Promise of Forever (6 page)

“Don’t you want us to be happy?” My question came out in a low, defeated voice.

“We can’t. We just can’t, Jax. This is
not
okay. No matter how much we want it to be okay, we have to accept that it’s not okay—it can never be okay.”

Then, without another word, she turned and ran back into her house. When I watched her close the door behind her and heard her secure the deadbolt in place, I felt a heaviness in the pit of my stomach.

Could this be it? Could this be how our story ends? Have I lost her for good?

***

My head was pounding when I woke up. A constant ringing in my ear only made the headache worse. I smacked the alarm clock on my bedside table to turn it off. But the ringing didn’t stop. It was then that I realized the ringing was coming from my phone.

It took every effort to open my eyes against the bright late-morning sun that lit up the room, and when I finally did, I tried to find the source of the noise.

I saw my phone on the floor at the foot of the bed. I reached for it and saw that it was my mother’s name on the caller ID.

“Hello?” I croaked into the phone.

“Jackson? Oh thank God, you finally picked up,” my mother’s distressed voice came through the other end.

“What’s wrong, mom?” Something in her voice caused me to sit up from the bed.

“What do you remember from last night?”

“What do you mean?” I tried to think to last night and images of what had happened between me and Chloe outside of her house came rushing back. I groaned, feeling shame for forcing myself on her and feeling sick for the line I made us cross.

“What do you remember?” she asked again.

“Why are you asking me this?” I asked, avoiding her question. “Why do you think anything happened last night?”

“So you don’t remember then,” she said in an ominous voice.

“Wait, what happened, mom? What’s wrong?”

There was heavy sigh. “You were really upset last night, Jackson.”

How does she know that?

“You were really drunk and you came home and set off the security alarm system.”

“I did?” This was news to me and I walked out of my room and looked down the stairs to make sure the front door was closed. It was.

“Yeah, you did. The alarm company called me at three in the morning, asking me if I was at the house because the alarm was set off. I told them that my son was currently staying there temporarily and told them I’d call you first before having them call the authorities.”

“You called me? Did I pick up?”

“Yes, you picked up.”

“Oh.” I frowned, wondering how long I’d blacked out for last night.

“You started screaming at me when you picked up.”

“I did? I’m sorry, mom. I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t remember any of this. It’s not an excuse, but I just had a really bad day yesterday and—”

“Jackson,” she cut me off, and from the tone in her voice, I immediately fell silent.

“What is it, mom?”

“We need to talk.” She paused and then let out a tired sigh. “There are some things I think you should see. I didn’t think they were important to tell you before, but it seems like that’s changed. Can you come by my condo today? The sooner the better.”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Chloe

I didn’t usually wake up early, but this morning, my eyes opened before the sun peaked through my windows. The heaviness I felt when I walked away from Jackson and closed the door between us—and our relationship—stayed with me, and as soon as my eyes opened this morning, it was there, reminding me of what I’d lost.

My thoughts went back to last night and the pain in Jackson’s eyes was forever etched into my memory. I hated myself for all that’d happened—for finding those letters, for hurting him time and time again, for not giving in to him last night when he poured out his heart to me.

Last night was the first time he’d ever told me he loved me. They were the words I’d been dying to hear from him. They were the words I’d daydreamed about. They were the words that I’d thought would make me the happiest person on Earth.

But they came too late. When he’d said those words last night, I’d wished he didn’t say them. I’d wished he didn’t feel that way. Those words only further broke my heart.

I hated myself for hurting him. I hated myself for being cold and distant against his emotional declaration of love. But as much as I had felt the same things he had said, I forced myself to stay strong against his desperate pleas. I knew I couldn’t let us cross this forbidden line anymore. I was a sinner. I’d done far too many unforgivable things in my life—some of them, I chose knowingly, some I hadn’t. But Jackson was innocent in all this. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I dragged him down with me.

I tried to closed my eyes, forcing myself back to sleep so I could escape this reality. But it was useless. I finally rolled out of bed sometime later and jumped into the shower.

By the time I got downstairs, Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom were already downstairs in the kitchen.

“Good morning, honey,” Aunt Betty looked up from the eggs cooking on the stove. “I’m making omelets. What would you like in yours?”

I forced a small smile. “Thanks, but I’m not really hungry. I’ll just have some coffee.”

“You sure, honey?” She eyed me with a concerned look. “You just got out of the hospital. You should get some more nutrients in you. At least have a few bites.”

