Near & Far (39 page)

Jesse’d been right. It was where it needed to be. It shouldn’t wind up on someone else’s wall when he’d loved both of those girls. When both of those girls loved him.

The painting was a self-portrait, but my face was cut down the middle. One half was the old me. The one who’d shown up at Willow Springs with black hair, dark eyes and makeup, and a vacant, almost dead expression. The other half was me now: lighter hair, light eyes, and lightish makeup. My mouth wasn’t turned up in a smile, but my expression was peaceful, my eyes hopeful.

The painting had been less about comparing and contrasting and more about showing how the two people I’d been had made me who I was. It wasn’t about what had been but what was. It wasn’t about unbalance but harmony. It was my life story in one painting.

I stared at it not with tears in my eyes but a smile on my face. I stared at the painting for so long my eyes became heavy. So heavy, I started to fall . . .

MY ALARM JOLTED me awake. I’d fallen asleep. I wasn’t sure if I was more shocked by that or by how long I’d actually stayed asleep. A glance at my phone told me I’d been asleep for almost eight hours.

Whatever dreams I’d been having or, maybe it was just getting a full night’s sleep, the fog of confusion clouding my head had lifted. Things were clear. So clear I practically leapt out of bed and ran to my closet.

Thanks to my day of cleaning, I knew exactly where everything was, so I had my duffel packed with the essentials in less than five minutes. After changing and combing the bed-head out of my hair, I was rushing out of my room when I ran back to snag the pillow from the end of my bed. Never go anywhere on a Greyhound bus without a pillow. I was stuffing it into my bag when something flew out of it. That little white button. I couldn’t seem to lose the thing, even if I wanted to. I picked it up and tossed it in my pocket before flying out the door.

I knew I had a dozen phone calls to make, and I probably needed to do a million other things before boarding that bus, but they’d have to wait. Everything could wait except for one thing. One person. A person I’d made wait for too long.

When the alarm had jolted me awake, one thing was at the front of my mind. Something Rose had told me at the start of the year, when she and the family had been about to leave after helping me get moved in. She’d taken me aside, given me one of her Rose hugs, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Our priorities aren’t what we say they are. They’re what we
show
they are.”

I knew they were powerful words at the time, but somewhere along the way, I’d lost them. I’d forgotten the power and truth behind them. But I’d found them again, and I was ready to show what my priorities were.

Once I’d grabbed a breakfast bar from the cupboard, I stormed toward the door. I’d decided what I needed to do, and I couldn’t move fast enough. Unlocking it, I twisted it open and hurried out. Right into a wide and strong chest.

We both made sounds of surprise.

“I was just about to knock.”

“And I was just about to leave,” I replied, breathless from all the running around or the person standing in front of me. Probably both.

“Good timing, then.” Jesse slid a chunk of my hair behind my ear. His hand hovered at my cheek for a moment after.

“I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you.”

Jesse shifted his weight. “I wanted to talk to you, too.”

“You first,” we said in unison.

Jesse smiled. Either that smile or him being a foot in front of me after weeks of separation was going to render me speechless. Soon. I had to get it out quick.

“Okay, how about the person who has the most to apologize for go first?” I said.

“Then that would be me,” he interjected. I crossed my arms. “How about ladies first then? Since we can’t agree on who has the most to apologize for.”

“I’ll take it.” I uncrossed my arms and kept myself from running into his. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I’m sorry for so many things. Things I could control and things that maybe I couldn’t, but it doesn’t make me any less sorry.” I stopped long enough to recompose myself and my thoughts, then got back after it. “I’m sorry for lying about the internship, and I’m sorry for the way you found out. I’m sorry for throwing Mar back into your life like that, and I’m sorry for what that did to you.” The image of the broken shell of Jesse flashed through my mind. I shook my head to clear it. “I’m sorry that I left you at Willow Springs when I knew you needed me. I knew you were pushing me away because you were afraid of hurting me, and I still left you. I’m sorry for this past month and not reaching out just so you knew you were on my mind. Because, Jesse, you were the
only
thing on my mind. And I’m sorry, most of all, for failing you. On so many levels. You were the one person I never wanted to let down, and I did in so many ways.” I’d managed to say everything while looking in his eyes, but finally, they dropped. “I’m sorry.”

