Page 78 of Unspoken Confessions
28
Nick
“Are you… okay?” I asked hesitantly.
Jameson was driving in the direction of home. Austin was in the back watching something on his phone with earbuds in. Jen was sprawled out on the seat with his legs in Austin’s lap and his head resting awkwardly against the back of the seat.
Everything around us was pitch black. The lines of the highway came and went, flashing into the light as quickly as they disappeared into the darkness again. Jameson’s face was lit up with a strange blue glow from the dashboard in front of him.
He took in a deep breath, his chest visibly expanding with it. I counted five beats of my heart before he slowly let it out again.
“No,” he answered honestly. “Yes. I don’t know.”
“Want to talk about it?” I asked and rolled my eyes at myself.
He shot me a side-eyed look and all I could do was nod like I knew it was coming.
“Your wife? Kelly?” I asked even though I already knew the answer. I had a feeling it had to do with her death when he shut me out last night.
It was the reason I hadn’t pushed when he asked for time to himself. I could see it in his face that he was breaking inside and not in a good way. As much as I hated to leave him to deal with that alone, I gave him the space he asked for. Then when Austin told me he’d be up for over twenty-four hours because Jameson wouldn’t be there the next day, I came up with a crazy plan.
Horribly bad idea, I know. I totally encroached on his day and his time honoring his dead wife’s memory. I really wished I had thought about it more. Seeing him look so sad, I just couldn’t let him go off by himself. Even if he didn’t talk about it, he needed to be surrounded by the support of people that cared about him.
He nodded in response to my question but his eyes were focused straight ahead. He couldn’t look at me and that was fine.
“You can tell me about her, if you want,” I told him. The thought of him talking about this woman that had held his heart for a long time didn’t give me a sour taste in my mouth like I thought it would. The more I thought about it, the more I became settled and happy with the idea that he’d had someone to love him. I hated that he’d lost her. And I hated the story behind it. It broke my heart and I wish neither of them would have had to go through that.
But at the same time, and perhaps it was a shitty thing to think, if it hadn’t happened, I never would have met him.
That was something that scared me.
I didn’t know where I was at yet, but Jameson made me want to be the person I held inside. The real me, I suppose. He made me want to stop hiding because love was a beautiful thing and I wanted to share that with the world.
“My mom hated avocados,” I said. I stared at the darkness that somehow seemed to fly by in strange streaks outside the window. “She said they were slimy and gross, and that you couldn’t trust something you weren’t able grab ahold of.” I let out a sad laugh. “Every time I touch one I think of that. Especially when it just slides right out of my grasp. But I love them. Something I didn’t figure out until recently.”
“Kelly didn’t like olives,” he said and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right since he was talking so quietly. “Black ones, green ones, she wouldn’t touch them. I love them on my pizza. I… didn’t get that while we were married because she swore that even if she picked them off she could still taste them. But, honestly, I didn’t even notice they were missing after a while.”
He was opening up. This was good. I could have cried I was so happy.
“We would always make hot chocolate on Christmas Eve,” I said in a choked voice. “We sat in the middle of the living room, on the floor, our backs together while we wrapped each other’s presents. I loved that tradition so much that I eventually stopped trying to sneak a look at what she’d gotten me.”
He flicked the turn signal and veered off the highway onto an off-ramp. I knew we were close to home and that it would be back roads from here on out.
“Christmas was small for us. We didn’t have a lot of money but we always tried to get that one special gift for each other,” He told me. “After we turned twenty-one, well, we were pretty settled even that young. We would get a bottle of whiskey, Jameson, actually, and drink the whole thing before midnight. We’d kiss, then pass out. That became our tradition. But it was always the best night because we would talk until the countdown started. Just talk. About anything and everything. It felt like we were connecting at the end of the year and starting off with a fresh slate for the new one.”
The SUV slowed as he came to a blinking red light. There were headlights coming and Jameson was playing it safe, waiting for them to go by.
“One year—” I started but Jameson’s attention was suddenly on the rearview mirror.
“What the—”
My body jerked forward as this awful sound filled my ears. Metal crunching. Glass breaking. And then my head bounced off of something hard.
Horns.
Someone was honking their horn. It was deep and didn’t sound like something normal.
My body felt weightless as I was thrown in another direction.
