I Found You (22 page)

“Where did you meet Jason?” She asked in a quiet voice, her eyes looking into mine. She didn’t seem hostile. I hope her question meant Jason’s mom and dad hadn’t told everyone how we’d met.

“On Manhattan Bridge, when he was running.”

“Just like that?”

“I didn’t know he could pull girls so easily.” Jason’s cousin, Richard, joked beside us, laughing.

“I doubt it was as simple as that,” Helen, Richard’s mom, answered.

So Jason’s mom had told someone; her sister.

Embarrassment burning in my cheeks, I wanted to apologize again, but I still didn’t. I was here because Jason wanted me here.

Katie clasped the sleeve of my coat, and pulled me a little away from the others, whispering, “Sorry.”

“For what?” I whispered back. It felt odd, I still sensed she wanted to say something she wasn’t speaking, but she just looked uncomfortable, not angry with me.

“People like Lindy.”

“And you don’t?”

“No, I do, I just… but I know it’s not your fault they split up.”

“It’s not?” She wasn’t making any sense. But she looked sweet.
Young
and sweet. At least one person in this room found it in their heart to be nice to me.

“No. Just don’t let people upset you, that’s all.”

Her lips actually lifted into a nearly smile, as her fingers let go of my coat sleeve. “But you know Lindy is coming to the party tomorrow right?”

“No, I didn’t even know there was a party.”

“Well, there is. Jason’s mom and dad always throw a Christmas Eve party. It’s all part of Christmas for people ‘round here. A ton of people come, and they’ve still asked Lindy. Aunt Ester said they could hardly un-invite her seeing as she works for them…”

Her words hit me like a tornado, tomorrow night it wouldn’t just be Jason’s hostile family here, but an entire district of people who’d dislike me.

I didn’t know what to say… “Well, I’m sure Jason will be glad to see her. He’ll want to know how she’s doing. I’m gonna get a glass of water.”
And escape.
I was a coward, but I was just too uncomfortable among his family.

I went into the kitchen not for water, but seeking refuge in Jason.

“…Look, Mom, I know you don’t like her now, but you don’t know her. Please try to get to know her. That’s why I brought her home, so you could meet her and judge her for who she is, not who you think she is. Will you give her a chance?” I was probably as white as the snow outside when Jason turned and looked at me, I felt so ill. I just wanted to crawl into my dark tunnel and cry.

Jason gave me a
sorry
look. His mom had turned bright red.

She was probably embarrassed about getting caught talking behind my back. I knew she was a decent woman. She’d brought up a decent, kind and considerate son. She wasn’t being mean to me really. She was just trying to protect him, like moms should. It was me she thought mean.

Jason held out his hand, but I didn’t take it, I needed more contact, I wished I could just climb into him. Instead I slipped my arm about his waist and pressed against him slotting under his arm.

I looked at his mom. “It’s okay. I know you don’t like me, and I can understand why, but honestly I do love Jason. I won’t hurt him.”

With his arm now about my shoulders, he hugged me tightly, his hand gripping my shoulder.

God, I wished they would understand Rachel. “Mom, seriously, just give Rach a chance please?” I said again, as I held her tighter. Mom was looking doubtful and wiping her hands in the cloth she’d been carrying. She’d been doing it the whole time we’d been talking.

She was angry at me for bringing Rachel here. But they were going to have to get to know her and like her. I was sticking with Rach, I wasn’t going to let Mom turn her back on us. I regretted telling them how I’d met Rachel now, and the condition she’d been in. If Mom and Dad knew none of those things, and I was just introducing a girlfriend, I couldn’t see how they could dislike her. They just needed to look past all that, then maybe they’d see Rach for who she was.

“Mom?” I prompted.

“Okay, honey,” then she looked at Rachel. “I’ll give you a chance. But I won’t forget you had nothing a month ago when you met him––”

“Mom––”

“I am entitled to my opinion, Jason––”

“I didn’t have nothing,” Rach interrupted. “I was living in a Penthouse with a rich guy before I met Jason…” It was hardly what Mom wanted to hear. “…But that guy was horrible and then I met Jason, and he’s really nice, you brought him up real nice. I’ve never met anyone so kind, and I fell in love with him––”

“Because he was fool enough to take you in… And so you’ve clung to him like a leach, as I don’t doubt you did to the last man. I’m the one who’ll pick up the pieces when you’ve had enough of him, and bled the poor boy dry.”

