Inside of You (Jessa & Paxton #2)

by Haven Francis

  Jessa’s eyes close and I can see the stress in her face as she tries to hold back the pain. Her hands are gripping the bedspread and her jaw is set tight. She begins to shake her head back and forth in small, slow motions. It hurts to look at her, to imagine what thoughts are running through her head but for once I’m glad to see her hurting. I’m relieved to know that she is feeling the pain that she should feel because maybe it won’t be as easy to bury. Maybe she’ll be forced to do something about it. All I want to do is go to her and wrap her in my arms, but I’m not gonna do that. She needs to feel this. “What are you thinking, beso?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. I never saw it like that. I don’t know if you’re right.”

  “I am right. And you do know. You said it yourself. After he did that to you, you changed. You let yourself die and you created someone new who could deal with an asshole like him. You made the decision to become a girl who would not let herself love so that she would never have to be hurt. A girl that every man would want but who would never want any man. Who would never let herself be anything with a man but in control. And that’s who you’ve been. And that’s who you still are. And that fucking sucks because I’m right here. I’ve been right here. Begging you to let me love you. Begging you to let me treat you right. But you won’t take it. You won’t take me. And it’s not because of you and it’s not because of me. It’s because of him. I can’t have you and you can’t have me because of what that sick, sorry motherfucker did to that fifteen year old girl that night in that hotel room.”

  Jessa covers her face with her hands and shakes her head. Her entire body is trembling and I’m holding onto the arms of the chair with all of my strength to keep myself from going to her. From wrapping her in my arms. I don’t know why, but I know it’s necessary.

  “Jessa, it’s okay to admit that something awful happened to you. It’s okay to accept the fact that you let him take those years from you. But it’s not okay to let him keep doing it. What you had with him wasn’t love. What he did to you is not normal. It’s not okay. You need to accept that. You need to accept that he hurt you. That your dad hurt you. That yes, there are shitty men out there who do fucked up things to young girls. And yes, there are men who fall out of love with their wives and fall in love with someone else. But there is also a kid who has been waiting his whole life for the girl who would finally let him feel whole. You have to take all of the shit that they planted inside of you out so that there is room. So that there is room for this love that I want to give you.”

  Jessa removes her hands from her eyes and I’m not prepared to be hit with the pain in them. A raw, ugly pain that shoots through my veins and into my heart. She looks so vulnerable. I feel her – the fifteen year old girl. How scared she was. How bad it hurt and I can’t handle it.

  “I thought I loved him,” she tells me, her voice horse, but there is still no sign of a single tear in her eyes. “I thought he was going to be the one who would save me. Who would wipe away all the pain I felt knowing that my father had abandoned me. My dad had left me, his daughter, for a woman that he barely knew. He threw me away for a woman he had just met. All those years that I had spent believing he loved me, that I meant the world to him – they were all lies.

  “He chose her and now I had a choice. I was going to love Dan Benson more than I ever loved my father. I was going to replace him just like he replaced me. When Dan kissed me that night in that hotel room I think I expected it. I knew what he wanted. And I wanted it too, because I understood that it was the only way to really make a man love you. Letting Dan love me like a daughter wasn’t going to compete with the way my dad loved Cindy. So when Dan kissed me, I kissed him back. And when he told me that he loved me I told him I loved him too. And when he put himself inside of me I watched his face and I smiled. Because I was the lover. I was the one who was going to get to keep him. I wasn’t his boring wife or his needy children. I was his lover. And at that moment I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about my dad or my mom or my problems. I didn’t care about sports or grades or my future. None of that was going to get me the one and only thing I would ever really want. None of that was going to give me control.

  “And the sad truth is that I was right. No one will ever have control over a man like his lover. Like the woman who he cannot have but who will give him more pleasure than he has ever known. I mean, what’s more powerful? Love? The kind of love that you feel for your family – your parents and your spouse and your kids… your girlfriend? Or the kind of desperate desire, the obsessive mind consuming lust that you have for your lover?

  “Yes, what happened between Dan and I was wrong, but when I walked into school that next week, with my short dress and my exposed chest, my hair flowing down my back in soft curls and my lips shiny and pink, guess who noticed? Guess who was begging me back into his bed? Guess who was promising me that he would leave his wife, that he would find a way to make things work? And when I told him to fuck off and I meant it, who was in control then? Who was fucking over whom? I thought about him at home with his drab wife and his screaming kids and I felt sorry for him. When he would stare at me wrapped up in the arms of a young, strong kid, all I felt was sorry for him.

  “So yeah, maybe what he did was wrong, but it didn’t hurt me. All it did was finally set me free from the kind of pain you feel when your happiness, your future, is dependent on a man’s love and they take that love from you.”

  I stare at her eyes that are full of steely resolve. She just explained to me exactly why she can’t love me and yet she’s still looking at it like it’s good. Like it’s strength. Like it’s what she wants. She sounds and looks so sure of herself that I almost get up and walk away because she doesn’t want to change. I don’t know if she can change.

