I felt the words forming on my tongue, and I took a chance. “Happy birthday, Jared,” I whispered against his skin.
He tensed below me, his fingers halting their lazy pursuit through my hair. Shifting, he blinked up toward the vacant ceiling. I worried I’d made a mistake before he finally spoke. His voice cracked over the hushed words. “I went to see her today…” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “To her grave.”
I hugged him tightly. Floored. I knew he’d taken a step in the right direction. I just had no idea the distance he’d gone.
God, what had he been through today?
I had no clue.
In the silence, I waited, supporting him through the heightened emotions that bobbed heavily in his throat.
“It took everything I had to go there. I swore I never would, but I felt drawn… like there was no way to resist it. Like she was calling me back at the same time all the darkness in me was condemning me for even considering it.”
I snuggled closer into his side, urging him to continue.
He exhaled heavily. “All these months I’ve been running, trying to stay one step ahead of my past, because if I did, then I could keep it from catching up to me. And you… my sweet girl… you knew exactly what was happening. And like an asshole, I just kept shutting you down.”
“You were scared,” I contended through a murmur, my fingertips smoothing over his bare chest.
He seemed to debate this for a second in his mind before he admitted, “Yeah… I’ve always been. Fucking terrified, Aly.”
He hooked his finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him.
Like I’d ever be able to look away.
“Baby, I can’t… please… just don’t give up on me,” he pled. “I’m fucked-up. I told you a long time ago I was always gonna be. But I realized today it doesn’t always have to be like that. And, yeah, I’ve got a long way to go… I know it, and I’m sorry that’s who I am, but God, Aly, I can’t do it without you.”
He blinked rapidly, shook his head. “Maybe I could,” he admitted, like it just occurred to him that he had to rely on himself too, that maybe he was worth the effort. “But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do it without you.”
For a moment he held a breath. Then he blew it achingly between pursed lips. Tucking me closer, he uttered the statement at the top of my head.
“I need help.”
His words sounded with a trumpet of deliverance.
And I repeated the ones he’d promised me so many times.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Faint rays of sunlight broke through our bedroom window. I blinked against them, slowly pulled from the depths of my restful sleep. I awoke to an empty bed. I propped up on my elbow and swept my palm across the cool sheets beside me.
In the middle of it rested a folded-up piece of paper, washed out and worn, the edges frayed from where it had been torn from a journal.
I bit my lip as I reached out and snagged it. Slowly I pushed up to sitting and held the small treasure Jared had left.
He hadn’t written me one once since he returned home just before Thanksgiving. Instead he’d whispered sweet words into my eager ear.
Carefully I unfolded the note. I just sat there, absorbing the statement he made.
When beauty breathes life back into the broken.
Without making a sound, I slipped from bed and tiptoed out our bedroom door.
In the early-morning light, I stood and gazed down on the man who held all my days. In the family room, he was kneeling on the floor with his back to me, facing the fireplace.
Pieces of splintered, broken wood were spread out around him, dragged out from where I’d stacked them in the corner after he’d torn all the beauty he created from its rightful place.
He sensed me, and Jared sat back on his haunches and shifted to look at me over his shoulder.
For a moment we just stared, before his mouth edged in the softest, sweetest smile.
Butterflies took flight in my stomach.
And I knew… this was Jared’s new start.
TWENTY-SIX
Jared
Darkness held heavy over the moonless sky.
I slumped back against the rough stucco of our little house, the pitted wall making its mark on my bare back. I dug my toes into the cool, damp grass where I propped my feet.
On a sigh, I lifted my half-spent cigarette to my mouth, balanced it between my lips as I let my head drift to the side, turning my attention back on the choppy, scrawled words that overflowed the dingy pages of the notebook seated on my lap.
My therapist had encouraged me on nights like this, the ones when I woke up gasping and begging for air from the aftermath of the horrors of that vivid dream, to do this.
Write.
I shook my head.
I had a therapist.
Never thought in a million fucking years I’d sit in front of one without it being court ordered. And when it’d been, those sessions had been nothing but a sham. Me sitting there like a punk-ass kid because that’s exactly what I was, spewing inane bullshit at a group counselor, dodging questions and throwing back vapid words when they were required.
It’s when I started pouring all this shit across these pages, at night in juvie when I couldn’t sleep.
Felt like I’d been doing this for fucking ever.
The difference was all those pages had been inscribed with hate.
I raked a hand over my head, scratched at it as I tried to define what I wanted to say, because these pages were no longer filled with hate.
These were letters to my mom.
