Because I needed another punch to the gut. “Jasper, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No!” he broke in, that one word sounding panicked, but then emphatic once more. “It was the only thing that saved me. I couldn’t have survived his criticism. Always calling me names. I probably would’ve run away or… been one of those gay kids who killed themselves before they got free of their house. Harrison, the only reason I survived is because of what you did. The only reason I’m me, for better or worse, is because of you.”
Tears fell again, though they were different this time.
Still he continued. “I think I need to say I’m sorry. Not only for not seeing it earlier, but because maybe that’s why you run.”
I flinched, not expecting that. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Like you said, you were whatever Dad needed so that I could be Jasper, right? So, you never got to be Harrison. Maybe… you still haven’t gotten to be Harrison?”
I drove back to San Francisco that night. Rented a midgrade hotel room, flipped on the TV, and flip-flopped back and forth between replaying conversations with Jasper, Adrian, Will, Angela, my father, and shutting my brain completely off to let the television take over.
When I finally tried to sleep, the darkened silence of the room was oppressive. I couldn’t shake the feeling that every single thing in the world was attempting to suffocate me. No matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, breathing was the hardest thing to manage.
That wasn’t a new sensation. The football helmets and the pads had been the same. Heavy, hot, suffocating. Part of the reason I had hated it so much. I’d assumed that was how everyone felt. Weighted down by them, practically drowning as you sweated yourself nearly to death inside.
But then the injury. And the padding had come off. No more helmet.
But still the suffocation. It never went away.
It had always been there. Always.
I tossed and turned. To the point that I’d thrown the sheets from the bed and lay there naked, sweating, suffocated by my own skin.
Simply trying to breathe.
At some point, I drifted off. At least. I think I had. Because it’d been dark, then suddenly there was sunlight streaming across my face.
As I lay there, with the rest of my life playing out in my mind from this hotel room—having no idea where to go, or what to do next—that suffocation became an endless lover I would never escape.
What I would give to simply breathe.
To breathe, sigh, and then breathe again. I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like. How the world would….
I sat up in bed, a memory washing over me, pushing away the tide of suffocation and claustrophobia.
I did know what that was like. Very, very well. For years, that was almost all I’d known. At least in one place.
I saw my mother’s long, slender fingers cutting thorns off roses, arranging them with sprigs of green twigs, creating a small fairyland in a vase as she grinned over at me and explained why she’d chosen the colors and the textures she had.
I breathed then. Breathed her in, the scents of the flowers, the ease of… freedom.
I drove the rest of that day, only stopping at a cheap hotel room in Texas, and called Jasper letting him know I was okay. I also forced myself to text Adrian, though I should have done it sooner. Simply told him that I loved him and that I was sorry.
Sleep took its time arriving that night as well.
During the long night, I realized there was really only one person to call. That Jasper was my solitary sanctuary in my world. Adrian too, if I’d let him. But beyond that, no one? I supposed that shouldn’t have been a realization at all. As Angela had forced me to pick groomsmen for Will’s and my wedding, my lack of lasting friendships had been evident. But it hadn’t sunk in then.
It did during the night.
I reached Nashville around noon the next day. There were about five minutes where I panicked, had to pull the car over, and thought I would just turn around and head right back. Pretend none of this had happened.
But I wanted to breathe.
Even if it was just one more time, I wanted to breathe.
I’d knocked on the door for so long that I decided he wasn’t home. Good enough, wouldn’t have to see him. I’d just hop the fence.
When he finally opened the door, Dad jerked back slightly when he saw me. For just a moment, maybe half of a moment, there was that spark, something like love in his eyes. And then, as if remembering everything, it shattered, leaving only disgust and disappointment in its place. “If you came all the way here to give me a piece of your mind, save your breath. You’ve ruined my life. I’m not gonna feel bad about a five-minute interview paying the mortgage for a few months.”
For that same nearly immeasurable span of time, I considered spewing some retorts back. Throwing in his face about the percentage of money I’d given him from every single payment I’d gotten from my football career. He could’ve paid off the house with half of what that first gift had been.
That wasn’t the point. We weren’t the point. He wasn’t the point.
I stepped past him, shoving the memories away that threatened to overtake me as old scents and settings barged in. “I don’t care about the interview, Dad. I’m not here to talk about it.”
“You can’t just barge in here like you own the place. Get your ass back out there.” He hurried after me as I walked through the house. “You’re a disgrace. You and your brother. You’re not welcome here.”
I didn’t look back at him. Not a single one of his words broke through. I didn’t even have to try. He truly didn’t matter. He was one of the reasons I couldn’t breathe.
He was not the point.
“I’ll be out of your hair in less than ten minutes.”
Nothing had changed in the house, nothing, and I made my way through it, went to the garage, grabbed a spade, then headed through the rear door that led to the yard. I had my hand on the handle when Dad gripped my wrist. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you need to get out of here, or I’m calling the police.”
