The Fear of Letting Go (18 page)

I stifle the desire to make apologies, almost angry that I feel the need to make excuses about the quality of my things. Why the heck am I bringing someone into my home if they are going to make me feel bad about what I have?

But Preston doesn't seem to mind the furniture. Instead, he walks over to a picture sitting on the bar, a smile growing on his face. “Is this you?”

I make a face. “Yes.”

“How old were you?”

“Six or seven, I think.” It's a picture of me in my parents' backyard. They had gotten one of those little plastic baby pools at Walmart that summer, and I think I spent every single day sitting in it, pretending I was some glamorous starlet sitting by her pool in L.A. In the picture, I have on a bathing suit that's already way too small—probably another hand-me-down I'd already been wearing for two summers—and a pair of cheap sunglasses. A pair of long clip-on earrings dangle from my ears and my arm is full of bangle bracelets. My legs are crossed and I'm holding a cup of juice up like it's a martini, a toothless smile plastered on my face.

“I love it,” he says. “You have such a great smile. You look really happy.”

I bite the inside of my lip. I do look happy. That's one of the reasons I love that picture and keep it with me, to remind myself that it's not healthy to remember only the bad things. Sometimes as a child, I was happy.

“Have a seat if you want,” I say. “There's beer in the fridge if you want one. I'm gonna go change.”

“You sure you don't want some help?” He smiles and wiggles his eyebrows.

I laugh and shake my head. “I'm sure.”

I head toward the one bedroom in the apartment, glancing back at him before I disappear inside. He's still staring at the picture of me, a smile on his lips.

Preston

Jenna's smile gets me every time. Even as a child, she had something special. A charisma that reaches down inside you and pulls the joy from your heart. I set the picture down on the bar and look around to see if there are more pictures, but this is the only one from her childhood. There's a picture of her and Leigh Anne, out at Knox's from last summer, on the side table by the couch, and a framed picture someone took of all of us around Christmas last year at a party at Knox's bar.

There are no other pictures of her family or childhood.

I don't see any of her paper art out here in the main room, and I wonder if she keeps it hidden in her bedroom. The thought of her naked in there is incredibly distracting, but I hope, after she gets dressed, she'll let me in to take a look at some of her work.

Her phone rings and I turn, looking for it. It's sitting on the table with her apron, and I call out to her. “Jenna, it's your phone. Want me to get it?”

“What?” she calls back, her voice muffled through the door.

I cross over to the table and pick the phone up just as it stops ringing. The caller ID says Dylan, and underneath, it says there are eighteen missed calls from him. I stare at the name. Who the heck is Dylan, and why is he calling her so much?

Jenna pokes her head around the corner, a smile on her face. “What did you say?”

She sees the phone in my hand and frowns.

“I'm sorry,” I say, setting it back down on the table. I wish I hadn't seen this or picked it up. “I said your phone was ringing. Who's Dylan?”

Her eyes darken and she takes a deep breath. “Hang on, I'll be out in a second.”

I step away from the table and wait for her, worry growing in my stomach. From the darkness of her expression, there's something going on with this Dylan guy, whoever he is. An old boyfriend? Jenna and I have never had the “ex” talk before, mostly because she already knows about my two exes. Other than Leigh Anne and Bailey, I have only ever dated a handful of girls and never went beyond a first or second date with any of them.

I don't know the first thing about Jenna's past, but I can't shake the feeling that her past just called.

When she comes out of her room, she's wearing a pair of faded jeans, torn at the knee, and a baggy, off-white sweater that hangs down off one shoulder in the sexiest way. A large black tattoo of roses and other flowers covers her shoulder. The sleeves of the sweater hide her hands and she brings them up over her middle.

“Dylan is part of what I wanted us to talk about tonight,” she says. “But not here. Let's go to the beach. It's nice out tonight.”

I nod, and let her gather her things. I don't want to push her about the artwork now. I just hope after tonight, I'm invited over to her apartment a lot more often.

We drive in silence to the beach and start walking. I have brought her out to a section of my family's private beaches so we won't be bothered by anyone. The wind is strong, but it's not too cold out. The sky is completely clear, a million stars overhead as we walk a good hundred yards without talking. I am carrying a blanket I pulled from the trunk of my car, and I nod to a spot just out of reach of the waves.

