Chapter 23 #2
“Jack—” I started, but he raised a hand to silence me, and I stopped immediately.
“It’s my turn to talk,” he said, his tone biting. He stopped pacing, approached the bars, and finally looked at me. “I listened before, and now it’s my turn.”
I nodded, the burn of his words and the intensity of his stare sinking deep. I didn’t force myself to look away. I deserved every bit of it. Whatever he wanted to say, I would take it.
Jackson sighed loudly. “I talked to Carly.”
I hesitated before speaking. “You did?”
“Yeah…she told me everything. What you did, your plan… It looks like they’re going to give her the money. So I guess I have to thank you for that.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I told you, everything I did, I did for you.”
“What am I supposed to say?” he snapped, his tone hard again. “How do you expect me to feel? Huh? I thought it was real. What we had was real.”
I reached out to touch him, my hand sliding through the bars, but he recoiled. “You know it was. It was more real to me than anything in the world. It was real. It is real.”
“Was I just a sucker to you? Was that all I was?”
Tears pooled, blurring my vision before they spilled down my face. “Of course not. You know you weren’t.”
“So why didn’t you tell me? Why all this? Did you just use me?”
“Is that what you think? That I used you?” My voice rose. “You brought me flowers. You offered me a job. You brought me to the farm. I never wanted any of that.”
“Well…maybe I did, but that was awful convenient for you. You saw an opportunity and you took it.”
“The night of the town hall, I was leaving. I had just dropped Walt off, and I was leaving that night. Then I found out that the prison bus had been discovered. I didn’t know what to do. That’s when I ran into you.”
“So you did use me.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. I needed a place to hide out until the news died down, and I’m sorry if that makes it seem like I used you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just going to leave after the summer? After everything? And just leave me wondering?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t plan on any of this.
You have to believe me. I didn’t expect to stay as long as I did.
I didn’t expect to meet Luke and Tibb. I didn’t expect to love living on the farm, helping you with the expansion.
I didn’t expect”—I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat as the tears fell—“you. I wanted to tell you so many times. But I knew if I did, I would be implicating you. I would be forcing you to have to make an awful decision about me. You have every right to be angry with me”—I drew myself taller—“but what I did was for the best.”
“You’re damn right I have every right to be angry with you!
” This statement crashed out of him and ricocheted off the walls.
“You allowed me to confess my love for you. You know how hard that was for me.” His voice cracked on the last word and dropped to nothing but a broken whisper.
“And all that time, you knew we couldn’t be together—not really, not forever—and you didn’t say anything. ”
“I didn’t want to fall in love with you.
That was the last thing I wanted, and I tried not to.
I really tried.” I pressed my fingertips to my wet cheeks.
“Luke told me that the Flower Farm is where the wildflowers grow. He was right, except…for me, it wasn’t just about the farm.
It was you. You are the safest place for me. ”
Jackson’s boots thudded against the floor as he paced back and forth, his footsteps restless, before he returned to the bars, standing within reach, the silence between us loud.
“I’m sorry, Jack. But I don’t regret any of it.
When I survived the bus crash, I thought I was cursed.
Daddy always said that we were survivors.
Sure enough: I survived a bus crash that killed everyone else.
I survived a fire that killed everyone else.
Sometimes getting to keep living is to be cursed.
But, see, that’s the thing: On the riverbank after the crash, I realized that I hadn’t been living at all.
That I didn’t know how to live or what that even meant.
All I knew after surviving the crash was that I wanted to take back control of my life.
Experience things that I had never experienced.
I was given an opportunity to do that. So…
I don’t regret walking away from that crash and not calling the police.
I don’t regret you or falling in love with you. You were worth every step I took.”
Jackson’s tight jaw relaxed as he clasped my chin and tipped my head up to look at him. Gentleness flooded his eyes. “Finish your story.”
My breath hitched at his unexpected touch. “I told you everything.”
“You didn’t. I don’t know why I am talking to you through bars.”
