The Years Between (13 page)

Her eyes
teared up and she let them fall freely onto her pillow. “How do you stand me?”

“Not there again. We’re not back there again. I stand you because I love you. I care about you. I like everything about you. That’s how I ‘stand’ you. Jesus, Jess, blow it off! So what if some assholes saw your video? Ignore them. Get mad. Don’t do this. Don’t go into our bathroom and hurt your body. Please, just don’t do it. Talk to me. Write to me. Drive to your sister’s. Drive to see Gretchen. Just do something besides hurting yourself. Or better yet, go tell your
friend,
Bella, to fuck off.”

Jessie sat up. “She was my friend. I really thought she was. I thought this stuff wouldn’t interfere, like it does with everything else, even us. I thought she could be one person who didn’t know. And didn’t have that in her mind when she thought of me.”

“There again, go tell her to fuck off! Get mad. Not sad. Not depressed. Please.” His tone was impassioned.

“You don’t usually sound so hot and bothered.”

“Well, I am. I just can’t fucking stand not being there to tell them all to fuck off for you.”

A soft sound, almost like a laugh escaped her lips.
“The old me would have. The old me would want you to. The new me knows we can’t go around telling all of our neighbors to fuck off.”

He finally laughed too. “Well, then just think it. But don’t let it screw up your head.”

“Does it affect you? I mean other soldiers who know who I am, and know who you’re married to, do they—”

“You know, don’t you? No, one dares says anything about you to me. So no. It doesn’t.”

“Has it in the past?”

He hesitated. “Yeah, some comments. But now? No.”

“You really let it go?”

“Yeah. I really did. Believe it or not, things can become part of the past.”

“This will keep happening. My father is too well known. I’m easily recognized; and there it all is, front and center.”

“When we move across the country it will never be a problem again. No one will know there. Ten more months; you can do it, right? You promised me.”

She closed her eyes and his voice steadied her. “Yes, I can do it.”

“Did you cut yourself?”

“No. I held the razor and had a little pep talk with myself. I finally put it away and came to bed.”

“I think you should talk to Bella. She called me. For you. Maybe she isn’t as short-sighted as you might think. Go and see.”

“As always, good advice, soldier,” she sighed deeply. “Oh, Will, I miss you so much.”

He sighed too. “I miss you that much too,” he said, but hesitated. She could sense it in his tone.

“What?”

“It fucks with my head,” he finally said so quietly, she thought she heard him wrong.

“What do you mean? What fucks with your head?”

“You. You fuck with my head.”

She pulled the phone back to frown at it before she placing it back to her ear. “How do I do that?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I miss you all the time. I’m like a goddamned girl away at summer camp for the first time.”

She flopped back on the bed. “Are you for real?”

“Yeah, I am. I could always put it away before. And be here, not there. I could convince myself not to worry about what wasn’t right in front of me. But I just can’t do that this time.”

“Does it affect anything?”

He was silent.

“Will? You promised to be completely honest to me.”

“It affects everything. I can’t be the soldier I used to be.”

Her heart felt like it did an actual flip in her chest. “You have to be,” she whispered, but really wanted to scream.

He sighed. “I know.”

“You have to concentrate. Forget me. Forget us. Just stay alive.”

“That’s my goal.”

She felt like she was being strangled. “It’s not a joke.”

“No, nothing about us or this is a joke.”

“Are you in danger?”

“Nothing new.”

“So I’m supposed to be comforted?”

“Just be okay. I’ll stay alive. You stay okay.”

She felt like she handed her heart over the phone line when they hung up. Like she physically cut her hand off, the pain in her chest for him was so sharp. She waited a few minutes before getting up in the early morning light and taking Soldier and Bullet out the front door to go for a walk.

****

When she walked up to her porch, Bella was there already and stood up.

“Did he call you?”

“Yes, he called me,” she said crisply, ignoring Bella as she unlocked her door and let the dogs pass through. Bella followed her.

“I’m sorry. For how I reacted. I was just a little bit drunk. And shocked.”

“Well, yeah, that would be the usual reaction.”

She hung up the leashes and put water out for the dogs, ignoring Bella’s nervous fidgeting. “Jessie, will give me a second and just talk to me?

“Why? Why do we need to talk about it? You made your feelings clear. Did you all go and view it after I left?”

Bella’s eyes rounded. “No. We did no such thing.”

“Look, Bella we have nothing in common. You can never understand why I would do that, and I’m really tired of being sorry for it. I barely know you; and I’m just not up to apologizing anymore.”

“I read some of the stuff. About Mexico. About your father. About what he did to you.”

“Yes. Well, great. What do you want me to say about it?”

Bella frowned. “Why won’t you even talk to me? You’ve already dismissed me before we’ve even had a conversation.”

“We don’t need to have a conversation for me to know how this will end.”

Bella shook her head, “What if you’re wrong? I don’t want to stop being friends with you because of this. But you’re not willing to even talk to me!”

Jessie paused from petting Bullet in her efforts to avoid looking at Bella. “What do you want to talk about, Bella? My shocking past? How could I do that? Or just order me to stay away from your husband? What?”

Bella stepped forward and touched a hand to her shoulder. “Look, I don’t know what kinds of people you’ve dealt with in the past, but I am not going to threaten you to stay away from Finn. You’ve never glanced at him for more than a quick thank you or hello. And he’s never done anymore than
the same to you.”

