19. Jackson #2
He grabs a flat rock and skips it once. Twice. It plunks on the third.
“Two skips?” I scoff. “Jesus, you’re rusty there, old man.”
“I’ll skip your head across this lake if you keep mouthing off.”
We’re quiet a moment longer. Derek gets ready to toss another one but stops and looks at it. He gets some weird look on his face before stuffing it into his pocket. I’m about to ask why he’s collecting rocks when he brings me back to why we are out here.
“I know about Ozzy.”
I blink. “You what ?”
“Indy told me about her. I guess shortly after getting out of the hospital, Ozzy went through a rough patch. She was still addicted to whatever those fuckers were pumping her with and was trying to cut off cold turkey. So she was hurting, withdrawing and everything else, and she was going to kill herself. Indy saw Ozzy sitting on a bench. She was on vacation with her mom and walked over because, well, you know Indy—a stranger is just an undiscovered best friend,” He rolls his eyes in annoyance, but I can tell he finds it endearing. It’s hard not to find Indy endearing.
“Anyway, she went over and just started talking to Ozzy. Apparently, she wouldn’t shut up for like forty-five minutes about nothing important.
Ozzy broke down, started wailing and collapsed onto Indy, telling her everything.
She told her she was scared because she didn’t think she could press charges against the men, she didn’t think she could stay clean, or that she could continue to live.
Indy listened to it all and then took her to get a cupcake. ”
A wave of guilt crashes over me, and I feel myself bracing against it like a storm surge. “She’s gonna hate me,” I whisper.
“She might,” Derek agrees honestly. “But not because of what you saw. Because you took something from her. You didn’t give her the choice to share that part of herself.”
“I couldn’t stop myself,” I confess. “And now I can’t look at her without wanting to kill the men who hurt her. Or vomit. Or both.”
“She’s still her,” Derek says. “Still that sarcastic little spitfire who stole all our hearts and took over our kitchen. Still the same woman who makes Pops smile when he’s in pain. You just saw more of the truth. Doesn’t mean the version she shows you now is fake. It means she survived.”
I nod slowly, biting down hard on my lip.
“I don’t know how to carry it,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to carry it for her,” Derek murmurs. “Just help her. Be her partner.”
“You ever feel too old for this shit?” I ask, causing Derek to let out a dry laugh.
“Little brother, I’m forty-five with a girlfriend two decades younger than me. I am always too old for all the shit in my life. Now, come on, I’m gonna need breakfast before we start chores and moving Pops.”
“You got him?” I ask, my voice rough as Jensen and Derek lift Pops down the stairs in his wheelchair.
I try to swallow the lump clawing up my throat as I watch them maneuver his frail body.
The man who raised us is now barely skin and bones, sunken into that chair like the light’s being slowly drained from him.
“Yeah,” Jensen grunts, setting the base down carefully. “Easy.” He claps Pops’ shoulder, and Derek wheels him toward the hospital bed we moved into the main room—right by the big windows. The sun is rising just enough to paint the fields in gold, and I hate how symbolic it feels.
“Alright!” Ozzy clasps her hands together once we get him in his bed.
“See, now we can watch movies on the big screen!” I watch her drop into a seat next to his bed, propping her feet up on his mattress.
I’m surprised when Pops pats her sock-covered feet with his hand, and she doesn’t flinch away.
Though I shouldn’t be shocked—the two of them are very close, despite the shitty things I said to her the other day.
I feel it again—that guilt. That twisting shame in my gut when I remember the way I spoke to her.
Like she didn’t belong here. Like she hadn’t already carved herself into the damn walls of this house.
“Now that I’m down here…” Pops’ voice is so tired, but I can hear the excitement he’s trying to put on as his lips twitch with that dry humor of his. “Maybe you’ll get outta my ass a little, let me live what’s left in peace.”
Ozzy scoffs and shoves his leg with her toe. “Please, old man, you adore me. You live for my smothering. Now I’m gonna shower, feed you, and you’re gonna eat whatever I bring without bitching.”
She walks past me, and our fingers brush—just that. Just a flicker of contact. But it short-circuits my brain. I want to grab her. Pull her in and kiss her so hard the past falls off her shoulders.
