I Found You

by Lark, Jane

  His skin colored and he stood as his hands fisted, proving to me that he’d hit Rachel in the past.

  “I suppose she wants money. She won’t get it.”

  “If she’d wanted money she’d have stayed with you. She doesn’t want it.”

  “Then why the hell tell me!”

  “Because it’s your child. You should know.”

  “What do I care about that bitch, or her child? She’s mad as hell. And you should know what you’re getting in to.” He grabbed his shirt and pulled it out of his waistband.

  There was a red-raw jagged scar on his side, about two inches long. It had the same appearance as the one on Rach’s palm, except it had stitch scars too.

  “The bitch did this the night she left.” He let his shirt fall. “If I were you I wouldn’t sleep. She’s fucking crazy. Did you know that? I’d get rid of the kid, and get rid of her.”

  I just stared at him, and my mind ran through what Rach’s life must have been like; how low she must have judged herself to be sucked into a life with this asshole. She must have been miserable.

  Well she had me now.

  He looked into my eyes. “Is that all you want?”

  He was dismissing me, but more importantly dismissing his son or daughter. Well it wouldn’t be a loss to them. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “Yes, and don’t expect anything from me in the future.” The bastard growled at me.

  “We won’t,” I snapped back. “And, can I have that in writing?” What I wanted to say was ‘and this is for Rachel’ and then punch him in the face. I didn’t, what I needed was him out of our lives not a court case.

  In answer, he picked up a blank piece of paper and scribbled, I want nothing to do with Rachel Shears, or her child, on it. He underlined it, and signed it, Declan Rees, then dated it.

  He held it out to me.

  The bastard. I couldn’t hit him, but I could…

  “I’m resigning, you can take this as me giving you notice, too.” I couldn’t work here now. I’d do any job I had to, but I wasn’t going to work here and have to keep looking at him.

  He glared. “Well then, you can consider yourself dismissed. Pack up your stuff and get the fuck out of my sight.”

  My heart raced, with anger, shock, and fear. Shit, what had I done? I had a wife and child to support.

  But I wasn’t going to backtrack. I couldn’t stay here. “Fine.” I said, staring back at him, then I turned and left the room.

  Justin stared at me when I got back to my desk.

  Immediately I started emptying my drawers, catching Mr. Rees watching me from his office door. When he saw me notice, he turned and went back in, cutting me, Rachel, and his kid, out of his life. Thank God.

  “What are you doing?” Justin asked.

  “Leaving, Justin. Sorry.” I was piling everything into a small cardboard box which had been under my desk. There wasn’t much, I hadn’t been here too long.

  I remembered the guy I’d been when I walked in here. Hopeful, thinking this job was going to be the answer to everything that was bad in my life. It hadn’t been. Rachel had been that. This job I’d dreamed of for years, meant nothing.

  But what would I do now? I needed to earn money, and I’d spent everything I’d saved on Las Vegas.

  “Why are you leaving?” Justin asked.

  Others had looked up, and the girls came over.

  I smiled at him. “I just realized this job isn’t for me.” Being a husband and a father to Rachel and our child, that was the job for me.

  “Jason?” That was from one of the girls, Portia.

  My box packed, I pulled my coat off my chair. “Nice to have met you, Justin. Cheers for being a friend. Bye.”

  “Bye,” he answered, as I walked away, the cardboard box under my arm.

  I rode the subway home.

  Thank God Rach wasn’t home when I got in.

  I looked at the stuff in my box and realized none of it was important. I chucked it away.

  Dammit, I was going to have to tell her we only had her income now.

  Coward that I was, I got changed and went for a run in Central Park.

  Rachel still wasn’t in when I got back. She was working all day, still making up her lost Christmas hours. She’d have to work 24/7 to pay the rent on the apartment on her own. Shit, I’d done something really stupid. And yet I couldn’t regret walking out, only losing the income.

  I showered and changed, and decided to do something I hadn’t done for a while and eat at the restaurant.

  Rachel glanced across as I walked in. She looked surprised, pleasantly so, she threw me a broad smile, then looked back at the customer whose order she was taking.

  I took a breath, remembering the news I came bearing, and moved to the table near the kitchen.

  Rach rushed past, taking her order in.

  God I loved her.

  Joe was behind the bar pouring customers’ drinks. He winked at me.

  I smiled, though I didn’t feel like smiling. The shock had worn off during my run, and now the reality was setting in.

  Rach came back a couple of minutes later with her pad.

  “Hey, you fancied eating out then?”

  “I fancied seeing you,” I answered.

  She smiled.

  I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t while she was still working. I wished she could just sit down with me.

  “A burger?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And beer?”

  “Yep.”

  She glanced back at Joe, and he moved to open one.

  “You, okay?” She said when she looked back, tilting her head a little.

  I wanted to say, no, but I didn’t. She must have seen the answer in my eyes anyway.

  “What is it?” she slipped into the chair opposite me.

  “I’m sorry, Rach.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I messed up. I’ve left my job.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t work there when he’s there.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  She reached across the table and gripped my hand.