“He might now though.”

Bella sighed. “So, this is you being totally like what some of those articles said? I want to know what happened to you. I want to be your friend, not an interrogator for the salacious nature of whatever you had to endure. Will you stop being so rude, and sit down and talk to me?”

Jessie finally sighed and let Bullet go. She waved for Bella to sit at the kitchen table. She sat across from her.
Bella softly said, “Tell me about it.”

Jessie let out a breath as her heart squeezed. It hurt so much still, after all these years to admit what her “father” had done to her.
“My father was not a nice man. He did bad things to me. I acted out in my teens because of it. I did lots of bad things. Things I can’t take back, or take off the internet. The sex tape being just one of them.”

Bella’s eyes filled with apprehension. “Bad things? Like he molested you?”

“No. He let his friends do that. He got kickbacks and promoted his career while deriving some kind of power from it. He was an important man. He knew senators, governors, the president and other high-ranking military brass. He decided I was fair game for some of them.”

Bella shut her eyes. “My God. How many times?”

Jessie shrugged as she glanced out the front window. A dog trotted past. A woman was coming out her front door, brief case in hand. A yellow car idled in a driveway. “I don’t know. It was five different men. But just one time was never enough for any of them.”

“And so you acted out to rebel against him? Why didn’t you tell someone?”

She shrugged. “There was no one to tell. No one would have believed me. They were well-respected men, all married with their own families and established careers and reputations. I was always trouble. I had no voice. I had no other family. I had no one.”

“What about your sister?”

“She was Daddy’s girl. I didn’t actually think she’d believe me. I never told her until I was almost twenty-one.”

“Who found out then?”

“Will.”

Bella jerked back. “How?”

“That’s an entirely different story, believe it or not. The only connection they share is getting involved with the sadistic, psychotic man who claimed to be my father.”

“Mexico?”

“Yes.”

Bella suddenly reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “My God. Your childhood… how are you even here now, being as normal as you are?

Jessie stared hard at Bella and started to laugh. “Are you kidding me? Normal? Me? I’m about the least normal person I’ve ever met. Do you know what cutting is?”

Bella’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, sure. I had a roommate in college who used to do that to herself.”

Jessie jerked back in surprise. “Oh. You did?” She rarely heard about other people doing it.

“Well, actually, I knew more than one. It's a little too common for comfort at that age. Why? Didn’t you know anyone else? I’m assuming that’s why you brought it up.”

“No. I thought I was a deranged freak. I caused so much trouble, I was pulled from school and never went back. I tried college for a quarter, but flunked out. So, I was never around other girls much.”

“So you cut?”

“Yes. I started when I was sixteen. It helped me deal with everything.”

Bella nodded. “When you first started getting raped?”

Jessie stared at their linked hands; surprised Bella seemed okay to continue talking about it. Who heard of such things as bleeding yourself like a fucking leech? That’s often what Jessie used to think of as she sliced herself. Didn’t leeches like blood? So did she, and didn’t that make her one too?

“Yeah.”

“What happened in Mexico?”

“My father hired this group of thugs. We never really knew what they were. Will believed they were drug traffickers. I embarrassed my father one too many times, so he arranged to have me kidnapped in order to scare me. Stop me. Intimidate me. I don’t really know what he thought he’d accomplish. So they took me, locked me up, and… hurt me.”

Bella’s tone was breathless, “And Will?”

“My father told my sister to pick a trustworthy soldier she knew. That was Will, if you ever met him, you’d agree. They sent him down there to get me.”

Bella sat back, her shoulders sagging as if deflating with the breath she let out. “And you ended up married to him? Wow.”

“It is wow that we’re married. It was a long road to get here.”

“What did they do to you in Mexico?”

Jessie shook her head. “I only share that with Will.”

“Because he was there?”

“Yes, he witnessed it.”

“Did he get them? Who did it to you?”

Jessie shook her head. “He got a few. But no details. It was unofficial. He could get in trouble for it. He did whatever he could. Which was more than anyone else. He got me out. He found out what my father did to me and took me in. He saved me more times than a person could ever expect to be saved.”

Bella’s eyes filled with tears. She leaned forward again. “Jessie, I would never judge you for that. I mean, I can’t even fathom what you’ve had to endure. You have to know, it’s not your fault. I promise you, nothing changes from Finn and my perspectives. In fact, if anything, it makes me want to be around you more. I respect you more too. And I really have to love Will for doing that.”

She smiled slightly. “Yes, he’s easy to love for that.”

“So, you get we’re still friends, right? We are going to be lifelong friends; and if I didn’t know it before then, I do now.”

Jessie eyed her. Her story usually turned people away. “I
really can’t believe you figured out a way to get Will contacted.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I was so worried about you. And now, I know I was justified.”

“I don’t think your friends will see it that way.”

Bella squeezed her hand. “If they don’t, then they aren’t my friends anymore.”

“Do you mean that?”

Bella nodded, and got up, skirting around the table before pulling Jessie against her. “I mean that,” she whispered. “You need to get some new friends if you don’t know that already.”

She hugged Bella back. She let a select few touch her: Will and Lindsey. Once in awhile, Noah could hug her. Now Bella too.
Progress
. “I really do. I need new friends.”

“Will you come over this weekend? Logan wants to apologize and we’d all like to have the dinner party over again.”

“You know some will have gone home to watch it.”

Bella nodded. “That must be hard.”