“No, but I can stop this with your family. Being with you is like taking the ultimate thing from the Masons and I can’t do that. I can’t be with you Jess.”
“Then why did you sleep with me before you left? Did you really think you could just be some random hookup? That you’d be just some random girl to me? It hurt, Alex. It hurt like hell watchin’ you act like it never happened.”
“We promised, Jess. No talking about it.”
“I guess we aren’t talkin’ about last night either? I know you were just gonna leave again until you caught me with that paper. Just sneak away this mornin’. Right, Alex? You were just gonna sit across the dinner table eatin’ turkey. Just gonna look me in the eye and pretend it didn’t happen again. Act like I didn’t spend half the night inside of you.”
“Damn it, Jess. You came to see me. You started it. I didn’t ask you to.” I felt the anger surge with the accusation and the blame. There would be no uncomfortable and deceptive Thanksgiving dinner if he had kept his hands to himself last night. If he had just got in his truck and drove back to his own damn house.
“You sure as hell didn’t stop me and that’s my point.”
“I thought we had an understanding.”
“An understandin’? One where you have sex with me and we pretend it didn’t happen because you have deep grudge toward my family?”
“Yes! I don’t know!”
“She’s right. Shit!” He laughed, shaking his head. “Sadie’s right. I never thought I’d end up sayin’ it. I’m the hopeless dumbass.”
“Sadie?”
“How’d she put it? ‘Jess, you are positively one of the last of your kind and that will lead to a very destructive downfall.’”
“What the hell did you talk about with Sadie?”
“You. We talked about how you’re so jacked up. It doesn’t matter what I do or how I feel.” He shook his head. “You badgered me ‘bout that party? It drove you crazy not knowin’ what happened. But you couldn’t bring yourself to ask her because you were afraid to have her rip you up. I think you already knew. Didn’t you?”
“Knew what?”
“What we talked about. Sadie and I never made it to the party. We sat for hours at a restaurant. I think she planned it from the beginnin’. Get me away from you so she could hear my side of things. Sadie asked me if I just loved you or was in love with you. I said both. I can’t really separate how I feel anymore. It’s just the way it is. No end. No beginning. It just part of existin’.” His shoulders shrugged.
“She felt sorry for me, Al. Sadie McAllister looked at me with those freaky shit eyes and felt sorry for me because she didn’t see this workin’ out the way I planned. You were too absorbed with the past, she said. You’d never let yourself actually love me. I’d never hear those words from you. I said I didn’t care. It didn’t matter how long it took, or where you went, or what you did. I had faith that one day you’d be ready and I would be here at Sprayberry, waitin’ for you because that’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s how this ends.”
His breath came out in short bursts. The room felt claustrophobic. I watched him stare back at me from across the room; my body stayed pressed against the wall. This was completely insane. He really just said it; just spat that out and unleashed a whole truck load of problems. The thoughts tumbled around, spitting out the only thing I could process.
“You’re not a dumbass.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“No.” My hand slid across my stomach, feeling the nervous rumbling. “I get it. It’s not that simple. You say it’s what you want but you don’t know any different. If you met me tomorrow as some random girl in a café, you wouldn’t feel the same way about me. I know you wouldn’t.”
“But I did meet some random girl. She was standin’ in a hallway. I made her laugh. I made the random girl feel somethin’ when she was broken. I watched her face change. I’ve seen it a hundred times since then. Nothin’ makes me happier than knowin’ I’m the one that makes her feel that way.”
“It’s not the same. We were kids. You were eight. And it wasn’t random. That hospital brought us together. That damn hospital and your damn money.”
“You can’t change the past, Alex. And you have no idea how bad I wish I could change it for you. But I can’t. So you gotta choose to accept it or not. Accept me for who I am to you. Accept what the Masons did for you. You accept it all or walk away. It’s your choice. All I have ever done is try to hold on to somethin’ I thought was good. Somethin’ that makes me happy. Somethin’ that makes you happy if you’ll just let it.”
A beeping noise came from inside his jeans pocket. His blue eyes seemed annoyed as he fished out the little phone.
“Yup.” His face looked stressed as he listened to the caller. “I’ll be there in a few. You get the post hole digger hitched up. I’ll grab Reid and Bobby and see if we can head ‘em off before they reach Prickets’.” He nodded, “Yeah, I know. It’ll be hell if they scatter in that intersection. Ok…yup. Bye.” He flipped the phone shut and looked at me.
“Something wrong?”
“Yeah, that was Skeeter. Some idiot took out a chunk of fence across from Landrys’ last night. We’ve got ‘bout hundred headed down the road.” He seemed tense and already distracted with a hundred red faces. “Al, I gotta go.”
“I know.”
Jess stopped in front of me; the biggest conversation of our lives remained unsettled, like a basket of blood-soaked laundry dumped on the floor. His hands cupped the sides of my face; he looked troubled. Leaning forward, Jess acted like he would kiss me, but changed his mind and pulled away. He left down the hallway. Not knowing what else to do, I followed him outside the house. Clinging to the post on the front porch, I felt the chill of the cold air bite into my naked legs. Jess opened the door to his truck.
“Al.” He let out a deep breath. “There’s no use fightin’ ‘bout it when you’re just gonna leave in a few days, and it’s just gonna hurt all over again. Let’s just eat some turkey and forget ‘bout it. I know it’s what you really want.”
“You know I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Really? Then why does it feel that way? I love you. And you’re choosing not to love me back. That hurts pretty damn bad.”
“Jess…don’t.”
“Just forget ‘bout it, Al. I gotta go.” Jess pulled a cowboy hat off the dash and smashed it on his dark hair. He climbed in the truck, slamming the door. A loud rumble echoed as the pipes fired up, and he was gone in a cloud of dust.
I leaned against the rail, letting the cool air numb my trembling nerves. I couldn’t shake what he said. Instead of going back in the warm house, my bare feet paced over the wooden boards; back and forth as a cold, gust of wind flipped up the edge of my shirt. I stopped, feeling no relief as the anxiety built in my chest. His face and those words; I still heard them echoing in my head. I saw them floating around, almost visible in the air after being hidden for so many years.
The orange sun rose in a gradual assent in the sky, bringing light to Sprayberry. I sat my frozen thighs down on the black, wooden porch swing Caroline had my dad install the last summer. Letting my numb feet hang over the edge, a feeling of peace came over me as I saw the familiar shadows change into full color.
I forgot how beautiful Sprayberry was in the morning. Words could never describe the natural wonder and majesty of the place. Even though I was numb from the November wind, I sat swinging on the porch, watching the start of a new day as the sun beams brushed the earth, like a magic wand, bringing the place to life.
My father and Caroline pulled up in front of the house. He got out, staring at me on the porch. “What are you doing, Alex?”