Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter
Eighty–Two
Beulah
Sending Stone’s calls to voicemail had physically hurt. When they stopped yesterday, I realized the real pain came with him giving up so quickly. I shook my head, frustrated at my train of thought. It was better that Stone was letting me go. If he knew about the baby, he’d resent me. Or he’d want me to end the pregnancy. I couldn’t do it and if I’d had to hear him ask me to end it, I would have never been able to forgive him. This was the way it had to be. I wasn’t going to be a burden to him, and neither was my baby.
Fiona’s calls hadn’t stopped. I felt guilty not answering her. She was worried when I left, that had been obvious. When I told her it wasn’t just me that I had to think of anymore, she stopped trying to talk me into staying. The questions and concern in her eyes as I turned to leave made me worry that perhaps I had told her too much.
My phone started ringing again, and I glanced down to see Jasper’s name. That wasn’t a call I had expected. Nor one I wanted.
I turned my attention back to the interstate in front of me. The first night, I’d driven to Jacksonville, Florida, finally pulling into a service station with twenty-four-hour security to sleep in my car. Even with the security, I had locked the doors, climbed into the back seat, and covered my entire body.
I had slept seven hours with no interruptions. When the sun came up and the car began to get warm, even with the windows cracked, I woke up and used that day to explore the city. I wanted to figure out if this could be my new home.
Unfortunately, the city was huge, and everywhere I went, I felt unsafe. After a day of studying the area, I went back to the same service station and slept. This morning, I started my journey to, where, I hadn’t figured out yet. But I got back on the road and decided to turn west instead of continuing my southward path. I’d glanced at a map on my phone and saw that I would enter Alabama once I made it out of Florida on this interstate. Using gas meant I would be spending money, and the further I got from Heidi, the more money I would spend to get back to her. I started looking at every city I passed, wondering if it would be a possibility for me.
My phone made an odd sound, and I checked it to find out what it was doing, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. The sign ahead said Tallahassee exits were coming up, and I decided to stop and get food. I had no appetite but again, it wasn’t about me anymore.
I could Google Tallahassee to see if I could afford to live there. So far, I had spent fifty dollars on gas, and my tank was almost at a fourth of a tank. I didn’t need to go any further west.
I pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food chicken place. My guilt over not answering Fiona was bothering me. I had a lot of guilt right now, and I could at least alleviate that one.
I sent Fiona a text to reassure her I was safe and that I was where I had intended to stay. I thanked her for her friendship and added that I would miss all of them and hoped to one day see them again. Then I sent it. Feeling better about one person in my life, I put my phone down and reached into my purse to see how much cash I had. I was on a budget, and normally, food wasn’t something I would take into such careful consideration. A candy bar and bottle of water wasn’t going to be a meal option now.
The money in my bank account was plenty to rent a small, affordable studio apartment, pay for the utilities to be turned on, and buy food. That would only last two months at most. I had to find a job immediately—a job where I could work until I gave birth. If I could get a job with health insurance, that would be even better, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. I currently had Medicaid but it was in the state of Georgia, not Florida. If nothing else, I was sure I could transfer that.
Taking out five dollars from my cash, I got out of the car and walked inside to use the restroom and order breakfast. The place was busy, but it was one of the more popular fast-food restaurants near the exit. I saw a mother with a baby on her hip and a toddler holding his father’s hand beside her. They were discussing what the kids wanted to eat. It looked easy. Or they made it look easy. Would it be so easy when it was just me standing there with my baby? No man to help carry the tray or hold the child while I went to the restroom—little things like that. My mother had done it. But I couldn’t remember if it had been tough on her when we’d been little.
The line to the toilets wasn’t bad, and I watched a mother change a diaper, and another helped her toddler wash her hands. With each baby and child I saw, I began to imagine my baby and how it would look. Through all the anxiety and worry, there was excitement. I smiled as I finished up and followed a mom with a baby into the busy dining room.
Standing in line, I had time to plan out what I would order using my five dollars efficiently. Grilled chicken and fresh apples with water were just under my budget. It was also the healthiest option I could find on the menu. I got it to go and headed back out to the parking lot. Eating in the peace of my car would be easier than finding a table in that crowd. However, I only took a few steps in the direction of my car, when I saw the man standing there. Even with the morning sun in my eyes, I recognized that stance, build- Jasper Van Allan.
I didn’t move. What was he doing here? Had he been stalking me? All these questions ran through my head as I stared at him. He didn’t move, he continued to watch me. I had too much to deal with, and Jasper was an added problem. He couldn’t find out about my baby. He was unstable and I didn’t trust him.
I walked toward him. I had no choice if I wanted to get in my car. My mind raced with every different scenario that would have led him here. None of it made sense. I hadn’t told a soul where I was going. I hadn’t even known where I was going. The stalking was the last thing I wanted to believe but I wasn’t coming up with other answers.
