Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Raffe
Ahand wraps over my mouth, and a warm body drops on top of mine. My eyes fly open, connecting with dark stormy orbs. He stares at me, and my heart slows. Jesus, this fucker can still scare the shit out of me.
Slowly, his hand leaves my mouth, but he doesn’t lift himself off of me. “Did you love her?” he simply asks.
My gaze bounces over his face, and I give him the honest truth. “There are two matching sets of eyes, yours and Rachel’s, and they anchor me to this world. I’ve loved them both.”
When his head falls to mine, a light goes off in my brain. Fuck. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own pain that I’ve failed to see anyone else’s. He’s hurting.
I wrap my hand over the back of his head. “I’m sorry she’s gone, Dirk.”
We stay like this for a few seconds before he pulls away, falling beside me on the bed.
“I went to see Jenny,” he finally says after several minutes.
The way my heart accelerates makes me concerned I might be having a heart attack.
“I watched her with Jackson and his family. They spent the entire afternoon outside, eating and playing.”
“You stalked them?”
He doesn’t respond, and I guess he doesn’t have to. It’s obvious.
“I wanted to hate her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s alive and Rachel isn’t,” he admits honestly.
Dirk has always been honest with me. I think that’s why I’ve always felt so safe with him. I don’t want to sound too curious, but I want to know about their visit.
“Did …” I take a deep breath. “Do you think it went well?”
“Aspen fell in love with her.” Again, he’s honest, even though I hear the anguish in his voice that his sister never got to meet her granddaughter. “They sat in the grass together and weaved two crowns of flowers, one for each of them.”
I can see it in my mind’s eye without even being there.
“Aspen looks like a mini version of her,” he continues.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you want to know.”
He’s right. I do want to know, but at the same time I don’t.
“She might be a witch, because as soon as they left, she told me to come out from hiding. She fucking knew I was there,” he says.
I can’t help the laugh that bursts from my chest. “Maybe you’re just not as invisible as you think you are.”
He smacks me in the arm. Not in anger, but in a friends-sharing-a-secret-type of way. It feels good. Like it used to be when we were younger.
“She knew who I was too.” He turns toward me and props himself up on an elbow.
This piques my interest, but I reason she knew him because of the family photo Rachel and I included in our adoption file. We wanted whoever gave us their baby to know who we really were. We didn’t want to deceive anyone in to thinking we were something we weren’t. We didn’t hide the club.
“Bill helped her,” Dirk says.
Betrayal drifts like poison through my veins, mixing with the toxins left behind by Rachel’s unfaithfulness. They both deceived me.
Dirk puts his hand on my chest as I try to sit up. “I know what you’re feeling. I felt it too at first.”
I work my jaw, trying to swallow the bile that’s slowly rising in my throat. Both my wife and my president deceived me? Who else knew?
My friend reads my mind better than anyone. “No one else knew.”
He drums his fingers over my chest, and I see he’s thinking deeply on how to explain this bit of news. “She was in a bad place, brother.”
“I was in a bad place too, but I didn’t hide from anyone.”
His eyebrows pull together, and he frowns.
“She’s been at the brink many times, Raffe.
Lily pulled her off the ledge once, and then Rachel did the same damn thing.
” He rubs his temples. “She cut herself in front of Bill, Raffe. She was that desperate for him to keep her secret. Jenny couldn’t face the world. It would have killed her.”
I sit up, letting his hand fall away from me. “I felt like that, but I survived. You brought me up here. We could have done that for her.”
“In a way that is exactly what Rachel did … she took her someplace she could heal. It just didn’t happen as fast as it did for you.”
I listen as he tells me about Bill’s funeral, and how it was the first time she ever left the property she’s been living on.
My hand reaches out and grabs his arm. “I saw her. I saw her at Bill’s funeral in the trees!”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It was just a brief glimpse. I thought nobody would believe me, and everyone was already so upset …” My words trail off as I realize I haven’t been crazy. She was really there. It wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me.
Jenny is alive! Oh god, this is real. She’s really alive. I’ve seen her. Dirk’s seen her.
His eyes meet mine in the dark. “I’m sorry for the things I said earlier. I was taking my pain out on you.”
“I’m sorry too. Especially the stuff I said about Jess. I didn’t mean any of it.” I run my hand through my hair. “Is Jenny …?”
He gives me a small smile. “She’s good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s still got a ways to go, but you know how that is. We always have room to grow. Even me.”
We both chuckle. It’s not often Dirk admits he’s a human being who is evolving too.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right there. Every time I think I’ve got things figured out, something sends me off on another crazy adventure.”
His face turns serious. “I’m scared.”
My head pulls back in surprise. “What are you scared of?”
“Everything is changing.”
“I get you there. I almost hate the thought of it.” Jesse and Dirk are leaving. I know it’s just temporary, but I’ve always had him. Dirk is the foundation beneath my healing. Jesse too. “I don’t know if I can do this without you guys.”
“You’ll always have us. It just might have to be over Facetime occasionally.
” He grabs my shoulders and shakes me. “The next part of your story belongs to you and you alone. Do what feels right. Trust yourself. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.
Even me.” He runs his hand through his hair as he looks around the dark cabin.
“We’ve had some wild times up here, haven’t we? ”
I follow his gaze, swallowing hard. “We have.”
He nods his head toward the stairs. “We’ve both got some crazy good times waiting for us out there. Pack your shit, and let’s get back home.”
“I won’t have my keys till morning. Ray took them,” I tell him.
Dirk laughs. “Alright, we set out in the morning.”
We both lie back, each lost in our own thoughts of what the future might hold. “What did you think of her?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you remember when you told me Jesse and I were soulmates?”
“Yeah, it was the night I stepped away. I knew there was something incredibly special between the two of you.”
“W – when …”
I turn to look at him when his voice cracks. He takes a deep breath before continuing.
“When you see her for the first time, slow your heart. Take it all in. Meeting your soulmate only happens once in this lifetime.”
“Dirk, Rachel was …”
He shakes his head. “I know you loved her, but this will be different. Take in every fucking moment. Every fucking one. I’ve let so many minutes slip by with Jesse.
I’m not going to let that happen anymore.
I’m going to wrap myself around her and hold on with everything I have.
Rachel taught me that. She taught you that. ”
It’s almost as if he’s pleading with me. I turn away from him, because it feels like he’s setting my soul free. I don’t know if that means with Jenny or someone else, but he’s telling me it’s okay to love again. It sounds terrifying.
“Look at me, Raffe.” When I do, he smiles.
“You have such an opportunity here. This time around you know how to love without all the hurt. You grew with Rachel, and she loved every minute of nurturing your soul, but this will be different. I can’t explain it, but you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see her.
Like I said, you’ll remember this conversation. ”
“So, does that mean you like her?”
He laughs, running his hand over his eyes. “I don’t have to like her, but yeah, I think she might just be alright.”
I bite at my nail, waiting for him to tell me more. When he doesn’t, I meet his gaze. “You’re not going to tell me anything else about her?”
Dirk shakes his head. “That’s for you to discover. It’s the best part.”