Chapter Twenty-One

        Where We Break

        I feel like I’m having a heart attack. Breathless, I meet Jacoby’s eyes and start crying even harder. He’s awake.

            Without thinking I wrap him in my arms and quickly pull away when he protests from pain. Instead I kiss his lips. When I’m sitting again, he holds my hand. I can’t stop sobbing. From being happy, from being sad, from being scared; it’s all coming out uncontrollably.

            “You never answered my question.” His voice is strained and quiet, but underneath I can still hear his humour.

            “Well, I needed to say something,” I mumble, “to you know, be able to see you…”

            Jacoby smirks despite the pain. “Don’t cover it up, Stevie.” My cheeks redden as Jacoby raises my hand. “I like being called that.”

            He presses his lips to my hand and smiles. “So you’re saying…” I trail off, too embarrassed to say it.

            “I’m saying that I’m your boyfriend. Well, if you want me to be.”

            The paramedic climbs back into the ambulance and closes the door. My cheeks flush as we start to drive and I meet Jacoby’s eyes. I give him a subtle nod.

©

            “Do you think things will ever be the same?” Belle whispers. We both are mirror figures of each other, hugging our knees tightly to our chests as we sit in our rocking chairs. I told her I saw our father. I told her I think he’s coming back.

            “I don’t think so,” I mumble back. I lower my chin onto the tips of my knees and hold back scared tears. “But I wish they would stay like this. I miss it here.”

            Belle sighs. “Me too.”

            We’re silent for a long time, watching the sun make its slow descent behind the trees. Everything is cast in an orange and yellow glow and I wish Jacoby could be watching it here with us. After I stayed with him up until an hour ago Grandpa came and dragged me home. Basically all I did there was wait as he did tests and sit by his bed, but I wish I was still there.

            “Should we tell Grandpa?”

            “No.”

            “Why not? He might be able to help.”

            I let out a frustrated breath and close my eyes. “He doesn’t know all the things that happened, Belle. He doesn’t know Dad hurt us.”

            “But shouldn’t he?”

            I wish she would stop asking questions. “He’s letting us stay here and he’s not well. I don’t want to put more worry on him. It’s not fair that he will have to suffer for something that we’re trying to escape from.”

            “So what do we do?” Her whisper is shaky. “I mean, what are we supposed to do until Dad comes?”

            I don’t hesitate. “Act normal.”

            “Normal,” Belle repeats. “What are we doing tomorrow?” Her tone completely changes into what she considers normal and I open my eyes.

            “Jacoby’s making me go back to the fair.” I don’t hide my pout. “He says he’s getting out of the hospital in the morning and he’s going to watch me.”

            “That is so adorable,” Belle squeals.

            I roll my eyes and lean back in my rocking chair. Belle stays quiet for a while and I’m lost in my thoughts. As much as a calm act I put on for her, I’m terrified inside. I don’t want to go back to my father – to how he treats us. I don’t want to leave Lark again, Grandpa and the Greenwood Plantation. I don’t want to leave Jacoby.

            I need to tell him. As much as I want to completely ignore everything that’s happened like I have all summer, I need him to know the truth about what happened after I left.

            The sun falls behind the skyline and the sky quickly turns from orange to dark blue. The crickets start chirping and fireflies fill the front yard. Belle runs out into the grass and chases after one, moving out of sight and leaving me to the almost silence.

            “I’ll miss this,” I murmur. “I don’t ever want to leave.”

©

            “I’m so proud of you.” Jacoby kisses me and I can feel him smile against my lips. “You didn’t win, but you were close.”

            “Sit down,” I mutter to him as he leans me against the door of the Mustang. Back in the competitors area we’re not alone but he doesn’t seem to care. “You have a concussion. You shouldn’t even be outside.”

            Jacoby waves his hand in the air as if to wave my words away. He places his fingertips on both sides of my stomach and kisses me again, lighter this time.

            “So, almost winner,” he says into my lips. “What do you want to do? Dinner? Road trip?”

            I push him away so I can look at him and narrow my eyes. “You’re going to go home and rest.”

            He raises his eyebrows. “You can’t make me.”

            Sighing, I slump against the car. “What did you want to do?”

            Jacoby smiles and then ushers me into the Fastback. “I’ll point, you drive.”

            We end up at the swimming pond when it’s dark out. We stopped at my house on the way back to grab food and even though we’re here, he still won’t let me touch it. Apparently sitting inside the car staring outside isn’t enough.

            “Let’s get out.” Jacoby is already halfway through the open passenger door before I can object. The sound of crickets fills the car and when he closes the door it’s silent.

            He helps me onto the hood of my car and we stare up at the stars. We’re the only ones out here, making things completely dark and quiet. For a while neither of us says anything. We occasionally pass a bag of popcorn between us as if we’re watching a movie instead of the sky. Finally, I get the guts to say something.

            “I need to tell you something.”

            As soon as the words are out, I want to grasp them in the air with my hands and shove them back into my mouth. But of course, Jacoby hears them and refuses to pretend I didn’t say anything at all.

