WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
Jaxson Kidman
Contents
Foreword
Stay social with Jaxson
WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
You smile and the fire burns.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
A WHILE BACK… THAT ONE NIGHT…
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
BACK TO TODAY
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Hey darlin’
About the Author
LET YOU GO
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. (This also includes the cover image and/or cover model(s) appearing on the cover. The context of this book does not in any way depict the personal life of said cover model(s). Image is licensed and used purely for fictional purpose only.)
First electronic edition July 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Jaxson Kidman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part of any form.
Copyright Photographer Credit: Sara Eirew
Copyright image model(s): Pamela Tremblay Mcallen & Nick Bennett
Copyright cover Mayhem Covers
Foreword
From the soul of worldwide bestselling author Jaxson Kidman comes a full length stand alone novel about losing yourself and finding it in a way you never thought possible.
The heart makes us. The heart breaks us. The heart ruins everything we know.
Sleepless hours give me one last thing to say….
Written by Jaxson Kidman
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WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
What you don’t know is that you were my first kiss
What you don’t know is that you were my first heartache
What you don’t know is that I understand why you left
What you don’t know is that I was there the night your sister died
What you don’t know… is that I’m still in love with you…
You smile and the fire burns.
The embers never shut their eyes.
I can never look away.
You’re awake, feet shuffling against the smooth floors.
Your hair looks like sleep.
Your eyes look like hope.
I feel blind right now.
I touch walls, but get nowhere.
Everything I know has been stripped down.
There’s lost, leaving, letting go.
On the mantle, I give you my heart.
I wait on the floor, your body deserves the warmth of the sheets.
With lines, I trace.
I draw the picture of love with the curves you call home.
The temptation you left behind leaves me wondering.
I hold it, like a dust shadow.
I breath it in, second by second, never wanting to be alive more than I do right now.
Prologue
Li’l Sis, Be Happy
TRAVIS
“This window is still squeaky, Trav.”
“I did the best I could,” I said, running my hand through my hair to throw it back out of my face.
Everyone hated the long hair, which made me love having it even more. Now, the fact that I didn’t wash it all that often, refused to brush it, or do anything that resembled taking care of my hair or myself, was just the cherry on the cake of a big middle finger I showed proudly to anyone who got within a few feet of me.
“You said you’d fixed it,” Julie said with a pouty face.
Her eyes were crystal blue and her cheeks were chubby. She was in that stage between girl and woman, not sure what she was doing, why she felt the way she did, and little things like a fucked-up window in her bedroom set her off into a bitchy rant that could last for days.
“I sprayed the windows, Julie,” I said. “Just use the other one.”
“Whatever,” she said.
She rolled her eyes and opened the good window.
I watched her throw herself forward and climb out onto the roof without a care in the world. It took me back to when she was a kid and I couldn’t get her to climb the fucking slide at the park.
We really didn’t need to go out on the roof to smoke anymore, but it was more of a traditional thing for us.
Mom took off again about a week ago. She met some guy at the bar and he took her to a casino and they ended up winning a few bucks. You’d think that would be exciting enough to maybe come home and buy some groceries or catch up on the electric or gas bill, but that’s not how Mom lived life. That money burned in her hand as if she were holding hot coals from a charcoal grill. She and the mystery man took off with a really good plan. To hit up as many casinos as they could until they eventually struck gold in the millions. Only then would she come home and take care of us.
This story was never-ending and had been playing out my entire life. I shielded Julie from it the best I could, but when Mom wasn’t around, it was a slew of her burnout loser friends or our grandmother who would come to the house and sit with us. We were probably better off just being left home alone.
“You know, I don’t need to worry about getting caught anymore,” I said as I wrestled my way through the open window.
“I do,” Julie said.
“Come on…”
“What? If I fuck up, I’m not going to get my license. That’s my ticket. Okay?”
“Who says you need a license to drive?” I asked with a wink.
“You drove without a license?”
“Of course. You’d be sleeping, and I’d be bored. Mom would be downstairs on the couch, her arm out on the table, gone. You know? So, I’d take the keys and go for a ride. But this one night…”
“Hey, Trav, not to be a bitch, but can we smoke before you tell your story?”
