“Stop hiding. Stop running away. Listen to me!” She squeezed my hands. “You are like my own daughter. You know that. I tell you all the time. The only thing worse than losing Braco would be to lose you, too.”
“But—”
“No but. You get up. You wash your face and you go to this man. You tell him how you feel, all right? You tell him you love him and want to be with him. Be brave, Janja. It takes courage to get through this life, because if you aren’t brave, then life and circumstances will grind you up into dust.”
Be brave, Janja.
My breath stung in my lungs and tears clogged my throat. My eyes were so impossibly sore, yet tears continued to pour out. I had no idea where they were coming from.
I shook my head. “I’m so scared.”
She stroked my hair. “We all are. Every day we are here, we never know what is going to happen. But life is meant to be lived. Do you think if I had the choice that I would choose to go back in time and not have a son, just so I could avoid the pain of losing him? No. Never. I carried that baby and raised him and held him in my arms and kissed him and loved him. And I remember the wonderful boy that he was. Yes, I think about the amazing man he would have become, but I’m grateful for every day that he was on this earth. I’ll never regret it. And you shouldn’t, either.”
I rubbed my eyes, hearing the truth in her words, and suddenly an inexplicable calm settled on my shoulders. The soreness and grief were still there, but there was comfort, too. There was love. The love I felt for Helena. The gratitude for having her in my life.
And she was right. If I had the choice, I’d go back and relive everything again. I’d be more than grateful for the time I had with Brock. The memories. My relationship with his amazing parents. All of it. No regrets.
No regrets.
Helena must have sensed the change in me because she just stroked my hair and spoke comforting words in our native language. Soon, my head was on her shoulder and she was singing an old folk song that my mama used to sing when I was little.
I was exhausted and depleted, but also fraught with worry about William. After ten minutes of silence, I slowly rose from the bed and went to my dresser to retrieve my phone.
When it bloomed to life, there was a stack of text messages and notifications of missed calls. Shit. Everyone was probably sick with worry about me while I was off having my pity party. When I should have been there for William…
Just as I was about to open my text-messaging app, the doorbell rang. I took a deep breath, and Helena rose from the bed, grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s go see who it is, okay? And then after that, you’ll speak to your young man. I hope I will meet him soon. In fact, I expect to meet him soon.”
Nodding, I wiped my face one last time with a tissue. Helena opened the door and together we walked into my front room. There, Alex stood talking with Adam, Mia, and a somber and dazed-looking William, whose head was heavily bandaged.
Joy infused the blood pumping through every vein the minute I laid eyes on him. I couldn’t suppress the goofy smile or the warm, overpowering relief I felt when I saw that he was okay.
I rushed to William, stopping myself just before taking him into my arms when I noticed him visibly stiffen. “Wil,” I breathed.
His jaw tensed and he stepped away from me, then held out a familiar lacquered box. My tiara. But the expression on his face was glacial. That brought me up short, and I stared at him over the box instead of taking what he offered me. His eyes dropped to the floor.
And the tension…you couldn’t have broken through it with a jackhammer. Adam and Mia shared a long look. Then she turned to William, placing a hand on his shoulder, which he promptly shrugged off. “Uh, Adam and I are going to wait for you outside by the stairwell.” She threw a significant glance at Alex.
“Oh, yeah…Mia, I have to talk to you two about something. I’ll go too.”
The three of them filed out. Beside me, Helena put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it before following the others, gently closing the door behind her.
The minute it closed, William spoke in a monotone even flatter than normal. “I came to deliver this to you. I won the duel and I am giving you the tiara, as promised.” He thrust the box toward me again. This time, I took it from him, flipping it open to make sure the tiara was inside and then setting it aside on a nearby table.
“Thank you. I’m so—”
But he had already turned away and was heading toward the door.
“Wil, wait!” I said and grabbed hold of his arm. He jerked it away like I’d burned him.
My gut twisted in panic. “William! Please. Please let me explain. I’m sorry.”
He hesitated, then slowly turned toward me. “I waited for you. Mia texted you. I called. You didn’t answer. All day I sat there worrying about you. I was in a hospital—I loathe hospitals. That’s a fact you don’t know because you never bothered to get to know me well enough to know that. I had to sit there and go through every stupid test without you. They had to sedate me to get me in that fucking machine to do a scan on my head.”
I gasped, realizing the depth of his anger in the simple use of that curse word. I’d never heard him say it before, and it sounded more venomous coming from him.
I felt like garbage. Less than garbage. And yet all I could choke out was, “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
“You weren’t there for me,” he repeated.
“I know. I’m sorry. I was…” My voice died before I could complete the sentence. I was selfishly freaking out and thinking about myself instead of you.
“Please, William. Can we talk?”
He blinked. “We are talking.”
“You’re mad at me. And you have every right to be. But please, can I explain what happened? I—I freaked out when I saw you go down. There was so much blood. I thought I was going to lose you, and I started to relive losing Brock—”
He jerked away from the door and started pacing across the small living area, hands rubbing over his thighs. “You still love Brock.”