“Okay, sure,” I said out of guilt. The last thing I wanted was to make them more worried about me than they were already. “Just scrambled eggs are fine then.”

After I forced down a few bites of food during breakfast, I spent the rest of the morning on the couch with Uncle Tom as he watched the marathon of Shark Week on the Discovery channel. Before college, I used to look forward to this week during the summer when Uncle Tom and I would be glued to the television. But it didn’t feel the same—my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was in mourning.

At some point, I had fallen asleep on the couch because I was woken up by Aunt Betty’s hand shaking my shoulder as she called my name.

“Chloe, Jackson’s here to see you.”

The second his name was mentioned, I bolted upright and was wide awake. “He’s here?”

“Yeah, he’s at the front door. Do you want me to invite him in?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to see him.” I looked over at Aunt Betty with pleading eyes. “Do you mind telling him to leave?”

“Are you sure?” She frowned.

“Yeah. I’m not feeling well right now.”

“Okay, I’ll let him know.”

A minute later, she was back. “Chloe, he says he has something to give you. He said he can leave, if you want him to, after he gives it to you.”

My chest tightened with pain and I wondered what Jackson was trying to do this time. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face him again. Last night was hard enough as it was to resist him, to hurt him like that. I wasn’t sure I could do it again. I wasn’t sure I had the willpower to resist my own temptations.

“Can he just leave the item he wants to give me with you? I can contact him later about it.”

“I asked him that. He said he has to give it to you in person. He says you’ll want to see it and that it’ll change everything.”

I looked up at Aunt Betty, wondering what Jackson meant by “it’ll change everything.” “Did you see what he was holding?”

“Hmm. I wasn’t really looking, but it looked like a stack of letters or papers.”

“Oh.” I felt a strong urge to go see what he wanted to show me, but the image of his pained expression from last night stopped me.
Can I do that to him again?

“Honey, are you guys okay? Did you two have a fight or something?”

“No…It’s complicated,” I muttered.

“Chloe, I really don’t want to interfere with you two, but I know you both care about each other. I’m sure if you guys sat down and talked about it, you can work everything out.”

“I don’t think that’s the case this time.”

She sighed. “Honey, just go talk to him. When you were in the hospital, he never left your side for longer than a few minutes. I’m not sure I saw that boy eat or sleep once when I was there. I think you owe it to him to at least give him a few minutes to give you what he has for you and say what he has to say.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, wishing things would be different. At that moment, I wished Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom were my parents instead of my aunt and uncle.

“Come on, Chloe. Just give him a minute of your time. If you need me to shoo him away after a minute, I will.”

“Does he look like he’s been drinking?”

Aunt Betty was taken aback by my question. “No, not that I can tell. He actually looks really excited, almost happy.”

“Happy?” I glanced up at her, wondering if I heard her correctly.

“Yeah. He looked anxious but excited and happy about something.”

After a few seconds of silence, my curiosity got the best of me and I finally got up from the couch. “Okay, I’ll give him one minute.”

“Okay, honey. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

As I walked to the front door, I tried to convince myself that I would be okay after seeing him, that maybe this was the closure we both needed, that maybe because he was sober, he wouldn’t lose control like he had last night. Maybe we could actually talk through this and somehow come out of this as friends again.

I took a deep breath to steady myself before I opened the door.

“Clo!” His eyes lit up as soon as he saw me and he pulled me into his arms.

“Jax, stop this,” I cried out as I pushed him away. “I thought I made myself very clear last night.”

“Clo, it was all a big misunderstanding. I’m sorry about hugging you but I just got so excited to see you and hold you in my arms.”

I frowned, confused by his words. “I know you were drunk last night, but I wouldn’t call that a misunderstanding, Jax. I know my words upset you, but we need to be adults here. We need to think about what we’re doing. You can’t just hold me in your arms because you’re excited to see me—you just can’t. It can’t—”

“Stop, Clo,” he cut me off from my tirade. “That’s not what I mean. The misunderstanding I’m talking about is over the letters you found, about who your father is.”

“Shh,” I hissed as I quickly rushed outside and closed the front door behind me. “I haven’t told Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom yet.”

“You won’t have to,” he said excitedly, almost close to laughter. “You’re not my sister, Clo! My dad’s not your dad.”

I froze and stared at him in disbelief. “What did you just say?”

He grabbed my arms and beamed at me. “You’re not my sister. We can be together!” He pulled me into his chest and pulled me tight between his arms. “I’m never going to let you go this time, Clo. Never.”

