Holding a Hero

by Layne, Lyssa

  I heard the mattress squeak softly as Joss sank down into it. “You could have died,” she whispered. It was the last reaction I had expected.

  “For a long time I fucking wished I had.” I stepped around the pile of clothes and went to kneel down before her. “Then I met you. You saved me, Joss. And not because I felt like I needed to save you, but because you could see past the broken pieces and still love what was left.”

  Her eyes had turned from stone to bottomless pools a man like me could drown in. “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Why can’t you?” I had both of her hands in mine, as if I could somehow maintain the connection between us that way. I knew I couldn’t. I could already feel her slipping away. Her fingers hadn’t locked into mine automatically like they always had. They were simply resting in my grasp, only there because I was still holding on. She had already let go.

  “Because, Derek, I’ll always wonder now if you’re here because you want to be, or because you think you need to be. And that’s not the kind of love I can live with.”

  “You can’t be serious. You can’t possibly believe that after everything that’s happened!” I jumped back to my feet, her hands freed from mine in an instant.

  “Sorry. It’s how I feel.” Her voice was flat and completely devoid of feeling.

  “Really? You’re going to fucking lie to my face? What is it really, Joss? What are you so fucking scared of now that you would rather chase me away than face it together?”

  Her eyes shifted into narrow slants. “You.”

  One single fucking word and I felt the air get pressed from my lungs. Me. She was scared of me. It was the most hurtful thing she could have possibly said to me and she knew it. And knowing that she’d done it anyway was enough to make me question why the fuck I was even still putting up a fight.

  She stood from the bed. “I’m going to go and check on Wyatt. Today was really hard on him and things aren’t about to get any easier. Please be gone before I come back down this hall to get him ready for bath.”

  That was it. She walked out. And all I could do was watch. I was too pissed and fucking heartbroken to do shit else.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ever since Derek had been on the stand I felt like my day had passed in a dizzying blur. I felt nauseous and my head was fucking pounding to the point I wanted someone to drill a hole in my skull just to release the pressure. Or knock me the fuck out.

  Bobby and Aunt Deb had both taken turns trying to talk me down from the ledge I was dancing on like a crazy person, but there was no coming back from where I was headed. Too many lives were at stake – along with my sanity – and I had to cut the dead weight to move on. My heart had to go. And Derek with it.

  Even after he’d tracked me down and let his soul bleed freely at my feet, I’d turned him away. Forced him to go, because losing him now somehow seemed better than someday finding out I’d never really had him at all. I was torn on that, though. Logically, I could see it all clear as day. He’d felt responsible for those boys who died. He hadn’t been the one to kill them, or to put them in the middle of war to begin with, but he was Derek and so he’d made it his fault above all others. Because he held himself to those standards. Standards he’d never expect anyone else to reach, but ones he couldn’t bear to fall short of himself.

  So, defeated and broken, he’d come home. Walked away from the only world he knew and tried to make right what had gone wrong. He’d adopted Hattie, probably because the silence that came with sleeping alone at night made his nightmares worse. Then, he’d somehow stumbled upon the idea of taking her in to visit children at the hospital. A noble, kind gesture, one he no doubt would have thought to do even under the best of circumstances. And that was the problem, really.

  All along I’d known that Derek would do the right thing. Always. Without doubt or hesitation, I knew he would show up. He would protect. And he would be true to his word. All things in a man that women would bend over backwards in stiletto heels and Spanx for, and maybe I should have too. But I couldn’t. Not when I’d needed him to be all of those things. More importantly, my son had needed him to be them. My son. An innocent boy being threatened by a force too big for me to fight on my own. Precisely the sort of boy Derek was on a mission to save. I couldn’t be a mission to the man I loved. And I couldn’t live with the possibility that I was.

  So, I took the part of my heart that belonged to him now and killed it. Drowned it in the anguish and fury I felt over the injustice of it all. The injustice of having been lost and then finally found and falling beautifully in love only to have it be tainted by a reality in which I’d never be able to tell the truth of my heart from the lies it told.

  Logically, I knew all of this. Could see it clearly. Understood it perfectly. Emotionally was another story altogether. My soul felt sick at the thought of losing Derek. In the deepest darkest parts of myself, a small voice was screaming at me, furious that I could be so stupid as to buy into the spewing of my sensible mind, when here in the plainest way possible was such unmistakable evidence even the best arguments of my head would falter.

  But that voice was easy to silence. I’d learned to shut her up a long time ago. And so, I did just that. Told her to crawl back into the dark canyons that riddled my heart and stay there. She’d clearly done enough damage over the years.

  It wasn’t surprising that sleep had left me along with Derek, and by day three of trying to get a grip on my life while I was stuck in yet another state of limbo as the judge took time out to review everyone’s statements along with our previous case before he was prepared to make a decision, I was still puking my guts out every time Aunt Deb force fed me even the tiniest morsel of food. Between the exhaustion and the lack of nutrition, I was pretty sure I’d be comatose before long. Not a bad prospect, all things considered, provided some doctor would be able to snap me out of it come ruling day.

