As I pulled back a little, I thanked him for holding me, for allowing me to fall apart. He brushed his thumb against my cheeks, wiping away my tears that kept falling.
I laughed nervously. “Hot mess,” I said, stating what he’d been calling me for the longest time.
He kept wiping my tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “For calling you a hot mess when I met you.”
“Don’t be. It’s true, after all. I am a hot mess.”
“Everyone’s a hot mess,” he insisted. “Some people are just better at hiding it.”
I didn’t know why, but that statement eased my mind a bit.
Jackson rubbed the side of his neck and cleared his throat. “You want water?”
“Yes. Please.”
He hurried into the back of the cabin, toward the kitchen, and I took deep breaths. My fingers lightly touched the Band-Aids against my face, and I walked toward the walls to study the sunsets more closely. They were stunning. So stunning and realistic that they almost looked like photographs. Each one had the initials H.E. in the bottom corner.
“These are beautiful,” I told him as he reentered the room with the glass of water. He handed the glass my way. “Who’s H.E.?” I asked.
“Hannah Emery,” he quietly replied as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “My mother.”
“She was an amazing artist,” I told him.
He nodded once. “She was more than that.” Before I could ask him anything about his mother, he shifted the conversation back to me. “Are you all right?”
I snickered. “Truth or lie?”
“Truth,” he replied. “Always truth.”
I took a deep breath, and tears fell as I exhaled. I couldn’t even reply.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he told me.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
He was right, it wasn’t all right, and I wasn’t certain that it would ever be all right.
“You were right about everyone in town. They were just comforting me so they could get more gossip. They didn’t care about my heart or how it beat. They just wanted something to talk about.”
“I’m sorry I was right.”
“It’s okay. I just…I feel like I have no one, you know? I mean, I can talk to my sister and my father, but that’s pretty much it, and I don’t want to burden them. Everyone else in this town just feels like a stranger to me.”
“Even your mom?”
I huffed. “Especially my mom.”
He cleared his throat and rounded his shoulders forward. “I’m Jackson Paul Emery,” he calmly stated, locking his stare with mine. “I can’t whistle, but I can do three backflips in a row. I got my car skills from my dad and my art skills from my mother. Last summer, I ate twenty-five hot dogs in a row like a professional badass. Alex recorded the whole thing. I can make the best shrimp fried rice, and—”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Telling you about myself.”
“Yeah. But…why?”
He brushed his hand against the back of his neck and slightly shrugged. “So I’ll no longer be a stranger and you can talk to me.”
Oh, Jackson…
First, he’s sour, then shockingly sweet.
The gentle monster.
His gesture surprised me, but perhaps he was learning to zoom in like I was learning to see him. Maybe, for the first time, the two of us were truly seeing one another.
“I don’t know how to talk about it,” I confessed. I didn’t have a clue what to say.
“What’s the hardest part?” he asked me. “What hurts the most?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” I lowered my head and wrapped my arms around me. “The betrayal of the situation, and the next hardest part is being alone. I don’t know how to be alone. When Finn and I got married, I believed it was set in stone. You build your whole life around another person, and you think you’ll never be alone again, but then you are. It’s the hardest feeling to deal with. Loneliness hurts. It burns in a way that feels worse than fire.”
“The burning never stops,” he told me. “You just kind of become numb to it.”
“How long have you been lonely?”
He gave me a broken smile, which told me his deepest truths.
“Oh, Jackson,” I whispered, my hand gently brushing against his cheek. “You’re way too young to be this sad.”
He closed his eyes, and I felt his warm breaths falling from his slightly parted lips. “You’re doing that thing that you do, princess.”
“Doing what?”
“Putting others’ hurts before your own.”
I smiled and slightly shrugged. “It’s my gift, my curse.”
“It’s not a selfish thing, you know.” He opened his eyes, and the intensity I felt as he stared my way sent chills down my spine. He leaned in close, whispering against my ear as if he was revealing the biggest secret in the world. “You’re allowed to choose yourself first.”
What a wonderful thought, though the world I grew up in taught me the complete opposite. Where I came from, it was always give yourself to others first and whatever was left was what one used on themselves.
It just turned out that most of the time, nothing ever remained, and my tank for self-love was left on empty.
When it came time for me to leave, he offered to walk me home, and I once again declined. “But thank you for this…for helping me.”
He gave me a halfway smile, or at least I pretended he did. “Are you all right?”
“No.”
“That’s fine,” he declared. “You don’t have to be.”
Why did that make me feel a little bit better?
“Jackson?”
“Yes?”
“You’re nothing like your father.”
He frowned and cleared his throat as he looked down at the ground and crossed his arms. “I am when he’s sober.”
16
Grace
As I walked back to Judy’s house, I smiled as I saw a friendly face sitting on my front porch. “Hi, friend,” I said, walking up to Josie who had two extra-large cups from KitKat’s 1950s Diner.
