come back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here, should I?”

  She stopped walking and gripped my other hand, the two of us standing framed in an arch of snow covered tree branches. “You know, if you want to change your mind and go back to her, that’s okay. I just want you to be happy.”

  I gripped her hands hard, probably so hard it hurt. “Rachel. That isn’t what I want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t talk trash, Rach.”

  Her green eyes glowed up at me, unfathomable. I wanted to know what I didn’t know about her. I wanted to know everything.

  “Jason.” Her forehead dropped against my shoulder, but she carried on talking, her words a feeling which ran down my arm, through the leather of my jacket. “I should tell you… There’s something… I… I mean…”

  Her head lifted and her eyes met mine again, and they looked odd, like there was some sort of battle of wills going on in her head, or like she was nervous. “We don’t know each other well, do we?” She seemed to change tack. “I’m jealous of her. She knows you far better than I do. I… I want to know you like she does. I hate her because she knows you better, and I hate her for judging you badly. This was my fault, not yours. I hate myself. I shouldn’t hate her.”

  I frowned as my fingers ran over her hair.

  “Rach, we do have more to learn about each other, yes, but it makes no difference to where we are now. We’re right for each other, we both know it. So don’t start fighting it, and for God’s sake, do not regret me. I’m not regretting anything. I know us getting together has been sudden, too sudden to know each other properly, but so what. I know this is right, Rachel. Don’t you? I’m not wrong, am I?”

  She nodded, but began crying again. I pulled her to me and held her.

  “It’s going to be okay, we’ll work it out. I love you. There’s no one to blame.”

  “I’m sorry I flipped out at the restaurant.”

  “You were just trying to stand up for me, honey, I know that. Perhaps your response was a bit misguided, but hey, I know you meant well. I just wish you hadn’t told the whole town the baby isn’t mine. I want it to be mine.”

  Her head lifted sharply. Her green eyes catching hold of my gaze. “I’m sorry I said it. I didn’t mean to say it…”

  I drew her head back to my shoulder and felt her warmth and solidity. “It’s okay.” But I really wasn’t sure it was okay. I didn’t know what to do.

  My hands dropped to rub her arms. “Come on, let’s walk. It’s getting cold standing still.”

  We set off and I took her hand again and held it tight.

  For a bit we walked in silence, but that was okay. I loved that we could give each other time for silence without feeling pressured. Silences had always felt awkward with Lindy, like I should have been saying something. Not with Rach.

  “What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?” she asked after a long while.

  Ah, this was clearly a question intended to begin filling in the gaps about each other.

  The only thing that came to mind was the way I felt when I was running. “Just running… Not even winning, it’s the freedom of being able to run fast.” I looked at her. “Does that make me boring?”

  Her eyes seemed to be absorbing me, taking in details that made me wonder what she saw.

  “Nope, it makes you salt of the earth, Jason Macinlay.”

  “What about you?”

  “Met you.”

  There was no hesitation, it was an immediate response.

  I stopped walking and hugged her, again, just for a moment. My heart felt so fucking full of her. I was totally
in love.

  I kissed her.

  But she turned it from a simple kiss to a passionate kiss, full of desperation and need.

  If she hadn’t been wearing jeans, I’d have moved her back against the trunk of the tree behind her and lifted her legs… and well––repeated the scene in the alley the first night we’d got together.

  She broke the kiss. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  I thought for a minute. Then smiled. “Probably stealing spray paint from Dad’s store and spraying graffiti on the fence of a neighbor’s house when I fell out with him over a ball going into their backyard.”

  She took a breath and answered the question in return before I’d even asked it. “I’ve stabbed someone, and stolen things tons of times.”

  “Stabbed someone?” My eyebrows lifted. That didn’t sound like Rach.

  “I got angry. Like I almost got angry with Lindy just now. He… He made me mad and I broke a mirror and – and I hurt him.”

  I saw her hand clench and unclench.

  I understood.