God, the first time I did it, I sat out here in the middle of the night and cried for hours. Because I felt her, somehow knew she was listening, somehow knew she was talking back to me through all these words that came bubbling out of me from some unknown place.
My thoughts had been disorganized, a ramble of words that didn’t make a whole lot of sense except for the intense need I felt to tell her how much I loved her.
Slowly over time I opened up, revealing to her how I felt that day. How scared I was – how all that fear was for her.
I told her I was sorry.
Even though I’d come to accept she’d already forgiven me, in almost all my letters, there was an apology.
Now… now I was working on forgiving myself.
Some days were harder than others because I no longer blocked the misery, didn’t close off her face or shun her smile or reject her good.
I submersed myself in it and allowed myself to mourn.
God, I’d gone through a lot of fucking pain to come to that point, but I finally accepted I had the right to miss her. That I didn’t have to feel guilty for it, didn’t need to heap it up as another burden to bear.
I missed her.
It was part of my truth and I poured that feeling into these pages. No longer did I hesitate to tell her how much.
And damn, there were some moments when it just about brought me to my fucking knees.
But every time I got back up again.
I lived and loved with everything in me. Giving it my all.
She knew all my secrets, how much I adored my girl, just like my mom knew I would. She knew how terrified I was of becoming a father, all this anxiety of the unknown wrapped up in Aly’s ever-growing belly. But she also knew how insanely anxious and proud and thrilled I was at the same time, that my heart beat a little stronger every time I felt our baby kick.
She knew it all.
I let my thoughts wander, back to when I was a boy, to the soft lilt of her laugh and the tender touch of her hand. God, she’d been beautiful. So good and pure. A mild breeze rustled through the deep, slumbering night, and if I held still enough, I could almost feel it, her fingers brushing through my hair.
My chest swelled.
I felt so close to her.
Like she was right here, still guiding me through all the moments of my life.
And I thought maybe…
maybe she is.
I looked back to the page, and set my hand free.
Tomorrow I’m going to marry her. Can you believe it? I get to call Aly my wife.
God, Mom, I’m happy.
So happy I think I might be a little crazy, and all of this sometimes seems impossible. That girl steals my breath.
I lifted my face to the starry sky, my leg bouncing when I turned back to my journal.
I’d do anything for you to be there.
I hesitated with my pen poised over the paper; then I set it back down.
But I know in some way you will be.
I rocked my head back on the wall.
Yeah.
She wouldn’t miss it.
EPILOGUE
Aleena
Loving someone is one of the biggest chances we ever take. I once considered it unfair because it’s rarely a conscious decision we make. It’s something that blossoms slow or hits us hard, something that stirs and builds gradually, or something that shocks us with its sudden intensity. And sometimes it’s something that’s been a part of us our entire lives.
But almost always, it’s inevitable.
This… this was inevitable.
I slipped outside into the heavy night air. Dark, angry cumulus clouds gathered where they built high in the heated summer sky. Strikes of lighting illuminated the blackened heavens in quick flashes, and thunder rolled in the distance.
I hugged myself and lifted my face to the burst of stormy wind that blew in.
The monsoon was almost here.
It would always be my favorite time of year.
It would always remind me of where Jared and I began. As children out in our empty field. And again as adults when we embarked on a tenuous relationship filled with insecurities and questions.
One that grew into the strongest love.
He stood across our tiny yard, facing out over the wall, waiting for the start.
I paused in the sheltered shadows of the patio, silent as I watched.
My spirit shimmered with pride when I thought of what he’d become.
When I recognized everything he’d overcome.
My eyes traced over my gorgeous man, his profile so defined, his stance so strong, all this coarse beauty that shielded the kindest heart. He wore a fitted black tee and jeans, and my stomach did a little flip-flop and my pulse responded with a patter. Heat rushed to my cheeks.
After everything we’d gone through, you’d think he wouldn’t still affect me this way.
But my need for him only seemed to grow.
From where he stood, his left side faced me. My attention trailed over the exposed skin of his arm. Years ago he covered it in blacks and grays that morphed into horrific faces. Those faces promised all his days were condemned to be served out in a tortured living hell.
Now a long-stemmed rose grew up between the faces, shedding light on the dark, a new birth when he’d once believed his punishment was death.
The bright stem twisted and turned through the statement of his self-loathing, growing higher and thicker before it blossomed into a vibrant red rose.
Life.
I always prayed he’d find it.
And he had.
The new does not blot out the old. Rather, it is an extension. A symbol of a life that ended much too early and the beginning of another that some would say began too soon.
Curling out from the rose were little spirals of vines. They wove into the most precious words.
Ella Rose.
