by Leanne Davis
“I relapsed plenty of times before. My last effort was the seventh time I tried to get clean. It was a long process, but I believe I succeeded this last time because I was ready. I used proper medication to detox and stay off it. I was treated for subsequent conditions. I learned I had a serious problem with depression. I still take medication for that. I’m not embarrassed because it’s a real diagnosis. I had therapy, both group and individual. I am in a twelve-step program now, and I’d like to add my family into my network of support. I just wanted to clarify that this is not as new as you might think. I learned and failed and tried and retried until I think I finally found a recipe that works. But I can’t expect you to put your own happiness on hold. I get that.” He released her leg, gave her a small smile and turned and left her room. She blinked. In a fast second, he was gone. The door slammed, and she was left all alone with her aching foot and an aching heart.
Chapter Eighteen
THE PAIN IN JACOB’S head made him press on his temples. He could only try and counteract the throbbing with outside pressure. He sat on the couch his mom gave him and stared at the floor. The room was silent. The usual sounds of the other residents could be annoying or tiring but were often comforting nonetheless. But not tonight. He rubbed his hands over his aching, sore eyes, and his tears still fell. Fucking tears. Was this his latest affliction? Was he addicted to crying now?
He’d been scared for so much of his life. Scared of living on the streets. Scared of the drugs he craved. And the people he hung out with. The awful things he saw that could have easily happened to him. He feared never getting clean. He feared dying on the streets. He feared living without the euphoria of heroin in his system for the rest of his life. That really scared him.
He rubbed his face and knew Luna would not approve of anything in his past. But what could he say to assuage her fear that he’d relapse? She logically concluded she wasn’t sure she wanted to accept that threat.
She wasn’t sure she could live in a constant state of feeling scared.
Not as Jacob lived. And how could he ask her to do that? He should have walked away the minute they first touched. Or kissed. Or made love. He should have spared her this awful decision. That was the fucker of the whole thing. He couldn’t and shouldn’t argue with her. She should not want to be with him any longer. Luna was smart, articulate, and could think with a cool, rational mind, which he admired and once possessed himself.
Maybe that’s why it took both of them to go after the gunman. Maybe.
She deserved only the best the world had to offer, and Jacob was offering her the opposite. He realized she was correct. Right. He was doomed. A moment away from another relapse. Heroin. Who could kick it after so much habitual use?
His own mother believed he was dead. That’s how bad it was. And why Luna was correct.
Why even try? He could never be free of it, or guarantee his sobriety, and decent people could not be expected to put up with the reality of that situation.
There was some logic to that, but he also knew how self-pity, defeatism, and the previous thought patterns he had could lead him to say fuck it! Poor me! before injecting his fucking veins full of poison.
He sucked in a breath and flopped back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, damn, it was never-ending and depressing. His eyelids flipped open when there was sudden hard knocking on his apartment door.
Knock. Knock. Pound. Pound. Harder. Over and over again. Who or what the hell?
He lunged to his feet and quickly crossed the small space, twisted the doorknob, and flung open the door.
His mouth dropped open. Luna. She’d been crying, and it looked like a lot of tears, judging by the redness of her eyes. “Luna? What’s happened? What… How did you get here?”
She flung herself into his arms, and her entire body was shaking. She sobbed and quaked, hurling her crutches away and sending them clattering to the floor. He caught her, grasping her waist to keep her upright and take the weight off her aching leg. How did she get here? What could have happened? What?
But she was hysterical, so it was impossible to get her to explain. She hung on to him, her hands around his neck and her weight totally supported by him. She leaned back, and her tears fell. Her hand touched his cheeks, and she stared up into his eyes.
“What is it?” Jacob asked.
“I was afraid…”
“Why? Luna? What are you doing here? Talk to me.”
“I was afraid this could trigger you into a relapse. The stress of making you feel like no one could ever love you because of what you did once and not what you are now… and I couldn’t stand to be the cause.”
