44. Amber
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
amber
T he low growl of Jake’s Harley cuts through the quiet air of the cemetery.
My body wars with itself to run or break down.
I knew he would come for me eventually, and as much as I want him here, need him here , I don’t want him to see me like this, fighting these demons.
My day was already hard, then he texted me that Evelyn was in the hospital, and I lost it.
The woman has been a literal godsend for me, and I couldn’t get myself off this bench to go be with her.
Couldn’t make myself step into that hospital today.
Birthdays are supposed to be spent celebrating your life, but my mom ruined that for me a long time ago.
My earliest memories of my birthday are all the same.
Anger, fear, hurt. I’ve never had a cake or candles.
Jana asked once if I wanted them, but I told her this wasn’t a day for happiness.
The feelings were always too heavy. My mom made sure of that.
I’ll never understand why she had me or why she kept me.
Part of me fears it’s because I was a weapon she was keeping for later.
Someone she could use to get money from the state and later try to get money out of me.
She never hid her disdain for me, and on this day, it always hit a nerve for her.
Reminding her of the day I entered the world and entered her life, putting the nail in her coffin, as she often said.
Jake’s presence causes a visceral reaction like it always does, relaxing me and threatening to make the tears I’ve been holding back all morning fall. His footsteps stop behind me, but he doesn’t make a move to touch me.
“Whiskey.” His voice is low and filled with emotion. It tips me over the edge, the first tear breaking loose, quickly followed by another and another.
He’s around the bench and kneeling in front of me in an instant. His rough hands gently cup my jaw. The look in his eyes is pure agony, and I cry harder, fearing the reason. “Is she …?” I croak out between sobs.
I’m scooped into Jake’s arms, where he sits on the bench with me in his lap.
“She’s okay. I’m so sorry, I should have said that.
Evelyn’s okay.” He shushes my cries, and I breathe in the warmth of his scent.
“She, uh—” He clears his throat as his fingers brush through my hair.
“She told me it’s your birthday. Why didn’t you say anything, baby? ”
I try to control my ragged breaths with that knowledge.
Sucking in lungfuls of the humid air, each inhale a desperate attempt to quell the storm brewing.
I didn’t lose one more person, and Jake is here.
The relief I feel doesn’t last long because he’s here.
He’s here and I have to tell him the ugly truth I’ve been hiding.
The stain on my soul I can’t scrub off. The tears I was getting under control dry up completely as the numbness I always feel on this day takes over once again.
“My mom died on this day, and I’m the reason she’s dead.”
His hands still, and my body tenses, waiting for his reaction. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t think, I know. We never celebrated my birthday, but it was always commemorated.
In her words, it was the day that ruined her life.
I ruined her life.” I press myself farther into Jake’s chest, and he holds me tighter, his hands moving up and down my back now.
“On my eleventh birthday, she woke up yelling that she needed to be high to forget the worst day of her life. She died trying to forget me.”
“Baby,” he whispers with so much pain, but I’m not done.
“I loved my mom. Even as shitty as she was toward me and hating me for merely existing, I still loved her, and it’s my fault she’s dead.
” I nestle into him to soak up his strength to help me continue through the pain spearing through my heart.
“It’s taken years of therapy to come to terms with the fact that I won’t ruin everyone’s life.
I hid from people for so long because I thought it was me.
That there was something wrong with me and I was going to ruin everyone the way I did her.
Even learning that’s not the truth, I still have to live with the guilt that I’m the reason she’s dead. ”
The same guilt I’ve been battling for fifteen years now claws at me, fighting to take hold.
My chest squeezes, my lungs fighting for air as images from that day float through my mind.
Hiding under my tattered covers while Mom yells from the other room, each word making me flinch as something shatters against my bedroom door.
The silence that followed where I knew she was injecting something into her veins.
The hours I spent there, hungry and needing to pee but too scared to face her wrath when the high wore off.
Then, finally, the fear when the sun streaking through my window moved across the wall before sinking down and shrouding me in darkness without a sound from outside.
How, with shaking hands, I slipped out of the room to find my mom on the living room floor covered in a puddle of her own vomit, her eyes unseeing and her skin a pale gray.
“It’s not your fault.” The deep timbre rumbling through Jake’s chest as he repeats those four words over and over, pulls me further from the memory and back to reality.
Lightly pinching my chin, he brings my gaze to his, his deep-blue eyes hard and determined as he repeats it again.
“Damnit, Amber, I need you to really hear me. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”
The sincerity in his eyes has me focusing on the here and now. On the beautiful man in front of me who gives me every reassurance in the world. One tear slips down my cheek that he quickly wipes away.
“I didn’t want you to see my demons.”
“I think there was some confusion, baby. You’re mine, which means you get me for the good, the bad, and the devastating. I’m yours through it all.”
The tears fall in earnest as I look him in the eyes and spill the last tiny bit of truth.
“I’m fucked up, Jake. I like when you call me your slut, when you dole out punishments that use me like an object.
” Working through the shudders that rack my body, I put my hands to his chest, needing to feel his heartbeat to steady my words.
“About a year before my mom died, she started noticing the men that came through our place would … linger when I was around. It was then she started calling me those names. Slut. Whore. Greedy little skank. She would say them with such venom, often followed by things like ‘I see you trying to steal my man’ or ‘You’re lucky I don’t let them have you. I’d get more money.’”
“Fuck,” he growls out, but I splay my fingers over his shirt, keeping that grounding presence.
“The first time you said it, it was derogatory, sure, but you had this desire and grit in your voice. So different from the way it was used before. It felt freeing. The next time you said it, there wasn’t hate in your heart the way it was with her, and hell if it didn’t light me up from within.
How fucked up is that? That I feel pride from the words that cut me down as a kid. ”
Gripping my hair at the roots, he leans down and kisses me hard. “If that’s the most fucked-up thing about you, what does it say about me that I want to drive to where she’s buried and fuck my little slut on her grave?”
My body trembles for a whole new reason when he kisses me again, his lips prying mine open as he explores my mouth, salty tears and all.
The kiss holds all the things neither of us have said, but I know we both feel.
Trust, understanding, acceptance … love.
We kiss for what feels like hours before he pulls back, placing soft kisses on my cheeks.
“I feel like I should apologize to Jana for being so crass in front of her resting place, but I warned her I wasn’t a good man.”
A startled laugh bubbles out of me, and I look up at him. “You what? When?”
“When I dropped off this bench. We had a chat and came to an understanding. She’s okay with my lesser qualities because I promised I’d be the man you deserve.”
Poof. There goes that last little brick protecting my heart. Shattered and turned to rubble at the hands of this man. On one of my hardest days, he makes me laugh, cry, and melt at the way he cares for me.
“Thank you for the bench. It’s much nicer than sitting on the ground.” Moving off his lap and taking a seat next to him, I let my fingers trail over the little J&A engraved in the center. “You’re pretty sure of us, huh?”
He laughs, a deep and throaty sound, and shakes his head at me. “I am, but that was meant for Jana and Amber. I love that your mind went to me though.”
My cheeks heat, and I slap his arm. “Don’t make fun of me, it’s my birthday.”
“I know, baby. I’m still mad you didn’t tell me. What do you normally do on this day?”
My hands rub down my thighs as I look down at the headstone before us. The reason I’m here today. “Eat brownies on the porch swing with her.”
He hums, then stands and takes my hand. “Can I take you somewhere?”