All That Remains (16 page)

“Now wait a damn minute. Is that what you think? That I didn’t care?”

She shrinks inwardly, momentarily taken aback by his anger, before she straightens up; throwing punches with her words.

“You left me with nothing, West. Only a letter. That your brother delivered. I woke up from a coma broken in a million places, and then you broke me again.”

His grip loosens as she stabs him with each word. “I did what I thought was right.”

“How convenient for you,” she replies, trying to ignore the pain in his brown eyes.

“Convenient? I lost seven months trying to make it up to you. I gave up everything for you!”

His admission hurts and she whispers, “I didn’t ask you to.”

“You didn’t have to!” He steps back with a curse, his eyes avoiding hers. The nearest street lamp casts them in a spotlight and she relishes this moment. Being this near to him again, even while fighting with him.

“I almost killed you! Don’t you see? It was the least I could do. I had to make it right.”

“No! No, you didn’t have to make it right. That night wasn’t your fault.”

“It was. I’d been drinking. I was screwing around-” His defense of his actions fall on deaf ears because she never blamed him and she needs for him to know this. Now.

Jules grabs the fabric at the edge of his dark shirt and tugs on it, to keep his attention as she speaks. “You were careless, West. We all were. It wasn’t your fault alone and I didn’t want you to take the fall for it.” She starts to reach for his face, but forces her hand to stop. “I never would have asked you to do that for me.”

“You wouldn’t have to.” His voice is thick as their gazes meet. His dark eyes cutting straight through her heart and she flashes back to the night of the twister when he’d met her gaze and gave her his signature sly grin over the picnic table before all hell broke loose. “I will always do whatever it takes to make sure you’re happy, Jules. That’s what it means to love someone.”

Her breath catches at his declaration, even as her mind screams at her to run before he breaks her heart again.

“How do you do it?” he asks as he backs away to give her room.

“Do what?”

She notices his eyes flick to her arm. The sadness in his face is unbearable. She recognizes the guilt in that cursory glance, because it’s the same look she used to wake up to every morning after the tornado when she blamed herself for ‘allowing’ Tanya to die.

“You live with the physical reminders of that wreck every day, and yet you stand here and talk to me. You have every right to punch me and hate me, yet you’re asking me to stay?”

The tension of his question is broken by the sound of someone calling her name. “Jules?”

She turns to see Levi walking up the street with a few friends in tow.

“Damn it,” she mutters to herself at his poor timing. They’d made plans a few days ago to meet up at the party tonight. She never thought for a moment she’d run into West.

“Everything okay?” Levi asks, his steps quickening and West stiffens as he steps aside, his face already adopting that blank façade of someone who doesn’t care.

She waves towards Levi to stop him and responds hastily, “Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

“West?” she asks as he bends to pick up the keys he dropped earlier.

“You should go, your date is waiting,” he hints. “I’ll see ya around.”

She stares him down for a moment and he crosses his arms across his chest. “Just go, would you?”

She nods and lifts her left arm, her finger tapping her tattoo as she speaks.

“You see this? I did this when I thought I hated you, months ago. When I was so angry I thought I needed something to help me forget. Except, the truth is, I didn’t do it to forget you; I did it to remind myself that I never once hated you.” Her voice breaks as she adds, “Never.”

Spinning on the sole of her shoe she hurries to the sidewalk where Levi is waiting, a curious look upon his face, and they head back to the party together without a backward glance.

West

Watching her walk away with another guy, after the conversation they’d just been having, feels as if someone has ripped the heart from his chest and is stomping on it.

Stupid!
he chastises himself as his gaze follows her and her friend, Levi. Levi slows his pace, placing his hand on her lower back as she walks in front of him, and they disappear around the corner of a house.

The moment West saw him, he recognized him as the guy from the Hole last week with Jules.

