Forget Me Not (18 page)

I kiss him softly on his cheek, but what I really want to do is wrap my arms around his neck and indulge in some making out of the R-rated kind. I want to truly show my appreciation for this amazing gift, but I’m far too conscious of his aversion to PDA’s.

“Hey.” His finger strokes my jaw line as he turns my face to his own, closing the small distance between us before kissing me.
Hard
. His hand cradles the back of my head as he pushes his lips against me. I completely melt when his tongue finds mine, falling into his embrace as my love and desire for this man oozes through my veins like melted chocolate. I grip his shirt with fervent fingers and pull his chest into mine. Our breathing becomes ragged and so we regretfully break away before we lose ourselves in the heat.

Forehead to forehead, he whispers, “I told you, anywhere I can get you.”

Chapter 18

             
We leave Mo’s Diner how we would have left ten years ago, hand in hand with goofy grins plastered across our faces. Jesse is carrying our bags towards my car where we’ll have to part and drive home separately. Once he’s placed my things on the passenger seat he turns to face me with an odd look on his features that I can’t place.

             
“When was the last you were down the footbridge?” he queries.

             
“Hmm…I don’t even remember. Not since I’ve been driving, or since you left.”

             
“That long?” I’m completely baffled by his questions, but I nod in response. “Let’s go now. I want to check something.”

Before I have chance to decline, Jesse is pulling me excitedly across the parking lot towards the footbridge. I barely have time to lock my car.

“We can’t be too long. Zoe’s coming at six and I need a long time to beautify this,” I say, gesturing to my face even though he’s pacing ahead of me and can’t see me.

“We won’t, and no, you don’t. You could wear a sack tonight and shave your head and you’d still be the prettiest woman there.” I laugh at the absurdity but don’t argue with him. He hates it when I can’t take a compliment and I haven’t got time for another of his lectures.

Once we’ve crossed the parking lot Jesse guides us down the sandy embankment towards the stream, rather than over the bridge.

“What are you doing? Jesse, my shoes!” I protest as the slim heels of my wedges sink into the sand.

Turning to face me, he glances down at my feet. “Okay, stay here.”

He pecks me on the lips and before I get chance to deepen the kiss he’s ducking underneath the bridge. The strip for Jesse to walk on can only be three feet wide and it consists of unstable sand. If he stumbles forward he will fall into the stream and I’ll burst out laughing. Not because I am cold hearted, but because at this time of year it would barely meet his knees.

“What on earth are you doing?” I ask, as I watch him scan the underside of the bridge.

“Ah ha!”

“What?” I’m both intrigued and annoyed at being kept in the dark.

He walks back to me, taking my hand. Whatever he’s found has clearly pleased him. His smile is bright and his eyes wide. He looks more like the Jesse that I used to know than he has done all week.

              “Come with me, but be really careful,” he instructs jokingly before continuing, “We don’t want you to drown.” Giggling, I follow his lead. He loops his arm around my waist, and keeps it strong so that I don’t lean too far forward.

Compared to the top, the underside of the footbridge looks like it’s been neglected for many years. The white paint discontinues under the bow, allowing decade old graffiti to remain preserved. It’s suddenly clear what he’s been searching for.

“Look,” he says, pointing above our heads.

I follow his extended finger to the roof of the underside. Encased within a black heart are the initials, ‘
MC and JJ’
, and scrawled underneath are the words,
‘forever’.

“You had to sit on my shoulders to write that,” he explains. There’s no need. I remember. I’m just surprised it’s still there.

“You wouldn’t hold still.”

He chuckles. “Yeah well, I was a little distracted by the feel of your thighs wrapped around my neck.” I slap him lightly on the chest, giggling with him.

I haven’t used the footbridge since Jesse left, let alone felt the need to explore the memories here. This was our meeting place during the summer months when the water levels were low enough. I was normally in town a lot earlier than Jesse so I’d wait for him here rather than intruding on his house. 