“Hi, friend,” she replied, standing up.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Long enough to finish two of these drinks and go back to KitKat’s to grab two new ones.” She frowned, studying my face. “What happened?” she asked, nodding toward the bandage.
I touched my cheek. “Just some emotional release.”
“Are you all right?”
“If what’s in that cup of yours is what I think it is, I’ll be better soon enough.”
She smirked, handing a cup my way. “If I remember correctly, you were a Diet Coke girl with a few shots of whiskey.” When we were younger, we always used the extra-large cups from KitKat’s Diner when we wanted to get wasted in town but didn’t want anyone to know that the perfect Harris girl even knew what alcohol was. It was, of course, Josie’s idea. She was pretty great at secretly letting me break free for a small bit of time.
I grabbed the cup and laughed. “Yes.” I took a sip and made a face. “Geez, Josie!”
“I might have been a bit heavy-handed with that whiskey,” she told me.
“This is straight-up whiskey with a splash of Diet Coke, I think.”
“Confession—there’s no Diet Coke in that.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and lightly squeezed. “If anyone deserves straight whiskey, it’s you right now. How are you holding up?”
“I could be better.”
“Want to go egg Autumn’s house? I have a dozen eggs around the corner,” she joked. Well, I thought she was joking until I saw the seriousness in her eyes.
“No, Josie, we aren’t egging her house.”
“But can we toilet paper it? I got two-ply tissue. Only the best quality, too. It’s quilted. Soft as a down comforter. If anything, it’ll be like we’re wrapping the jerk’s place in a soft blanket.” She bit her b
ottom lip. “And then we’ll throw egg yolks at the tissue.”
I laughed, which felt so odd. Josie had that ability, though, to make the saddest person find a second of laughter. “I think we’ll hold off on the revenge.”
“Okay, but when it’s time, just say the word.”
“I promise I will.”
“Want to go to our old stomping grounds where we would people watch and get drunk without them knowing?” Josie asked, wiggling her eyebrows in hopes that I’d agree.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We walked through town to Kap Park and sat down on the bench that faced downtown Chester. When we were younger, we’d see so many insane things from that park bench. The drama that unfolded as we sipped our “Diet Cokes” and laughed was always entertaining.
But that day, everything felt different. The small town that used to make me laugh felt like a foreign country to me.
“You’re okay, buddy,” Josie said as we stared out at the events of the night. “I mean, you’re not, but you will be.”
Part of me believed her, while another part thought it to be nothing but a lie.
“Josephine and Gracelyn Mae, I haven’t seen you ladies sitting on this bench together in what seems like forever,” Charlotte stated, walking over to us in her high heels. Her pink painted lips curved into a wide smile on her face, and my stomach turned. The last thing I wanted to do that afternoon was deal with Charlotte’s nosy self.
She made herself at home and sat down right beside me. “How are you doing, Grace? You know, I’ve been hearing rumors. And I actually just saw you a bit earlier running through town with Jackson Emery’s hand in yours. What was that about? Is everything okay?” She said the words as if she was concerned about my well-being, but I knew better now.
She was just being Charlotte—a gossip queen.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d read about my life in her newspaper column come Sunday afternoon.
“What makes you think you have the right to ask her anything like that, Charlotte?” Josie barked, backing me up because she knew I wasn’t going to stand up for myself.
I didn’t know how.
“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” Charlotte questioned, pressing her hand to her chest.
“You said everything wrong. Now, if you don’t mind, Grace and I were having a private conversation, and we’d like to get back to it without having busybodies like you interrupting,” Josie told her.
“Well, the attitude isn’t needed,” Charlotte huffed, standing from the bench.
“Yeah, well, neither were your invasive questions. Have a blessed day,” Josie remarked, smiling brightly toward Charlotte, who was walking off in annoyance.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “If I would’ve ever said that, my mama would’ve shamed me for life.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not you, and my mama can’t stand that girl as much. Plus, Charlotte is, after all, my own cousin. If anyone should’ve told her to shut her trap, it should’ve been family.”
“Thank you, Josie. For being you.”
“It’s all I know how to be,” she remarked, nudging me in my shoulder. “Now if you just want to sit here in silence, we can do that. Or if you want to talk, we can do that too, okay? Whatever you need, we can do.”
“I just hate her…” I confessed. “I know I shouldn’t because I was taught that hate doesn’t do anyone any good, but I do. I hate her so much.”
“You’re not alone in your hate for her. Autumn has always been a hard one for me. She always seemed so…fake.”
“Everyone always said she and I were just alike.”
“Well, everyone’s an idiot. You’re genuine. You always have been even when people didn’t deserve your kindness. But her? She’s just…ugh. I mean, I really hate her. And her parents, too. They always rubbed me the wrong way. Who names their kid Autumn when they were born in February? Seriously! Who does that?! You could’ve named her anything. I have lists of names I would’ve given her. Like Karla.”
“Or Mia.”
“Or Rebecca, Becca for short,” she offered.
