Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Is it too much to ask
For one last kiss
For one last touch
For one last night
For one last memory
To last a lifetime
2:00 a.m.
Julian tapped his foot on the police station's cement floor. “You're telling me that I'm bailing out my twenty-three-year-old children and their friend because of a Truth or Dare game?”
The three of us were behind a wall of metal bars, hungover and coming down, dressed in our sweats, covered in feathers and eggs.
Here's the thing about a small town: if you screwed someone over in the past, they're going to screw you over in the future. I knew Emmett was going to hand us our ass the second he caught us in Mr. Heckle’s tree, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him; our prom didn't necessarily end on a happy note …
and thus explains my current predicament: stuck in a nine-by-nine cell with my brother and my brother's ex-girlfriend, nursing my worst headache since sophomore year college.
Karma had finally caught me and was happily biting me in the ass.
“Yes ...” I said back to Julian, trying to give a pleading smile.
As the words escaped my mouth, a searing pain impaled my brain like a shish kabob, making my face contort and fall into my hands.
“Dear God,” I grumbled as acid rumbled from my chest to my throat, dangerously threatening to spew out on the floor.
When I was seventeen, I could pull three consecutive all-nighters in a row, but now, a few shots of vodka and half a joint made me want to cough up my organs. Getting old is a bitch.
Julian crossed his arms, attempting to play the authoritative father role, but I could see a sneaky little smile of amusement lifting the sides of his cheek.
“You kids are lucky Mr. Heckle isn't pressing charges for trespassing and terrorizing his chickens.” The laugh escaped Julian’s mouth as he uttered the words ‘terrorizing chickens.’ “I'm sorry, I can't say that with a straight face.” His body shook as he gripped the cold cell bars, his laughter bounced off the walls as he doubled over, struggling to catch his breath, his face turning red.
Lucas planted his feet firmly on the ground and pushed himself up from the bench, his massive frame swaying slightly as he regained his balance, the hangover kicking his ass just as hard as it was kicking mine.
“I can promise those chickens traumatized me way worse than I traumatized them!” He raised the hem of his sweats.
“Here, I have the peck marks to prove it!”
Julian continued to heave with laughter as if our misery was somehow a comedy show, and he had front-row seats.
There was a loud groan from the corner of the cell, where Kayla was sprawled out, blanketing the cold bench with her limp body. “Can you please get us out of here, Mr. D? This place smells like feet and bodily fluids.” Her grimace made me worry that our earlier pizza would soon decorate the cell.
“Okay. Okay.” Julian turned to Sheriff Kennedy, standing in the archway connecting the cellar room to the hallway leading to the police station's front desk. “Sheriff, I think they've learned their lesson.”
Sheriff Kennedy jammed the silver key into the slightly rusted lock. The familiar clatter of metal sent a shiver down my spine. For a moment, I was seventeen again, staring down the barrel of eternal grounding, my partner in crime at my side.
But Jamie wasn’t beside me. I wasn’t in high school anymore.
A dizzying wave hit as I stared at the empty space where he should’ve been.
In a single breath, the years peeled away, slipping through my fingers without permission.
I could see Jamie’s guilt-ridden face, the floppy hair he refused to cut, his fidgeting fingers twisting the leather bracelet I’d made him when we were thirteen.
It was like staring at a ghost etched into the walls.
I turned my head away from where I wished Jamie was standing.
I smacked my hand on my chest, hoping the quick slap against my skin would lower my spiking pulse.
Ever since Jamie knocked on my door in Boston uninvited, it felt like a part of me was malfunctioning.
My heart raced uncontrollably, and my cheeks burned as if on fire.
My hands felt heavy, and my fingers tingled.
Stop it, I commanded myself. But my nervous system didn't listen.
Please don't do this. Not right now. You only have a few more hours, I pleaded, but bargaining with my brain wasn't helping.
Julian noticed my anxiety taking over. “Come on, let's get you guys home. All of you need to rest before tonight.”
Lucas and Kayla's eyes locked with mine, and I could feel the weight of their worry. It was as if they were trying to read my mind, searching for the answer to my distress.
I tried to brush it off. “Yeah, let's go. I think the lights in here are giving me vertigo.”
Julian's hands gripped the steering wheel as we returned home.
The only sounds were the faint humming of the engine and the occasional rustling of clothes as I shifted in my seat.
My eyes drifted toward the backseat where Lucas and Kayla sat, practically passed out.
I offered to swap seats with Lucas so he could sit in the front, but he refused, saying he wanted to be with Kayla in case she needed him.
Despite being hungover and recently released from jail, Lucas always had Kayla's well-being at the forefront of his mind.
The tires made a high-pitched noise as Julian pulled the car into the driveway.
