The three of us ate pizza that night in Hadley’s living room before I finally went home with Breanna. My parents didn’t question my absence or the fight with my sister. Once, Mom had told me that if we fought and made up on our own it meant we’d found a way to become stronger…together. So, after each fight she was thankful for the fight and the bond it tightened.
I went back to work and tried to find a rhythm. I was sure we all did, even Jordan. I didn’t see him much, for which I was thankful. At first it stung, our town and our little world was so small that if you wanted to avoid each other, you had to try to do it. Obviously, he was making that effort. When I’d set my feelings aside and really thought about it I was thankful. I was still too raw to see him, to deal with being normal around him.
Especially, when I was getting strange looks from so many. When it seemed people were coming into the shop only to gawk at me. I could swear they whispered when I came near.
I didn’t say anything to anyone about it until two such whisperers walked out of the shop after paying and stopped to turn back and obviously take one last look. “I feel like I’m wearing a giant scarlet letter.” I told Aiden when it was just him and me up front, Hadley had already gone for the day.
“Why?” He didn’t look up from the purchase orders he flipped through on the counter.
“Those guys that picked up their car. They kept whispering to each other and looking at me funny. People have been doing it since SKS.”
I didn’t say since Devin died. I didn’t have to, my brother’s eyes darkened anyway. “It’s not just you, Rae, it’s all of us. I’ve gotten emails already and Hadley’s fielded voicemails and calls at the shop about how we’re all responsible and reckless, how our sport got a guy killed…”
Past the floor to ceiling glass of the lobby, the sun was setting in the array of oranges that signaled autumn. Beside me, Aiden took in the layers of reddish hues as well. His face was lined with a deep-set sadness I hadn’t seen before. I let that sink in. I’d been so wrapped up in me and my problems, I never noticed how fully the accident had affected everyone.
“Jordan gets the worst of it, though.” Having found what he was looking for, Aiden stacked the papers on the counter. “It’s brutal from other people, but nothing compared to what he’s doing to himself.” He leveled his dark gaze at me and used it to say all the things he couldn’t or wouldn’t.
“Don’t look at me that way, Aiden. I can’t give you what you want here. Jordan made his feelings about me and what he thought of our relationship perfectly clear.” “He was lying out his ass.” Aiden pushed off the counter he’d leaned on and headed for the door to the garage. “Go by there tonight and see him. He’s a mess, Raelynn. I’ve tried talking to him, Vic’s tried, Breanna has, everyone has…but you. Maybe you can talk some sense into him before he drinks himself to death.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think he’s been sober since the funeral. I know you love him. When love like that is real, Raelynn, you don’t just give up on it. The old man is the only person to ever fight for him. He’s gone now. Prove to Jordan that he’s not alone.”
I’d spent all this time thinking Jordan had been avoiding me on purpose, that he’d been staying away from me to shield me from the awkwardness, to protect me as he’d always done.
Aiden’s words left me questioning all of that.
****
The light was on at Jordan’s shop when I pulled into my driveway. My brother’s words echoed in my mind. I had never seen Jordan drunk, much less to a state of drinking himself to death. Aiden wasn’t usually prone to exaggeration, but I was hoping in this instance he was.
Jordan had seen the dark side of substance abuse in a way I couldn’t fathom, that most people wouldn’t understand. How bad must he be hurting, to let himself go like that? The drinking to excess bothered me immensely.
Maybe Aiden had known I’d worry, as he’d known I wouldn’t ignore what he said. My brother knew I cared too much. There was no doubt I loved Jordan, that even with a broken heart I couldn’t watch him go down in flames. Even if saving him meant I’d be the one left in ashes.
Inside my house, I found Dad snoring in his recliner with the baby on his chest. He’d barely been home an hour. If I woke him he’d use his granddaughter as his excuse for falling asleep in the chair, the same way he’d done with the three of us when we were little.
It was one of those moments that made my heart trip in my chest and fill me with a deep, all- encompassing love. There were pictures of Dad
sleeping that way with me or Aiden on his chest. I had vivid memories of him falling asleep like that with Breanna. He was a great dad and so was his son. Aiden was doing everything he could to save his marriage even knowing it was a losing battle. Both men would do anything for their children, for their families.
