Pieces of My Heart (17 page)

I opted to remain standing. “Don’t. Don’t you call me that.”

“But you are my son.”

“Not anymore. That’s what I’m here to tell you. You disowned us when you left—”

“I never disowned you.”

“You disowned
Kiernan
!” There was a flash of satisfaction seeing him wince at the name of his other son. “And so you disowned us all. We’re a packaged deal. A
family
. You’re either a part of that or you’re not. You made your decision.”

“I had . . .” I watched him choose his words carefully. “. . . a hard time. But now that that part of our lives is behind us, I thought we could move forward. Together. All of us. Be a family again. I called your mother—”

“You son of a bitch! You can’t even say his name.
Kiernan!
Kiernan, Dad. Your
son
! Who got sick. And fought. And suffered. And
died
without a father. Because you abandoned him! Abandoned all of us.” Just looking at him sitting there like the king of his goddamned universe made my blood boil. “You had a hard time?
You
did? Mom stuck it out. She did her best. She never once gave up on him. Not once. She was there. Every single step of the way. She watched her son fight a losing battle. She watched him die. She put him in the ground. Where were you?” I cursed the silent tears streaking down my face, but could do nothing to stop them from falling. “
Where were you?
”

Dad stood and opened his mouth to spout some twisted apology or explanation that I didn’t give a damn about, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

“Families stick together. Through good times
and
hard times. They don’t jump ship and run and hide the minute shit gets real. That’s what cowards do. You were a coward. You will always be a coward. And you will
never
be part of our family again. Stay the hell away from Mom. Don’t you dare call her again.”

“She’s my
wife
.” Dad stalked around his desk, the first hints of anger flashing in his eyes. “And you’re my son. Nothing can change that. We can move past this. Forget about—”

“Screw you!” My fist flew before I knew what was happening. Pain flared in my knuckles, radiating all the way up my arm to my shoulder as Dad stumbled backward, landing on his ass on his Persian rug. “I won’t ever forget.”

I didn’t bother waiting for someone to call security. I didn’t need an escort. I could show myself out.

Turning my back on the man I once admired, I left him clutching his nose as blood spilled between his fingers. Every step I took hurt worse than the one before it. I hated myself for coming there. For seeing him. Speaking to him. And I hated myself for hitting him. Yes, he deserved it. He was a loathsome human being who deserved that and worse, but he was my father. And I’d struck him in anger. Was I really
that
person?

Sitting in the overheated car in the parking lot, I slammed my battered hand against the steering wheel. I’d thought coming here, confronting him, would make things better, but it’d only made me feel worse.

He’d abandoned us. Turned his back on the people he claimed to care about when they needed him most. But hadn’t I done exactly the same thing? Who was the coward now?

California may have felt like home, but I was wrong. It wasn’t where I belonged.

The AC filled the car with its quiet whoosh as I snapped the radio off and headed for the hotel. I needed to pack. I had a flight to catch.

Seventeen

*Jade*

Lights slid across my ceiling from passing traffic. Outside, a car alarm had been blaring for going on ten minutes. People were starting to get upset. Profanities were being hurled from open windows. I ignored it all.

The sun was coming up and I still hadn’t shut my eyes. I’d lain awake for hours, searching the darkness for answers I knew weren’t there. Sometimes there just weren’t any answers to be found. There was good in the world. I knew that. I'd experienced it, however briefly. But where there was good there had to be bad. To balance everything. Maybe I was just one of those people meant to shoulder the bad, so that others could experience the good. Things weren't quite so depressing if I looked at them that way.

The sound of a smashing window didn’t even faze me, and the car alarm dissolved into silence. Not the kind of silence I’d found in the pool with Caulder. This was a static silence, the kind that made my skin crawl and my brain buzz. It wasn’t peaceful. This place didn’t know the meaning of that word.

Clouds blotted out the sun, blanketing the room in shadow. Rain was beginning to fall, which would soon be forecast as snow. Wind rattled the window panes and made the curtain dance where it leaked in around the ill-fitted glass. One drop, then another, splatted against my window. Then a hundred more, running together, warping what lay beyond into little more than a swirl of dark colors and vague shapes. I blinked and realized that the inside of my room was equally as blurry.

I kept telling myself that I should get up, move around,
do
something
. But why? Why bother? What reason did I have for getting out of that bed? When I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a single good one.

I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to think. My heart felt like a punching bag. Every time I opened it up, it got pummeled.
I just wanted to lie there—alone in my room—and let the moisture outside mingle with that in my eyes until it washed the whole world away.

But, as usual, life didn’t give a damn what I wanted.