“Mom.” I’d never heard her be so sour to anyone before––but then I’d never been in this scenario before. They’d expected me to stay with Lindy forever. But then that was what I’d expected until I went to New York. Now I knew that would never have happened.

“Jason, surely you must see it is far too soon to judge how you feel––”

“Mom––”

“I don’t care if you dislike what I’m saying, I’m speaking my mind, Jason. Someone has to tell you. And you are not sharing a room in this house.”

She looked from me to Rach and then back to me, as though Rach was a viper about to swallow me up.

“Mom, Lindy and I slept together here.”

“Yes, but, you’d been with Lindy years, not just a couple of weeks. You can sleep in your room, Jason, and Rachel can sleep in the den. And tomorrow you should know Lindy is coming to the Christmas Eve party, I am not excluding her. She’s part of this family.”

Rach’s head pressed against my shoulder and I heard her whisper, “Your cousin Katie told me in the other room.”

So that was why she’d come in here and hugged me.

“I wouldn’t want you to exclude Lindy, Mom, neither of us would. But she’s going to have to accept that Rach is here, too, and I’m with her now.”

Mom just stared at me, and her gaze seemed to say,
for the moment
. Then she dropped the cloth on the drainer and walked back into the living room.

Rach turned into me and hugged me properly.

I stroked her hair.

She wasn’t crying, but her head was down and her face pressed into my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Rach. Perhaps we shouldn’t have come.”

Her head came up. “No, we should’ve. They’re your family. You can’t just ignore them. I’ll suffer their hatred. I’m used to it anyway. I’m good at making enemies.”

What trash was she talking now? She was slipping back into self-condemnation and I’d spent the last few weeks dragging her out of that every time she’d said she wasn’t good enough for me. But she’d been quiet all week since I’d suggested coming here and I guess things had been playing around in her head. It was all connected to the thoughts that let her throw herself at men, and I had a feeling those were tied up with the way her mom had treated her. I just kept making sure she knew how I felt about her.

“What enemies, Rach?” The green in her eyes shone, misty with saline.

“Oh everyone, everyone turns against me in the end. I just hope you don’t. You won’t will you?”

She knew just how to make my heart bleed. “I’m not going to ever turn against you, Rach.” I held her close again and thought of the cut on her hand, and the guy who’d chased her away from home at fifteen, trying to do things he shouldn’t.

She just needed love and a little understanding. I wish my Mom would get that.

Chapter Fourteen

When the house was quiet I got out of bed to creep downstairs. Jason had insisted I had his room. He said the bed was more comfortable.

He was sleeping in the den.

I was wearing one of his tees, ‘cause I wanted his smell to keep me company, and I relished the scent of his aftershave lingering in the cotton. But I really didn’t wanna sleep alone.

I tiptoed along the landing, barefoot, trying to be real quiet.

“Jason?” His Mom called from their room which was just above the stairs.

She knew it was me. She was just saying Jason because she was too uncomfortable to accuse a stranger who was visiting her home.

I diverted to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I didn’t really need to go. I rested my elbows on my knees, as loneliness rolled over me and looked at the scar on my palm that Jason had bandaged a few weeks ago. It brought memories back. I could feel Jason’s hands touching mine. It was healed now, but still red raw, and if I pressed my thumb on it, it hurt.

Images of my old life, of all the mad, stupid things I’d done before I met Jason flashed through my mind. I was building a new life now, and this was it. It meant being with people who judged right from wrong. I had to accept this. I’d lived most of my life on the wrong side, and Jason may have ignored that, but he didn’t really know half the stuff I’d done. I had been very bad. I guess I couldn’t just cross the bridge now and walk on the good side, without some challenge over what I’d done. I was going to have to win these people over.