Jesse’s hand cupped my chin and tilted it up. He didn’t let it go once my eyes were realigned with his. “You know what? I’m not sorry for any of that, Rowen. Not one bit.”

I hadn’t heard him right. That was the only explanation. “Why?”

“Because here’s what I realized. Finally.” He exhaled, rolling his shoulders back. “I had to be at my worst, and you had to see me at my worst, in order for us to both know if we loved each other enough to make it work.”

I wrapped my hand around his wrist. If he got to touch me, I wanted to touch him, too. “But, Jesse . . . we broke up.” We hadn’t made it when he was at his worst. We hadn’t come through the fire unscathed.

“And yet here I am, standing in front of you right now, asking you, begging you . . . I’ll get down on my knees . . .” He did. He actually got down on his knees, which was kind of wonderful in an uncomfortable, what-do-I-do-now kind of way. “ . . . to ask you to give me a second chance. Not because I deserve one but because
we
deserve one. We might have taken a break for a while, but we don’t need to make it permanent.”

Since I couldn’t decide what to do and having him look up at me that way made me more uncomfortable with each passing second, I got down on my knees too. That made him smile . . . making me smile. “So you’ve seen me at my worst, I’ve seen you at your worst now too, and we’ve seen our relationship at its worst. You know the only direction from here, right?”

His smile went higher. “I believe I do.”

“Since you’re in such a divulging kind of mood and I’ve got you on your knees”—I crept a little closer to him—“mind telling me what changed your mind? What made you decide I wasn’t ‘better off without you’?” I made air quotes and rolled my eyes. “Because it certainly wasn’t anything I said.”

He cleared his throat. “I remembered something I said to you last summer.”

“You said a lot of things to me last summer.” I gave his arm a squeeze and crept closer still. If any of my neighbors were to walk by, I could just imagine the funny looks we’d be given.

“What I said to you about not being afraid to fall. To not spend your time trying to keep from falling, but to spend your time finding that person who would help you up when you did.”

“Oh, yeah. That was a good one.”

“I found the person willing to stand beside me and help me up if I fell. And when I did fall, when I fell big time, I was so scared of bringing her down with me, I pushed her away to protect her.”

I crossed my arms. “You about done pushing?” Everything he said was thoughtful and deep and was making me swoon, but I wanted to get to the point. I needed to know why he was there and if it meant what I hoped it did.

Jesse lifted his finger. “I wasn’t quite done yet. There was more than one thing I needed to be beat over the head with to come back to my senses.”

I nodded, waiting.

“I wanted to be the best person I could be, Rowen. To prove I wasn’t the boy I’d grown up as or anything like the people that gave birth to me. But when I realized I wasn’t that person, and that a part of the old me was still there . . . it scared me.”

I cleared my throat to fight the ball threatening to form.

“Then someone told me you didn’t love me because I never . . .
messed
up.” Jesse smiled, I guessed at a private joke.

“I don’t. I love you because of the way you love me,” I replied, grabbing his hand. It was warm, solid, and responded to mine like it had before all of that went down: with certainty. “I love you for all of your pieces, not just a select few. I love you for your dark, dirty secrets too. I love you, Jesse. I love . . .
you
.”

His eyes closed for a moment as he let out a long breath, almost like he’d been holding it forever.

“So . . . are you about done pushing?” I repeated.

He lifted his finger again, opening his eyes. I waved my hand and let him proceed. He had a lot to say, and after weeks of having next to nothing to say, I wasn’t going to stop him.

“I realized that our past never leaves us. We might think we’ve left it behind, but that’s when it sneaks up and beats the hell out of you. Our past is always a part of us. The key is to accept it, acknowledge it from time to time, pay the piper, and get on with your life.”

I lifted my hand to his cheek. “You’re talking like a philosopher again. You really are back.”

