I see hurt flash through his eyes. “What if I need you?”
“But you don’t. You made that all too clear.”
“I was an idiot, Jenna. I was a proud, arrogant idiot. But I’m here now. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“No, it doesn’t. It can’t. It can’t,” I hiss, my voice getting louder and louder as my emotions churn. “I can’t wait for you anymore, Rusty. I can’t lose anyone else. My heart can’t take it. You had your chance and you blew it. Now let me go and get the hell off my land.”
I twist my body, trying to wrench free of his iron grip, all to no avail. Despite the fact that one arm is in a cast, Rusty is still stronger than me.
“I can’t,” he growls down into my face.
“What are you even doing here?” I scream, channeling my rage at the world, my rage at life into fury at Rusty. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital, forgetting about me?”
“I was, but I left.”
“Then go back. I don’t want you here.”
“I can’t,” he says again.
“Why not?”
“Because I came here for you, Jenna.”
“Why? I didn’t ask you to come here. I never asked you for one thing. But now I am. I’m asking you to leave. Just leave. Leave me alone!”
“I can’t!” he repeats angrily, his face the twisted mask of a tortured soul.
“Why?” I rail back.
“Because I can’t let you go. I love you too much!”
My heart stops for just an instant, torn between elation and devastation. But I can’t afford to hang on to the elation. The devastation to follow might well be the end of me.
“You can’t tell me that today. You don’t get to do this to me today. I’ve lost everything. Everything. You can’t come back into my life and then leave me again, you bastard,” I cry, thumping my fists against his chest. “You don’t get to do this to me today. You don’t get to…do…this…” My words are choked out by the sobs I can no longer contain. Suddenly devoid of the ability to stay upright, I crumble into the mud, held vertical only by the grip of Rusty’s hands on my upper arms.
“Jenna, please,” he whispers, trying once more to pull me to his chest with his good arm. This time I let him, the will to fight having drained right out of me with the first few sobs. “Let me help you. Just give me this one day and I’ll go. Just this one. Please, Jenna.” In his pause, I feel a sigh expand his lungs. “Please.”
Finally, exhausted, I melt into Rusty. On our knees, in the rain, in the mud, I bury my face in his neck and I cry. From my soul, I cry. Every sob feels as though it’s torn from me, ripped viciously from a place that should never be touched so cruelly. And I’m left, alive but only physically, with nothing but gaping wounds and gushing blood that no one else can see.
When I’m so hoarse my sobs are nothing more than croaks and I’m so spent my tears give way to the rain, somehow, with only one fully-functional arm, Rusty gently cradles me against him, stands to his feet and carries me away from the orchard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Rusty
I carry Jenna toward the front door of her house, thinking only of getting her out of the rain. I barely hear it when she speaks softly into my ear. “Anywhere but there. I can’t go back in there.”
“Okay,” I tell her, detouring toward my mother’s car. I manage to get her into the passenger seat and start the engine, but then I draw a blank. Where can I take her?
Only one place comes to mind. The one place she’d feel best, I think.
Cami’s.
I drive cautiously. It’s a little unnerving for my first time back behind the wheel of a car to be in the rain, in an unfamiliar car, with a grieving Jenna in the seat beside me. Oh, and with my right arm in a cast. Hell, I don’t think conditions could be much worse.
We finally make it to Cami’s. I park and walk around to the passenger side door. I open it and lean down to scoop up Jenna, not giving her any choice other than to let me carry her again. I feel like I need to carry her. Maybe more than she needs for me to.
Once she’s in my arms, I realize she wouldn’t have argued anyway. She’s asleep. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
I hurry to the door and ring the bell. Trick answers within a few seconds. “What the—” He frowns in confusion as he looks from me to Jenna, to her legs folded over my casted arm and then back again.
“Can I borrow your bedroom downstairs?” I ask quietly.
“Sure,” he says without hesitation, opening the door wider so we can pass.
He doesn’t ask questions, which I appreciate. It’s a guy thing.
I’m making my way through the kitchen when Cami appears in the doorway.
“Ohmigod, what happened?” she asks, rushing toward me, her eyes on Jenna.
“Shhh,” I caution. “She’s okay. Just let me take her downstairs and I’ll come back up so I can explain.”
“No! You can tell me now. Is she okay? What hap—”
“Cami!” I snap, interrupting her. When she snaps her mouth shut and looks at me, I add. “Please.”
Cami’s violet eyes bore holes into mine as she narrows them on me. She says nothing for a few seconds. I’m sure she’s debating the wisdom of leaving her best friend in my care when I’ve been such an ass**le. But she relents.
“Okay, but you come straight back up here,” she hisses.
I nod and continue on to the stairs that lead to the basement. I hit the light switch with my elbow and descend the steps into the cool quiet of the lower level.
I stop on the landing at the bottom. The light from the stairwell only penetrates the dimness a few inches in every direction. When I step out into the darkness, it’s somehow like stepping into blessed peace. The light has shown me too much trouble lately. I could use some darkness. Darkness where there’s only me and Jenna. And maybe one more chance for me to not screw it up.
From memory, I carry her to the guest suite Trick and Cami set up down here. I can barely make out the bed in the dying daylight seeping through the tiny window at the top of one wall. I head for it and lay her gently on the soft, pillowy top. She stirs very little.
I bend and press my lips to her forehead. I don’t know if she even has a clue she’s in the world right now, but I speak to her anyway. Just in case.
“Rest, Jenna. I’ll be right back. I promise,” I whisper. She doesn’t respond. A few seconds later, she rolls onto her side and I hear her breathing become deep and even. “I’ll be here every time you open your eyes. I swear it,” I say. This time, it’s more for my benefit than hers.