XO

by Melissa Jane

  “No…” I murmur, squeezing my eyes closed and wishing it isn’t true.

  Slowly, I turn slowly, already knowing the sight awaiting me, and I’m fucking petrified.

  I see him, and my world collapses.

  “Fuck, no!” I yell frantically pounding on the glass until the entire pane pops out and shatters on the garage floor. “No. No. No. Nooo.”

  I’m too late.

  Mr. Reign’s body hangs perfectly still from the belt around his neck. A chair he’s kicked out from beneath him lays haphazardly on the floor. The belt—his noose—is attached to the garage door slider track.

  Crawling through the window, I fall in a heap, scrambling to reach the upturned chair so I can hold Mr. Reign’s weight. I wrap my arms around his waist and lift him, hoping he’ll cough back to life. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t make a sound. I have no idea how long he’s been here or if my efforts are futile. But I do know I can’t leave Rosie’s father hanging from his own belt. Sobbing and pleading for him to be okay, I spot a hand saw attached to a nail on the wall among the other tools.

  “I’m sorry,” I plead as if he can hear me. I’m torn between staying holding him up and waiting for help, or letting him go so I can get the handsaw. If he has any life left in him, I could take it away by leaving him. But I don’t know if anyone is coming to help. “I’m sorry, Mr. Reign,” I say again, carefully releasing him and running to the handsaw. On return, I wrap an arm around his waist to alleviate the pressure and saw through the leather belt.

  His body awkwardly falls into mine, and I sink to the floor while loosening his noose.

  “John?” I call, slapping his face and placing my ear next to his mouth.

  Nothing.

  “Mr. Reign, wake the fuck up. Please, wake up,” I beg, my tears falling on his cheeks. “Help!” I yell. “Somebody, please help us.”

  I start compressions, but when his lips turn a dark blue, I rest my head on his chest and sob, taking his cold hand in mine. “Mr. Reign, wake up. You can’t do this to Rosie. You need to wake up. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry, I should never have told you.”

  I don’t know how long we stay like that. I don’t know how many tears I shed for the man, or how many times I pleaded with him to wake up.

  A thumping on the door brings me back to earth, the voice calling me to action. “Police, open up.”

  “I’m in here,” I call back. “I’m in the garage.” Standing, I press the internal button, and the door slides open, bright sunlight blinding me as I wipe away the tears.

  Then everything moves in a blur, the police officers attending to the body immediately declaring his death. They ask me questions, and I must answer them because they don’t press any further, and a blanket is wrapped around my shoulders.

  Paramedics arrive a short while later, and I’m still standing in the same spot refusing to leave Mr. Reign’s side because he died the loneliest death imaginable, and I can’t bring myself to leave him now.

  ~

  “Jacob?” comes a familiar voice. “What are you doing here? What the hell is going on?”

  I turn to Mrs. Reign, who’s yet to see her dead husband under the sheet.

  “Where were you?” I ask coldly. “I tried calling.”

  “What?” She seems put out by my questions, her eyes flicking between the officers and me.

  “Are you Amanda Reign?” the female officer asks.

  “Yes. What’s going on?”

  “Your husband took his own life,” I say before the officer can break it to her delicately.

  For a moment, she seems stricken, but it’s only fleeting. “John?” Pushing through the police and paramedics, she falls to her knees and pulls back the sheet.

  And even for someone having an affair, she still surprises the fuck out of me.

  The woman is staring at her husband, and there’s not a tear to be shed. She doesn’t touch his cheek. She doesn’t leave one last kiss on his lips.

  There’s simply nothing.

  She could be looking at a complete stranger.

  Cold-hearted bitch.

  She and Rosie may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different.

  With the police and paramedics talking, Amanda Reign approaches, grief the last thing she’s experiencing.

  “You can’t tell Rosie about this,” she asserts, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

  Her attitude completely sobers me up. “You want to keep this from her?”

  “That it’s a suicide. Yes.”

  Rage rears its ugly head again. “Because you’re worried about getting caught?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you and my dad fucking in his office.” I wait and allow the words to sink in. Her eyes wide, jaw set defiantly.

  “It’s not what you think,” she whispers because I bet she didn’t divulge that information to the police.

  “I didn’t think it, I saw it. Plain as day. I suppose you want to keep that from her also?”

  “Jacob, please. Please just understand that—”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I just cut your husband down from the garage slider door, and here you are telling me to lie to Rosie about what happened.”

  The woman is relentless. “She can’t ever know her father took his own life, Jacob. It’ll break her. Rosie’s a strong girl, but something like this could ruin her whole life. She’s only just finishing school with her whole future ahead of her. Mr. Lynch died of a stroke… that’s what we need to stick to.”

  “I don’t want any part of ‘we.’”

  “Then you’re choosing to hurt her.”

  I step away, incredulous over her behavior. “You’re disgusting,” I say more to myself. “You just burn everything you touch, exactly the same as my father. You’re perfect for each other.”

  “Cut that out,” she warns through narrowed eyes.

  “Cut what out? You were supposed to be our friends. My mother loves you like a sister, and you fucked her husband without any remorse. Your husband hangs himself, and you can’t even shed a tear for the man who loved and adored you.”

