Broken Home, page 12
part #4 of Way Home Series
His words sit heavy in the almost silent room until the sound of Deb’s retching starts up again, and he shifts towards her.
“She didn’t want to say anything yet, but I thought you should know. She wants to start over, Jeremy. To have a chance to be young. This looks like her opportunity to do that. She didn’t want to tell you yet, not until we’re sure, but I thought you deserved the heads up.” He’s gone into the bathroom, and I hear the whispers of his voice comforting her while running some water before I can bite back. It’s funny he’s all of a sudden thinking of what I deserve when he was the one who slept with my wife while I was at war.
I walk out to my truck in a daze.
If Deb leaves, I’d have the girls full time. Am I a good enough father to handle that? They already resent me, I’m sure of it. Will I be home enough? Where will we all live?
Oh my God, what about when they’re dating?
I drive home on autopilot, my thoughts running a mile a minute with possibilities. I know Karl said it’s just an idea, one she apparently didn’t even think she needed to tell me she was considering, but I still have a thousand things to work out. If she gives me the chance to keep my girls, I want to be in a position to take it without hesitation.
When I get in the bar, my eyes head to Jordyn as she takes an order at one of the tables. Her hair has gotten softer since she moved in, I heard her tell Jules it’s because she can regularly condition it or something. I don’t know, but it bounces now with more ringlets framing her face. Last week, we stopped on our way home from groceries when she told me she needed something for her hair. I asked if she needed money for a trip to the salon. Debra’s hair always would cost hundreds each time she changed it, but she just laughed and took her fifteen-dollar box into the bathroom, coming out an hour later with brighter pink hair than she had going in.
The customer says something, and she laughs, the sound doing crazy things to my chest. I don’t notice how long I’ve been watching from the back door until Jules walks by.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth, boss.” It’s like a splash of cold water, and I shake my head. Jules just keeps walking with the same conspiratorial smile she has with Erika and Twiz. I head to my office and stay there longer than I usually do, trying to avoid the Pixie that eventually heads up to our place. If I stay long enough, she might be sleeping, but I know that’s unlikely. So far, she’s never gone to bed before I’ve been home. I think she likes knowing she’s not alone in the apartment, though I’m not sure what she does the nights I’m at my dad’s with the girls.
When I open the door to the apartment, Jordyn sitting on the couch is an instant distraction.
I watch longer than I should, before she knows I’ve come in. She’s drying her hair in a towel, alternating between scrunching the hair in an angry ball furiously, to holding it distractedly depending on what’s happening with the game. Flipping between the Orangemen and the Eskimos, one thing I never expected from her when she first arrived was how seriously she takes the game. The girl has a mouth and anger that could rival any soldier I know when her teams are losing.
And, well, she picked herself some teams that seem to have the habit of doing that lately. At least the local football team isn’t as bad as the US college team she cheers for.
Also, how does she even have a US college football team?
“C’mon? What the fuck was that? Maybe try playing with your heads out of your asses next time!” She throws a piece of popcorn sitting on her lap at the screen and hits the button on the remote so hard, I wonder if she won’t crack the plastic. I try to suppress a laugh, but it comes out as a cough.
“Holy shit, Jeremy. I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I can see why. Game not going your way?”
“That’s putting it mildly. They suck.” I just chuckle and plop down on the couch next to her. I had spent the first few days she was here sitting as far away as I could, until one evening, I sat without thinking on the other end of the couch she was on, and she just smiled. Slowly, I moved a little closer each time I sat, convincing myself I was helping her out of her shell, not that I just like the way she smells.
The more I’m drawn to Jordyn, the more I want her to understand that I’m not good for her, which seems to be making me keep talking tonight. I’ve seen the way she looks at me sometimes, but she doesn’t know who I am, or what I’ve done. She’s let Jules convince her I was an innocent victim in my marriage instead of the cannonball that destroyed it.
