8. Amber Jaymes
Chapter 8
Amber Jaymes
The view of my backyard is peaceful, comfortable. I watched Diesel and Ollie play. My dog, my ever-constant companion, has been the reason I’ve stayed sane while dealing with the flare-up of my demons.
The last year and a half has taught me so much about not only myself, but the people around me. One, the new family that my brother and Chip and I have been pulled into is full of loving, caring, and absolutely fabulous human beings. The whole lot of them are simply amazing, down to earth people. It’s good to have friends that even when you’re the new kid on the playground, they welcome you in and help guide you.
My fingers skim the cover of the journal laying against my lap. My inner thoughts, fears, and weaknesses—they all reside in between these pages. Outlined in graphic detail for anyone who dares to open it. My innermost demons lie in wait to try and break me down, but they’re no longer allowed to do that. It’s taken this long for me to learn not only how to fight them, but the right way to do so.
The quote written on the inside, on the very first page, helps remind me of this every time I open it.
Never be afraid to fall apart because it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself the way you wish you had been all along. ~ Rae Smith
Words of wisdom to live by.
This journal in all its finery was a gift from Dani Lynn. She shared with me what journaling has done for her; helping her to work through her own demons. Stella, Anna, and Shelby, too. They explained how it helped them get what they couldn’t say out loud out of their heads and hearts. You can’t dwell on something if you can push it away. Moving on is the best medicine for a broken or hurt heart.
Seems my soul needed the time to heal as well. As long as I could heal and move on to being me again, I was okay with that. No road was paved in a day, as Aunt Betty liked to say. What she meant was I’d not been hurt—broken in a day. It wouldn’t be a quick, fast fix. Having a group around me that had their own stories of pain and loss helped more than I could ever say. They understood it, and I wasn’t alone in this battle.
Dani Lynn even opened up, sharing her darker feelings with me, especially over the last year or so. The pieces she wanted to hide but knew would eat her alive if she gave them half a chance.
When hers, Stella’s, and Anna’s dads had been kidnapped, they’d all had to process that sudden wave of hurt and anger, which was clouded with a fear I couldn’t even imagine. There had been so much that had gone on during that time, and even now, almost two years later, there are still reminders that life is short.
The darkness had fun trying to take them down. They fought back and came out on top. It showed me that I wasn’t alone in those thoughts and feelings. It helped me to see that for myself. I just hated that they had to go through any of it. They felt the same for me.
Even with Tom gone, and me being relatively safe, there were days I wasn’t sure if my mind was broken or belonged to someone else. I’d scared myself more than once with my dark thoughts while replaying that day in the shop.
I cannot stop thinking about the what ifs. What if I’d have stabbed him in the heart, or in the neck; I could have rid myself of him for good. As selfish as this may sound, I couldn’t do that to myself. There’s no way on this green earth that I would have been able to live with myself. Did he deserve that? Yes. Would it have been totally justifiable? I mean, it would have been self-defense, so yeah, but I just wasn’t that kind of person.
But I could have been that person. To survive a man who had already shown in so many ways that he didn’t care about me in the slightest. He’d simply wanted someone to own, to rule over. I was nothing to him, just a pawn in his meaningless, pathetic life.
It was through being open with them, fighting back the tears, misery, and emotional rollercoaster that is PTSD and trauma that I started to see there was more to me than the pain and fear. It also helped that I’d gotten to talk to a psychologist at the center. I fought it at first. Who wants to be labeled the ‘crazy’ person? Thing is, it has nothing to do with being crazy. As they’d discussed what talking to a professional, someone who could push or gently pull you to a safer, more balanced mindset, had done for their recovery—I knew it was something I needed to do to avoid being in a padded room rocking in the corner.
The woman I’d met was kind, very soulful. She helped me put the past into perspective. The things that had happened weren’t my fault. I had no reason to be ashamed of being hurt. And, to top it all off, I deserved a better life than I’d been allowing myself to have. Living in the past had put me in a state of perpetual darkness. Darkness that had been slowly eating away at me. Not allowing my own wants and needs to manifest because I didn’t think I deserved them, had pushed me backwards instead of letting me move forward.
Tom had me so mixed up, so emotionally wrecked, but there was more than just that. Truth was, and this was something I’d worked through, I was good enough to admit I wasn’t perfect. I never thought I was, but there were things in life that I thought I had to be perfect at.
Failure was not an option for me. I didn’t mentally handle making mistakes and that manifested itself into more self-doubt. See why I was ready to rock in a corner? I was mentally torturing myself, and I had no idea how to fix it, to fix me until I opened myself up to help.
I know it’s okay to be me now; embracing all the good and bad that makes me who I am. I had quotes from Harper Lee to help me make these choices. After so many hours in that room, staring at the two framed phrases from To Kill A Mockingbird , I just knew.