  “I don’t know what to say to you, kid. That is some seriously fucked up shit you just told me. Do you realize that? Can you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth?”

  Her eyes burn with anger, but she doesn’t respond.

  “I’m going to take that rapist out of the equation for a minute. Your dad too. Like neither of them ever existed. Like I’m the only man in this relationship with you. Like it’s just the two of us,” I tell her slowly, calmly. “Can you picture that, Jessa? Can you imagine just you and just me for a minute?”

  “It is just us,” she tells me through her teeth.

  “It’s not.” I stand now and grab a hold of her hand, pulling her to me and setting her on my lap, her eyes inches from mine. How do I make her see the truth? That it’s not just us.

  “Close your eyes.” It takes her a moment, but she does. “Think about that girl – the one with the perfect family who cared about nothing but sports.” I give her a minute to think about it and I do the same. “Think about how happy she was. About how much she loved her dad and how much he loved her. About how she felt out on the soccer field, scoring a goal, her dad on the sidelines cheering for her.”

  “Pax,” she says shaking her head.

  “Please, Jessa. I know it hurts, but I’m here, okay. And it’s just a memory. Just please, try to put yourself back there.”

  The tension leaves her face and I know she’s trying for me.

  “Can you see him? Do you remember what is was like to feel loved by him?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  “Where is that girl? Is she still inside of you? The one who knew she was loved and never even considered that one day that love would leave her?”

  “I remember her, Pax, I remember how she felt, but I can’t be her anymore. I can’t feel that way anymore.”

  “I know, beso. What’s done is done. You can’t be her anymore because you know how it all ended. What he did to her was wrong. And it wasn’t fair. She never did anything to deserve it but he left her anyway. You can never be her but she is still there, buried inside of you. And I know it hurts to remember her, but I don’t think she deserves to be forgotten. I thi
nk she deserves to be acknowledged. And she has me- the guy who never met her but cares about her anyway. Who…” I want to say who will never leave her, because I never will, but I’m understanding that that’s not something that Jessa can accept so I just say, “who thinks she sounds pretty kickass and would like to get to know her.” The corner of Jessa’s mouth lifts at this and I smile even though tears are flowing out her closed eyes.

  “So what do you want her to know, Jess? Do you want to make sure she never trusts or loves anyone again? So that she never has to feel the pain of having that love taken from her again?”

  “No,” she whispers.

  “No. Because she deserves to be loved. She’s got her whole life ahead of her and you don’t want her to live it alone, never knowing love again. So what do you want her to know, if you could tell her that her father was going to leave her one day what would you say after that?”

  I stare at Jessa as she shakes her head, like she doesn’t have an answer.

  “Your dad is going to leave you and…” I probe.

  “He’s not coming back, he’s never coming back and you need to let him go. You need to move on. He was weak and he ran from his shame. He didn’t deserve you and you need to move on.”

  “And can she do that, Jessa? Can she take the situation for what it was and come to terms with it and move on?”

  “Yeah. I think she can.”

  “I think she can too. I think she’s smart enough to understand that he was just one person in this world and he was selfish. But there are good people out there too, people who will love her. Like her friends Nat and Emily and her mom. Her mom might be weak and broken hearted, but she loves her. Everything she does is for Jessa. To make sure she still has a stable life.”

  “Yeah,” Jessa agrees.

  I take a deep breath. I think we are getting somewhere with this little exercise, but I have no idea how to turn that shit with Coach Benson into something positive or even manageable. But I have to try.

  “Can you do this, beso?” I ask her.

  She sucks in a lungful of breath and then lets it out slowly. “If you’ll help me, Pax.”

  “I’m gonna try beso. I’m gonna do everything I can.”

  “Me too.”

  “Okay. It’s your freshman year of high school. You’ve been lost since your dad left. You don’t know who you are without him and without your sports. You miss playing so you decide to try out for the basketball team and, not only do you make it, but you’ve made Varsity and you’re excited. The adrenaline that pumps through your body when you are competing is back and you feel right, like it’s what you are supposed to be doing. Is that right?” I ask her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Coach Beson is impressed with your skills. For the first time since your dad left you feel like someone cares about your success as an athlete as much as you do and you want to make him proud. Every time he points out your strengths, every time he smiles at you or cheers for you, every time he sits you down and tells you that you are talented and he cares about your future, you love him more. You need him more. Does that sound right?” I ask, managing to keep my tone even.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Do you remember needing him, caring about him, like he was your coach, maybe like a father, but not as anything more than that?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have ever thought of him as anything more than that. Not then.”

