Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JAYSON
Demons
Wrapping a towel around my waist, steam billows out into the king-bed suite from the bathroom when I open the door.
Picking out some clean clothes from the suitcase I brought with me, I rifle through the folded items and choose a dark gray T-shirt and my favorite pair of ripped blue jeans.
Funny how your current existence and everything you own can fit inside four cubic feet of space.
For not getting any sleep last night, I don’t feel tired. Too many thoughts doing somersaults in my head that a therapist would have a field day trying to process.
And the mayhem swirling around my brain is focused on one person: Liz.
Seeing her again after three years was gut-wrenching.
But seeing how she looked at me with wounded eyes, seeing the pain I caused her manifested on her beautiful face, was devastating.
When Liz looked at me last night, she only saw the man who had failed her too many times and not the reformed, repentant man I am now.
I’ve hurt the people I love the most because of my weakness and my pride. You never truly know how far down the demons have pulled you into hell until it’s too late. And those demons cost me everything .
The hell I’ve been imprisoned in was my own damn fault. I made bad choices and laid the blame for my problems at everyone else’s feet. Liz doesn’t owe me anything, least of all her forgiveness, but for some reason she is giving me a second chance. She agreed to talk. It’s more than I deserve.
However, the one unexpected thing from last night that I’m trying to wrap my head around is Fallon. I don’t know how long he and Liz have been together. Not long, based on what I was able to infer from our brief conversation at the bar and saw with my own eyes.
After everything I put her through—all the heartbreak, broken promises, and years of loving her the wrong way—and after everything she’s endured—Liz should be with someone who can love her without the wreckage. But knowing that someone is Fallon with his polished lies and half-truths…
I want her to be happy—God, I need her to be happy. That’s what true love is supposed to be, right? Wanting someone’s happiness, even if it’s not with you. Ry did that. It’s why she belonged with him and not with me.
Liz has always given her heart freely and her love unconditionally. I had taken both for granted and had lost the love of my life. My best friend. The one person who completed me in every way. I want to believe Fallon will cherish her heart like Ry did. Love her like Ry did.
Fallon has been obsessed with Liz since junior high. But obsession isn’t love. Wanting what you can’t have isn’t love.
In an ironic way, Fallon and I are somewhat similar.
I treated Liz like a thing to covet. I held on too tightly and tried to control her because I was terrified of losing her.
I lost her anyway, then ran to the other side of the country so I wouldn’t have to watch her build a life with Ry without me.
My fingers curl around the medallion hanging around my neck.
A part of me wants to tear apart whatever relationship Liz and Fallon are building and watch it crumble. But I’m not that kind of man anymore. The person I used to be no longer exists.
I never truly understood until recently what Liz meant about Old Elizabeth and New Elizabeth. How she felt like two different people after her memories returned. I recall the shameful things I said to her when she tried to talk to me about it. But I get it now.
Going back into the bathroom, I wipe away the condensation from the mirror and stare at myself. Looking in the mirror is like looking at a complete stranger. I no longer see the boy I used to be, only the half-formed shell of the man who now exists. A work in progress, I remind myself.
Gripping the vanity, I recite the daily affirmations that have become my mantras.
“I am worthy of a life free from addiction. I am strong enough to get through this. I am grateful for my journey and the lessons learned. I am committed to my recovery every day. I am grateful for the opportunity to transform my life.” But when I get to, I forgive myself and release the burdens of the past , I can never speak the words. Because I don’t forgive myself.
Unwrapping the towel from my waist, I toss it onto the bathroom floor, then pull on the pair of blue jeans.
I use the phone mounted to the wall next to the toilet to order room service for breakfast, making sure to ask for a full carafe of coffee to go with the traditional American breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
As soon as I hang up, there’s a knock on my hotel room door. I love how housekeeping never pays attention to the Do Not Disturb sign.
“I’m good,” I call out, hoping they hear me.
The lock clicks, and the door swings open.
“I don’t need any—” I start to say, but the rest of the sentence dries up like a raindrop on parched desert soil when I see Julien standing in the doorway.