***

“What happened to you?” Simon slipped around the counter to hold the door open for me as I struggled to get inside without dropping my crutches.

“I fell down some stairs.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

I made it through the death trap and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m on shift.” It was the first thing to drag my sorry butt out of bed in days.

“You’re
on
crutches.”

Crap. I knew this was going to be a problem. I’d just hoped . . . What? That they wouldn’t notice? “Simon, please . . .”

I had to work. Not working wasn’t an option. Not if any of us planned to eat this week. And the gas bill was coming due. No gas meant no heat.

“Jade, I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass here. I let the whole car accident incident slide because I get the impression you need the money. But this . . .” He motioned to my entire pathetic self. “There’s no way. I’m sorry. Stew would have a cow.”

I bit my tongue against the words, but they spilled out anyway. “I’m going to lose my job, aren’t I?”

“No. You’re injured. He can’t fire you for that. I’m pretty sure there are laws against it.”

Yeah, but there were a million other things he
could
fire me for if he were so inclined.

“Alright.” My head dropped toward the floor and I lacked the strength to lift it again. “I understand.”

I turned to go, but Simon’s hand on my crutch nearly took me to the slippery floor.

“Sorry.” His arm came around my waist, steadying me on my feet before letting go. “Is it broken?”

“No. Just sprained.” That was my story and I was sticking to it. I’d just keep it wrapped and hop around for a while. It would heal. Eventually.

“Then you should be back on your feet in no time.”

I tried to smile as he held the door for me, but I’m pretty sure it came across more as a grimace.

“And, Jade . . .” Simon called after me. “My number’s on the contact sheet in the employee handbook. If you need anything, call me.”

“Thanks, Simon, but I’m fine.”

“I mean it. If you need help with anything. Or . . . money—”

“
I said I’m fine
.” Did no one believe I was capable of taking care of myself?

“Okay.” He threw his hands up in surrender and took a step back.

The look on his face. I recognized that look. It was the ‘sorry I asked’ look. The same look everyone who had ever offered my mother help had after she shot them down.

Oh my God, I was turning into my mother.

Wrestling the bulky crutches into the backseat, I leaned against the roof to catch my breath. It wasn’t an easy task. And catch it did—right in the back of my throat. There, parked outside the deli was the big black beast of a machine only one person in town I knew drove. It was too dark to see if anyone was in it, but I knew it was him. The magnetic pull I felt tugging me in that direction was more than enough proof.

He was back. Caulder was home. I wanted nothing more than to go running into his arms and tell him that I could change. That I could be different.
Better
. But he hadn’t called. He hadn’t stopped by. Or checked in. He hadn’t even bothered to let me know he was back in town. Or that he was leaving in the first place.

I couldn’t go running into his arms because they were no longer open to me.

Flopping behind the wheel with all the poise of a fish out of water, I dug in my pocket for the keys. I needed to get the hell out of there. Now. But, of course, they were stuck. The stupid, freaking . . . I tried to straighten my good leg to free them and only ended up banging my injured ankle against the door.

“
Dammit!
” Dropping my forehead against the steering wheel, I drew in a deep breath to ease the pain. Not the pain in my foot. The one everywhere else. The one radiating from the gaping hole in my chest.

Tears fell into my lap as I surrendered to it, gasping for breath. My entire body shook, but it had nothing to do with the cold.

I tried.              

Life kept going no matter what. And I
tried
to keep up. I really did. I ran and I ran and I ran. Hurdling every obstacle in my way. But I was tired. I was so damn tired of trying to keep up. Of hurdling one obstacle after another, only to find more in my path. And in the end, where did all of that running and jumping get me? Nowhere. My life was a freaking treadmill and it felt like someone kept upping the speed until I was running full sprint just trying not to fall on my face. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t keep it up anymore. I couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t see where I was going. Not that it was anywhere I hadn’t already been.

Realistically, I knew what my life looked like. My future. I was such a fool to think it could be anything more. To get my hopes up and actually believe Caulder could . . .

But, no. Scrubbing at my face with the sleeve of my uniform shirt, I straightened. I was done with flights of fancy. Naïve, childish dreams. I had
real
problems to deal with.

I was off the schedule for at least a week at work, but the bill collectors didn’t seem to care. The mailbox held a vast array of money-sucking goodies waiting for me when I got home. Everything from electric to rent was due. At least the cabinets were full. We’d have plenty of canned goods to barter with when we found ourselves homeless.

