Ruining You (33 page)

He sits there for what seems like
forever before he sighs and says, “Okay, but I don’t like it. We are calling
Agent Morris to double check where he is at, and I want you back in an hour.
Take your phone and I mean it, Jay. Call me when you get to the graveyard and
as soon as you leave.”

Leaning towards him, I kiss his lips and
look into his eyes, “I will. Thanks.”

Nodding his head, he doesn’t look happy,
but I need to do this.

Getting up, I dress in jeans, a t-shirt,
and tennis shoes. I brush my teeth and fix my hair, pulling it back in a
ponytail. I grab my North Face jacket out of my bag and throw it on. Calling
Agent Morris in front of him, I confirm that Bruch Branch is at his home and
was even sighted two minutes ago getting the paper from the front yard. Kane
doesn’t like it, but even he has to admit that this is fine.

Grabbing the keys to his car, I rush off
so I can hurry back. I drive straight to my house, and not wanting to hear
grief about being alone, I sneak in and out without waking anyone. Back on the
road, I grip the offering I retrieved from my room; it’s my final birthday
present to him. I raise my hand to grasp the locket hanging from my neck. I’m
starting to realize the significance of Kane giving me this necklace. I see,
now, just how much he loves me to have been able to understand my need to let
JT go in a loving manner. I had to let him go so there could be peace to start
with someone else.

Approaching the black gates of the
cemetery, I pull through them. There is a light fog that runs low across the
ground, giving the already eerie graveyard a haunting feeling. I almost turn
back, but I know the dead can’t hurt me anymore, so I drive on.

I remember my way to his gravesite. As I
park, I see it standing strong between the two trees next to the pond. It’s
still hard to be here. It tears at my soul and wounds me over again, but I hold
my tears in. I’m doing this for him. I dial Kane’s number, and he picks up
immediately.

“I love you and so did JT,” he whispers
into the phone, saying just the right thing.

“I’ll call you as soon as I’m done,
shouldn’t be longer than fifteen minutes. I love you, Kane,” I say, meaning it.

“I love you too. I’ll be waiting for
your call. Come home to me,” he says before disconnecting.

The crisp morning sends a chill all over
my body, so I zip my jacket as I walk to his final resting place. As I near the
stone, I am greeted by mounds of flowers, cards, and two footballs. Reaching
them, I bend down to see that one is signed by the entire team and the other is
signed by Kip and has a note written on it. I can’t read it, but it’s not for
me to read anyway.

Bringing my own offering out of my
pocket, I don’t open it up. It’s the first letter he ever wrote me in middle
school, the love of a young boy poured onto a page. It’s to show him that I did
care, and I saved it because his love meant something. At one time, his love
meant everything, but now that love will live in my heart forever.

Tears well in my eyes as I place it with
the other items. Touching the tombstone one last time, I whisper, “Happy
Birthday.”

As I turn, I freeze from the immediate
fear that rushes down my spine. Bruce Branch’s wife stands in front of me,
holding a gun and pointing it at me. Her wild eyes exaggerate her gaunt face.
She looks, I don’t know, emaciated? Her bones grotesquely stick out through her
sagging sallow skin. My eyes go to the gun in her hands as it shakes violently.
Her finger is pressed firmly against the trigger.

“Why?” she asks, her voice sounding
tired and weary. A pained laugh escapes her. “You’re pretty, I’ll give you
that, but why a girl when he had a woman waiting on him hand and foot at home?”
The shaking becomes so bad that she lifts her other hand to steady the one with
the gun. “I didn’t want to kill you, but he just won’t stop. He was going to
walk free his lawyers said, but no, he had to fuck that up and follow you.”

I gasp at her admission. So he was
following me. I didn’t imagine seeing him. Wait, I have to know, “Was he the
one who broke into my house?”

Shaking her head back and forth, she
looks right at me, and her evil grin acts as an outward expression of her inner
insanity. “No, no, that was me. He was sitting across the road, watching your
house. I followed him without him knowing for weeks. Watching him as he was
watching you.”

She lowers the gun for a second, and in
that instant I think to rush her, but she must have read my face, because she
brings it right back up. She keeps wiping the sweat from her brow, making me
wonder if she is physically ill.

“Why wasn’t I enough for him?” she
whines, continuing, “Maybe I can be, if you’re not here anymore. Damn, why
couldn’t you just have done this right yourself the first time when you tried
to commit suicide? It would have saved me all this.” She waves the gun in the
air while groaning as if she is in pain.

I need to keep her talking in order to
stall long enough that Kane misses me and comes to find me. 

“How did you find me here?”

Wiping her brow again, she laughs,
“Well, that was serendipity. You see, last week, he finally realized that he
was being watched. It’s not like the police hid it or anything, and it drove
him crazy not being able to watch you. He’s watched you for years, he gets off
on it. I thought having our babies would break this sick obsession, and I think
for a while, it did. Then he came home one day, and I could see it in his eyes:
a want and need that I could never replace, only you, James. This morning, the
babies were out of milk, so I drove by the market and just guess who I saw
drive past me?”

Dear Lord, I never knew. What did Coach
Branch plan for me? Looking at her, I know I have to fight. I didn’t survive my
hell to die like this. I’m going to live.