Smiling, I repeated the words I’d memorized so long ago.
Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
That was a good place to start the actual healing process. I had to begin the tasks, and one way or another, they would get handled. If I took the way therapy wanted me to open up and pull myself inside out like I did when training a dog, it was the same thing.
You can’t train a dog if you’re not centered and confident in your own skin. Dogs know, they can smell your fear and unease. Your nervousness tells them more about you than a kind gesture does.
My training was just as important as if it were theirs. So, doing what I could—what I knew would help me open myself up—I’d gone to the kennels and let the uncles put me to work.
Every day that I went down and unhooked that collar and lead from the fence, I broke through another piece of the wall around myself. Chipping away piece by piece until I could actually stand there, face to face with myself in a mirror, and repeat what I knew to be the truth.
“I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor. I’m in charge of my self-awareness, my inner peace, and what I do in life. No one can change me unless I decide to do that myself.”
It has become my morning ritual. I remind myself that I am worth the fight and inner peace I need.
Let’s face it, life changes—you have to be strong enough and brave enough to change with it. That’s exactly where I’m at in life today.
Chip and I have been slowly building us into a functional, reliable, and mostly uncomplicated relationship. As promised, he’s not pressured me or rushed any part of this. He’s been the most patient, loving person around. The man really is a big teddy bear.
Together, we are “us,” but apart, we are still “us.” Just with different responsibilities. He has his job, I have mine, and, together, when we are home, we spend as much time as we can just getting to know each other. The real us. Talking about anything and everything.
He’s become even more important to me than I could have imagined. He really was the biggest missing piece of my life puzzle. The piece I am so grateful that I found. I know now that without him helping to teach me new things and how to adapt to the changes life throws my way, I’d have been lost. A shell of a woman who was just going through the motions. I’d have missed out on falling hard in love and being truly happy.
In the end, he’s the one thing I’ve always needed but didn’t know was right there beside me. As corny as that sounds.
It was time to grab him, latch on, and never let him go. And that’s just what I’ve done. Smiling, I recap my pen, lay it in the journal, and close the soft pages around it.
“Ollie, you and Diesel come in and get cleaned up.”
“Where are we going? I thought I could stay the night?”
“You are staying the night, silly, but we need to go see a man about some dinner.”
He looked confused as hell. I laughed softly and just opened the door. “You’ll see, go get cleaned up. We’ll head out in about ten minutes.”
Pulling my cell from my back pocket, I sent a text to Chip.
AJ: The boys and I are coming over. And I’m taking you to dinner. Be there in 15, be ready.
He replied almost immediately.
Chip: Yes, ma’am.
Chip: I like it when you’re bossy.
The winky face did me in. Seeing that big, hairy man use emojis…it made my day. Laughing, I ran up the stairs to my bedroom to change my clothes. Dinner with my favorite people was just what I needed tonight. And having Ollie there, as a buffer, meant I wouldn’t get overwhelmed and overthink everything either Chip or I said.
Did Ollie know he was an emotional support kid…hell no, but I knew he wouldn’t mind. After all, the best way to end a day is with happiness so that you start the next day in the same way.
When we were ready and in the truck, Ollie was all smiles.
“You look happy again, like before you were hurt. I missed the happy you.”
“Me too, kid. Me too.”
The happy me was here to stay too. I would never be a victim again. And I was strong enough to make sure that happened thanks to the love of family surrounding me. Even if they made me mental, they were always there for me. For us.
Being surrounded by my family was one of my favorite ways to spend a nice, calm day. Well, when they weren’t trying to coddle me. Or smother me with love and hugs. They could be a little much sometimes. But man, I freaking loved them.
Today we were at Aunt Betty and Uncle Keith’s for Sunday lunch which meant Chip and I were put to work stirring pots and in his case, prepping the steaks Uncle Keith would be tossing on the grill.
“Don’t eat that, you crazy dog!”
“He’s gonna puke that up!”
I heard the chorus of voices coming from the yard, my head coming up as I looked over the sink to the outside. I didn’t see anyone in the side yard.
“Let me go. He can’t eat that.”
“I’m not cleaning that up.”
Chip and I shared a look before I, being the brave one, decided to see what the boys were up to. I pulled the towel that Aunt Betty had been using before she went out to collect eggs off the counter, wiping my hands off as I moved to the screened door.
“What is going on out here?” I asked as I pushed the door open.
I watched as Diesel sat in a circle of boys, his head turning slightly toward me. He had something in his mouth. I raised a brow as I went down the steps and used a hand signal for ‘leave it’ as I spoke the words. “Leave it!” He huffed and dropped the now slobber-covered object.
Scooping up the small object, I froze when I saw what looked like a jewelry—ring—box. Where in the name of the gods did he get this from? I opened my mouth to ask where they’d all been when movement to my left had me turning around.
My heart stopped at the sight of Chip down on one knee.