You’re such an idiot
, he yells at himself between curses as he climbs into his truck. Her last words are like nails on a chalkboard; they make every nerve in his body itch and curl. They irritate his soul because she doesn’t hate him. She never hated him and he let her walk off with another guy.

He spends two minutes contemplating going after her. He allows himself to visualize telling Levi to get lost and dragging her to a dark corner to beg her to listen. The scene morphs to one where, instead of talking, he kisses her senseless first and then begs her to listen to his explanations. He smiles, this visual a much more accurate scene of what he would do if he had the guts to get off his ass and go after her.

“Damn it!” He slams his palm on the steering wheel and throws his truck into gear; his tires squealing as he peels off down the road.

Twenty

Jules

Jules is sitting in the commons area on the second floor of Ward when Katie steps off the elevator, her hands filled with packages and mail. Sliding her books to the chair, she jumps up to help her best friend.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, nodding at the white box in Jules’ hand. “That’s for you, actually. It was at the desk downstairs.”

“For me?” She looks at the return address and sees that it’s from home. “It must be the shirt and books I left at home last time I was there.”

She follows Katie to their room and tosses the box on the bed. “What do you have in those?” she asks, nodding to the grocery bags hanging from Katie’s fingers.

“Provisions.”

“Provisions?”

“Movie night, remember?”

“Movie… oh shoot! It’s Tuesday. I totally forgot.”

The girls had agreed they would start implementing Tuesday night movie night in the room. Just the four of them - Cassie, Jess, Katie, and Jules. Tonight was supposed to be the first night, but Jules’ mind has been so occupied with West and Levi the past few days that she’s forgotten all about it.

“Dang, K, I’m sorry. I wasn’t supposed to get the movie, was I?”

Katie shakes her head, her blonde bob bouncing to and fro as she dumps the popcorn and candy onto her bed. “Nope. Cassie is getting it tonight. Although,” she looks about and lowers her voice, “I’m a little worried what she might make us watch. That girl barely ever cracks a smile; I imagine she is going to make us watch some black and white Indie film with sub-titles about saving baby sea lions or something.”

“Sea lions?” Jules laughs at the absurdity and returns to the commons area to grab her books.

* * *

It’s early afternoon the next day before Jules remembers the package she’d thrown on the floor last night as they piled on her bed to watch ‘Ever After.’ Katie and Jess had been shocked at Cassie’s pick, their chins dropping to their chests.

“I figured you two must love all this fairytale BS,” she explained, giving Katie and Jess a disgruntled look. Jules had only groaned a little on the inside. Sweet perfect love was something she wanted to watch about as much as Cassie she guessed, but she smiled and giggled at all the appropriate moments and thankfully when her tears started to roll, she was able to cover them because Katie and Jess were crying right along with her.

The silly sentimental saps!
she thinks as she tears the cardboard strip from the box from home.

Emptying the contents on her bed, she’s confused when a large envelope falls out along with her favorite shirt and a book she’d meant to grab last time she was home. Picking the sealed envelope up, she registers the weight in her hands as she flips it over, seeing the postage and how it’s addressed to her. Her eyes flick to the return address and her pulse quickens.

Crestdale Victory Center, Houston.

Her hand trembles for no reason at all as she stands there and stares at the burgundy logo and then back at her name and address. The script is feminine and not one she recognizes. Shaking her head at her silly behavior, she grabs a pair of scissors and cuts through the clear packing tape the sender used to seal the top of the envelope. As if she’s expecting something to bite her, she pops the mouth of the envelope wide and looks in before sticking her hand in. When nothing jumps out at her she pulls out a bundle of paper. The sheets are ragged at the edges, some with the torn edges of a spiral notebook, and they’re stacked together with a rubber band around the center. On the top of the stack is a sheet of clean, white computer paper with the simple words:

You should know.

Sweat breaks out above her brow as Jules flips the envelope back over and matches the penmanship of the note to that of the sender. Crawling onto her bed, she leans against the wall and pulls the rubber band from the pile, removing the top sheet. The moment her eyes take in the first page, she no longer wonders where this package came from. West’s bold script is right there for her to see.