Mom and Michael weren’t home when I got upstairs, but I retreated to my room, nevertheless. It felt like the only safe place I had left. And wasn’t it a sight. The dark stain on the ceiling had grown from one tile to six and now matched the puddled stain on my carpet below. The walls were cracked and slanted, like the entire building was slowly shifting. One day it was going to collapse. Maybe I’d be sleeping in my bed when it happened. Maybe
this
would be my final resting place. Seemed fitting.

Throughout the years, I’d added what personal touches I could. Like the large mirror hanging above my dresser that I’d spotted at a garage sale and fallen in love with. It was cracked now—the victim of my mother’s drunken stumbling.

The dresser was a roadside pick-up with one missing foot and a drawer that always stuck. I hated the thing. But I’d decorated the top of it with small mementos. A ticket stub from a movie Kiernan took me to see. A picture he took of the two of us the night we went snow tubing. Our faces were bright red and my hair was a wild mess, but I’d never been happier. My high school diploma. The broken chain to the necklace Caulder had given me. I kept the charm in my pocket. Even if I couldn’t wear it, I wanted it near. And a stack of some of my most prized possessions—my notebooks—on top of which sat another picture of Kiernan and I. This one with the words Defying Reality scrawled across it and wrapped around the ten-thousand or so words that encompassed the stuff my dreams were made of. All of it collecting dust.

Trailing my fingers along the scratched surface, I touched the silver chain, lifting it and letting it sift through my fingers. Such a delicate thing. So easily broken. Just like me and Cal. We were broken. I thought we could put each other back together, but I was wrong.

I read somewhere once that it’s our beliefs that make us who we are. Not our genetics, or our circumstances, but what we
believe
that shapes our thoughts and actions. Caulder was right about that, too. My thoughts and actions would never change until my beliefs did.

I was becoming my mother because I believed what she told me to believe. It was
her
voice I heard above all others. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be her. I didn’t want her to determine what I believed. Or who I was.

But it was too late. I’d already let her in. Let her influence everything about me. And it had cost me everything.

Tentatively setting my foot on the floor, I sucked in a harsh breath. The throbbing pain intensified, but it wasn’t unbearable. Which, to me, said it wasn’t broken. Not exactly an x-ray quality diagnosis, but I was willing to go with it.

Snapping up the discarded jeans I’d been wearing the night I decided to take my swan dive, I jammed my hand in the pocket and dug around for the charm Caulder gave me, needing to feel that tiny connection. My fingers slid along the bottom seam of the pocket and poked through a large hole in the corner. Out of sheer desperation, I shoved my hand in the other pocket, already knowing what I would find. It wasn’t there.

My last source of comfort. The only remaining link I had to Cal. Severed.

I felt heavy all of a sudden, as though I’d gained a hundred pounds in an instant. Collapsing from the sheer weight onto my mattress.

How was it possible to lose something before you ever even realized you had it? I’d always assumed Caulder saw me as a responsibility. One more piece of baggage heaped on his already overburdened shoulders. A lingering sense of obligation. Maybe, on a good day, a friend. The thought that it could have been something else . . .

But not anymore. Whatever I was to him, I wasn’t his problem, anymore. I wasn’t anyone’s problem but my own. And come hell or high water, I was determined to find a way to solve it.

***

“Mom.” I sighed, watching her reach for the first drink of the day. The start to what would be another day lost. She was the only one I had left. The only one I’d ever really had. And I was watching her slip further and further away from me.

Michael was in the living room, sleeping soundly on the couch from what I could tell. Now was my chance if I was going to take it.

“Can we talk for a minute, please?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” She popped the top and before I could think better of it, I snatched the can from her hand.

“It’ll only take a minute.” I had her undivided attention now. Not something I usually craved. “Are you hungry? I could make us some breakfast.”

“I’m thirsty.” Her gaze latched on to the can sweating in my palm and I bit back my frustration.

“Aren’t you sick of this? Sick of living this way? I am. Or does that not matter to you? Did you even
notice
that I’ve been on crutches for the past week?” She glanced around like that was news to her, but the crutches were long gone. I’d tossed them in the back of my closet as soon as I could hobble around without falling over. I was walking almost normal now, the pain little more than a lingering soreness, but it wasn’t enough to convince Stewart to let me come back to work yet. “Do you even
care
that I fell down a flight of stairs and nearly froze to death in the lobby? Does
anything
matter to you anymore? Besides this?” I hefted the can, careful not to spill a drop should the end of days occur. “You were doing so good before Michael showed up.
We
were doing good. We were happy. Weren’t we? Does he make you happy? Because you don’t look happy. We can try again. We can tell Michael to go and give the meetings another chance. I’ll go with you. We can do it together. Please, Mom? For me?”