  I picked up her hand, and took off her glove, looking at the healed cut. It was just a jagged red, raw looking scar now. “When you did this?” I looked up at her, my thumb running over her palm.

  “Yes.”

  “Looks to me like you hurt yourself as much as him… Was it the guy you left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the stealing?”

  “Sometimes it was when I got into debt and I didn’t know how to get out of trouble… I keep doing it. I keep trying not to… But sometimes it was just for fun.”

  “So what are you saying? You need me to look after the money and watch out for your light fingers in shops, and not make you mad when you’re standing near mirrors?” I smiled.

  She laughed, but it sounded hollow. Then she said, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We kissed, again, and the ground felt solid once more, and my future clear and certain. It was with her. That was all I needed to know.

  I broke the kiss. “Come on, let’s finish walking before the sun goes down and it gets colder.”

  She nodded.

  I opened the conversation with another rudimentary question. “What was your favorite food when you were a kid?”

  We continued the conversation as we walked along the snow covered track, talking nonsense really, but doing what I’d intended doing today and getting to know each other more.

  Once we’d walked a circuit of the lake, I pressed her back against the trunk of a tree and kissed her, with a hard fierce passion. We’d told each other more, but I still only felt like I knew facts about her, not her. I wanted to be a complete part of her. I wanted to feel like I knew her inside out. Like she was me and I was her …

  Her fingers snuck under my leather jacket.

  I slipped a button loose on her coat and felt skin beneath her shirt.

  I could lose myself in her, I could. It felt so right when it was just the two of us.

  As our kiss heated, I forgot the cold, I forgot everything but Rach, my brain focused only on where and how we might…

  I heard a car’s tires on the gravel track.

  Dammit!

  I broke the kiss and looked through the trees to see a police car pull up by the truck.

  Fuck.

  “Don’t say anything,” I whispered to Rach’s ear as I saw the cop climb out of his car. “It’s Lindy’s Dad.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened and her mouth opened, then she whispered, “You never said––” Well it hadn’t seemed important.

  “Jason Macinlay!” Mr. Martin yelled into the air, looking nowhere in particular. I could see him, he couldn’t see us. “You do realize you’re trespassing?”

  I stepped out from the trees, holding Rach’s hand, but kept her behind me. “Mr. Martin.”

  He looked at me, hard in the eyes, assessing and judgmental. I walked toward him. According to his expression I was damned.

  “You shouldn’t be out here, you know that.”

  “Yeah, Mr. Martin. We’ll go now.”

  “Someone reported a truck coming up here, and… and Lindy called to tell me you’d been in town…”

  I stopped in front of him. I didn’t know which way this was going to go. I knew Lindy’s dad was capable of acting on vendettas, when the mood took him, and he was right; we shouldn’t be up here, but as far as crimes went…

  “…You do that, Jason, you go and get as far away from this town as it’s possible to get. You aren’t welcome here anymore. Do you understand that?”

  So I was going to get pushed out of the town then.

  “I’m going.” I said. But I wasn’t agreeing to leave the town, just the lake.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I got ready for his parent’s party with gritted teeth, alone in my room, because it would be a crime if Jason saw me undressed.

  I showered. Then dressed in skinny jeans with a burgundy shirt and pulled my heels back on. I’d be glad of them tonight. My stilettos might come in handy in a fight. I was just joking. But then again maybe my head wasn’t joking, maybe I would flip tonight.

  I felt bad and like I was slipping out of control of my thoughts. I needed reins. Jason held my reins––he of common sense and calm. Maybe that was what had gone wrong today. Maybe because he’d lost his calm, it had flipped mine.

  Well, whatever, I was still pissed. The only thing I wished to do was be in a bed with him, sleeping or not sleeping, either would be good. I just wanted him close. He made sense of everything when he was there. When he wasn’t…

  I walked downstairs alone, hoping he was out of his room already. None of the guests had arrived yet.

  The living room was empty, but I heard movement in the kitchen. Crockery, pots and pans.

