by Gina Watson
Jackson was sore and he felt it when he tensed. He carried their coffees in to-go cups stacked one on top of the other in one hand, and two bags of beignets in the other. There was a free table not far from where they stood, so he set his course for it. After he set down the breakfast items he took his stand next to Clara.
“Good morning.” He extended the olive branch. “Won’t you please join us?” He gestured indicating his table.
“We were just leaving.” Clay broke the branch in half. He tugged Eve’s arm, pulling her in front of him and urging her forward with a hand to the small of her back. He turned to Clara, “I meant what I said.”
Clara ran after him. “No. Please.” She tugged on his meaty hand. “Please stay.” He pulled his hand free and moved forward with purpose. She watched his retreating back for a while. When she turned, her face was a mess—red and blotchy from tears and frustration.
Jackson placed his arm around her and she leaned into his side as they slowly made their way back to the table. She blew her nose with a napkin and sipped her coffee. “What did he say, Bug?”
Her eyes, large and luminous, stared at him without blinking.
“Tell me.”
Biting her lip she shook her head, resolved to leave him in the dark.
“I need to know what I’m up against here. I need you to tell me.”
She closed her eyes tight and spoke, “He said he wasn’t going to sit idly by and watch me make a mistake that could ruin my life.”
Jackson’s breath hitched and his skin prickled. He’d thought of Clay as a brother, a friend. He knew Clay would be mad about their deception, but he never thought he’d think of Jackson as a mistake. The thing of it was, Clay was absolutely right. Jackson knew he would be Clara’s biggest mistake.
≈
They spent the rest of that weekend taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of New Orleans. Clara changed the subject whenever Jackson mentioned Clay, but her brother’s words were singed onto his brain. Jackson couldn’t remember New Orleans ever feeling so drab. His demeanor was anything but festive and at odds with the environment surrounding him—no matter what was going on in his private life, the city’s pulse didn’t cease. It had become as irritating as an ingrown hair. He breathed a sigh of relief when they’d finally loaded up the car and were headed back home.
“Do you remember when you started calling me Bug?”
“Of course.”
“You said it was because I was like a gnat.”
“At the time you were. You’d hover around me constantly, making sure I’d come down for meals, and you forced me to interact. I couldn’t get rid of you no matter what I did.”
“You were so mean. I thought you hated me.”
“I could never hate you. I loved you even when I was mad at you because you never gave up on me.”
“And you were there for me when no one else was.”
He stroked her head. “They wanted to be there.”
She smiled and looked down, shielding her eyes from his view. “I know, but it was you. You saved my life. It’s always been you Jackson. Since I was seven-years-old. ”
Seven and seventeen. His life stopped the day his parents died. It restarted the day he and Clara came together. Would anybody believe she’d saved him and he unreservedly loved her? Would they listen as they told their story? Or would their future be destroyed by anger and hate?
“I think if Clay and the rest of my brothers knew how deep our connection ran they’d understand.”
He disagreed. In fact, he thought they’d respond just as Clay had. The evidence was quite damning: he’d had sex with their baby sister when she was sixteen and he twenty-six. That’s all anyone would see when they looked at them. And he shouldn’t be forgiven for what he’d done.
To make matters worse he was attempting to cling to her for the rest of his life. He wanted to bind her to him so deeply that there would be no way to sever their connection, but it wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair to her. She hadn’t lived her life. She hadn’t discovered who she wanted to be, what she wanted to be. She’d sacrificed, put off her hopes and desires to stay with him as he pursued his medical degree. If he truly loved her wouldn’t he want her to pursue culinary school and maintain a strong connection to her family? If he loved her he would set her free. The more he thought about it, the more he knew what his next move had to be. And he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.
≈
Jackson spent the rest of the ride home going over different scenarios in his head trying to come up with something that didn’t make him out as the bad guy. He imagined himself as a thirty-five-year old brother of six with an eighteen-year-old sister. Then his mind conjured up a faceless twenty-eight-year old man, a man that was living with his sister and wanted to propose marriage. A man that had taken her innocence at the age of sixteen. Every scenario had the same ending—he was a gangrenous limb that needed to be severed in order to save her future.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Cracker Jack. What’s going through that head of yours?” Clara reached across the gearshift and clasped his hand in hers.
He was a mistake that could ruin her life. You are dead to me.
Clay’s words had never been clearer. Jackson wouldn’t come between Clara and her family. There would be nothing he could say to make her understand why they had to breakup, but he’d save her from herself. She could find a thousand guys to marry her—most of them better off than he was, but she only had one family. Family was irreplaceable. Irreplaceable. No one knew as well as Jackson just how true that statement was. If they were to stay together she’d grow to hate him for taking her family away from her. He was the reason she hadn’t attempted to make her dreams a reality. She should be at cooking school. What he had to do was going to hurt them both.
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
He exhaled long and loud. “I was thinking you should attend that culinary school in Texas.