“Want to sit for a while?” I ask.

Other than the night of the tornado, things between Jenna and me have been carefree and fun. Weightless. But there's a heaviness tonight, as if the words yet to be spoken between us carry the ghosts of our past. As if what we say tonight determines the rest of us, and what we might become.

“Sure,” she says. She still has her arms wrapped around her body like a shield, or a barrier. As if to say—keep your distance.

I lay the blanket out on the sand and sit, giving her plenty of space.

Jenna sits across from me, her knees up and her body bent over them, all closed up. She's staring out at the water instead of me, and I hold my fists tight, wondering what could possibly be so bad or so serious that she's shutting down like this. How can I make her feel more comfortable? How can I let her know I'm ready to hear what she has to say, without making her feel rushed?

I turn my body toward the ocean, my legs straight out with my hands behind me, propping me up.

“I love the beach in the spring,” I say. “The water's too cold to bring the tourists, yet, but the air is getting warmer. It's peaceful.”

“I used to come to the beach a lot when I first moved here,” she says. She rests her chin on her crossed arms and stares out at the waves. “I love it out here at night, when no one's around. I love that feeling of just being invisible, as if no one in the world knows where you are or what you're doing at that moment. It's like a secret between me and the universe.”

I don't miss her reference to being invisible. Didn't she say something similar at the water tower? She chooses such lonely places sometimes, which is the opposite of what I would have guessed about her a few weeks ago. She's always so full of life. Why would she want to feel invisible?

“Do you still come out here?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Not as much,” she says. “Too much work and not enough time. But it's nice.”

I want so badly to touch her, but I know now is not the time. I have so many questions, but I have no idea how to get her to talk about the things that matter. So I give her time, letting her stare and think and be. After a long stretch of silence, I notice there are tears on her cheeks.

“Jenna, you can talk to me,” I say. “I know you think I'm just some rich kid, who has no idea what you've been through, and you're probably right, but that doesn't mean I don't care. I want to understand what I did wrong so I don't do it again.”

She turns her head to the side and wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, still wrapped around her hands. “I try to avoid these kinds of conversations at all costs,” she says. “But I can't keep denying there's something going on between us.”

When she looks back toward me, our eyes lock and my mouth goes dry.

“I want there to be more,” I say.

“Me too, but I'm scared,” she says. “Preston, you and I come from worlds that are so unbelievably opposite from each other, I don't even know where to begin. This is all happening so fast.”

I don't know what to say. I'm scared, too, but my fear comes from a different place. I'm not afraid to be with her. I'm afraid to lose her.

“Dylan is my brother,” she says.

I sit up and turn my body toward her, one arm slung over my knee. “I thought maybe he was an ex-boyfriend or something,” I say. “I wasn't trying to be nosy, but I asked if you wanted me to answer it and when I picked it up, it stopped ringing. It said there were almost twenty missed calls from him. Is something going on between you two?”

“He's been calling me a lot lately, but I can't bring myself to pick up the phone,” she says. “Sometimes he leaves messages saying I need to call him back, but I never do.”

“Why not?” I try to think of any reason I would ever avoid Penny's calls. We've had our arguments and our differences, but they never last long between us.

“Things with my family are very complicated,” she says. She doesn't offer more, and I can sense her fear and hesitation. I wish I knew how to comfort her.

“Jenna, I know this can't be easy to talk about, but I want to know where you're coming from. I want to understand what you're so afraid of,” I say. “I want to take this to the next level, but that means you need to tell me what's going on in your head. There's no question we have a lot of fun together and there's this connection between us that can't be denied, but that's all surface stuff. You have to let me in. What are you so afraid of?”

She closes her eyes and her jaw tightens. “Preston, I know this is not something you can relate to, but I have worked so hard to build a life for myself. I had to fight and work for every single thing I have right now. My scholarship. My apartment. My independence. As long as I can focus on those things, I know I'm going to be okay,” she says. “But I wasn't counting on this. Whatever it is we have, it's so completely unexpected. I didn't plan to meet someone like you, and have actual feelings that went beyond a good time. I don't know how to deal with this.”

