The Storm Inside (30 page)

I got a little satisfaction out of the shock on his face. Not a lot—that wouldn’t have been very nice of me—but I did get some.

He looked at Jake then he turned to me, “Good luck. I hope you found what you were looking for.”

And then he was gone and Jake was dragging me away from the party.

The minute we were in the hallway he released my arm. He stood over me, his size so much larger than mine I felt the difference. “Don’t do it, Eve. I know this whole night has been one giant mind fuck, but don’t do it.” I didn’t miss the warning tone to his voice.

“Don’t do what, exactly?”

He looked me square in the eye, his jaw thrust out, and he was breathing hard, “Don’t shut down, don’t get lost inside your head with all those thoughts and questions. It seems like a lot, but it isn’t babe. It isn’t.”

“How is this,” I waved my hands frantically around, “
not
a lot?”

He grabbed me, “Do you love me? That is all you need to know. Everything else is just bullshit.”

But I wasn’t so sure. I wanted love to be that simple, but I’d already seen how
not
simple it really was. My hopes, Jake’s dreams, our confidence and personalities—all of it was tied to that love. And there was nothing simple about that.

I needed to think. I needed fresh air and quiet. I needed to be by myself for a while.

Jake must have seen the look in my eye, the need to flee, because his went wide. “No. You are not leaving me right now. We are talking, we are talking through this together.” He was in a full panic and his grip on my arms only tightened.

“Let me go, Jake.” I said softly. I was really surprised by how eerily calm I sounded.

“Not if you are going to walk away from me.”

“You can’t keep me here, babe. And I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t want to keep me here against my will.”

The look of pain that crossed his face very nearly stopped me right there. I was hurting him. I knew this in the back of my mind somewhere. I knew he was terrified he was losing me. But I couldn’t stop. I knew what I needed right then… and it wasn’t Jake. If I couldn’t clear my head and find a way through all the thoughts swirling through my mind on my own, I was going to go mad.

It was something I needed to work through by myself.

“Jake, let me go.” I repeated and this time he complied.

I reached up and stroked his cheek, “I love you.” I kissed him softly on the lips, looking deeply into his eyes.

Then I turned and left.

I didn’t look back. I knew if I did I’d see how much I’d just hurt Jake, and that was something I couldn’t handle.

Chapter 23

I don’t know what brought me there, it wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, that was for sure. But somehow after I left Jake, my feet took on a mind of their own. The next thing I knew I was in my car and headed out toward a part of town I hadn’t dared step into for a very, very long time.

The streets were just a bit narrower, the houses crammed together with barely any yard between. The Vernacular homes were shotgun style, a front porch with columns and the house laid out in a row of rooms from front to back. These neighborhoods were older, rougher, and the languages spoken varied wildly.

This was where Jake grew up.

My Nissan GT-R stood out like a sore thumb and I knew the minute I pulled up outside their house they’d know it was me. I didn’t know why I was there. Even as I pulled down his street, I was still wondering what I thought I was going to find.

There were no answers here.

And yet, I stopped outside their house anyway.

I fumbled around in my glove box for one of my cans of pepper spray. Not the pretty pink can that came in a leather case, but the nice one that came in a slick black design made to be worn on your belt. It had two high-powered shots inside.

My feet were in charge, my brain having taken a vacation, and I was out of the car, leaning against the passenger side as I gazed up at the house.

Jake’s childhood home needed a paint job, but it was neat and tidy. Plants and flowers were growing from pots lined up on the porch above and below. There were even a few rusty tools lain out as lawn ornaments. The front was presentable; it always had been, just like Jake’s family.

It was a façade. A fake front put on to make it seem like they fit in, like they were good enough. But once you went past the front room everything changed. The rest of the house was a cluttered mess that bordered on hoarding. The backyard was stuffed with junk, overgrown and disgusting. And the people who lived inside were angry and spiteful at the world. They wouldn’t know a good deed if it saved their lives.

Jake said his parents were out of the picture, that he wanted nothing to do with them ever again. I was so close to my family I found it difficult to fathom cutting the people who raised me out of my life. How did you do that? What did that look like? Would Jake simply block out his childhood all together or choose to only remember key moments? What if he was wrong and hadn’t moved past all of this, but was instead just wishing he had?

I needed to know the foundation Jake and I were standing on was strong.

I wanted to believe life would be easy once Jake and I trusted each other, but I was realizing life would never be easy. There would always be something else. If we were going to have a life together, if Jake and I were going to rely on each other, I needed to know we were strong enough to handle anything life could throw at us.

Whether it was my insecurities or Jake’s demons. Whether it was accidents or tragedies; life was going to keep throwing us curve balls. Jake said he knew his past was behind him, that his father couldn’t ever hurt him again.

But
I
didn’t know that.

Everything that had ever hurt Jake was inside that house and I needed to know it couldn’t come back to haunt us.

Just as I predicted, the front door opened and Jake’s mother walked out. I didn’t need to announce my arrival anymore than pulling up out front. And of course the asshole inside sent his wife out to do the dirty work for him.

Always had.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

She never did have any manners, but at least we weren’t wasting any time, either. “I see we’re skipping right past the pleasantries and going straight for ‘get off my porch’.”

She stood at the top of the stairs, her hair up in some sort of messy bun, her face as contorted and wrinkled as I remembered, and she was wearing a housecoat. She looked as hard as the life she’d led. “Well now that you mention it, would you?”

