Chapter 4
Chapter four
Jaxon
“Did you make it?” Andre asks over the speakerphone of my rented SUV.
“Pulling into Wild Bluffs now,” I reply.
“I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let me or Annie come along.”
“I’m going to be in and out, Andre—two weeks tops. I’ll get my dad’s farm dealt with, I’ll grab the like three things in the house I want to keep, I’ll write a song for the benefit, and then I’ll be back. I don’t need you and Annie following me around, reminding me to reconnect with my roots.”
This seemed like a much better plan a week ago when I was in my shower back in Nashville. Now, it just seems silly. There is nothing for me in this town. Just a house I hate and a farm I never want to be shackled to, somehow controlling my life all these years later.
“And what about your security team?” he asks.
“I don’t need one while I’m here. Just don’t tell Carter—you know he takes his job as my head of security very seriously.”
“That’s because it’s a serious job, Jax. You deal with stalkers regularly.”
“Which is why I flew private into Denver and then drove out here with pockets full of cash. No one can find me, even if they’re fantastic hackers.”
“Do people even take cash anymore?” Andre asks.
“I’ll be fine, Andre.”
“I think you need to have Carter get a team out there. Or let me come out. Not Annie. Her romance with Tim is budding.”
“Ah, the update I was really hoping for,” I say, turning down the long, dirt driveway to my dad’s house.
The white, two-story craftsman-style house looms ahead of me, situated on top of one of the sand bluffs the town is likely named after.
The topography requires navigating two switchbacks, and I take them slowly, not giving in to the urge to fulfill my NASCAR fantasies like I did when I was seventeen and stupid.
Just one more thing my dad seemed to resent me for.
“It’s both adorable and nauseating at the same time,” Andre says, still filling me in on Annie’s love life. “And I think both Tim and I are going to gain twenty pounds with the amount of food she keeps bringing in.”
“I really do have a gift,” I say, as I park on the concrete pad in front of the garage.
“I’m not agreeing to that.”
“Worried I’ll try to play matchmaker with you next?”
“Yes,” Andre says. “And I don’t need that energy in my life right now.”
“Okay, well, I’m here. I guess…I guess I’d better go in,” I say, my heart racing with the memories that threaten to overwhelm me with their negativity.
“Good luck,” Andre replies. “Give me a call if you need anything. And don’t forget to reconnect with your roots!” He yells the last part just as I’m hanging up, so he doesn’t catch my “Yeah, right.”
I decided coming to Wild Bluffs was something I needed to do after a call with my therapist, the one I’ve been talking to for years, and more regularly since I’ve been unable to shake this terrible case of writer’s block.
Apparently, I need some kind of closure on this part of my life to help clear my emotional constipation—my words, not hers.
I will not, however, be reconnecting with anything or anyone while I’m here. Not Carter. Not Izzy. Though it would be great to get some release without her specter chiming in anytime I try to have sex.
Dr. Newsom was surprisingly unhelpful when I asked if she thought seeing Izzy while I was here would make her go away. It’s almost like she wanted me to make my own decision on the matter, which is clearly not what I pay her the big bucks for.
And since I’m just going to leave again, it seems easier to just…not. Pain might make for good songs, but I’m not sure I can deal with the crushing shame I feel when I think about how I acted toward Izzy when I was eighteen and dumb.
Truly, no good can come from reconnecting with anyone.
Well, it’d be fun to grab lunch or a beer with Carter.
We were friends back in high school and then reconnected last year during my tour.
But he’d also make me have a security team here, and they’d be in the house with me, and so I’m avoiding him too.
I shake my head, trying to focus. I have things to do, and they all require me to get out of this car and walk into that house.
I grab my bag out of the back, realizing how good it feels to be carrying my own suitcase, walking toward a house that hasn’t already been swept for threats, all by myself. No security team. No assistants. Just me.
If only it weren’t this house I was walking into.
I stop along the sidewalk near the stairs, grabbing the key out of the fake rock that has been there since I was in middle school. My dad’s lawyer confirmed the hidden key was still there when my team reached out about someone needing to see the house.
Unlocking the front door, I push inside. It’s…the same.
As if it’s a children’s game in some magazine, my eyes scan the scene in front of me, picking out the differences.
A new recliner and couch in the living room.
A slightly different version of our old refrigerator.
A bigger TV that hangs on the wall rather than sitting on the floor.
But, mostly, it’s the same. Sure, it’s aged.
It’s outdated now, but it’s the same expansive view out the back windows of the sand bluffs.
The same light wood cabinets in the kitchen.
The same God Bless This Mess sign hanging where my mom put it almost thirty years ago.
The fractured memories flood back. The smell of lavender mixed with the sharp tang of hospital-strength cleansers.
The sound of her coughing at night, muffled through the wall.
The pain that radiated through my four-year-old body when I heard she wasn’t coming home.
My dad shutting down. The fights. The arguments.
The silent resentment that lingered in the house like a thick fog.
Escaping to the Harpers’ house. Dad telling me the one thing I could do to make it all worthwhile was to take over the farm. More fights between us.
