“I’ve never pushed you away.”
He smiled weakly and nodded his head. “No, you never did . . . until now. I’ve seen you five times in the last eleven days, including the day you found the vows and today. Today is the longest I’ve spent with you. There have been days when I come over and you won’t leave your room or look at me; there have been times when you told me you were coming over after work and you didn’t show and never called. I had to call your mom to make sure you were even safe.”
I stared at him blankly, my head shaking quickly. “No, I—I don’t think . . .” I trailed off, trying to remember other times we’d seen each other.
“This is a hard time for you, I know that. But it’s been killing me to watch you shut down and keep me out.”
When I couldn’t respond, he turned and slowly went down the stairs, and I just sat there listening to the echoes of his steps as he walked across the open space below. I didn’t move for long minutes as I thought about everything he’d said and tried to remember those days he’d been talking about. I couldn’t, but I knew he was right. Because what I did remember from the last week and a half was all the time I’d spent thinking about Ben.
After crawling across the bed and standing up, I walked across the loft and down the stairs. Before I could get to the hall leading to the back rooms, I saw my phone on one of the couches and walked over to pick it up. After tapping out a quick message to my mom about not coming home tonight, I turned the phone on silent and dropped it back onto the couch.
Jagger was leaning against a wall in the main hallway when I turned the corner, his forearms were pressed to the wall as his head hung down to his chest. His head snapped up when he heard me walking toward him, and he slowly straightened to face me. His face and eyes were guarded.
Without saying a word, I reached out to grab one of his hands and turned to walk back the way I’d come. I didn’t let go of his hand until we were next to the bed and didn’t say anything until we were both lying on it, facing each other.
“I don’t want to shut you out,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve been hurting you, but you have to know I would never purposely hurt you. It would kill me to lose you, Jagger, and I swear to you that you aren’t losing me,” I choked out, my voice breaking.
Jagger ground his jaw and wrapped one arm around my waist to pull me closer. “Okay, Grey,” he murmured as he pressed his lips to my forehead.
“I’ve always loved how protective you are, and I’m not just saying that because of what you or I said earlier. I love it; it’s comforting. I know you’d do anything to keep me safe, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m sorry that I used that against you, and I’m so so sorry that you’ve thought for one minute that I was taking myself away from you.” I curled my hands against his chest, and tried to fight back the tears stinging my eyes. “Everything has been harder since I first got the messages from Ben’s account. So many things have gone through my mind, and it makes everything so confusing. But that doesn’t mean I’m confused about you, or us. I love you and I want to be with you, and I need you to know that and not have any doubts. Because when you look at me, I know exactly how much you love me, and—”
Jagger pressed his mouth firmly to mine, cutting off my emotional rant, and I threw everything I had into that kiss. I needed him to know how much he meant to me, to see it when he looked at me and feel it in every kiss and touch we shared. I had spent so long blinding myself to him and keeping myself from feeling anything for anyone. After having this—having Jagger—I couldn’t ever lose him or go back to who I had been.
When the kiss slowed, I pushed myself away from him to slide under the comforter. He watched every movement like he was afraid to miss any of it, and when I was settled into his bed, he got up and kissed my forehead before jogging down the stairs. The lights went off and seconds later he was back and flipping off the lights in the loft. Pulling off his shirt, he let it fall to the floor before crawling back into the bed with me. With a murmured good night, he wrapped his arm around me again and pulled me close as we slowly drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 11
Grey
August 13, 2014
I RAN INTO the safety of my parents’ house from the summer storm, and tripped over myself as I worked at kicking off my shoes while simultaneously heading toward the stairs. Before I’d even hit the fourth step, my mom’s voice stopped me.
“Honey! You got something in the mail today.”
I stopped and let my head hang back so I was staring at the ceiling. “If it’s a bill, I don’t want it,” I grumbled even as I turned around and headed into the kitchen, where my mom was sitting at the table sorting through the mail.
“Not a bill.” She smirked as she handed me the large manila envelope, and I blew her an obnoxious kiss as I turned around to head toward the stairs again.
“I’m getting ready and going for a run!”
“Okay. How was work?” she called out after me.
“Fine,” I mumbled as my steps slowed to a stop, my eyes stayed glued to the envelope in my hands.
My brow furrowed when I didn’t find a return address, and even though my name and parents’ address was completely filled out, there weren’t any stamps or postage markings. A sense of dread slowly unfurled in my stomach and spread throughout my body as I carefully pried up the metal holding the envelope flap down.
I pulled out a stack of papers and tucked the envelope under my arm before flipping the stack over, and the feeling of dread intensified as the open space of the entryway seemed to close in on me.
The top sheet of paper had the typed-out words: Don’t let him make you forget what we have. My head shook back and forth as I fanned through the remaining pages, each one a printed-out picture of Ben and me, with a blank page at the end. Like some fucked-up type of manuscript—complete with blank page at the end and a dedication at the beginning. All it was missing was the title page.
“What’d you get?”
My head snapped up at the sound of my mom’s voice, and I had to swallow past the tightness in my throat twice before I could ask, “This was in the mail?”