My face blanched, heat flushing through me. I assumed Tibb had given him the article. “You didn’t read about it?”
“I want to hear it from you.” Jackson reached for the chair Walt had last sat in and eased into it. “I’m listening.”
I opened my mouth, but no sounds came out. I could not get my tongue to wrap around that story. So I said, “I accepted my fate, my sentence, and I’ll accept whatever additional time I have to serve.”
“That’s not good enough. I read what they said that you did, and I don’t believe any of it. I know you. What really happened that night?”
“Why does it matter? Why do you want to hear about this?”
“You still haven’t faced what happened. I watched you slowly open up at the farm.
You opened up to Luke and Tibb. We started taking our walks, you started talking to me, and I watched you blossom.
You are not the same person you were when I met you at the farmers market.
But you’re not done yet. There’s truth you have to unearth. Finish it. I’m listening.”
I marveled at how he stayed so steady, so undeniably himself, even in the midst of all this. I thought I was finished, that my work on the farm was done. But I wasn’t. And Jackson knew it. There was one more truth left to uncover.
“So…” I drew in a deep breath, steadying myself.
Jackson’s unwavering eyes gleamed with power, and I drew from that.
I dropped my arms to my sides and opened myself up to him.
“Hiding in the woods that day, knowing I’d failed my sister, failed all of them.
I watched Deacon Ridley and his boys. Jack, I watched them smoke cigarettes while my home—while my family—burned.
Like they were watching TV. And I was consumed with rage.
I almost didn’t survive that day. I started to run toward them.
And just then, a car came careening down the road.
They tried to move out of the way, but the car hit them.
All three of them went flying. The car hit a tree.
It was Ms. Byrd’s car. I ran to it. There was no one inside. ”
I sucked in a shuddering breath, and Jack leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs.
“I heard a snap of twigs and turned to see Ms. Byrd. As she hurried toward me, she said she saw the fire and came to help, but when she saw Deacon Ridley and his boys just standing there, she knew. She said she put the car in gear and jumped out. And then I heard a pop. She froze and her eyes stretched. Red bloomed across her chest, and I caught her before she hit the ground. She died in my arms.” I wiped the tears from my face.
“It was Deacon Ridley. He wasn’t dead yet.
He shot her. I laid her gently down, and then I walked over to him.
After everything, he still had that smirk on his face.
I sat on the ground next to him and watched him die, watched him take his last breath.
I could have helped him, but I didn’t. Afterward, I buried the bodies and took pleasure in shoveling dirt over Deacon Ridley’s face.
When I finished, at first I just sat there.
I didn’t try to run. I had no place to go.
But then I escaped into the woods and lived there for three months until some hikers discovered me.
The police arrested me for murder. I tried to tell them the story, but they didn’t believe me.
Daddy was a known gambler, and Deacon Ridley was a highly respected man in town, and I technically did not exist. They didn’t believe he would be capable of such things.
And there were no witnesses still alive.
So I was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years. ”
Jackson processed this for a second, allowing the words to settle before forcing himself to his feet. “We can appeal.”
I managed a small, pained smile. “There are no witness. No evidence. Just the word of the only survivor.”
“You don’t want to fight this?”
“I know the truth. And that’s enough. I can survive this.”
Jackson looked down, his eyes burning into mine. “You are more than a survivor. You are more than what you’ve been through. Do you hear me?”
My chest loosened just a little. Because his words felt real. It was true. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”
Jackson cupped my face in his hands. “That doesn’t change the way I see you. The same Leigh I fell in love with. Nothing is going to change that.”
Jackson’s hands slipped through the bars, pulling me toward him with the fluid grace of the wind.
The world goes strangely and impossibly quiet.
Our foreheads touched, the coolness of the metal between us forgotten, as we breathed in silence, each exhale blending into the other.
His arms wrapped around me, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to fall into him one last time.
Enjoyed the pressure of his lips against mine one last time.
I inhaled against him, savoring the warmth of his body and his scent one last time.
“So, what now?” he asked.