I stared down at my little sister. “Right. Of course.”
I swallowed hard, feeling just a tiny bit of guilt.
I showed her how to sneak out onto the roof to smoke. I showed her how to properly smoke and judge the wind, so the smoke wouldn’t blow into the house. I learned the hard way what could happen when Mom got clean enough to be a mother. If she caught you smoking, you were in deep shit.
Hell, I remember the night Julie caught me smoking outside my window. I should have told her to go back to bed or bribed her to not tell on me, but she was as messed up as I wa
s that night. So, she climbed out onto the roof with me and had a smoke. And that started a new tradition for us.
I cupped my hand and looked down as I sparked the lighter and lit up the smoke. I took a few drags and instantly felt relaxed. I made an O with my lips and let out gentle puffs that turned into rings and danced into the air.
As I sat down, I passed the smoke to Julie.
She put it between her pointer finger and thumb and leaned forward a little as she smoked.
It made me smile.
“I love you, kid,” I said. “I know how fucked up everything is.”
Julie coughed for a second, shaking her head.
“Shut… up…” she said, coughing. “Just tell your story…”
She coughed one more time and took another hit. This time she took it and didn’t cough.
“My story, right,” I said. “I ended up going down a one-way street the wrong way.”
“Oh, shit,” Julie said. She looked at me, her blue eyes going really big. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was lucky. I flew down the street and hurried to turn. All I could picture though was getting pulled over. No license. Driving down a one-way street the wrong way. That would have been bad.”
“Mom would have beaten your ass.”
“Definitely.”
“If she was around…”
She turned her head away.
I shut my eyes for a second and felt a sting in my heart.
“Hey,” I said, reaching for her shoulder. “This is what she does. I sort of tried to protect you from all this shit, Julie. Because I know how it feels. I’m sorry you have to go through so much without her around. You know, the changes and stuff.”
Julie looked at me. “Seriously? You want to talk about my period? My boobs?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “But… we only have each other. I’ll never be able to look at you and not see you shuffling through the living room with messy hair and a long princess pajama thing on, holding that goofy looking dirty bear, rubbing your eyes with one hand, looking for a glass of milk and some peanut butter crackers. I can’t help that. But, at the same time, I get it. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m good. I understand everything. I just… well, no. I don’t understand everything. I don’t understand why she leaves. I don’t understand why she comes back so happy for a day or two and then gets all messed up again.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s a joke.”
Julie took another hit then passed the smoke to me. “Hey, Trav, am I fat?”
“What? Are you fat… no. I don’t know. I mean, why?”
Julie crinkled her nose. Stuck between crying and getting really angry.
“Some people said…”
“Oh, fuck that,” I said. I turned a little and had my back to the pitch of the roof. I was a tiny bit wobbly, but I wanted to prove a point. “Look at me, Julie.”
“What?” she said in a snappy voice.
“Hey. Who said that?”
“There’s a guy I sort of like,” she said. “Luke…”
“Oh, Christ,” I said.
“Stop it. I’m trying to tell you something.”
“Sorry.”
“There are these other girls. These stupid bitches. They keep telling everyone I’m fat. That my baby fat hasn’t gone away yet, and that it won’t go away. That my boobs aren’t real. It’s just all fat. That I’m a total virgin and that I wouldn’t know what to do…”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said, cringing. I didn’t need to think about my sister and some guy fooling around. “First off, are you…”
“Trav, stop it. It doesn’t matter what I am or not.”
“Are you being safe, Julie?”
“Oh, look at you now. Wow.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yes, I’m being safe,” she said. “I promise.”
“Right. Good. You’re not fat. You’re not ugly. You’re not anything those people say. That’s what people do sometimes, Julie. I wish I could say something better than that. Maybe they’re jealous because Luke likes you. Or maybe they don’t like you liking an older guy.”
“They keep saying it. They keep spreading these rumors about me. They put a sticker of a pig on my locker. They…”
I touched Julie’s face. “Okay. I’m really sorry this is happening to you. I didn’t know any of this. I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t want you to take care of it, Trav. This is my fight.”