“Yes, I told you that already. But I love you, too.”
He paced faster as he shook his head. “But you weren’t there for me.”
“Wil, I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
“I can’t depend on you. How do I know you won’t just leave?”
I swallowed. “I don’t want to leave. I want to be with you.”
He dragged in a ragged breath and let it go. “So last night you tell me you want to stay with me. Then we had sex. After the duel was over, you were nowhere to be seen. Was that a coincidence?”
I frowned, trying to wrap my head around what he was implying. I shook my head.
Then he stopped pacing so abruptly that it looked like the momentum might knock him right over. I’d left my door open and William was staring directly into my bedroom. At the bare walls, the stacked boxes, the open, empty dresser drawers.
I swallowed a hard lump in my throat.
“You are leaving,” he said between clenched teeth, fists tightening at his sides.
If I could have sunk into the ground and melted through the floor in that minute, I would have. While he’d been in the hospital, badly injured yet still worried about me, I’d been guzzling tequila and packing everything up.
And William was all about absolutes—everything was either black or white. How could I translate this for him?
“I was afraid…” I began, but he turned away from me as I spoke, his eyes scanning the rest of the apartment, probably searching for other clues pointing to my imminent departure. That was me. Jenna Kovac, permanent flight risk.
William was having none of it. He turned back to me, fists balled at his sides. “I was afraid, too. Afraid to go into that duel and fight Doug again. Afraid I’d be defeated and lose all my friends and your tiara. I was afraid, but I did it anyway. I showed you how I felt with my actions, not just words.”
I closed my eyes, the tears welling inside their sore depths yet ag
ain. “I’m not perfect, William. I’m just human. And I have failings.”
“Yes. You do.”
That hurt. In fact, it felt like more glass just scraped across that tender organ in the center of my chest. I took a deep breath and tried not to get defensive. He had the right to be hurt. But then again, so did I. And his words did hurt.
“Can we talk about this when you aren’t so angry?”
He tightened his jaw, cheeks bulging. “I’m not angry. I’m disappointed. I need someone I can count on, and you aren’t that person. I need someone who will back what she says with actions, who won’t just say something to get her way. You weren’t there for me.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Just like you weren’t there for Brock.”
I gasped, feeling like he’d slammed his buckler into my stomach. My knees gave out and I landed on the couch, covering my face with my hands. His words cut me to the core, confirming every single doubt I had about myself—about the night Brock died and my role in it.
“How could you?” I choked out between sobs, the pain overwhelming me. It punctured me through every pore, like needles in my skin.
William said nothing. He didn’t even move for a long time as I tried to gain control of myself—and failed.
“This was a mistake,” he finally said in a shaky voice. I pulled my hands away from my face to look up at him. A few beats after that, he turned toward the door.
I popped up off the couch and sped to the door, blocking it so he couldn’t open it. “Don’t do this,” I sobbed. “You know damn well that I didn’t use you. You know…” My voice faded with a squeak.
His features were just as placid as when he’d entered. He looked as unmoved as that robot he’d often been likened to. “I don’t know.”
I tried as hard as I could to look into his eyes, but they deftly eluded me. “You know that I love you, Wil. I do.”
His lips thinned. “Those are the words you used, but they don’t match your actions. You abandoned me the second something got difficult. You won’t commit to any course of action. You’ll find a reason to run away again.”
I sucked my lip inside my mouth and gnawed on it, new tears burning like acid, pouring from the wells of my eyes and down my cheeks. “And you’ll never forgive any mistake I make.”
He closed his eyes for a good long time, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he looked into my eyes. But instead of replying, he turned the knob of the door. “Please move aside.”
I shook my head, refusing to accept what he was saying. “Wil,” I sobbed.
And for a split second, I saw it because he was looking directly at me. Pain streaked through his eyes. Then he blinked harshly and turned his head away.
I decided to chance it. What did I have to lose? I reached up and put my hand on his face, my fingertips brushing his scratchy face.
He jerked his head away from my touch. “Goodbye, Jenna,” he repeated in a low, trembling voice.
Slowly, quietly, I did as he asked, and he wasted no time before turning the knob. Then he opened the door and left the minute I was free of it.
I slid down the wall beside the doorjamb, curling into a ball, my face against my knees. I thought I had no tears left to cry. I was wrong.
Because even though I’d been prepared to throw everything away in my panic and fear earlier today, I was not prepared to lose this.
But ready or not, it was happening. And there was nothing more I could do.
Chapter 36
William
Walking away from her apartment is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s a piercing type of pain that starts in the middle of my chest and makes it hard to breathe. I feel like I’m being poked and prodded from within by sharp objects. It hurts…but that hurt, along with anger, burns like a fire.
And I couldn’t look at her anymore.
My friends stand in a cluster near the stairwell, but I don’t want to talk to any of them. I want to go home, to my orderly house and my comforting routine, where nothing is a surprise and everything happens as it should. There, I never have to rely on anyone else, and I’m never disappointed.
I can’t handle being disappointed again. Not like this. It hurts too much.