“We’ve been over this before. I would do it only if I could still see you every day. Since that’s not possible I’m not interested. Besides, I have new goals. One day I hope to open my very own artisan cheese shop. I’m going to have cheeses that people can only find at my shop.”
The cheese shop idea was a good one for her. She was filled with knowledge of all things cheese. He loved how passionate she became when she regaled him with the history of the cheese they consumed. She’d get a little wrinkle on her forehead while she deliberated over flavor and made her judgments.
It would kill him to let her go.
“Jackson?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re different. I’ve seen you moody, but that usually fades away once we’re together.”
He pulled their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her thumb. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out what she saw in him. He was a moody difficult bastard. In spite of all that he was she’d loved him
“It’s complicated. Your brother, my former friend and brother, my link to the only family I’ve got, is no longer part of who I am. It’s only a matter of time before you’re issued the same ultimatum.”
“What ultimatum?”
“He said I was dead to him.”
“Yes, but in time he will come to see our love for one another.”
A cynical laugh started soft in his throat and deepened, but he couldn’t stop it, even when he saw the hurt look on her face. She turned away from him to look out the window as his laughter became intermittent giggling and then slowly subsided. “It’s never going to happen. But I do appreciate your naiveté.”
Nothing was said after that. They drove in silence for forty-five minutes. He pulled into their complex and followed her into the apartment. He closed the door and said, “I think we should try and take a break from each other.”
She turned swiftly and stared, unblinking, into his eyes. Her face slowly contorted into a frown. “I don’t want to try that.”
�
�I need some space so I’m asking you to stay at your apartment for a while.” His jaw clenched so hard he gave himself a toothache.
“You need space?” She sighed. “From me?” Her words came out in a tortured whisper.
His thumb scratched across his brow. “I need distance from … everything.”
“Everything?” Her voice cracked.
He closed his eyes and nodded. “Life is out of control. This relationship is much harder than I thought it would be. Managing work, school, and us … I just can’t keep up with the pace.” As much as it killed him he felt his resolve take hold and clamp down, turning his face and body to stone. It was the same feeling he got when he dug in to save a dying man in the emergency room, or when he pedaled his bike with all his might to overtake a car on top of the Horace Wilkinson Bridge.
She gulped air through unshed tears. “It’s been hard, but the one thing I’ve remained sure about in any of this is you … us … you’ll never convince me that you haven’t felt the same.”
“I can’t do this anymore … I don’t want to do it anymore.” He vigorously rubbed his fingers through his hair. “You have an apartment much nicer than this one. I think you should go to it.”
“I-I don’t want to go. I love you. Every decision I’ve made for the last two years has been made with you in mind.” She choked through her staccato breathing. “My every move has been calculated so that on day we can take a dazzling bite out of life. You work so hard all the time and I want you to accomplish your goals, your dreams. But most of all I want you to be happy because you’ve made me happier than I’d ever imagined being. I thought I was in your dreams, your goals, your future.” She frantically shook her head. “No! I know for a fact I was in your dreams. You can’t feign a love like ours. All our emotion, our love and need is greater than any one bad or negative moment. You’ve always said you need my love and happiness to help you find your own. One can’t exist without the other.”
He did need her around to feel happy and content. Without her he’d succumb to the darkness and suffer bone-crippling nightmares. She alone kept his demons away and now she’d be gone.
She whispered and choked, “You said you’d stand by me forever.”
The room became eerily quiet. She looked down at her clasped hands. “You wanted to be married so badly you were grumpy for two weeks after the wedding.” Her gaze found his. “Has that all changed for you?”
No, Bug. It hasn’t. I love you and this is killing me. I’d rather be dead than to try to figure out how to survive without you.
His eyes narrowed and his brow curled in pain. He would sacrifice his wants and needs for her to have a shot at a full and complete life—a life with all her brothers, and her parents’ support of love and encouragement. There was no room for him in that picture.
He looked at her shoulder because he could never bear to see the pain he caused reflected in her eyes. “It’s changed for me.” He pointed from her to himself. “This is just taking too much energy. It’s become difficult.”
“If this is all true then why won’t you look me in the eye when you say it?”
His eyes closed tightly and his jaw locked. His teeth might shatter but he didn’t care. Time hung in the air. When he finally opened his eyes he knew his expression was banked, lost, hollow. “It is all true. We’re holding each other back. This isn’t healthy. You can go do all the things you want, like culinary school, without me here to keep you down.”
“I don’t believe you.” She gasped and her eyes pleaded with him and demanded the truth.
What could he tell her? What would she believe? He’d have to hurt her, but didn’t want to. Only it wasn’t to hurt her, it was to help her and give her the future she deserved. He inhaled deeply. “Given everything that’s happened—the secrets, New Orleans, your accident, my parents’ death—I think it would be better if we broke up. A clean break can mean a fresh start. You’re not good for me. I need something … different.”
