His hands wrapped around my wrists, and he pinned my arms over my head as he thrust deeper inside me, making me moan out his name as ecstasy overtook my body. We dripped in sweat and misguided emotions as he lowered himself on top of me and whispered into my ear. “I want you.” He sucked my earlobe. “I need you.” He slid in deeper and pulled out slowly. “I want you.” he repeated as he slammed into me, making me gasp for air. “I need you.”
My hips arched up, begging for more, and more, knowing it would never be enough.
The way we used one another was more than just sex, more than just wants or needs…
It was shockingly healing.
Without our bodies against one another, there was a real possibility that both of us would just drown into nothingness.
Our mutual sadness was the only thing keeping us afloat.
It was odd, how two sad people could make one another breathe.
* * *
“Are you okay?” I asked, getting dressed as he sat with his hands wrapped around the edge of the mattress.
“I’m always okay,” he replied coldly.
I crawled over to him, kissing his shoulder blade. “You can talk to me, you know.”
He grimaced and shut his eyes. “I don’t talk.”
I sighed, sensing the weight of the world on Jackson’s shoulders. All I wanted to do was help him with his load, but he was completely against that. He lived in a world where he felt as if he had to carry all his baggage alone.
As I opened my lips to speak once more, Tucker walked past the doorway of the bedroom, moving slowly in the direction of the living room.
“He’s been limping,” Jackson whispered.
“Is he okay?”
He shrugged. “He’s old, blind in one eye, and can hardly get around without my help.”
“Is that why you carry him throughout town?”
“He loves the park. Even with all his issues, he loves the park.”
“I saw you swinging with him one day,” I told him. “With Tucker in your lap.”
He nodded his head and looked down at his hands, which were clasped together. “He’s a good boy. I’m just debating how selfish I’m being by keeping him around. He’s just…” He took a deep breath and turned to me. I gave him a half frown as he kept talking. “He’s all I’ve got, really.”
“Tell me more about him.” I climbed into his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist.
His lips parted, and he cringed as he placed his forehead against mine. “I don’t know how to open up to people.”
“Well, you don’t have to open up to people, just me.”
Before he could answer, his cell phone began to ring, and he released a heavy sigh as he moved me from his lap. As he answered the call, I tried my best to give him his space.
“Hey, Alex, what’s up?” he said, then paused. “Are you shitting me? No, it’s fine. I’ll be right there. No, really, it’s fine. All right, bye.”
He hung up, and the weight of the world was solidly back on his shoulders. “I gotta get going,” he said, gathering his clothes, and tossing them on.
“Is everything okay?” I questioned, standing quickly and wrapping my arms around my body.
“Yeah—well, no. My dad’s just a fucking drunk, and is causing a scene down at the shop. I just gotta go handle him.”
“Oh, well, do you want me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “No. If he saw you, he’d lose it even more. I’ll talk to you later,” he told me. “Just close the door on your way out.”
26
Jackson
He’d lost his damn mind.
I made my way to the shop, where Alex was trying his best to contain Dad’s drunkenness. I glanced around and saw broken glass everywhere. When my eyes made it to Grace’s car, I cringed. All the windows were shattered, and the hood had marks on it that had probably come from the bat Alex was trying to pry out of Dad’s hand.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, rushing over to them. “Dad, what the hell are you doing?!” I barked.
“I told you to get that shi-shit outta my shop!” he shouted, slurring heavily.
I wrapped my hands around the bat and yanked it from his grip then tossed it to aside. I didn’t even try to talk to him because I saw his level of gone in his eyes. He was seconds away from blacking out. In the morning, he wouldn’t recall a thing.
There were many problems with what he’d done to Grace’s vehicle, but the main issue was that he took his drunkenness out on more than just her car. He’d messed up all kinds of things in the shop. Each breath I took only pissed me off more as I wrapped my arms around my father and forced him to walk away. I took him to his house and tossed him into his bedroom.
He kept grumbling about the Harrises family and how much he hated them. He went on about me, how much of a pain in the ass I was in his life, and then he passed the hell out.
Finally.
I went back to the shop and sighed as I looked around, resting my hands on top of my head. Alex already had a broom in hand and was sweeping up some of the shattered glass.
“Sorry I had to call you, man. It’s just…he snapped. I was working on Grace’s car when he walked in and blew up out of nowhere,” he told me.
“Yeah, well, sounds just like good ole pops to me,” I sarcastically remarked. “You don’t gotta clean it up, Alex. I got this.”
“Nah, it’s no big deal.”
“But it is,” I groaned, looking around. “This is gonna cost us a lot of money in repairs. Of course, he’ll never even know the damage he caused.”
“He needs help, man—like real help, or one day he’s gonna end up…” Alex’s voice faded away, but I knew what he was hinting at—dead.
My greatest fear was getting that call, someone delivering the news that my father was dead, and with every day that passed, the fear seemed more valid.
