Promise Me (44 page)

Deena smiled again. “I think that sounds nice.”

“It should be,” I said, although I found myself wishing I could go to the Kinsley’s.

I’d only been there twice, but I loved how everything they did felt like what I’d always envisioned when I thought of a family. My mom and Dan were great in their own way, but my mother had never been great at being a mom. She didn’t cook, and she’d likely order in Thanksgiving dinner. It wouldn’t be the same as the spread I knew Jack’s family would have.

But it wasn’t just about the food. It was more than that, and it was something I hadn’t fully thought through until just a few minutes earlier as I’d been trying to rectify in my mind what Jack’s dad wanted from him. It was then that I’d realized that he was looking for forgiveness, because he regretted what he’d done.

He didn’t regret losing his son. No, he’d never really cared about Jack. But he had regrets about the decisions he’d made – and that was what he wanted to be forgiven for.

It was the same with my mother. When she’d gotten sober, she’d begged for forgiveness. She’d begged Sara and me to give her a second chance. There were tears – both hers and ours – and she promised that she’d never let drugs and alcohol cloud our lives again. And we believed her, but what I think we also assumed – or at least I did – was that in getting sober, she would also be the mother I’d always wanted

My whole life I’d wanted a mother to talk to, a mother who’d hug me and dry my tears and tell me she was proud of me. But that wasn’t the mother I had. She was selfish and self-centered, and she was a victim. She loved us, though. In her own twisted way, she loved us, and she told us that, but her words only went so far. They didn’t change the fact that once she met Dan, he got all of her.

I tried to tell myself that it was because I was grown up, and I didn’t need a mother, but it was so much more than that. Even though she could have done it, I was the one who’d gone with Sara to help her pick out her prom dress. I’d been the one to help her with her college essays and her letters of recommendation. And I was the one who’d been there for her when she’d gotten an award for being on the Dean’s List both semesters of her senior year of high school. My mom had missed all of that, because she’d been too busy. At the time we’d given her a pass, but it was just so damn typical of her.

She hadn’t even been to Austin to see us since we’d moved. She called about once every two weeks, and she listened to Sara talk about her sorority and her classes, and she asked me what I was up to, but her interest in us didn’t extend beyond that. She and Dan had taken a cruise over Parents’ Weekend, so they’d missed that opportunity, but I honestly didn’t think they would have come anyway. In fact, I doubted they’d ever make the trip down.

And as I hugged Deena goodbye and stepped out into the chilly November air, I realized that although I might have forgiven my mother for what she’d done to us as kids, I’d never forget it. Because of that, I knew I’d always carry around some level of animosity for her. How could I not after everything she’d done to me over the years.

But that was also the past.

In front of me, I saw Jack waiting for me in his truck, and I surged forward, knowing he was my future. After everything I’d been through, and everything I’d battled to get where I was – to a place where I was happy and well-adjusted and completely and totally in love – I knew it was all because of him. He’d been my rock when we were kids, and he’d been my rock since I’d gotten to UT. Not that I needed him like that now, but I absolutely loved having him in my life. He cared about me like no one else, and he did it so selflessly.

At no point had his love for me been tainted by something he needed from me in return. It wasn’t like that with us, and it never would be. I hadn’t known love like that for most of my life, and I knew now how much I’d been missing out. But I didn’t have to do that anymore. As long as I had Jack, I had everything I needed.

“Don’t call him,” I said breathlessly as I opened the door to Jack’s truck and climbed inside.

“What?”

“Don’t call him,” I repeated, taking in him red-rimmed eyes that made my heart break. God, I hated his dad so much.

“I wasn’t going to.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not getting it. Throw the letter away. Burn it. Don’t respond to it. Don’t keep it so you can one day decide that enough time has passed and he deserves a second chance. Don’t do it, because if you do, you’ll regret it. He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. He doesn’t deserve a second chance, and he doesn’t deserve any of the time it would take to pick up the phone and call him or to go see him or to even respond to his crappy letter. He doesn’t get any part of you, Jack. Please.”

Without saying a word, Jack reached over me and opened the glove box. He pulled out the envelope that held the letter his dad had written him, and he handed it to me. It had a smudge of wet ink across the front, and it was wrinkled, like he had clutched it in his hand.

“How did you know I was going to keep it?”

“Because it’s what I would have done. It’s what I did. My mother wrote me a letter from rehab. She poured her heart out. She apologized. She begged for forgiveness, and she promised me everything would be different when she got out. And you know what, I believed her. I had hope that what she told me was true. She was my mother, and I blamed everyone and everything but her for the pain she’d caused me. But do you know what happened after I told her I forgave her?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing was different. Sure, she didn’t drink or do drugs anymore, but it didn’t matter. She still wasn’t in my life the way I wanted her to be, and it didn’t matter that she was sober. She wasn’t going to change, because the person I wanted her to be wasn’t her. Your dad isn’t going to change either. He was who he was because he was evil, pure and simple, and just because he’s locked up for life and has found God or is just looking for salvation, it doesn’t matter. He hurt you over and over and over again, and I won’t let him do it one more time.”

Jack swallowed hard as he watched me. “I don’t know why I walked out of the house with it. As soon as I opened it, I wanted to get rid of it. Just the fact that
he’d
touched that paper, that his thoughts were on it, and that he’d gotten inside my head made me sick.”

“Then why did you keep it?” I asked him, already knowing the answer.

