11. Jack
Chapter eleven
Jack
C rumbling. I was crumbling.
I needed to keep a brave face on for Maggie, but her concerns only amplified mine.
Difference was, she was voicing hers, and I was staying quiet.
Maybe it wasn’t the right move—choosing not to communicate my worries—but Maggie was scared as hell as it was.
I wasn’t going to make it any worse. Three days on the road, over twenty hours of talking out our new lives, and one devil on my shoulder telling me I couldn’t do this later, we finally made it to Golden Meadow, and I was terrified out of my fucking mind.
There was no way in hell I was going to survive fatherhood.
Hell, there was no way I was going to survive this pregnancy.
I wasn’t equipped to be a stable, reliable partner, let alone a father .
I was twenty-three for God’s sake. I hadn’t been around small children in a decade.
And now I was entrusted to care for an infant ?
There were no signs of Maggie’s condition just from looking at her—besides her consistently distressed expression—but looking at her was becoming more and more difficult the more we talked about our future together.
I promised this woman through and through that I would be there for every second of the pregnancy and every second of our child’s life, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t ripping me to pieces.
I was her rock. I was the father. I was the reason we were knee-deep in shit we knew nothing about.
I couldn’t break down and share my feelings with her just because it was getting hard for me.
In college, when things got to be too much, I would turn to my vices: alcohol and sex.
Unfortunately, sex was off the table until further notice.
Maggie and I had a fake marriage to keep up.
Pretending to be unaffected by the gravity of our situation was one thing, but pretending to be the husband of a woman I had only reconnected with over the last two months was entirely different.
Speaking of, we needed to find some rings—the first of many items she and I would pick out together.
In another life, I would have asked her father for permission to marry his daughter.
Another dagger to the chest—we were lying to our parents about their grandchild.
There was so much we needed to worry about, which is why I was grateful that Maggie pulled out her notebook and started a list, but my anxiety was growing faster than an unwanted weed.
Therefore, my only solution was alcohol. Or a cigarette.
“I am so glad to be here. I don’t think I can sit in a car for another week.” Maggie exhaled as she jumped out of her seat. She was right. Driving almost two thousand miles in three days was utterly exhausting. All I wanted was a drink, a bed, and food that wasn’t from a drive-thru.
“Really? ‘Cause I was going to ask if you could run to the grocery store.” I winked at her to mask my anxiety, heading toward the back of the trailer to unload the horses into their paddock. She shot me a glare. “How does ordering a pizza sound?”
“Don’t we have to meet up with Mike before going into the house?” I began unlatching the trailer ramp as Maggie went for the latch that opened the door.
“I told him we’d catch up tomorrow. I’m exhausted, and I think we both need a good night’s rest.” I followed her as we walked into the trailer to begin untying the horses. She ducked under the first two horses and grabbed the next ones.
We led the horses through the gate, one after the other, until the trailer was empty, and our stomachs were killing us. “I’m calling a pizza place right now. ” Her voice was animalistic. I shook my head and opened the door to our new house for the next few months. “Wow…”
She stepped back and took in the view from the entryway, her head tilting all the way up to see the tall, pitched ceiling.
I needed to thank Mike for setting us up with such an incredible place on such short notice.
The house he rented for us was breathtaking.
Pine and cedar wood covered the floors, walls, and ceilings.
Thick, distressed beams that rose to the angled roof lined the main living area that housed a red leather couch, a gray stone fireplace, and massive windows that overlooked the expansive, green paddocks behind the house.
To the left of the foyer was a large kitchen with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and a wooden table my mother would adore.
I shouldn’t have been thinking about her, but I was. It had been weeks since I called relentlessly and still hadn’t received a response. I didn’t need her to come to visit, I didn’t even need a long conversation. I just needed to hear that she was okay. A thirty-second call. A text. A letter.
Anything .
I hadn’t realized I was gripping Maggie’s arm until she turned to face me. “Are you okay?” Her features were soft, caring. I wanted nothing more than to break down in her arms and tell her everything that was on my mind as easily as she could.
But that wasn’t in the cards for me.
I was the strong one. I needed to be the one she came to if something was wrong. I had never let myself into a real relationship. I had never let anyone see the anxious, broken, wrecked side of me. The side I drowned out with my vices.
“Jack?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” I cleared my throat and guided her inside the foyer before shutting and locking the wooden door.
“You sure?” She turned her head to check on me, still walking toward the kitchen. I nodded.
“Good.” She sifted through the cabinets and opened the refrigerator doors to find nothing inside. “Let’s order that pizza now.”
I agreed and pulled out my phone to find a pizza delivery place because I was not driving any more than I had to.
And I desperately needed a drink.
***
I tossed in my bed for the sixtieth time that night. Everything was burning up. Everything was freezing. The room was too big. The walls were closing in. My peripheral vision was fading.
Fuck. It was happening again. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in months.
I was doing well for a while. Sitting up in my bed hastily enough to make me nauseous, I tried to take deep breaths.
My hands crossed over my chest as I tried to think about things that calmed me down.
Tried to think about things that were still. Stable.
The bed. The bed was staying right where it was.
That didn’t help, though, because I could physically feel the walls coming closer and closer to me. It felt like I was in a terrible horror movie with the camera fixed at an absurd angle. Like I was watching my certain death through one-way glass. And I couldn’t warn myself into safety.
My breathing became heavier.
Sight became blurrier.
I reached down to clutch the sheets. To hear the sound they made beneath my hands.
They echoed like I was in an underground cave.
A cave that was about to collapse on me.
It wasn’t helping. Everything started to sound distant.
Like I was underwater, drowning in my own lungs, with the lifesaver just out of reach.
I couldn’t move my hands enough to save myself.
A sob began to creep up my throat before I could swallow it down.
My hands flew to my face to remind myself that I was still there.
I was still present. I pressed my fingertips to my ears to try to rid the distant, underwater ringing from my brain.
My breathing was too shallow. Too deep.
Too loud.
Whether I was heaving or gasping, I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t be panicking. Not here. Not with her sleeping across the hall.
But it didn’t matter. My body had gone into fight or flight. I was powerless.
Letting go and letting my anxiety take over wasn’t easy—I fought it with every weak part of me that resided when I was in this state. But the tight knot in my chest wouldn’t subside. It was pulling and pulsing. It was itching and pressing. It was the real-life seventh circle of hell.
Either I was having hallucinations while having a panic attack, which had never happened before, or footsteps were coming closer to my room. I tried to focus my brain enough on the sound to make out what it was.
“Jack!” Footsteps. Covers. Someone on the bed. Someone's fingers on my skin. In my hair. On my face.
“Jack…please…tell…okay?” The voice faded in and out. Hair fell onto my shoulders and against my face.
Then it hit me.
Warmth. Honey. Cider.
Her.
My breathing didn’t slow, but my hearing gradually returned.
Someone was in my lap. A hand rubbed up and down my back in a soothing rhythm while another cupped my cheek, brushing away any sweat or tears that remained on my skin.
Worried eyes came into my vision. “It’s okay.
It’s okay. I’m right here,” a soft voice repeated.
We rocked back and forth for a few beats before I fell into the arms holding me up.
My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. “You’re okay. I’m here, Jack.”
“M-Maggie.” My hoarse voice was pathetic.
My breath caught a few more times before I could finally slow it down.
I might have lain helplessly for an hour, and I wouldn’t have known it.
The soft skin touching me felt so comforting—the smell of home was the only thing keeping me sane.
My erratic heartbeat finally quieted in my ears, but the hand rubbing my back persisted through every breath.
“I’m right here,” Maggie’s soft voice echoed in my ears and bounced back and forth in my head a few times.