  I went in. It was just his mom in there.

  She turned her head. “Rachel.”

  It wasn’t a welcome, just a statement.

  “Mrs. Macinlay. Can I help?” I tried to keep my voice as sweet and light as I could. I didn’t feel sweet or light. I felt bitter and angry.

  Her eyes looked from my head to my feet and back up. She clearly didn’t like what she saw.

  “I think you have helped enough. It isn’t even Jason’s child you’re carrying is it?”

  So she knew already, I wasn’t used to small town whisper wildfire.

  “It isn’t, but Jason’s always known that. I didn’t lie to him, Mrs. Macinlay, and I haven’t tricked him into being with me. I know that’s what you think.”

  She turned to get something out of the oven and I moved to take over emptying the dishwasher, even though she’d denied my offer of help.

  Once she’d taken a tray of some sort of canapés from the oven she set it aside and turned to face me.

  I carried on.

  “What do you see in Jason, Rachel? What do you want from him?”

  I stopped then and looked at her, a glass in my hand. “I love him, Mrs. Macinlay, because he’s the most wonderful guy I’ve ever met, and I feel right with him––”

  “And I feel right with her, because she’s the most wonderful girl I ever met.” Jason walked in, and then came over and kissed my forehead, before taking the glass from my hand and moving to put it in a cupboard.

  He turned to face his mom then, and I saw anger glinting in his eyes. I was going to come between them. This wasn’t going to get better.

  “I suppose Lindy told you about the baby?” Jason said.

  “Yes,” his mom answered hovering at the far side of the kitchen, as though she was scared of me, or might catch something from me.

  I bet she’d put everything back in the dishwasher when I finished, to wash my contamination off her stuff.

  “And?” Jason prompted her, while we carried on putting stuff away.

  “And, are you happy with this?”

  “I’m happy, Mom, if I wasn’t happy, I wouldn’t be here with Rachel announcing that we’re expecting a
baby, would I? You clearly aren't.”

  “How can I be happy for you? This is all so sudden, Jason, you can’t feel what you think you do, and––”

  We never heard the end as Jason’s dad came through the back door. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear anyway. I just remembered my conversation with Jason at the lake. We knew it was real. It was real, even though it had happened fast.

  “Jason, would you come and help me fetch the drinks from the garage?”

  Jason threw me a look as if to say do you mind?

  With a smile I told him to go. I could handle his mom without having to resort to using my stilettos. She never said a word though after Jason left.

  Nor did I, I just carried on putting things away, and kept my mouth buttoned tight, so I didn’t blurt out something else which would only make her hate me more.

  But God, I’d had enough of this place.

  ~

  “Jason. You know, relationships need to be based on more than sex.”

  Fucking hell, we were going to have this conversation now.

  “Well it seems to me, Dad…” I picked up a crate of wine he’d got from one of the local vineyards. “That having nothing in common and a crap sex life with someone you were going to spend your life with, is an even worse idea. Anyway I don’t just love Rachel because she’s good in bed.” I raised one eyebrow at him, when he turned around holding a crate of wine too. I knew he hadn’t wanted me to either acknowledge or refute his statement. I’d given him more information than he wished to know, but he’d opened the subject. And me falling for Rachel had happened fast, yes, but it was real. It was definitely real.

  As we started walking back toward the house, I said, “Dad, Rach is a breath of fresh air in the city. She’s fun, she’s bright, she’s full of life, and she has some great, stupid, ideas. We have days when we just chill out and play on my Xbox together, and she runs with me too. When did you ever see Lindy do that? You never saw it, Dad, ‘cause she never did it.”

  We deposited the crates of wine on the porch, and then returned to the garage for another load.

  Dad looked at me. There was a question in his eyes.

  I felt like I was finally winning some ground here. “You’ve seen what Rach is like. She’s supportive and encouraging and we talk stuff through. I never did any of that with Lindy. Everything I did until I went to New York was what Lindy wanted. She never cared what I wanted.”