His hand came up to cover mine as he crept closer to me. It was the first movement he’d made my way in a long time. It was the first time he hadn’t backed away when I’d approached him. It was a little movement that felt like one giant leap. “I just lost myself for a little while,” he said softly. “I’m okay now. I’m coming back. I beat this once. And now twice. I don’t want my fear of it happening to be the reason I lose you.”

He’d never lose me. I was certain of few things in life, but that was one of them. “Fixed. Broken,” I said, lifting a shoulder. “I’ll love you either way. Just the way you love me.”

When Jesse exhaled, it looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. When his eyes met mine, his whole expression changed. It was an expression I was familiar with. One that made my stomach bottom out. “Would it be okay if I kissed you now?”

Tipping his hat back, I draped my arms around his neck. “You’d
better
kiss me now. You’ve got some serious making up to do.”

He moved closer and pressed his forehead into mine before slowly tilting his head until our lips touched. He closed the last bit of space separating us, cinched his arms around me, and kissed me. Not as the man he’d been or the man he hoped one day he’d be but as the man he was. Right there, on his knees in front of me. He kissed me like it was what he’d been born to do, and somehow, I managed to keep up and do the same. If I’d been born to do nothing but practice and perfect the art of kissing Jesse Walker, it wouldn’t have been a wasted life. But there was still so much more. So much in store for me and him . . . and us. We’d visited the dark places of our pasts together and had come through on the other side together. Not unscathed, and not as if nothing had happened, but we were together.

When Jesse’s mouth left mine, I saw the smile that was all Jesse, the one I hadn’t seen in so long. I knew that no matter what came at us, good or bad, we’d always figure out a way to weather it together. Smooth sailing and easy breezy wasn’t our destiny. But we had one, and for me, that was enough.

“Since you’ve finally admitted that I’m your wingman, the one to help you up when you’re down, dry your tears, and give you a swift kick in the butt when you need it”—I winked at him—“mind telling me what happened for you to go into an emotional nose dive? You know, just so I can be on the look out next time.” I wasn’t sure if humor was the best way to approach it, but I figured it couldn’t have been the worst way.

Jesse stood up, grabbed my hands, and pulled me up with him. “It started with the nightmares, I guess. That’s what first shook me. Then when I realized I’d lost something I’d carried around for years, that shook me some more. Really, it was a bunch of small things that added up to something big. Something too big, obviously.”

My eyebrows came together. “What have you been carrying around with you? What did you lose?” To my knowledge, Jesse’d never carried around a lucky charm or a worry stone or something of the sort.

“It wasn’t anything big or fancy. It was just this little, white—”

“Button.” I pulled it out of my pocket and held it out.

Jesse’s forehead wrinkled as he examined it. “Yeah . . . that’s it. How did it . . ? How did you . . .?” Biting the inside of his cheek, he looked away from it. “Where did you find it?”

“In one of my old steel-toed boots. I just found it the other day. How long have you been missing it?”

“A couple of months.”

I turned the button over in my hand. “What’s the story? I know there must be a pretty big one.”

Jesse cracked his neck and worked to unlock his jaw. “I found that a long time ago. Before I came to live with the Walkers.”

“This is from when you were still with . . . with . . . them?”

Jesse nodded. “It was down in one of the old drain traps in the basement. It took me forever to work the screw out, but I had to have it, and at least it gave me something to do. Something to work toward.” Jesse went somewhere else for the briefest moment before his eyes cleared and he came back. “Once I had it, I guarded it like you wouldn’t believe. At that point, I probably would have given my life to keep it protected and out of their reach.”

“Why?” I asked, grabbing his hand. I wanted to understand, but I didn’t understand how one button could be so important to a little boy.

“It was the only thing I could call my own. It was the only thing I had that they hadn’t given to me. It was something special . . .
sacred.
It’s the only thing I have of my life before Willow Springs, and I’ve kept it with me for years not as a reminder of the life I’d lived, but as a promise of the life I’ll never have to live again. A promise of moving on and having a better life. A promise of people to love and to love me.” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “Now that I just said that all out loud, it seems kind of silly.”