I stare dumbfounded at my brother, completely at a loss. The profound joy at seeing him occupies the same space as the confusion as to why he’s here. But the latter is quickly overshadowed by how much I’ve missed him.
“Imagine my surprise when Liz told me this morning that you were in town,” he says.
Instead of taking him in my arms and hugging the shit out of him, nerves cause me to blurt out the stupidest thing. “How did you get a key card to my room?”
“Told the woman at reception that I locked myself out.”
One of the benefits and curses of being an identical twin.
Ever tactful, he says, “You look like shit.”
After icing it, my bottom lip isn’t as swollen as it was last night. Marcus has a mean forward jab.
I rub a hand over my clean-shaven face, still not used to the beard being gone, and try to will away the tension he somehow erected between us. “Nice to see you, too, Jules.”
Julien steps inside, letting the door shut behind him with a loud crack .
I can feel the weight of his penetrating stare, like he’s trying to figure out how to solve a puzzle missing half its pieces.
He’s hoping to get a read on me, and I’m not in the mood to argue with him.
Unfortunately, I know I don’t have a choice.
Just like my brother knows me, I know him just as well.
I knew this was coming, but I was hoping I’d have a little more time to figure things out before I saw him.
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
Feeling slightly put off because his question and his tone of voice make it sound like he wishes I would crawl in a deep, dark hole and never come out, I mutter, “Didn’t realize I needed your permission to come home.”
His eyebrows raise alarmingly high with incredulity. “Cut the crap and the flippant remarks. Why are you staying at a hotel in Highland and not at Mom and Dad’s?”
I cross the small space and grab the half-empty water bottle I left on the dresser. “Figured it’d be easier this way.”
“Easier for who?” His voice tightens. “ You? ”
I twist off the cap and take a long drink, hoping it’ll cool the frustration simmering beneath my skin, the fight we had still fresh in my mind like it was yesterday.
My brother finally had enough and walked away from me.
I don’t blame him. I’m actually grateful for it.
Losing him, and in turn, Elijah and my nephews, was the final push I needed.
No more relapses. I stuck to the program and did my time and somehow made it through to the other side.
“You haven’t been home in twenty years. That was your choice, by the way. And now, out of nowhere, you show up, hide out in a hotel, and”—his gray eyes darken—“you went to see Liz.”
I exhale sharply. “That’s none of your business, Jules.”
He takes two ominous steps forward. I wouldn’t stop him if he took a swing.
“Like hell it isn’t!” he snaps. “You left her with nothing but questions and wounds you never even tried to fix. You couldn’t even be bothered to reach out to Ry when—” He chokes up, and I hate myself for it. “You should have stayed away and left her alone. Haven’t you done enough damage?”
Guilt coils like barbed wire in my chest. I knew coming back, seeing Liz, would stir up old wounds, but it was something I had to do.
“Why now?” Julien demands.
I give him the only explanation I can right now. “I needed her to know that I’m sorry. For it all. Every fucking thing.”
He scoffs. “A little late for that, don’t you think?”
“ I know ,” I bite out. “But I needed to say it, and she deserved to hear it.”
Julien studies me with a blank expression that darkens with something unreadable.
“And what about me? Don’t I deserve the same consideration?
” Not giving me a chance to answer, he shakes his head, laughing bitterly.
“Unbelievable.” He paces once before turning back to me.
“You didn’t even tell Mom you were coming, did you?
” He steps closer, waiting for me to give him something, and I glance away.
“Jesus, Jay. Does she even know you’re in town? ”
I don’t answer.
He swears under his breath. “You really are an unbelievable asshole.”
The air conditioning unit starts up, the only noise breaking the terse silence. Julien’s gaze flicks downward, just for a second, before snapping back to my face.
But I know what he saw. The small, round medallion hanging from the gold chain.
His entire posture changes, his brows drawing together.
He reaches out, almost hesitantly at first, and lifts the medallion between his fingers.
The metal catches the sunlight coming in from the window, the engraving clear as day.
All the fight drains from his face. When his eyes meet mine again, they aren’t filled with anger.
They’re filled with something worse. Pity.
“How long?” he asks, his voice quieter now.
“A year.”