  “Yeah, and he said what you thought he would, he doesn’t want anything to do with the baby, I got it in writing too. But there was no way I could stand being there with him, Rach. I’m sorry, I quit, and then he told me to get out today. I’ve left.”

  Her fingers squeezed mine harder. “It’s okay, Jason. Like you said, we’ll work it out.” She looked across her shoulder, then back.

  She stood.

  “I have to get back to work. I’ll get your beer.”

  When she brought it over, her hand ran across my hair and she leaned down and kissed my head.

  “Thank you, Jason.” Her breath brushed my skin as I looked up, puzzled. “For being willing to defend me,” she answered the question that must have shown in my eyes. “It feels like years ago since that awful night when I got away from him. Then I found my knight in shining armor on Manhattan Bridge. I can’t believe you’ve given up your dream, for me. I’m sorry. We’ll talk later, but just, thank you.”

  I caught a hold of her hand, and looked up into her green eyes. “You’re my dream, Rach.”

  She smiled, and I let her fingers slip from mine as she hurried off to put my order in.

  God, I was happy, when I had no reason to be happy, other than I was with this woman.

  I ate the burger and drank my beer, watching Rachel work, and feeling the calm, rightness, I always felt around her.

  My life had turned upside down, but it was finally the right way up.

  When Rach finished her shift, she suggested we walk down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park before going home.

  It was quiet. We walked by the water. The water she’d planned on jumping into when I’d found her. I shivered at the thought of her being consumed by it.

  We stopped at the railing and looked at the lights reflecting on it. They were shifting as the water swayed.

&n
bsp; My life had changed so much since I’d met Rach. I’d grown up, properly grown up.

  I gripped the railing and felt the cold seep through my gloves.

  She gripped my arm.

  “Have you called your Mom yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Call her now. She’ll want to know, Jason. She’ll be upset if you don’t tell her what happened.”

  Rach was right.

  I took my cell out my pocket, went into my contacts and brought up, Mom. I pressed the call symbol and held my breath while it rang, looking at Rach.

  She smiled reassuringly.

  “Hello, Jason.”

  “Hi Mom. I’m sorry, I’ve got some bad news.”

  “Oh darling, what now?”

  “I left my job. I couldn’t stay there. Not with him owning the place. It all felt wrong. I talked to him but he’s not interested and he called Rach a bitch. I couldn’t stay there, Mom.”

  I watched Rach listening, clearly trying to work out what Mom was saying at the other end.

  “Are you upset?”

  “To have left there, no––”

  “It’s just we had so many arguments about you going and this being the thing you really wanted to do…”

  “Rach is more important than any of that, Mom.”

  Rachel smiled at me.

  “But this was what you said you wanted all your life, Jason.”

  “I know I said that, Mom. But I was wrong. Rach is what I’ve wanted all my life. I just had to come to New York to find her. I have her now. I can work anywhere. It doesn’t really matter.”

  Tears shone in Rachel’s eyes as she listened. Then one tumbled over and ran down her cheek. I wiped it away with my free hand.

  “Well, as long as you are both happy, Jason. Then we will be happy for you.”

  “Okay, I’m going to go. I’m just walking Rach home from work, but Rachel said you’d be upset if I waited to tell you what happened.”

  “She was right. Goodnight, Jason, and say goodnight to Rachel too.”

  “Night.”

  She rang off.

  I smiled at Rachel. “She said, goodnight. I think you’ve seriously won them over.”

  Rach hugged me, her arms crossing behind my back.

  I held her too.

  We stood there in the city lights, in the dark, and I knew what I had said to Mom had been right. Fate had led me here, only to find her.

  She pulled away and wiped tears from her eyes again, smiling. “You know, you don’t even need a massive publishers, or printing machines, or anything but a laptop to start up a magazine. You could write your own and publish it on the internet.”

  I just stared at her for a moment and then laughed. “Do you know what? You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that?” Because I was meant to have come here. I laughed. Of course we’d covered online magazines at college, but I’d been holding out for the traditional route. But what the hell did it matter if it appeared on a shelf in a store or not? Rach, was right. I should just do it.

  I tilted up her chin with my fingers, kissed her, and then whispered over her lips, “Do you know I fancy having you up against this railing. You could sit on it.”

  She gave me a measuring look before laughing. “That isn’t happening. There are a hundred CCTV cameras around here.”

  “Ah, damn, and here I was hoping you would be feeling a little reckless.”

  “That isn’t funny, and it still wouldn’t be happening.”

  My cell rang.

  I looked down when I drew it out my pocket, then up at Rachel. “Mom? Hi, what is it?”

  “I’ve been talking to your father, Jason, and we both agree you should come home.”

  “Come home?” My eyebrows lifted as I passed the message on to Rach.

  “Yes, dear. You and Rachel. You can work in the store again, and we can help with the baby. And maybe you can consider your father’s offer and take over the store? We’ll help you find a house here…”

  “Take over the store?”

  Rachel’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Yes, dear. Isn’t that the best option?”

  “Possibly. I’ll need to talk it over with Rachel. It was hard for her at Christmas, and with her bipolar, I don’t want her upset.”

