I still couldn’t explain it. It was almost like I’d known him from before, which I knew as impossible. We’d gone over our backgrounds with each other in the clinic and there were no connections. The woods were the first time we met. But something about him was beyond familiar.
Even now, as he tried to calm me, I felt that same feeling. He was someone I could trust with my whole self. I could understand why April might be jealous of that. She’d always been the only one I’d trusted enough to see all of me. With others, I always held back a part of myself. With Jack, I no longer wanted to do that. It was the reason I wanted to tell him the truth about the fight. I wanted to know that he could still care about me, even after what I’d done.
Jack sat thoughtfully staring at the flames in the fireplace, contemplating what I told him. I could almost see his mind working for the right words to reassure me. I didn’t think there was anything he could say to calm my heart. The only person that could really do that was April. I needed her forgiveness.
“She’s going to forgive you,” he finally replied with a confidence I didn’t understand.
“Have you met my sister? She’s not exactly the forgiving type.”
He smiled at that. “With others, absolutely not. You’re right. I see that in her. But with you, there’s nothing you could do that would ever change how much she loves you. You should have seen her when you flat lined.” I was thrown back by him talking about that. We’d briefly talked about my near-death experience. But the way he brought it up, was like it was a casual conversation topic. To me it wasn’t something I expected anyone to believe. It was the reason I hadn’t said anything to April, even though I was dying to.
“She was desperate for you to come back. She kept screaming at you to come back to her. She even threatened to do some awful things to Billy. It involved removing a certain appendage.” I laughed through the tears that were still slowly falling. Yeah, that sounded like my sister. Jack smiled at me, happy to see me laughing. “And when you came back, it was like she could breathe again. You two have a strong bond. That kind of thing can’t be broken by a few hurtful words.”
All humour fled again. It was like I was on some sort of weird emotional rollercoaster. Every time I thought I was on the way to feeling better, the sadness would overwhelm me again.
“She had a strong bond with our dad too. I thought there was nothing that could ever break it.”
“You told me about that. You said he got mad at her over her pregnancy.”
“There was a little more to it than that, but basically yeah. He thought she was throwing her future away. Back then, she was a star athlete. Back when the world was still a little normal. She had so much potential and when she got pregnant, I think he just saw all those future plans crumble.”
“But she lost the pregnancy?” he asked trying to confirm the details. I nodded.
“It didn’t matter. She was going to marry Andy anyways and that only made my father even more furious. He never moved past it. Never accepted Andy as a member of our family. He didn’t treat him well. And she still hates him for that. It only got worse when our brother Noah announced his engagement at nineteen. Our parents were excited for him and Ashley and so welcoming. I think that just intensified all those hurt feelings April had carried for so long.” I thought back to my visit with my dad, in that strange in between state I’d been in. He wanted me to tell April how sorry he was.
My eyes stung, bringing me back into the present. I’d been staring off at the fire. When I looked over at Jack, he was watching me curiously. “Where’d you go just now?”
“I was just remembering the conversation my dad and I shared when I nearly walked into the light.” I tried to make that last part sound humorous, but it fell flat for both of us. “He asked me to tell April he was sorry. That the way he’d treated her was one of his biggest regrets.”
“You should tell her.” He said it like it was just that simple.
I shook my head sadly. “It would already be nearly impossible to convince her that I had a near death experience and if I told her what he said…well then she definitely wouldn’t believe me.” I sighed. I didn’t like keeping secrets from April. And I felt doubly guilty over this one, because I was also failing my dad by keeping it.
We both sat in silence. Maybe he was looking for more words to comfort me. As for me, I was lost in an endless round of guilt and anger. The truth was, I was still angry with April. But every time I thought about how angry I was with her; I’d feel the guilt of what I’d said to her. On and on my thoughts went, in a never-ending round. It was all so exhausting.
Maybe it was the emotional fatigue or perhaps the physical exhaustion of pushing myself too hard that day, but whatever the reason, I found myself drifting off. It didn’t help that I kept staring at the dancing flames in the fireplace. They were mesmerizing and as I watched them, I found myself slowly letting go of all my worries.
Several times I managed to open my eyes back up when I noticed them closing, but eventually I lost the desire to keep trying. I’d become oblivious to Jack’s presence. He’d been so silent; I wouldn’t have been surprised if he drifted off for a little while also. I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed since we’d last spoken.
I was half in and out of consciousness and was struggling to figure out what I was dreaming about and what was real. But I swore I felt Jack’s hand gently massaging my hair at one point. The warmth of his hand as he brushed past my cheeks caused my face to fill with heat. It had to have been in my head, but it felt so real. I sighed audibly, relaxing into the dream or whatever it was. It was nice not to feel the emotions of the day.
I might have fallen completely asleep, if it weren’t for the strong gust of cool air that shocked me back to my wakeful state. And as I rubbed my bleary eyes, I realized two things. One I’d fallen asleep on Jack’s shoulder, and two he’d moved onto my side of the couch for that to happen. He looked a little sheepish as he stood up to see who was at the door.