  “Don’t pretend like you know everything. John was a—”

  “He was a good man, and you didn’t deserve him.”

  She swallows hard, still unable to shed a single tear.

  “You’re right. I didn’t deserve him. Just like Rosie doesn’t need to have her life ruined. You’re choosing to rob her of a life she deserves. A life of happiness. Having her father’s death hanging over her at such a young age is devastating. Knowing he committed suicide is something of nightmares. Your choice, Jacob. If you love Rosie, you’ll do what’s best for her.”

  ~

  Rosie

  NOW

  My trembling hand clasps my mouth as a guttural sob erupts. “No. No. No. What are you saying? That didn’t happen, Jacob. It couldn’t have happened. You’re lying to me. You’re lying!” Jacob catches me as I collapse, pulling me into his arms. We sink to the ground, and he holds me tight, allowing me to wail against his chest, my decimated heart beyond repair. The immense physical pain is unbearable. I mourn for my beautiful father who must have fallen down such a dark hole, feeling completely alone in the world, who’d been struggling for months, and no one recognized the crippling signs. Not only did he feel alone, he died alone, and that very thought is what destroys me as I choke on my cries. I mourn because he took his own life without anyone to tell him they loved him. Without me to tell him that I loved him more than anything else in the world. Without me taking his hand and pulling him back into the light where he was safe and cherished. Because he was loved. So, so, dearly. I mourn for myself because I lost my truest best friend. The one who’d move the earth for me like it was no big deal. My dad. My beautiful, sweet dad.

  But my soul, my soul grieves for Jacob. A boy who, for over a decade, carries the memory of having to cut my father from his noose. Of feeling the guilt that his words drove another man to take
his own life. Grieving for a boy who lost just as much a part of him as I did.

  “I didn’t know what the fuck to do, Rosie. I was just a kid who caught our parents having an affair. Speaking with your father seemed the rational thing to do at the time. But I fucking wish I hadn’t, Rosie. I wish to fucking God, I’d just gone back up to the rooftop and never saw your father.”

  Jacob takes a moment to gather his thoughts, quickly wiping the corner of his eye.

  “There were so many warning signs, and I missed them. I left and didn’t look back. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me,” he says, tendering kissing my forehead.

  I shake my head, feeling my heart bleed for him. “None of this is on you, Jacob. None.”

  “Don’t you see, Rosie? If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened. It was a night of bad decisions. I should have confronted my father in the office, instead of running to yours. I should never have broken the news to him like that knowing the state he was in. I should never have left him. I should have realized something was wrong when he gave me the cash and said to get you out of town. But none of it fucking clicked. Not until the message. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, especially for not telling you the truth. When your mother said it was something that could ruin your life, I believed her. How can anyone come back from that? You loved your dad something fierce, Rosie, I couldn’t have you seeing him in a different light or allowing his choice to ruin your life. So, I didn’t say a word. But I hated myself for it. On top of the guilt I harbored for telling him in the first place, I then carried the weight of lies. So, I stayed away, mourning with you from afar even though you needed me so desperately.

  “I’ve never hated myself so much than I did the day I saw you at the funeral. It was reality kicking me in the teeth, seeing my beautiful girl, the one I planned to live my life with, destroyed by something I did and something I continued to do. So, when my mother found out about the affair, she told me we were leaving town. I didn’t protest, but I didn’t want to go. But I knew, the further I was away from you, the better it was for everyone.”

  I blink, releasing another heavy wave of tears. “That’s why you never returned any messages or phone calls?”

  He kisses the top of my head. “I read every message and listened to every voicemail. But I couldn’t put my shame aside long enough to call you back. With every message you sent, I composed one back, only to delete it before sending.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jacob,” I finally manage, my voice crumpled and wrecked. Wrapping my arms around him, it’s time I give the boy I used to know, a chance to grieve.

  “You don’t ever need to apologize,” he says, disgusted by the idea.

  “Yes, I do. You’ve carried this weight for so long when it isn’t your fault. It never was. Not even in the slightest. You did what you thought was right.”

  “None of my decisions that night were right. He could still be alive right now otherwise.”

  I sit up and cup his face. “No,” I sob, unable to stop the raw ache. “He wasn’t well. If he didn’t do it then, he would have some other time. That’s not your cross to bear. You were just a kid, Jacob. You were just a kid, who didn’t deserve any of it. You did it all just to protect me. I’m sorry that was put on you. It isn’t fair this has burdened you for so long. But… Jacob?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we forgive each other?”

  He leans forward and tenderly kisses me, tasting my salty tears.

  “Every night I’ve asked just for that.”

  ~

  “Rosie?” Vicki softly calls from the doorway, a knowing concern in her already glistening eyes.

  Stuffing a few more pieces into my backpack, I glance up, biting my trembling bottom lip.

  There’s a moment of silence between us as I struggle to form the words. “I’ll be back before the wedding, I promise.”

  She nods, blinking hard as the tears falls. “I know. You go take care of it.”