He shut his eyes and an even sharper pain sliced through his brain. She expected him to seek a fix so quickly. She cared about him. She didn’t want him to relapse. But so swiftly, she believed he could. She came there to what? Rescue him from doing that?
He sighed and released her. “How did you drive here?”
“I didn’t. I called your sister.”
He glanced out the open front door and, sure enough, there was Brianna. She looked back at him with tears in her eyes, but she was far calmer than Luna.
Luna pressed her lips on his briefly.
Jacob took her arm and helped her sit on his couch. “Sit. Before you hurt yourself.”
Sweeping his arm at his sister, he added, “Brianna. Come in.”
She entered with obvious shame and regret.
Luna slumped on the couch. Jacob walked over to her and touched her shoulder. Sighing, he walked forward and asked, “Do you need anything?”
She shook her head no. But he walked over and lifted her foot before setting it gently on the battered coffee table and propping a few pillows under it. “Thank you,” she whispered softly. Her tears were fresh, and her voice was trembling.
“You’re welcome.” He eyed his sister, who was watching him closely. “Brianna?”
Brianna moved forward and sat down. “Please don’t be mad.”
“I called her and freaked her out. So…”
He glanced from Luna to his sister. “Did you call Mom?”
“No,” Brianna replied firmly. “I figured…”
“If I was lying here stoned out of my head, you would what? Not tell her? Try to break it gently to her?”
“Yes, perhaps, that’s exactly what I thought.”
“Did you think I would be like that?”
“I don’t know. Luna said you were crying and distant. In all the years I’ve known you, which amount to your whole life, you’ve never once been like that. I thought you really cared about Luna and worried that a fallout with her would have been a trigger.”
He grimaced. “I see you’ve been reading about heroin addiction.”
“Luna’s biggest fear and concern are my reality, too. She was upset and called me. So, of course, I came over to get her and to check on you. It could happen any time, of course. She’s not wrong. You’re well aware of that, too, so don’t stand there and act all indignant.”
He rubbed his hands in his hair. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty that everyone thinks I’m just waiting for a reason to return to heroin. Everyone is expecting me to relapse.”
“Well, no one wants that, of course, but here we are. We are willing and able to intervene and even glad to do it. Compared to the alternative, it’s paradise. The alternative was you being gone or dead. And this? Mom and I consider it pretty minor when compared to your continuing health, safety, and presence in our lives. Luna, on the other hand, might not want to sign up for that. I wasn’t given any choice, which is okay with me. I can accept that, as long as you’re alive and well. And if you should relapse? I think you’d have a better and faster recovery if you knew you had us: Mom and me, Finn, the Rydells. Instead of a street corner behind a dumpster. So yeah, I’m planning to come over often and check on you. So, get used to it. Get over it! And try to be glad of it.”
&
nbsp; “I guess I deserve that.”
“You think?” She turned to Luna. “I know how scared you are. I’ve grown up with this, and I’m almost used to it. I’m sure having it thrust on you all at once is shocking. But I must ask you to see him as the man he is now, not the punk he used to be. You don’t have the memories of him that I do. So, my advice to you is this: don’t be blind to what he was and could become again, but don’t dwell on it either. That’s my job, not yours. Try to see the man he is today. I love him and he’s my little brother. I don’t care how bad his past was, as ridiculous as that sounds, he deserves to be loved like any other human being. Now, I’m satisfied because I’ve checked on him. I stuck my nose where it doesn’t belong, as always, so Luna, would you like to stay here, or shall I take you home?”
“I’ll stay,” Luna replied without looking up at him.
“Then I’m going to leave now.” Brianna kissed Jacob’s cheek as she passed by him. “Goodnight, little brother.” She squeezed Luna’s shoulder on her way out.
“Thank you for the ride,” said Luna.
Brianna left, and Jacob stared, confounded, at Luna. “I must admit you threw me for a loop. I could have never predicted I’d be seeing you less than two hours after—”
Luna interrupted, “I dismissed you?”