I was hopeful, but also terrified that Billy would come back alone. Thankfully when I stood up to face the door, I saw that he wasn’t alone. April was with him. She looked just as physically and emotionally exhausted as I did. Her eyes were rimmed with red, which caused an ache in my chest. She was wearing Billy’s jacket, but she still looked like she was shivering. Jack passed me my cane, saving me the embarrassment of falling back down to the couch.
Billy quickly closed the door behind him to bring the warmth back into the room. His face was red from the cold, and he’d only been wearing a t-shirt. He tried to hide the shivering, but even he couldn’t muster enough manly bravado to ignore the drop in temperature.
Before when Jack and I were alone, it was silent, but not awkward. The silence that filled the room now, was very awkward. I would have almost preferred it if April had come back cursing and screaming. But instead, she just stared past me like she couldn’t even look at me. I had to push the tears back.
A few more uncomfortable moments of silence passed before Billy spoke up. “Jack, I think it’s time we left these ladies to get some sleep.”
I looked at Jack nervously. I’d wanted April back, but now I was terrified to be left alone with her again. He looked at me like he wanted to stay and then opened his mouth to protest to his brother, but Billy simply signaled that it was time to go and opened the door.
“She’ll forgive you,” Jack whispered in my ear before leaving. “She loves you.” And with that he followed his brother out into the cold, leaving me alone with my silent sister.
Chapter Twelve
April continued to look past me. Her gaze was on the fireplace behind me. I wanted to open my mouth to say something, but even with all the rehearsing I’d done in my head, I still couldn’t come up with an adequate apology.
“It looks like our fight worked out to your benefit,” she finally said looking past me to the couch, where she’d surely seen Jack and I snuggled up close. The first words out of April’
s mouth were not really a surprise. I expected her to lash out at me. It was what she did when she was hurt. Still, it stung, and I couldn’t help the moisture that sprung up in my eyes.
That was when she finally looked at me. With quivering lips, I opened my mouth in a lame attempt to say I was sorry. But she cut me off with a shake of her head. It was then that I noticed there were fresh tears in her eyes as well. “I’m sorry,” she said, completely catching me off guard. I’d so rarely heard those words come out of her mouth and I certainly didn’t expect them today, after what I’d said.
“You were right,” she sighed, sitting down on the couch. I stayed standing not trusting this change in April’s attitude.
“For what?” I asked cautiously. “I was the one who started the fight. And then I said…what I said was terrible. I’m so sorry. I should never have said it.”
“Did you mean it?” she asked. “The part about getting over Andy, did you mean it?” There was a pleading in her voice. A tear fell down her cheek as I melted into the seat beside her.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. You loved each other so much. And I know I didn’t have the same attachment that you did, but I loved him too. And I’m not over him, nor do I ever expect to be. He was every bit a brother to me as Adam and Noah ever were. I was angry when I said that to you. And I didn’t mean that you needed to get over losing your husband. I just meant that I was tired of you taking the loss out on everyone else.”
Part of me was relieved to finally have the thoughts and feelings off my chest. They’d been slowly eating away at me for months, without me really registering them. But another part of me was terrified that April would take these words, spoken with love, every bit as harshly as she had the ones spoken in anger. I never could tell how April was going to react to me. To others, that was easy, but not to me.
She sat silently contemplating my words as she stared at her hands. They were bright red. I took them in mine expecting her to pull back. When she didn’t, I slowly rubbed the warmth from my hands into her frozen fingers. Her fingers were like ice. They were probably on fire now that she was in the warmth of the cabin. To my surprise she smiled. Another tear fell from her eye, landing on my hand.
“I was always the one who kept you warm at night. I was the one who comforted you when the screeches terrified you beyond any capacity for sleep. I was the one who cared for you…until I didn’t.” She swallowed hard. “You were right that I abandoned you when Andy died. I didn’t know how to deal with losing him. I still don’t. But you stepped up and took care of me, of us. And I didn’t even notice. I have no right to treat you like a child anymore, but…”
“But what?”
She finally looked up into my eyes. “I don’t want you to grow up. I don’t want you to put yourself at risk of being hurt.”
“You think Jack will hurt me?” The idea was absurd. Jack couldn’t hurt anyone. It wasn’t in his nature. I had always had an instinct beyond explanation. I could tell someone’s character almost instantly. And Jack was someone I could trust. I just knew it.
“I think love is an invitation for pain.” The tears were pouring down now. I pulled her into my arms and held her tight as she cried into my shoulder. “Summer, it hurts so bad. I don’t want you to ever feel this pain.”
She’d barely spoken about Andy since losing him. She certainly didn’t acknowledge the pain. In the beginning she’d walked around numb during the day and then silently sobbed at night. Eventually her sobs ran dry, and she just became completely numb to everything, including me. I’d wanted her to open up. Every attempt to get her to open up, was greeted with hostility. I’d eventually given up, preferring the silence to her temper.
I pulled away to wipe her tears. We really were reversing roles. Maybe that was the way it should have always been. We were sisters, not mother and daughter. We should have always taken turns caring for one another. Now that I was grown, it was time I took on more of the burdens.
