Page 8 of Jessica and the Jarhead
Jess walked down the stairs towards me. They never used the grand stairs at the front of the house, so I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing her in such an opulent background before. She seemed somehow more ethereal and beautiful than ever before. My palms were drenched with sweat and I clutched the corsage tighter to keep from dropping it. Her heels made a soft clicking sound with every step she took. The light from the tall window in the foyer was golden from the setting sun, and it rested on her like a caress. She looked like an angel and she was heading straight for me.
“Wow.” It was all I could say. She had pulled her hair back into something fancy, and the icy blue dress she wore dipped low in the front and hugged her body before flaring out big and puffy around her legs. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Do you like it?” She asked. She sounded so insecure. Did she not look in the mirror before she left her room? She stopped just a few feet from me, but I couldn’t move to close the distance. My mouth had gone dry and I couldn’t feel my legs and all I could think about was how lucky I was that she was mine.
“Yeah, I think he likes it,” Grandma Charlotte said from off to the side. My face heated, but didn’t disagree. Her words snapped me out of whatever spell Jess had put on me, and I could finally walk up to her. On the bottom step like that, wewere eye level with each other. I had my last growth spurt this summer, and she always had to strain to look up at me after. I enjoyed looking her right in the eye.
“This is for you,” I said as I lifted the corsage box. “I hope you like it.” My mom helped me pick it out and picked a tie that matched her dress. She said if I didn’t, she would disown me as a son. That was good enough for me. Now everyone who saw us would know we were together. Possessiveness ran through me at that. Everyone should know she is mine.
I slipped the corsage onto her wrist and regretted that I couldn’t pin it to her dress. The temptation to caress her right now was so strong. Rather than touch her where I wanted, I ran my hands down her arm and took her hand in mine. It was a little cool and clammy and she gripped my hand tight, like she was nervous or scared. I just smiled at her and squeezed her hand back.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said as she looked at it. The flowers were white, but that’s the extent of my knowledge about flowers. “Oh! I have something for you, too.” She smiled at me and reached out to her mom, who had just come running into the room.
“Oh! I missed it. Here you go,” her mom said as she handed her a box similar to the one I had held, and she took her time pinning the flower to my lapel. Her hands moved along my chest, caressing me and moving up to my shoulders. “I can’t believe I missed it. Steve just — “
“Time for pictures!” Her grandma startled us out of our moment, and Jess took the last step down so we could pose for pictures. She had gone slightly pale at whatever her mom had been saying and I was grateful for her grandma’s intervention if it meant she didn’t have to listen to whatever her mom had to say about her dad that put that look on her face.
The music was loud and fast and we could hear it from outside the hotel ballroom where we held the prom. I pulled Jess in close to me until we moved as one as soon as we got to the dance floor. I couldn’t tell you who was around us or what song was playing, only that Jess was in my arms and that she tasted like cherry lip balm and home.
“I love you,” I said as we sat in the car outside her house after prom. It was not even close to the first time I thought it, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I didn’t want her to think I was just saying that because we had a good night.
“I love you, too.” Her smile was big and bright and so damn beautiful. Her lipstick had long been smeared away by my kisses, but her lips will still plump and red as I leaned into kiss her again. I didn’t think anything could beat this moment right now.
Two days later, the first day back to school after prom, Jess broke up with me. She never told me why and my heart broke all over again, thinking about the look on her face when she did it. Her eyes were bright and full of tears that she was trying to hold back, and despite the firm set of her shoulders, I could see that she was seconds away from breaking down. She didn’t want to break up with me anymore than I wanted us to break up, but something had pushed her to it and it hurt most that she didn’t let me in. I always knew there was a part of her she was holding back from me, but I figured she would tell me when she was ready.
I gripped the picture of us so tight that it crumpled in my hands. The fact that we even had physical pictures from this time was a miracle. I can’t remember when the last time I even printed one out. This was precious, and I was crushing it in frustration. I smoothed out the wrinkles, gently placed the photo back in the box with the rest of them, and prayed that this time I could get her to open up to me so I wouldn’t lose her again.
When she finally came back in, she didn’t speak to me beyond telling me she was sleeping on that infernal couch. I wanted to burn the thing to the ground, but let her have her space. The night was cold without her in the bed with me and I woke up determined to make sure she didn’t sleep on the couch ever again.