“Surprise,” he said with a small smile, tugging at his lips when I reached him. All I could do was stand there staring at him. I didn’t have anything to say to him. The last time I saw Jasper, I made it clear I never wanted to see him again.
“Say something, Beulah. Glaring at me will get us nowhere.” He sounded amused. Again, making me question his sanity.
“Why are you here?” I asked. The grip on my bag tightened.
“To find you. I would have thought that was obvious.”
I looked around the parking lot and back at him. “I’m in Tallahassee, Florida, Jasper. No one knows where I am. So, no, that isn’t obvious. We haven’t spoken since the day after you so cruelly slashed your best friend with information you didn’t have facts on in hopes of turning me against him.”
He winced. “Ouch. When did you get mean?”
“The truth hurts. Doesn’t make me mean. Makes me honest,” I replied. Trying to act as if I wasn’t borderline scared of him.
He lifted his left shoulder with a small shrug and then nodded. “You’re right. What I did was an asshole thing to do. But loving someone can make you do insane shit when you’ve lost them and can’t find a way to live without them.”
The insane shit was the part that worried me. Did mentally unstable people admit that they are doing insane shit?
“Why are you here?” I repeated as my nails dug into my palms causing me to wince.
He dropped his hands from the crossed position over his chest. “Because you ran. You’re alone. And I…we want you safe.”
We? I frowned. “Who is we?”
His right eyebrow lifted as if I had just asked a stupid question. “You know who.”
I waited a moment for him to clarify, and then my heart picked up its pace, “Stone?”
Jasper nodded.
“Stone sent you ?” I asked, finding that hard to believe.
He winced again. “Damn, you’re trying to kill me. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the last time we were together, you took his loyalty, friendship, and a lifetime of trust and threw it in his face. You turned on him, abandoned him like every other person in his life except Gerry. You were his family, and you tossed that away. After all he’d done for you.” My voice gradually got louder as I spoke. I hadn’t meant to go off on a rant but apparently I needed to get that out.
Jasper didn’t respond right away. He was silent. There was regret looming in his eyes. It was clear that he wished he hadn’t done it. I wanted to believe that deep down he wasn’t like his mother. Was he here for Stone? Was this his way of apologizing? Or was it that he saw his faults and wanted to change them.
“I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. I let my insanity when it came to you take over. You don’t love me, and you moved on. It was easy for you to forget what we had. But for me, Beulah, it hasn’t gotten easier. Nothing has changed for me. I think about you every damn day. Falling in love with you wasn’t something that disappeared when you did. My biggest fucking fear is that I am always going to love you.”
Loving someone you can’t be with was life-altering. But Jasper hadn’t loved me the way I love Stone. I knew that even if he didn’t understand, there was a difference.
“We’re related, Jasper. We never had a chance.”
He nodded. The sadness still there on his face. “I know, Beulah. But my heart doesn’t give a fuck. I wish to God it did.”
Through all of this, everything he’d done, everything I had grown to hate him for, I hadn’t considered he was hurting and unable to move on. My heart had been Stone’s so quickly that I’d known what I had felt for Jasper had not been the real thing.
“I’m sorry.” And I was sorry I had hurt him. Not sorry that I had fallen in love with Stone.
“Me too,” he replied. “For a lot of shit and pain I caused. But I’m here now. You need me. I want to be needed. I’m not here to win you over. I know our reality will always make that impossible. But let me help you. If not for my sake, let me help you because Stone called me. He trusted me enough to call me. I don’t know why he can’t be here. I don’t know why he was so damn desperate that he asked me, but he did. Let me stay with you. Not because I traced your phone and tracked you down, but because he wants me here. He needs to know you’re safe,” he stopped and sighed. “And I need to know you’re safe.”
There were a lot of things I could say at this moment. I wanted to argue with him about why he needed to leave. I could fight with him and send him back to Manhattan. I knew Stone was facing a fight that involved his son. If Jasper staying here eased Stone’s concern for me and he could focus on Wills, then agreeing to this would help some of my guilt. But I would have to keep the truth from Jasper. When he was satisfied that I was safe and left, I’d have to move. Go somewhere else. It made my already complicated life harder, but I would do it for Stone.
“I was thinking of staying here in Tallahassee. My next step was looking at apartments,” I told him. Knowing I wouldn’t put down money for anything he helped me find.
“Follow me to return my rental car, and we will figure out where to go. But seriously, Beulah, Tallahassee? There are better options. This may be Florida, but it’s not exactly the best parts.”
“I don’t want to go any further west and I can’t go south. It’s putting too much distance between me and Heidi.” Just believe my lies and let’s get this over with. I had to move on with my life.
“We don’t have to go any further west. It’s time we turned north. You’re in the deep south and moving further in. Time to run while you can.”
I was doing this for Stone. He loved me. He was worried about me even after I had hurt him by running away. I could survive pacifying Jasper if that was what I had to do.