  “Well, we can ensure people understand, now. We will make everyone aware Rachel had no malice when the two of you started. We’ll tell everyone that we were wrong.”

  I said nothing for a moment, just looked at Rachel. She was silent, listening, though she probably couldn’t hear.

  “I’ll speak to Rach, and call you back. But thank you for offering. I’ll call you in a bit. Will you be up?”

  “We’ll stay up, honey.”

  “Okay, I’ll speak to you in a while.”

  I ended the call and looked at Rachel. “What do you think? She said if we go back, they’ll help us get our own place, and they’d be there if you need help with the baby, Rach. Plus, if I’m going to just take any job, it may as well be in the store.”

  “You want to go, don’t you?”

  I nodded. The idea of being home again, in a place I knew, burned inside me suddenly.

  Rachel took the cell from my hand.

  She looked up at me as she lifted it to her ear, having made the call.

  “Hi, Mrs. Macinlay. He says thank you, yes, he’d love to be able to come home and work in the store. It’s his dream…” she ended with a bright smile, to mock me.

  I laughed.

  “But I’ve got one condition. Jason wants to be able to work with his dad in the office at the back of the store. He can learn to manage it, but he wants to have his own computer out there, so he can set up an internet magazine as well. I’ll work in the store if that’s okay, so he’ll get time to do it.”

  I loved this girl.

  “Rachel, you are crazy.” Jason whispered.

  “Not regarding this,” I answered, with his mother still on the end of the cell.

  “Regarding, what, dear?” she said, sounding confused.

  “He called me, crazy,” I answered. “I’m not. What he really wants is to have the store and a magazine.”

  “And you, dear, I think you come into what he really wants, too, and I believe that’s what we all want; what is best for Jason. So, yes, he shall have his own desk and computer, and you can work in the store, and we will all be happy.”

  I laughed. “Thank you, Mrs. Macinlay.”

  “If you don’t feel comfortable calling me Mom at least call me Ester, Rachel dear. You are my daughter-in-law, you can’t keep calling me, Mrs. Macinlay.”

  I smiled, as Jason watched me, obviously wondering what his Mom was saying.

  “Thank you, Ester.” Jason’s eyebrows lifted and he smiled. “I really appreciate you helping us out.”

  “Well you are very welcome, dear, and I am very sorry we got you so wrong at Christmas. We shall make amends when you come back. Goodnight dear.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I felt tears in my eyes again, and Jason took the cell from my hand.

  “Hey Mom, what Rach said. I’ll book the flights tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He looked at me his eyes dark and glowing. “She is a great girl, isn’t she? And I am lucky to have found her.”

  “Night, Mom. Say thanks to Dad too.”

  He hung up. We stood, looking at each other.

  He took my hand, and I remembered him taking it when I’d sat in the bath, and he was a stranger, and being intensely aware of his gentleness.

  We were going to be happy.

  Everything was going to be alright.

  ~

  I couldn’t sleep; my mind was spinning with everything going on. I’d have to hand in my notice in the morning, and I was gonna be moving to a town where a ton of people hated me. I looked over at Jason. All I could see was the outline of his head against the white pillow in the dark. I might as well get up. It was either that or I woke him up. I wasn’t gonna get back to s
leep.

  As I walked around the mattress to get out of the room, I grabbed up a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt from a pile of clean washing he hadn’t put away. I’d play on his Xbox or something. It would distract my head.

  I looked back at Jason as I quietly opened the door. I could hear his breathing, but he was fast asleep. I slipped out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me.

  My hands were shaking when I turned on the water. I reached for a glass and filled it. I could feel the turbulence of energy inside me. Just a couple of days more and I’d find out about my meds, but I knew it was gonna be complex now I was pregnant, yet there was a fear growing inside me that something would tip off balance within me and I’d lose control completely. I didn’t want it to happen around Jason. My breathing was getting odd again, I felt like I couldn’t get the air into my lungs.

  I sipped the water trying to keep calm, and then I forced myself to breathe out fully, a long breath, like I was blowing into a paperback, that meant I drew a long breath back in.

  I tipped the rest of the water down the sink and left the glass on the side, then walked over to the TV to set up a game. But as I did, I glanced out the long window. There was a car in the street below. It was parked up with its lights on, on the opposite side of the street. I watched it; it didn’t move, and the lights didn’t go off.

  My heart pulsed harder, as the nearest rear door opened.

  Shit.

  Jason’s apartment was five floors up, I couldn’t really see… I didn’t know… But… I did know. I knew exactly who it was. I had known probably from the first moment I’d spotted the car. What the fuck was Declan doing here?

  Without stopping to consider it, I turned to go downstairs. I never even put shoes on. I just pulled the door open and walked out. It banged shut behind me. I sped up, and started almost running downstairs. I couldn’t take the elevator. I needed to burn energy. I ran down all five flights, my feet chilled by the concrete steps and my palm running over the metal rail. The scar on my hand felt really sensitive as it skimmed over the cold metal.

  Still hurrying, I pulled the glass door at the front open, and as soon as I came out I saw him. He was about to press the buzzer, he didn’t when he saw me. But then immediately, I realized what I’d done wrong. The other doors of the car opened.

  Shit.