Even tell me to shelve my broken heart and pride.
I’d experienced a lot of things in life, not all of them good. At the end of the day I was so very blessed regardless, like that sweet little girl sleeping on her granddaddy’s chest. I knew those blessings. Jordan hadn’t had the benefit of a family like mine. He’d made his own family. Loving me had cost him part of that family and tore a huge hole inside both of us.
I tossed my stuff on my bed and pretended that I hadn’t noticed the shop light on at Jordan’s when I pulled in. But when I glanced through the door at my dad my stomach twisted with a twinge of regret. It was easy to imagine Jordan doing that, holding a child that would be ours. We could have had a relationship, strong and full of love like my parents. If only the crash hadn’t happened.
That loss was as painful and immense as the loss of Devin.
“They look adorable,” I told Mom when I found her in the kitchen getting dinner ready.
The look of love on her face was how I would always remember her, even once I was old and gray. “Yeah, I took a picture of them before I came back in here.”
“I worry about Aiden.” I’d wanted to say more, to tell her what was in my heart. I couldn’t form those words yet, couldn’t speak them out loud.
“Me, too.” She chopped vegetables without missing a beat. “But what do we do? We’ve talked about this, he’s a grown man who can make his own decisions. I believe he’ll do what he needs to do when it needs to be done. And when he does, we’ll all be here for him.”
She was right, we would.
“Now, tell me what’s been going on with you, what’s really bothering my girl?”
I couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t possible to give voice to the pain that claimed me with such ferocity. The loss of what I’d almost had wasn’t real until my brother had told me love was worth fighting for. I’d almost had what my parents had, I’d come so very close.
When I looked up at my mom, my bottom lip trembled.
“Oh, baby.” She wrapped her arms around me and held me tight. We stood the same height, yet I was still the little girl with scraped knees, seeking comfort from the one person who would never turn me away. “Love hurts. Especially when it’s real. Don’t forget that.”
She pulled away, straightened my hair, and wiped my tears away. “It’s harder for me to watch you struggle, because you are in love. Aiden has never loved Wendy. He had an obligation. Devin would have never loved you, not really. But Jordan?” She smiled ruefully. “That only comes around once. I can still see it in your eyes even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”
“Mom—”
She held her hand up in a move that reminded me so much of myself I had to smile. “Don’t Mom me, Raelynn. All of this is because of fear. Being afraid you’d have to shoulder the blame for his pain. His fear that he’d project his pain to you. You think I don’t know things, that I don’t see things, but I do. Before you decide to move on with your life, make sure that’s what you really want. Don’t look back and wonder what could have been. Don’t make yourself sick when he moves on and marries someone else, when he’s sleeping with someone else’s baby on his chest.”
Her words were a slap across my face that shattered all the walls I’d built, all the healing I’d done at Hadley’s. I’d come to my mother for shelter, for comfort, and she’d hit me with reality in a way no one else really could.
She left me with only one option.
I made my way across the street, raw with emotion. The fluorescent shop light called to me like a moth to a flame. My mantra was that love was worth fighting for. Jordan loved me as much as I loved him. I wouldn’t allow myself to doubt that, because without love I had nothing.
The concrete would have masked the sound of my footsteps up the driveway, but it didn’t matter. The music was so loud it drowned out all other sound for more than the distance of a race. That wasn’t unusual, guys were guys. Guys working in a garage and loud music seemed to go hand in hand.
This time, though, there was only one guy and I knew from years of experience, he liked to work alone in silence. Maybe Aiden was right.
I ached deep in my soul when I saw him. Jordan tipped a bottle back, took a long swig, and put it back before pulling more parts off his car. He’d jumped straight past beer and gone for something harder. I’d never seen him like this. I’d never imagined losing Devin would have changed him so deeply, right to the very make-up of his being. The man slinging wrenches and downing whiskey wasn’t the same man who’d made love to me, who’d freed me from my own fear and self-loathing.
Or was he?