“I’ve spent so much of my life hating him – the man he was for years – that for a split second I wondered if maybe he really had changed. Maybe he didn’t hate me, and maybe he wanted to get to know me. He doesn’t, does he?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Jack nodded, but I could tell from his expression that he knew that all along. Hope was such a funny thing. It could grab you and shake sense into you that completely misguided you. It was a scary emotion, especially when you were good and pure like Jack and you were dealing with someone as callous and evil as his dad.

“Kate, I am so fucked up,” he said as he dropped his head back against the headrest.

“No, you’re not,” I said quickly, because I didn’t want him to think that for a second.

He lifted his head and looked at me. “The man’s a murderer. He killed my mother. He terrorizes me in my dreams, and he still has the ability to bring me to tears in front of my girlfriend, yet for a split-second I thought maybe he was different, that he’d changed.”

“Maybe he is, but maybe he isn’t. People can change. It happens, but knowing how badly he hurt you and how he can still get to you, do you really think that’s the case? I remember your father. I remember his voice so clearly, and if I never hear it again, that’ll be just fine with me. Jack, I saw your face when you heard him hit your mother. I saw the fear in your eyes, and I know how badly he hurt you. Don’t let him do it again. Do you really think he deserves your forgiveness?”

“I could never forgive him,” he said, and it was like the notion had just dawned on him.

“Me either. I was scared upstairs – scared for you and scared because I didn’t know how to help you. I don’t want him to have that kind of power over you.”

“But what if seeing him brings me closure. What if it makes the nightmares go away? What if I stop being afraid when I see him behind bars, because I know he can’t hurt me anymore?”

“Jack, you already know that he can’t hurt you.”

Jack reached over and took my hand in his. “Kate, I don’t know what to do.”

Hell, neither did I.

“Do you want to see him? Do you want closure? Because if you do, then I think you should go see him. I’m sorry if I tried to steer you otherwise. I was just thinking about my mom and you, and I was pissed that our parents didn’t love us like they should have. We were kids, and they didn’t give a shit about us. For years, I tried to let it go and move on, and I really thought I had, but today it was like it all came to a head, and I just got mad. But it’s not my place to tell you what to do, and if you want to see your dad or talk to him, then I’ll be right by your side the whole time. But I don’t ever want to see you hurting like you were this morning. I love you too much to watch you go through that again.”

“Come here,” he said, tugging me as close as he I could with the center console in the way.

He turned my face toward his, and he looked at me with such soulfulness in his hazel eyes that it was almost painful. I loved him more than I imagined I could ever love someone, and all I wanted to do was protect him however I could.

Jack cupped my face with his hand, and his thumb slid over my cheekbone. “If you could change the past – if you could go back in time and relive your childhood with your mother sober and attentive and loving and around all the time, would you?”

As he said that, and as I looked into his eyes, I knew the answer. “No.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if she would have been sober, if she hadn’t spent our money on drugs and alcohol, and if she’d had a better job, then I never would have met you. You wouldn’t have been my best friend, because we wouldn’t have had anything in common, and we wouldn’t have had to lean on each other when things got hard.”

“And are you glad we were best friends?”

I nodded and closed my eyes. “So glad. I love you, Jack, and I’ve loved every second of my life that you’ve been a part of.”

He pressed his lips to mine. “I love you too, Kate, and because my past is where I met you, I’ll take what I went through any day.”

I opened my eyes to see him looking at me so tenderly that I wondered when the tables had turned and I was the one breaking down.

“Life is so hard, and we were dealt the worst of it early on, but do you know what I think?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

“That it’s only going to get better from here. Your mom, my dad, every other person who hurt us, they don’t matter. They’re insignificant in the grand scheme of our lives and how great they’re going to be. I’m going to be a doctor, you’re going to work in marketing or find something else you’re passionate about and be amazing at it, we’re going to get married, live in a nice house, have food in the refrigerator all the time, we’re going to have friends, we’ll have my family, we’ll have your sister, and one day we’ll have kids of our own.”

“Whoa,” I said, because as much as I’d been thinking all of those things, hearing him say them out loud felt so heavy.

Jack smiled. “Too much?”

“Yes and no.”

His smile widened. “Yeah, maybe it was too much. Just know that for now we’re together, and I love you so much, and I’m so happy with you. I don’t need more than that, although I’m fairly certain that you’ll come around to everything else I said eventually.”

“I’m sure I will,” I told him, a smile spreading across my face.

He kissed me again. “We’re going to have the best life, Kate. I promise you. I don’t need closure. I don’t need to talk to my dad, and I don’t need to see him ever again. I think it’s time I let go of the past, and I think maybe you should to. Let’s start over, right here, right now. Let’s let everything go and promise each other we’ll do whatever we can to not let it back in.”

“I promise I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you never have another nightmare again,” I told him. “And I promise to love you forever, Jack. That part is easy.”

“It’s easy for me too. I love you.”

“I love you too – so much.”

“I’m burning this when we get home,” he told me, holding up his dad’s letter.

“Or you could do it now,” I offered. “Your aunt and uncle have the fireplace on inside. You could just toss it in, let it go up in flames, and put it behind you.”

“But I told Aunt Deena we were leaving.”

“So what. We changed our minds. We were leaving because your asshole father interjected himself into our perfect world. We just said we weren’t going to let him get to us anymore, so I say we start right now. You have to be hungry, and trust me when I tell you the food in there looks amazing. I only ate a few bites, so I could go back for seconds. And I’m sure your aunt would love to know that you’re okay.”

“She does worry about me.”

“Because she loves you. You’re lucky to have her.”

“I know I am.”

“Then let’s go back inside and spend time with your family. Hell, I think I might adopt them as my own.”