From The Wreckage - Complete (46 page)
Read From The Wreckage - Complete Online
Authors: Michele G Miller
“So what do you mean, he ‘left you’?” she asks once she lowers the letter to her lap.
Calming herself enough to tell the whole story, Jules explains how she has no clue where he is. They both send out texts; hers going to Austin, who doesn’t reply, and Katie sending one to Jeff, who does reply, but says he has no knowledge of anything.
It’s not until later in the evening after her mom and Jase have left that her father opens up to her.
“You’re down tonight. You’re going to heal and be as good as new, you know that, right?”
“It wasn’t his fault, daddy.”
He looks from the action movie on the television over to Jules with a somber nod. “Sweetie, he was drinking and driving.”
She sighs. “Yes, but he wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t over the limit; Austin said so. The wreck wasn’t his fault.”
“We know that, honey. We don’t blame him for the wreck.”
“Are you sure? Why did he leave, then?”
Her dad shakes his head and crosses his arms. It’s evident he knows more than he’s letting on. “Honey, he wanted to do the right thing by you.”
“And you let him?” She turns her head towards the windows. West is gone and it’s obvious no one told him he didn’t have to go.
“I didn’t have a say in the matter, Jules. He made the decision with his father and they did what they thought was best. Honey, I know you can’t see it, but he needs help. He’s obviously been dealing with a lot of pain for a long time.”
Her head snaps back to her dad and her anger gets the best of her. “Why? Because he acted like a stupid teen, drank some alcohol and drove too fast? That means he’s screwed up in the head? Do you think that about me, too?”
“I don’t think you want to start that conversation with me, young lady,” he warns; his light eyes holding hers.
So far her parents have been too worried about her health to bother with scolding her for her actions, so she lets it slide for now. The more she thinks about it, the more she knows West will call her in a day or two. He will explain everything to her and they can straighten things out.
They
have
to.
Days drag by with no word from West. Austin doesn’t return her calls or texts, and slowly reality begins to sink in for her. Katie and Jeff stop by after school to fill her in on classes and gossip, and Jess stops by too. West? Nothing.
She finally thinks to ask about Aubrey and is relieved to hear she’d broken some bones but was fine otherwise. Apparently it was Jules who was injured the most. Another reason for West to run away, she supposed.
Her body hurts. Every muscle cries out when her physical therapists come in to move her around. Her incisions burn and her back screams from being in bed so much, but it’s her heart that aches the most.
She re-reads the letter West left her several times a day. She sits propped up on the bedside table and traces each word with her fingers. She folds and unfolds the cream paper he used. Nice paper; not notebook paper or printer paper, but thick, cream sheets of writing paper with black ink. She falls asleep over his letter more than once.
As days and nights blend together in her little hospital room, she obsesses over the words. She calls West and leaves long, rambling messages asking for an explanation. She calls him and leaves short messages saying, ‘I love you, call me.” Then one day almost three weeks after the wreck, she calls and leaves him the message he wants to hear.
“West, I can’t keep doing this with nothing back from you. You said in time I would find I’m better off without you. Really? Really, this is what you think? Well guess what, West Rutledge? I
hate
you!” Her throat closes up even as she says the words. It’s the total opposite of the four letter word she wants to say, yet she forges ahead anyway. “I hate you more and more every day, because every day I’m reminded of the lies you told me. You said you wouldn’t hurt me and you said you’d always be here. Liar! You left! You left and if you think that letter was an adequate goodbye, then you never loved me at all.
“If you think I’m better off without you, that’s one thing. But to think I’m better off without closure? Damn you.”
No longer able to hold back, she chokes on her words; tears running fast, her breathing labored as she tries to finish.
“Damn you, because as much as I hate you for what you’ve done to us…I still love you even more.”
Jules drops the phone and every particle in her body screams out in pain as her heart shatters into a million tiny little pieces. The small fissure West put there months ago when she watched him fake-hit on Aubrey has split and fractured and doubled and re-doubled over the course of the three weeks since he left. The last intact piece was merely hanging by a thread, still waiting for him to come back. Until now. By uttering those words — by telling him she hates him — she tears that last stubborn piece away and throws it into the bottomless pit of hell she’s in.
She lies there crying; each tear falling from her eyes a memory of the moments they shared. Each stolen touch, each sly smile, every warm, melting, brown-eyed stare and each whispered word of hope, life and love, all run down her face to soak the pillow with her misery.
“I was released from the hospital two days later, just in time to spend Christmas at home. My body was mending, but my heart was broken.
“That was six months ago. Six months of rehab and physical therapy to put my body back together. Four months of counseling sessions to put my mind back together. The former a necessary evil, the latter ordered by my parents when they finally got tired of seeing their shell of a daughter.
