Chapter 18 - Jackson
Despite being pressed against Isaac’s chest with my face buried in the warmth of his neck, my teeth won’t stop fucking chattering. I don’t understand what’s happening to me right now or why, but for some inexplicable reason, I trust Isaac to take care of me.
When I realize I have no idea where he’s taking me, I open one eye to see that he’s carrying me toward his car.
“Are you k-kidnapping me?”
The stuttering isn’t due to fear but rather the fact I can’t stop fucking shaking.
He laughs under his breath and says, “No, but that’s an interesting idea. Good to know you at least still have your sense of humor.”
It was only mostly a joke, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I wrap my arms a little tighter around his neck.
When we reach his car, he sets me on my feet by the passenger door and opens it, still keeping one arm around me. He helps me inside, closes the door, and rounds the car to slip into the driver’s seat. He immediately starts the engine and turns the heat up.
I wrap my arms around my middle and try like hell to stop my teeth from rattling.
Warm air blasts from the vents, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.
I’m practically rocking in my seat, and my mind feels as icy and numb as the rest of me.
I’m pretty sure there are fresh tears rolling down my cheeks, but I don’t know why.
“Come here.”
Isaac reaches for me, and I eagerly crawl across the center console of his small car to land right in his lap, my side pressed to his front and my feet in the passenger seat. I curl into him, my face once more buried in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent. He smells like crisp air and pine.
“I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
His warm, velvety voice envelops me as he holds me in his arms, one of his hands rubbing comforting circles against my back. However, the meaning of his words doesn’t quite reach me past the exhaustion and this hazy, sickening dread in my gut.
“Why can’t I st-stop shaking?”
“I think it might be similar to sub drop,” he says, keeping his voice low and soothing. “It’s just a theory. But between the adrenaline from the bridge and the endorphins from, well…”
“The best blow job of my life?”
His chest rumbles with a quiet laugh. “I’m sure it was just the lingering adrenaline.”
Maybe that was part of it, but I don’t tell him that. It was more. It was him. I’m still trying to process the shock that came from him getting on his knees for me, but I don’t regret it for a second.
“But between all of that, you’re coming down from a lot of hormones. It’s normal to feel like this as everything balances back out after a high-intensity state like that.”
I nod as though I understand more than I do. Maybe I’ll try to comprehend the biology and chemistry of it later.
Right now, I just want the tears that I haven’t given permission to fall to fucking stop.
The collar of Isaac’s coat is damp against my cheek as I bury my face a little further into him as though that’ll help, like I can use his skin as a dam.
Eventually, the tears start to slow, but I refuse to stop clinging to him.
My hand grips the front of his coat in a tight fist as I continue trembling in his lap.
Several minutes pass before the warmth in the car finally starts to seep all the way into my bones, the hold Isaac has on me putting me back together again.
He continues rubbing my back, the steady rise and fall of his chest just as comforting as his touch.
“I really am so sorry,” he says after the long stretch of silence.
Shifting so I can rest my cheek against his shoulder, I sniff and attempt to clear the fog from my head. Everything feels so heavy right now I can’t help but want to lighten the mood.
“You mean for nearly killing me?”
He sighs. “For that and everything else.”
“I think a part of me knew you wouldn’t do it. You were holding onto me so tight it felt like if I went over then…”
“Then I’d go over too.”
I nod.
Sure, I was terrified. But I think it was more so from being dangled over the side of a bridge than from actually believing Isaac would let me fall.
“Look at me.”
It’s one of those commands I instinctively obey. Raising my head, I meet his gaze as his hand comes up to cup the side of my face.
“If something happened and you had, I would’ve dived in after you without hesitation.” His words are so steady, so sure, leaving no doubt he’s telling the truth. “I would never hurt you like that. Ever. And I’m so sorry for giving you a reason to believe for even a second that I would.”
There’s another damn wave of emotions that I can’t seem to fucking control. I quickly duck my head and tuck my face back into his neck to hide the fresh tears that sting my eyes.
“I’m sorry for pushing you,” I whisper.
He sighs again. “You have nothing to apologize for.” He falls quiet for a bit before he goes on.
