Page 78 of Fight for Me
There was an odd moment where time seemed to hover. The steady rhythm of Jake’s own heartbeat was white noise in his ears, drowning out the singing of the birds and the creak of the old tire swing. He didn’t register the slip of loose gravel beneathhis boots, and he barely noticed the soft fabric of Drew’s shirt collar in his hand. But hedidfeel the rattle in his bones when his fist connected with his cousin’s jaw, bringing the world around him sharply back into focus.
“Why do you hate me?” Jake shouted as Drew staggered backwards. His cousin looked up, eyes ablaze, and rushed forward with all the force of an angry bull. Both boys crashed to the ground in a heap.
“You’re the chosen one!” Drew grunted, taking aim. Jake felt the gravel beneath him rip into his skin at the same time his head whipped to one side, pain exploding where Drew’s fist made contact near his temple.
“The golden boy!” Drew hissed, drawing back for another hit.
Drew was bigger and stronger the way only years of constant physical labor could make him, but Jake had pure adrenaline on his side. Years of pent-up frustration surged into his hands as he drove both fists into his cousin’s gut, knocking the air from his lungs. He shoved hard, forcing Drew to the ground and rolling on top of him before slamming into his cousin’s face for a second time.
Several pairs of hands suddenly closed around his shoulders, dragging him backwards as he aimed again.
“Get off him, Jacob!” a deep voice yelled, but Jake was past the point of obedience. He lashed out blindly, flailing as he was hauled to his feet. Uncle Rob and Oliver grabbed Drew around the waist as he tried to scramble forward, obviously hoping to even the score.
“You get everything you want. Why wouldn’t I hate you?” Drew shouted as he strained against the hands that held him.
Logan Tanner stepped in front of his son. “Take a walk!” he commanded, shoving Jake toward the house.
Sawyer looped a supportive arm around Jake’s shoulders, but Jake flung him off, stalking toward the old garden shed. Whenhe got there, he looked wildly around, his eyes landing on the bare spot against the siding where he’d stood with Lexie only hours before. He could almost see the indentation of her shoes in the grass, hear her voice in the air.
“This was never going to work—you and me. We should have left things the way they were.”
“I’ve got to tell you, that gut check was impressive,” his younger cousin said from somewhere behind him, though he sounded much farther away. “I don’t know how he didn’t see it coming.Isaw it coming, and I was halfway across the yard.”
“I’m going in,” Jake snapped, ignoring his cousin completely as he turned on his heel and stalked toward the back porch.
“You want me to get Lexie? Where is she?”
“Gone,” Jake muttered. “Long gone.”
He was gladit was raining. The steel-gray clouds reflected his mood as they dumped sheets of water on the barren fields, washing the leaves from the trees and effectively flipping the world from autumn to winter in a single stroke.
Jake had been awake most of the night, alternatively pacing and staring at the ceiling in his father’s office. He could have slept in his own room, of course, but everything in there smelled like her. It was enough to drive him crazy.
He’d been over their argument a million times, trying to catch every word in his hands so he could turn them over and examine them from all sides, but somehow his memory always caught on Lexie packing to leave, moving like the house was on fire and she only needed to save herself. Everything after that felt blurred, like one continuous rush of motion, though bits and pieces came back to him, dancing like fireflies in the dark.
“I can’t do this. I can’t be here... Life isn’t a fairy tale.”
He rolled his neck, wincing with every movement. He had a huge scrape across one shoulder blade where the driveway gravel had torn his favorite sweater, and he ached from his neck to his knees. The knuckles of his right hand were a nasty violet color to match the bruise near his left temple, which had spread overnight to give him the worst black eye he’d ever had. Drew, however, would have two, and that fact gave Jake a childish sense of satisfaction.
The clock hit six, and just as he’d expected, there was a knock on the door that was neither polite nor quiet, despite the early hour.
“Can you see straight?” his father asked gruffly, striding into the room without waiting to be invited.
Jake answered with a grunt that his dad obviously took to mean yes.
“Good, get dressed. There are cows to feed.”
His dad stalked out, leaving the door open behind him. To say his father was unhappy with his behavior would be an understatement, but Jake was having a hard time caring as much as he usually did.
He didn’t even bother with clean clothes; he’d be soaked to the bone by the time he got back anyway. Instead, he pulled on an old pair of jeans and the shirt he’d played football in the day before. He reached for a red hoodie draped over a chair near the bookshelf and recoiled when he realized it was the one he’d given Lexie. She must have left it behind.
Jake stared at it for a long moment, letting memories play like a film without sound: Lexie curled up under his arm, Lexie laughing in the bed of his truck, Lexie combing her fingers through her hair after a long day. Lexie, in all her moods and all her shapes.
“I would rather wear one of your sweatshirts than any of Colt’s diamonds.”
She’d said that, but it obviously wasn’t true. Nothing he’d given her was enough.
He snatched the sweatshirt off the chair and stuffed it deep into his duffel. The motion was familiar; he’d done almost the same thing yesterday. But yesterday, the bag had been Lexie’s, and that package had been carefully wrapped. He wondered if she’d found it yet. And, with a stabbing pain in his chest, he wondered if it would matter.
