by K. C. Crowne
He frowned, shoved more chips into his mouth and looked at me as though I was some sort of idiot.
"So why did you tell her it was a mistake you slept with her, and that she should leave and forget about you?"
"Ugh! I don't know!”
Unable to sit still, I jumped up and started pacing up and down in front of the TV sucking on my beer bottle as though it would give me the answers I craved.
"What I meant to say was that I'm scared. Really scared. I felt as though it was my fault she was kidnapped. That if she wasn't in Station Springs, that if I hadn't got into a fight with Benny Junior in that bar that she wouldn't have been in danger. I thought that I'd broken her heart before, so I was probably going to do it again. I thought that...that...” I was at a loss for a second, then continued. “I'm not good enough for her. That she should find someone who works a regular job, not someone that always puts her in harm's way. That she should find someone that could treat her like a princess and isn't likely to see the wrong end of a gun any time soon."
I slumped down beside Lucas, exhausted as I let the words spill out. Next to me, he sat crunching and thinking.
"That was something," he eventually said, licking the Dorito dust from his fingers. "Now all you gotta do is tell her all that."
"She's not gonna want to hear it."
"I reckon she will, buddy."
I looked at him out the corner of my eye and saw he was smiling.
"Say each and every one of those words and you'll get her back in a heartbeat. I'm sure of it."
"I don’t think…”
"I'm serious."
He reached for his beer and looked up to the ceiling where just beyond it, Sandra sat in the living room with Harriet.
"Do you want to be with her?"
"Yeah, but...
"But what?"
"But I can't. I can't give her what she deserves. I'll just put her in danger again and—"
"Shut up," Lucas said. "It's just a yes or no question. "Do you want to be with her?"
"Of course I do, but—"
"There is no but. You want to be with her, you tell her. Stop playing games in your head. Stop thinking all this bullshit about how you don't deserve her, about how she'd be better off away from you. It's all lies. Just your own anxiety making up shit in your head.” He paused for a moment, eyeing me. “You really wanna know what I think?"
"Of course."
"I think you're still so cut up about Denny you can't bear to let yourself get too close to anyone in case they get hurt, in case they are taken away from you."
The words hit me like a shock to the heart. For a second, I was sure the earth moved beneath me, that the walls shook, and the world tilted on its axis. It was as though he had looked right into my head and plucked out my exact thoughts. Except I didn't even know that's what I was thinking.
"Holy shit. You're right.”
"I know I'm right. Now go get her back!"
I was already on my feet and sprinting for the stairs.
"I owe you one!" I called as I disappeared out the door.
"Don't worry pal, you don't owe me a thing!"
"You're officially a moron," Carly said as she opened the door. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What the hell am I doing here? What the fuck are you doing here! You're supposed to be with Jared.”
She huffed, gestured toward the pile of bags on the floor and clapped a hand to her head. “I'm going back right now,” she said. “Fuck, I can't cope with all of this. Anyway, if you're looking for Gabby you screwed up because she's not looking for you. She took off about ten minutes ago. Going back to Denver."
"What?" I asked, gaping.
"What did you expect? That she'd just hang around waiting for you to change your mind again?"
Shit! This can't be happening.
I'd had it planned out so perfectly in my head. I would come up here, say all the things I had told Lucas, and she'd throw herself into my arms again. She'd understand once I'd explained it to her. She knew I didn't really mean what I said.
"Let me in," I insisted.
"I told you. She's not here."
"I wanna see for myself."
Pushing past her, I entered the living room and scanned my eyes over the furniture for any sign of her; her silk robe, her scarf, the scent of her perfume. But there was nothing.
"Have you lost your freakin' mind?" Carly asked, outraged. "I told you she's not here!"
I stood in the middle of the living room, feeling like the stupidest asshole on Earth.
She's gone. She's really gone.
"She left for Denver," I said.
"That’s what I said."
"And she only left ten minutes ago?"
"What are you doing? Where are you going now?"
"I'm gonna find her," I said, rushing back out the door.
"You can't be serious! What, are you going to run her off the road?"
But I was already gone, flinging myself back down the hallway toward the elevator.
Chapter 27
Gabby
Only in the privacy of the car as it sped along the highway did I let the tears fall freely. They dripped down my cheeks and off my chin into a puddle on the front of my jacket. Pressing the gas, I overtook the car in front, eager to get home as soon as possible. Looking at the clock on the dash, I saw I could make it back in three hours tops if I could just stop the tears from falling and obscuring my vision. They were stinging my eyes, making it difficult to see.
No matter how hard I focused on stopping the tears, more and more kept flooding out until it felt as though my throat was burning and closing up and my chest ached from heaving.
"Fuck you, Jackson!"
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel.
The tears fell heavier until it felt as though my face was swelling up like a balloon. In the distance, a sign flashed signaling an upcoming service station. With the tears flowing freely still, making it almost impossible to see, I signaled right and pulled in. Parking at the back of the station, I dropped my head into my hands and let out a howl as I punched the wheel.
