“It’s alright, mom,” I assure her, squeezing her hand in the same way she had mine. “It’s not your fault.” There’s no response, and she keeps looking out into the distance. But, as I have said the words, it’s as if a weight has been lifted from me. It’s been a light bulb moment. The realization—and I suppose the acceptance—that what happened to her wasn’t her fault. Rationally, it’s something that I’ve known for years. For as long as I’ve been able to understand what her illness meant. But understanding something rationally and absorbing it emotionally are two different things. Now, sitting on this swing chair together, is the first time that I’ve said the words out loud. It’s also the first time I’ve really felt as if they were true. As if I really mean them.
We sit like that for a little while longer, as I absorb and process what’s just happened. I feel closer to my mother than I have in a long time. I feel like things are at peace between us. We’ve both said what we needed to. It’s enough, for now.
CHAPTER TEN
I get a cold shiver. The air has turned cooler and, as if by magic, Sally appears in the doorway. She’s looking indulgently at the two of us on the swing chair, like she’s looking at her own kids.
“You two getting a little chilly out here?” she asks, leaning against the door-frame and looking so much like Jake it’s unreal.
“A little,” I concede and, even though it’s true that I’m feeling the coolness of the air through my thin denim jacket, I don’t want this moment to end. This closeness that I’m sharing with my mother is more important to me than catching a cold. But, one look at my mom’s tiny, bird-like frame tells me that she can’t afford to get sick. Not when she’s still so weak.
“I’ll help you get her into bed,” I tell Sally, finally standing and taking hold of my mom’s elbow to help her up.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got her,” Sally replies, crossing the short distance between us quickly and taking hold of my mother from the other side. “There’s someone here to see you.” She looks meaningfully in the direction of the front door. She doesn’t have to tell me who that “someone” is.
“Are you sure you’re alright with her?” I ask, still not convinced that I want to leave my mom.
“More than alright,” Sally assures me with a smile that has the wattage to light up a room. “Now go and put my boy out of his misery,” she says playfully, waving me away while she supports my mother in her strong, capable arms.
“Okay,” I say, smiling my gratitude to her. But, as I reach the door, I turn. “Thanks Sal. I feel like that’s the only thing I’m saying to you at the moment,” I laugh and shake my head at the truth of the statement.
“And I keep telling you not to mention it,” Sally reminds me, a twinkle in her eye. “He’s waiting.” She signals with her chin towards the house.
“I’m going, I’m going,” I say, raising my arms in surrender and taking a deep breath, ready to face the music.
When I get to the front door, I find Jake out on the porch, looking down at his feet like a kid that’s been told off for doing something he shouldn’t. The image of him, standing there in the dark, looking all apologetic and gorgeous, drives all rational thought out of my head.
“Hey,” I say, somewhat lamely, scuffing my shoe against the floor. Suddenly, I feel very young. It may seem strange, but one of the things that I love about Jake is how he makes me feel my age when I’m around him. When I’m with him, I don’t have to pretend to be a grown up. I don’t have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. With him I can just be a nineteen-year-old girl. A nineteen-year-old girl in love.
“I hate fighting with you,” Jake says meaningfully.
“Me too,” I agree, stepping into his arms and feeling at home there. “It was my fault,” I admit. “I was being way too hard on you.”
“Wow,” Jake says, whistling softly. “An apology from Aimee Winters.” As if it was something rarer than gold.
“Ha, ha,” I say dryly, slapping him gently on the chest. “Don’t get used to it.” My smile makes my warning a little less impressive.
“Are you ready to come home with me?” Jake asks, looking down at me with an intensity that means I can’t look away.
“I am home with you,” I tell him, going up on my tip-toes to kiss his lips softly.
As we walk away from the Summers house arm in arm, Jake comments, “You know, that was pretty schmaltzy.”
“Shut up,” I say with mock anger. “You love all that stuff. You’re the one that came out with the whole ‘I think we’re soul-mates’ thing,” I remind him, hoping that my red face hasn’t undermined my bantering tone.
“Okay, you’re right,” he admits, holding his arms up in surrender. “I guess we’re even then.” He kisses the top of my head and I know it’s not my imagination that he inhales and sighs softly.
“Did you just smell my hair?” I ask him, barely able to keep from laughing. “Because if you did, I think you just moved up the schmaltz-o-meter!”
“No,” Jake says, looking prim, “I have a cold.” But the smile threatening to break out on his face says differently.
“Sure, because who doesn’t get a cold in 90-degree heat,” I point out, nodding my head sarcastically.
“You talk too much,” Jake mumbles.
“You’re the second person to tell me that this week,” I note, wryly..
We walk in companionable silence for a little while until Jake comes out with something that he has clearly been waiting to ask me. “Do you feel better now?” he asks, hesitantly. “After talking to your mom?”
