“I was at Leo’s cabin when I heard you had tried to kill yourself; can you guess how I reacted?”
We haven’t spoken in depth about what I tried to do that night, but I’m intrigued to hear him talk about it tonight. I shake my head and keep quiet.
“I didn’t believe it. I passed it off without a moment’s thought because I didn’t believe it was true. I saw you after and the guilt I felt drowned me. I never want to feel like that again. I don’t want to come home and find you in the bathtub with your wrists open.”
My initial reaction is to fold under his words, but then anger spikes and I snatch my wrist out of his grip.
“How dare you,” I seethe. The anger becoming too much for me, like his admission of guilt, my anger is beginning to drown me.
“If I go and see the doctor, what would I tell him, huh? I’m losing my mind because a crazy psycho fell in love with me, carved his name into my skin, killed my cousin because my brother killed his kin, and then I stood by and watched while my husband stabbed him repeatedly so there was no chance of his survival. Tell me, what would he prescribe for that?”
He rises from the bed and heads for the door without so much as a reply.
“That’s it, walk away. Why don’t you head to the club, I’m sure you’ve filled your spend-time-with-the-wife quota for today,” I throw at him before he leaves the room. He spins on his heel and his face has darkened. I can’t work out why but when I spark this reaction from him it soothes me in a weird, fucked up way.
“My parents found you at the grocery store wearing your fucking pyjamas,” he shouts, the veins in his neck bulging from the strain.
Only because I was wearing his hoodie and forgot, I was in such a rush, I didn’t remember.
“Because I wanted to make you breakfast and I didn’t want to wake you up by coming in and getting dressed. I’ve seen far worse at the store.”
“Harper, you’re not serious right now. Surely? It wasn’t even breakfast time!”
“It was a pair of pyjama bottoms, Jay, with your hoodie. You’re acting like I went in my bra and panties.”
He flexes his jaw and narrows his eyes. He seriously isn’t happy. Good. Neither am I.
“Do you know who goes to the store in their pyjamas in this town?” he says, almost too quietly. It’s not a soft tone coming from him, but a twisted, cruel edge.
“Crazy people, Harper, and junkies off their head. That’s who run around town without getting dressed before leaving the house. You keep saying you don’t need your meds, start fucking acting like you don’t.” His voice breaks from yelling and his hands fist at his sides. Him flexing his fists don’t scare me, I could push him right to the edge and he still wouldn’t lay a finger on me.
His words on the other hand hit me hard, he may as well have slapped me around the face, at least that way I could have fought back against him.
Nothing leaves me as I sit there staring at the man who professes to love me, who killed for me.
“Crazy? I’m acting like I’m crazy?” I murmur, more to myself than to him, I don’t want an answer from him. He’s said enough.
My eyes find his and for the first time in our relationship, I don’t know what to say.
I’m not crazy though, I’m hurting, and I’m weighed down with secrets and guilt. There’s a huge difference and he’s an asshole for not noticing it.
“Get out.”
The asshole hears me, but he doesn’t move.
“Babe…”
I’m not interested in anything he has to say; I can barely look at him and the sound of his voice is strange to me.
“Get out,” I yell a little louder. “You don’t get to say shit like that to me, not you.”
I don’t know what’s worse, the pain in my tone or the pain in my heart.
He steps towards me, his face softening and his hands splaying at his sides.
“I’m sorry-” he starts but I don’t want to hear it.
“If crazy is, crazy does,” I mutter.
Reaching over the bed, I grab the lamp from the bedside table and rip it out the socket.
He puts his hands up in surrender and takes that step back.
“Babe, listen to me, I’m…”
“You listen to me, get out, you’re unbelievable and if you don’t leave, I’ll show you what crazy is.”
Pursing his lips tightly together, he doesn’t budge. Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn him.
I launch the lamp across the room but he’s faster and moves out the way before it makes contact with him. I look around the room, searching for anything else I can use and when I look back, he’s leaving.
“Call me when you want to talk, you’re going to the doctor and you’re going to clean that shit up,” he calls out over his shoulder and then jogs down the stairs.
Asshole.
The door slams downstairs and I flinch when it rocks through the house. It’s not long after when I hear his bike roar to life and pull off down the street.
Once the thunderous roar from his bike has faded to nothing, the silence hangs around me like a cloud, cocooning me from everything in the world.
It’s always so easy for him to walk out, it happened countless times before we got together, and I thought it was a thing of the past. I ignore the container of my medication of the nightstand and get dressed. If he thinks I’m sitting around here waiting for him to drag his ass home, he’s got another thing coming. Only, when I grab my purse and car keys, I have no idea where to go. It would be too easy to go the bar and drown in my sorrows, instead, I stop by the store and choose a bunch of brightly coloured flowers and drive out to the cemetery, parking up by the old chapel. Perhaps if I can find some peace going to her grave, it’ll get JJ off my back about going to the doctor. I missed her funeral because I couldn’t face everyone. There would have been no chance of me standing over her grave, grieving with the family, with the club, and not letting it out what I did. I didn’t want my uncle and cousin to have memories of me stood there knowing what I’d done.
