“We need to talk about this, Jentry,” Dad called out when I continued toward my car.
“We will, but I don’t know how to talk about it when Mom already has it in her head to hate her for no reason, and then is using this to hate her even more when she doesn’t even know what the hell is going on!”
“She has ruined this family and is now trying to tear you and Declan apart,” Mom nearly yelled now that we were out of the crowded hospital hallways. “What more do I need to know?”
“Everything, and nothing, because you don’t deserve to know all of it!”
“Jentry,” Dad barked.
I took a calming breath and ran a hand over my head and down my face. “I’m sorry, but I know that Mom won’t believe any of what I say because she already hates her.” Keeping my eyes on Dad, I explained, “I met her before Dec ever did. I fell for her before Dec ever knew she existed. Dad, I fell in love with her in a way I didn’t think was possible. I’m in love with her.”
“Oh, Jentry,” Mom scoffed, and looked away, shaking her head with disappointment.
“If it was anyone else, and any other situation, I know you’d be reacting differently. Mom, try to look at it from my perspective. From Aurora’s.”
“Oh, is she Aurora now?”
“Mom . . .” I was begging with her to understand, to just listen. From the way her eyes were watering, I knew she wanted to but didn’t know how with what she had seen and what she knew now. “Mom, think of it this way: I met and fell in love with a girl I thought I would never see again. I thought I was crazy to fall for her like that, but for nearly a year, she was all I thought about. Then Dec picks me up and takes me to the beach, and I’m about to meet his girlfriend he’s talked nonstop about, and it ends up being the same girl. She only met Declan because she went back looking for me.”
“So then she’ll be with just anyone!” Mom cut in, frustration leaking through her tone. “Anyone who gives her the time of day. When one guy leaves, she looks for another!”
I could tell Dad thought the same thing.
“It wasn’t like that. I—I thought that too at first, but it wasn’t like that; you just have to trust me. I’m not going into the whole thing, but you have to know that she really does love Declan. We fought . . . we fought a lot about what was happening, about what we meant to each other, and about what we were going to do.”
“What you were going to do.” Dad’s aggravation was obvious. “You should have stepped aside because Declan was with her.”
“I fucking tried! She tried! But would you want her to stay with Declan even though he isn’t who she wants? Would you want her to keep lying to him?”
“She’s an immature girl who isn’t ready for a commitment and goes with whatever is new at the time!” Mom said. I groaned in frustration.
“See, there’s no point in even trying to tell you. You won’t understand because you won’t try to hear me out! You’re making Aurora out to be someone like Madeline, and she’s the furthest thing from that. This has been killing her. It destroyed her to try to choose one of us, but she eventually did. She had finally told Declan about us, the night of his accident. Her guilt over that night has been greater than anything you can imagine. But she still loves him, and I love him, and I hated knowing that I would take her from him because she is mine. And after telling him, he now doesn’t remember any of it, so we’re right back where we were! So while you stand there acting like she’s doing this for fun, let me tell you this is the hardest thing we’ve ever fucking been through!”
I was met with silence and more disappointed looks after my outburst. After a minute of us all watching each other, Mom spoke. “Then I’ll make it easy for you. . . .”
23
Present Day
Aurora
I finished unloading everything from my car into the apartment, and set the music channel on the TV as loud as I could stand it so it would drown out my thoughts.
Unfortunately, it was futile. My thoughts screamed louder.
I laid out the large poster paper, paints, and glitter to make a few remaining signs I had realized during the week would be useful in the classroom for my students, then searched the apartment for a pencil. It wasn’t until I was going from the kitchen to the living room again that I realized I was stomping.
It didn’t matter. Anger was better than tears. All I did lately was cry, and I was so tired of crying.
I stopped short when that thought crossed my mind, and rolled the pencil between my fingers as I let the words coast through my head again.
A defeated laugh bubbled past my lips when I wondered how many times during this month I had told Taylor, or thought to myself, that I was tired of crying, yet continued to do just that.
I had never really thought of myself as an emotional person, but then again, I wasn’t the kind of person who lacked emotions, either. It irritated me in books when the heroine was heartless just as much as it did when she was a sobbing mess, but at the moment, I would have given anything for a few days of nothing.
Just nothing. No pain, no confusion, no heartache. No guilt, no worry, just . . . nothing.
It sounded like heaven.
But my life was still turned on its side, as it had been for weeks, and everything and everyone were unknowns. And emotions tend to run wild when life is full of unknowns.
I made one last attempt to clear my mind of everything that had happened at the hospital and focused on nothing but the words of the songs flowing through the apartment, and the signs I needed to make as I settled onto the floor again.