The house holds it all like a matching set of baggage.
I slip my phone out of my pocket and dial Andre back. “I need you to book me a flight home tomorrow,” I say after he answers. “This was a bad idea.”
“What happened?” Andre asks. “You were ready to stay two weeks five minutes ago.”
“And then I walked inside and remembered how much I hate this house.”
“I’ll get you a room at a hotel.”
“No. This was a bad idea. I closed the door on this part of my life when I was eighteen. My roots aren’t here; my demons are.”
There is a pause, and I hope it means Andre is coordinating with pilots to return the plane to Denver.
“I think you should stay,” Andre says instead of confirming my flight out of here.
“No.”
“Hear me out, you were in a house for two minutes and are so pissed off you’re changing your plans. That doesn’t say closure to me; it screams unresolved issues. Don’t be the guy who can’t face his past.”
There’s a long pause where neither of us says anything.
Andre sighs. “I’m not booking the plane for you to come home. Embrace the pain. Write about it. Channel it into a song for the Lupus Foundation.”
He mumbles something to someone else. Probably Annie.
“Annie’s not going to book a flight for you either. So you’re stuck there. For at least two weeks.”
“You two do know I can book my flights, right?” I ask defiantly.
“Maybe,” Andre responds. “But it’s been over ten years since you have. And I don’t think you will.”
I grunt. He might be right.
“Stay there, Jaxon. Deal with your shit. Then you can sell the house and the farm and never look back if that’s what you want. But you need to do something if walking into your childhood home is that triggering to you. Maybe call Dr. Newsom? At the very least, channel it into a song.”
“I’m firing you as soon as I get home.”
“Fine. I’m bored off my ass anyway. If you don’t start writing music or performing again, I’m going to have to leave for my sanity. I don’t do well with monotony, and I can only work out with you so many times a day.”
“One week,” I say, going back to our previous conversation. I can’t stay here for two weeks.
“Two months,” he counters.
“Ten days.”
“Fine.”
“Fine. But I will be waiting on that plane at exactly 12:01 AM ten days from now.”
“Deal,” Andre says.
“I hate you,” I say, dropping my bag on the floor.
“You can do this, Jax.”
“Maybe, but I definitely don’t want to.”
“You have to have some happy memories in that place. Find them,” Andre suggests. “Or don’t, but if that’s the case, then figure out how to use the memories and the pain to write music again.”
“I’ll try,” I concede before saying goodbye and ending the call.
Alone with my thoughts once again, I turn in a slow circle, trying to remember something other than the fights with my father. The man who might be gone but whose bitterness lingers here, looming over me like the big man he was in life.
Opening the fridge to grab a beer, I realize someone on my team must’ve coordinated to have groceries delivered for me.
The basics are in here, plus a twelve-pack of my favorite beer.
Trying not to think of who in town might know that I’m around—and if they’re able to keep a secret or not—I pop open the can of beer and make my way out to the backyard and my favorite feature of the house: a firepit with two concrete benches.
The memories of spending time out here with friends, strumming my guitar while they roasted marshmallows and talked, are happier ones. Playing chubby bunny with Izzy, proving once and for all that I could fit more marshmallows in my mouth than she could.
My stomach turns at the memories of Izzy, and I force myself to think of other things.
I take a seat on one of the benches, propping my feet on the lip of the unlit firepit.
It’d be better if it were night. When the stars are so bright it feels like the heavens have come down to earth to shine for you.
The nighttime activities in the city may be better, but there’s nothing like the night itself in the middle of nowhere—just silence and the stars.
Sipping my beer, I stay outside, but as soon as that last drop hits my tongue, I know I need to go back in, make some dinner, and get settled.
I’m looking forward to the challenge of cooking for myself.
I love having a personal chef who leaves meals for me even when he’s not around, but there’s something invigorating about having to do the mundane things for myself again, at least for a few days.
After I make myself a salad and a slightly overcooked steak, I wander around the house, pushing open doors to find that, just like in the kitchen and living room, very little has changed.
Upstairs holds two bedrooms and a guest room, so I save it for last, but finally, when there is nowhere else for me to explore, I head up the steps, dread pooling in my stomach.
My dad’s is the first room at the top. A room I’m not sure I can face.
I reach for the doorknob, pausing just as my hand makes contact.
I don’t want to go in.
Why face it tonight anyway? I have nine more days.
I can open the door tomorrow.
Or even the next day.
Moving on, I push into my old room and stop. It’s exactly the same.
If it weren’t dust-free, I’d assume no one had set foot here in fifteen years. Not a single thing is out of place, from my guitar chords poster on the wall to the football sitting on the nightstand.
Next to my bed, there’s a framed photo of Izzy and me playing GuitarStar in the basement of the Harpers’. It’s the one I packed and unpacked over and over again, not knowing how I could possibly leave that snapshot of pure happiness behind, not sure I deserved to take it with me.
I flip the picture down on its face—I didn’t deserve her friendship then, and I sure as hell don’t deserve her happiness now.