Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
HANNAH
Coming out of an amazing two-hour worship concert to see Jack running the church coffee cart with my mom was not what I’d expected!
Why was he here? Had he come to watch me sing? I mean, it was Christmas, so I knew why he was in town, but why my church?
We stepped outside as I waved goodbye to everyone, and I walked over to the playground I used to play at as a kid. It had since gotten an upgrade. I sat down on one of the swings and looked over at him as he chose the swing next to me.
He was eyeing my left hand as if looking for a ring. I’d waited a year for this conversation, yet I found myself looking at him. He was handsome as ever, but also something seemed to have changed. There was a still a sadness in his eyes, but also…hope?
“So you come to my concert again and didn’t tell me.” There was hurt in my voice, but I didn’t care. I was mad at Jack. It felt like he was playing with my heart at this point, and I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t have the energy for that. I’d only just healed from my breakup with Luke.
“I…thought you were engaged or married by now. I wasn’t going to text another man’s wife,” he said.
I scoffed. “Well, you would know I wasn’t engaged if you hadn’t blocked my number. And email!” I snapped, though I felt bad right after. His comment about not texting an engaged or married woman was admirable. But this man got under my skin. He’d ignored me for a year and then just showed up and ran the church coffee cart with my mother!
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I…” He let that sentence linger and stared off into the night sky.
Dennis locked the doors to the church, and I watched as the last stragglers got into their cars and drove off. Now it was just my car and what I assumed was Jack’s rental.
I stood, and Jack did the same. We faced each other, and I held my chin high.
I’d asked for a sign from the Lord if Jack was to be the man for me, and I felt it was no coincidence he was here tonight.
“I liked you,” I confessed. “I felt like we had something special brewing in India. You should have told me you came to my spring concert. You shouldn’t have run off.”
He froze as if my declaration of liking him was a shock. “I…don’t deserve you. And I heard everything Luke said to you that day in your dressing room. You’re better off with him.”
I frowned. “You don’t get to make that choice! And what’s with this undeserving stuff? What did you do that’s so bad that you think you don’t deserve good things?” I’d Googled him within an inch of his life and nothing bad had come up.
He shook his head. “You don’t really know me, Hannah. That’s the problem. You like the idea of me, but not me ,” he growled.
I threw my hands up. “Because you don’t let me in, Jack! Tell me what happened.”
“You’ll never look at me the same again.” He shook his head and a spike of fear sliced into my chest.
“Jack, trust me.” I stepped closer to him.
He took one step back, looking me dead in the eye. “There’s no going back once I tell you.” He pounded his chest. “The weight of this has been drowning me for years. I’m in a dark place that you will never be able to pull me out of.”
What in the world? Genuine fear struck me then. “Jack, you’re probably right. If you’re in a dark place, drowning, I can’t pull you out of that. But God can.” I hated to turn this into a preaching session, but it was true. Now that I saw how much he was hurting, I wanted to help.
He looked up at the cross that stood atop the church and then back at me. “I murdered my mother, and I went to prison for it,” he blurted out.
I gasped, stumbling backwards and away from him as my hand came up to cover my mouth. What did he just say? Pure shock ran through me, and Jack looked at me, horrified and broken. Of all the things I’d dreamed up in my head that he felt guilty for, none were that sinister.
“See? You’re scared of me now. Good . Hannah, I came here for closure. I’m not good for you. You’ll just drown with me. So this is my goodbye,” he said and then turned to walk away.
Follow him. The two words came from that still small voice inside me, and I knew that God was pushing me to find out more.
“Wait.” I felt bad for reacting the way I had, but I hadn’t expected in a million years that he’d murdered his mother! There must have been more to the story there.
He kept walking, so I chased after him.
“Jack. Give me a minute to process this,” I begged him as we walked across the dark parking lot. “I want to know what happened. I know you. You wouldn’t just murder someone in cold blood. You’re not a killer.”
Whatever had happened must have been an accident. But would someone go to prison for an accident? Maybe. If a gun went off or something and he hadn’t meant to aim it at her…I was scrambling to think up reasons. The Lord was pressing on me that this was an accident, but I needed to hear it from him.
He spun on me, tears welling in his eyes. “Yes, I am. I am a killer,” he said, his chest rising and falling as he breathed raggedly. “I got engaged young, and a month before our wedding, I found out she was cheating. I took it badly. I went to the nearest bar and got really drunk. Then I grabbed my keys and drove home.”