  “So there is another girl in you. A naïve girl who trusted that her coach’s interest was pure. That he really cared about her future and her athletic ability. She had no idea that he saw something more in her. That he was thinking about her in a way that a coach, a teacher, a grown man with a wife and children, should never think about a fifteen year old girl. She had no idea that all of his promises and support were just part of his seduction of her. She trusted him and he took advantage of that trust. Do you remember her?”

  Jessa’s face tightens and her head is shaking. “I don’t know.”

  “You want to believe that he had your best interest at heart? That in the beginning he really was trying to help you?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  “Imagine going back to that school, sitting in the bleachers on that first day of practice when the fifteen year old you walked onto the court for the first time. You are nervous about being there without your dad. It’s clear that you are still vulnerable. Can you picture that?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are not her, you are you, up in the bleachers watching her. The girl on the court is younger than everyone else and Coach Benson sees this – he sees that she is young and vulnerable and nervous. And he knows that her father left her. From the bleachers you can see that he is paying more attention to her than the rest of the girls. He is watching everything she does. He keeps her after practice so he can talk to her. What is he thinking? As you sit on the bleachers looking down at him, what is he thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she answers again, the pain still on her face but she is no longer shaking her head.

  “Okay. Let’s skip forward to the night in the hotel room when he had sex with that girl.” Jessa flinches at my words but I manage to keep my own disgust under control. “Let’s even try to imagine that all along he did have her best interest at heart and he did want to help her. But as they spent more time together he started to feel like he was falling in love with her. That he could have a relationship with his fifteen year old student. That he loved her enough to leave his wife and his children and start a life with her. Can you imagine that?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t have ever felt that way about her. She was only fifteen. He couldn’t have loved her like that. He couldn’t have seen a future with her.”

  “No, he couldn’t have ever really felt that way. So what did he want from her?”

  “He wanted control. She was weak and with her he could be strong. She would give him what he wanted because she didn’t have any one else and she needed him and he knew that.”

  “So he threw away all of his hopes and dreams for her future, all of the nurturing he had done over the year, for one moment when he could have her body?”

  “No. He never cared about that. He never wanted to help her.”

  “He never did care about her. From day one it was a game to him. From day one he got off on the fact that he could control her, that he could get her to trust him and he knew that in the end she would be his for the taking.”

  “Yes.”

  “So now this girl has gotten fucked over by the two most important men in her life. They both left her. Neither of them loved her how they should have. Neither of them took care of her like they promised her they would. And it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t deserve it. Look at that girl on that bed. The one that Coach Benson is having sex with. Look at the girl who is throwing away all of her trophy’s and awards, all the proof of her achievements. Is it time now? Time to tell her to never trust or love anyone again? So that she never has to feel the pain of having that love taken from her again?”

  “Maybe,” Jessa says.

  “Look at her, Jessa. Look at that girl. Is that what she deserves? Nothing. To go through the rest of her life alone, never trusting a man enough to know what real love feels like? Is that what you want for her?”

  “No.”

  “No. So you tell me. Tell me what you want for her.”

  “I don’t want her to give up on herself. I want to tell her that she shouldn’t change who she is for any man. She is too young to make that decision. She’s too young to feel all of that hate and pain.”

  “Right. She didn’t know enough to decide that every man in the entire world only wanted one thing from her. She didn’t know enough about love to see that the best kind of love is not the desperate, mind consuming kind that comes from a lover. She made hers
elf forget that there is another kind of love out there that is safe and stable and caring. A kind of love that would protect her and change her mind. A kind of love that is strong and not easily broken.

  “That girl, that broken girl has been making your decisions for you. Ever since that day that she threw away her trophies and her achievements. She has been in control. You need to take that control away from her, she’s too young to be making all your decisions for you. Can you do that?”

  Jessa has frozen in front of me – her body and her face; she’s not even breathing. I’m not breathing either. And then she lets out a breath of disbelif and shakes her head slightly. “Yes. I can. I can take the power back from her. I can change those decisions she made. The decisions that she made during the worst days of her life, a life that she chained herself to on that day. I can let that go. I want to let that go,” she tells me as her eyes open. They are so clear. So crystal clear and so beautiful.

  “If it makes her feel better, you can tell that girl that right now there is a boy who is hurting just like she is. And that he, like her, has given up. He’s lost his dad and he knows that the one woman who should have loved him unconditionally never loved him at all. He knows he’s never going to get the love that he needs. And that right now he is making a choice too, just like her. He is accepting that he doesn’t have any control. That nothing is up to him and trying to hold onto love is not worth the effort. He is choosing to not care anymore… to never get attached to anyone again. For the next few years he’s going to be pissed off and depressed and he’s going to hurt people and he’s going to hurt himself. Just like she is going to do.

  “Tell her that one day she will meet him and he will know that all the love that’s been missing in his life is inside of her. Tell her that when she meets him she needs to accept his love and that he needs her to love him back. That if she can find a way to do that then they will both finally know how good love can be and they can start making up for those years that they lost. Together.”