Instead, I keep staring at Pops, who chuckles softly and leans his head back. “You gonna keep lookin’ at me like you’re waitin’ for the engine to fail? Don’t tell me you got all your chores done already.”
My brothers laugh and start peeling off, giving me a moment with him. The second the door shuts behind Jensen, he speaks again.
“I wasn’t just talkin’ ‘bout your brothers.”
“Yeah. I know.” I shift on my feet. “I was just gonna talk to Ozzy for a second.”
Pops cracks open one eye, aiming it at me like a sniper scope. “She’s a good girl.” It’s a warning. A father’s warning.
Don’t fuck this one up.
“She is,” I agree, sitting in her chair, heart thumping. “She’s been through…”
“Hell,” he finishes for me. “She’s been through hell, and she’s come out the other side.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “She’s got a few demons that latched on when she came out, too.”
“Course she does! You think you get dragged through fire and come out without a few burns?” His voice is gravel. “I don’t need the details. I see her. I see what she carries.”
“I looked her up online,” I admit it before I even know I’m going to. The confession tastes like rust in my mouth. “I read everything. Saw everything. I didn’t mean to—I just needed to know. And now, I can’t stop seeing that picture of her. I don’t know how to look at her the same way.”
Pops goes quiet. Too quiet. “Did she tell you to do that?” he finally asks.
“No sir, I just… I had to know. And now, I don’t know how to look at her and not see those images. I don’t know how to look at her the same way.” I catch something out of the corner of my eye and look up. “Oh no,” I breathe out as I stare into the teary brown eyes that belong to Ozzy.
“How could you?” Her voice is sharp. Disbelieving.
I turn, and the world tips sideways.
Ozzy’s standing there, frozen in the doorway like she’s been electrocuted. Her face is flushed, her eyes burning. I shoot to my feet.
“Ozzy—”
She looks at me like I’m a stranger. No, worse. Like I’m the monster under the bed.
“How could you?” she hisses. Then louder. “How could you?!”
She turns and bolts, and my legs react before my brain does. “Ozzy! Wait—just wait!” I shout after her.
I catch up at the front steps, grabbing for her shoulders, but she shoves me back with a strength I didn’t know she had. “Don’t touch me!”
“Where are you going?” I beg, chasing her down the gravel drive like a goddamn fool. “You can’t leave Pops!”
She spins on me, wet hair whipping like a storm cloud.
“How could you betray me like that?” Her voice breaks and takes something vital inside me with it.
“I trusted you! I was trying…I was trying so fucking hard—” She shoves past me, back toward the house, just as Derek, Theo, and Jensen come out onto the porch.
“Ozzy!” I yell again, desperate. “Please! You have to know I didn’t do it to hurt you?—”
She doesn’t even look back. She locks her eyes on my siblings and snarls, “If you want me to keep taking care of Morris, keep him the fuck away from me.” And then she’s gone, the front door slamming like a gunshot behind her.
I lurch up the steps, but Theo and Derek block me.
“Move,” I growl, my vision narrowed to a tunnel.
Derek snorts. “You gonna fight me, little brother?”
I shove him, hard. Doesn’t matter. He’s bigger. Smarter. Meaner. He catches my shirt and throws me back so fast I hit the dirt with a solid thud as he jumps off the steps. I watch him take off a bracelet he’s wearing and toss it to Theo before looking back at me.
“I beat your ass when we were kids. I’ll do it now, Jackie. You stay away from that girl.”
“Fuck you,” I spit, squaring off. “She and I need to talk!”
“What you need to do,” Theo spits, arms crossed like a pissed-off linebacker, “is fuck off, go work on something and leave her alone, less you want to get your ass handed to you.”
“You gonna deliver it, Junior?” I taunt, needing to fight or talk to Ozzy. I need this anxiety rushing through me to calm down.
Theo’s already coming down the steps when Derek throws a hand out. “Stitches,” he warns.
She shrugs. “Fuck my stitches. I’ll beat his ass with one hand and buy myself an ice cream on the way to the ER.”
“Oh, that’s cute,” I bite. “Tell you what, shortbread, maybe leave the fighting to those of us with a real di?—”