Four Score

Two

For a long time, I drift in and out. My head feels uncomfortably full, like it’s been stuffed with cotton wool, and my ears throb and ring to the beat of my pulse. Everything is either hurting or numb, and I just know the pain is only going to get worse as time goes on.

Something rouses me from my napping and I sit up straight, suddenly alarmed. I’m in Jase’s car, strapped in to the passenger seat. But I’m alone, parked under a dying willow tree that flanks a tiny, run-down gas station. I peer through the passenger window, looking for signs of Jase.

Nothing.

It’s dark, and I’m dying to pee.

Stretching painfully, I unbuckle my belt and shove it off me, opening my door. I can vaguely hear it creak as it opens, which is good, because it must mean I’m starting to get a little bit of hearing back. Hoisting myself out of Jase’s car, I carefully shut the door behind me and hobble past a single line of rusted gasoline pumps to the store entrance.

I’m almost at the door when Jase barrels out, almost knocking me over. At first I think he’s moving really fast until I realize I’m the one moving really slowly, through soupy, muddy air that weighs me down.

“What are you doing out of the car?” he asks, shifting his paper grocery bags to one arm and guiding me with the other. His face is pinched and tired, worried and exhausted. All my fault. Though to be honest, I’m too exhausted to care very much.

I can hear him at least, which is reassuring. It’s faint and tinny, but it’s something.

“I need to pee,” I say.

He looks around us, not a soul to be seen for miles. In the distance, countless headlights pass us by in rapid succession, telling me we must be close to the interstate.

“Stop yelling,” he hisses.

“I’m not yelling,” I say dumbly, standing there with no shoes on, suddenly freezing cold in the crisp fall night.

“Yes, you are,” he says, pressing his hand into the small of my back. When we reach the car, he opens the passenger door and points to the seat. “And you can’t go in there.”

“Why?” I ask, letting him push me back into my seat.

He sighs, using his free hand to reach across me and tilt the rear-view mirror so I can see myself. As my face comes into focus, I inhale sharply.

My face is covered in spattered blood. Like, a lot of it. Curse Jimmy and his goddamn ugly face exploding all over me.

“Fuck me,” I mutter, pushing the mirror away so I can’t see myself anymore. I want to be sick again, and I swallow down a nervous rush of bile.

Jase ignores my swearing and shuts my door, circling round to his side. He climbs into the driver’s seat and throws most of the paper bags into the backseat, keeping only a package of tissues and a bottle of water in his lap. I watch as he unscrews the bottle cap, breaking the seal, and takes a handful of tissues from the plastic packaging. He presses the mouth of the water bottle to the wad of tissues and stretches his arm out of his cracked window, wringing out the excess liquid.

I jerk back as he brings the cold, wet tissues to my face, his touch firm but gentle. He stills for a moment, raising the tissues just off my skin, his face questioning me.

I nod, and he continues. I watch, numb and cold, as the tissues turn red. More tissues. More water. By the time he’s done, he has a messy pile of bright red tissues sitting in his lap and the water is almost gone.

“Here,” he says, the noise of his speech struggling to make it past my ringing ears. “Drink.” I take the water bottle and tip it eagerly, drinking as much and as quickly as I can. It’s at this moment that panic grips me, and I become lucid once more.

What’s he going to do to me? I mean, he killed Jimmy, so I should trust him, right?

I trust him. I’ve always trusted him. But that trust scares the hell out of me. I’d follow him to the depths of hell if he asked me to, and I wouldn’t even ask why.

Bitter love stabs deep in my heart, so hard I almost cry out. I bring a hand to my chest, my breathing suddenly shallow and rapid as I fight to remain in control. I’ve had plenty of panic attacks, usually stuffed in Elliot’s closet whenever I heard a motorcycle or a car backfiring. I haven’t had one in a very long time.

I suppose because, up until now, I’ve been in control. A fragile control that’s now completely shattered. Dornan didn’t die. That reality slams into me like a freight train.

A gun sounds in the distance, or maybe it’s a car backfiring —I’ve never been able to tell the difference. But whatever it is, the deep boom makes its way into my chest and strangles itself around my heart, making it thud wildly.

Jase bags up the bloodied tissues and throws them in the backseat before turning to me. His face twists into concern as he watches me hyperventilate. Suddenly, I need to be out of the car, it’s so stifling. I open the door, tumbling onto the dirty asphalt that marks the edge of the gas station. I hear Jase yell something behind me, but I don’t pay attention. He’s yelling one word, three syllables over and over again, and as my feet beat against the bare pavement I realize he’s yelling my name. Juliette! Juliette!

Like a rabbit being chased, I skitter around the back of the gas station and pause briefly. There’s row upon row of dying corn stalks, a field that desperately needs water the way I need Dornan toes-up in the morgue. As in, if the field doesn’t get water, and Dornan doesn’t die, the corn and I are both completely fucked.