If I’d have come here a few weeks ago it would have been a painful experience. But now, with Jesse by my side rather than lost in my memories, it feels therapeutic. I can see where we once were and how far we’ve come. Was that his intentions?

“Is this why you bought me down here?” I ask.

“Yeah, I wanted to see if it was still here.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“Sweets, I remember everything.” He kisses my hair and tightens his grip.

I bring my arms around his waist, locking them and simply enjoying him being here with me. It feels like only yesterday that I thought I’d never see him again. Well, I guess it hasn’t really been that much longer. But, it still feels a little like a dream. An incredible dream. I have to keep touching him and smelling him so that I can determine that he’s real. He smells amazing. His usual aftershave is mixing with the coastal air to transform into something fresh and engaging. I bury my head against his chest and indulge in its sweetness.

“You remember the last time we were here? We were finishing the last of the booze.” I manage to say lightly, despite the fact that I’m talking about the last night I saw him.

“That wasn’t my last time here.” I glance up at him. He meets my gaze. Gone is the spirited Jesse of moments before. His eyes are brooding.

“It wasn’t?”

“No, I came here after I’d decided to leave, before I ran into Joanna. I just wanted to get my head together.”

“Why here?”

“I’ve always liked it here. It reminds me of you.”

I try to smile at his sweet words but knowing that he came here to escape whatever had happened at his house saddens me. I still don’t know what happened that night. He’d left my house in the early hours of the morning after we’d finally consummated our relationship. The last time I saw him he was happy, his smile was as big and bright as the moon that shone down and guided him home. I can only speculate at what awaited him.

I contemplate asking him. It’s the one thing we’ve yet to talk about and yet it’s the thing that has bugged me the most over the years. He put up with so much abuse at the hands of Dale, so what finally tipped him over the edge? I’m desperate to know. I’m not sure why. If he ever manages to tell me I know that it’s going to be difficult to hear, but I want to know everything about him, not just the good bits. I want to know what hurts him and I want to feel it for him, to shoulder some of the pain.

We’ve been quiet for some time. The silence between us growing and despite it being a comfortable silence, I know its purpose is to hide what we’re both thinking about.

That night.

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to talk to me about that night…that morning you left?” My voice cuts into the silence like a window being opened in a speeding car. The noise that has been sounding out around us rushes in along with my words. The trickling water of the stream and the rattling of the leaves seem to have doubled in volume. It’s as if I imagined the silence. Or perhaps my Jesse-bubble is simply sound-proof.

Jesse doesn’t talk for a while. Maybe he too has been reminded of the world around us. My head rises and falls against his chest with his deep steadying breaths. When I glance up at him he’s looking into the lazy stream as it saunters past. His eyes reflect the cool blues of the water but the color is deceptive. He’s anything but cool right now. His body is tensing with every breath he takes and his hand around my waist is so tight it’s almost painful.

“What do you want to know?” he asks, calmly. Too calmly, as if he’s making a conscious effort to appear relaxed.

“Everything. But, when you’re ready. We’re forever, right? We have forever to talk about this.” I suddenly feel awful for bringing it up. There’s no rush for answers now that we’re together, and I don’t want to taint this place for either of us.

“We’re forever, sweets, but I’ve never told anyone about that night. I kinda feel like I should, like I need to get it out of me.”

“If you want that then I want to listen, but I don’t want you to feel forced…”

“I don’t.”

“Jesse…”

“…He pulled a gun on me, Mickey.”

I hear his words but I don’t digest them. Not immediately. The first thing I notice is the hatred carved into his features. His face is hard and mean but his eyes go deeper than that. He’s livid.

Then the words pierce my thoughts and I hear myself gasp. My hands leave his waist and I step away, not because I don’t want to hold him, but because I’m besieged with shock. My left foot steps back, but there’s no ground where I expect it to be and I feel myself falling. Before I can attempt to save myself Jesse’s strong arms are around me and he slams us both into the foundations of the bridge.

He leans into me, his breath heavy, matching my own, and asks, “You okay?” There is a slight panic echoing in his words, which is ridiculous considering what he has just told me. He’s worrying about me falling all of two feet into what is basically a puddle.