“Jackson.” Huge salty bullets streamed down her face. She looked down at her hands clenched tight. “Don’t do this,” she whispered.
“I won’t return until I know you’ve gone.”
“Jackson, our future is weeping because you’re about to erase it.”
“It can’t cry because I’ve already deleted it.”
His hand hovered in the air before her, reaching, but then it dropped and he shook his head and turned to make his exit.
Oh, God. He wanted to turn back around and pull her tightly to him.
Don’t turn around.
Let her go.
Don’t turn around.
Don’t hold her back, set her free.
But I need her to survive.
Don’t turn around.
Bug, stop me, reach out and stop me.
If she stopped him from walking out the door he’d cave.
His hand rested on the cold steel doorknob. He waited a beat, hoping she would stop him or that he would be too weak and stop himself. Instead he growled in his throat and then gasped, almost sobbed, as he opened the door and walked slowly through it, listening for her footsteps. The only thing that could be heard was a huge gaping vacuum of silence. It was so vast he could hear his own heartbeat.
He opened the car door, every action so painful it was almost impossible to move. He felt the pull of gravity deep in his bones. He folded into his car and landed heavily in the seat. With every imaginable regret he’d had in his life permeating the atmosphere, he slowly inserted the key into the ignition and started the car. His throat burned and tears flowed freely down his cheeks. After he shifted the car into reverse he backed out and drove away. In the rearview mirror he saw her flailing her arms, screaming his name. And then she fell to her knees.
His fingers tensed around the steering wheel.
Let her go.
He watched as the image of her on her knees in the street became smaller and smaller in the mirror.
Choking out a cough he said, “Oh, Bug. I’m dying.”
His foot punched the accelerator.
He felt as he had the day his parents had passed. The world had become dark, cold, and impossible to navigate.
Chapter 12
Numbness settled into Clara’s limbs. She knew she needed to get out of the street, but she couldn’t move. A car behind her stopped. She heard the commotion, but everything slowed to a crawl. A hand on her shoulder startled her and she looked up into the face of Mr. Porter.
“Clara? Are you hurt?”
“Yes!” She wailed and gasped. The look of worry on his face sobered her. “No, not physically anyway.” She put her hand to the ground to push herself up.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“No, Mr. Porter, but thank you.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m not sure at all. Jackson just broke up with me.”
His brow curled into a pronounced frown. “That’s not something I would have ever expected. He seemed so gone on you.” He stared at her with a quizzical look on his face. “I’m sure it’s just temporary.”
“I don’t know … it sure seemed final.” She shuddered.
She walked toward the door. “See you around Mr. Porter.”
Standing in the foyer she wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her arms. On the console table by the door sat an electronic frame that cycled through images of them.
She cried as she watched two years of their life play in loops on a five by seven square. They had so many memories to bury. One of him in a red sweater she’d knitted him. The right sleeve protruded past his fingertips and the left ended at his elbow. One of her with frosting on her face from a cupcake he’d dabbed on her nose. There was the one they took together at the Baton Rouge State Fair on the ferris wheel, their heads together. He’d taken some candid photos of her too. He liked catching her just waking up or when she was yawning, eating, or laughing uncontrollably. She’d done the same. There was a shot of him in his
paramedic uniform just home from an eighteen-hour day. He’d been so exhausted. Another one of him in nothing but hospital scrub bottoms looking like sex personified. Another scrolled by of him in a lab coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck.
She wanted the frame, but knew it would rip her heart out to play it. Plus to remove anything from the apartment seemed sacrilegious. There was no way to separate any of it. The items couldn’t be divided because they’d discovered and explored them together. Everything they owned existed because they were together. To remove any one item would be too much like admitting they were done and she couldn’t force herself to do it.
She could only manage to gather some of her clothes, her laptop, and the fluted pie dish he’d given her. She also grabbed a few of his worn T-shirts and his pillow. She wanted his scent all around her until it faded away.
Car loaded with the items, she attempted to back out, but an imaginary tether connected her to the space. Her foot wouldn’t cooperate and allow her hit the gas because once she left this place it would formally be over.
“Cracker Jack.” Tears streamed down her face.
She dug around in her school bag and removed a post-it note. She wrote an important message she needed Jackson to read before he went into his apartment.
≈
Jackson pulled into the complex. Immediately he saw that her car was gone. He didn’t want it to be true. He’d half thought she wouldn’t leave, but she’d believed the lies he’d told her about needing more. He’d hate himself to the grave for the hurt he’d caused her.
At the door he pulled off a post it.
Code Jackson.
He removed a pen from his pocket and wrote Code Clara beneath her print. He stuck the sticky note on the foyer table. Tears fell for the past and the future that had been erased.
She should forget him and it should be easy. He was too old, too poor, and too shattered to be with her. Given her tendency to be introverted, she easily fell beside him and they rocked to a rhythm set by the tune of their hearts. But she needed to find her own rhythm, a young pulsing beat that would love eternally.