Affection squeezed my heart.
She was curled up in a tiny ball, fast asleep on her daddy’s chest.
It was her favorite place.
I could hardly blame her.
Slowly he rocked her, one hand protecting her little head, his arms secure around her little body.
He was a good father.
A good husband.
Jared was a good man.
I’d always seen it.
Now he finally accepted it – that he was a part of the good, and that without him our lives would never be so full.
He was important.
Needed.
He brushed his lips across her head, and I edged forward across the lawn, drawn deeper into the darkness.
Drawn to my family.
From behind, I wound my arms around his waist and pressed my lips to the center of his back.
A rumble of pleasure vibrated through him. “There you are, Mrs. Holt,” he whispered low.
I felt the redness rush to my face. God, I loved when he called me that. And he did a lot. Apparently Jared liked the way it sounded, too.
“Where else would I be?” I asked as I flattened my palm to his taut stomach, the other latching onto a tiny foot as I peeked around Jared at our daughter.
Ella grunted, and her little head bobbed as she stirred.
I had become a mother six weeks ago. I thought I was prepared for the overpowering love I would feel. I’d really had no clue until the moment I held her in my arms, my precious black-haired baby girl with the deepest gray eyes. Those would be blue, I was sure, this perfect little mixture of her father and me.
Jared chuckled low, bouncing her softly as he shushed her. “You gonna wake up and watch the fireworks with Daddy and Momma, Ella?”
He dipped his chin, softly nudging our child. She squirmed and let out a high-pitched cry that sounded like a kitten’s yowl.
The force of my smile was all-encompassing, the rush of love that filled every crevice of my heart overwhelming. Moments like this, I felt staggered. Overcome. My voice filled with awe. “I love her… so much.”
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Jared whispered, falling into a slight sway as the two of us rocked our child together, this miracle that seemed so impossible, this tiny, perfect life.
I was so blessed to be able to stay home with her, so blessed to be able to draw. Just like Jared said I could. They were images like the ones I had kept hidden away in my sketch pads, although now people paid me to capture their treasured faces, their children, their spouses, their families. My mentor had gotten me started, so much sooner that I’d ever anticipated.
It made Jared proud, so extremely proud, and he told me every day.
But my proudest moment was when he sat with me while I drew a picture of a snapshot of him and his mother from when he was a small boy, clinging to her neck. The drawing was now displayed proudly on the wall above the mantel he had reconstructed, the mantel where the jewelry box he’d made for her had found its home.
I was so intensely proud of this man. He’d accomplished so much in such a short time. I hadn’t been shocked in the least when he’d come home from work two months ago, pacing, nervous, unsure of what direction to go when his boss had asked him to become his partner in a new venture designing and creating custom kitchens.
Christopher joined their business too as a partner, which was kind of funny, but completely expected, my crazy brother meshing with Jared, constantly bickering and never far from each other’s sides.
Jared was also slowly renewing his relationship with his father. Neil, Mary, and Courtney had come to Phoenix to meet Ella the week she was born, and Courtney had plans to spend a couple weeks with us during her summer vacation from high school. Rebuilding those bonds would take time, but Jared was willing to put everything into them.
“Do you think she’ll be afraid of the fireworks?” Jared asked as he turned his attention out beyond the boundaries of our yard.
“No… I think she’s going to love them.”
How could she not?
Soft laughter floated from his mouth, and he rocked her a little more. “Did you know one year ago tonight I kissed your mommy for the first time? She drove me right out of my mind that night. I had to have her.” His voice softened. “Thank God I took her.”
“You took me?” I teased, lifting our daughter from his arms. My entire body sighed in contentment, the feel of her, my heart so full I was sure it would burst.
&nb
sp; Jared turned me around and wrapped us both from behind in his embrace.
It throbbed a little more, just a little fuller, just a little more. Always just a little more, because with Jared, I never got enough.
“Yep,” he said, almost proudly at my ear. “Give me about a half an hour, and I’ll be taking you again,” he whispered through his deep voice. Soft laughter escaped my mouth. Like it was difficult for this man to get me into bed.
One look from Jared? Call me seduced.
Jared pulled us closer, and I listened to him murmur sweet words to our daughter, filling her tiny ears with the sound of her daddy’s voice, with the beginning of our story.
But that night one year ago was far from our beginning.
A rumble in the distance stole our attention. We turned to watch the first explosion of color lift to the sky from afar. Still it was palpable, like the three of us felt it, the twines of color wrapping through us, weaving through our hearts and our spirits and the fabric of our beings.
Making us one.
Come to Me Softly Page 38