  “I’m coming in,” Aunt Deb announced from the other side of my bathroom door. I was curled up around the base of my toilet for the third straight day in a row and lacked the energy to fight her even if I was in no state to be viewed by anyone.

  “Sweet Jesus, Joss. How much longer are you going to do this?” She bent down and reached under my arms to pull me up. Leaning my head against her own chest, she sweetly rocked me back and forth in a way I’m sure she meant to be comforting, but actually just made me want to hurl again.

  “Ugh. Stop. You’re giving me motion sickness,” I groaned into the side of her arm.

  “Oh, sorry.” The rocking ceased instantly. “I’m serious, Joss, you’re scaring me. I’ve never seen you like this. Not even when Cara died.”

  I sobbed. The heaving in my chest was dry and painful. “If I tell you something, you have to swear never to tell anyone ever.” It took every ounce of strength I had at that point to lift my head from her chest and look at her.

  She nodded, then waited for me to make my confession.

  “This hurts worse than losing Cara,” I whined shamefully.

  I felt Aunt Deb’s hand reach up to collect the beehive of hair on my head, trying to smooth out the tangled mess it had become after missed showers and a lack of brushing. At this point I wondered if there would be any salvaging what was there. It was entirely possible I’d have to shave it all off and start from scratch by the time I was fit for civilization again.

  With closed eyes, I tried to focus only on the repetitive soft motion of my aunt’s hand traveling across my scalp. It was hypnotic in a way and an unexpected source of comfort I was happy to indulge in. I was so entranced by what she was doing, it took me a second to register when she spoke again.

  “You know, this is different than Cara. Not just because it hurts more, but because you can undo it. You can have him back in your life. All you have to do is ask him.”

  Just like that she had ruined the dreamy state of numbness she’d previously teased me with.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Apparent
ly Aunt Deb didn’t know that. “If you’re really in love with him. Why give up?”

  I shrugged, frustrated to have to explain it to her when I’d already had the argument with myself a hundred times over and barely won each time. “Maybe I’m not really in love with him. I mean, I am the one who ended things. Don’t you think it says something that I was willing to make him walk away so easily?”

  “Sure. It says lots of things. None of which amount to you not being in love with him.” She resumed stroking my hair, but it was too late. It no longer had the same mesmerizing effect on me it had had before.

  “And what about him, huh? If I was mistaken, if he wasn’t here for the wrong reasons, why did he leave, hm?”

  Aunt Deb leaned down and whispered, “Because you told him too.” Even in her hushed tones, the words bore a harsh reminder of the part I’d played in my own misery and I could feel the tightness of tears even though I was too dehydrated to actually produce any.

  “Besides,” my aunt continued,” he’s not really gone. I mean, I’m pretty sure Darius and Abe aren’t hanging out here simply for something to do.”

  I jerked upright, slamming my hand on the cold hard tiles, the sting of needles spreading through my palm instantly. “See! He can’t stop himself! He just has to save us.”

  The next thing that happened, I hadn’t seen coming. Not in a million years. Aunt Deb got mad. Not just mad. She got pissed. At me.

  “Would you get your beautiful head out of your ass?! The man is in love with you. And yeah, it’s in his nature to want to be the hero, but is that really such a fucking tragedy?”

  “Well, no – “

  “Then why the hell are you making it one? Why are you in here lingering between death warmed over and mental patient, while your son is out there worrying about you and wondering why the only father figure he’s ever had has disappeared off of the face of the earth? And what about Derek, hm? What do you suppose this is doing to him? After everything that man has had to endure, you really think it’s fair to put him through this torture now? And for what? For loving you beyond rhyme or reason? For loving your son like he was his own? It’s shit, Joss. Total shit.”

  It was. And I was shit because of it. But that was the thing with shit. At its core, it simply didn’t believe it could be loved.

  ***

  Ever since Joss had made me leave I’d practically taken up residence on a barstool at Bobby’s pub. I just didn’t know where else to go. I mean, I had a house of my own, but going there seemed like admitting defeat and I couldn’t fucking do that. Home was with Joss and Wyatt. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Even after everything that had been said, with Joss was still the only one place I wanted to be. The only place I really belonged.

  So, I sat there, sipping from a draft beer I knew I would never finish. Not that the appeal of getting totally shitfaced didn’t tempt me day after day. I simply couldn’t afford to escape this reality, regardless of how badly I wanted to because there was no guarantee that booze would take me to a better place. Drinking had the potential to send me somewhere even worse, to turn loose the monster I kept chained up within which would fucking devour me whole and destroy any part of me Joss might someday deem worthy of her heart again.

  “Want me to freshen that up?” Bobby was eyeing the warm, flat beer at my fingertips.

  “Nah, I’m cool.”

  He took the glass anyway. “Well I’m not. I can’t have a shit draft like that sitting on my counter. People will start to think I’m fucking serving it that way.”

  He dumped the draft and dropped the empty pint into the rack along with the other dirty dishes. Then he reached down into the cooler behind him and brought out a bottle of Bud for me.

  “Here, try this. At least with the dark brown glass no one will know how long you’ve been sitting on it.”

  I nodded. “Sorry, man. I don’t mean to be bad for business.”