I nod slowly. “I feel like I’ve said some things that needed to be said, exorcized some demons,” I admit, and Jake responds by tightening his hold around me as we walk. His supporting arm around me makes me feel like I can say exactly what I need to without worrying about what he might think. “I guess I never made it easy for my mom,” I explain. “I was always a daddy’s girl. We were so close, it was like it was hard for Mom to compete sometimes. It was Dad that I idolized, him that I ran to when I would fall down and skin my knee. He was the one I wanted to read me bedtime stories at night. Of course I loved my mom, but sometimes I wonder if I should have been more… even,” I finish uncertainly.
“What do you mean?” Jake prompts. I’m struck again by just how well he knows me and how easy it seems to be for him to tune into me and know exactly what I’m thinking. He always knows what I need and he knows that now I need to talk.
“I guess I feel bad for concentrating all my affection on my dad, and not giving my mom the same attention,” I say, my voice far away as my mind drifts back to those long summer evenings I remember spending with my dad. “It was like he and I just got each other, you know?” I shrugged, unable to explain it any better.
Jake nods solemnly and kisses me on my temple without breaking stride. “It’s different for me,” he says eventually. Something that he’s clearly been thinking about for a while. But then he stops, and it’s my turn to figure out that whatever he’s driving at, it’s obvious he needs to get it out.
“Tell me,” I say, gently prodding him to carry on.
“I guess Mom and I have always been kind of like a little unit.” He shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong—my dad’s great and we spend a lot of time together.”
“Well, you do work together pretty much every day of the week,” I point out. I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable. It just reminds me that there’s clearly more to Jake’s family than meets the eye. But not only do I not have any proof of what I suspect, but I also don’t have any right to plant a seed of doubt into his head.
“Yeah. I mean, we get along. He’s great,” Jake continues, clearly struggling. I wonder if this is the first time he’s really admitted the truth to himself. “It’s just… Sometimes it feels like he’s trying a little too hard. Listen to me.” He laughs at himself after a beat. “Boo hoo, my dad makes an effort with me—how tough is my life?”
“Hey, don’t do that,�
�� I tell him, stopping us in our tracks. “Don’t pretend that your feelings aren’t important or valid, because they are. You don’t have to make excuses—not with me,” I remind him, reaching up to kiss him on the corner of his luscious lips.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Jake continues after a few moments. “Sometimes I feel like all my dad and I have in common is the body shop. We don’t even look that much alike.” He shakes his head.
“That’s not so strange,” I muse, searching around for something to say. “I look more like my dad than my mom, it’s just one of those things.” I shrug as if it’s no big deal, but wonder if I’m going directly to hell for all these little lies by omission.
“I guess,” Jake says after a moment, not sounding completely convinced.
“What are you driving at, Jake?” I ask as we’re nearing the body shop. I resolve that if he says something that makes me think he suspects what I do, then I’ll tell him about the photograph that I found. I wait, barely breathing, hoping that he’s going to come out with something important.
“Nothing, nothing,” he says, shaking his head, as if he’s knocking back a ridiculous thought. “I guess… I was just trying to make you see that everyone has issues with their parents. I think it pretty much comes with the territory.” He smiles at me and then turns to open the heavy padlock on the door at the back of the body shop.
“Right,” I reply, telling myself that I should really grow a pair. He deserves to know, at least as much as I do—or as much as I think I do—doesn’t he?
“Are you coming in or are you planning on sleeping out there?” Jake asks ruefully as I remain standing outside the door. I walk inside without responding.
“You okay?” Jake asks after I’ve been silent for longer than normal. We both know that me being quiet isn’t something that happens very often.
“Yes,” I say quickly, wondering if my thoughts are plastered all over my face and as easy to read as I’m afraid they might be. “Fine,” I add, more confidently, nodding emphatically.
“Okay…” Jake replies slowly, eyeing me like I’m more than a little crazy. “I’m going to take a shower.” He nods in the direction of the bathroom. “And there’s always room for one more,” he notes, throwing me one of his trademark killer smiles.
“I’ll be right there,” I call after him, already feeling the tingle of anticipation as I think of his naked body, slick and smooth, under the running water. But there’s a nagging feeling in my head that needs to be addressed before I let my body take over for a little while.
I need more proof, or even some proof beyond a fifteen-year-old photograph, that there’s some connection between Jake’s family and Travis. Or at least there was before he became Scar. I can’t just come out with something to Jake that could potentially ruin his relationship with his parents. Especially when, in reality, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Even if you did, the little voice in my head says, Are you willing to break up the Summers family in the interest of what? Truth? I concentrate hard on telling the little voice to go take a flying leap off a bridge. Although I’ve grown to hate her, she does have a habit of sometimes talking sense and, in this instance, she’s right. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was the cause of any hurt or pain to Jake or his parents. They deserve much more than that from me.
