Chapter 10 #2
Her voice is a raspy whisper here in the dark. I check the time and see that it’s still the middle of the night. We fell asleep early, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she woke up.
“I’m fine right here,” I reply softly.
“You can’t be comfortable.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to be near you.”
She lies back on the pillow, watching me in the moonlight. My leg is cold where her hand just was.
“Come here.” She pats the bed beside her. “You should lie down.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
I sit forward, pulling my legs off the bed, and rub my hands down my face.
“Because if I lie down next to you, I’ll want to hold you, and—”
“Brooks. Get your butt over here.”
I watch her for a moment, but her gaze doesn’t falter. I stand and then lower myself next to her, keeping at least a foot between us. Jules wiggles onto her side to face me.
“Thanks for letting me come here tonight.”
“If I’d known what happened, I would have brought you here much sooner.”
She nibbles her lower lip, and I can’t resist reaching out to tug that lip free with my thumb. This is where she was always supposed to be. With me, in this house.
And now she’s here, lying on this bed with me, and it feels completely surreal. Nothing’s ever felt so right, yet unbelievable at the same time.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” I ask her.
“I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rushing water. Scared the hell out of me. The pipe in the attic burst, and it ran for so long that it destroyed the floors, both upstairs and downstairs. It’s a mess.
I called the fire department because I didn’t know what to do, and Bridger came. Got the water and electric shut off.”
“So you’ve been living there for several days without water or power?”
“Just water. We got the power back on the next day after the water experts came in and drained most of it so I wouldn’t get electrocuted from walking across the floor.”
I growl. There’s no holding it in. The mere thought has me pulled tight in agitation.
And she must sense it because she reaches over and takes my hand, as if she does it every day, and it immediately soothes me.
“It’s going to be a couple of weeks of repairs.” She swallows hard. “And it’s so expensive. I didn’t want to dip into the money Justin left me, but—”
“Whoa.” I tighten my hand in hers, frowning at her. Her eyes go wide, as if she just realized what she said. “Back up, Wildfire. What money?”
Her eyes close, and she buries her face in the pillow, letting out a little moan.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Hearing his name makes me a little unhinged, but I stay calm as I nudge her back so I can see her face.
“Talk to me. I’m going to be real with you right now.
I need to be able to move forward with you because being without you is nothing but pure hell.
I suspect that we can’t do that until you fill in the past fifteen years for me. We need to put it behind us, Jules.”
“You’re going to be so mad,” she whispers.
“Maybe.” I won’t lie to her and deny it. “But we need to be honest. I can wait if you’re tired and want to go back to sleep.”
She shakes her head and rubs her free hand under her nose.
“I’d like to sit up, though.” She pushes up and leans her back against the headboard, then draws her legs up to her chest, as if she’s protecting herself. “How much do you want to know?”
“Every-fucking-thing.”
“Jesus.” She drops her forehead to her knees, and I sit up to face her, waiting patiently for her to gather her thoughts. “I think we’re both going to be mad.”
“Then we’ll be angry together.” I reach for her hand again, and she lets her legs fall, her eyes pinned to her linked fingers. “You can tell me just about anything. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Of course not. You live here.”
Her lips twitch, and I smile at her.
Those gorgeous blue eyes widen and fill with unshed tears.
“I think that’s the first time you’ve smiled at me in … God.” She shakes her head and looks away, pulling herself together. “Okay, so I’m going to talk, and you can ask questions as you have them because it’s a lot.”
“Sounds fair.”
She licks her lips, and I hold up a finger. “Hold that thought. I’m going to grab us some waters. Do you want a snack?”
“Just the water is good.”
I lean forward and kiss her cheek, then climb from the bed and rush to the kitchen, snag the bottles from the fridge, then return to her, sit on the mattress, and pass her the drink.
She watches me as she takes a sip from the bottle, then clears her throat.
“He was just my friend back then,” she begins. “I never lied to you about that. He was my roommate, and he was … nice. Charming, I guess. All of us got along, and I thought he was a harmless, normal guy.”
I nod because I know this. I never suspected that she was fucking around on me with him. She wouldn’t have done that.
“That second year we lived in the house together, my senior year, it was the anniversary of my dad’s death, and I was having a hard time that day. You were at work, and my mom wasn’t answering the phone, and I felt lonely. Just a shit day, you know?”
