SCARS (9 page)

              “Here.”

              I took the cloth from Ellen and set the water down. I placed the cloth at his neck and hummed the first few bars of Skyfall. As I was about to launch into the opening verses I slowly and methodically began to wipe his face down.

              I was soft and clear, never belting it out. Staying calm and restrained. Giving him a line of communication that he wouldn’t be threatened by. Step by step I took the cloth down his arms until I reached his hands. As I took the cloth over he took the rag from my hand and set it aside and gently pulled me close and buried his face in my hair.

              “I can’t lose you,” he whispered into my ear. I could feel his tears sliding down my neck. They were few and far between. He understood there was more than us in this equation that Ellen was very much a part of my life and that I needed her as much as I needed him.

              I held onto to him and whispered back. “You’re not going to lose me. No one is.”

              I looked up. Ellen was wiping away tears too.

              “Just promise me you won’t forget that I was the one who was here when no one else was.”

              James held tighter and trembled like a leaf.

              “Never, Ellen. You’re my rock, my backbone. You always have been. You always will be. But James he needs me the way I need him. Just because he has my heart doesn’t mean I’m going to forget you. Or that I’m saying goodbye. I’m saying let’s make a room for a man who is worthy of me.”

              He released me and in those stark blue eyes his I saw the same raw pain I had seen on the bridge. He cradled my face in his hands and again the world fell and he kissed me hungrily as if I weren’t there he’d die of starvation.

              “Okay, I get. Get a room already,” Ellen said.

              “Come home with me.”

              I knew there was more than sex on his mind it was in his voice. There was something he wanted to talk about. I was going to defer to Ellen. Looking to her there was this smile on her face. But a sadness in her eyes.

              “Just be safe. Treat her well. And just come home every once in a while.”

              I walked over to Ellen and we hugged. There were tears. It was official. The torch had been passed.”

Chapter Twelve

              It was humbling.

              Truly humbling.

              I stood in James’ home wondering what the hell I was doing there and why a guy like him wanted anything to do with a girl like me. I mean for him I was a catch. He’d told me so himself.

              We held hands the entire way there. Not a word was spoken. I knew Ellen was stepping out on faith that everything would be fine. After all so were James and I. Standing there in his kitchen things were suddenly very real and it scared me. A lot. I hadn’t been alone like this with a man since Kevin. And that had been a relationship I thought I would never recover from.

              “You okay?”

              “No,” I admitted as I slid down into the chair closest to me. “I haven’t done this in a really long time.”

              “What’s that?”

              “Been alone with a man. And I mean alone. Where there was no one else to judge to steer or to guide me. This was my call and as much as I know it was the right call it scares me.”

              James pulled up a chair and took a seat. Taking my hands he looked me in the eye and asked, “Is it Ellen?”

              “You gotta understand. Me and Ellen we’ve been through everything. I miss her already. I talk to her multiple times a day. It’s just…I’m humbled. I’m really humbled to be here. The part of me that used to believe in infinite possibilities? It was dead. Gone. Put to sleep. Ellen was always trying to draw that out of me. But she couldn’t do it. She’s scared something bad might happen.”

              “Are you?”

              “Yeah, but it’s worth the risk for me. I haven’t felt like risking anything in a really long time. Now it seems I’m risking everything including a friendship that has been the foundation of my recovery and survival for the last ten years.”

              “I can see that. I see you opening your heart to me when you wouldn’t do it for anyone else. I saw how scared you were that morning as you stepped out onto the bridge to try and save me.”

              “I’m afraid I might be in over my head.”

              “Me too.”

              Were we at an impasse? Hardly. We were just caught in a whirlwind of intense emotion. Not the kind they wrote about in books though. In books there were the finer things like the strapping hero who was a master in bed. Was a borderline if not a straight out asshole. No in his quiet moments I could see a wounded beast trying his damndest to be a good man who clearly believed he was anything but.

              I had stopped believing I’d been a human being worthy of love long ago. It was something I had wrestled with since then.

              But here we were. In James’ home. As humble as it was. With only each other to care for the other. It was hard to believe a week before I’d only talked him down from the ledge. Surely, Ellen was right and I was wrong.

              This, though, sitting in the kitchen, my hands in his, was the happiest I’d been in some time. I even felt the itch to write. Which I hadn’t felt in the longest of times. This was the happiest of moments. Well bittersweet. Because in a way it opened up a new chapter in my life.

              “Is this what you want James? My life is complicated. I lack any real family except Ellen and I’m devastated at the thought of losing her.”

              “You won’t lose her.”

              “How can you be so sure?”

              “Because I’m the interloper. I’m on probation as far as she’s concerned. She’s given me the rope and I believe she thinks she’s going to watch me destroy our relationship. She just doesn’t want me to destroy you in the process.”

              “I get that. But I just want to float for a while, you know? I just kinda want to lose myself in you and forget myself for a while.”