“I graduated early. Due to the accident, I would have missed three months of school anyhow. So I took the final exams for the classes I’d been in before the wreck and was granted a diploma. They mailed it to me.
“I cried the day I opened it, because in the eight by eleven envelope was not only a Rossview High School diploma, but a special one as well. Typed in scrolling letters across the top was a ‘Hillsdale High School class of twenty-fourteen honorary diploma’. It meant more to me than the real one.”
Jules blows out a deep breath, peeks at the time again and fiddles with her ring finger. Old habits die hard. Her now-bare ring finger always feels naked without the ring West gave her. The ring is safely nestled in its box in the top drawer of her dresser.
“So here I am, healed physically and growing stronger mentally. With the exception of this lovely scar,” she holds up her arm and shows the camera the long, light red scar running the length of her forearm. “I’m pretty much the same as I was before. The incisions made from my pelvic surgery are small and certainly not in a place anyone gets to see. Not anymore.
“I still hold my breath every time my phone rings. Every time a message comes through or the doorbell rings, I think,
Could it finally be him?
But it never is. I wish I could tell you where he is now or what he’s doing. I don’t know. I don’t ask, believe it or not. Once I started counseling, the option was taken away from me. Dr. Morgan forbade it. She wanted me to face the realities of life without my anchor. Without West.
“It’s hard. It will always be hard. But I’m happy to report that the city of Tyler is getting back on its feet. The downtown restaurants and shops are back in business. Homes are still being rebuilt, and even Hillsdale High is well on its way to being rebuilt. Jason eventually stopped freaking out about the weather. He still gets nervous when there’s a storm, and I think he always will, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was.
“I can also happily tell you that I don’t have nightmares with Tanya at all anymore. All of my dreams with her in them since the wreck have been fond memories. I still have moments when I allow the guilt to creep in, but those are few and far in between where she’s concerned.”
A buzz sounds and Jules pulls her phone from under her hip; checking her messages with a smile. She sits up and slides her feet into the discarded flats lying on the floor in front of her chair.
“That’s my story, all I have time to give you, anyway. I opened this video by giving you a quote from Winston Churchill about enduring and persevering. This past year I’ve endured. This town has endured. We’ve been torn apart, broken into millions of pieces, literally
and
figuratively, and yet we’re still here. This town is getting back to normal…and so am I. Starting today.
“A month ago I made a decision that my parents struggled with, but that my therapist signed off on. I decided to early enroll at A&M for the summer session. I need to get away. Everywhere I go I see West here, and I need to move forward. A&M has been my dream since I was a little girl who wanted to play football with the boys. It’s the next bucket list item I get to scratch off. Dream college, check.
“I’m excited to start this phase of my life. I’m excited to make new friends who can find a new me out of the ruins of the old one. There will be tough days and nights ahead. I dread the first time I walk by the century tree and see a couple sitting under its shady branches. I dread one day hearing his deep voice again, or seeing that unruly black hair. I assume he will be there come fall. My parents wanted me to switch colleges. Their concern for my pain all but consumes them some days.
“I couldn’t do that, though. I couldn’t let love for one boy change my entire life forever. If I’m being honest, it already has. I will never be the same girl I was before West. Everything changed the night of the twister. Everything. But he left me. He may have taken my heart with him, but he isn’t taking my life or my future. For a while I became
that
girl…the girl who gave it all up for a boy.
“Not anymore.
“Now I’m not Stuart’s girlfriend, I’m not the popular cheerleader or the girl who got trapped under the wreckage of the Grier house. I’m not the girl dating West Rutledge.
“I am Jules Blacklin. I’m the girl who is going to go live out her dreams.
“I am the girl who persevered. I am the girl who
survived
.”
West peeks through the glass in the door at the small, classroom-like setting that awaits him. The walls are stark white with only two self-help-type posters hanging on them. Gray metal chairs are positioned in a circle, and coffee and waters are set up along the far wall at the mini kitchenette. Sticky notes of varying colors pepper the cabinets above the coffee center. There are three people standing; two with styrofoam cups in hand and one without, and five sitting in the chairs already. Each person in this room displays a very different demeanor and West sucks in his breath as he walks into this unknown group of people.
Nobody gets up to greet him or displays much care for his arrival at all when he enters the room. Unsure of himself, he glances at the clock and notes the time. He’s two minutes early. Two minutes. He doesn’t want to sit in a circle. What if they have assigned seats and he unknowingly takes someone’s chair? He makes his way to the kitchenette; careful to keep his eyes focused just above the heads of the two men and one woman standing there. Taking his time, he pours a cup and drops in sugar and cream. He doesn’t particularly care for coffee, but it gives him something to do.