I jerked my arm away and finally spared him a glance. “Call the police. I don’t care. Call the reporters, see if you can get a few thousand dollars by giving an interview while I get handcuffed in the background.” I lifted the spade between us and he reared back like I was going to hit him. I sneered, couldn’t keep from it. “Oh, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” I opened the door to the backyard and started to step through, but I spared him one more look. “I’m taking some of Mom’s irises. Call the police if you want, say that I’m stealing, whatever. But I will have her irises, and I also have this.” I pointed the spade at him one final time. “You and I both know…. You, Jasper, and I all know what you said in that interview was a lie. The only person Mom would be ashamed of is you. She loved us no matter what we were. Somehow, she even loved you. You can have everything else, but you don’t get to keep her irises.”
It took longer than ten minutes, nearly an hour. The yard was a virtual jungle, more like a junk heap, honestly. But that didn’t matter. I knew exactly where the irises had been. As long as Dad hadn’t gone into a rage and ripped them out, they’d been so well-established, they wouldn’t have required any care to have survived. To my relief, once I cleared away all the vines and crap that had tried to choke them out, I found them.
They were from my great-grandmother, her farm in Arkansas. The farm that my grandmother had inherited, on which my mother had been raised. When she moved, Mom dug up some of the bulbs. Irises have a root system that divide. If you plant one, the roots spread, reproducing through the ground, another flower forming and shooting up a little distance away. A single cutting could give you an entire bed of irises within a few years. Mom had taken several varieties from the farm but the purple were her favorite.
I could almost feel her guidance, reminding me of where each different species lay. By the
time I was done, I had several cuttings from the blue Clarence, the yellow-and-purple Edith, ones I’d forgotten the names of but knew would be rust and orange, black, stark white, countless combinations. I only took enough so I would have a sizeable start of each. But of the purple, at least as far as I could tell as there were no blooms, I took them all. I dug out the entire bed, farther on each side, accounting for their spread of reproduction over the years. I wasn’t going to leave Dad a single one of Mom’s purple blooms. Not to hurt him, but simply because he wouldn’t even notice.
I hadn’t brought bags or boxes with me, so I took off my shirt and filled it with as many iris cuttings as it could hold, carried it through the house, placed them in the trunk of my car, and then did it again. It took seven trips to get them all. The trunk was full, so I used the back seat. Through it all, Dad sat in his recliner watching a football game on the TV, as if no time had passed.
On my final trip through the living room, my shirt filled with the last cuttings, I recognized one of the plays the announcer was talking about and paused to look at the TV. It was a recording of one of my games with the Titans.
I started to say goodbye but then didn’t. There was no reason to. He had the son he wanted; he was there with him, always.
I laid the last batch in the passenger seat and headed home. I didn’t know what would come next, but I wanted Jasper by my side, whatever that would bring. Throughout the nearly thirty-five-hour drive, the smell of plant and dirt permeated the car, and bit by bit, I started to catch my breath.
Twenty-Four
Adrian
“The new field should be ready to plant in the next week or two.” Micah stood with his arms crossed in the doorway of the glasshouse, in the exact same position he’d been in for the past fifteen minutes. “I’m thinking we do peas and beets, or cauliflower and cabbage.”
“That sounds great.” I didn’t bother looking at him from my position on top of the ladder.
“Of course, if we go for less quantity and more variety, we can do all four.”
Keeping one hand on the thin steel beam running across the diameter of the decorative raised roof for support, I used the other to reach out and wiggle the metal mullions between the narrow rectangles of glass. “Sure, Micah. Whatever you think.” I wiggled another piece. They’d have to be soldered down before I replaced the glass panes. It had loosened enough that I was surprised they’d kept out the rain so far.
“Of course, we could just scrap it all and plant palm trees. I bet Lavender Shores would go crazy over locally grown pineapples.”
“Excellent. They’ll be a great seller.” The other pieces I attempted to wiggle stayed in place. Not too bad. Pineapple sounded pretty good, at the moment. “Pineapple?” I straightened, managing to bang the back of my head on one of the crisscrossing beams. Rubbing it, I glared down at Micah. “Coconuts grow on palm trees, not pineapples.”
“Oh, so you were listening. Sort of.” He grinned. “And whether we’re talking pineapples or coconuts, I don’t really think palm trees are our best bet, do you?”
Scowling, I came down a couple of rungs on the ladder. “Fine. Fine. You made your point. I’m distracted.”
“You’ve been working on this thing solid for over a week, Adrian.” Micah finally unfolded his arms and moved in from the doorway. “You won’t let anybody help you, and you’re not worried about the farm or the Green Violin.”
That stung a little bit. “You’re right. I’ve not been the world’s best business partner lately.”
“Adrian.” Micah sighed and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m just worried about you. You’re obsessed with fixing this place, and you’re not even sure why.”
He was right. Nearly every waking minute had been spent in the glasshouse. I’d traded the obsession of Alex’s journals for trying to repair the place.
All the rubbish had been carted away. I’d already torn down the vines and spent three days alone cleaning the copper roof, which was gleaming and gorgeous.
