Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
It was right after Christmas break, Lucas’s third-grade year, when he asked me to stop parking my car to walk him into school. A few weeks after that, he demanded I stay in my car and pull through the pickup line instead of meeting him at the front door.
So there I was, inching my way through the line, jealous as all get out of the moms and dads waiting by the front door for their kids.
Out of habit, I reached for my phone, stalling just before my fingers could pluck it out of the cup holder.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
I was so deep into my grief Zoe was no longer my go-to with good news, or any news, or when I was sitting in the pickup line, or when I was grocery shopping, or anytime I just wanted to shoot the shit, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Lucas swung the car door open.
“Well? How’d it go? You rocked, didn’t you?” he chirped as soon as his butt hit the seat. “Ice cream celebration tonight!” he tossed his backpack into the footwell and continued to prattle on, “Hey! There’s Juni.”
My gaze shifted from the back seat to the school entrance. There was only one little girl in front of the school, rushing across the grass with her long brown hair flying behind her. A smile so big it split her pretty face. Juni. The name totally fit.
I lost sight of her when her little body hit a tall wall of dark-haired man. In a flash all thoughts of Juni flew out the window and my attention snapped to the way his navy-blue t-shirt clung to his wide shoulders. I’m a sucker for tall and broad and this guy fit the bill.
Gah. Now I’m perving on a dad at my son’s school, and he’s probably married.
I was not that girl!
Thankfully the car in front of me moved, saving me from having to hand over my membership to the sisterhood for drooling over another woman’s man.
“First, how was your day?”
“Good. Brandon invited me to his house for his annual back-to-school party. His parents set up a movie screen in the backyard for an all-night movie marathon. Can I go?”
My instinct was to say no. I’d only started to allow sleepovers last year, and only if I knew the parents.
I could practically hear Zoe yelling at me. He’s ten, Mama Bear. You have to let him grow up. Experience life. Make choices—good or bad. Then show him the way.
Sweet Jesus, I missed her.
“That depends,” I told him slowly, inching my way forward. “How’d you do on your math test?”
“I missed two questions. Still got an A.”
That was my smart boy.
“It pays to be a winner,” I muttered, Zoe’s favorite maxim. “And your spelling test?”
“Aced. It!”
I didn’t have to be looking at my kid to know he was pumping his fist in the air.
The car in front of me suddenly slammed on its brakes. Obviously, I did the same, leaving my heart in my throat and a millimeter between our bumpers. I swallowed down the hundred curse words that were fighting to get free.
“You okay?” I asked glancing in my rearview mirror.
Lucas wasn’t the slightest bit concerned with our near accident. He was waving out the window with little-boy abandon.
One day he wouldn’t wave with such excitement.
One day he’d play it cool and probably tip his chin or just lift his hand.
Hell, one day he’d be driving himself to and from school.
Lord, that made my heart ache.
I followed his gaze and found the object of his fascination.
Juni.
But it wasn’t the girl who had my lungs suddenly fighting for oxygen. It was the man next to her scowling at the car in front of me.
Juni’s dad.
Dad.
Oh, God.
Oh, fuck.
This couldn’t be real.
Mercilessly, his eyes snapped to mine.
Eyes I’d drowned in countless times.
Eyes I would never in my lifetime forget.
Eyes I’d dreamed about so many times it was impossible to count.
Jase.
My Jase.
My first and only love.
A wave of sadness washed over me.
All the what-could’ve-beens bounced around in my chest until my heart broke all over again.
My Jase now belonged to someone else.
Suddenly I felt like I was going to throw up. Moving back, I knew there would be a possibility I’d run into him. It wasn’t like Hollow Point was a bustling city. But I never imagined the first time I laid eyes on him again it would be at my son’s school.
Juni.
Shit, shit, and double shit.
Our kids were friends.
A horn beeped, startling me out of my reverie.
“Mom?”
I jerked my gaze away from Jase, and muttered, “Sorry.”
I pulled forward, barely resisting the urge to peel rubber out of the parking lot.
The drive to the grocery store was a blur. Lucas prattled on about his day and told me about his lunchtime chat with Juni.
Juni. God, even hearing that name is a stab to my heart.
He asked me about my presentation. With absolutely no enthusiasm I told him I landed the job. And when I pulled into our driveway, I had no recollection of what actually made it into the grocery store bags.
I reached into the truck to grab a handle when Lucas muscled his way in front of me.
“I got ‘em,” he told me.
This was something new. Something that was all Lucas without me or Zoe telling him it was the polite thing to do.
My little boy, showing yet another sign he was no longer my baby boy simply by carrying in the groceries for me—little pieces of the man he’d one day grow into shining through.
“Thanks, dude,” I said, stepping away from the trunk of my car. “Am I ordering our pizza from Stoner’s again or do you want to try Marco’s?”
