Chapter 6
I’m not so na?ve or daft to believe that’s enough. That whatever is shifting between me and Jack will fade like a dying wave.
We need to talk.
I know that.
And after, everything might change.
But then one night I roll home after a long shift at sea and everything I’m so worried about…it goes still, and our existence swallows itself.
I lie on the sofa, one boot off, the other halfway unlaced. Jack’s in my arms again, but it’s a world away from a hug. He’s locked up, tight as a cable, whole body trembling as he pushes his face into my shoulder.
Nystagmus. Sounds like a god, but it’s the devil reborn. An ambush of horror that knocks him flat every time it combines with other TBI symptoms in a perfect storm, and I swear, it’s almost as bad as a seizure.
At least, it is for Jack. I saw it the second I came home and found him already reeling, and I know what he needs. Because we’ve been here too many times for me to count.
I’m so sorry this happened to you, Jackie.
I stroke his head, shifting on the couch, turning him a little so he can fit himself to me the way he’s learned to when his brain does things he can’t handle on his own, letting me be the anchoring weight and warmth he’s always been for me. “It’s okay, love. I’ve got you.”
Jack groans his fear and frustration. His arm jerks towards his eye, but his coordination is shot, and I catch his hand, guide it down, and slide my own palm over his trembling eyelid.
Sol, it’s going to fall out.
Nope.
“Not on my watch.”
My whisper dies and the world shrinks to the soft pressure in my hand and the relentless tremor beneath while Jack breathes against me, while he hides in my embrace as the storm within banks low, fuelled by the shadows on his brain.
I’m his only lighthouse. Without me, he’d curl up on his bed alone and flinch away from anyone else.
The horror that one day I won’t be here when he needs me is my greatest fear. A nightmare that’s already come true.
You weren’t here.
No.
But Skylar was, and he’s here now. He checks Jack’s pulse and coaxes him to open both eyes. I never ask what he’s looking for. I’m just grateful to call him our friend. Grateful whatever he sees is enough for him to turn his attention to relieving me of my stray boot.
He tugs it off and steps out into the hallway where Mal is pacing, refusing to come any closer to a scene that might be familiar to the rest of us, but he’s never witnessed before. Distantly, his distress cuts me to the bone, but I’ll worry about it later. For now, it’s Jack and only Jack.
Everything always, Jack.
He’s so tense. I rub his shoulders with my free hand and silence closes in on us. A suspended reality, like even the old walls are afraid to listen.
Skylar comes back. He brings the thick blanket from Jack’s bed and bottles of water. Medication. Fiadh, who licks Jack’s elbow then hops up onto the other couch to keep her vigil from there.
It leaves Mal alone in the hallway. I half expect Skylar to return to him.
He doesn’t.
Like so many times before, he flicks the red lamp on and stays, we both do, and we endure it together.
Eventually, Mal slinks in and stops at the end of the couch, gaze fixed on his stricken brother, agitation rolling off him in waves.
“Put some music on,” Skylar murmurs. “Quiet and calm.”
“Why?”
“So he has something to hold onto when he starts to come back.”
“He’s not asleep?”
Skylar shakes his head, blond hair falling out of his hood. “No.”
Mal doesn’t like that. And I don’t blame him.
I hate it too. If Jack was sleeping, it would be easier to believe he was at peace.
But the in-between he’s caught in, even if he won’t remember it later, I know it’s not pleasant.
I feel it in every rapid-fire shudder wracking his body.
Every tremor runs through him and straight into me, as if he’s bound to the world by a gossamer thread and I’m the only thing keeping it whole.
Breathe, Jack.
He is, but it’s slow; a far-off tide that doesn’t want to come home. His other eye is half open, unfocused, lashes shivering against his cheek. I press his rogue eyelid a little harder as Mal manages to find probably the only music on Skylar’s phone that isn’t metal.
Doves. The opening chords of Break Me Gently are eerie in the dark living room, but somehow it works.
And Mal…
He comes to Jack’s side and stoops low enough to rub his brother’s forearm. “We’re here.”
It’s all he says before he retreats to Skylar, but it’s something—it’s everything, and Jack expels a soft breath in response.
The evening stretches out. Skylar sends Mal downstairs to close the pub, a notion that should be funny, but without Jack, there is no humour.
No laughter, no life. It’s later than late by the time he really does fall asleep, his fingers curled in my shirt as if he’s afraid I’ll leave if he doesn’t hold on.
Never.