“Or Evette. Maybe Harper.”
“Oh, I love Harper.” Josie nodded, placing the lip of the mug to her mouth and gently blowing the tea to cool it off. “Or Alexandria.”
“Lexie for short.”
“Or Andie for short.”
“Or Alex.”
“I love those names. That could be used for either a guy or girl. Like Jamie or Chris or Dylan,” she explained.
“Morgan, Reese, or Taylor.”
“Jordan. Sawyer.”
“Emerson,” I whispered, the words dancing from my tongue and stinging my heart. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. “I would’ve named my daughter Emerson.”
When I opened my eyes, I saw the hurt in Josie’s stare. I gave her a tight smile and shook my head. “Sorry.” I always tried my best to keep my infertility struggles to myself. I always tried to keep a smile on my face in front of others, but sometimes, I slipped.
Especially when my best friend was pregnant by my husband.
No apologies, Josie signed my way. “Don’t be sorry. You’re allowed to hurt.” She gave me a broken smile, and I knew what it meant. “A while back, your mom mentioned to me that you and Finn were trying to start a family and how hard that had been for you,” she said, her voice as gentle as ever. She must’ve seen the hurt in my eyes by her comment because she quickly added more words to the conversation. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. I just…” She took a deep breath and rolled up her left sleeve. On her forearm sat three small heart tattoos, each one with angel wings attached to them. “I just want you to know you’re not alone in those feelings.”
I released a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “I see people with children in town, and I wonder if they know how lucky they are,” I whispered, my voice shaky.
“Yes, and you’re happy for them, you are, but you’re also really pissed off too, right?”
I slowly nodded, feeling guilt for my resentment. I’ve resented myself for so long. I felt anger with my body, with my inability to do the one thing I was supposed to be able to do: create a family.
Josie’s voice was so soft as she continued to speak. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I wanted to let you know you aren’t alone in this. If you ever need someone to talk to…or someone to just be mad with, I’m here.”
“Thank you, Josie. That means a lot to me.”
“Anytime. I know how lonely this road we walk can get, and with everything else going on with you…” Her words faded, and she grinned. “I just want you to know if you need a friend, you got one in me.”
I took in her words and held them tight. I needed a friend more than anything lately.
Home is healing.
“I’m so sorry,” I stated, nodding in the direction of her tattoo. “For your three hearts.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me. How many for you?”
I took my next breath slowly. “Seven.”
“Oh, honey…” Her hands landed against her heart because she knew. Any woman who’d ever lost a child knew of the hollowness that remained within the soul. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
She frowned. “You’re tired.”
“Yes,” I whispered, taking my next breath even slower. “I’m tired.”
She pulled me into a hug. A tight one that I couldn’t break away from even if I wanted to let her go. I fell into the comfort she brought me, and I held her back for her three hearts as she honored my seven.
The simple feeling of not being alone washed over me as I held Josie tightly.
As she embraced me, she softly spoke. “Ellis.” She pulled away from me and wiped her own tears as she smiled and signed my way, “I would’ve named the last one Ellis.”
“And they would’ve been beautiful.”
“God. I bet they would’ve had Harry’s eyes,” she said, laughing slightly as s
he shook her head, thinking of her husband.
“And your smile,” I signed.
She grinned, and that made me happy.
“It’s just hard, that’s all. Autumn was able to give Finn the one thing he always wanted, the one thing I couldn’t, without even trying,” I explained. “It’s like they are living my fairy tale. They are getting my happily ever after.”
“Yeah well, there’s one major issue with their storyline.”
“And what’s that?”
“She’s not you. She’ll never be you, and they cannot steal your happily ever after. It’s yours, after all. Just because it didn’t come to you the way you thought it would doesn’t mean that it’s not on its way.”
I heard her words, but believing that I’d find a happy ending when I was trapped inside my own horror story was almost impossible to do.
We sat on that bench until the sun and whiskey had faded away.
When she offered to walk me home, I declined, knowing it was out of her way. As I walked through town, I noticed Jackson leaving The Silent Bookshop, and his eyes locked with mine. He was giving me that same frown from earlier with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.
I gave him a smile, and he shook his head. Deep breaths. I gave him a tiny frown, and he slowly nodded. Yes, yes, that feels right.
He didn’t want my fake expression, but the true one. The one that I never allowed myself to express in public.
He took a step in my direction, and I shook my head slowly, making him stop.
I couldn’t have him near me because he made it seem like it was all right for me to be broken regardless of who was watching. If he came near me, I’d fall apart, and he’d catch me. Then I’d cry. Even though a big part of me wanted that, to feel unleashed, I knew I couldn’t have his comfort. I knew I couldn’t be sad on the streets of Chester with Jackson Emery’s arms wrapped around me.
Too many people would wonder.
Too many people would care.
He lowered his head and turned away from me. He walked off into the direction of his cabin, straight into the shadows of the night.
A chill raced over me, and I knew it was due to him.