Page 11 of Autumn Leaves and Pumpkins Please

He hangs his head once more and I can feel the sadness coming off him in waves. It’s drowning me just standing next to him, so I can’t even imagine what he feels. Is it possible that Jayse could understand my pain as much as I could understand his? “I don’t always save the day.”

“Tell me one time you didn’t.”

He turns towards me, but the look in his eyes knocks the air right out of me. “The night I got these scars, I didn’t save a damn thing that night.”

NINE

Jayse

The words taste like acid on my tongue. In some ways I wish they were acid. Right now, I need them to burn my tongue right off because this wasn’t part of the plan. I don’t talk about that night. I never will and certainly not with Capri, but then something about her is different. Something draws me to her. I’m unable to escape from her. It feels like something in her soul recognizes something in mine and we can’t break away from one another. Her seafoam green eyes beg to give her understanding. She’s asking for my past without saying the words. I read in her eyes. I feel it coming off her body in waves. She’s ready to take on the burden of my past, or at least, she thinks she is. In reality no one is ready to take on that burden.

I want her past, but it’s not an even trade. For me to ask her for something I’m not willing to give is completely unfair. My throat feels like mud, my tongue like cotton and my lungs feel as if all the pressure in the world is on them. Capri, not knowing my past, still looking at me as if I can be a hero, I’m not, it's something I’m willing to lose. For all of my life I wanted one thing to be a firefighter...to be a hero. In my mind, they were one in the same. I thought it was my destiny, but then that night happened, and my dream was shattered like broken glass. Taken in a split moment as the flames ate away at the house and my skin.

My hand reaches out, in search of the one thing that has felt like an anchor the past few weeks. Ever since I stepped foot inside Bee’s Batter and got close to Capri, she feels like she keeps my feet on the ground. She’s gravity and I’m just another planet lost in the orbit of rotation. I’m the ship lost at sea, but she’s my anchor keeping me calm and steady in the eye of a storm. It’s silly because I barely know her, yet it feels like I’ve known her my whole life.

As if she can feel my hesitation, her hand wraps around mine and she pulls it towards her. My palm comes to rest on her cheek. She barely flinches but I still catch it. I ache to correct the wrongs that have been done to her. “I want your past. I want to know why you flinch. I want to know why you keep everyone at a distance. I don’t deserve to know. I don’t deserve your past, but I want it. The worst part is I can’t even tell you why I want it.”

She sighs. Her skin feels like silk against the roughened skin of my hand. “If you want it, then all you have to do is ask. Maybe, I’m being foolish because I’ve worked so hard to leave it behind, and to become a different version of myself. Promising myself I’ll never let anyone in again, but with you...it’s different.”

“I can’t ask for it because if I do then you have the right to ask for mine and that’s not something I can give to you, Capri.” I pull my hand from the warmth and silky softness of her and take a step back. I rake my fingers through my hair roughly as I turn away from her. The last image I see is her seafoam green eyes, widened in shock and laced in hurt. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought you out here. I shouldn’t have gotten involved in your life or tried to bring you into mine. We should go.” Guilt eats at me, devouring me from the inside out. I’m the worst kind of human. I keep failing at every turn. Turning around and forgetting about Capri is the best thing I can do for her, and the best thing I can do for the memories that will forever be a part of my DNA.

“Jayse…” she whispers. Her voice breaks and it tears at me, ripping my already weakened soul into shreds.

I shake my head. “I can’t. I know you don’t understand, but it’s me, Capri, not you. That sounds like a lame excuse, but it’s the honest truth.”

Capri hasn’t moved from her spot as I make my way around the truck. Her voice stops me in my tracks. “I ran away from my home when I was sixteen with a guy on a motorcycle named Billy, not because I loved him, but because as bad as Billy and his crowd were, my father was much worse. He was a raging alcoholic with substance abuse issues, and a temper as high as the Empire State Building. He liked to use fists and kicks instead of words when he was in a stupor. When he wasn’t doing drugs, he was dealing them. The place I called home, a trailer that was barely standing, was normally full of drunk men, drugs, and half-dressed women paying off debts owed to the club. Running away seemed like the answer at the time. The funny thing about running is that once you start...you can’t stop.”

Her words dance in the air, but they aren’t beautiful. They’re tragic. Her life shouldn’t have been like this. “Capri, you don’t have to tell me this. I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t ask, so I’m volunteering the information.” She moves to stand directly across from me. The truck is between us, but even from here I can feel her, the sincerity that makes up her soul and the kindness that swims in her eyes.

“What about your mom?”

A sad smile. A sarcastic laugh. Silence falls between us for a moment as Capri cuts her eyes to the side. “She got out. Left my father and I and started a new life. A picture-perfect life with a picture-perfect family.”

I can't even imagine what that must have felt like for her. The things she must have seen...it turns my stomach. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs her tiny shoulders. “Shit happens. So, I left with Billy and never looked back. He belonged to a different Motorcycle club in a different town. They were a rival to my father’s club, so that meant that my dad wouldn’t cross their territory lines. Not that he cared that I was gone. For him, it was one less mouth to feed, one less body taking up space in his place. I stayed with Billy for a while. He was a pretty face with a lot of charm, and he knew it. He cheated a lot, but I wasn’t in love with him so, to be honest, I didn’t care. Billy was a way out of the trailer park for me. An escape from my father and the life he chose for himself.”

