Chapter 16
Things went from sucky to bad in Jenna’s world. At four-thirty in the morning, she was shipped back off to Seattle like a discarded bag of grain. She apologized profusely to Walter for him having to get up so early to come and get her.
That was when she was informed by Walter that this would be his last drive with her. He was fired and, as of this time, there was no replacement. She was stranded in Seattle unless she started taking the train on the regular.
Her dorm room phone was also disconnected. When she went down to the lobby to call Jack, a very frightened Amelia informed her that her phone privileges had been revoked by the Dean of Students. No doubt at her father’s orders.
Jenna had to beg a fellow classmate, whom she was on friendly terms with though she wouldn’t call a friend, to call Jack from her dorm phone. They agreed to wait for her to return to Port Townsend, thinking her father would calm down and get her a new driver in a couple of weeks.
He did not.
Jenna tried to write Jack letters, only to have them returned to sender.
When she called Jack on her classmate’s phone again, he was confused because not only had he not Returned To Sender her letters but she hadn’t replied to the two he’d sent her.
After a bit of an investigation, she discovered that the employee who collected and sorted the students’ mail had been informed that all of Jenna’s mail, whether getting or receiving, was to be sent to her parents.
Her mom or dad had returned Jenna’s letter to Jack to her and had most likely thrown out Jack’s letters.
While she could believe that her parents would read them, regardless of who they were made out to, she doubted they would hold on to the letters.
While Jenna could still call using her classmate’s phone, it wasn’t the same. She didn’t have any privacy and she felt bad for keeping the calls longer than a few minutes.
When she tried to leave to take the train back to Port Townsend one Saturday in November, this time planned with Jack picking her up at the train station in the daytime, she was informed by security that she’d lost her weekend privileges and was restricted to school property until further notice.
Then things went from bad to worse. After several weeks of remaining in Seattle and trying to figure out ways to stay in contact with Jack, Jenna learned that Carolyn had discovered that their parents had reneged on their original deal.
She’d not only very publicly quit working for Scanlon Enterprises, but she’d also spilled the beans to the press about their father’s plan to move to New York City.
When the developer that had been working on the building plans discovered who he was actually working for, he tried to triple his price.
The entire project had fallen through when a competing company then purchased the property before their father could close the deal.
Scanlon Enterprises would be remaining on the west coast. At least for the next several years.
Her parents cut Carolyn off, took back her cars, and removed her from the trust they had set up in her name.
In turn, Carolyn packed up from Port Townsend and left.
Gone. Poof. No call, no visit. Not even a letter, though perhaps her parents had destroyed that too.
All Jenna knew was that Carolyn was gone.
Her one ally, her sister, had abandoned her.
With Carolyn gone and no longer under her parents’ thumb, there was no reason for her parents to remain in Port Townsend.
They’d been there to keep Carolyn away from the city life, to try to influence her into becoming a respectable, high-society woman.
Since that had failed, her parents saw no reason to stay.
Their house in Port Townsend would once more become a vacation home.
Winter dragged on. Jenna didn’t even get to see Jack at Christmas or on his seventeenth birthday in January.
Her grades started to fall. It was becoming a hardship just to get out of bed each day to attend classes.
She dreaded the long weekends with nothing to do.
The few times she spoke with her parents, they held firm.
If they discovered Jenna was speaking to or communicating with Jack in any way, she would be shipped off to Massachusetts.
Her life was a haze. Empty. Desolate. The times she was able to talk to Jack from her classmate’s dorm, he felt the same way. He tried to reassure her, tried to tell her to just keep counting down the days, but Jenna’s depression was getting worse.
Even talking to Jack on the phone was becoming too painful. She felt trapped, restricted, and claustrophobic. She hated her dorm room with a passion to the point where she wasn’t sleeping much.
When the Dean of Students informed her that she was at risk of failing and might have to repeat the year, Jenna just shrugged.
Her parents came to the school to yell at her. They called her an embarrassment and told her she was taking her lovesick delusions too far. She was ruining the Scanlon name. And again, Jenna just shrugged.