“Well… yeah. You made some valid points. Like I said before, I can’t argue with anything you have to say. And as for the whole addiction thing? You can’t be responsible for my choices. Right? It has to all be on me. So…”
“So, if my cold rebuff made you want to shoot up, I should just say it’s not my fault?”
“Exactly. It wouldn’t be your fault at all. I’m assuming you care.”
She nodded. “I realized if it happened, I would care very much. I can’t be cold and calm about this. I don’t understand drug addiction. I don’t know how to help you or stop you from relapsing. Do you think this will happen a lot? Someone in your family rushing over to check and make sure you haven’t relapsed? And what if you do? You have a son! A son you don’t take care of. Before I met you, that would have been a deal breaker. Then, I remembered seeing you rise up, and you looked huge when you jumped the maniac with a loaded gun to save the lives of strangers. You stayed right here, beside me, supporting me and you’ve become the man I thought I always wanted. But now, I don’t know what to do.”
He flopped down beside her. Shaking his head with a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a lot to take in. You should probably try to relax and think it over. Ask some questions and do some research. Drugs played a large part of my life, and I can’t change that. I can only change who I am in the present and try to right the wrongs and any indecent things I did in the past. The past always catches up to you and affects the present. First on my agenda is releasing custody of Silas to my mom and Joey. They want to adopt Silas. I lost him years ago, and I can’t keep pretending that’s not true.”
She stared at him and nodded as she sniffled and rubbed her nose. “Okay. I think… I don’t think we’re done. But I need some more time. This was overwhelming. And seeing how willing Brianna was to keep you straight, your family must love you a lot because they’re so worried about you, panicked really, even if she would not admit it.” Luna glanced around and added, “No wonder you always go to my place.”
He winced with embarrassment. He didn’t want this to be the end point of his station in life. Only two years ago, that would have been unthinkable. “Yes, now you know why. But mostly I went over because you were there, and I love being around you. This place in comparison to yours, is awful. And even worse? I still owe my mom and Joey the money I borrowed for it with interest. I’m paying it back, sure, but Luna, quite honestly, I don’t have much. No savings account. No credit to speak of. I just barely managed to land a job, so—”
“I don’t need your money, Jacob. I can support myself, and I always have quite well. Will I support you? Maybe. But only if we’re together, which means you’re working and paying whatever you can afford.”
“I don’t want your money. But I would ask you to be patient until I can accumulate a nice pile of it. Can I take you home? You need to rest and get off that foot.”
She nodded. “Do you mind if I stay here?”
He sucked in a sharp breath, his heart skipping. “No. No. Of course not. There’s nothing I want more than to be around you.”
She smiled. “Except staying sober. Do you crave the high still?”
“To be honest, I think about it. If I were back on it, I would want it far more than anyone that I love, even you. It’s like a black hole. It sucks up everything else in your life. It took my values, and I handed them over freely. Now, come on. Let’s rest. There’s nothing more either of us can do tonight.”
She nodded and took his hand. Jacob pulled the bed down from the wall. It was small and lumpy, but Luna was too tired to care. She curled up contentedly into the very arms of the man that upset her, only to find herself feeling comforted by him just hours later. It was both confusing and comforting.
****
The next morning, Jacob reluctantly woke Luna because he had to go to work. She chose to go back home, and he dropped her off in the icy, cold darkness of the still night. His heart pounded in waves of regret. Regret for how he lived his life until now. And the man he wasn’t but should have been. And for never trying to improve himself.
She hobbled right back to her bed and slipped inside. Jacob pulled the covers up, tucking them neatly around her. She rolled her eyes but smiled in appreciation, savoring the attention. He leaned down and kissed her lips. Holding her cheek in his palm, he stared deeply into her eyes. “I’m going to give you plenty of space. I won’t call or press you. But if you need anything, I’ll be here. None of what’s happened between us changes anything as far as I’m concerned. I am always nearby to help you with anything you need. The café shooting is over, and I’m happy to make you believe that. Okay?”
She reached up and threaded her fingers through his. “Okay.”