            “Go on.” His voice is quiet and he doesn’t look at me. His eyes stay up pointed at the stars and his hand stays intertwined on the metal between us with mine.

            “My dad…” I start, whispering the words. I’m talking too quiet but I can’t control the volume of my voice or what comes out. “He’s back.”

            Jacoby tenses. “So you’re going home.” It isn’t a question.

            “I don’t know.”

            Jacoby doesn’t say anything.

            I want to tell him the rest of my story. The parts where I was locked in my room, the parts when Belle and I were hurt, the parts when we could never come back and now that we are, we never want to leave. Despite how much  I want to say these things, to tell Jacoby right now like I planned, I can’t.

            I’m a coward.

            Without warning, Jacoby sits up. I open my mouth to ask him what he’s doing but he’s already sliding off the hood of the car.

            “Where are you going?” I struggle and get off the hood, trying to see where he went in the dark. “Jacoby?”

            I find him standing in the middle of the gravel road. At first it’s hard to see him but then his dark figure appears, turned away. His hands are covering his face and his back is too me. He still doesn’t answer.

            I stand silently behind him. I know he knows I’m here, but he doesn’t move. I open my mouth to say something but quickly close it. What can I say? I know what he’s doing; I know that I’ve wrecked things by telling him that I might be leaving again.

            His back his shaking and I feel like my heart breaks, at this very moment, inside my chest. I’m ripping him apart, all over again. I’ve done it once and now it’s happening again, all because I’m too much of a coward to tell the truth to him, to Grandpa, to anyone.

            “Just go.”

            His voice is agonizing. I feel tears rolling down my cheeks before I realize I’m crying. I reach for him. My fingers trail his shoulder when he moves away from me. My hand covers my mouth to hold back a sob as his voice grows louder.

            “Just leave, Stevie!”

            I can’t say anything. I don’t know what to do, how to change this. Even if I did tell him the truth, what would it change? Sure, he would know the truth about what really happened, but would that prevent me from leaving him again? Probably not.

            The words leave my mouth before I can suck them back in.

            “I need to tell you something,” I whisper.

            He shakes his head, a dark laugh escaping his lips. “You’re doing it again,” he says, as if he has to tell himself. “You’re hurting me all over again. You’re leaving.”

            “I need to tell you something,” I repeat, desperate this time.

            Jacoby whips around and I see tears glint in the dark. He throws his hands around him, angry. “You know what, Stevie? I don’t care. You’ve already said enough.”

            Jacoby turns again, walking. I want to follow him, to hold him and wrap him in my arms before he leaves but I can’t. He became my boyfriend the day before and now I don’t know where we stand. How can things change so quickly?

            “Where are you going?” I cry, taking a step towards him.

            “Just leave me alone,” he mutters. “And if you try to follow me, I’ll run.”

            Everything is falling apart. At this very moment, I feel like everything is slipping through the cracks. I was going to tell him. I was going to spill my darkest secrets to him, cry them to him because I love him. But he doesn’t care.

            Standing suddenly feels like too much. In the middle of the gravel road I collapse on my bare knees, letting the rocks dig into my knees. They scrape and cut but I barely feel it. I’m sobbing, breaking down because I’ve been holding everything in too long. Now that things are worse, everything is coming out in one, big heap.

            “Jacoby,” I cry out, watching him leave. He doesn’t turn around. “Jacoby,” I call again, this time louder. I sound horrible, but still, he doesn’t come back or even pause.

            I stay there, kneeling on the ground until he’s out of sight. I think it’s been over an hour since I last saw him when I stagger to my feet. I don’t brush the dirt off as I stumble back to my car, struggling to see through my blurry tears.

            I cry some more against my steering wheel. When I start the car I wipe my tears and start to drive the opposite way that Jacoby went. If I saw him, I think I might break down all over again and I can’t do that.

            Lights flash across my face as I drive through town. The streets are empty and no one walks on the sidewalks. I pass the diner and slow, looking through the windows. No one is inside except for a waitress wiping a table with a rag. If I look closer, I can see my family, sitting at our table in the corner like we used to.

            I don’t realize where I’m going until I’m back in the country, stopping in the middle of the road. My headlights flash across the dirt and there’s no sign of what happened here visible around me. But in my mind, I can see every motion, movement and line in the dirt. I see the other vehicle, I hear my mother scream, I see the flashes as we fly around in our seatbelts.

            I start driving again before I realize I’m moving. I don’t want to go home, back to the place that I’ll be leaving. I drive in circles, getting lost occasionally and then repeating the lines I’ve already driven. When I decide on where to go, I drive as slow as I can.

            My fingers knock on the door gently and I wipe away the makeup running down my cheeks. When the door opens, I’m met with a worried face.

            “Oh, Stevie,” Lark breathes. She wraps me in her arms and hugs me tightly. When she pulls back she looks at me, unsure of what to say.

            Taking a deep breathe, I finally let everything out. “I have to tell you something.”