Chapter 23
Mallorie Jade
“Hayes Miller is the most infuriating man I have ever met in my entire life.” The door slams behind me as I burst into my parents’ house.
It’s been three days since that kiss, and I haven’t heard a word from him—not even an apology. The man kisses me senseless and then doesn’t speak to me. Granted, I did run out of the house like my butt was on fire, but still, he ought to know that I need time to process things.
Unfortunately, I’m still processing. After three days, I still don’t know what that kiss—or the fact that I can’t stop thinking about it—means.
It all happened too fast. My lips were on his before I could even process what was happening, and when that kiss turned deeper, more delving, I woke up from that Hayes-induced fog and ran.
I can’t get mixed up with him again. I barely survived the last time. If I were to lose myself in him again—let myself feel the things I’ve buried—it would crush me. The essence of him is too much. When he’s around, he takes over all my senses, and all my common sense flees. Everything else dims, and that lack of awareness caused my downfall—not just mine but everyone around me. So yes, that kiss may have breathed air into my lungs for the first time in six years, but it also reminded me why I stayed away.
“Are you mumbling to yourself?”
My heart jumps to my throat. Throwing my hand over my heart, I say, “What are you doing sneaking around the house?”
My mom is standing in the doorway to her office, a pen in her hand, and she’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle to fix.
I don’t like it. It creeps me out.
She tips her nose up in the air. “First, I do not sneak around my own home. Second, I’ve said your name three times now. You kept mumbling to yourself—something about Hayes. Though, I couldn’t quite understand what you were saying as you were a little irate.”
Her lips twitch as if she’s trying to hold back a laugh.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Yes, well, I suppose you were distracted,” she says, smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles on her shirt. I give her a quick nod, getting ready to bolt when she continues, “I was about to make a glass of tea. Would you like to join me, and perhaps we can talk about what has you in such a fuss?”
Her voice is hesitant, like she’s unsure if I will say yes or be offended because she asked. It causes my chest to tighten. Our mother-daughter relationship is broken—shattered from years of neglect—but she is slowly trying to pick up the pieces.
The least I can do is help.
“I would like that, Mom.”
Her nod is curt as she walks past me to the kitchen, and I follow. Usually, the place is swarming with staff, but today, it’s blissfully quiet.
My mom scurries around, pulling cups and tea bags from the cabinets, and I try not to look shell-shocked as I stand there watching.
“Close your mouth, darling.”
“I just didn’t know you knew where those things were.” My voice is teasing, a tone I’ve never used with my mom before, but it’s nice to be able to now.
She purses her lips and waves me off like I’m ridiculous, but that smile she’s trying to hide grows an inch wider. I can’t help but wonder at the way it makes her look younger and a little more like me. I’ve never thought we were anything alike, but with that half smile on her face, I can see it—the way our eyes wrinkle at the corner with our smile and the dimple that pokes in at the corner of her mouth.
She busies herself with finishing the tea, and when she’s finished putting it together, she places a cup in my hand and waves me over to the table.
Once we are both settled in our chairs, she looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to spill my guts to her—or at least the reason I came into the house in such a tizzy.
I spin the cup in my hand around and around, debating where to start or if I should at all. Things have been good between us since I’ve been home—awkward but good.
Hayes was always a topic that put more strain on our tumultuous relationship, so even though things between them have changed, I don’t know if I want to chance ruining the truce we have right now over a kiss that won’t matter later. Because that’s all it is—it’s all it can be, no matter how much it’s still seared onto my lips.
“Well,” Mom says, calmly lifting her cup to her lips, “are you going to explain why you were just cursing Hayes here to kingdom come?”
I don’t meet her eyes when I mumble into my tea, “I didn’t do that—”
Her laughter is light and contagious, the opposite of the woman I’ve always known. “Honey, God’s ears are burning from the way you came in here agitated. What did the poor man do to deserve that wrath of yours?”
“Kissed me.” The words are out so fast that they are a jumbled mess, but she must have understood what I said because her cup freezes halfway to her mouth. She sputters a minute, and it’s one time I’ve actually seen her flustered.
She coughs, and I wonder for a second if I need to get up and smack her on the back or something, but before I can, she recovers, wiping her mouth primly with the napkin in front of her. When she places it back down and asks, “Was it a nice kiss?” I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not in some strange dream.
The sting wakes me up and brings me back to this spot with my mom, a woman who, up until now, has been more of a stranger than a parent, but how much of that has been my fault?
I hadn’t tried to get to know her either. I was too busy being the disgruntled teenager to care.
“I mean—is that the point?”
“It might be,” she says, lifting one of her dainty shoulders, her features serious. “It depends on your answer.”
“I don’t know how to talk to you about this,” I say, chewing on the inside of my lip.