Her grave stands out from the others with the soil still turned over. Fresh flowers are placed around the plot. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I thought it’d be impossible to face her, to see her grave. It would drive it home she was really gone. I’m numb, my heart beats heavily and I clutch the bouquet of flowers too tight, but I keep walking and when I come to a stop by her grave, I sink to my knees and stare at the simple wooden cross dug into the ground at the head of the grave.
Uncle Slade will no doubt spend a fortune on a headstone befitting his princess and Leo and the Jacksons will want to help.
I lean forward and place the flowers over the dirt and rock back on my knees.
“I never really liked you until I didn’t want you to die.”
It’s the first time admitting it out loud and it makes no difference to my conscience.
“You had everything, and you didn’t know how lucky you were. Life never stopped giving to you and you annoyed the shit out of me because of it. What made you so special, that’s what I used to ask myself. I did everything I was supposed to, but I was still stuck with Lily. You had the parents, the support to go to college, and then you had the guy, the kid at a young age, and you still had it all.”
I take a deep breath and dig my hands into the grass. My petty jealousy is disgusting. It leaves a rancid taste in my mouth but I need to tell her how I really feel, or used to feel.
“I would crave to wipe the smile off your face, just for a while. Now I’d give anything to see it again. I’m so sorry, India. I wish we were more of a family; I wish you weren’t at the club that night. I wish so much and it’s pointless.”
I didn’t see her die, but I heard the shot and when Ellis reappeared upstairs, I knew it was done. Her blood was splattered over his face and his hand was drenched in the red stuff. He wouldn’t answer any of my questions, he gripped onto my arm and hauled me down the side stairs and got us out of there. In one way, I’m grateful I do
n’t have the images for life of her on the floor with a hole in her head. Not that my imagination doesn’t play tricks with me and plants the images anyway. Sometimes it can be worse.
“I realised that night that I don’t hate you, not even a little bit, but it was too late.”
Gravel crunching under foot gets my attention, and my head snaps up and whips to look at my side. Leo is walking towards me carrying Rayna in his arms. What are they doing here? A bunch of flowers stick out of his hand and he falters when he lays eyes on me.
My mind races with everything I can’t say to him and nothing of what I should say. I rise to my feet and when he’s so close he could touch me, he hands over the baby and my limbs lock up. I should not be holding her kid and if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t want me in a hundred miles of her.
“She doesn’t bite, Harper, hold her properly,” he mutters, leaning over to place their flowers beside mine.
I put the baby to my chest and the kid grabs onto my hair. Detangling her grip, I keep hold of her hand and ignore her big brown eyes scrutinising me.
“I swear, there are more flowers here every time we come.”
“How often do you come here?” I ask him, dodging the baby’s exploring hands.
“Every day. Rayna was having trouble settling so I hoped a drive here would help.”
He stands beside me and I’m quick to hand the baby back to him. She has the look of her father for sure, but India is there too, and I hate how she’s looking at me, like she can see straight through me.
“I didn’t realise, I would have stayed away if I’d known.”
“You’re fine.”
He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, and I focus on the tree off in the distance.
“It doesn’t feel real, you know? Like it’s a bad dream I can’t wake up from.”
If only it was a nightmare, it would mean we could all wake up and go back to everyone being alive and safe, and fucking breathing.
“Leo, you…”
“I keep expecting her to be there when I wake up, lying beside me and going to Rayna when she cries.”
I swallow thickly and keep my mouth shut.
“Dad shouldn’t have killed him without us, he promised you could kill him, he took so much from us all.”
I definitely don’t look his way. I had the opportunity to kill him and I passed it over to JJ. At the time I just wanted him dead. I didn’t care who killed him as long as it wasn’t me. I thought I could do it, fuck, I really wanted to be the one who ended him once and for all but when it came to the moment of ending him, I bottled it. I’m starting to realise it mattered who killed him and Leo had as much right as anyone else.
“He did what he thought was for the best. Ellis was evil, he spread his wickedness too far and he needed to be taken down.”
He side eyes me and I keep facing forward. The lie tumbles from my lips in a jumbled mess so purely I could easily believe myself.
“I shouldn’t have let you come with me that night. I should have taken you back to Jay.”
“Leo, I was going to the club that night, with or without you. You felt you had to be there, and so did I. I’m getting real sick of people trying to tell me what I should do, or how I should be.”
“Jay still angry with you?”
Snorting, I finally look at him and he’s staring straight at me.
“He’s…I have no idea. He doesn’t understand that I’m capable of making decisions for myself.”
“He loves you. You can’t blame him for wanting to keep you safe. He’s lucky you’re still here.”
Unlike him, he means. I should go, leave him to mourn with his baby girl, but maybe I should stay. For Christs sake, I have no idea what to do. However, my feet move before I come to a decision and my heart bleeds for the scene I turn my back on. A widow with his child standing over his love’s grave. She was too young and too loved to be caught up in this and I’m done here. I can’t see anymore.
“I’ll see you later, Leo.”
I don’t hear his reply. I cross the cemetery to my car and turn the ignition on as soon as I’m behind the wheel. He’s right, I am still here, and I need to make it right with my husband.