I helped Alex straighten up the shop the best I could, but then I told him to call it a day and we’d get back to it tomorrow. He headed out, and I went over to Dad’s front porch. I sat on the top step, listening closely to make sure he wasn’t making too much of a fuss inside. I stayed there for minutes, hours, and the only time I moved was to go check on him in the bedroom to make sure he was still breathing.
Then I’d return to my spot on the porch where I’d probably end up spending the night. I couldn’t go back to my cabin out of fear of what I’d wake up to come morning.
“Jackson?” a small voice said, making me look up from my hands, which I’d been staring at for the past few minutes. Grace was standing there, giving me a soft grin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I wanted to check in…I know you said not to, but I waited a while and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”
She grimaced. “Can I sit with you?”
“If you want to.”
She walked up the stairs and sat directly beside me. She didn’t say anything at first. Maybe she didn’t know what to say, or maybe she felt as if I just needed silence for a while. Having her sit there felt weird, like a comfort I hadn’t even known I wanted.
“I hate apples unless they’re cut into slices,” she finally said, making me tilt my head in her direction. “I know magic isn’t real, but whenever I see a good magic trick, I feel totally shocked. I suck at playing Uno, but I’ll destroy you at Monopoly.”
“Random facts?” I asked her.
She nodded. “To make you more comfortable.”
Each moment, I liked her more. I took a breath. “I love hip-hop and country music in equal amounts. I sing in the shower. I eat Mexican food at least three times a week, and sometimes when I have a bad day, I sing ‘Tubthumping’ by Chumbawamba.”
She inhaled. “I can’t whistle.”
“I can’t snap.”
“I cried during every Marvel movie,” she whispered.
“I still tear up at Th
e Lion King.”
She smiled the kind of smile that could make even the saddest person feel better. “I think you’re a good person.”
“I think you’re a better one,” I replied. I swallowed hard and looked down at my hands. “And I think my life is easier when you’re around.”
“Oh.” She said softly, tilting her head toward me. “So I guess that’s a mutual thing. More facts?”
“Real ones or stupid ones?”
“Real is good,” she replied. “I like real. I just didn’t know if you liked to share that kind of stuff.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay, then share whatever you want.”
I took a deep breath and felt her arm lightly brush against mine, but I didn’t say a word. There was an extended moment of silence before I built up the nerve to speak again. It was as if my brain was debating how real I wanted to get with her. We’d pretty much skated the surface of truths without ever really digging into them.
“Tucker was the last gift my mother ever gave me,” I confessed. “She gave him to me a few weeks before she decided to leave my father and start her life with another man. I remember it like it was yesterday. My parents didn’t let me have pets when I was little, said I was too young, but when I turned ten, they said I could get a dog. I think it was because I was bullied so badly and had no friends. They felt bad for how lonely I was as a kid. Then a few weeks later, she was packing her bags to leave.”
“How did you find out she was going?”
“I saw my parents fighting in the living room. They fought for what felt like forever until Dad was just exhausted. I remember the defeat in his eyes. I think that was the exact moment he realized she was never going to be his again. She had chosen someone else, and he had a hard time with that. She was his everything—our everything—but, well, just because someone’s your everything doesn’t mean you’re theirs. I’d begged her to stay. I literally threw myself at my mother and sobbed, pleading for her not to run away. My father had left the room because it was just too much for him. He’d checked out, I think. He’d already given up, and his heart was already so bruised, but I was just a kid. All I knew was that I wanted my mom to stay with me. I sobbed against her, pulling on her clothes, clawing at her, and she kept promising me it wasn’t forever, that she would never leave me and we’d find a new normal. You know the last thing she said to me?”
“What?”
“She kissed my forehead, looked me in the eyes, and said, ‘Take care of your father.’”
“Wow…”
“Shortly after, we learned about the car accident with Josie’s father. My mom died instantly. We hadn’t even had time to hate her for leaving before we were forced to mourn.”
“Jackson, I’m so, so sorry,” Grace said as she breathed out. “I cannot even imagine what that would do to a person’s soul.”
I felt my chest tightening, and as I spoke, I remembered why it was a subject I never opened up about. It was hard—too hard to relive those memories. It was too hard to face that guilt all over again. Whenever I thought of the night of Mom’s death, I swore it felt like I was right back there, drowning all over again.
“Maybe if I had begged for a few seconds longer, then she wouldn’t have been on that road at that exact moment. Maybe if I’d held her tighter…” I whispered.
Grace shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Jackson. There’s no way it was anyone’s fault.”
“I could’ve fought harder to make her stay.”
“No. That’s been a hard lesson for me to learn. It turns out it doesn’t matter how much you beg someone to stay. If they want to go, they are going to leave regardless. All we can do—all anyone can do is learn the art of letting go, and no matter what, it’s clear she loved you.”