“Stoner’s was alright, but let’s try Marco’s.”
I really hoped Marco’s delivered because my recent lapse in memory proved I wasn’t fit to drive.
No, my memory wasn’t the issue—I could remember every detail of Jase standing a few feet from my car.
The strands of gray that weren’t there the last time I saw him.
The five o’clock shadow that I knew from experience wasn’t from one day of missed shaving but at least three.
When we were in high school, he was tall and lean—cut muscle from the gym and sports.
After he went to college he kept up with the gym and added running.
But now he looked bigger, broader, like in the years I’d been gone he’d filled out.
He’d aged in the last fifteen years, just like I had.
But time had been kind to him. If he hadn’t been right in front of me to see with my own two eyes, I would’ve said it was impossible for Jase to get better looking.
I also would’ve been very wrong. But it wasn’t his looks that had me spiraling.
It wasn’t even the memories that had me in a near comatose state.
It was the heartache.
A pain so absolute I couldn’t think.
Seeing Jase shouldn’t have had me wanting to run and hide. And not from him necessarily, from the myriad emotions that surpassed rational thought.
It had been years.
He was no longer mine.
He never would be again.
That painful thought had my hand going to my chest.
I never should’ve moved home.
I should’ve taken my chances and moved to a whole new state where I knew no one.
Anywhere.
Someplace far away from Jase.
But I wanted Lucas to be close to his grandma. I wanted the comfort of familiarity. And if I was being honest, after losing Zoe I needed my mom.
More pain ripped through me.
Zoe would know what to do. Obviously, she knew all about Jase.
She knew how much breaking up with him hurt.
She knew I’d ghosted him and even if she disagreed, she understood.
She’d also tried and failed to get me to reconnect with him for years.
Then I got pregnant with Lucas and priorities shifted and she stopped encouraging me to find my way back to the man she called the love of my life.
She wasn’t wrong.
That was what Jase was—the love of my life. My one shot at true happiness. My first love. My first everything. The boy I fell in love with who grew into the man who would forever own my heart.
“Dude,” Lucas called out. “Are you going to order a pizza or stand here all night and starve your son?”
It was the ‘dude’ that reminded me I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in my heartbreak.
I had a son to feed. Cookies to bake. And celebratory ice cream sandwiches to consume.
I swept my hand toward the front door. “Lead the way.”
Marco’s pizza tasted like sawdust. But so did the ice cream sandwiches, so I was fairly certain it wasn’t the pizza, it was my tastebuds.
Which, like every other part of me, were on the fritz.
That had to be why I’d called Brandon’s mom and talked to her for the better part of an hour and accepted her invitation to have Lucas spend the night next Saturday night.
It also had to be why when Sophie called, I answered.
We’d exchanged numbers not only because we’d be working on the Hope Center project together—she’d be designing the new logo for the art program and getting the website updated and new sign-up forms created and I’d be working on the marketing for both community outreach and for potential donors.
But also, because after talking with her I really liked her.
She was a few years older than me and like me grew up in the area.
We went to different high schools, but found we knew some of the people.
It was a little weird—but in a nice, nostalgic way—to know we’d probably crossed paths in high school.
It also so happened, her call came in after I’d agreed to let Lucas go to a sleepover which had to be—along with my brain being out of order—why I accepted her invitation to join her and a few of her friends at a pool hall called Balls Deep. I’d never been to the place, but I knew where it was.
So now Lucas had a sleepover, and I had a new friend I was going to meet for drinks.
One would think that was a good thing—Lucas and me settling in.
But all it did was remind me I needed to make new friends since I’d lost the best friend a girl could have and the small circle I’d carefully cultivated over the years.
Now it was late, Lucas was asleep and I should’ve been in bed but instead I was on my couch with my laptop resting on a pillow in front of me playing internet sleuth. Something I’d told myself a million times I’d stop doing.
I needed to accept the fact that Zoe had died in a tragic freak accident.
But I couldn’t. Something felt wrong. The timing was too convenient.
It was too coincidental that only weeks after Zoe found her husband Julian was cheating, she died.
It was a car accident; I reminded myself even as my fingers typed a new question into my search bar, one I hadn’t thought to ask before: can an engine lock up from using the wrong oil?
After scrolling through forums and hours of reading the answer was yes, it was possible.
Blurry-eyed and emotionally exhausted, I trudged to my room.
I had an answer, but now I didn’t know what to do with it.
No one listened to me when days after Zoe died I expressed my concerns.
As far as the cops were concerned it was open and shut.
There was nothing for them to look into.
They’d brushed me off as a grieving, hysterical friend.
To be fair, that was exactly what I was.
Grieving and hysterical.
But I couldn’t get rid of the niggle of doubt.
Julian’s behavior after Zoe died only cemented my suspicion.
I knew deep in my soul Julian killed my best friend.
I knew it.
But no one would listen.