“Yeah, honey, why? Are you okay?”
I shook my head quickly as I handed over the stack to her. “It’s another . . . it’s another message.”
She didn’t even make it past the first two pages before gasping and dropping it all to the floor.
“I n-need to call Jagger. I need to tell him.”
Mom didn’t respond, she just stood there with her hands over her mouth, staring at the mess of papers on the floor, and I couldn’t make my arms move fast enough to call Jagger. What should’ve taken seconds felt like hours, and I didn’t even recognize my own voice as I explained the pictures to him, and when I looked down at the fanned-out papers, my sharp inhalation had Jagger’s voice rising in panic.
“It wasn’t blank. The last page—it wasn’t blank.” On shaking knees, I bent down to the floor and moved aside a picture to reveal the rest of the small picture on what had been the last page. “Oh God,” I mumbled.
“What, Grey, what does it say?” Jagger asked over the roar of his car.
“It says: ‘Three more days, and Grey LaRue will finally be mine.’ It was his last status on Facebook, Jag, they printed it out.”
“Son of a bitch,” he growled. “Okay, I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon, and we’re calling the cops immediately this time, Grey. This bullshit has gone on too long.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said shakily.
“Breathe, baby. I’m coming for you.”
AFTER THE POLICE had come and talked to us for who knew how long, had taken fingerprints off the mailbox and the envelope and printed off pictures with them, I was exhausted. Emotionally and mentally drained. It took everything in me just to lie down on the couch and close my eyes as my parents and Jagger talked quietly around me. At some point I remember briefly waking up when Graham came over, but when I woke again, it was completely dark outside, and
no one was in the living room with me.
“Jag?” I called out, and slid off the couch when I didn’t get a response. Stretching the tension out of my muscles, I walked through the house until I found my parents. “Where’s Jagger?”
My mom looked at my dad, as if she needed his help, and he sighed heavily. “He’ll be back. He said he had to go take care of something, he left about ten minutes ago.”
“Then why do you both look so . . . I don’t know, but why do I have a feeling there’s something going on that you’re not telling me?”
“We got the call about an hour ago. They were able to look at the fingerprints immediately today. The only fingerprints on everything from the envelope and mailbox were matches to the prints you, Jagger, and your mother gave today, Grey. Nothing else, just like with the vows.”
I took a step back. “What are you saying?” My voice rose as denial and anger tore through my body. “Jagger didn’t do this! Is that why he left? Because you all think—”
“No! No, Grey, no one thinks that,” Mom said. “He left because he thinks he knows who’s doing it.”
“What?” I asked, my voice now barely a whisper. “W-who? Did he say?”
“No, we were sitting here trying to figure out something . . . anything that would make someone want to do this, and suddenly he just froze. His head snapped up and he froze. It was like he wasn’t even here anymore. Then he just started whispering, ‘No, no, she wouldn’t.’ We asked what was happening, and he just took off saying he would be back.” Mom shrugged sadly, like she didn’t know what else to say.
“She?” I stumbled over to the table and sat down roughly as I tried to think of any girl who would do something like this. My first thought was LeAnn, but I pushed it aside when I remembered how she’d been acting the last couple weeks. I stared down at the wood of the table as I tried to think of anyone else.
Grabbing the house phone sitting in the middle of the table, I dialed Jagger’s number, but his voice mail eventually picked up. I ended the call without leaving a message, and set the phone down before placing my head on the table. I didn’t know who this person might be, but hopefully Jagger was right. Hopefully this would all be over soon.
Jagger
August 13, 2014
“CHARLIE!” I ROARED, slamming the door to my mom’s house behind me. “Charlie, where are you?”
Mom rounded the corner that led from the kitchen to the living room just as I hit the living room; she looked carefree even with Keith screaming in her arms—her expression confirming that Charlie was here. “What is wrong with my oldest son?” she asked above the cries.
“Stay out of this, I don’t have time for your bullshit tonight,” I hissed as I walked past her.
“Jagger, honey. Calm yourself. We just need to be calm. This house is a love-only zone.”
I turned on her just as a man I’d never seen before stepped in behind her and took Keith from her. “Shut up, Mom! Just shut up! Stop pretending to be some free-spirited hippy who doesn’t have a care in the world, when you and I both know who you really are!”
Her eyes narrowed and her face looked pinched for a second, showing the woman I knew was there deep down, then she relaxed back into the mask I’d grown up knowing, and the man spoke.
“If you want me to call the cops on you, keep it up.” His tone was deep and full of authority. “You can’t just come in here and threaten your mother and scare the baby.”
I snorted. “Threaten? Hardly. And he was already crying before I got here. And who are you anyway, number eight?” Without waiting for him to respond, I turned around, heading for Charlie’s room. “Charlie!”
I yanked open her door and watched her jump as she scrambled to pull off her headphones. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“Are you the one who’s doing this?”
Her eyes widened as the tone in my voice registered. “Doing what?”
“Don’t play with me, Charlie!” I yelled, hitting my hand against the door frame. “Are you the one doing all this to Grey?”
