Shattered (24 page)

I never really took the time to admire just how beautiful the countryside was.  Fields and fields of green as far as the eye could see.  It really was quite peaceful.  After an hour of mindless driving, the sun had finally set and darkness surrounded us.  Jesse pulled the Jeep onto a secluded field road and put it in park.

“What are you doing?”  I turned to him and asked.

“This,” he said with a mischievous grin as he pulled me across the Jeep and onto his lap.  His lips covered mine as I tried to regained my composure.

“Mmmm… okay.”  I drew my arms around his neck and let him continue.

“I couldn’t sit there and watch you sing along with the radio anymore,” he said as his lips moved down my neck.

“Is my singing that bad?” I tried to pull away to question him, but his hands held firm around my waist.

“No,” he mouth moved up and his teeth nibbled my earlobe.  “You looked adorably sexy and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I felt my insides begin to melt as he continued to move his hands and mouth to each part of my body that begged for his touch.  His lips grazing the skin of my shoulders, across my collarbone and back up my neck.  His hand kneading and stroking its way up the skin of thigh, while the other rested at the curve of my hip.

“Sexier than Carrie Underwood?” I said, reciprocating the playful maneuver he’d just pulled on my ear.

“You have no idea.”

I reached between us and tugged the button of his jeans open before slipping my hand between the fabric and his skin.  My fingers inching down until I found exactly what I was looking for.  “I think I have a pretty good idea,” I whispered as he sighed at my touch.  I quickly pulled myself up on the open frame of the Jeep and placed one of my knees on each side of his lap.  The summer heat had warranted dressing in my favorite cotton sundress, which I was fairly certain was now Jesse’s favorite as well.  His hands slid under the fabric and up my thighs as I hovered above him.  With a quick flick of his wrist, the panties I was wearing were no longer an issue.

A “tsk” passed my lips as I smiled down at him, “I really liked those.”

“I’ll buy you some new ones,” he said, tearing open the foil packet he retrieved from his wallet.  His hands quickly dove back under the material of my dress and within seconds he was pulling down onto him.  I tossed my head back and caught a glimpse of the moon before my eyes rolled back in sublime pleasure.  The peaceful, serene countryside had suddenly become the perfect backdrop for a very memorable, and mind-blowing, pit-stop on our casual “ride.”

Jesse pulled his Jeep into a parking spot next to my car.  

“Did you plan that?”  I asked with a smile as we got out of the Jeep.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about doing that with you at least a hundred times.”  He smiled as he made his way over to the back of the Jeep and pulled the ragtop out.

“Is your mind in the gutter all the time?”

“Most of the time,” he smirked.  “Like you didn’t think about it.”

I tried to fight back the smile and shake my head that I hadn’t, but it was no use.  “Yeah, okay.  Maybe a couple times.”

“That’s my girl.”  He leaned over and kissed my cheek before tossing the cover on top of the Jeep frame.

I was helping him secure the final cover snaps when we saw Collin’s truck pull on to the square.  Collin rolled his window down to make sure that Jesse and I could see his hate-filled glare as he slowly drove by.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Jesse said, taking my hand in his, “unless you want a repeat of last time.”

Collin threw his head back with an exaggerated laugh and continued driving.

“Don’t Jesse.”  I felt my stomach twist into a knot when I saw that all he really wanted to do was chase after him and yank him through that window.  “Let’s just go inside.”

“Fine,” Jesse huffed before pulling me along behind him to the door that led up the stairs.  His eyes remained trained on Collin’s truck until the door shut behind us.

Jesse

The roaring sound of an exhaust system, coupled with an abundant, burning smell stirred me from my comfortable resting place wrapped around Alyssa.  I opened my eyes to find the room filled with a thick cloud of smoke.  I heard a set of tires spin the gravel on the road below.

“Get up!” I yelled as I tossed the covers off me and quickly found my clothes.  “Alyssa, get up!  The house is on fire!”

She opened her eyes in disbelief and sat up.  “Omigod, Jesse!”