He pressed the brake pedal, and the car came to a gentle stop.
Lucas, who was dozing off, stirred awake.
Meanwhile, Kayla was still sound asleep, her head resting on Lucas’s shoulder.
After he unbuckled his seat belt and then Kayla's, he gently slid his arms around her and lifted her body out of the seat, cradling her in his arms. He walked toward the house with slow, steady steps.
Kayla's long braids swayed gently as he carried her, her face looking so peaceful in his embrace.
I longed for that. I wanted someone who would carry me out of a car, hold me close to provide comfort, and set their own needs aside for mine.
I craved all of it. I had that once, and I let it go.
As I reached for the seat belt release button, Julian grabbed my hand, halting me in my tracks.
His soft eyes met mine in a way they only did when he was about to give me a dad talk.
“Do you remember when I picked you and Jamie up from the station after that party at Lover’s Lake?
The one right before your prom when Bethany asked Jamie to the dance? ”
I love how he remembered all the dramatic details. “Kinda. Honestly, most of the details are quite fuzzy after the police broke up the party and took me and Jamie.”
His face turned serious, and he adjusted his body to face me better. “You both rode home in silence. I had never heard you so quiet in all your years. Normally, you couldn't resist talking to Jamie, even when you were mad at him.”
“I liked hearing his voice,” I whispered to my hands, tightly clutched in my lap. “Even when I wanted to punch him in the face.” My cheeks cracked with a dry chuckle.
“Jamie went inside, but you hesitated. When I asked what was wrong, you didn't respond but instead asked a question.”
I genuinely couldn’t remember this conversation, only little fragments. Then again, when it came to emotional meltdowns, I tended to erase those from my thought bank. “What did I ask?”
Julian took a deep breath. “Why does love hurt so much?”
“Oh.” My chest aches. It turns out that I was still plagued by the same pain that haunted me at seventeen. “What did you say back to me?” I asked, not allowing my watery eyes to connect with Julian’s comforting ones.
“I told you: love hurts so that you know it's real.” Julian placed his warm hand in mine, stopping me from picking at my cuticles. “Just because we don't have that love anymore doesn't mean it never happened.”
I wanted to believe that, but the faster the years moved, the farther I felt from Jamie. The moments and memories began to mush together like one big dream, sometimes a nightmare.
“That pain.” Julian's hand reached out and gently pressed against my chest, over my heart.
“The ache you feel right here. It's not a curse.
It's a gift. Without it, all the good moments lose their importance, and all the bad moments lose meaning. It's that pain that makes every moment eternal.” He intensified his gaze. “Don’t lose yourself in trying to escape the pain.”
My chest began to heave up and down, and I realized I was crying.
Tears streamed down my face, and I couldn't stop them; there was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow.
I cried for every fight, every kiss, every hello, and every goodbye.
I knew that if reliving that pain meant feeling Jamie's arms around me one last time, I would welcome every second of that beautiful torture.
Julian leaned over the car console and wrapped his arms around me, causing my head to rest on his shoulder. I couldn't stop sobbing, and my tears were likely leaving permanent stains on his plaid shirt. I hated crying—I despised it. Yet the moment I returned home, that was all I seemed to do.
“The trick is to accept the pain without letting it bury you,” Julian whispered into my ear and rubbed his hand in gentle circles over my back, trying to soothe me. It felt as if I were a five-year-old child again, crying in his arms after scraping my knee while learning to ride a bicycle.
“I know,” I mumbled into his shoulder. “But I'm just so mad at him all the time.”
Julian lightly shook his head. “You're mad at his decisions, not at him.” He lifted my head from his shoulder and moved my face to look at him, “That poor boy's biggest fear was dragging you down with him. Don't let his fear become a reality.”
Tears streamed down my face, and I struggled to catch my breath. Julian tried to ease me out of this difficult conversation. He unbuckled his seatbelt and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Come on, kiddo, let’s get you cleaned up.”
As we stepped out of the car, my legs felt a little wobbly, but before we reached the front door, I threw my arms around Julian and squeezed him as tightly as I could, burying my entire body into him.
For just a little longer, I wanted to feel like his little girl again, like he could somehow solve all my problems and save me from myself.
“What's this for?” he asked softly, squeezing me back.
“Thank you,” I said, my face still buried in his chest. “I've never told you thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being my dad.”
I had never called him that before. In my heart, I hoped my father would pull himself together.
All these years, I reserved the title of ‘dad’ for him, wishing he might someday earn it.
I focused so much on what I lacked that I overlooked the blessings right in front of me.
Perhaps that's the curse of human nature; we become so distracted by the “maybe” in the future that we fail to appreciate the love right in front of us.