11. Braxton
Chapter 11
Braxton
T he questions start the moment Jemma is seated in my car. “Did you really make Larry Wilson eat mud?” Without even looking at her, I can hear the amusement in her voice.
“I did. He spent the rest of the day in the sick bay. Rumour has it he vomited on the principal’s shoes.”
“Oh my god,” she says, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle her giggle. Just hearing her laugh again makes me happier than I have felt in weeks. “Did he stop bullying after that?”
“For a while,” I answer, glancing in her direction. “Old habits die hard, I guess. He left you alone, though, which was all that mattered to me.”
A sweet smile forms on her face as she looks over at me from the passenger seat. “Thank you for sticking up for me, and for sharing your sandwich.”
“I’ll always be here for you, Jem, no matter what.”
I love the letters are opening up a line of communication for us. I think in her own small way she’s coming to terms with what has happened. It may not be as fast as I’d like, but I hope these letters will help her to eventually get back to where she once was.
She goes quiet for a while, and I’m relieved when she finally speaks again. “Did we go to the beach much when we were kids?”
“Yes,” I answer as I steer the car into a parking spot at the rehab centre. “It was one of your favourite places to go. Your parents took us often when we were kids, and once we were old enough, we’d go on our own. That’s why we built our house near the beach. You ran along the sand every morning.”
“Really?” she asks, turning her head in my direction. When I see her brow furrow, I know she’s trying to remember.
As much as I would like to show her our place, I’m not sure if she’s ready for that. I can already see the tiny shift she’s made since I started writing her the letters, and I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardise her progress.
“I can drive you past your favourite beach on the way home if you like. It’s not that far out of our way.”
“I’d like that,” she replies with a smile.
She reaches for the door handle. “Let me get that for you.”
Pulling the keys out of the ignition, I step out of the car and round the vehicle. Opening the passenger-side door, I extend my hand to her. She smiles up at me as her dainty fingers wrap around mine. Seeing her smile has always been my undoing. In this split second, everything seems perfect, just the way it used to be. So much so that I actually forget that things aren’t.
“I love you, Jem,” I say without thinking. They’re words that have come naturally for me—for us both—for so long.
I don’t even realise what I’ve said until her face drops, and she pulls her hand from mine. With just three little words I undo all the progress we’ve made over the past week.
“Hey,” Lucas says as he enters my office and takes the chair in front of me. “You okay, bro? You don’t seem yourself today.”
“I haven’t been myself since Jemma’s accident,” I reply dryly, slumping back in my chair.
“I know. How are things going with you two?”
I shrug. “It’s all over the place. Every time we make a bit of progress, something happens and we end up right back where we started.”
The air feels thick as I silently berate myself. Things had shifted dramatically after those three words. She withdrew back into herself and became cold and aloof.
“You know what?” Lucas says, slapping the palm of his hand down onto my desk, startling me from my thoughts.
My attention moves back to him. “What?”
“We’re shutting shop early today. I’m taking you out for a few drinks, and if you’re lucky, I might even buy you dinner.”
I appreciate what he’s trying to do, but going out is the last thing I want. “I can’t?—”
He cuts me off before I have time to tell him how far behind I am. I’ve barely accomplished anything today.
“No excuses.” He looks down at his watch as he rises from his chair. “Finish up what you’re working on, we’re leaving in ten.” I open my mouth to protest again, but he raises his hand to stop me. “Tonight’s happening, no ifs or buts. I miss my friend. Besides, we never got a chance to celebrate our big deal. We worked our arses off to land that contract.”
I can’t argue with that. He’s right on all counts. “Okay.”
“Good. You need this just as much as I do.” He gives me a satisfied nod before he turns to leave.
“Lucas,” I say when he reaches the doorway. “Thank you.”
“A bottle of your finest scotch, and two glasses,” Lucas says to the bartender before gesturing for me to take a seat on one of the black leather stools that line the long white granite bar.
This is my first time here, so my eyes are everywhere. The floor-to-ceiling bright yellow splashback behind the bar, paired with the lines of the black boxed shelves that adorn the wall, is striking. The perfectly positioned downlights make it all pop.
My first thought is that Jem would love this place, and that I must bring her here. Then reality hits. I used to love watching her eyes light up when we walked into somewhere new. She would have a notepad at the ready so she could sketch or take down notes of things that caught her eye. She was so passionate about her work and everything to do with design.
“How’d you find this place?” I ask Lucas.
It’s an enormous step up from where we usually go for drinks. It makes me wonder if he purposely avoided our usual haunt because of the memories it holds; or perhaps he chose this place because it’s more fitting for such a momentous celebration.