I felt numb with shock, unable to accept his words, unable to allow myself to have any hope that we could be together—that what he was saying was real.

When he finally released me from his embrace, he pulled out a small stack of letters from his back trouser pocket and handed them to me.

I took the stack of letters cautiously. As soon as I saw the handwriting on the first letter, I knew they were John’s handwriting.

“Are these the letters I found?” I asked in confusion. I didn’t remember Jackson taking the letters with him when I gave them to him to read.

“No, these are different ones. These are new letters my dad wrote to your mom.”

“Newer?” I stared at him, unable to process what this all meant.

“Yes, read them.” He smiled at me encouragingly, and I couldn’t resist wanting to feel as happy as he looked at that moment.

I took a deep breath and sat down on the steps in front of the door. Jackson sat down next to me and watched me anxiously as I started to read the letters.

There were no dates on any of the letters, and the first few I read through were filled with John’s regrets and undying love for my mother. He wrote about how much he missed my mother, about how he made a mistake in marrying Jackson’s mother, about how he let his family influence his decision and married for the money and prestige Jackson’s mother’s family would be able to provide him.

But it wasn’t until one of the last letters that my name came up, and I heard myself gasp when I read through it.

Dear Judy,

You have no idea how much I’ve missed you over the years. I know it’s been almost twenty years since I’ve written to you. I guess I was afraid to. During the time I abandoned you and married another, I had written several letters to you. But I was a fool and a coward and never sent those letters to you. I guess I didn’t want to admit to you that I was wrong, that I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you anymore. I was ashamed for you to know that I was selfish and picked money and power over our love. And now that I’m writing this letter years later, I know I couldn’t send this letter to you even if I wanted to because you’re already gone.

I know I’ve wronged you in so many ways and I’m filled with regret that I was never able to make it up to you. Before you passed away, I hurt you by leaving you at your time of need and marrying someone I didn’t love to make my parents happy. And even after you’ve passed away, I seem to continue to hurt you with what happened with Chloe.

She’s beautiful, and I watched her grow up knowing that she was your daughter. The older she got, the more she resembled you. And the more she resembled you, the more I missed you. I missed you so much—your smile, your caress, your love.

When Chloe grew into her body and became an adult, I found myself drawn to her, and sometimes I’d imagine that she was you in the room with me. By the time she started college, she looked exactly like you when we were together and in love.

Judy, I’m a weak, broken man. I’m not a good man. I did something unforgivable, something I hate myself for, something I know you’ll hate me for. My desperate longing for you manifested into my desire to have Chloe at any cost. I broke up the love and bond your daughter had with my son so I could have her for myself. I cornered your daughter and slept with her against her will. I missed you so much that I thought that if I had her, I could feel just a small fragment of our love again. But I didn’t, and yet I continued trying for over a year before she ended it.

I hate myself for being this sick, perverted man, Judy. I know I am no longer the man you fell in love with. So I know I’m asking a lot, but can you ever forgive me for what I did? I just missed you so much over the years. I was devastated when you had the miscarriage and we lost our unborn child. And instead of being there for you, my grief consumed me and I left you for a loveless marriage. I left you when you needed me the most. I know because of me, you started drinking. I know I ruined your life.

And now, as I am lying here on my deathbed, waiting for the cancer to kill me, I’m completely alone and filled with so much regret. Of all my regrets, my biggest one is leaving you thirty-three years ago when I still loved you. I still love you. I will continue to love you until my very last breath.

Please forgive me.

Always Yours,

John

I stared out into the front yard for what seemed like forever as I tried to process what I’d just read.

It was Jackson who broke the silence. “I talked to my mom this morning and she gave me these letters.”

“She had them?” I asked softly, trying to piece everything together in my head.

“Yeah. Even though my parents were divorced by the time my dad passed away from prostate cancer last year, he had left everything to my mom in the will, including the house. After he passed, my mom went and cleaned out the house and found these unsent love letters.”

“Did she know about my mom?”

“She said looking back, she knew something wasn’t right when she married my dad. They got married pretty quickly after they started dating, because my mom got pregnant with me a few months after they started dating. She said she had seen your mom next door sometimes and thought she saw glimpses of my dad looking out toward your house. But back then, she didn’t want to believe there was anything wrong, so she turned a blind eye from those suspicions.”

“Oh.”

“So you see, Clo. We’re not brother and sister. We
can
be together.” He grabbed my hands with his and squeezed them.