“April if you had known how it would end, would you still have married Andy?” I asked knowing the answer without her saying it. But I needed her to acknowledge the truth. She didn’t hesitate to nod with a small smile on her face. “It’s kind of your fault that I want to try to have a romantic relationship with anyone at all.” She stared back at me confused. “I saw the love you and Andy shared. How could I not want that for myself? For years I believed it just wasn’t something I was meant to have. But now, I feel like maybe I could have a chance. And maybe it won’t last. Maybe it won’t even really get started. But whatever the outcome, I want to try. I want to try and find what you had.”
She wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. “When did you become so mature?” I smiled back at her. “I suppose if you have to give your heart to someone, then I guess Jack’s not a bad choice. And I’ll try for your sake, to be a little nicer to him.”
“And to Billy,” I demanded with a smirk.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, you do. You can’t really think he’s all bad if you were willing to come back here with him. You did take his jacket.”
“I was cold,” she replied with flushed cheeks. Now that she was warming up, I knew the red there wasn’t from the temperature. Was she embarrassed? It didn’t seem like it. She wasn’t even the type of girl who blushed. That was more my thing. And she certainly wasn’t the type to embarrass easily. This was more the warm glow you got in your cheeks, when you thought about a guy you liked. But that was impossible. Or was it?
Billy was handsome. He shared a lot of his brother’s features, if he smiled more, I might have been just as attracted to him in the beginning. Really, the only physical differences between the two, were a couple of inches, some extra muscle, and Billy had curly hair. Come to think of it, my sister did have a thing for guys with curly hair. When Andy’s hair grew out, it got curly. She loved it that way, but he hated it and only grew it out once intentionally, for their wedding day.
I decided to prod a little, which was probably a little bit of a dangerous thing, seeing as we were working to mend the damage of tonight’s fight. But I figured a little prodding couldn’t hurt too much. “I’ve seen your pride at work. And you wouldn’t let a little thing like the cold get in your way of maintaining it. So, why did you take the jacket?” I smiled.
“Because he offered, and I thought he should have an opportunity to act like a gentleman, seeing as he’s had so little practice with manners and the like before.” I laughed. “What?”
“You are so full of crap.” She removed the jacket and tossed it on the back of the couch.
She didn’t acknowledge my comment. Instead, she suggested that after the long day we’d both had, sleep was in order. If we’d been in a better place, I might have pushed a little harder. Now wasn’t the time for that. We’d made amazing progress and I wasn’t about to blow it.
Despite my protests, April took a pillow and some spare blankets over to the couch to sleep. She said she didn’t feel like being kicked tonight. I told her the couch was too far for me to hit her with a pillow when she snored. She pretended to be offended, but I saw the smirk on her face. I was serious. I didn’t trust my throwing arm to be able to toss a pillow at her to make it stop. And I didn’t want to sacrifice my only pillow, just to get her to stop snoring for five minutes.
We didn’t fall asleep right away. Instead, we talked way longer than we should have. But we needed it. She finally told me why she really didn’t want to stay here. It had nothing to do with not trusting the people. Surprisingly enough, she said she trusted them more than she probably should have. What she was really worried about was that I was giving up on finding our family.
She gave me the opening I’d been waiting for. I should have taken it. I told myself that when she brought up our family again and finding them, that I was going to tell her about Dad. But I couldn’t. Things were getting better. I was positive that if I brought up our father, she’d just get angry all over again. That was something I couldn’t r
isk. Instead, I just told her what I had before. I was tired of being afraid all the time. It was exhausting. It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the whole truth. Sadly, the truth was, that I was ready to give up. It had been so many years. The odds of us finding any of them at all, let alone alive and well, were astronomical. But I didn’t say any of that to her. She still held onto hope that they were out there and looking for us too.
Who was I to go and crush her hope? But I also wasn’t willing to continue risking our lives out there, over a foolish obsession. So, instead I settled on a compromise. It was probably a dangerous thing for me to do, especially because I didn’t intend to hold up my end of the bargain. But she promised me that she’d give this place a real shot for the winter. She could at least acknowledge the dangers of being exposed to the elements as well as the monsters. She said by the time spring came, I should know if I had something real with Jack or not. And if it was real, then he’d follow me anywhere. I agreed that we’d stay for the winter and then continue looking for our family.
I tried not to let the guilt overwhelm me as I rolled over to finally get some sleep. There were so many good things that had come of tonight, it wasn’t right to dwell on the negative. At least we were on good terms, better than we had been in a long time. April was finally acknowledging me as an adult. And that was a big deal. April was also coming around to seeing things from my perspective. Hopefully given enough time, she’d come to love this place and want to stay. I hoped that when spring came, she’d forget our agreement.
I was surprised to find that sleep came quickly to me and even better than that, I had my first full, non-drug induced, sleep in years. I was hopeful that with the new morning, came a fresh start. April was on board with that. We were putting our fight behind us, and she was really, sincerely, going to try this time. She even promised to keep her bickering with Billy to a minimum. I wasn’t sure that was entirely for my benefit now.
Seeking Hope: Book 2 in the Seeking Saga Page 11