"Asshole!"
I felt as though I couldn't breathe, as though a rubber band was tied tight around my heart. Out of everything that had happened over the weekend, after all the terror I'd felt at the hands of Benny Gianni, this was somehow worse. This made me feel weaker, more vulnerable, stupid that I could have fell for everything he said.
I can't believe he convinced me that he loved me.
Looking at my reflection in the rear-view mirror, I barely recognized myself. My face was bright red, my eyes almost swollen shut while the bruises were exploding up my neck. I touched a fingertip to the purple shapes stretching up the front of my throat and felt my skin pulse slightly with the pain.
The bruises would fade eventually, and the memory of everything that happened in the bunker, and of what Benny did to me, would lose its power over time, but I didn't think I would get over Jackson so easily.
The tears continued to flow, burning my throat and making my head thump with a migraine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the fast-flowing traffic speed by. There was a truck honking its horn, bright red and bigger than all the others, it forced its way through the traffic like a steam roller.
I could have sworn it was Jackson's truck, but as it disappeared into the distance, I shook my head and rid myself of the thought. I was imagining things, seeing him in places he shouldn't be because my heartbroken mind was playing tricks on me.
"You're losing it."
Needing to perk myself up, I climbed out and ventured into the store for a much-needed coffee. When I came out five minutes later, sirens were wailing in the distance.
Must have been an accident, I thought as I climbed back in the car, hoping the road wasn't closed.
I was in no mood to be held up.
Chapter 28
Jackson
I stepped on the gas and felt the
roar of the engine rumble through my seat.
Just ten minutes...
Up ahead, I looked for a glimpse of Carly's red car, but saw nothing but a sea of gray and black vehicles.
Fuck, where can she be? She can't be that far ahead of me, not at the speed I'm going!
I accelerated, looked down at the speedometer and saw I was almost reaching eighty miles an hour.
"Why are people so fucking slow?"
I honked my horn and overtook a small hatchback with a family inside. The driver stared at me as I passed and waved his middle finger up at me as he wound down his window.
Only then did I realize just how crazy I was being. Catching sight of my reflection in the mirror, I saw someone I didn't recognize, someone ugly, rabid with anger. My face was bright red, my eyes bulging.
"You've finally lost it," I told myself. Moving my foot to the brake, I aimed to slow down and gather my thoughts, but before I could, a kid in an SUV pulled out without looking. If I was going slower, I could have let him pass, could have easily stopped my truck from hitting him, but I was wild with adrenaline, not thinking straight, and going at least twenty miles over the limit.
I saw the panicked driver's face as it approached my windshield, saw the terror in his eyes as my hood crunched into his door. Then came the sound of twisting metal, of cars braking and honking their horns behind us.
Then there was darkness.
I was awake, but I couldn't see a thing. In the air was the putrid smell of spilled oil and gasoline, of something metallic in my nose.
Is that... blood?
Am I hurt?
It was as though my limbs were numb, dead, floating in the air. Trying to wriggle my fingers, I felt nothing, as if I wasn't even in my body anymore, as though I didn't even exist. I was just a mind hanging in darkness.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Somewhere nearby, I heard a woman sobbing, heard a man cry out in pain. There were boots walking on broken glass as the smell of burning asphalt stung my nostrils.
The sound of the sirens grew deafening, until they stopped. Through the cracks in the metal, I could just about make out the flash of red and blue lights.
"It's okay, hold tight!"
Slowly, piece by piece, the door was peeled back, and I was staring up at the sky, a fireman looking down at me with a look of fear that soon turned to joy.
"He's alive!" he yelled.
I blinked as his face came into view. Beside him, I could just about make out the vague shape of a woman looking down at me.
"Jackson!" she screamed.
Her voice rippled through me, brought me back from the numbing darkness until I could feel my heart beat again.
"Gabby?"
Chapter 29
Gabby
I looked ahead and saw the traffic had reached a standstill. In the distance, I could see the flashing blue and red lights of a fire engine forcing its way through the traffic.
"Oh, for Christ's sake. I’m gonna be stuck here forever."
I leaned my head back and turned the engine off, ready to wait it out. In the car beside me, the driver was becoming impatient and stepped out of his car to look ahead. When he saw me looking at him, he wandered over and I wound the window down.
"Looks real bad," he said. "Red truck, flipped on its side by the looks of it. It'll be a miracle if the driver's still alive."
"What kind of red truck?" I asked, thinking of the one I saw fly past, the one that looked identical to Jackson's.
"Hmm... I can't see too clearly," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Looks like a Chevrolet. A Silverado maybe."
No... It can't be.
All around, people were getting out of their cars to rubberneck at the crash like vultures. I joined them, tightening my coat around me as I snaked my way through the cars.
You're just being paranoid. It's not him. He's not the only person with that truck.