We’d dreamed of this moment for so long, and our hard work had finally paid off. Our relatively small architectural firm has suddenly been catapulted into the big league. It’s a shame that even now as I think of what this means for us, and our company, the excitement is lost on me. The axis of my world is no longer aligned, and until that’s rectified everything is going to feel out of kilter.
“One of our clients brought me here. It was when …” He flicks his hand to dismiss whatever he was going to say. “Never mind.”
I know whatever it was it had something to do with Jemma. I don’t blame him for not wanting to go there tonight. It’s been hard on all of us.
“We have a nice twenty-five-year-old bottle of Chivas Regal,” the bartender says, placing it down in front of us. “It’s six hundred dollars.” Lucas doesn’t even flinch.
He wasn’t wrong when he said the good stuff. We splurged on a bottle that was a fraction of that price the day we opened our company, but we were just starting out then, so there wasn’t a lot of cash. We’d thrown everything we had into getting it up and running. The bottle went four ways because Jemma and Rachel were both there to help us celebrate. I chuckle to myself when I think of that night. Jemma is such a lightweight, and after two glasses she was drunk.
She’s been by my side for every celebration, and every milestone since we were kids. It seems unjust not having her here.
Lucas passes the bartender our company credit card and pours a small amount into each glass. “To our continued success,” he says, holding his drink in the air.
I raise my glass and clink it with his before chugging down the smooth, ridiculously expensive amber liquid. Maybe a few more of these will help me get in the celebratory mood because right now it’s the last thing I feel like doing.
A few scotches in and I feel myself relaxing, but my faux pas with Jemma is still at the forefront of my mind.
“So, tell me,” Lucas says, refilling my glass, “what’s got you so down? Apart from the obvious, of course.”
I shrug, bringing the drink to my mouth so I don’t have to answer him. I don’t want to burden him with my worries. He’s got enough on his plate trying to single-handedly run our company.
“Hey, this is me,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “There’s nothing you can’t say to me. I know how hard this is, and I’m worried about you. If you keep going on like this …” His words drift off, but I already know what he was going to say, “It’s only a matter of time before you break.”
If I allowed myself to give in to the darkness that’s crying out to me from deep within, then yes, I would; but that’s the thing—I won’t let it take over. I refuse to let this beat me. To beat us.
I throw back my scotch before placing the glass back down on the bar. I need to talk to someone. It’s a struggle trying to be the strong one. I can’t be that person tonight. I feel like everything I hold dear is slipping through my fingers: my wife, my dad. My world is crumbling around me and I don’t know how to make it stop.
“I’ve been writing Jem letters.”
I half expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t. He’s always given me a hard time about the depth of love I have for that woman. He doesn’t understand, not yet. Someone’s going to come along when he’s least expecting it and bring him to his knees. When that day comes, he won’t know what hit him.
“What kind of letters? Like, love letters? Don’t you think that’s coming on pretty strong under the circumstances?”
“They’re not exactly love letters. Well, they kind of are. They’re letters about our life. How we met. That kind of thing.”
“Did she read them?”
“I’ve only written her two so far, but yes she has.”
“And? I feel like I’m missing something here. That’s a good thing, right?”
“Yes, and I think they’re helping. She was starting to open up to me.” I exhale a long breath before continuing. “But this morning I screwed up. I told her I loved her. And I think it freaked her out.”
“Oh.”
“She withdrew again after that. After her physio, she said she was tired and wanted to go straight home. She didn’t say a word the whole way, she just stared out the window like she used to do in the beginning.”
Lucas stares down into his drink, taking it all in before speaking again. “I get that it’s hard for you to hold back when you still feel so much, but put yourself in her shoes. She probably just felt awkward. What did you expect her to do, tell you she loved you too?”
“No … Yes … I don’t know. I just want things to be the way they used to be.”
“I know you do, you poor bastard. I want that for you too, but things may never be that way again. I hate to be the bad guy here, but you need to prepare yourself for that.” I feel my shoulders slump as my gaze moves to the floorboards. Logically I know he’s right, but it’s still like a kick to the guts. I want to believe that one day everything will be the way it used to be. I have to believe that. “You just need to find your new normal.”
I want the old normal, I ache for it.
“What if I never get her back? How am I supposed to deal with that?”
“You’ll deal with it the same way you always have. Just like you did when your mum died, or when your father got sick, or when Jem first had her accident. You just will. You’re not a quitter, Spencer. You know that just as much as I do. You’ll never give up.”