I remained casually leaned up against my car, “I’m on the curb. I haven’t stepped one foot on your porch. This is public property out here and you can’t make me leave.”

She stood and stared at me for a minute. I was pretty sure she was trying to figure out how to get rid of me as fast as she could, but her curiosity was killing her. She wanted to know why I was there dressed up and staring at her house.

“It’s been a long time since you were here.”

“Yes it has.”

She stepped down to the bottom step, bringing her close enough that she didn’t have to shout at me. “Have you heard from him?”

At first the shaky sound of her voice made my heart ache for the mother who had lost her son, but then I remembered everything she’d done to him and everything she’d allowed to happen to him. She hadn’t lost Jake; she’d run him away.

“Yes.”

She straightened and her hand moved to her chest, “How is he?”

“Amazing, no thanks to you.”

Her chin lifted in defiance, “You always did think you were better than us.”

“I am better than you, Lydia. And it has nothing to do with money.”

Her eyes lit up and she walked all the way up to the chain-link fence separating her property from the street. “Jake needed a firm hand. That boy was wild; if we hadn’t done what we did he would have been out of control. We did what we had to do.”

I laughed and looked up at the night sky. There were a few dots twinkling above us, but most were blotted out by the city lights and a sea of clouds rolling in from the bay. “You really believe that, don’t you? Did you talk yourself into that crap or did your useless husband do that for you?”

“You are a self-righteous bitch.”

I finally took a step away from the car, my arms folded over my chest with the pepper spray tucked out of sight. “He is a wonderful man with a great soul and the two of you tried to beat it out of him. You tried to turn him into a useless angry piece of shit. But you know what? It didn’t work. He was always better than you—smarter, sweeter, and with a good heart. He got into college despite you because he was so smart. And the day he set foot on that campus, away from you, was the day you finally lost him. Once he saw a world outside of this hell, he knew he could claw his way free.”

She laughed at me this time, the kind that made my blood run cold. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you? Oh, baby girl that makes me sad. You’ve waited all this time for a man who’ll never love you back. He can’t. You know why? Because he’s his father’s son. If you stick around long enough, you’ll see him crack just like his daddy.” She smiled, but it wasn’t because she was happy. This woman had been ruined by a life she’d never had the courage to take control of. “He’ll hit you and hurt you. He’ll break your heart a thousand times. But you’ll never leave him because he’s your world. He’s your everything.”

Damn, she was good. She knew my weaknesses as well as I did, and she’d hit them all. Were they lucky guesses or were we really that similar? If Jake hadn’t left, would we have turned into his parents? Would I have stayed at his side no matter what and let him hit me? Would I have let him strip away everything good?

I didn’t think I would have. I was mesmerized by him and had been madly in love with him, but I couldn’t imagine a world where I became Lydia or Jake became his father.

“You’re not entirely wrong.” I gave her a small victory, hoping it would give me some ground to work with. “He is my everything. And I do still love him. But you are wrong about the rest. If he was just like your husband then he never would have left in the first place. He would have stayed here and let you control him. He is different.”
Jake would never, ever hurt me the way Jake Sr. hurt you.
I knew that in every fiber of my being.

The front door swung open again and my eyes fell on the dark shadow of Jake Sr. He was visibly older than the last time I saw him. His hair was graying and balding on top. His eyes were piercing and harsh, but his body was the biggest change. He was slighter, stooped, and unsure. Years of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes were taking their toll and I had to wonder just how badly diseased and damaged he was.

Jake Sr. was a shadow of his former self.

“Get out of here.” His voice hadn’t changed in the slightest. It still sent a shiver of warning down my spine. He had the kind of voice that made you want to run, it sounded like pure evil.

“She’s seen Jake.” Lydia rasped over her shoulder, never taking her eyes off me.

“I’m sure that bitch has. Now that our boy went and got himself a shitload of money I bet she made sure to track him down and use him some more. What, Eve? You didn’t get enough sex out of him in college? You didn’t put enough delusions of grandeur in his head? Now that he’s gone and done what you wanted, you looking for more?”

“I never made Jake anything he wasn’t.” I was surprised by how sure I sounded. Inside I was losing it. I wanted to rip Jake’s parents in two.

Jake Sr. laughed, walking down the steps to join his wife. “What are you doing here, Eve? Did you come to flaunt your fancy car and designer dress? Haven’t you gotten your kicks in for the day? Decided to go hit up some poor people and make them look at you? You always were an attention whore.” He shook his head and spit into the grass.

Why did I come here? I hated these people; I hated everything they’d ever done. I didn’t want to stir the pot or cause any trouble, but I thought I needed to get back to the source. There were questions Jake and I couldn’t seem to answer and since all our troubles seemed to start and end here, this house seemed a logical place to look.

“Do you regret what happened graduation night?” I asked.

The crackle of thunder and the deep roll of bass that followed caught our attention and I turned my head to look toward the bay. Lightning was streaking through the clouds. A late thunderstorm was brewing.

When I turned back, Jake Sr. was outside the gate. I could reach out and touch him. Even in his diminished state he made my blood run cold and my skin prickle. I wasn’t sure how he had moved so fast. “You mean when I tried to bring Jake back down where he belonged?”

“He doesn’t belong here. He’s meant for more.”

Jake Sr. just shook his head, “You’ll never understand.”

I stared at him, desperately trying to figure out what he meant, but I felt like we were speaking two different languages and we’d never, ever understand each other.