But something was pulling me forward, a dark, foreboding as though I was fated to make my way further and further down the road until the truck came into view. A group of people had gathered around as firemen struggled to hoist their equipment onto it.
"Everybody stand back!” one of them shouted and the crowd took a few steps away.
Above, the snow began to fall, landing on the road around the wreckage and mingling with the shards of glittering broken glass.
There's no way it's him, I tried to tell myself. Just go back to your car.
But my body was betraying my mind and I stepped even closer until I could make out the truck clearly. My eyes focused on something stuck to the back. A sticker with the unmistakable emblem of the NAVY emblazoned across the front.
"Jackson!"
I ran ahead, barging to the driver's door.
"Miss, you'll have to step back."
"I know him!"
"Miss! Please!"
But I wasn't listening. Frantic with worry, I forced myself to the front as the driver's door was peeled open. I felt lightheaded, could feel the blood rush through me as my stomach lurched.
He's dead...He's dead and the last thing you ever said to him was...
Gradually, the door was pried open and the fireman peered inside.
"He's alive!"
A wave of relief flooded me. Looking inside the wreckage, I saw a head covered in blood, of limbs tangled around broken metal and glass.
"Gabby?"
"Oh, God, you're alive!"
A flurry of snowflakes fell down through the ruins of machinery and landed on his cheeks, his blue eyes shining out of his bloody face.
"Oh, Jackson! Can you hear me?"
In response, his hand shot out through the twisted door and grabbed mine.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I-I-"
"Shhhh."
"I love you."
"I love you too!"
"Okay," the fireman interrupted. "You'll have to step back now. We need to work on him."
But I couldn't bear to tear myself away from him, not for a single second.
Chapter 30
Jackson
"How does it feel being the one in the hospital bed?" she asked as I began to wake up.
I opened my eyes and focused on the chair in the corner of the room. An open magazine was draped over her knees and the table beside her was littered with empty paper cups.
"Not good," I said as I tried to stretch. "Aw, Jesus, what's that?"
"That would be a plaster cast," she said, standing up and walking over.
She was smiling, trying to make light of the situation, but I could see the pain and worry in her eyes.
"How long have you been here?"
"All night," she said. "The doctors sedated you. You were in shock."
"Shit, I feel as though I've been asleep for ten years."
Slowly, I tried to drag myself up the bed. I did a quick check of my body. Cuts and bruises were everywhere and everything felt heavy.
"It looks bad," she said. "But the doctor said you'll be fine. You shattered your arm on impact and needed stitches to your forehead. Apart from that, you got really lucky."
“And the other guy?”
“The dumb kid in the SUV? He got the fright of his life and some nasty whiplash.”
She perched herself on the bed beside me and reached for my hands. "I was sure you were dead."
Her eyes were watery, and the sight of the tears splashing down her cheeks made a dark cloud hover over me. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I had never seen her cry before. Sure, she’d been upset, she'd been angry, but she'd never shed a tear in front of me before.
It hurt to see her so upset, and I reached up my good hand and wiped away her tears.
"Sorry," she sniffed, taking my hand. "I was just so scared. When I saw your truck. When I saw all the blood and the..."
She sobbed and I held her to me, trying to soothe her.
"Shh. It's okay."
Falling silent, she lay her head on my shoulder and trembled slightly.
"I'm so sorry,
" I said. "Those things I said. They weren't true. I didn't mean—"
"It's okay. We don't have to walk about it now."
"But I want to."
I pressed my finger beneath her chin and raised her gaze to meet mine.
"You have to listen. I was scared. I was so scared that I couldn't protect you. That I couldn't give you what you wanted, so I pushed you away. In some warped way, I thought if I pushed you far away from me, you'd be safer and happier and—"
"That's not true!" she insisted. "Jackson, nothing would make me happier than being with you."
"You must have thought I was a real jerk. Must have thought I was just like all the other guys."
"You're not like other guys," she said. "You never could be."
She kissed me softly, the floral scent of her perfume and her peachy shampoo intermingling with the smell of diesel fumes and metal that still lingered on my body.
"I love you," she whispered as she pulled away.
"I love you more than anything. Is there any way you can forget how stupid I've been? Forget everything I said?"
Her face was stony for a second, her lips not moving as her eyes stared right into mine.
"I think so," she said, a cheeky, wry smile curling up her lips. "But you've got a lot of making up to do."
Epilogue – Gabby – Three Months Later
I actually own my own store.
Me? My own store!
It was what I'd always wanted. What I'd always worked toward, and now it was here, I was beyond happy.
I'd never forget the feeling of signing the papers and getting the keys placed in the palm of my hand. Of course, it was nothing compared to the feeling I'd had the next day as I sat on the edge of the bath in Jackson's apartment, test in hand, heart in my throat as I waited to see the magic word appear.
Positive or Negative?
Two days had passed since I'd watched the word form across the small window of the test, the word that would make me feel as though I was bursting with joy. When it eventually appeared I thought I'd stopped breathing.