I nod, and she takes a drink and keeps talking.
“Justin came home from class and asked me why I looked so blue, and I told him. And that’s when the suicide threats started.”
“Fuck.”
She nods. “Yep. He saw the weakness, the thing that would get my attention, and he used it for the next thirteen years.”
My heart stops, and I stare at her. “What?”
“Are you sure you want to know this?”
“No.” I shake my head, but she takes my hand. Fuck, she had to deal with that piece of shit for thirteen years? I finally shrug a shoulder. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Any time he thought I wasn’t paying him enough attention, he’d threaten to kill himself.
He did it often, and as you know, that’s why I’d go back to Seattle when I was visiting here, or get off the phone with you.
It wasn’t just you, either. He hated it when I talked to my mom or any of my friends.
He’d find a way to manipulate the situation and make me feel sorry for him.
I didn’t see it at the time. I truly thought he meant what he was threatening.
That he was suicidal, and after finding my dad, I just … I couldn’t risk it.”
“Christ.”
“I’m going to skim over some things because otherwise, we’ll be here all night. The gist of it is, he played the role of supportive bestie really well. After you and I broke up, he was Mr. Dependable. Ate ice cream with me, consoled me, told me how stupid you were.”
She gives me a half smile, and I huff out a laugh.
“He played the part. For five years, he was just my friend. We weren’t always roommates, but he lived close by. Then he got cancer.”
My eyebrows climb at that.
“And he told me that his dying wish was for me to marry him.”
No. Absolutely fucking not.
I stand and pace the bedroom, needing to punch something. I can’t sit still.
If the next words out of her perfect mouth are to tell me that she married another fucking man, I might lose my goddamn mind.
“I told you,” she says with tears in her voice. “You don’t want to know this, Brooks.”
“Fuck.” I push my hands through my hair and then stare at her. “Finish it.”
“Brooks—”
“Just say it.”
“Come back here.” Her voice is so shaky, and she’s so upset, I couldn’t resist her if I wanted to. So I climb back on the bed and take her hand again. “He said that he’d been given one year to live, and he wanted to spend that year with me. He manipulated me into marrying him.”
“You fucking married that prick?”
She nods, pressing her lips together.
“Then he miraculously went into remission.”
“Jesus Christ. Did you not go to his appointments with him?”
“Oh, I did. But Justin was wealthy, and he could pay a doctor to say whatever he wanted. So for the next eight-ish years, whenever I told him that I wanted to separate, he’d either attempt to kill himself, or his cancer was back.”
“That motherfucker.”
“We had separate bedrooms.”
My eyes fly to hers in surprise. “Why?”
“Because he was so sick, and he said he needed to rest. Which worked well for me because sex with Justin—” She shakes her head, and I feel nauseous.
“Just, no. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
He was controlling. He was manipulative.
And honestly, I think I was a prize for him.
It’s not that he was so head over heels in love with me that he couldn’t live without me.
He just decided at some point that he wanted me, and figured out a way to make it happen, and decided that he’d won.
He never said that, but that’s my gut feeling. ”
“Is he why you react the way you do to being startled?”
Her eyes close again. “Yeah. He liked to scare me. He did it all the time, and then he’d laugh and laugh.
He was cruel. He isolated me from everyone.
By the time he died, my mom was gone, but I never really talked to her much anyway.
My old roommates stopped checking in to see if I wanted to get together.
I was his thing. For the most part, he left me alone.
I couldn’t tell you the last time he touched me.
Not just sexually. When he was my bestie, as he called himself, we’d hug or he’d touch my arm, that sort of thing.
But later, no. He didn’t touch me at all. ”
She swallows, and I can tell that we’re nearing the end of the story.
“How did he die, baby?”
Jules blows out a breath and tips her head back against the headboard.
“We were in a car accident.”
Every muscle in my body tightens, and I can’t stand it anymore. I pull her into my arms and hug her so close, I’m surprised she can still breathe.
“Hey, I’m okay.”
“Fuck. Fuck.”
Her fingers comb through my hair, and she rubs her hand up and down my back.
“I’m right here, Brooks.”
I pull back enough to cup her chin and lay my lips over hers. “Are you telling me I almost lost you?”
“No, I was barely hurt,” she says, and the knot in my stomach loosens just a bit. “I’m okay.”