A born fisherman, I’m as scared of the sea as every soul should be. But the strongest current on earth couldn’t drag me from Jack tonight, and it’s a forever state of mind.
He stirs at dawn.
I’m wide awake, at one with the ceiling. I don’t notice he’s alert until he touches my face. “What’s wrong?”
Again.
What’s wrong?
What’s wrong?
At least this time I can answer him without carving a hole in his thigh. I lean into his touch, just a little—just enough, to tear me in two all over again. “I was worried about you. How are you feeling?”
Jack doesn’t answer immediately. And that foot beneath the blanket Skylar tucked around us, it flexes, rubbing my calf.
“I’m real, Jackie. I promise.”
He presses his face into my neck to be sure, breathing me in, while I thread my fingers through his hair, searching for the spot that can shift his mood if I time it right.
I find it, and he moans. A sound I hear in my best dreams. But with the memory of him shaking in my arms last night seared on my heart, I find no pleasure in it. Only relief that he’s present enough to feel it.
“I need to piss.”
Jack mumbles that against my skin. Then he raises his head, staring down at me for a split second before he levers himself from the couch. Slowly. Checking his balance, and he’s good. I see it before he does, but I keep quiet, letting him come to terms with his own equilibrium.
“Where’s Fiadh?”
“Right there.”
I point to the other couch, where the silver lurcher remains curled in her nest of cushions, watching him with wise eyes, asking for nothing in return. She’s such a good dog. A little knocker if ever I saw one, though she’s more heart than mischief.
Jack scratches her ears.
Then he sets off for the bathroom, and I follow at a distance, giving him space, keeping him safe, fatigue dragging my limbs as I contemplate the state of the pub downstairs.
I figure it’ll be the first thing on Jack’s mind too, but he exits the bathroom and takes my hand, leading me back to the couch.
“Sit down.”
I duly obey.
I easily obey.
And I wait while Jack goes to the kitchen and brews coffee. Cooks bacon and tomatoes and brings it back to me with slices of the wheaten bread Mal brings home every time we send him shopping. Which isn’t all that often. No one deserves that, least of all him.
The bread, though. I like it. It’s sweet and wholesome, and it settles Jack in ways that tell me it must be something his mam used to feed them in Killinchy.
Makes me think of my mum. I need to see her.
Need to look into her foolish eyes and know for sure she has no idea what my dad has been up to.
That she hasn’t kept this from me again.
But all that—it jumbles in my head and falls out as Jack finishes his breakfast and sinks back on the couch, his big arm stretching along the back of it as if he means to cocoon me in his warmth.
To shield me from the sharp, wintery air that has me worried Mal and Skylar will wake up cold.
Heh.
They can generate their own heat. And I’m jealous. I don’t want to be, but gods, I am.
“Sol?”
“Yeah?”
“Look at me.”
I pry my gaze from my lap and ditch my half-finished plate on the coffee table, next to the chessboard and the game we’ve been playing for the past month.
Jack’s winning. Truth is, I’m not much good at chess, but I love playing with Jack.
Love watching him spin the cogs in his brain and believe them.
“When did you last fuck someone?”
I choke on the decaf abomination Jack’s brought me in his favourite chipped mug. “Why are you asking me that?”
Jack picks up my plate and towers over me, by coincidence, perhaps, but his gaze feels severe. “Because I want to know.”
He leaves me with that and goes to the kitchen. Clears the breakfast dishes and comes back drying his hands so casually I have no idea what era of our lives I’ve woken up to. “You used to hook up all the time.”
“When I was young and dumb.”
“You’re still young.”
“We’re the same age, Jackie. Last time I checked, you were on a permanent dry spell too. So is Oscar. Maybe you should ask Skylar why he bed-hopped every night until he met your brother.”
“Skylar fell in love with my brother. And Oscar lost his shit when he knocked up the girl from the ice cream stand. None of those things have happened to you.”
I’m not in love with Mal, it’s true. And to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never got anyone pregnant. Jack speaks pure facts. And they’re inconvenient. “What makes you think I’m wanting for sex?”
Jack folds the tea towel he’s holding into a neat square and lays it on the arm on the sofa. “You’re not having any.”
“Neither are you,” I repeat. “Neither is Osc—”
“I don’t give a fuck about Oscar’s dick.”
The inference is he gives a fuck about mine. But it’s not that literal. He’s worried about me and the effect not shagging around is having on me. And the effect it’s having on him, clearly.
I can’t drink anymore tragic disappointment. I’m too tired to swallow gritty lies and my mug finds its way to the coffee table.