No. I clasped my hands together.
“My mom had been worried about me, so around one a.m., she got in her car to go looking for me.”
“No,” I said aloud this time, shaking my head.
He nodded. “ Yes. I hit her car head on coming down the street to her house. I was going there to sleep it off.”
No. No. No. It was too tragic.
“She bled out in my hands.” He held his hands up to drive his point home. “And then I blacked out and woke up in jail. The blood test registered that I was four times the legal drinking limit.” He shook his head. “Why I thought I could drive home, I’ll never know. Why she happened to be coming down the same street at the same time as me, I’ll never forgive God for that. Had he delayed her by a minute, she’d still be alive.”
I nodded, tears running down my face. “But you might not be.”
He frowned. “What?” There was anger in his voice, so I had to tread lightly.
“You might have hit a pole, or a parked car, or a house. You might have died. God could have not spared you.” I tried to look for the positive.
“I didn’t want to be spared!” he screamed. “I want to be put out of my misery.”
My heart broke for him. He shouldn’t have been drinking and driving, but it wasn’t the cold-blooded murder he’d portrayed it to be.
“Jack, don’t say that. It was an accident. It wasn’t murder.”
He laughed sarcastically. “That’s not what my felony conviction says. Vehicular manslaughter. Murder by car.”
My heart absolutely shattered for him, but now it all made sense to me. The reason he was the way he was. Why seeing his mother’s name on the waitress’s name tag had sent him into a spiral. Why he gave to charity out of guilt. He was holding on to a great burden. A horrific accident.
I stepped closer to him and reached for his hand, but he took two giant steps back.
“I don’t want your pity.”
I frowned. “It’s called compassion, Jack. Not pity.”
“Well, I don’t want that. I just want you to know who I really am, and I wanted to say goodbye.” He cleared his throat. “Because I liked you too. But I don’t have any room in my life for that. Because every good thing in my life dies or gets ruined and I don’t want that to happen to you. Goodbye, Hannah.”
Then he turned and sprinted to his car.
“Jack!” I screamed as thunder ripped across the sky, shaking my chest. Then the clouds opened and snow poured out of them like a sack of flower being dumped on us.
Jack reached his car door just as I did and I pushed my hands out to shut it.
He spun on me, his face covered in fresh snowflakes as it saturated us both, instantly dousing my hair, face, and clothes.
“Let me go, Hannah.” There was a begging in his voice that undid me.
“No. Not like this,” I told him and reached up, grasping the sides of his face and forcing him to look into my eyes. “I see you, Jack. I see all of you, and I still want you,” I declared, and then pulled his lips to mine.
Our mouths crashed together in the most passionate kiss I’d ever had. My whole body responded to Jack, and I couldn’t help but think that this was what it felt like when you kissed the person you were supposed to be with for your entire life. My heart pounded like thunder in my chest, my stomach did somersaults, and my skin felt like it was on fire.
This was no dead kiss. And better than any kiss I’d had before. God was pressing upon me not to give up on Jack.
But all too soon, Jack pulled away, breathless, as he stared down at me, shaking his head. “I can’t. Goodbye, Hannah,” he said and yanked the door open.
“Jack.” The tears were mixing with the snow, and I could barely speak. That kiss was the confirmation I’d needed—Jack was the one for me. Did he not feel the same? Or was he just too broken by life’s circumstances to be emotionally available?
God, guide me, I prayed as the snow fell in clumps around me.
He got inside and slammed the door, cranking the SUV on and then throwing it into drive. He gunned it and peeled out of the parking lot as I fell into sobs. The weight of his story, of his trauma, crushed me.
Pray for my soul. Now I knew why he’d said that.
I wasn’t sure if God had chosen Jack to be my future husband in that moment, but I was sure of one thing. God had put Jack into my life so I could lead him to the Truth. And if friends was all we could be, then fine. But I wouldn’t stop until Jack knew Jesus and just how freeing resting in His arms could be.
If I only saw him at Christmas, and if it took twenty Christmases, I would make sure that Jack knew that Jesus loved him even though he’d made a mistake. That the guilt he carried was already carried by Jesus and taken away—if only Jack would believe in Him and let Him take his burden.
I peered up at the sky and the falling snow and smiled.
“I won’t let you down, Lord,” I promised.