“You deserve to know, Jackson, that I did care about Dylan a long time ago. Having people believe that I could have hurt him—that I could’ve even killed him—well…
it hasn’t been easy. It’s been really fucking hard actually.
And when you seemed to believe it too, I think something in me broke. I lost my head.”
Now I kind of feel like shit. I told him he was just like everyone else, but maybe I’m the one who’s just like the rest of them. I believed the rumors could be true. I fell for that stranger’s games. I didn’t trust the one person I probably should have.
“But that’s not an excuse for what I did,” he adds, his voice wavering. “Earning someone’s trust doesn’t start by breaking it. I never should’ve let it all get to me like that. I should’ve had more control. I’m so very, very sorry.”
He sounds all choked up with nearly as much emotion as I’ve felt in the past half hour. It’s easy to make a conscious decision.
“I forgive you.”
His arms tighten around me while something else in him seems to loosen. “I’ll keep trying to earn that. I’ll earn your trust too.”
I close my eyes, letting my body finally relax against him now that I’m not shaking anymore.
Between the warmth circulating inside the car and the comforting hold he has on me, my eyes refuse to open again.
While my mind is a little clearer, the exhaustion is even heavier than before.
I think I could probably fall asleep here, but I don’t want to take more than Isaac’s willing to give me.
“Why did you stay in Viridian Falls?” I ask, my voice coming out sleepier than I expected. “Why didn’t you ever leave?”
Isaac stays quiet, and this time the silence stretches on longer. I start to wonder if maybe I’m already asleep and only dreamed that I asked the question.
“I was fifteen,” he finally says, and I’m not sure yet if it’s meant to be an answer.
“I was staying over at a friend’s house for the weekend, and my older brother, Elijah, was at a party.
Something happened that night that made him call our parents to come pick him up.
I don’t know what. He never told me. I guess it sounded like it was bad enough that both our parents wanted to go to make sure he was okay, so they loaded up my little sister in the car and left to go get him. ”
Again, quiet. I wait patiently as a dread more potent than the one I felt earlier settles in my chest, projected like a shadow around us.
“It was late, and it was raining.” Once more, his voice trembles, getting worse with every word. His hold on me tightens like he’s borrowing back a little of the comfort he gave me. “Their car went off this bridge, and they all died. My sister was only nine. That was twenty-two years ago today.”
And now I feel even more like shit.
He was out here paying his respects to his family, and I interrupted to accuse him of murder.
Fucking classy, Jackson.
“My brother left, and my grandmother took me in. She died a few years back,” he continues, pausing to take a deep, steadying breath. “I haven’t heard from Elijah since he left, and I have no idea where he is. I think it was the guilt that drove him away. He was gone before the funeral.”
“That’s why you’ve stayed,” I guess. “In case he comes back.”
I feel him nod against the top of my head. “He’s the only family I have left. If he’s even alive. Maybe I should’ve given up on him a long time ago, but I guess just the thought of him coming back one day and me not being here is enough to make me stay.”
It’s not lost on me just how much Isaac is opening up to me right now, like he really meant he’d earn my trust.
I raise my head to meet his gaze again. “I’m so sorry, Isaac.”
He forces his mouth into a faint smile and presses his forehead against mine. “Thank you.”
Pulling back, he lifts his face to place a kiss against my forehead, and then leans back against the headrest. His eyes close, and he exhales slowly like sharing such a big piece of himself took more out of him than he expected.
I decide I can give him a piece of me in return.
“My mom died when I was thirteen,” I tell him, my gaze lowering to my lap. “I can’t imagine losing an entire family all at once like you did. But sometimes it feels like I lost my dad too.”
I swear I feel him stiffen beneath me, but I’m too tired to even think to ask him what that’s about.
“You and your dad aren’t close?”
“Not really.” I shake my head and shrug. “Not anymore at least. He changed a lot after my mom died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I copy him—a forced smile, a quiet, “Thank you.”
After nearly a minute of neither of us saying anything else, it hits me that I’m still sitting in his lap.
Feeling like it’s probably about time for me to go back to the passenger seat, I clear my throat and start pushing myself off using his door as leverage.
Before I can get far, his arms tighten around me once more, holding me in place.
“Jackson.”
I look up to see an uncertainty and vulnerability in his eyes that I’m not used to being there. It makes my heart skip a beat.