Casting a glance at the group, I note that they are tightly bunched together and talking in low voices. Except for the older woman who was with Jenna when we arrived. I have no idea who she is, and I don’t want to know.
I want to go home and forget about all of this—forget about her. I’ll use the visualization techniques that she taught me to visualize her right out of my mind. Out of my heart. Out of my life.
Passing them, I make my way down the stairs without stopping or even acknowledging anyone. My heart thumps, each beat hurting my chest a little more. I wonder if this is a symptom of the head wound. As I’m still feeling out of it from the medication, I grip the railing to make sure I don’t fall over.
Adam and Mia follow closely behind. They’ve let me know that they do not want me spending the night alone, but when I refused to go to their house, they invited themselves over to spend the night at mine instead. Worse, they’ll be driving me to the local hospital for another MRI in the morning.
Just what I need…as if this crappy situation wasn’t bad enough.
I’m tired and hurting, and I just want to go to sleep and forget about this day.
Yes, I won—but I lost, too. So, so much.
***
I’ve been forced to take time off from my job for the first three days of the week. Sometimes it’s a real disadvantage to work for your annoyingly overprotective—and bossy—cousin.
I spend my spare time at home completely overhauling my art studio and repairing my forge tools. It’s the perfect opportunity to hone my skills by working on the damaged practice armor.
I return to work on Thursday, but I don’t go to family dinner on Sunday. And ignoring the phone is easy to do, since I’ve turned it off completely. Jordan and Adam both check in with me at work, but I don’t meet Mia for our usual breakfast the following Wednesday morning, mostly because she has a lot of studying to do.
Routines have once again become my comfort. But they don’t help me forget. And though I continue going about my regular pre-Jenna routine, it hurts too much to attempt to forget her now.
It hurts too much to attempt anything.
I want to talk to her. I want to hear her voice. I want to feel her touch, smell her smell. I want to lie beside her, our skin touching while I listen to her breathe.
And it’s driving me insane. Because I don’t want to want her as much as I do. I want these feelings to go away. I want things to go back to how they were before it hurt so much.
So I occupy myself with every mundane task that needs to be accomplished. Adhering strictly to my schedule, I keep myself so busy that I hardly have any time to let my mind wander to thoughts that I can’t control.
The following weekend, I spend the entire day in my shop. I can’t create art when my mind is like this, but I can hit things with a hammer just fine. In a strange way, it makes everything feel better.
The forge is going at full force and it’s hotter than an oven. I’m blowing through my supply of wood at an alarming pace as I keep working the bellows. I hear the doorbell when it rings, having rigged it to ring back here, too. Nevertheless, I decide to ignore it.
Minutes later, however, my dad appears in the doorway of the shop, maintaining the distance I request as he watches me work. I continue on, ignoring his presence for a quarter of an hour before dropping my work in the slag bucket. The heated metal hisses on contact.
“Hey,” he says when I finally turn to him.
I remove my goggles and my leather apron, then wipe my sweaty face with a clean towel. “Hi. Why are you here?”
His brows twitch. “Do I need an excuse to see my son? We missed you at dinner last week.”
“I didn’t feel like being social.” Not that I ever do, but even less so than usua
l.
He frowns. “Okay. But I can still check up on you, right?”
“I’m an adult, Dad,” I remind him as I power down the forge. I’ll have to come back out here to clean up once it’s cooled, but it’s safe to leave for a short time.
“You have anything to drink? It’s hot in here,” he asks.
“There is beer, water and juice in my fridge.”
“Well, then take a break and let’s sit down for a minute.”
I try not to sigh too loudly as we leave the workshop and head through the backyard to the kitchen. It’s obvious Dad wants to talk. We haven’t had many of these one-on-ones lately, but I recognize one when it’s coming.
And I don’t want to push him away. I know he’s worried about me—they all are. It’s better if I just do my best to sweep his worries aside and then things will get back to normal soon.
Normal is key. I need for things to go back to normal.
I reach into the fridge and pull out two bottles of beer, since I know what he likes. I cut a lime and offer him a wedge to squeeze inside. It’s the best way to drink Mexican beer.
Dad thanks me and squeezes his slice of lime into his bottle before cramming the entire wedge down the long bottleneck so that it floats inside the beer—a habit that drives me crazy. I scoff at him and he smiles. “I’m not going to change at my age, Liam. You should know better.”
I take a pull from my beer without answering. We drink in silence for a few minutes before he finally clears his throat. “Adam says you’re back at work already. I wonder if that’s a good idea. How’s the injury?”
Instinctively, I raise my hand to my hairline without actually touching the injured area. It’s still sore, but it’s survivable. “I’m fine. The injury is minor. I get the stitches out on Monday, and that’s the part that’s the most annoying. They are starting to itch.”
“So you’ll be right as rain, physically. How about emotionally?”
I don’t answer. I continue sipping my beer while thinking about how odd that expression is. Dad uses it a lot, but I have no idea how “right” rain can be.
For The One (Gaming The System Book 5) Page 34