I try and explain, but no matter what I say, though, she doesn’t stop looking at me with these eyes like I’ve hung the moon, and they’re breaking me down when her hand covers mine.
I stare at her tiny fingers and up to her gorgeous face, those giant blue eyes filled with desire that can’t be mistaken.
How this beautiful, broken girl could still want me, I don’t know, but there’s no world where taking advantage of that wouldn't be wrong, no matter what my heart or libido tries to tell me. At this point, it might even be hard to stand up from this couch without making a fool of myself.
I brush a silky strand of wet hair from her cheek before steeling myself enough to squeeze her hand and let her go.
“Good night, Pixie.”
I make it in my room before she’s even opened her mouth to answer me.
I jump into a shower with every intention of making it cold, but instead, my mind drifts back to her. Like a teenager, I pull myself into a tight grip, letting out a hiss of relief as the other hand hits the tile. It takes almost no time at all before I find my release with her name on my lips. No amount of soap after will let me pretend I didn’t just jerk off thinking of the gorgeous woman down the hall like some pervert.
It’s hours before I fall asleep and when I do, a nightmare wakes me. I don’t have them often anymore; it’s been so many years, but I still sometimes dream of Rachel’s face as they assaulted her. In my head, we just watch the whole thing, never moving from the door. It doesn’t matter then in real life we slammed our way in, pulling them off her and dragging them to the local authorities. No, in my dream, we simply watch, my head screaming while my body does nothing. When I wake up, it’s the same way I always do. I don’t make any sounds in my sleep, at least that’s what Deb told me in the years after it happened. She never knew when I was having a nightmare until I would run to lose my stomach in the toilet, repulsed at myself and the people we were, the failures we proved ourselves.
Walking back to my bed, I hear Jordyn’s scream.
They’ve happened less frequently since she’s been here, but she still has them. I step faster, this time towards her room, and when I quietly turn the knob, it opens, like it has the last few times.
I stare a long while. She’s on her stomach this time, clawing at the pillow and blankets, a low, guttural cry coming from her with each twitch of her body. Last time this happened, she told me I had permission to go to her, to try to comfort her. Every part of me wants that, and my legs head toward her crying, flailing figure in the bed before I even think it through. I sit down, throwing my legs on top of the sheets with my back to the headboard next to her and rub my hand on her back and shoulder, whispering who I am, that I’m here. I know it’s not always the right thing to do, to try to wake someone in her state, but it’s killing me to watch.
It’s not too long before she jackknives up in the bed, up on all fours in a second when the arms and legs she couldn’t move in her dream move in real life and jolt her from the memories. She flops back down a while, her breath coming in harsh pants against the pillow her face is pressed into. I expect soon she will get up and head to the shower like she usually does. Instead, she curls her body around me, half her body still under the covers that I lie over, but most having fallen off when she was flailing around.
“Just for a minute,” she whispers into the sheets and before I can think better of it, I let my head slide to the pillow on top of the blankets and feel her head find the spot under my arm against my chest. When her breathing evens out again, I let out a shaky breath and rest my hand on top of the curls, partly just to keep them from threatening to go up my nose every time I breathe in.
I don’t sleep.
The nightmare that originally woke me fucks with my head; each time I find myself drifting off, I see Rachel’s face blend with Jordyn’s, and it snaps me awake. I don’t deserve the woman snoring softly into my armpit. I don’t deserve her trust, her care, her attention. The way she’s willing to accept me in her bed.
I can’t pretend anymore that these past weeks haven't only made me want her more. Not to protect her. Not in some need to avenge what I didn’t overseas. No, I want her. Every irrational part of me just wants to pick her up, move her to my bed where she belongs. To hold her while she yells at the football game, to take her hand when we get groceries.
To trace those tattoos down past the button on those damn flannel pyjamas, feel her tight curves under my hands, cover her body with mine and stay in bed until noon.
