18. Chapter 18 #2
“No, but dead is dead, right? And it was all because of me.”
I rush out of the lobby from the elevator and push open the lobby doors. Once outside, I look in both directions for Jude. My vision is blurry with tears. I sniff and wipe them away.
It’s then that I notice a crowd gathering, and there’s a traffic jam.
Something tells me to go over there. It tugs at me so hard that I start running.
When I reach the group of people, I force my way in to see what they’re looking at.
Everyone’s standing around, using their phones to record and talking about what’s happened, but I can’t understand a damn thing.
I break through to find a body lying on the street and the sound of an ambulance in the distance. A car is stopped right next to him with a shattered windshield. It takes me a second to recognize the familiar blue button-up and jeans.
“Jude!”
I rush at him and fall to my knees. “Someone help! Help him!”
“Help is coming,” someone says.
I take his hand, and when he moves his head and groans, I cry out in relief. He’s alive. Thank god.
“Get him through this. I’ll do anything for him. I’ll fix this. Please,” I pray quietly. Then, I say to Jude, “I’m here, baby. I’m so fucking sorry. I won’t ever leave you again. Just hang on. Help is coming.”
He can’t speak, though he tries.
Once EMS arrives, I ride in the back with Jude as they insert IVs, checking his pulse, yelling numbers I don’t understand. I watch helplessly. Jude barely looks like himself, his face battered and blood caked in his hair.
“Is he going to make it?” I ask.
“We’ll do our best,” the man says.
It feels like an eternity to reach the hospital.
“Then I had to wait another eternity to know whether he was okay. His parents arrived, crying. They knew about us. They were nice people, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them the accident had been my fault. I couldn’t face them with the truth.”
I rub my chest, and my eyes water, hating to face my past. But you can’t run from it, no matter how hard you try. You can’t run from your own mind. If anyone understands that, it’s Jinx.
He says nothing, giving me the space and silence I need to process and tell my story. Thank god for that.
“He clung to life. Jude really tried to live, but he died a week later. They had to operate on his brain to stem the bleeding and repair the damage. I thought to myself that he’s going to get better.
He’ll be okay. We can live together for the rest of our lives.
I promised him that in the quiet of his hospital room.
But no one heard my prayers. I was punished for turning my back on him.
He had a severe stroke, and there was no saving him after that.
” I rest my face in my hands, trying to hold back the flood of tears. “So you see, it was my fault.”
Jinx moves off the bed, removes my hands from my face, and straddles my lap.
He cups my face, forcing me to look at him, staring for so long that I try to look away, but he won’t let me.
“Yeah, it was your fault. It was an accident, but if you hadn’t turned him away, he would probably still be here. ”
I huff an irritated laugh at his insensitivity. I get it now. I get why the women got frustrated with Jinx. “You’re an asshole.”
He just shrugs. “Yeah, so I’ve heard. It doesn’t make what I’m saying less true.
More tactful people will tell you that the accident would’ve happened anyway.
I don’t believe in fate and destiny. Our lives are intertwined by the decisions we make every single day.
Your parents would’ve come around if they loved you.
Jude needed you more. Being abandoned by those who are supposed to love you… It hurts.”
I want to rage at him, but he’s not wrong. Jude did need me. You could see it in his eyes when I told him we were over. And I fucking needed him, too.
Jinx doesn’t fill me with platitudes or comfort. That’s clearly not his style. He’s too blunt to be careful with his words. And that’s okay. I have a feeling I’ll always know where I stand with him, which is a good thing.
“You’re right,” I finally say with a sigh.
He lets go of my face, and I rest my forehead on his chest. His hands wrap around my back, trailing blunt nails over my skin in soothing circles.
“I lived like a zombie after that. I went to work, went home, drank too much, and slept. I stopped talking to my friends, his parents, and my parents. While I hated myself, I was angry with them, too. I was… fucking done. Eventually, I worked my way back into their lives, but our relationship was never the same again. A year later, Dad died of a heart attack, and then not long after that, Mom died of pancreatic cancer. There was nothing left for me in New York, so I uprooted my life and moved to the mountains here. Jude always wanted to visit Colorado and learn to ski. We never got the chance. I’ve been alone ever since.
” I wrap my arms around him, his body tight and warm.
“That was the biggest reason for my reluctance to bring you on as my sub.”
Jinx eases me back by my shoulders to make me look at him again. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” I whisper.
“How do you feel now that you’re a Dom again?”
“Whole. Complete. At home.”
He leans forward to kiss me. “Good, because I want to be here, too. You may see similarities between Jude and me, but I’m not him.”
“I know, but you understand my reluctance, right?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Like you, I wanted a life of my own, outside of my parents’ control.
I wanted my autonomy.” I finger back his bangs to see his face better.
“Now I want to have what I’ve denied myself for so long.
I thought that living without a partner was my punishment.
That maybe I could stop feeling so guilty, but it hasn’t worked yet. ”
“I guess we both need to learn a little something about guilt and how we live with it.” Jinx kisses my forehead. “Do you have a picture of him?”
I pull away, get up, and hold out my hand to him. He takes it, and I help him stand. I lead him down the stairs and into my office, where I sit on the rug in front of the cabinet under the bookshelves, and he sits next to me.
After opening the cabinet, I pull out a memory box and hold it on my lap without opening it. “I’ve never shown anyone this,” I whisper almost reverently, running my hand over the worn cardboard.
Jinx rests a hand on my knee. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay.”
I finally lift the lid, then hand the box to Jinx. He can go through it.
The first thing he pulls out is the photo. I swallow the lump in my throat, but my mouth has gone dry. My hands clench, so I don’t snatch the box back. The impulse is strong enough to make me feel sick.
He stares at the picture for a long time, then says, “He’s really beautiful.”
“He was. Inside and out. Like you.”
His eyes meet mine before they’re on the photo again. “I’m not.”
“Jinx…”
He sets the picture aside, ignoring me, and pulls out the necklace with the compass. After looking at it for a second, he sets that aside as well. He takes out the cologne, pulls the cap off, and takes a whiff.
“Please don’t spray it,” I tell him.
He nods and puts it on the floor with the other items.
Next, he takes out an ‘I Love NYC’ keychain. It still has the key to my apartment attached. There’s also his favorite coffee mug that he used every morning he stayed over. It’s a handmade ceramic mug with intricate glazing. I’d bought it for him at an outdoor craft event.
There are some birthday cards and notes I’d written to him. He liked to keep those things, but he’d left those behind as well.
“A whole life shoved into a box,” he says. “It’s kinda sad.”
“It is. I’m sure his family has all sorts of things, but this was all he left at my place when… I don’t know why I kept them all.”
Jinx carefully puts everything into the box, covers it, and places it in the cabinet. He climbs into my lap and rests his head on my shoulder. “It’s the guilt, and you miss him.”
“Yeah…”
“I didn’t have trinkets, but I saw my guilt daily on Aleks’ skin. I heard it in his nightmares. Every time I see him, I’m reminded of it. He tried to help me, and all he got in return was fucking pain.”
The more he talks about Aleks, the clearer the picture becomes, even if he doesn’t tell me the full story. “His suffering wasn’t your fault. You must know that.”
“Of course it was. Not all of it, but I made it worse.”
Something tells me that no amount of words will change his mind. Just like no amount of words will change mine. Instead, I hold him close as we get lost in our pasts.
“Will you tell me the full story one day?”
He shrugs. “Maybe, but I doubt it. That’s something I’m going to have to face him with eventually.”