“It’s a rather simple question. Was it a nice kiss—yes or no?”
With my lip still between my teeth, I nod, heat flooding my face and neck.
“Then I’m not sure why you are cursing the man,” she says simply, and I wish it were—simple that is—but it’s never been. Instead, the love that Hayes and I had was all-consuming, burning everything in its path. Nothing about that was simple.
“I don’t understand, Mom. Before I left, you hated Hayes—found him abhorrent—but now you seem like friends. What am I missing? What happened? Because it’s not just him. You’ve changed.”
Her sigh is heavy as she places her hands on the table in front of her. She links her fingers together, fiddling with them as she avoids my gaze this time.
“Losing a child should never have to be a wake-up call to everything you’ve done wrong as a parent, but unfortunately, it was for your father and me. We didn’t just lose Langston that day. We lost you, too, because you left and never looked back.” The pain in her voice crackles and breaks as she swallows around it.
“You and Dad didn’t make it easy to come back,” I say, bitterness sweeping through me. As much as I understand now that I’m also to blame for our broken relationship, it doesn’t change the fact that they were my parents. They were supposed to love me no matter who I was, but they couldn’t when I didn’t fit their mold. That still burns, even though I’m trying to heal from it.
“We wanted you to have that freedom you had been desperately searching for. We had already made many mistakes with you—with Langston, too. It was time to try it your way, and once you were gone, we didn’t know how to start building that relationship again. Your father and I—well, we aren’t very good at expressing our feelings.”
The laugh that bubbles out of me is unexpected—I think for my mom too because she stares at me shocked before her own laughter bubbles to the surface.
“I think that’s an understatement, Mom,” I wheeze, but she can’t respond because her laughter has stolen her breath.
Sitting with my mom, laughing at our kitchen table while we talk about boys and mistakes, is healing. For years, I prayed for this kind of relationship with her—the kind where we could talk about the things that have hurt us and heal, and I realize I have things to apologize for, too.
My laughter starts to subside, and I reach out for her hand. “I didn’t make it easy for you guys to reach out. I should have thought about how Langston’s death would have affected you, too. But I couldn’t see past my pain. I lost Hayes and Langston in one fell swoop, and in a way, I blamed you and Dad for both. I’m—I’m sorry, Mom—for everything. For leaving when I should have stayed. For my part in Langston’s death—all of it. I’m just sorry.”
Tears stream down my face as I hold her gaze. I hope she can see how much I want this to be our turning point.
Without saying a word, she stands, her chair screeching across the tile as she shoves it back.
“Stay here,” she says, turning to leave. “I have something for you.”
Unease settles in my stomach as I wait for her to return. In a moment, she’s back with a leather book in her arms. She stops beside me, letting her fingers drift lightly across my cheek.
“I know you won’t believe this because guilt is a strange thing, but Mallorie Jade, you were never a factor in Langston’s death. I want you to have this,” she says, pushing the leather book into my hands. “It was Langston’s journal. I think he would want you to have it. Read it—and when you do, really listen to what he had to say.”
She drops a kiss to the top of my head before she sits and takes her tea in her hands again. Tears sting in my eyes because I never remember feeling so loved and cherished by my mom.
It’s healing to the little girl inside me who always wanted that from her.
“Thank you,” I whisper, tracing my fingers along the leather that Langston once held in his.
“You’re welcome, Darling. Now,” she says, clearing her throat, “tell me, are you going to kiss Hayes again?”
The giggle she lets loose is so much like a little girl’s that I can’t help but smile.
But the next words out of my mouth kill her joy. “I doubt it, Mom.”
“You know,” she says, reaching out and squeezing my arm, “I think you should give him a chance.”
“But why? You don’t even like him—at least you didn’t. What changed?”
“Me, honey. I changed. It wasn’t just one thing, either. Langston’s death opened my eyes, but I also sat in church one day and realized that the person I was wasn’t who I wanted to be. There was this pressure on my chest, and it felt like God was trying to get my attention. So I started talking to him, little by little, and I started to realize that the pain I’ve carried—and the pain I’ve caused—didn’t have to define who I let myself be in the future. My choices have caused a lot of pain—some that I can’t take back, no matter how much I wish I could. But I’m learning about grace, and I hope it’s a lesson you can learn, too. Because grace doesn’t have to be earned, Mallorie Jade.”
“God and I haven’t been on the same page since Langston died.”
“Have you ever thought it’s because you’re trying to write a different book than the one he has planned for you?”
I cross my arms because it’s a question I’ve been begrudgingly asking myself for a while. The path I’ve been on since Langston died has been feeling more and more like my favorite jeans from high school—familiar, but a little too tight to fit comfortably.