Jules,

Tomorrow I meet with Dr. Steel one last time. It’s my get out of jail meeting.

Finally.

I have to admit, I’m scared as hell.

She stops reading, tucking her knees up to her chest and setting the stack on her thighs. As she sifts through the stack, she sees each piece of paper is a different letter to her, some short paragraphs and others spanning the course of multiple pages. Some of the pages have dates and a few are folded and crumbled, as if he stuffed them in his pocket, or had thrown them away.

A quick glance at the clock reveals she has another hour before any of the girls will be back from their afternoon classes, so she flips to the first letter again and takes a deep fortifying breath before she dives in.

I’m scared as hell of going back home and what I will find when I get there. Are you still there? Do you understand what I did? Why I didn’t respond to your calls?

Do you miss me, love me, hate me…

Do you feel indifferent and we’ll be like old friends who once knew each other and now just pass on the street?

Please say no! Tell me that no matter what happens we will never be like that. I don’t want to pretend I don’t know you, that I didn’t love you once and hold you in my arms… that those months, as short as they were, weren’t the best of my life.

I can’t do it, Jules. I just can’t. I can’t pretend I don’t love you. I will always love you. It’s impossible to not love you. Impossible to think of what we went through and chalk up every kiss, every smile, every touch to a so-called normal teenage crush.

A freaking crush, a traumatic experience… this is the crap they’ve tried to feed me in counseling. Bullshit!

I don’t care if you ever tell me you love me again, I will love you… I’m coming home and I’m going to prove it to you. I just hope you will give me the chance…

West

Jules sets the letter next to her and immediately begins the next. It’s dated March and goes into random details about the weather, about a counselor who won’t listen, and how much he wants to come home. Page after page, word after word, she reads through West’s thoughts; both clear and rambling. The stack is out of order numerically, but it’s clear that no matter what date he wrote she was always on his mind. There are a few that are void of anything but scribbled lyrics and doodles and then there are longer, tortured letters where she can feel his hatred towards himself for the wreck. None are quite as full of declarations of love as the first one she read, until she gets to one dated December seventeenth. That would have been a few weeks after he left. There’s no salutation and the words are messier, the thoughts jumbled together, unlike most of his other letters.

I think I made a mistake, Jules. I’m sorry! I was stupid, I should have stayed, and I should have seen you before leaving. I should have fought for us. I should have told your parents the truth, but I wanted to protect you.

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

The words are written in blocks down the page and Jules heart clenches.

You’re everything to me. Everything and I walked away. I walked away, but I did it for you. I hope you know the truth by now. Carson told me you’re awake, that you’re going to be okay. Jeff gives him all the details. It’s the only time I take a call from them, you know. Updates on you, that’s all I care about right now.

Six months and I’ll be home and hopefully you will listen to me explain.

The letter only confuses her.
Tell her parents the truth? What truth?

“What am I missing?” she mumbles out loud as she shifts and lays the letters on the bed. She starts spreading them out looking for dates or words that stand out to get the whole story.

Tears are streaming down her face when Katie walks in sometime later.

“What’s wrong?” she cries, rushing into the room when she spots Jules hunched over the bed still pouring through the letters. “What are you doing?”

Jules lifts the first letter she read, the last one West wrote, as she wipes her face with the back of her hand.

“West wrote me letters.”

“Wrote you letters? When, where did these come from?” she asks, falling to the floor and kneeling next to Jules.

Jules thrusts the letter at her best friend and tries to explain through her shaky breaths. “He wrote them at Crestdale, the facility he went to, and I got them from home today. Someone mailed them to me two weeks ago.”

“I -” Katie starts to speak and then closes her mouth as she reads the letter Jules handed her. “Oh, this is … wow,” she admits, her face melting like Jules heart did when she reads the words.