Chapter 5
Jess
“Mom!” I ran up the back stairs at the house. My shoes were in one hand and my dress was in the other. My heart was racing, but not from the run up the stairs. I couldn’t believe it. Charles loved me. This was the best night of my life. I had told my mom before I left I wanted to tell Charles I loved him. We had been together for a while now, in high school years, and I had been so afraid to say it, but when he said it, I knew it was right. Excited thrills ran through some part of me when I thought about it, but at the moment he said calm came over me, like everything was right with the world and nothing could ever go wrong again.
“Mom, you will never believe…” I drew up short when I got to her bedroom. In real life, she was just gone, the room was empty, the bed sat with its comforter, but the pictures were gone and the drawers were empty and the smell of my moms perfume, the one she wore when she missed my dad, lingered in the air. My grandma had come up behind me and pulled me into a tight hug when I turned to her. I could barely see her through the tears in my eyes, but she held me tight and let me ruin her robe with my running make up. I didn’t understand. She was here when I left. She helped me get ready, did my hair and makeup before she gave me a tight hug and told me how happy she wasfor me and how much she loved me. Now she was just gone, and she didn’t even say goodbye.
This time, instead of a room, there was a void. One I narrowly avoided falling into as I pulled up short in her doorway. “Mom!” I shouted in the blackness. It was the kind of blackness that sucked everything into it. More like a black hole than the void I first imagined. Along with it went every feeling of peace and calm and joy that had filled me before. “Mom!” I called again. The wind picking up around me as I shouted, disturbing my hair and pulling at my dress. I clung tight to the door frame, so the nothingness didn’t suck me in.
“She’s mine now,” my dad’s voice answered back. The deep tone of it reverberated through me and knocked me to my knees. Despite my fight against the black hole, my dress had crumbled and my body fell away with it soon enough. “You left, and now she’s mine.” I wanted to scream and wail against him, but I didn’t have a voice box anymore. That was gone as well.
I could feel my heart racing and I stood and ran to my grandma’s room so she could hug me tight enough to make my body real again. She could always hug me tight enough so my soul and my body stayed as one. Only she wasn’t there either. In her place on her bed sat a puppet of me. A giant, wrinkled hand reached down to pull the strings and doll-me danced like I had just been doing at the prom, only I had no date, there was no Charles, there was no joy and happiness. Doll-me’s face was pulled into a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes and I could see my grandma’s wrinkled hand pulling the strings of that smile as well.
“Look what I can make her do,” a voice that sounded like my grandma’s, but twisted and wrong, said as she pulled the strings this way and that. When she was done making me dance, she walked the doll-me over to the window where a movie of my meeting with her executor played on a loop. “You don’t have achoice,” the twisted voice said before a mountain of snow and ice crashed down on top of me, burying me in its weight. “It’s all going according to plan.”
My only hope was to follow the smell of bacon and coffee and hope it led me to freedom. I dug and clawed at the ice around me, knowing that if I could just get to the coffee, I would be home and all would be well.
“I know you’re awake,” Charles called from the kitchen. His voice cut through the ice and I realized I was shivering. I hated that most about the morning. My body could remember the warmth of sleep, and that made the chill of being awake all that more unbearable. This time, though, despite the cold, I was glad to be awake. The dream was slipping through my fingers already and in its place was emptiness and confusion.
I didn’t know what to do about Charles. I didn’t know what to do about my grandma’s will, and I never, ever wanted to think about my mom and dad again. That was easier said than done. My therapist always said I shouldn’t try to avoid thoughts of them, but let them come, acknowledge them, and let them go. I just couldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t just feel what they make me feel and then let them go. Rather than deal with everything I was feeling this morning, I hid again.
“No.” I groaned and pulled the blanket over my head. The smell of coffee and bacon became stronger, as did the sound of Charles’ voice.
“You gonna keep running and hiding from me?” Charles asked from right next to me. His voice was calm and had a note of teasing that said he didn’t hold my tantrum against me, but wasn’t going to ignore it, either. I didn’t like that. If he had beenangry with me, or hell even just ignored me, I would have known what to do and how to act. I would have been able to handle that, but this was something I had very little experience with. Shame wormed its way through me at how I’ve been treating him in return.
I threw the blankets off my head. Yes, I was running and hiding from him, but what else was I supposed to do? Tell him everything? Eviscerate my soul and let him see all the ugly parts of it?Just eat breakfast,the reasonable part of my brain said, and for a moment I considered ignoring it out of spite.
“Come eat breakfast. You’ll feel better.” He had perched himself on the back of the couch and I could feel his warmth so close to me. If I tilted my head back, it would land on his thigh. God, I wanted to tilt my head back. I stood instead and realized how disheveled I was when the frosty morning air stung the exposed stretch of skin across my stomach.
