Page 22 of Mountain Freedom
“Pepperoni,” Allison said. “Apparently some things never change.”
“You can’t top pepperoni, so why try? It’s the perfect pizza.”
“As your new doctor, I might gently suggest you try a slice of mine and get some vegetables into your life,” she said. The twinkle in her eyes let me know she was teasing. Mostly, anyway.
“Don’t worry,” I said, patting my stomach. “I had a healthy lunch of fish and vegetables.”
“Did you really?”
“Yep. Fried catfish, French fries, fried okra, and fried green tomatoes.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, but she was fighting back a smile. “I see I have my work cut out for me.”
“I’m afraid so.”
She opened her eyes, meeting my gaze, and a sense of wonder hit me. How was it that I already felt this comfortable with someone I had only reconnected with yesterday? Talking with people was part of my job, and I was good at it. Good at connecting with ease, getting people to open up and think of meas a friend. It was why I was better at my job than a couple of my coworkers who liked to hold themselves apart and act superior because of the badge.
But this was different. I wasn’t just acting comfortable. I felt a deep sense of comfort, like I had known her my whole life. We had spent most of our lives apart, in completely separate worlds. It didn’t make sense that this kind of connection would come back so easily. But it had. And it felt like I had found something I had searched for my entire life.
“Where’d you go?” she asked, cocking her head. “You look like you’ve drifted off deep into thought.”
“I guess I had,” I admitted. “I was just thinking how nice this is. How easy it feels. How it’s like I’ve known you my whole life.”
“We sort of have,” she chuckled, but a little bit of worry crossed her face. “This is great, Jackson, and I love that we reconnected. But I do just want to be clear that I meant it when I said I only want to be friends. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to get involved.”
I held up my hands. “I get it, Allison. I was being serious when I said that’s what I wanted, too.” I hesitated, then leaned forward and lowered my voice, deciding to open up to her in a way I hadn’t opened up to anyone. “I don’t do relationships. Ever. It’s a rule of mine. And your friendship means too much to me to screw things up with a fling, so. Just friends. For real.” I shrugged.
She gave me an interested look. “Why do you not do relationships?”
I couldn’t stop the rush of negativity that flooded me from thinking about it. “You knew Russell.”
“Yeah,” she said in a questioning tone, like she didn’t understand where I was going.
“And you’re smart enough to know how these things work. He was the way he was because of his dad. His dad was the wayhe was because of his dad, and so on and so on in a long chain of miserable, broken people. I decided a long time ago that the chain stops with me.”
“But, Jackson,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “you don’t have to stay single to stop the chain. You’ve already broken it. Look at you and the life you’ve chosen. You’re nothing like him.”
I shook my head. “That’s different. But I’m not going to be a husband or father. I wouldn’t be any good at it. My real dad—the one who adopted me—was awesome. He had the patience of a saint. But I don’t.” I shrugged, even though the pain of it all still ate at me. “Russell’s blood runs through my veins.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” she protested.
“As a doctor, you know enough about genetics to know that isn’t true,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
She blushed but didn’t contradict me this time.
“I work harder than anyone knows to be different than him.” I dropped my gaze and took a long drink from my soda, trying to swallow back the hurt that always came when I remembered the things he said. I couldn’t take the risk of putting myself in a situation that might prove him right.
“But—” she started to speak, but I interrupted her.
“Besides,” I said, trying to wave her off and change the subject to a less painful one. “I work long hours in a job that can be dangerous. That’s not fair to a wife and kids, either. When I was a kid, I remember how my mom would sit and wonder when Russell was coming home.Ifhe was coming home. How we’d make it if he didn’t. I’m not going to put anyone through that.”
“Whatever happened to your mom?” she asked quietly.
I looked down at my straw. “She took off. Pretty sure she was the one to make that last report, the one that landed me in foster care for good. But she didn’t hang around to see what happened. Just left. I never saw her again.”
“I’m sorry, Jackson.”
I shrugged, even though it still hurt. “She probably saved my life. Can’t really blame her for protecting hers by disappearing. My folks helped me track her down when I turned eighteen, but she’d died a couple years before that. But enough about the past. The point of all that was to say I don’t do relationships. I’m married to my job, and that’s the only commitment I’m looking for. So you don’t have to worry about me trying to blurry up the lines of our friendship.”
