Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You #1)(77)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“No,” stumbled from my mouth as I edged back in the chair, needing space, my head shaking.

Her fingers dug into the backs of my hands as she pressed them more firmly against her stomach. “Yes.” It was a declaration.

“No, Aly, no.”

Panic spread slowly just beneath the surface of my skin. Every cell in my body lit in an excruciating blaze, like dominoes tipped one by one, catching fire.

“How?” How could I have done this?

She slanted her face away, then jerked it back to me. “I don’t know. I… I messed up.”

She messed up? Silent, mocking laughter pounded me in the chest.

It was me who messed up. I always did.

The walls closed in and the room spun. I nudged her from my lap.

Aly reeled back when I set her on her feet. “Jared, please talk to me.”

But I was the one who was reeling. Floundering. Standing, I fisted my hands in my hair as I began to pace her room. How could I have let this happen?

I don’t get to have this.

“Don’t do this, Jared. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”

“I have to… I have to go.” I headed for her door. I just needed some air. Because I couldn’t f**king breathe.

“Don’t you dare leave me, Jared. Please… don’t do this to me.” Her words were cracked and rushed. From behind, she grabbed me by the shirt, desperate as she pulled me back. “I won’t let you do this to me… I won’t let you do this to us.”

I wheeled around, taking her by the wrists, binding her hands between us as I brought us chest to chest. Wide, startled eyes stared up at me, her perfect mouth parted in shock.

“Do you think I could? Fuck… Aly… ”

Didn’t she get it?

I swallowed, overwrought, as I looked at the girl who I’d done so wrong. I didn’t know how to be okay with this because I’d never been more scared of anything in my life. I’d taken life, and I had no right to give it. But there was no staying away from the only one who had ever touched my heart.

I increased my hold. “I… please just give me some time.”

Aly drew her lips into a thin line, her brow knit as she studied me, as if she wanted to resist. Instead she nodded quickly and took a single step back. “Okay.” She swallowed and nodded again. “But before you walk away, I need you to know I love you, Jared.”

I knew it. Believed it.

And I’d give anything to know how to love her back, the way she should be loved, wholly and without all the bullshit holding me down. I wanted to be enough. My spirit writhed. How could I ever be?

When I turned and walked out the door, Aly moaned as if in pain, but she didn’t try to stop me.

I barreled downstairs. Night had completely taken hold. I hopped on the piece-of-shit bike I had bought to get here. I turned it over and the engine churned to life. I rolled it out, trying to see through the anxiety that seized me, constricting my lungs, jackhammering my heart. Everything about this was wrong… so wrong.

Stopping at the gate, I rammed the heels of my hands into my eyes, a loud groan loosed into the air. An unknown emotion welled thick, urgent at the base of my throat as it fought for release. I widened my eyes, striving to clear my vision as I turned out onto the blurry street.

I knew where I was headed.

Because I was drawn.

Traffic was heavy, the streets clogged. I wanted to scream. Raking a hand through my hair, I mumbled incoherencies, not sure I could hold it together. When I finally got across town, I slid the bike into the left-hand turn lane. The blinker flashed, and I wavered. I had a stranglehold on the handlebars when I crossed over the spot where I had taken it all, where she’d bled and I’d never wept. That unspent emotion clashed with the anger, fighting, struggling to break free.

A quarter of a mile down the street, I pulled off onto the shoulder. Dust billowed as I braked, a storm of energy rising around me. I stumbled from the bike. The old neighborhood was eerily quiet, lights glowing from windows, trees whispering in the breeze. Panting, I scoured the field that sat deserted across the street. I sucked in a steeling breath and ran across the street. Shoving the toe of my boot in the chain-link fence, I climbed it and swung my legs over as I jumped down on the other side.

Tall, grassy weeds grew high in the center of the field. I wandered out to the middle and fell to my hands and knees. Memories ran amok, a chaos that came too close and coursed too free. Aly as a little girl… my mother calling my name. Both pulled at me, a war between what I needed and this debt I would never be able to fully pay. Had I really deceived myself into believing if I came back here I could finally escape it? But I’d come on this impulse, an instinct that spurred me forward, promising things would be different.

Yeah. They were different, all right.

I wheezed for air.

I rose onto my knees, my hands pressed to the side of my head, trying to make sense of the million different emotions that were fighting inside my heart and mind.

“Mom,” I called out to her, wishing she could hear. Praying she could. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. I tried. I f**king tried, and no matter what I do, I can’t make this right. I want to make this right.”

I pitched forward, clutching my stomach, knowing that I was absolutely going to lose it. Her face flickered before me, her voice so soft.

“Mom,” I mumbled quietly, “please tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

I just didn’t f**king know anymore.

Hunched over, I buried my face in my hands. And I knew I couldn’t go on like this any longer. Something had to give. I’d tried, and I f**king failed. I was tired of failing. Tired of hurting people I cared about.

In this place, Aly’s presence consumed me. Impressions of the little girl who’d grown to possess me ran rampant, rushed along the hard ground, and drifted in the air.

TWENTY-FIVE

May 2006

Jared closed his eyes as he slumped back on his bed. Warmth shocked through his system, a moment’s euphoria, a moment’s relief. He floated, lifted, and fell. For just a little while, it didn’t hurt so bad.

But it never lasted.

He curled on his side, holding his stomach, trying to deflect the surge of feeling that came storming back. Fire coursed through his veins, a foreign voice shrieking from the hollowed-out hole where his soul had once been. Jared opened his mouth and forced his face into the pillow. A silent scream ripped from this throat.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

Jared sat up. He swayed. He steadied himself and tore a hand through his too long hair as he frantically looked around the haze of his room. He had to get it together and figure this shit out. He kept thinking he’d fill himself so full with poison that he’d sleep, that he’d fall and never wake. But it was never good enough, and he always was thrown back into this everlasting hell.