Chapter 17 #2
Her mom grabbed hold of a small, red book, then turned around and handed it to her. “I have a collection of old letters and diaries. This one belonged to our Belle. One of your ancestors. A prostitute.”
Jessie looked down at the book. “I know who she is.” She turned it over in her hands. “I didn’t know you had her diary.”
“You never asked.”
“I …” She looked down at the book and felt a tug of connection. “She must’ve been rejected a lot. People aren’t very nice to prostitutes.”
“They’re not very nice to women in general. Especially when you’re not doing exactly what they want you to. If you’re just a little bit different.”
Jessie felt her eyes fill with tears. “Yeah. You’re right, Mom. That’s true.”
“It’s an incredible thing when you can make it through life being yourself.
Because we’re all different, but people don’t want us to be.
You’re special, Jessie. You always have been.
You’re strong. And talented. I would never be brave enough to run for office, because you can’t just decide that you don’t want to talk to people today.
And some days I really don’t want to talk to people. ”
“I know,” said Jessie.
“But I don’t know if you realize how special you are.
You are. And I’m very sorry I didn’t know that people were being mean to you when you were a child.
It’s just … I looked at you and I saw the most beautiful girl in the whole world.
I thought everybody was being nice to you.
Because you are so funny and so clever. And the most fun to be around. ”
Jessie felt a tear slide down her cheek.
It had honestly never occurred to her that Mom just didn’t realize that not everybody loved her the way she did.
And she had never really thought about how much Mom loved her.
She’d had the deep acceptance she had always wanted right here.
She hadn’t seen it. Because it didn’t look the way it did in movies. Because it wasn’t conventional.
But God, it was real.
Jessie closed the distance between her and her mom. “Can I hug you?”
“Yes.”
Jessie hugged her, even though she knew it wasn’t Mom’s favorite. She let her go before she wanted to, for that reason too.
“You are the best mom,” she said. “Just the very best. You love me exactly the way a mom should love her daughter.”
She clung to the diary. She had a feeling she was going to find something in it that she really needed. Because her mom knew her well enough to give it to her.
“You’re the best daughter.” Lucinda reached out and smoothed Jessie’s hair, the simple contact healing in ways Jessie would never be able to articulate to someone who didn’t understand her mom.
She didn’t need them to understand.
She did.
Jessie decided to hold that realization close, even as she walked out of the trailer, then drove herself back to her home.
She opened up Belle’s diary and started reading.
About a woman who had always wanted to be a lady but had simply never had the chance. It was a sad story. Belle had been doomed to fail from the start.
But it wasn’t that she was never a lady; it was that the world wouldn’t let her be. And then there was a man who saw her as a lady, no matter her circumstances. A man who saw her exactly as she was and loved her.
Belle rejected him, because she was scared. Jessie couldn’t blame her. It was terrifying when you had spent your whole life being told you weren’t good enough.
It was just the most terrifying thing.
Jessie read all the way to the end. Then she pressed her face into her pillow and cried.
He felt like shit.
He felt like shit, and it was the day of the election. He took his ballot and filled it out, and dropped it in the box the very first thing. When his pen hovered over Jessie Jane’s name, he felt a deep longing reverberate in his chest. He filled the bubble in without hesitation.
Now the vote was cast, and it really was over. Unless …
What was he doing? What the fuck was wrong with him?
He didn’t want it to be over. He just didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know how else to be.
He didn’t know how to … want something better.
For a brief moment, he had.
His grandfather had loved him, invested in him, and he had given him that land. God damn, Flynn had felt honor bound to do something with it. Something great. Something interesting.
Because that old man had believed in him.
But as far as his personal life went, he had just never … Love seemed to take so much work. Just so much work. And that was why he told himself he and Jessie weren’t in love.
Because he really didn’t want to go through all that.
The ache in his chest intensified.
He decided to drive a different route home than he normally did. At least it wasn’t love. At least.
He kept on repeating the words to himself, but something felt wrong. Felt like a lie. He turned off the street he was on, onto a residential street, and it took him a minute and a half to realize that he had driven to his mother’s house.
She was standing in the front yard, watering her flowers. Flynn stopped his car in the street. Then he pulled over, getting out before he could decide what he even wanted to say.
“Morning,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, starting and putting her hand on her chest. “Good morning. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Because I punched Michael?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose he didn’t tell you why.”
She shook her head. “I’m sure he deserved it.”
Her words stopped Flynn in his tracks. “Are you?”
“He can be … abrasive. He gets that from his father.”
Flynn held himself back. Oh, your husband’s not perfect? Your precious son isn’t perfect?
No. He didn’t say that.
“I didn’t realize,” he said again. “I mean, I realize I don’t have a great relationship with them, but I thought that was me.”
“I don’t think it’s you.”
Flynn swallowed and took a step toward her. “Mom. I have to ask you something. I don’t want you to lie to me, even if it’s hard. Just please don’t lie to me.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll try to be honest.”