With a heavy heart, filled with confusion and sadness, Jacob left. He had no idea where the relationship was headed, or what Luna would decide. He wished he could demand the answers to his questions, but clearly understood he had no right to demand anything. He had to let Luna work it out and let her contact him if she wanted to continue in any capacity that still involved him.
He went directly to his mom’s house when he finished work. Joey and Silas were at the kitchen table, working on a puzzle. They both glanced up when Jacob walked in. Their heads were touching in their concentrated effort. Jacob swallowed the lump that was lodged in his throat. He had to admit what he’d known from the start: Silas wasn’t his son. He didn’t know very much about him, only the superficial, fun stuff he gathered since he’d been back in River’s End. He loved Silas though, and the squeezing of his heart made him sure of that. Silas seemed more like a brother, staring up at him with a huge grin, splitting his face. “Jacob. Hey. Look!” Jacob walked closer and saw the train and tracks of the partially put together puzzle.
“That’s amazing. I never could put any puzzle pieces together, not even when I was a kid.”
“No, you couldn’t. You’d study them for hours but never managed to fit them together.”
He turned when he heard his mom’s voice as she walked in from the laundry room. “Hi, honey. How are you? Brianna told me what happened last night. Is everything okay? I mean… are you okay?”
He took her arm and tilted his head toward Silas. “Not in here.”
She nodded and followed him into the living room. “So?”
“I’m hurting, to be honest. It depresses me. I worry, almost to the point of panic, that she won’t see me again. I care a lot about her. Maybe for the first time in my life, I like one woman. At first, I thought it was over. I had a breakdown, Mom. I was crying and blubbering on the floor. It wasn’t attractive, but I just broke down and wallowed in it. I faced it before in therapy and analyticall
y studied it. This was just different. It was visceral… and strangely, I felt different this morning. Like… I don’t know. It was—”
“Cathartic? Maybe you finally had an Aha! moment over what your past. The years you sacrificed to the drug. Maybe you saw the terrible consequences you paid. Perhaps this is the first relationship you’ve ever wanted to pursue in a healthy, normal way.”
He winced and turned to stare at the embers in the fireplace. Snow was still falling outside the windows. “Yes. It is, and I did. But she said things that I needed to hear. You guys wouldn’t say them to me, well, maybe Joey would, but I refused to give them any credence. Truth. Honesty. Things that slap you in the face when you confront them.”
“Like what?”
“Like if I really can love and if I’m not a narcissist, then being back here can’t be about what I want. It has to be more about what’s best for the son I abandoned.”
Her entire body went rigid. “Jacob?” Hailey’s tone was filled with caution.
“I think we should call Joey in here.”
Hailey nodded, and her big eyes told Jacob she understood. She went into the kitchen and moments later, Joey and she came out. Jacob stood by the fireplace as they sat on the couch, clutching hands. He turned and said, “I was wrong to abandon Silas. He was my son and I should have gotten sober then to raise him and love him and be his family.”
“You didn’t do that, Jacob,” Joey said in a sharp tone.
“No, I didn’t. And I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved watching him. He’s funny, bright, sweet, and genuine. You guys have done an amazing job. And because of that, I’d like to see a lawyer, so I can sign over my rights of custody to you. Legally. I want you guys to adopt him.”
Joey’s face contorted through a series of transformations. Then, he slowly rose to his feet. “Wait. You mean you’re surrendering any future legal claim on him? Just like that?”
Jacob nodded. His stomach was hurting, but he felt a strange release as well. “This hurt me a lot, and it was hard, but I know it’s the right thing to do. So, I hope you know, or at least you can believe I didn’t do this to be free of him or the responsibility of fatherhood. I intended to come back here so I could eventually take him back. Getting a job and a little house, I was hoping to start raising him, just him and me. I thought he’d give me more direction and all that. But after I saw him here, I realized, he’s already got a home. With you guys. He’ll never see me as anything but his big brother. I lost the chance when I could have come back and done that. It’s too late now. He’s home with you. And if I try to change that, I’ll be ripping him away from all he knows and loves, his parents.”