I sighed, while my thumb rubbed over the scar, remembering what I still hadn’t told Jason, as the night I’d broken the mirror and walked away from that life filled my mind, like I was there again…

Declan’s hands were pressing mine down on the bed and all his weight pressured me to participate. He felt like stone, heavy, cold and hard, as he drove into me.

Stop! The word rang in my head, but I didn’t say it, and he didn’t stop. I wanted to cry and scream all at once. I didn’t want to do it anymore. Not with him.

Just stop! I didn’t know if it was the drugs or the depression that trapped the words inside me. But they were buried, like me, somewhere in the black, hollow hole, I’d fallen into.

Declan’s hard, sharp thrusts jolted my body, making me feel sick, not aroused, not pleasant, and not happy. I wanted him to leave me alone now.

l wasn’t even in my body anymore. I was detached from it. Someone had switched off my senses, turning the lights out inside me, leaving me in the dark.

Stop please!

He knew I wasn’t responding, he was probably thinking I felt like stone too. It only made him more violent.

My fingers curled, they’d curl into fist if he didn’t have his hands on mine holding them open.

His hair had fallen forward and it rocked with his movement, as he looked down at where we joined, watching himself invade me.

Shit. Can’t we stop this? I didn’t want him in me anymore. I was so tired of this groundless, meaningless thing we had going. All we had ever got from one another was sexual gratification. The words bounced about in my head but they still didn’t leave my mouth, yet my response was brewing. I could feel it, the viciousness bubbling up inside me. I wanted to scratch him, hit him, scream at him and kick him. The void in my soul was filling up with anger. It was bubbling from a simmer to a boil. I was going to kill him if he carried on.

Stop it now! Still the cry rang in my head, but my stupid fucked up brain, wouldn’t spit the words out.

Every muscle in my body was taut, and the air felt sticky in my lungs, I couldn’t breathe right, and I wanted to weep and yell. If he didn’t stop…

His fingers closed tighter about my hands and the muscle in his cheek formed a little bump as he clenched his teeth, then three of his thrusts hit me even harder, like they were blows of a fist not a sexual act.

There was a lump in my throat.

We’d done it this way so often when I was in a dark place, he’d force me into anger to stir me from my morose state, ‘cause then I’d fight, and he liked me fighting. Violent sex did have a thrill to it. Sometimes it would even throw me out of the darkness.

Today we’d only shouted, and I couldn’t even remember the stages that got me into being naked on the bed again. The only thing that had broken through my dulled senses was the discomfort of his invasion. It felt all wrong. I couldn’t keep doing this. We couldn’t. I wanted out. I’d had enough. I couldn’t carry on living this way. I couldn’t breathe.

“Get off me.” I forced the words from my mouth, and tried to rise even though there was no hope. He was too heavy.

His head came up and his blue eyes looked right into me, as cold as the stone he felt like. “Fucking hell, Rachel, do something, it’s like shagging a rag doll.”

Then stop, if you don’t like it, stop! The words echoed about my messed up head, and got lost in the darkness. It had been hours since I’d taken the cocaine, but it still buzzed in my veins, confusing me even more than the darkness alone did.

He was still moving. I swallowed then forced the words from my mouth. “Just, get off me. Please. Leave me alone. I don’t want to.”

He simply looked down at my breasts rocking, and moved faster. “Fucking come, will you.”

The anger simmering inside me suddenly boiled over. It was like lava and fume spewing from a volcano, flying out of me, erupting with a strength I didn’t even know I was capable of. I wasn’t gonna let this continue. I wasn’t gonna put up with it anymore. This whole thing had lost its novelty. Fuck it… Why had I ever let him touch me?

“Ahhh.” My cry was like an animal’s as I shoved him off me. He fell sideways, falling from the bed onto the floor.

I scrabbled off the other side. Then just stood there, feeling the trickle of tears on my face. Naked. Breathless. My lungs fighting to grasp some air. What could I do? My fingers curled into fists like I was clutching at something, but there was nothing to clutch, I had nothing but the stuff in this room. The stuff he’d given me. I didn’t want any of it anymore, and I didn’t want him.

“Rachel?” He was standing now, and coming about the bed toward me, holding out his hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Just sort yourself out.”