“You don’t want to do this. Think of
your children. You will go to jail forever.”

“Jail, little girl? I live every day in
Hell, so jail would be a vacation. But no, I don’t think anyone would ever
guess it was me. I drove out to get milk and then drove back home. I can then
tell my husband that you are no longer a problem. No James, no trial, no jail.
All my problems solved.” She looks over at JT’s grave then back at me. “Say
hello to JT for me,” she says a second before I see the resolution on her face
to pull the trigger.

Everything happens so fast. One moment I
close my eyes, knowing I’m too late to do anything but drop to the ground, and
the next, I hear blast of the gun. Its harsh resonance shatters the silence,
but it’s her grunt of pain that causes me to open my eyes. At the same moment,
I feel someone set fire to my neck.

I watch as Kip rolls on top of her,
wrestling the gun from her hands and screaming at her to stop fighting. He
looks over at me, and I see horror wash over his face. “Jesus, Jay!”

Reaching up to pat the flames on my
neck, I pull back when wetness coats my hand. My fingers begin to tremble, and
looking down at them. I watch as the thick red fluid drips to the ground,
pooling at my feet. My body begins to shake as I realize what it is. Blood. My
blood.

“Damn it, Jay. Grab the fucking gun!”
Kip’s voice yells.

His words finally penetrate my mind,
making me walk on my knees toward the gun. Reaching it, I pick it up with my
hand and turn to see that Kip holding her down and straddling her body.
Scratches mar his face and fresh blood trickles down his cheeks. Her cries of
anguish fill the air.

“Jay, listen to me.”

I look at him, but everything is
muddled, going in and out of focus.

“You can’t go into shock on me, and ah
hell, it looks like you’re losing a lot of blood. Do you have your cell phone?”

Phone. Phone. Do I have my cell phone?
In my pocket, maybe? My neck, oh my God, it burns. Tears fall down my face from
the pain, and I realize that I’m sobbing. I have to call for help. Willing
myself, I put the gun down and reach into my pocket. Bringing it out, I dial
911.

“911....what’s your emergency?” the
operator asks.

My voice won’t come out at first. I try
to speak, but I can’t. I start to panic. Seeing the look on my face, Kip speaks
up.

“Calm down, Jay. Just tell them where we
are at JACKSON HEIGHTS CEMETERY,” he yells. “SEND HELP!! We need an ambulance
and police, Jay Stevenson has been shot. HURRY!

My head feels fuzzy and it’s getting
heavier. My mouth feels full of cotton balls. I blink my eyes, trying to stay
lucid, but it’s hard to focus on what Kip is saying. Falling to the ground, I
lie there and think about my life. Kane. I don’t want to leave him, or my mom
and dad, Molly, Reed, Eli, Cal. I don’t want to leave any of them.

Looking over at Kip, I say through the
tears, “Tell them I love them all. That my life was worth living, because of
them.” Closing my eyes, I try to take a deep breath, but the pain robs me of
it. Opening them back up, I look towards JT’s grave and speak to Kip, “I loved
your brother, always. I would have died that night for him. I tried to stop him
from leaving that night, Kip. I swear I did, and then I tried to follow him,
but now I’m glad I didn’t. I am so sorry.”

Shutting my eyes one last time, I can’t
feel much of anything as the pain drifts away. I hear Kip yelling in the
background, and the sounds of sirens fall in behind him. I wish I could choose
the path of life again. I should have always chosen the path of life.

Do you want to know what Heaven looks,
smells, and sounds like? It’s white and sandy with a view of clear blue ocean
water as far as the eye can see. It smells like coconut tanning oil, heated
from the sun and rising from bronzing bodies. And the sound? Well, it’s the lap
of the waves as they crash against the beach, and most importantly, it’s the
sound of the man next to me as he tells me how much he loves me.

It’s been three months since Lisa Branch
shot me; luckily, she only grazed my neck. If Kip hadn’t decided to visit JT’s
grave so early that morning, I wouldn’t be here. I thought I was dying, and
that was the most agonizing five minutes of my life. I thought about everything
prayed to have it back. You see, I finally realized that life is what you make
it. If you make it hell, then that’s exactly what you will have. Sometimes we
can’t control what happens to us, but we can control what we do from that point
forward. I still see my therapist, take my medication, and I deal with
depression every damn day, but I can make that day worth living or not. It’s my
choice and my path to choose.

“Would you like another drink,
senorita?” the waiter walks by asking.

“Yes, I would please. The same,” I
reply, shading my eyes to look up at him.

I look down my bikini clad tan body as I
sit up in my lounge chair. Only one ear bud is in so I can listen to Rhye’s new
single that is ruling the iTunes charts. He called to check on me in the
hospital, keeping it short and simple, but he promised to keep in touch.
Grabbing the suntan lotion, I pour a small amount into the palm of my hand,
preparing to coat my body again.

“Babe, can you rub some on my back?”
Kane asks from the chair beside me

He is stretched out on his belly in
nothing but his swim trunks and sunglasses. The sight of his muscular back and,
oh that ass. Yes, I still can’t get over his ass; it lights my body up every
time. Unable to help myself, I lean over and kiss his shoulder, nipping it with
my teeth.