Now Joey sat at the foot of my bed as I wallowed.
“You need to follow me to Colt’s so I can drop his car. And we need to check on him.” He pulled at the blonde tufts of his hair. “Dammit, Keri Ann. Is Jack Eversea always like that? I mean, I know he’d been drinking, and he saw you with Colt, but that’s no excuse to hit someone.”
I just shook my head without answering. The truth was I didn’t know. The night I’d met Jack, he was drinking whiskey. But I’d never seen him drunk, apart from last night. His father was violent. I shook my head again to clear that thought.
Joey pursed his lips at my silence. “What? No? He’s not like that, or you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” I croaked. My tongue felt like wool.
“Well, either way, you shouldn’t have any contact with him. I know I’m not really entitled to tell you not to, I’m just asking you. Please, as your brother. He’s not good for you. That kind of intensity is just ... it can suck you down.”
I watched as Joey struggled with his overbearing personality. Even if I wanted to refute him, I didn’t have the energy.
“Look, this probably doesn’t help, but ... ” He placed a hand on my foot over the covers, presumably to soften the blow he was about to deliver. “I mean, even if his girlfriend had never shown up or whatever, I don’t understand the two of you. Were you going to try and do the whole girlfriend of a movie star thing? Going to his premieres, parties, and not seeing him while he does God knows what on location?”
I flinched. “Stop, Joey. I don’t need to hear this right now. I didn’t think about it, ok?” Stupidly, I hadn’t. I didn’t know what I was expecting when Jack invited me to see him in California. I thought we were both kind of taking it one day at a time.
“I mean, that’s just not you. I can’t imagine you in that environment. And what about your plans? What do you want to do with your life?”
“Why are you going on about this now, Joey?” I couldn’t keep the irritation and defensiveness out of my tone. “I feel like shit already. Why are you making me feel worse?”
“I’m sorry, kiddo. I guess I only realized last night how serious this was. I mean, he doesn’t have the best reputation. I knew you were upset before, but after seeing the two of you together last night, and the way you looked at each other ... ”
“How did he look at me?” I whispered, suddenly craving validation of Jack’s feelings from anyone but myself and my subjective imagination.
Joey sighed, resigned. “Like you were the last chopper out of Baghdad, the last IV in the field hospital, the last funnel cake at the fair, Jesus, I don’t know.”
I held my breath. Joey was usually more prosaic. His words were soothing my battered pride. It felt good.
“I just know that the way he was looking at you, he’s coming back someday. I need you to be prepared for that and to know I won’t let him mess with you again.”
I swallowed. What would I do if Jack came back? Joey was right. I wasn’t cut out to be a sometime girlfriend to a movie star and sometime mother to his baby. I needed to be me. Discover who I was. Jack’s invasion into my life had at least shown me that. I had no direction, and I needed to find it.
I was like a piece of that sea glass lying forgotten in a jar upstairs. A discarded shard that had been washed and tumbled back and forth by the momentum of the sea, only to wash up in Butler Cove and stay stuck and forgotten without any hope of becoming something more. Something more beautiful. I needed to find my potential. Jack wasn’t going to help with that. If anything, he would have completely eclipsed any chance I had of discovering what I was meant to do. The feelings I had for Jack were so strong they would have sucked me into a whirlpool straight down to the ocean floor.
*
Colt looked terrible. I apologized profusely. But what could I do? It wasn’t me who threw the punch. He said he wasn’t pressing charges. Mostly I think it was to keep me out of any publicity, and I think Joey had something to do with that. After saying our goodbyes, and promising to keep in touch, Joey and I headed back to Butler Cove in my truck with the windows down, the wind whipping through our hair. Both of us had too many thoughts and not much to say.
“When are you going back?” I finally asked Joey as we pulled onto the crushed oyster shell parking pad outside our historic home.
“This afternoon.” He looked over at me. “Are you going to be okay?”
I nodded. “Jazz will keep me out of trouble.”
His brow furrowed at the mention of Jazz’s name. “Fine. Just call me if you need to. Columbia is only about a two and a half hour drive. You can always come up there and see me.”
We sat for a moment. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you, kiddo. I can see how selfish I was by continuing on with my plans for school. I didn’t think about how being left alone must have felt to you.”