Chapter 28 - Isaac
The world comes back in pieces.
The cold.
The throbbing in my jaw.
The ice beneath my aching body.
Jackson.
I sit up with a groan and see him standing at the edge of the bridge, gripping the stone railing like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. His breath is coming too fast. His entire body shakes. Every inch of him looks like he’s one wrong exhale away from shattering.
I don’t see Richard.
Pushing myself to my feet, I ignore my own pain and the way the ground tilts. My legs feel unsteady, but I force them forward.
When I reach him, I extend my hand slowly, touching him lightly on the back.
“Jackson.”
It doesn’t take more than a whisper for him to turn and face me. He hardly blinks, his eyes as glassy as the ice beneath us. He lets me put my hands on his arms so I can feel him, needing to make sure he’s safe.
“I…I think I k-killed him.”
Good fucking riddance.
But I don’t think that’s what he needs to hear right now.
“It was self-defense,” I say instead. “He was going to hurt you.”
I saw it. Saw Richard on top of him. Saw his hands where they should never have been. Saw the terror on Jackson’s face. I’ll never forget the sound of his shouts as I ran for the bridge like the ground behind me was collapsing.
If Jackson hadn’t pushed him, I would have.
And I wouldn’t have lost a second of sleep over it.
He nods like my words are the easiest thing to accept. He glances briefly down to the river and then back to me, a determined set to his jaw.
“I’m not sorry.”
If it’s wrong to smile at that, I don’t care. I do anyway. Relief hits so hard my knees almost buckle. Because maybe this means he won’t live the rest of his life with guilt over this, that he won’t replay this night over and over until he’s a hollow shell of who he is now.
Both my hands move from his arms to either side of his face, and I lean my forehead against his. “Good.”
“We should call someone though, right?” He pulls back to peer down at the river again, then swallows.
I feel his trepidation. It was self-defense, yes. And he has me as a witness. But when it comes to a tenured professor in Viridian Falls, things could get messy.
Still…it’s the right thing to do.
I nod. “We can’t cover this up. We shouldn’t. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly a criminal mastermind.”
“He wasn’t either.” Jackson reaches into the pocket of the hoodie he wears beneath his coat and pulls something out. “He didn’t know I had this.”
He holds the device up between us, and I see the dim light of the small display of the voice recorder, the recording symbol flashing. I release a puff of air and meet his gaze, both in awe and disbelief.
“One of my dad’s Dictaphones,” he says with a small grin. “I’m gonna need a new phone, by the way.”
I laugh. I actually fucking laugh.
After everything that’s happened tonight, Jackson still manages to surprise me.
I place my hand on the side of his neck, keeping my touches slow and careful in case there’s a part of him that needs space, needs me to not touch him right now. But I do because maybe that’s exactly what he does need.
“You are brilliant, sweetheart.”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal, then swallows hard again as he stares down at the voice recorder.
“You should know…” His voice gets smaller again, but it’s surprisingly steady now.
His gaze returns to mine, a frown line cutting deep between his brows.
“I was hoping to catch him saying something about Dylan, but…there was more. He talked about Elijah.”
The dread comes back like another punch.
It’s different but no less heavy and suffocating.
My face falls. “What?”
“I think he hurt him. Dylan too. And who knows how many others.”
Elijah. Dylan. Jackson.
All people I’ve cared about.
I’m fucking glad he’s dead.
And I don’t even care what that makes me.
Because I’m still not half the monster he was.
I nod. “Okay. Alright.”
It’s definitely not alright, but I have more important things to worry about.
“What matters right now is that you’re okay.” I hold his face between my hands again, trying like hell to keep them steady, wanting more than anything to be the secure anchor that Jackson needs me to be. “Are you okay?”
He manages a tiny nod. “I will be.”
“Okay,” I say again, breath fogging the air between us. “Let’s go sit in the car with the heat while we call the police.”
We’re both still a little shaky on our feet as we head to my car, which I thankfully parked closer this time.
The ice crunches beneath our shoes, and my fingers feel numb by the time I open the passenger door for him, then get into the driver’s seat and crank the heater up as high as it’ll go.
Jackson peers at me with a question in his eyes, and I let him crawl over into my lap, holding him against my chest like I did the last time we were here.
I take out my phone and dial 911, letting the call connect to my car. I tell the dispatcher as much as I can about what happened, and when they ask if we need an ambulance, Jackson is quick to say yes before I can.
I look at him, my gaze roaming over him with my heart in my throat, suddenly terrified I may have missed an injury of his.
“You hit your head pretty hard on the ground,” he explains. “I just want them to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
Relief mixed with warmth from his concern moves through me. I agree easily because I already wanted to have someone check him over too.
About half an hour later, we’re both sitting on the rear step of the ambulance, huddled together beneath thick, gray blankets. The air smells like winter and diesel as cop lights flicker red and blue against the skeleton trees and icy road.
We’ve already spoken to the cops, gotten clean bills of health, and Jackson handed over the voice recorder.
A few officers are down on the banks, their flashlights scanning the river, but they’ve said there’s not much they’ll be able to do while it’s still frozen over.
They likely won’t recover the body until the ice thaws.