“Grab some clothes!  Hurry!”  I pulled my t-shirt up over my nose and ventured down the hallway.  I could see that the fire was coming from the front door.  I ran back and grabbed Alyssa’s hand as she finished pulling her jeans on over her pajama shorts.   “Come on!”  

Alyssa covered her face with her hand as we navigated through the smoke. We carefully made our way down the hallway and through the living room.  The entire front door and wall around it were ablaze.  I looked into Alyssa’s eyes to see the panic start to set in.

“This way!” I tucked her in close to me and skirted past the flaming wall, through the dining room. The flames flickered off the ceiling and I knew it was just a matter of time before the whole place was an inferno.  I pulled Alyssa to the kitchen and down the backstairs.  When we reached the door, I was grateful that I’d left it unlocked earlier.  I hadn’t grabbed my keys, wallet or cell phone.  All I could think about was getting her out of there safely.

When we made it outside, I looked over to find Alyssa dialing 9-1-1 on her cell phone.  At least one of us thought about it.   The tears started rolling down her face as she explained our emergency.  We walked around to the front of the building and watched the fire take over the stairwell.  I was sure that the fire had spread through the living room.  The windows upstairs were aglow with orange and red.  I pulled Alyssa into my arms and pressed my face into her hair, now filled with the ashy smell that permeated the air.  

Kelly and Craig arrived at the same time the fire trucks pulled up.  They rushed over to us still dressed in their pajamas.

“Are you ok?” Kelly asked, wrapping her arms around me.  Alyssa and I were both still in shock and didn’t speak.

Craig’s hands immediately went to his blond head and interlocked as they swiped back and forth through his hair.   He was mumbling a mixture of prayer and curse words, willing the fire not to spread through the bar while watching the water spill from the hoses onto the flames.   Kelly didn’t seemed as worried about the bar as Craig was.  It was their whole source of income and now it could be gone.

“What happened?”  Kelly grabbed my face in her hand.  “Jesse?”

“I don’t know I…”  I started to replay the last five minutes of my life in my mind.  Quickly recalling all the sights and sounds that occurred. “Collin.”

“What do mean?”  Alyssa took my hand in hers.

“It was him.  I heard his truck outside when I woke up.”

“Why?”  Kelly obviously hadn’t heard about our fight.   I didn’t have time to explain it to her.  I pulled my hand from Alyssa’s and ran over to my Jeep.  Shit! I forgot my keys upstairs.

“I need your keys!” I shouted at Kelly before realizing that Craig had left the car running in their hurry to get over to us.  

“Jesse, wait!” Alyssa ran up behind me.  I turned to see her terrified face.  It was same look she had the night of the fight.  She didn’t understand, but I needed to take care of this on my own.  I placed a kiss on her forehead, “Please just go to Kelly’s.  I’ll be there soon.” I jumped behind the wheel of their blue sedan and sped out of the parking lot.   This time, I really was going to kill that son of a bitch.

Alyssa

It seemed like a dream.  I still couldn’t believe that I’d actually woken up in a burning building.  Even worse, I still couldn’t believe that Jesse had left me alone there with his sister and brother-in-law, while I watched as their entire livelihood hung in the balance.  Once the fire was out, I called January to come pick me up.  Kelly had offered to let me stay with her, but I knew that’s where Jesse would end up and I didn’t know if I could face him.  He’d promised me that he wouldn’t go after Collin.  Thanks to his last tirade, part of the upstairs apartment was burnt to a crisp and we were lucky to be alive.  Thankfully, the fire was put out before it could do much damage to the bar.  A few ceiling tiles had to be replaced because of the smoke that had come through the vents, but other than that it was still intact.  The fire chief said that the old buildings were built a lot sturdier than the new ones.  A fire wall had been put between the two floors for events like the one that had just happened.

I heard through the grapevine that Jesse found Collin a few minutes too late.  The County Sheriff caught up to him first.  Apparently, a couple other people heard and saw him leave the scene of the crime before Jesse figured out he was responsible for the fire.  When he went to Kelly’s house and realized I wasn’t there, he called my phone a dozen times, followed by January’s and Hap’s.  I was still pissed that he’d run off.  He couldn’t even wait for the flames to be snuffed before he was off on his own.  Like always.  It was starting to seem like a trend.