  “Thank you,” I burst, sobbing into her shoulder. We hold each other tight for a long moment as we cry together. When she pulls me away, she cups my cheeks. “Neither of you deserved any of this. But now’s the time to fix it.”

  Kissing her cheek, I hook my bag over my shoulder and walk to the door, turning on the threshold. “I will be back.”

  “I know you will!”

  21

  NOW

  The four-hour drive allows plenty of thinking time, a ridiculous amount of crying, privacy to scream my rage, and fleeting moments to find peace in Jacob’s confession. But as I pull to the curb outside the house I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to, all newly acquired peace, no matter how little, is replaced with anger. For a good ten minutes, I stare at the garage, now seeing it in a completely different light. I sob some more, my mind tormenting me with images of my father preparing his noose before putting it around his neck, and then finally, not wanting to take another breath, kicking out the chair from beneath him.

  “Jesus!” I seethe, angrily, licking tears from my lips. “You didn’t have to do it. You just didn’t.”

  The sun is peeking over the horizon when I walk up the garden path and smash my fist against the glossy white door. When there’s no answer, I continue the banging, until the damn thing finally pulls open.

  “Rosie?” my mother says, tying her robe tighter.

  I swing, my open palm connecting her cheek with a force I didn’t know possible. Mom’s head snaps to the right and while I try to tame my breathing, she slowly looks up at me with a knowing remorse. She looks older than I remember. Perhaps it has something to do with guilt she rightly deserves.

  “Is everything Jacob told me true?”

  “If it’s what I’m thinking he’s confessed, then yes.”

  I take a moment to let her words sink in. “Did you have an affair with Mr. Lynch?”

  She nods.

  “For how long?”

  “Just over a year.”

  My hands ball into fists by my sides. “So, all those times you said you were out of town, you weren’t. You were with him.”

  Again, she nods. “Why don’t you come in. I’ll put the coffee on. We have a lot to discuss.” My mother turns and heads down the hall into the kitchen. I feel like a heathen about to cross the holy threshold, except it’s the other way around. I’m about to step into hell. Closing the door behind me, something catches my eye, and I swallow hard. I see the hole Jacob punched in the wall, done when Jacob last saw my father alive. When I had inquired about it, Mom said the damage had been done by the paramedic gurney.

  In the kitchen, Mom busies herself making a pot of coffee while I stand with my arms crossed. Sensing my anger, she takes the lead.

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “No, it was just sex.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Mr. Lynch,” I seethe. “Dad! Did you love Dad?”

  She stirs the coffee. “In the beginning, yes. I adored him. Toward the end, no. I didn’t have any love for him.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugs. “Rosie, your father and I were two very different people. We simply fell out of love.”

  “You fell out of love. If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have killed himself. So, you fell out of love with him!”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “Is it? You broke his heart, Mom. And you did it in the worst possible way. You treated him worse than shit on your shoe, I’m not surprised he did what he did.”

  “Don’t you dare say his suicide is on me, Rosie. Your father had issues. I may have been one of them, but I wasn’t the catalyst. He’d been fired from work and struggled—”

  “So, you’re saying losing a job was the catalyst over finding out his wife was cheating on him with his friend across the road? The same man Dad welcomed into his house. You were cheating right under his nose, Mom. Practically rubbing it in his face and kicking him when he was down.”

  “That’s an unf
air assessment—”

  “You know what’s unfair? Letting a teenage boy carry the weight of a lie for a decade. Pretending that him having to cut Dad down from his noose was a normal fucking experience.”

  “It’s not normal.”

  “No, it’s fucking not. But you were too caught up in your sordid life to give a fuck about him and what he had to go through. And why? You convinced him to say it was a stroke to protect your dirty little secret? That’s disgusting!”

  “You’re right. But I was also thinking of you. You were still so young, Rosie, with your whole life ahead of you. I didn’t want his poor choice affecting your life.”

  “His poor choice?” I rage, swiping at the ceramic fruit bowl on the counter. It flies off and smashes into the fridge, shattering, just like my soul. “The man is dead, Mom! Can you not be such a bitch for half a second and listen to how you’re sounding?”

  “I can’t go back and change history, Rosie.”

  “No, but you can be fucking remorseful.”

  “You don’t think I’ve cried over him? You don’t how I’ve grieved, and how I’ve dealt with the guilt. It hasn’t been easy on me either.”

  “Well, excuse me for not believing you.” A few heartbeats pass with my mother remaining stoically silent. “I never had the chance to say goodbye. You had him whisked out of here before I made it home because you wanted to protect yourself. You stopped me… from saying goodbye.”

  She scratches her temple, the weight of my words having somewhat of an affect. “Come with me.” I watch my mother leave the kitchen and take the stairs into my room. I look around at all the old stuff that made me a teenager—posters, artwork, pictures, toys—it hasn’t changed since the day I left. The only thing different is the missing painting which hung above my bed. The painting Dad bought me from Paris. I’d taken that with me the day I walked out and never looked back.

  Stepping into my closet, she pulls a box from the top shelf and retrieves an envelope. “I found this under your pillow the morning we discovered him.” She hands it to me, and my eyes follow the letters of my name written by my father’s hand.