Jase rounds up behind me. “Why are you running?” he asks, panting hard. More banging noises. Heavy. Loud. Gunshots?

I bolt.

Why am I running? I don’t even know. As I plunge between the stalks of corn they reach out and scratch my bare arms. My feet prickle as the dead, coarse husks batter my soft flesh.

He’s still calling me, those three syllables over and over again, making me run faster, making my breaths panicked and gasping.

Ju-li-ette.

Calm down, the rational voice within me says. You’re just having a panic attack. A meltdown. Everything is going to be okay.

Bang.

And the other voice, the fifteen-year-old girl who liked to cram herself into cupboards and underneath beds when loud noises set her off. She’s terrified. She’s chanting too. Dornan didn’t die. Dornan didn’t die.

I want to listen to the rational voice. I do. But the other voice is so much louder. And then there’s Jase. He’s getting farther away, and I sink to the ground, into the dirt and the coarse, jagged strips of corn husk that dig at my flesh. I wrap my knees close to my chest and bury my face in them, so that I can’t see anything, so that I am safe. So I am hidden.

I stay like that for a long time, how long I don’t know. In the end I start to nod off, until a hand clamps onto my shoulder and I jerk awake.

It’s dark as hell huddled between these corn stalks. My scream doesn’t even penetrate their confining breadth. Then, before I can fight, a large hand covers my mouth. Strong arms lace around my torso and lift me up, so that my feet are no longer touching the ground. I kick and buck but tire quickly, my adrenaline stores depleted, my body damaged and spent.

“Calm down,” Jase says, and I can hear him pretty well this time. What the hell is going on with my hearing?

I relax my body, little by little, until I’m sagging in his arms, still airborne. Gently, he lowers me to the ground and spins me in his arms so that my face is at his chest. My face is wet and I can’t figure out why. Am I crying?

No. It’s raining. Little droplets of rain patter down onto my face, the sky crying for me, as Jase tilts my chin with his steady fingers.

“Why did you run?” he asks, his face creased with concern. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”

I shake my head and cringe as another loud bang fires in the darkness, this time closer to us. Jase’s grip tightens on me as I once again panic, and try to move away from him.

“Shots,” I manage to say. “Somebody’s shooting.”

He smiles then, and I can’t imagine what it is about being shot at that makes him so happy. He points to the sky, one arm wrapped around me, and beams.

“Fireworks, Julz,” he says softly, pulling me as close as he can into his arms. “Look.”

I tilt my head far back, so that I’m looking up directly into the inky black night. Another blast jolts me but this time I don’t look away, because suddenly, the sky is lit up with glittering shards of light that look like diamonds falling to the earth.

And just like that, I’m not scared anymore.

The fireworks finish and Jase leads me back to the car, strapping me into my seat as if I’m a child. I don’t miss the subtle way he flicks the door lock on, meaning I can’t open my door from the inside.

“For your own good,” he says, as he traps me in the car. I don’t answer, my body heavy and cold, my skin damp from the light rain sprinkling outside.

“You should sleep,” he says, his words thick and muffled.

We travel in silence. It is night, and we should be going back to the clubhouse, but instead Jase points his car toward his apartment and drives.

One hand on the wheel, the other clutching mine. I can see him stealing glances at me every few moments. My fingers are crushed in his large hand. It feels almost as if he is clinging tightly to me fearing that if he lets me go, I might float away into the night like I was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. We don’t speak. I stare straight ahead, the tears on my face sometimes glittering in my peripheral vision as we pass under a particularly bright street light.

And then, we are home. His home.

Our refuge.

We make a sorry-looking pair. He’s on autopilot and I’m going into shock, unable to speak or move. I stay rooted to my spot in the passenger seat, my eyes spilling fresh tears, shame and guilt pressing me so heavily it feels like I’m drowning.

The strong girl, the fighter, she’s gone. And in her space is this meek, terrified child whose fate rests in the hands of the boy she used to love.

The boy she still loves.

My door opens and I’m being guided to my feet. Up a flight of stairs. My ears are still ringing. My entire body is shaking. My lips still feel bruised from that earth-shattering kiss Jase gave me, that now seems like it was eons ago, when in fact it was only a few hours ago.

When we reach the first floor, Jase is supporting me, one arm around my waist, as he fishes for the right key to his front door.

Finally inside, I see his couch, and for a moment I think I see my father sitting there, silently observing us. I blink and he’s gone, nothing but a haunted memory from my overactive imagination.

Jase guides me into the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror as he turns the shower on, hot and blasting. I am a mess. I have dust and plaster caked in my hair, remnants from the bomb blast that tore open the front of Emilio’s mansion like a knife through butter—only much, much messier. Plus, there are patches of dried, sticky goop in my hair that I just know is my lucky share of Jimmy’s blood and brain matter.