“Are you?” I counter.

“
I
didn’t almost get wet.”

“No,
you
almost got shot.” I can’t even believe the words when they come from my own mouth. They scare me, they terrify me. They leave both my eyes and my palms wet. I wrap my hands around his neck, his face, checking him over as if it happened just moments ago rather than ten years past.

“Mickey.” He takes my trembling fingers and brings them to rest between our chests. “I’m fine…now. I’ve dealt with it.” He sighs. “I’m dealing with it.”

“What happened?” I ask, not wanting to know.

He exhales, long and slow. “He was waiting when I got back, sat in his damn armchair chugging on gin in the middle of the night like it was warm milk.” Our heads are only inches apart but he doesn’t connect with me, with my eyes. He’s looking past me at the bare wall behind us, but it’s not bare to him. I imagine him watching it back like it’s a TV special.

“I thought he’d be pissed when he found out I’d took his drink for us. But, he was actually happy about it. He had his ammo. His face lit up when he saw me, like it was his fucking birthday. He asked me if I took it and told him the truth. I don’t know why, I had no intention to, but I told him I’d pay him back for it. He didn’t care. He asked me why and I told him we were celebrating.” His features pinch together in disgust and he briefly touches our heads together, stroking my hair like
he’s
comforting
me
. “That was all the bait he needed. Next thing I know, he’s stood up and he’s nose to nose with me, telling me how I shouldn’t waste good liquor on a whore…like you.”

The comfort of his hand leaves my hair just before his palm slams into the wood behind us. I flinch at the aggression. I’m frightened, but not
of
him,
for
him. I know that he’s hurting and that’s how he deals with it. He needs to rid it physically. He hits the wall again and then pushes himself away from me. He sighs heavily and falls back into the wall beside me. Our bodies facing the stream but our faces turned to each other.

“I don’t care that he said that about me, Jesse.” I say calmly but feeling anything but.

“
I do!
I care, Mickey.” His tone is taut, along with his jaw, his expression menacing. “He wouldn’t stop taunting me, telling me that you may be a sweet piece of ass but he’d be damned if he’d let you drink his booze. When he told me that he’d make you pay your thanks, and insinuated what that meant, I couldn’t take it anymore.” He hisses through gritted teeth.

“I pushed him away and I swung at him. It was a perfect fucking land, knocked him over. So, I took advantage and started hitting him. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I wanted to make him feel everything he’d done to me over the years and, Mickey, it felt fantastic.”

I turn my body to face him, leaning against the wall with my shoulder. I want to reach out to him but he’s still lost in the anger that he’s carried for so long. I want him to vent, to clear it out of his system, even though my insides are burning with my own anger and my eyes stinging with my own tears. I try desperately to keep them at bay. He doesn’t want my pity.

“When my mom came downstairs, she was screaming at me to stop hitting him. Something she’d never done for me before. I stopped. He was practically unconscious so I thought we were done.” He scoffs at what he’s about to say. “I had this ridiculous notion that perhaps it was the start of a change. Maybe he’d see that I wouldn’t put up with his shit anymore and that I could hold my own. I was apologizing to my mom when I heard the gun click.”

Any restraint I had in me has evaporated with his words. The tears stream down my face and I reach for him, desperate to protect him, to comfort him, even if I’m ten years too late.

Standing in front of him with my hands on his chest and my body leaning against his, I want him to feel me with him. I’m here, he’s not there. His eyes are frosty as he relives it but with every stroke of my hand I feel him coming to.  

“You got out, Jesse,” I croon. “You got out.”

He nods, and breathes, and nods again. “My mom said nothing. It’s hard to believe that after having a gun pointed at my chest
that
was the hardest part. I don’t know if it was because she was scared or whether she didn’t care enough to help me, but that hurt worse than the pistol whip to the face. Both of them.”

He’s looking at me now, engaging me in the memory rather than reliving it. The anger has morphed into sadness. I think I prefer the anger.