              He smiled and chuckled lightly. “Rayna you are this brilliant white light of hope and beauty and survival. I think you underestimate your effect on people. You gave me purpose. Even though I want a drink so bad I can taste it…you make me want to be a better man. At least try to. My reach may extend beyond my grasp. I don’t know. I just know you’re showing a great deal of faith in me when I don’t have it in myself.”

              “It’s what I do. Even though I have very little of it in the tank for my own purposes.”

              We grew quiet. He brushed my hair back away from my face.

              “So fragile but so strong.”

              Suddenly it was just the two of us in the world and we kissed. His hand slipped behind my head and he drew me in close. Our pasts and our troubles seemed so far away. It was us and only us.

              There was a knock at the door. The bubble popped. My world was about to change forever.

              James froze.

              I froze.

              It was as if our moment had come and passed. And our past was there to ruin whatever future we might have had. I held my breath as James stood and reached beneath the butcher block in the center of the kitchen. In his hand was a handgun. What kind I wasn’t sure. I just knew I didn’t want to be staring down the other end of it.

              He slowly made his way to the door.

              “If something happens the keys to the truck are on the butcher block. Grab your bag and run like hell.”

              I slipped my hand into my pocket. Kevin had gifted me an engraved switchblade. There had been many nights when I debated taking his life with it in the aftermath of his betrayal. There had been mornings I had contemplated taking my own life before taking my meds. But I always thought better of it. Mostly because I cared too much about Ellen for her to find me that way. More than that my blood was deadly. I didn’t want some unsuspecting fool to get sick by touching my blood.

              The knife? The difference between life and death. I would not leave James to face his past alone. He unlocked the door and opened it.

              There was silence.

              “Figures.”

              It was a distinctive female voice. It was a voice from my past. Not his. I hadn’t spoken to Georgia since my diagnosis. Had death finally come calling?

              “Who the hell are you?” was all James said.

              “My mom is dying and I thought my sister, Rayna might give two shits. I heard from a little birdy she was shacking up with the town freak.”

              “Listen you waste of space, I have no use for you or your mother and I could give
two shits about you and her.
I’ll tell Rayna you came by. Now if you don’t mind I want you off my God damn property.”

              “I came here to talk to my sister. I’m not leaving until I do.”

              “You really are biting off a lot more than you can chew little girl.”

              “She thinks you can protect her. So do you. Both of you are so wrong.”

              “You have no idea the lengths to which I would go to protect Rayna. The fact she protected you and this is the way you treat her, you should be so lucky to get this warm a greeting from me.”

              “You think you can scare me. I know the truth.”

              I got up and as I approached James I saw that wild, animal-like stance. His knuckles white as he gripped the gun at his side. He was going to kill if I didn’t stop him. I knew it in my gut. He wouldn’t think twice about it. He would destroy the evidence and he and I would run off somewhere and live in anonymity. He would function fine. Without Ellen I would not.

              I placed a gentle hand on his arm. As if to say, stand down soldier. I got this.

              “Georgia.”

              “There’s the little murderess now.”

              Her nastiness was thick and caustic in nature.

              “You say Mom’s dying.”

              “Yes, and God only knows why she’s asking for you. As it’s been me all these years taking care of her.”

              “Come off your high horse. You like it that way Georgia you always have.”

              “It’s not enough that you lie about our father but that you kill him and lead people to believe he abandoned the family.”

              Her words stung and enraged me. Tears came to my eyes. “I may have secrets, but I never lie. And he was moving on. He was moving on to you. I had to do something. Now you said Mom was dying. Did you come here to threaten me or pass a message along?”

              I glanced down and watched James tuck his gun in the back of his waistband. He took my hand.

              “They’re not sure how much time Mom has left. She said she wants to right some wrongs. She was a warm and loving mother. You were and still are a horrible daughter and useless sister--,”

              “That’s enough!” James’ voice boomed and reverberated throughout the trailer and echoed into the forest.

              Georgia went white as a sheet. For the first time in her life Georgia had found someone who wouldn’t let her steamroll me. A man. A real man. I could handle Georgia but the reality was it was hard and it took its toll.

              “I told you, you may think you know who you’re messing with but you don’t know the half of it. I could kill you. Put a bullet between your eyes and get rid of the body without thinking twice about it. If that was what Rayna wanted I would do it. But, I don’t think she knows what she wants where you’re concerned. However, you will not come on my property and threaten her with anything. You will address by her name and by God you will be grateful for the safe childhood she afforded you. And you will keep her secret or I will make sure you become just another secret that is so much ash and dust never to be heard from again.”

              Georgia burst into tears and bolted. I turned and collapsed into James arms. He held me up and close, kissing my temple.

              “As long as I live and breathe that bitch will never touch you.”

              I didn’t cry. I simply cleaved to him. And for the first time I felt protected and safe from harm. And as if no one could touch me. That he would take my secret to the grave. I don’t know why I found him on the bridge or why I went to him. But he was a man of his word. He would always be the keeper of my secrets.