I stare at the floor, because I can’t look at Jase. His eyes roam across my face, and I wonder what he searches for there. Proof? Recognition? Memories?

My ears feel wet and I wonder if they’re bleeding, because I still can’t hear much and the ringing in my head is at fever pitch.

It makes me wonder, if I’m this shell-shocked from the blast of Dornan’s bike, and I was far away, how on earth anyone else survived.

How did Dornan survive?

I mean, I know that Jase shooting Jimmy centimeters from me is probably why I can’t hear. But still. I was shell-shocked from the blast well before Jimmy interrupted us.

“Pants,” Jase says as he tugs on my jeans, kneeling in front of me. He’s looking at me like he’s already said it a few times, but if he did I didn’t hear him. I open my mouth to tell him I’m basically deaf, but I can’t form the words, so I just close my mouth and swallow painfully.

I undo the top button of my jeans and grip his shoulders as he pulls them down, stepping out of them with shaking legs. He rises, trying to catch my eye again, but I turn my head away and watch, mesmerized, as the spray from the shower head blasts against the gleaming white tiles on the wall, puffs of steam rising in their wake.

Something inside me withers and dies as I recall my shower with Dornan in this very room. On my knees, almost suffocating as he rammed his dick down my throat, while the wound he created in my leg pulsed blood from torn stitches onto the tiles below. My fingers unconsciously go to that spot on my leg, the place where he stabbed me so violently, tracing the raised scar tissue in a straight horizontal line across my thigh.

How will Jase ever forgive me?

I’m numb as I let him tug my shirt over my head and toss it in the corner. I just stand mute, unable to speak or cry or process anything.

I notice out of the corner of my eye that he goes completely still for a moment, and I turn back to him, suddenly alarmed. He’s looking at the scars that line my hip, the ones covered in Elliot’s beautiful tattoo, and I gasp when he presses his warm, trembling fingers against my cold flesh.

As soon as I gasp he pulls his hand away, tearing his gaze from me as he puts his hand under the shower spray. He brings his wet hand back to me and takes my arm gently, guiding me under the rushing water with him.

He’s still staring at me intensely. What is he thinking? That if he blinks, I might disappear?

And maybe I will. Maybe I’ll melt straight onto the floor and slide down the drain, gone entirely. Like a ghost.

The vision in my head is unsettling, so I try to bat it away. Which maybe isn’t the best idea, because as soon as I get rid of that thought, I’m reminded of the last time I showered in this bathroom—fresh out of the emergency room after my own poisoned coke almost killed me.

As if the thought of blowing Dornan in here isn’t bad enough, now I’m reminded of something just as bad. This bathroom is full of way too many bad memories.

Jesus. I can’t even process what Jase must think of me.

It suddenly occurs to me that the boy with the sad eyes standing with me, supporting me in the shower as I step listlessly from foot to foot, is still fully dressed as he stands under the water with me.

“Your clothes are all wet,” I croak, or at least it sounds like a faint croak, because I can hardly hear.

Jase smiles sadly, looking down at his saturated black shirt and heavy jeans that must weigh a ton with all the water. “I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea,” he says, and I nod blankly.

The wrong idea? My heart breaks as I realize he’s talking about sex. He didn’t get undressed because he didn’t want me to worry that he wanted sex. Of course, that never even entered my mind. But I think of the last time he saw me, the last time he really saw me before I died, and I have to wonder how many times he’s played that horrid afternoon through his mind over the past six years.

Of course he’d be afraid to touch me. Of course.

My eyes sting, and I remember I’ve still got these stupid blue contact lenses stuck to my eyeballs, probably coated in dust and debris. I’m lucky I don’t have chunks of shrapnel lodged in my eyes. I rinse my fingers under the water and slide a finger over each eye, pinching the thin blue plastic discs away, and flicking them down the drain. He knows who I am, after all. There’s no point hiding it.

He’s been watching me intently, and once I’ve tossed the contact lenses on the floor, he places a gentle hand on my chin.

“Look at me,” he says quietly, and I do. I gaze up at him, my eyes watering, wondering what he sees. What he feels. The moment feels surreal. The steam from the shower, the stark white of the tiles. It makes me think momentarily that I must be a dead girl.

“There you are,” he says. “Are you really here? Are you real?”

“I think so,” I rasp, closing my fingers around his tattooed bicep.

“Your face,” he says. “What happened to it?”

It’s so different I can’t even begin to explain.

“It’s gone,” I reply thickly. “It was the only way I could fool him.”

He studies my face, running his fingertips along my altered cheekbones, my thinner nose, my untouched lips, before coming back to my eyes, the same as they ever were.

“Juliette,” he whispers.

The way he says my name, it hurts. An avalanche of sadness and relief bursts forth from me, and I sob brokenly. He pulls me closer to him, and we stand there in the shower, a tableau of sorrow and regret, as the water washes pieces of plaster and dust from our skin.

If only washing away our sins was so easy.