“Just start talking to him. He’ll listen. And as far as Hayes—maybe you need a second kiss—just to be sure.”
With a wink, she stands, leaving me in the kitchen to think.
______________________
The journal in my hand feels heavy, the smooth leather pressing into my skin.
I still haven’t opened it.
It’s stupid, but I’m scared. I’ve been running for six years, and now I don’t know how to stop. But being scared hasn’t solved any of the things I ran from. If anything, it’s only let those wounds fester.
So maybe it’s time I try something different—something that isn’t the path I forced myself down.
My hands shake as I run my finger under the cover and flip it open to the first page of Langston’s journal, letting the heartbreak of his death crack me open all over again.
Any nurse worth their salt knows that sometimes it takes opening old wounds and scraping out the infection before they will heal.
Tears blur my eyes. Langston’s handwriting is sloppy as if he was rushing to write it, but I can still make it out, if only barely.
January 1,
Today was a bad day, but I’m trying…I survived. Most days, that’s all I’m doing—surviving. I’m determined to do better, though, if not for myself, then for my little sister. MJ is my hero. She’s smart and kind and, most of all, brave. She’s not afraid to be her own person, to save herself when others are trying to douse her spark. I wish I could be like her. She may be the little sister, but she’s so much more than I could ever be already.
That’s my goal for this year—be more like MJ in all the ways it counts.
My heart hurts so bad I’m afraid that it might fall out onto the floor at my feet. My brother thought I was brave, but I’m a coward. After Langston died, I ran—from myself…my family…Hayes. I ran from it all and never looked back until I was forced to. I’d hoped that I could come back and lay low while I figured my life out, but then I broke Hayes’s nose the first day back. There was no lying low after that.
And now that kiss—well, I guess that only adds to my cowardice because I ran from that too, didn’t I?
But I’m tired. Tired of running. Tired of denying what I feel. Tired of not being the girl my brother thought I was.
So, I snap the pages of the book together and tuck it beneath my arm, and with my spine straight and heart beating out of my chest, I march out the door toward the man who scares me the most.
Within ten minutes, I’m sitting in the parking lot of the police station, trying to gain my courage back. I could have been here sooner, but I took my time, trying to think of what I would say when I got here.
I still don’t know.
What do you say to the man you’ve loved your entire life when there is so much heartbreak between you—when all the things that have happened are too big to be forgiven?
My mom seems to think that talking to God—laying it at his feet—is the place to start, but what do you do when you can’t find the words to say—when words are too small for the sin?
What do you do when the person you were supposed to protect is the one you failed?
I’ve been asking God that question for six years, and all I’ve received is silence. So, I started taking silence as an answer.
But silence won’t help me here, so I shove open my door and vow to figure it out alone—just like I always have.
I count the steps it takes me to get from my car to the front door of the police station.
Ten.
Ten steps between my car and another life-altering decision because that’s what this is—me changing my life again. I feel too young to have experienced as many of those as I have. But here we are once again—only this time, I’m not dreading it as much as I thought I would.
The door swings open as a couple walks out, and I nod my head at them when the man holds the door open for me.
Just like when I was here a couple of weeks ago, the air condition provides a blissful reprieve from the heat.
My heart beats a thundering rhythm in my ears as I take in the lobby, looking for Hayes. Then, when I catch him standing on the other side, I freeze. His head snaps up as if he can sense me standing there. When his eyes meet mine, there’s a fire in them that I’m afraid might consume me, but still, I don’t move.
He walks toward me, slow and intentional, like he knows I’m ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. His irises are the color of the clouds when a storm approaches, and I wonder what storm we are bringing out now. Will it be one where we can dance in the rain, or will we have to find shelter again when it finally blows through?
I can’t take the tension, so I blurt out the words that make me the coward I was trying to prove I wasn’t.
“I think we should be friends.”
The words come out in a rush, stopping him in his tracks just before he gets to me. There’s a flash of disappointment swirling in that storm, but it’s there for a moment and then gone, turning into a smirk.
“You came all the way here to tell me that?” he asks, his voice a dark gravel that sends a shiver down my spine.
I don’t want Hayes to see that, though, so to cover it up, I roll my eyes and spout off—playing the game we are used to. “It’s a ten-minute drive, Hayes. It’s not like I drove across the country. Besides, after—you know, three days, I thought we should clear that up.”
He hmms like he doesn’t quite believe me but thankfully doesn’t comment. His eyes dart to my hands, and then he says, “What’s in the bag?”
Looking down to where he’s nodded, I realize I had forgotten about what I’d brought in. I drag my gaze back to him and plaster a big grin on my face.
“A peace offering,” I say, turning the label so he can see the local diner’s name on the side. “Are you hungry?”
His face gives nothing away when he shrugs and says, “I could eat.”