“There’s not really all that much left. I just want to make sure the mullion is soldered securely before I put in the new glass. But before I do that, I’m going to repair the floor. Some of the bricks need to be replaced, and then I’ll redo the grout—I’m thinking sand and cement—then maybe sealant over the entire thing. I’ll do the glass last, so I don’t break any of it during the other repairs.”
Micah moved closer and took on a tone that suggested he was afraid I might break as easily as the old glass. “That’s a fine plan, but you still aren’t sure why you’re doing it.”
“We both know why I’m doing it.” I glanced at his eyes, but only for a second before looking away in embarrassment. “Just because Harrison hasn’t come back yet doesn’t mean he won’t. And if he does… if he does….” My throat constricted, and I ended with just gesturing toward the glasshouse.
“Has he sent you another text since he got back into town?”
God, I wanted to lie. To convince Micah that there really might be a chance.
To convince myself.
“No. Just the one saying that he was back in the town, and with Jasper. He told me he was sorry and that he needed space.”
I’d gotten that text and one shortly after, giving me a time he was going to retrieve his things from my house and asking me not to be there.
That time I did hold Micah’s gaze. “I love him. And you of all people should understand that. How long did you wait for Connor? Even though he told you not to? Even though anyone would’ve told you not to? You told me over and over that you just knew. You just knew you were his, and he was yours. Even if he never saw it.” Anger flitted in me, though I couldn’t tell if it was directed at Micah or not. “Same damn thing Andre says about Meghan. Same shit Alex wrote about Alan. You know that. You read those journals before I did. You were the one obsessed with them not long ago.”
Micah took a step back, as if stung. He rubbed his hand over his jaw, considered, and when he spoke, his words were hesitant. “I don’t know, Adrian. I’m not saying Harrison’s a bad guy, but what he did to Will, what he did to you—”
“How many times did Connor break your heart?” There was meanness in my tone, but I couldn’t pull it back. “Or you, for that matter? You rubbing Seth in his face. And is that what I should do, Micah? Should I be fucking around with Seth, maybe make out in front of the bookshop windows? Is that a better plan than staying out here like a pathetic jackass, fixing this glasshouse for a man who may not come back?” Somewhere in there I’d popped the cork and couldn’t get it back in. “Are you afraid that I’m doing all this, that I’ll make this rundown piece of shit some gorgeous glasshouse? Some mausoleum to the man I love who will never look my way again? That I’ll move in here with a sleeping bag and refuse to come out?”
Anger flicked over Micah’s face, but then he let out a shaky breath. “I deserved that. I hate seeing you so miserable. And yes, I hate seeing you work your fingers to the bone for something that may not happen. But I deserved that.” He nodded and met my gaze. “Take it from me, Adrian. Being in love with someone who’s in front of your face but out of your reach, even if you know you’re supposed to be together…. It’s agony. Constant agony.”
We were silent for several moments. He was right. I knew he was right. Harrison had only been back in town a few days. I hadn’t seen him, but I felt him every moment. Knew that he was so close. Knew that he was hurting. That I was hurting. That the man I was supposed to be with was quite literally just a few moments away but might as well be on the other side of the world. Sure, common sense said that as time went on it would hurt less. Maybe I’d get used to running into Harrison on the street. He could become that man I used to know. The guy I’d loved at one point.
That wasn’t how this was going to work. I’d gotten what I asked for. I knew who was made for me and who I was made for. That didn’t mean there was any guarantee to how it would
end up. But it didn’t change the fact that I knew.
“Would you change it, Micah? All those years of pain and hurting over Connor?” There was no more hostility in my tone, but it was a pointless question. I knew the answer.
“No. Of course not.” It was barely more than whisper.
I met his eyes again. “What if it hadn’t worked out? What if Connor had never come around? Could you shut it off? Would you have?”
He shook his head.
“Then how can you expect me to not do this?”
Micah didn’t answer for a little bit, just looked around as if seeing the place for the first time, despite him being the one who loved it first. Finally, he met my gaze again. “You know, maybe they would stand out too much, but I think it would be really beautiful if you used two narrow white french doors as the entrance.”
When the waitress at Charley’s Tavern seated my parents and me in the booth by the window, I nearly asked to be placed somewhere else. Anywhere else. But I couldn’t bring myself to usher in one more humiliation in front of them. And that was a first. But there was a difference between intentionally defying a parent’s expectations and appearing weak.
As a result, though I was using every ounce of strength I had to keep from staring out the window to Lavender Pages across the street, I kept failing.
“Good grief, Adrian. Pull yourself together.” Mom rapped on the table between us with a fork. “What are you going to do if you see him? Run over there and beg in the middle of the street?”
So much for not seeming weak.
Dad placed his hand on top of Mom’s. “Lucy, don’t make a scene.”
Those were the magic words. Mom was just as defiant as me, and between her and Dad, she would win a battle ninety-eight percent of the time. But in not creating a scene, they were constantly united. Still, she bristled at the reprimand.
The Glasshouse (Lavender Shores Book 6) Page 24