“You need to answer your phone,” January said, pulling the pillow over her head.  “Or at least shut it off.”  The bright sunshine coming through her bedroom window led me to believe that it was close to noon.  Seeing as how we didn’t get to sleep until close to 4 a.m. I wasn’t surprised that we’d slept away the morning.

I reached over and grabbed the phone:
JESSE.
  I wasn’t surprised it was him.  On top of the thirteen other calls, and ten or so text messages from him, I had a missed call from my parent’s house.  They must have heard about the fire.  I pulled myself from the comfort of January’s full-sized bed and made my way into the kitchen, which apparently doubled as Wendy’s herb garden.  The array of plants spread out made it feel like I was entering a jungle.  I sat down at the rustic kitchen table Wendy had salvaged from an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town.  She’s refinished the top leaving it looking like a custom piece of furniture.  She should really start selling this stuff.  I traced my fingers along the wood grain that shone through the clear coat of lacquer finish.  I was avoiding calling my parents and, even more, I was avoiding calling Jesse.  

I called my parents first.  My dad answered and I let him know I was okay.  My mother didn’t ask to talk to me, but I could hear her in the background asking my dad to relay her words to me.  He told me they both loved me and I wondered when I hung up if my mom had told him to say that.

My next call was to Jesse.  He at least deserved to know why I wasn’t waiting for him at his sister’s house.

“Thank god,” he said as he answered the phone, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answered coldly.

“Why did you go to Jan’s?  I told you I’d be right back.”

“I can’t do this anymore, Jess.”

I heard him take in a deep breath as he tried to process what I‘d just said. “What do you mean?”  

“I mean…this…us.  I can’t do it.”  I tried to stay strong as I let him know what I had decided.  I tried not picture his broken expression on the other end of the line.

“Don’t say that.  Please.  I’m sorry.  I know I shouldn’t have left.  I just…”  

“No,” I said firmly, “You promised me that you wouldn’t go after him again.  This is exactly why I didn’t want you to do it in the first place.  I knew something like this would happen.”

“I fucked up.  Please.  You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”  I heard the tears he was fighting off.  I felt my eyes start to well up.

“Well then I guess we’ve both broken promises.”  I hung up before he could hear the sobs that followed.  I set my phone down on the table and tried to remind myself that I was doing the right thing, even if it meant giving him up, along with all the plans we’d made.

It had been three days since the fire and I was still staying with January.  During the first twelve hours of my stay I managed to use every piece of tissue in the house to soak up the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.  The following twelve January relayed everything Jesse said to her and Hap about me.

“He’s really sorry, Lyss,” she said.

“I’m sure he is, but I can’t keep repeating the same mistake over and over.  I give myself to him, completely, and he bails.”

“I understand that, but I think if you just give him some time he’ll figure out how to make things right with you.” She gave me her all-knowing head tilt.

“Well, what happens when I let him back in and he does this again?  I can’t handle him walking away from me.  I’m not sure how I managed to live through it the first time.”

“Love is hard.”

I started to laugh.  This knowledge was coming from someone who found her true love at the ripe old age of thirteen.  “Seriously, Jan?”

“It might seem like Hap and I figured it all out a long time ago, but we have to work at staying together.  No one’s love life is a fairytale.  You just have to make mistakes and learn from them.”

“I’ll think about it,”  I tried to appease her., “Do not tell Jesse, I said that.  He’s the one who really needs to think about his actions.”

“Well, you need to think about not being so goddamn dramatic.”  It was amazing to me that after all these years of not being best friends, January Evans could open her mouth and spew the ugly truth straight back in my face, like we’d never been apart.  “Most girls would love to have a guy fight for her and Jesse, literally, fought for you.”

“I know. I just worry that something is going to happen to him if he doesn’t learn to control his temper and quit being so freaking stubborn.”

“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life worrying that something is going to happen to the people you love?  I know I’ve said it before and you think it is cliché, but accidents happen.  You have to learn how to move on and live your life.”

As much as hated it, I had to admit when she was right. I nodded my head in agreement.