Her heart felt like it was breaking into a thousand pieces and they wanted her to be normal, to smile and act like the world was full of sunshine and roses? They were taking away her happiness, and they thought she was being overdramatic?
Maybe she was. According to the school counselor, it wasn’t healthy to be so invested in a relationship, in a boy, that she would be debilitated without contact with him. Jenna didn’t even bother shrugging at that one; she just walked out.
Finally, at the beginning of March, her mom had had it.
“You win!” she shouted at Jenna. “If that boy means so much to you that you would start starving yourself just to get our attention, then fine. Be with him. You can have it all back. The driver, the car, your allowance… Take it and fucking eat something! You turn your life around. If your grades do not improve, if you do not start taking care of yourself, then it all goes away again. Hell, the boy has probably moved on while you’re here pining over him like some pathetic lovesick puppy.
Go see for yourself and then tell me if all this misery was worth it! ”
Jenna didn’t have to be told twice. With her allowance back, she went out and bought herself a car. She was never going to rely on someone else to drive her back to Port Townsend again.
She was already driving north before the ink had dried on the sales contract.
1 YEAR, 2 MONTHS, 1 DAY
Jack pulled the collar of his jacket up as he got out of his truck.
The brisk wind was exceptionally cold today and damn if it just didn’t add to the bleakness that was his life.
It had been nearly three weeks since he’d spoken to Jenna and over four months since he’d seen her.
He’d driven down to her school twice, only to be turned away at the gates.
The security guards wouldn’t even tell her he was there.
They still had over a year away from her eighteenth birthday.
At this rate, Jack wasn’t even sure if he’d see her before then.
Her parents had done what they’d been threatening to do and officially separated them.
They had no idea that the distance was only making his love for their daughter stronger.
His determination to claim her never wavered.
There was no question if the pain of separation was worth it. He knew where he would be on May 5, 1987—and they would have no say then.
The snow was falling pretty heavily and it wasn’t even dusk yet. Mrs. Zarin’s car was already in the driveway, which was really good. That meant she and Lilly were already home from school and not out driving in this weather. Mr. Zarin would hopefully be home soon too.
He had his head down, hunched over against the icy wind.
He heard something clatter. His head popped up and he looked behind him.
The road was deserted, most residents already home in anticipation of the storm.
He saw no sign of what had caused the noise and assumed someone was closing their shutters.
Head still down, he climbed the three stairs to the small landing leading up to the Zarins’ house.
A wave of sadness hit him, remembering their first date and waiting on the stoop for Jenna to climb these very stairs.
They never did get around to seeing that movie in theaters, but Jenna had gifted it to him on VHS when it came out last summer.
Christ, his ears felt empty. It was the oddest feeling, like they craved hearing her voice.
That clatter sounded again—only louder. Jack’s head snapped up to see the front door swinging backward from the force of being thrown against the frame.
The storm door was no match for the harsh wind, pulling the front door each time it blew.
The deadbolt was thrown on the front door, which was why it wouldn’t close properly.
Jack’s brows furrowed. Why hadn’t Mrs. Zarin or Lilly heard the clatter of the door? It had been noisy enough he’d heard it through the wind at the end of the driveway when he’d first gotten out of his truck.
Jack opened the storm door, pushing on the front door to enter the house. His eyes landed on the splintered wood of the doorframe.
The fuck?
He continued inside, his blood as cold as the snow outside. He didn’t need to call out to know he was alone. The house was eerily quiet. Still. And he instinctively knew he was the only living being inside its walls.
Lilly wasn’t on the couch watching cartoons, eating her afternoon snack. Mrs. Zarin wasn’t humming to herself in the kitchen as she prepped dinner.
Jack didn’t hear anything. Though the heat was on, it was like the house was frozen in time.
He looked down at his feet. Small shards of wood lay in the carpeting beneath his boots. His eyes trailed up the thick, white door to the speckles of red on the inside panel. It was right at nose-height for an adult female.
His heart started to pound in his chest.