“She was my world, and after I lost her, Tucker became my best friend. I felt as if somehow, he was a part of her.” I lowered my head and closed my eyes. “Say something to change the subject,” I begged. “Say anything to make my mind stop spinning.”
Grace cleared her throat for a second, and then she began to sing “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba.
Almost instantly, I laughed. I needed that. I needed her there with me to ease me away from the darkness. “Great timing,” I told her, releasing a breath. I allowed my shoulders to roll back and relax.
“I am really sorry, though, about your mother.”
“It’s all right. It’s just the main reason I don’t believe in love.”
“You don’t believe in love? Like at all?”
“Nah. I’ve just seen what love can be when it’s found, and what it can become when it’s lost. My father is who he is because of a broken heart, because he lost the love of his life. For months, he wouldn’t get out of bed. He turned to the bottle to try to feel better. He tried to drink my mother out of his memory, and when that didn’t work, he kept drinking and now he’s just…broken.”
“What was your father like? Before he changed?”
“Happy,” I said. “That’s the only word I can think of. He had the deepest laugh, you know, the kind that would rocket through your system and make you laugh yourself, and he was so in tune with cars. He could fix pretty much any and everything. I remember being young and watching him in awe.”
“And now he’s the way he is because she broke his heart.”
“Exactly. I hate who he is right now, hate seeing him in this light because he pisses me off daily. I don’t know who that man in that house is anymore, but I can’t really blame him. The love of his life died in a pretty awful way right after telling him she didn’t love him anymore. If I were him, I’d be crazy, too.”
“Do you think someday he’ll be okay?”
“I don’t know. I hope so, but I really don’t know. I’ve tried to get him into rehab clinics, but he doesn’t want to hear it. I think he feels like what’s the point? No matter what, she’ll still be gone, sober or not. Plus, he’d still be sad sober—probably even sadder.”
“Do you think broken hearts can be fixed?”
“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. “They just beat a little differently.”
“So maybe someday your dad’s heart can be fixed.”
I shook my head. “For a broken heart to be fixed, the person has to want to repair it. It’s kind of like a car engine—you can fix it if you take the time to work through the broken parts, but I think my dad’s gotten used to how it feels—the hurt. I think that’s where he’s most comfortable now.”
“What about your heart?” she asked. “Is your heart okay?”
“My heart left me the day she passed away.”
“Oh, Jackson…” Her voice lowered, and my chest ached. “It hurts me that you’re so sad.”
We didn’t say another word, but she didn’t leave my side for a good while.
Grace didn’t know it, but at that moment, I was so happy she stayed.
I was in desperate need of someone staying with me.
27
Grace
One Monday afternoon, I ran into Finn in town, and he kept calling my name.
I tried my best to ignore him, but he wouldn’t let up. “Gracelyn! Grace!”
I gave up and turned to face him. “What is it, Finn?” I whisper-shouted, not wanting to draw any attention to us.
“I…” He raced his hand over his buzzed haircut. “I think we need to talk about things. I know you’re angry, but we’re still married, Grace. You can’t just avoid dealing with me.”
“You mean how you avoided dealing with me for the past eight months?”
“I know I didn’t handle that well, and I want to apologize for that. Things have been a bit complicated.”
“Autumn’s pregnant with your kid. Plus, she told me you told her that I left you. Really, Finley? Is that how you get women to bang you? By making me out to be the monster?”
He lowered his head and cringed a bit. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’m trying my best to learn and own up to them. I owe you
more apologies than I can even express, and I just want to have an open dialogue so we can talk. I think maybe marriage therapy… Or maybe we could start praying together again? Remember when we used to pray together?”
“Yes, and then each night you told me you were too tired to kneel beside me.”
“I’ve been so lost, Grace. I just…I need you back. I don’t do well without you in my life.”
What?
I was baffled.
Completely baffled by his words.
“You disgust me,” I told him, turning around and walking away.
There was nothing therapy, prayer, or apologies could fix between us.
He shattered our relationship all on his own, and the pieces would never fit back together.
“Why are you sleeping with him?” Finn asked, his voice not low at all, forcing me to turn back around.
“Excuse me?”
“Is it to get back at me? Because I hurt you?”
“I cannot believe you right now.”
“He’s dangerous, Grace, and like, what? Half your age?”
“He’s twenty-four, Finley. That’s nowhere near half my age.”
“Yeah, but he’s pretty much a kid compared to you. Plus, he sleeps with everyone in town.”
“It seems that you two have something in common,” I remarked, rolling my eyes.
“Do you really want to be just another number to him? You’re not being smart, Grace, or safe. He could have caught something from those other women. He could be passing it on to you.”
He didn’t see it, did he? How ironic it was that he—my cheating husband—was telling me how I was being unsafe when he had the nerve to crawl into bed with me many nights after his countless affairs.
“We’re not talking about this,” I told him.
Disgrace Page 20