“Doing what?” she yelled back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Ben’s wedding vows on her windshield. Messages to her from Ben’s fucking Facebook account! The envelope full of pictures of her and Ben in her mailbox today. Are you doing it?”
“What?” she breathed out, her hand covering her chest. “Wait—what? How is that poss—his Facebook?”
“I don’t have time for you to act like you don’t know what’s going on, Charlie! Tell me if it’s you!”
“Of course it’s not me! Why would I do that to Grey? How could I do that to her?”
“I think it’s time you should head on out,” Mom’s latest man said over Keith’s screaming, and I turned to glare at him. Stepping inside Charlie’s room, I slammed the door and locked it behind me.
“I can’t believe you would think I could do something like—”
“You can’t? Are you sure about that? Because you are the one who wasn’t okay about Grey getting better. And even though you told me you had always wanted Grey and me together, the minute you found out we were together, you were the one to got upset about it! A week after you got back from your trip, this shit started. That is how I can think it is you! I love you, Charlie, but I swear to God, if you’re doing this . . .” I trailed off and raked my hands through my hair.
“But it’s not me! I swear it’s not!”
I flung my arms out to my sides and yelled, “I don’t even know if I can believe you right now! Those vows were in my goddamn place, Charlie! You, Grey, and me are the only ones who have keys to the warehouse unless Mom made a spare that I don’t know about. But even Mom isn’t smart enough to figure out how to hack into Ben’s fucking Facebook!”
“I don’t have my key!” she said quickly, and jumped off her bed, heading for her purse. “I lost all of my keys.” She handed me a set of two keys, and I looked at them.
“Why isn’t my key on here, and when did you lose it? And what are these?”
“I don’t know. I must’ve misplaced them when I was packing for my trip; I’ve been looking for them ever since I came back. But I took them out of my purse since we weren’t taking my car and I was afraid of losing them on the trip, all I took with me was the key to the house just in case Mom was gone when I came back, and I kept it in my wallet. The only way I’m driving my car is because of the spare key.”
“You got into my place the night you came back!”
“It was unlocked, and I opened it because you hadn’t answered and your car was there.”
I sighed heavily and handed her keys back as I began pacing.
“Jagger, I swear it’s not me.”
“Then tell me who it is, Charlie. No one else is upset about us being together. No one else has, or had, a key to my place. And I know Grey isn’t doing this shit to herself. This is like torture for her.” When I turned to look at her, tears were streaming down her face.
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t do this to Grey, I love her.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to hold back what was rushing through my mind, but it came out anyway. “I love you, Charlie, but you’re the only person who makes sense right now. If you actually loved Grey, you would be happy for us, you would be happy for her. I don’t understand you,” I snapped, and she flinched back. “I don’t understand you, and as much as it is killing me, that is why I think it’s you! Because if you loved her, you wouldn’t be mad that she was trying to move on! That she was trying to be happy for the first time since Ben di—”
“I loved Ben too!” she yelled before covering her mouth, her eyes wide as she backed up to her wall. And I knew . . . I knew in the way she said it and in the horrified look on her face that her words went much deeper than the love she had for Grey. She’d loved Ben the way I loved Grey.
“What?” I finally asked, the word barely audible.
A sob tore from her throat, and she shakily slid down the wall unti
l she was sitting on the floor. “I loved him too,” she repeated, the ache in her words forming an ache in my own chest. “I was selfish, I wanted Grey to be with you because I wanted Ben. But that’s not the only reason I wanted you together—I swear!” she said quickly, her eyes wide as she tried to convey the truth in her words. “You and Grey belonged together. Anyone could’ve seen that.”
When she didn’t say more, I walked over to her bed and sat down. Leaning over, I rested my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands. “Why didn’t—how did I not know?” I asked, looking back up at my sister.
“Because you’re my big brother. I couldn’t tell you! And he was with Grey, what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say?”
A heavy silence filled her bedroom as we sat there, and I tried to process that my little sister had been in love with my best friend—and while I had been busy taking care of Grey after his death, Charlie had dealt with it on her own. “Charlie,” I groaned. “God, Charlie, I’m sorry. If you had told me, I would’ve—I would’ve been there for you.”
She shrugged and sent me a shaky smile before it was disturbed by another sob. “It was hard enough for you, and for her . . . I knew you had to be there for her. And you were in Pullman most of the time anyway.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve always taken care of you, I still should’ve been there,” I whispered. After another few minutes, I shook my head and sat up straighter. “I don’t understand. You have to know how hard this has been on Grey. I’ve told you how much she’s struggled over the last two years, and now suddenly you’re so mad at her? Now you’re pissed off that we’re together? I don’t—I just don’t understand how you could change the way you felt about Grey and me so drastically, and so fast.”
Charlie laughed sadly and looked down at her hands, which she was nervously twisting. “The way you were talking about her when you were still in college, you told me the bad things. I knew she was still struggling. When I saw her at the graduation, she looked horrible. But when you both came back to Thatch? She looked happy, and you guys looked closer than I’d ever seen you, and I didn’t know when that had happened. I didn’t know when she’d started getting better. And I . . .”