It’s that final thought that has me pause, hours later. Jordyn has moved only a tiny bit, the trail of drool from her open mouth moved off my chest to my side, and I’m able to slip out without waking her. I let myself look just a moment longer before I click the door behind me.
I still don’t sleep, even lying on the sheets of my own bed.
My phone goes off, startling me from the deep staring I was doing at the tiles of my ceiling. It’s Matt on the other end, and while he sounds casual, I agree to meet him at the diner down the street. Pulling my jeans and t-shirt on, I think about what Jordyn will think when she wakes, and I’m not here.
I try to remind myself she’s a boarder, a roommate, so whether I’m home or not shouldn’t matter.
I still leave her a note.
Matt’s already sitting at the booth when I get there and, as I walk up, I take stock of how bad he looks. His eyes are glazed over as he stares at his coffee like it might answer all his questions. His normally high and tight haircut has gotten shaggy around the ears. Most days, he looks like the quarterback of a high school football team, but this morning, he looks far more like the tired soldier I know he is.
He looks up and catches my eye, and I head to the booth, sitting across from him and grabbing a menu, noticing the cup in front of me already has steam rising from it.
“Figured coffee would be the first thing you wanted. Sorry, I didn’t even think until after I called about the fact you probably closed last night. You must be exhausted. I didn’t mean to get you up.”
“S’all right. I've never been good at sleeping anyways.” I take a sip of the coffee and shake my head, grabbing the sugar and adding three packs to the little cup. He laughs.
“Like it sweet?” Matt laughs.
“Mhmm. So, spill.”
“Spill what?”
“Don’t bullshit me, kid. It's eight a.m. on a Sunday. The fuck is going on?”
He’s quiet awhile, and I let him, while I figure out what I want to eat. The slightly haggard woman comes over to refill our mugs and take our order, and when she’s gone, I send him another pointed look.
“Twiz lost his shit this week. It’s… a long story. And not mine to tell. I just… I was with Erika Friday night since she’s been having these issues with someone stalking her. Normally, Twiz helps her out, but then after shit went down at work, he wouldn’t. Then yesterday… fuck. Just… Fuck, Jer. I’m so fucking tired.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“Ya, Twiz went back to Erika’s, then this morning, I guess there was an arrest in the stalker thing. He came home and crashed. I checked on him when I left. He’s still breathing.”
“Still breathing is a pretty low bar to set.”
“At this point, it’s all I’ve fucking got. I could have fucking killed the asshole yesterday!” He takes a deep breath. “Fuck. Sorry.”
“You’ve said that a few times.”
“Ya, sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise for the language with me, Matt, just worried about where your head's at.”
“I just… first, it was Tavish, but he found Jules. I don’t know what to do with Twiz. I don’t even know if he’d listen if I tried. I can’t… I can’t watch him self-destruct. It was… it’s bad, Jer. And it’s been a long time coming with him. The last tour…”
We’re quiet for a moment as our food arrives, and we take the first bites. I wish I had the words for him. I wish I knew how to fix it.
“Look, I know you’re going to do everything you can for him, and we can work on that, but first, I need you to get that what he does isn’t on you.”
“I get that…”
“Do you? Cause I see a man in front of me that’s breaking himself to hold up his team. And I understand that. I do. I might not have been on the dark side,” Matt gives a hint of a smile which at least gives me some hope, “but I retired an NCO. When you take your troops to war, you feel a responsibility to them. And that's good, it's the sign of a good leader. You can’t make their choices for them after though. You can’t make them get help, and you can’t stop them from fucking things up.”
“It was almost easier in Kandahar. At least I knew what the enemy was. But Tav, he almost just gave up after we lost Silas. And Twiz, he’s a fucking disaster.”
And you?”
“What about me?” He raises his red eyes to meet mine while grabbing his coffee and draining the mug.
“You were there, too. Who’s holding you up?”
He just shakes his head, and I let it go for now.