“So, you're scared if you let me in, I'll somehow ruin what you've got going? That doesn't even make any sense.”

“I'm scared you'll swoop in and mess with my head,” she says. “Knock me off balance. If I start to factor you into my life in any real way, how will I recover if you're suddenly gone? What happens if we break up and I can't get back on my feet? It's so much easier when I only have myself to rely on.”

“We haven't even been together for a month, and you're already planning for us to break up?”

“How else can this end?” she asks. There's anger in her voice and her body is rigid. “The richest guy in town does not start dating a poor girl like me and plan to stick around. That's some kind of fairy tale, and I don't believe in that shit.”

“Jenna, you have got to stop looking at me like I'm some guy up on a pedestal. I'm not just some rich guy who takes everything for granted,” I say. “Why can't you see past the fact that my family has money? Why does this matter so much to you?”

“Because I grew up with nothing, okay? I'm the girl who was always on free lunch at school and wore hand-me-downs or shopped in thrift stores. My dad is a piece of shit who could never hold down a job for longer than a couple of months at a time and pawned or sold every single semi-nice thing we ever had so he could buy beer,” she says. She's yelling at me. “My brother and I, we never knew for sure if we were going to come home to find our dad drunk and passed out on the couch, or an eviction notice on the door of whatever apartment or trailer my mom was renting to get away from him. I've never known the kind of stability you have. Not even close. I never had anything I could really call my own until now. What I've built for myself here in Fairhope, this is the first time I've felt like a real person who could be proud of herself. I don't want to lose that. Can't you see that you put all that at risk?”

I stare at her, my heart aching for the fact that she has no idea how strong or how amazing she really is. And the fact that she thinks I would come in and ruin that for her hurts so badly, I can hardly breathe.

“This is why opening some box from a boutique in Atlanta, containing a thousand dollar dress, is offensive and hurtful,” she says. Her voice is calmer, but her hands are shaking. She presses them against her legs. “It felt like you were saying I'm just like all those other girls, when I'm not. Not even close.”

“I didn't mean for it to be like that,” I say. “I know you aren't like those other girls, Jenna. That's why I want to be with you. Not because of money or how you grew up, but because of who you are.”

“When I saw that dress, it made me feel like I wasn't good enough as I am,” she says. “Like, in order to fit into your world, I have to learn to dress a certain way or act appropriately.”

“I swear I didn't mean that at all,” I say. “It's just a stupid dress.”

“The money you spent on that dress could pay my rent for a month or more,” she says. “And I struggle every single month to make those payments. Don't you see how that creates a major imbalance between us? If we started really dating, how long before you decide to start helping me with rent? Or buy me a new computer? Or hell, someone said you bought Bailey a freaking car for Christmas one year.”

“I'm sorry, I don't understand why that would be such a bad thing,” I say, frustrated that I don't even know how to defend myself against these arguments. “If you're struggling, why would it be so horrible if I helped you out?”

She stares at me, her eyes are gleaming with tears. “Because I don't want to take your money,” she says.

“Jenna.” I touch her arm. “What's really going on here? I know there's something you aren't telling me.”

She shakes her head and looks away. Finally, she turns back and takes in a deep breath. “I don't want to accept any gifts from you, because that's what my mother used to do when she was sleeping with some rich guy.”

I inhale. This is what I've been waiting for. Some kind of truth about why this is so important to her, and why she's so messed up about it. “I'm listening, Jenna,” I say softly. “You can tell me.”

She closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her cheek.

“I can't even believe I'm going to tell you this,” she says. She hesitates for a long moment, and finally her shoulders relax. “When I was little, we had nothing. My mom cleaned houses and my dad couldn't hold on to a job for long. When dad had a job, things were okay for the most part. We'd have food on the table, and things would feel normal for a little while. But we always knew it was just a matter of time before things fell apart again. He'd get fired for coming in late or for mouthing off to his boss, but with him, it was never his fault. He'd come home, yelling about how stupid his boss was or how unfair it was they'd let him go, or how they'd had it in for him from day one. It was always something.