JJ
Her face haunts me as I try to dull it with the fourth beer I’ve consumed since I arrived. I should never have compared to the hicks in town. I bite down on my tongue to stop from lashing out at anyone and everyone around me when all I want to do is vent my frustrations. Suspicion is in the air already, brothers aren’t letting Ellis’s death go easily and if I go bat shit around here, their suspicions will only grow. Anyway, I’m more concerned with my old lady so I ignore everyone and finish my beer.
Dad and the prospect walk in, dad looking tired and the prospect bouncing on his toes as dad says something to him and then cuts across the bar and joins me at the table. The prospect heads for Cas’s office and my guess is they have caught another Crow or two.
“We’ve got two more,” he tells me, and I smirk, my guess being right. “Have you been here the whole time? I tried calling.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, the whole situation is driving me crazy,” I mutter, and cringe at my use of crazy.
He leans back in his chair and sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask him, tipping the bottle to my mouth.
“I’m tired, and you and Leo are raking up shit from long ago.”
“What shit?”
Sighing, he reaches for his smokes in his cut pocket and lights up before even looking to answer me. My dad isn’t normally one for serious conversations, jokes and sarcasm he’s down for, but rarely serious.
“After Oak died, I wouldn’t talk to Cas, or anyone really. It fucked me in a way I couldn’t begin to handle. As you know, I saw what they did to him. I know what they did to me, but Oak got it far worse. I thought for sure I was the one going to die that night. I had said goodbye to you and your mom, and after I blamed a lot of people for not making it in time. I steered clear of the club for a while believing it was safer for you and your mom. I couldn’t take any more pain. Leo will come around, it takes time, that’s all. He saw her die before him, and now he’s alone with his daughter. Shit like that is hard.”
“I hear you, I do, but what gets to me is I hold the truth and it’s his frustrations trying to work it out that weighs me down.”
His hand shoots across the table and grips onto my chin. He forces me to look him in the eye and I hold his gaze.
“No good will come from him learning what happened. I don’t care what any fucker says, he’s hurting enough.”
Yanking my chin from his hold, I continue to stare him down and remind myself to keep my voice down.
“Look around, Dad. This club is hanging by a thread, the lies are slowly killing us.”
Before he can argue with me, I spy Harper walking through the door stopping by the old juke box that hasn’t worked in forever. I came here because I thought it would be the last place she would show up. If I weren’t around her, I wouldn’t be able to hurt her again.
“At least she’s dressed,” Dad says with a snide snort, but I think we’re both grateful for the distraction from our conversation.
“Cut it out,” I warn him and push out of my chair.
Her eyes lock with mine and visible relief washes over her. I stop a couple of feet away from her and she’s the one to close the space between us. She latches her fingers onto my belt and genuine sorrow radiates from her.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown the lamp at you. It wasn’t crazy, it was immature, and it was wrong.”
Nodding, I offer her the same respect. “I’m sorry too, I should never have said what I did. You’re not crazy, and I wish I could take it back.”
A small smile replaces the wariness she first walked in wearing and I take hold of her hands. I rub my thumb over her wedding band, and it brings me a level of peace I desperately needed. It nearly killed
me when I watched her take her ring back from Ellis at the Old Mill. The thought of her not wearing it cripples me in a way I never expected it would.
“I went to the cemetery, I took her some flowers,” she says, pausing, but she isn’t finished. “Leo showed up, we spoke a bit and he made me realise that we’re still here and I don’t want to spend my life arguing with you. If you want me to go to the doctor, I will.”
“I want for you not to be in this pain all the time. I know this is shit, and I will be there for you, but I miss you. Perhaps you could talk to someone, Alannah maybe, she knows everything, and she wouldn’t judge you, or my mom?”
She jerks back and yanks her hands from mine. “Alannah knows?”
Eyeing her warily, I nod slowly and try to think how she doesn’t already know this.
“I shouldn’t be surprised; Cas would have told her for sure,” she mutters.
“It changes nothing,” I assure her, but the slight raise of her eyebrow tells me she doesn’t believe me. A hand falls on my shoulder and dad is standing behind me. “We have to leave. Now. Sorry, Harper, but I need him tonight.”
She nods at my dad, but I can see the tiredness of my impending absence creep over her.
“Go see my mom, I’ll pick you up when I’m done, and we’ll go for a ride.”
I move closer to her and tip her chin up so she’s looking at me and not down at her feet. I fucking hate when she does that, she’s so strong it burns me when she doubts herself.
“I love you,” I tell her, and lean in and press my lips against hers. For a brief moment, she relaxes against me and winds her arms around my waist.
“I love you, too,” she whispers, breaking our kiss and rests her head against my chest.
“Text me when you get there, I want to know you’re safe.”
Gripping onto her shoulders I spin her around and take her hand in mine as I walk her to her car.
She throws me a small smile as she climbs in behind the wheel and starts the engine. I don’t move until she has driven out through the gates. I need to sort this out for her and soon, it kills me I haven’t figured shit out already.
His One Choice Page 6