“Look, we lost Dennis years after Kosovo. Years. He just slowly slipped out of our fingers. He and I… we were in the same place. Same time. The shit that… anyway, all that to say I had to do a lot of thinking and therapy to get to the point where I can tell you it’s not your fault. Where they are now isn’t your fault and where they end up won’t be, either. You can only bring them to water, man, you can’t make them pull their head out of their ass.”
That gets a laugh out of him.
“I don’t think it’s how the saying goes.”
“It still makes sense. The shit that drags them down, I don’t blame Dennis for what he did. I was pissed as all hell after it happened, but I don’t blame him anymore. He put up a fight and, in the end, it was more than he could take on.” My voice cracks, and I cover it with a cough, knowing I’m not fooling Matt but it’s the strong soldier answer to the emotion that I haven’t unpacked in a while.
“What I’m trying to say though is it’s like an op on deployment. You can do everything you were supposed to, and it can still end up FUBAR. You can’t control everything and that includes your soldiers after they come home.”
Matt nods like he understands, but he doesn’t. He can’t, yet. I’m hoping it’s not a lesson he has to learn the hard way.
We talk more about Twiz, Erika, Matt’s upcoming exercise out of town, and he even lets me tease him about his dad the general for a moment.
“How’s Jordyn?” He throws the question out casually as the server comes and takes our plates, but I know he doesn’t mean it casually at all.
“She’s great. She and Jules went shopping this weekend, she’s making friends and coming out of her shell. And she’s a phenomenal server, so I lucked out.”
“You want her.”
It’s a statement, not a question, so I don’t bother answering.
“Can’t happen, Matt.”
“Answer me this, do you want her because you think you can redeem yourself for what you guys saw in Kosovo, or because of who she is?”
“What the fuck do you know about that?”
“It’s a small Army, Jer. Mark Lawson was my last OC. I was working under him when Dennis died. It didn’t take much to put together that you were there when it all went to shit.”
I take another breath.
“Ya, Dennis and I were the ones who… we found an aid worker in, well, in a situation fucking close to the one Jordyn was in.” I don’t tell Dennis’ truth, because it’s not mine to tell. I don’t tell him how Dennis had fallen for Rachel. Or the sound he made seeing her there. I don’t tell him the truth of what it looked like, in that room, for her or us.
“Holy shit.” Matt’s gaze doesn’t leave mine, but the concern on his face gives away that he’s older than his youth would seem.
“I’ve had better days.” Matt sees my flip answer for the avoidance it is and lets it go.
“To answer the question though, ya, at first I thought she’d help me fix some shitty karma or some bullshit. But now…”
“She’s more.”
“She can’t be more.”
“Why not?”
“She’s twenty-four,” he snorts.
“My mom is fifteen years younger than my dad; they’ve been married thirty years. What else you got?”
“She’s broken.”
“Is she? It sounds like she’s pretty fucking not broken. All I see is a strong woman who overcame some heavy shit.”
I let out a long breath.
“I was a terrible husband.”
“We’ve all been other people, Jer. Who are you now?”
With that, he snatches the bill as the waitress brings it, and I’m left trying to somehow answer his damn question.
9
Jordyn
Every time I wake from a nightmare in the next few weeks, Jeremy is beside me.
Counseling is helping some, so is following some of her suggestions for relaxation and stress control. Once I am finally able to get out to her what happened in my dreams, she has me write it down and then work on changing the story.
Turns out, this whole therapy thing is a lot of work, but I’m getting there.
Still, sometimes the dreams come and every time I wake up, sweaty and with a pounding heart, he’s there. In his sweatpants, lying over the blankets, his hand always on my back or my hair, whispering to me.
“I’ve got you, Pixie.” That’s what I hear this morning when my brain remembers where I am. I roll over, now used to the feel of him next to me, throwing an arm over his chest and snuggling into his side. I don’t have to ask him to stay anymore, he always does.