The sinking feeling in my gut tells me that Billy isn’t the end of her story. “Why do I feel like Billy isn’t the end of your story?”

Capri looks at me, Her eyes open, completely unguarded and sincere. A small smile graces her face, but there’s sadness wrapped around it, and I want to eliminate the truck between us and pull her into my arms. Protect her from whatever else life has thrown at her. “Not even close to the end. Billy was just the beginning.” Capri shakes her head as if she can’t believe she was once young and naive. We’ve all been there, but I can tell that the decisions made during that time are weighing on her. “After Billy...I ran to a new city where I knew no one. I was working as a waitress in this old truck stop when Eddy showed up. He drove a semi and was in the diner at least once a week. There was something about him that just screamed danger and there’s something within me that can’t resist that. We moved way too fast and the next thing I knew, I was living on the outskirts of Las Vegas on some dirt road in a little one-bedroom shack with a car that barely ran. Eddy made good money, which was good since I wasn’t allowed to work, but he failed to mention that he spent all of his money on drugs and booze. Eddy was the younger version of my father. He’d take his anger out on me when he needed a fix. So, one night after he finally got his fix and was passed out, I ran, and I never looked back. I made it all the way to Dallas, Texas.”

For whatever reason, I’ve made my way back around the truck so that I’m standing next to her. I study her profile. I would have never guessed this was her past. A part of me knew it wasn’t perfect, but I never considered this.

She sighs. “This is the last part. I managed to get a job at a department store in one of the malls. Kurt Cunning walked in. In Dallas he’s basically royalty. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the eldest child of one of the largest oil companies in the area. Old oil money is what my coworker told me. I watched avidly as he strode into the men’s area of the fancy store and was fitted for suits. Charisma and sex oozed off him, drowning me. He was cocky, but he could afford to be. It’s a luxury most of us will never know. The man doing the fitting ran out of pins, so he hollered for more. I was the closest, so I helped him out. Kurt noticed me. Afterwards, he wined and dined me. Bought me every pretty thing you could imagine. Showed me a lavish life, something I never thought my trailer park self would know. When he asked me to marry him, it was with a seven-carat diamond. Kurt was not a man you said no to, but the thing is I was completely in love with him. I wanted to marry him, and we did. He moved me into a mansion. Custom-built with land everywhere. Luxury cars at my disposal and all the money to buy all the things. Or, at least, that’s how it seemed at first. It changed pretty quickly. Kurt didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem. He never cheated, that I knew about, but he had a temper and a control issue. He wanted everything done and in a certain way exactly when he said it. When he didn’t get his way the abuse started, both verbal and physical. Eventually, I got to the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore.” Her voice breaks and tears silently stream down her face, as she stares at the setting sun in the distance.

Without a second thought, I reach forward and wrap and arm around her shoulders. Her head comes to rest on my shoulder. I can feel the shuttering as she cries. Pulling her into me seems like the only reasonable choice so I do. She buries her face into my shirt and cries. I don’t know how long we stand there but when she pulls away, I can see she’s about to apologize. I don’t want her to be sorry for her past. It’s shaped her into who she is today, and the person in front of me seems quite extraordinary. As I shake my head to stop her from speaking, one of my hands snakes up to tangle into her newly colored hair. I don’t think... because I can't. If I stop to think then I’ll talk myself out of this and right now it’s the only thing I want. When the guilt comes tomorrow, I’ll take it like I deserve it and move on, but right now, I need Capri. My lips collide with hers in a hurried, but passionate kiss. It brings my whole body to life. The kiss is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Her nails rake against my back, shoulders, chest and biceps. Each trace of fingernails leaves me breathless and wanting more. When we finally break apart, I can’t see, think, or breathe straight. When I meet her eyes, I know it was worth it.

TEN

Capri

Jayse. He’s the only thing I can see in this moment. The only thing that I can feel. He’s consuming me. I confessed my life's worth of bad decisions and he devoured them. Accepted them. Yet, he still looked at me with that amazement lurking in the stormy gray of his eyes. Jayse looks at me as if I have more to offer than I believe I do. He makes me believe I can be better than I have. We barely know each other but I feel him in every fiber of my being. It’s almost as if he’s drawn me to Blue Ridge. It’s not possible, but these last few days it’s felt like it.

The memory of our kiss lingers in my mind. My lips can still feel the pressure and roughness of his. His taste is still there on my tongue. The feel of his hands tangled in my hair. It’s all still there like it just happened. A night of sleep has done nothing to change my mind, I’m not sure about his mind though. What will he feel this morning?

It’s obvious he carries a burden of guilt with him. It lingers in his bones and eats at his soul. I’ve always seen that. One of my art teachers in high school told me that as an artist I had an eye for sensing others pain. I didn’t really think that was true until Jayse. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I could sense it. Regret. Grief. Guilt. It oozed off him the way some men oozed sex appeal. Jayse was trapped in turmoil. Broody and sullen. He kept the world at arm's length, something I completely understood. That day I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was standing in his backyard, cutting wood, shirtless. Sweat glistened off his bare skin as the sunlight found ways to hit him through the trees overhead. He looked like something out of a movie, except he held much more within him than a pretty face and good body.

---