I start peeling off my clothes and let them drop to the floor in a trail behind me. If I knew why Scar was so focused on Jake, why it seemed like he was so important to the Angels, then maybe I could figure out how to get Jake away from them. I keep coming back to this as being the key that could hold unlock everything, and if that’s the case, then I need to find out what the secret is that Sally is so intent on keeping.
But if Sally wants to keep whatever it is to herself, then maybe she has her reasons. That’s a “maybe,” I admit grudgingly, but I also know that Sal would do whatever she could to keep her son safe. And that’s what we may be coming down to here: keeping Jake safe. I know that I’m willing to do whatever is necessary for him to get away from the Angels for good. Whatever is necessary. Between the Feds and whatever connection the Summers have with Scar, there must be something that can keep Jake out of reach of the Bleeding Angels. I have to believe that I can do this.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s day fourteen.
Fourteen days since we made the deal with the Bleeding Angels. Nine days since I started back at the diner and since the army truck exploded in a fireball. Things in the town are just starting to get back to normal.
What happened to the truck has been officially declared an accident by the local cops. The only passenger from the truck has been in a coma since he was found. Based on the rumors floating around the town, it’s unlikely he’s going to be waking up any time soon. It hasn’t been said out loud, but I’ve lived in this town for long enough to know that if it does ever look like he’s going to come around, then the Angels will make damn sure that he doesn’t make the miraculous recovery his family are probably praying for. From the news reports I’ve learned that Blondie and Baldy, as I affectionately call them, remain in the hospital. and no one is under any illusions about their fate. If the burns don’t kill them, Scar will.
Crystal has warmed up a little in the few days I’ve been back at Sunny Side Up, and the same goes for the regulars. The ones that would barely look at me on that first night back have now started acknowledging my existence. The truck “accident” has given the residents of Painted Rock something else to talk about. It’s pushed the awareness of my altercation with the Angels out of their short-term memory. There’s something else to think about, something else to be afraid of: what the Angels are going to do when the Feds take over the investigation. Although the cops have made their own statement, it’s a government issue and so the Feds have to do their part before the whole thing can be wrapped up.
“So sad,” Crystal says, shaking her head.
I look over at her and see, surprisingly, that she’s engrossed in a newspaper. I say “surprisingly” because Crystal wasn’t what you would call a big reader. In fact, this was the first and only time I’d seen her read anything other than the daily specials.
“What is?” I ask, figuring she could pick any number of current events that the description would fit: earthquakes in Japan, typhoons in the Philippines, gang warfare over the border in Mexico.
“The driver of that army truck—he had a little baby boy,” Crystal says. As she looks over at me, I see that her eyes are filled with tears.
“That is sad,” I agree, wondering when I’d become so hardened to this kind of thing. A little boy losing his dad was sad, but it wasn’t that unusual in Painted Rock. I guess the difference was that this family wasn’t from here—they didn’t have any reason to be prepared for something like this happening to them.
“And he was so cute,” Crystal bemoans, still hunched over the newspaper.
I assume that she’s still talking about the baby. “How old is he?” I ask, taking off my apron and folding it neatly away in the drawer.
“28,” she says, her voice wavering.
It takes me a moment, but I realize that she’s talking about the driver of the truck and I notice there’s a photo of him in the national paper. He’s looking all athletic and handsome, on a beach somewhere with friends. It’s a typical photograph that the papers choose to underline just how senseless the loss of a life like his is.
“It is sad,” I agree, not knowing what else there was to say. Is there anything that anyone can say to make something like this better? “Are you alright?” I ask Crystal, surprised it has affected her so much. I think back to my Psychology textbook that had been sitting in my room when the house went up in flames. I remember reading that sometimes, outside events tap into an individual’s psyche and delves into unresolved emotional issues that they’re carrying around with them. Maybe Crystal just needs someone to talk to.
“Hmm. Yeah, fine,” she says after a moment.
I’m poised to ask if she wants to talk about how she feels. We’ve never been close although we’d seen each other around and knew of each other. In a small town like Painted Rock, it’s pretty much impossible not to know everyone. I open my mouth to phrase the question when Crystal gets in there first: “Ooh, what do you think of those boots?” she asks, her big eyes blinking expectantly as she holds up an advert in the paper.
“They’re nice,” I respond without even looking. I guess you don’t need to worry about Crystal having any deep-seated psychological problems, I tell myself.
I start counting out the tips and distributing them into three equal piles. As I do it, I let my mind drift back to that Psych textbook I had found so interesting. It was high-level stuff and the librarian seemed dubious that I would even understand it. But I’m pretty sure I had, and not only that, but I had wanted to know more—to learn more. It’s a thought that I’ve come back to on more than one occasion. I don’t usually allow myself to dwell on it.
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