He was on one side of the fence, and she was on the other, and it felt like a damned metaphor. “Is it true that you didn’t want me?”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Is that what Michael said?”
“It’s not why I punched him. But yeah. It’s one of the things he said.”
“I’ve never said that in front of him. I’ve never said that.”
“But did you?”
Her lip wobbled, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t want you. I didn’t know how to have you.
I made a mistake, going off with your dad.
And I made a mistake leaving you behind.
But I was young, and I was afraid. I thought I would never be able to start over if I had a child.
It felt like too much baggage. And your dad already had kids.
You were so close to your brothers, and I just thought you would be okay.
But I missed you. I got married to the first man who wanted me, because I was trying to justify leaving you.
I didn’t want to be alone. I made a lot of very poor decisions.
And by the time I realized how bad they were, it was too late to fix them.
I never felt I had a right to you, Flynn.
By then, I did want you, but I was worried about where you would fit in.
And the older I get, the angrier I am at myself for that.
For caring about what other people thought.
For … I love my kids. All of them. But I didn’t love you very well.
And whenever I see you … I’m afraid you’re going to tell me that. ”
He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
Because he had finally gotten the courage to face down his worst fear, and his mom had confessed her own.
And the truth was close to what he had always thought.
That she wanted to believe he was more okay than he was.
That she didn’t want to fully accept the ways in which her absence had hurt.
“I basically didn’t have anyone. Austin and Carson raised me.
And now I don’t … I don’t fucking know how to love anybody.
Because the only thing I know is that I worked my whole life to try to make you love me.
And it just felt like you didn’t. No matter what I did.
No matter what I did, you didn’t love me.
And I don’t know what to do with that. I’m screwing myself over right now.
Ruining my own life because I don’t know …
I don’t know what love is supposed to feel like. ”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, and he was shocked that they were actually having this moment. That there was honesty between them. He barely knew what to do.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Flynn. I knew that you were going to need to say this to me one day. And I just … I have been trying to outrun my bad decisions. Trying to make myself feel better. But you …”
“I love you. That’s the thing. I’ve never hated you. That’s why it hurts so much.”
“It was like that for me too.”
“But I didn’t have any control,” he said, and he couldn’t worry about whether or not it hurt her feelings. “I was a kid. And the only person who ever made me feel like I was good enough was Grandpa. Nobody else did that for me. I didn’t fit in the family picture, so … I didn’t fit.”
“I know it doesn’t mean anything now. I know it’s too little, too late. But I know that I made the wrong choice.”
She wasn’t wrong. And he was going to live with the damage of her decision forever.
There was no easy fix. His childhood was a mess because of her.
But as for its being too little, too late for them, he realized there was a choice.
She’d had all the power when he was a kid, but he had it now.
Their relationship could be what he wanted it to be. It could be what he needed it to be.
He got to decide how hard he was going to make it for her.
And he realized he just didn’t have the energy for any more hard. More than that, he didn’t want it.
“It’s not too late,” he said. “Because I don’t want it to be.”
“But …”
“I know. I blew things up. But if we’re going to have a relationship, everybody else has to stop treating me like I’m invading their lives. They invaded mine.”
His mom couldn’t quite laugh at that, but it was true.
“I can talk to them.”
“And it’s going to be especially hard to do now. Because of Jessie and the election.”
“Probably,” his mom said. “She ran a hell of a campaign, that girl. She’s really something.”
“Thanks. I think she is too. But I …”
At least it isn’t love.
Why did he think it wasn’t love? Because it didn’t hurt?
Because being with her felt easy? Because she felt like an extension of him, his other half? Because he didn’t have to be all sorts of different things to make her want him?
That was …
He was letting his messed-up family define love.
And that realization really did blow his mind.
“Mom I … I have to go. I have to think about some things.”
“I really do want to fix this. As much as you’ll let me. As much as I can.”
“I’m not going to make it hard.” He took a deep breath. For the first time, he felt he was taking a full breath. “Because it just shouldn’t be.”
He got into his truck, drove all the way to the top of Lonesome Ridge.
And he stood there, a man apart from everything.
Even himself, just for a moment, as he let this new revelation wash through him.
As he thought about his grandfather. About Austin, Carson, and Cassidy.
The people who loved him. The people he loved.
Jessie Jane.
Yeah. He loved her. It hadn’t been a fight. It had been a fight to stay away from her. For far too many years.
He … he fucking loved her.
And he had been too stupid to recognize it because it hadn’t been a knock-down, drag-out fight. Because in the end, it had been a fight not to love her.
But he’d hurt her. When he’d sent her away. What a dick he’d been. She was so afraid of being rejected, and then he had gone and done exactly that.
He hated himself for it.
He loved her. Like breathing. It was second nature to him. Something he didn’t have to try to do, something he couldn’t help but do.
All he had to do was grab on.
All he had to do was take the step.
And he damn well would.