“It doesn’t need to be a fight, Julie. I can help you.”
“No. I’m going to do this myself. I’m going to take care of it.”
She blinked fast and hard, fighting back tears.
“You know it’s okay to cry in front of me. You used to do it all the time.”
“I don’t want to cry,” she said, her voice breaking up. “I don’t…”
I leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “Look, Julie, I don’t have anything to say that’ll magically fix our life. All we can do is just keep living and find our way through this. You said it yourself, your license is your freedom. Focus on that.”
“What about you? What’s your freedom?”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. Now if you don’t calm down, you’re going to get all panicky after smoking that. Why don’t we just chill out and count the stars for a bit?”
“Okay,” Julie said. “Thank you, Trav. For always being here for me.”
“You’re a pain in the ass little sister, but I love you. I’ll always be here for you.”
I sat back down next to her. I had other plans, but they could wait for the moment. I wasn’t going to run out on the only real family I had.
We sat there and talked for another hour about the most random shit, which sometimes were the best conversations to have.
Julie told me that she was tired and wanted to get some sleep. We climbed through the window back into the bedroom and gently shut the window without making a sound.
“Still got it,” I said.
“Are you going out?” Julie asked.
“Yeah. Going to meet up with the guys and find trouble.”
“Be safe.”
“Always,” I said.
I paused at the door and looked back.
I was going to find a way to make life easier and better for Julie. And whoever was talking shit about her was going to pay for it. And if it was Luke himself calling my little sister fat, I was going to rearrange his face so that he wouldn’t be able to talk ever again.
My phone was buzzing like crazy.
I felt like I should have said something more to Julie. The feeling nagged me as I walked through the old shitty house, and kept nagging me for hours after that.
No matter how much I drank or how much I smoked, it just kept pulling at my heart. That I should have stayed with her. That I should have said more. Fuck, I should have lied to her and said anything to make her happy.
It was around two in the morning when I was walking along a quiet street that a cop car came around a turn, lights flashing. I knew they were looking for me. I figured it was the same old shit though. Get harassed for being messed up and walking the streets in the middle of the night.
But this was different.
The cop was looking for me.
Because there was nobody else to go to.
Why?
That was the night Julie killed herself.
1
A Little Luck, a Big Claw
WILLOW
I sat at the counter and let out a long breath. Cassie pounced through the swinging door with force. The kitchen door was silver and reflected the lights, making the glare hit my eyes so hard that I shut them for a second.
“Have a drink,” Cassie said.
She moved with speed, grabbing an ugly brown coffee mug and filling it up for me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Thank you for helping out here,�
� she said. “I did not expect that to happen.”
“Who would have thought, huh?” I asked. “An old people’s bus needs to stop for a pee break and they all want some food.”
“I’m just glad you were close by,” Cassie said. “You sure you never waitressed before?”
I laughed. “Not since high school, but even then, it was mostly washing dishes.”
“Yeah. We had some good times at Beggy’s, didn’t we?”
“Don’t know how that place stayed open as long as it did,” I said. “Between hiring people like us and the mangers all fucking each other…”
“And Beggy himself with his little white powder nose problem…”
“Can’t forget that,” I said. I raised my coffee mug. “Cheers to a better life.”
“For you,” Cassie said. “Look at me.”
“Hey, you’re running the most popular diner in town.”
“Correction. The only diner in town. And I only run the place because my aunt owns it. My uncle had an affair with his secretary, so my aunt made him buy her a diner to make up for it. It’s like a video game for her or something.”
“I’m glad I could help,” I said. “I felt like I had a purpose for a minute.”
“You have a purpose, Willow. And it’s not doing this.”
“Maybe I’m due for a career change.”
“Nursing to waitressing isn’t the move you want to make in life,” Cassie said.
“Says who?” I asked. “It’s my life.”
“Fair enough. I’m going to go and pass out in the back and cry a little.”
I laughed. “You were always great at being dramatic.”
“I should have been an actress.”
“You should have left this place when you had the chance,” I said.
What You Don't Know (True Hearts Book 6) Page 1