  “I don’t give a shit about business. You’re family. That trumps this stupid bar every day of the week.” He gave a quick glance down the length of the counter. It was Saturday night and the place was packed, but Mattie had it covered for the moment. “I’ve tried talking to her, you know? Deb has, too. We both know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to her and Wyatt.”

  I knew he meant well, but it didn’t feel true anymore. “You didn’t see her, Bobby. You don’t know what I saw when I looked in her eyes before she told me to leave. I hurt her. After everything I did to try and protect her from Travis, I was the one who did the most harm.”

  “Tell me you don’t really believe that. Fine, you didn’t go out of your way to tell her about your horror war stories, but who would? The only reason this has turned into such a shit cluster is because Joss is all fucked up in the head and she doesn’t know how to get out of her own way long enough to reach her own fucking happily ever after, even when it shows up on her fucking doorstep to marry her.” Bobby actually sounded pissed at Joss. Then, before I could threaten to punch his lights out for talking about her that way, he changed his tone.

  Coming in closer so no one else would hear our conversation, he said, “And I get it. It’s not like she doesn’t have every reason to act this way.”

  “I know, I should have been honest. Should have explained things to her –“

  Bobby shook his head adamantly. “No, not you. She was fucked up long before you ever came along. And not just because of Cara, either. Although, I guess that pretty much put the nails in her padded cell. Joss just has always had this way about her that made guys look at her like a challenge. Maybe because she was into busting people’s balls. Maybe because she didn’t put out as fast as the other girls did, I don’t fucking know. I was too young when it started to really get what was happening. But it was definitely happening. I don’t think she ever dated a single guy who wasn’t dating her for some ulterior motive. By the time we were both adults, she’d resigned herself to dating assholes just so she wouldn’t be surprised later on. Then the whole thing with Cara happened, she wound up with Wyatt and dating your run of the mill piece of shit wasn’t going to cut it anymore, so she gave up men all together. I’ll tell you though, the fucking irony of it all was that these douchebags thought she was the shit, like she was the ultimate conquest or something, while she walked away from men thinking she wasn’t good enough to warrant more than an effort to gain the unattainable fuck.” He was staring off across the room in total disgust. And I was busy thinking how fucking lucky those motherfuckers were that they’d been around before I came to town.

  “She can’t really…I mean, she has to know…” Surely she didn’t think for one second that I was like those assholes. Not given everything we’d experienced together. She’d been the one to see me. Truly see to my core, the way no other woman had ever looked at me. She had to have seen then how crazy in love I was with her.

  But Bobby was shaking his head sadly. “She doesn’t know shit, Derek. Whatever truths her heart has told her about the two of you, her head has already obliterated. Trust me. I’ve seen that masochist go to work on herself. No one can hurt Joss quite like Joss can.”

  All this time I’d been obsessed with protecting her from Travis while the real enemy had been slipping right past me. Even as I sat there, I had left her vulnerable. Worse, I’d been the one to leave the fucking door open for her to come waltzing in and attack.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was late when I came out of the house and strolled down the driveway to the workshop. Even in the dark, I could see Darius nod at me from the front seat of his Suburban as I walked by. Well, I saw his outline anyway.

  Made sense now, why he was so willing to sit there day after day keeping watch. He owed Derek his life. Spending a week camped out in someone’s driveway probably seemed like a small price to pay in return. Although, the fact that he was still sitting there even after I had sent Derek packing did raise several red flags in my theory regarding the validity of our relationship and his feelin
gs for me.

  It also didn’t help that Aunt Deb’s reaming was still fresh on my mind hours later. I knew she was right. I knew they were all right. I just didn’t know what to do with that knowledge when it so clearly contradicted what the facts were telling me.

  Sure, as time had gone by, and feelings had grown between us, I had become fairly certain that he had to either be certifiably insane to stick around or genuinely care for me. After all, what did I have to offer? I was a single mom with drama to spare. Not exactly the type of stuff young hot bachelors were standing in line for. But Derek seemed to want every part of it. And I had seen no other explanation aside from the one that made the least sense to me. He truly wanted to be with me.

  Only then all of those well-rehearsed speeches I’d given myself about how this was different, and how Derek was different, had gone to total shit when I realized I did have something to offer the man. Redemption. And I was happy to give it, just not at the expense of my battered heart.

  Alone in my shop, I closed the door behind me and switched on the lights. Then I reached into my pocket and stared at the small cardboard box I’d been carrying around with me all day long. Finally, when I couldn’t take it any longer, my foot found the lever of the trashcan and pressed down. The lid popped open and I dropped the box inside.

  “One crisis at a time, Joss.”

  I stepped away from the trashcan only to bump into something behind me. I turned to see the very thing that had been keeping me from walking in here since Wednesday. Derek’s furniture. The only thing he’d left behind. The only thing of his still with me. I didn’t know if I wanted to drape my entire body over the pieces just for some delusional sense of closeness, or if I wanted to set them all on fire and watch them burn along with my misery.

  Since neither seemed like viable options, I did what I did best. Got to work. Moving on autopilot I began to retrieve paints and brushes along with a handful of rags I’d need for the finish I wanted to do.