Jackson sits pressed against my side, quiet, staring straight ahead.
“Jackson?!”
He jerks his head to the left.
“Jackson!”
“Dad!”
His blanket slips from his shoulders as he leaps up and runs around one of the cruisers to meet his father. I’m not surprised how quickly he showed up after the sheriff said he’d call, not when it was his son who needed him.
Keaton barrels toward him and pulls him into a crushing hug the moment they reach each other. Jackson throws his arms around him, holding him just as tightly.
I stand and approach slowly, staying far enough back to give them space but feeling physically incapable of being too far away from Jackson for too long.
Just because Keaton and I have had our differences, that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to drive a wedge between him and Jackson.
There’s honestly something achingly endearing in seeing there’s still this bond between them despite the secrets and arguments they’ve had.
Like witnessing the break in a storm cloud to reveal sunlight.
“I’m okay,” Jackson says into his dad’s chest. His breath shudders out. Not quite a sob, but close. “I’m okay.”
Keaton pulls back, his hands holding his son by the shoulders to look into his eyes. “Are you sure?”
Jackson nods, then peers back at me. “He got there in time.”
Keaton’s gaze lands on me, and his expression hardens, a byproduct of years of animosity between us. However, this time, it’s not quite with anger or loathing. It’s protective. Calculating.
“You saved him?”
“We saved each other,” I answer truthfully.
He studies me for a long, heavy beat. Then he nods once, the gesture clipped but not unfriendly.
“Thank you, Isaac,” he says, his voice tight but sincere.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him, Keaton.”
Jackson returns to my side, his shoulder brushing mine. His father’s gaze narrows in on it before something resembling a smile slowly appears on his face. It’s maybe not happy, but…accepting, I think. Whatever it is, it’s a strange sight.
“I’m going to go speak to the sheriff,” he says, his eyes that are still filled with concern landing on Jackson. “Let me know if you need me.”
When he starts to turn away, Jackson says, “Dad?”
Keaton peers back.
“I’ll always need you.”
Keaton’s lips part before he takes a long, deep breath, emotion swimming in his eyes. He nods and turns away again.
I move to face Jackson, opening the blanket that’s still around my shoulders and inviting him in. He steps into my space, and I put my arms around him, closing the blanket around us both and trapping us in a cocoon of our body heat. I place a kiss against his temple as I hold him against me.
With my lips still against his skin, I say, “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”
“You shouldn’t be,” he whispers. “I got you hurt.”
I lean back to peer into his face, but his eyes stay cast down.
“Look at me.”
He does, but his gaze quickly flicks down to my jaw. I know there’s already a bruise forming, but I doubt he can see it through my beard. Unfortunately, just knowing it’s there is apparently enough.
“I meant what I told your father.” I tilt my head to catch his eyes with mine. “I’d take a lot worse for you, Jackson. This? It’s nothing compared to what I’d endure for you.”
When his eyes get a bit glassy, I have a feeling it doesn’t have anything to do with the cold.
“Can we go home?”
There’s something in the way he says home that lights me up inside.
Still…after everything that he’s gone through tonight, I don’t want to make assumptions.
“Of course we can. I’m going to ask one of the officers if they could follow us back into town with your car so you don’t have to drive. I could give you a ride to your dad’s if you want?”
For once, I’m not afraid that’s what he might want.
Jackson trusted me to show up tonight because he wanted my help. I hate that he felt he had to face it alone first, but I understand why he did.
The most important thing is that he didn’t run.
He stayed.
But then he frowns, looking at me with that crease between his brows again, his voice breaking when he asks, “I can’t stay with you?”
“Of course you can,” I say quickly. “I’d love nothing more than to take you home with me. I just want you to have what you need.”
“Right now, I need you.”
For a second, I can’t breathe. Those five simple words feel too big to fit inside a body that’s so used to only ever holding scraps of affection.
“I need you, Isaac,” he says again. “I need you so fucking badly it hurts sometimes. But I don’t care how much it hurts. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running away from it, not gonna let it scare me off. I want all of it. All of this. All of you. I’m staying because I…I love you.”
Something in my chest stutters, then cracks open. There’s this strange, trembling wonder spreading through me. Like stepping into sunlight after believing I was built for shadows.
I thought I had loved before, but this?
For the first time, I understand why people write poetry about this. Why they ruin themselves for it.
Why they call it falling.
“I love you too, Jackson,” I say on a breath as I press my forehead to his. “More than I ever knew it was possible to love someone. And yet falling for you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
The smile he gives me is shaky but so fucking bright.
“Take me home?”
“Anything you need, sweetheart.”
After checking with the sheriff that we’re free to go and Jackson says good night to his father, I walk with him to my car. He gets into the passenger seat, and as I round the front of my car, I peer back one last time at the bridge.
Twenty years ago, it took so fucking much from me. My parents. My sister. In a way, my brother. The innocent version of myself who didn’t know what grief tasted like.
But not tonight.
Tonight, it didn’t take Jackson from me.
It didn’t carve another name into my bones.
I get into the driver’s seat, shutting the door firmly against the cold and the memories, and start the car.
When Jackson reaches for my hand as I drive away, all I can think is…
Thank God that damn bridge didn’t win tonight.