Two signs later, and I was singing and swaying along to the music. I pulled the third and final piece of paper in front of me, and stopped to stretch my back and arms before bending back over the paper. I picked the paintbrush up and dipped it into the dirty, inky water, but my movements slowed as I moved to dip it into a color. Slowly, I straightened as I had when I’d stretched, and looked across the apartment.
There, in the corner and taking up most of the far wall, were huge shelves. Filling about a quarter of those shelves were books.
I sat on the floor with the paintbrush still in hand hovering over the black paint, just staring at the shelves as immeasurable time passed by. I knew they hadn’t been there when I’d left for work this morning, but at the same time, they looked as if they’d been there for so long.
I stood to go study the new furniture, and cursed when I knocked over the cup of dirty water. I grabbed for the cup to stop everything from pouring out, but a good amount of the inky water had already spilled out and spread across the last piece of poster paper until it was ruined.
If I hadn’t just noticed the bookshelves, it probably would have bothered me. But at the moment, I didn’t have time to care.
I steadied the half-filled cup, then walked slowly across the living room and into what was supposed to be the dining room—but I’d never cared to use it as such since we had the kitchen table. Instead, half was an office-type space, and the other half I’d wanted to turn into a reading corner, complete with bookshelves.
I’d just told Jentry about what I’d originally wanted to do with it—but had never had the money for—the night that Declan had woken up while we’d eaten dinner.
Awe filled me as I lightly trailed my fingers across the shelves and along the perfect designs subtly carved into the wood. Swirls led into knots that were etched deep enough into the wood to catch your eye, but not enough to look gaudy or take away from the overall shelving or books.
It was exactly what I would have picked out for bookshelves: huge, sturdy, stained dark, and with an incredible amount of room for books.
I couldn’t begin to imagine how much the entire set had cost or where Jentry had found it, and I couldn’t figure out why he had done it at all.
I turned expectantly when I heard a key in the door, and just stared at him when he stepped into the apartment.
His dark eyes found mine instantly, but fell away as he walked
toward the guest room without saying a word. In that brief second there had been so much pain he’d tried to hide, pain I couldn’t begin to understand.
He was keeping something from me, I knew. Something I assumed he wanted to keep from me in order to make me leave. As it had for so long, it felt like he was tearing my soul in half.
After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him into his room and shut the door behind me to quiet some of the loud music filling the apartment.
He stood with his back to me, his head hung low and hands clasped around the back of his neck. He looked more beaten down than I’d ever seen him, and considering Declan was awake and going to be fine, it didn’t make sense.
“What’s wrong?” I asked cautiously.
Jentry let his hands fall limply at his sides and lifted his head, but didn’t turn to look at me. He let so many minutes pass without responding that I thought he wouldn’t. I had started walking toward him when he finally spoke up.
His voice was strained with whatever was weighing on him. “I think you should stay with Declan.”
“What?”
He sighed and slowly turned to face me, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I think you should stay with—”
“No, I heard what you said, I just can’t believe that you said it, and don’t understand why you did! What is going on with you lately? Why are you pushing me away after days of pulling me close? Do you know how confusing you are?”
He laughed, but there was no humor behind the sound. “I’m sure I can understand.”
“That’s it? Nothing else?” I asked when he didn’t continue, my frustration and confusion apparent in my tone. “Why are you pushing me toward Declan suddenly? Even if you stopped wanting me, you know that I couldn’t go back to a life with him. I told you what it was like for me before you ever entered my life again. I can’t do that to him again. It wouldn’t be fair!”
Jentry’s face pinched as I spoke, as if he wanted to deny something, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Why’d you do it?” I gestured behind me to the shut door. “Why’d you buy the shelves? Why do you keep doing things like that and acting like you care, only to pull away and shut down on me?”
“I do care!” he shouted, and flung his arms in exasperation. “What I care most about in this world is you, Aurora, but I’m trying to protect you and everyone else I love! And protecting you means making sure you’ll be okay, and Declan means you’ll fucking be okay!”
I placed the tips of my fingers to my temple as I tried to understand his words, and a frustrated laugh burst from my chest. “Do you hear yourself? We agreed that it would be too hard to have a relationship that we had to hide from Declan and your entire family while Declan was in a coma, and recovering. But how could a world where we aren’t together ever be okay?”
“They know, Aurora. My parents know about us. They were at the hospital; they heard us!”
My stomach felt as if it had fallen through the floor. The blood drained from my head, and I felt like I might faint. “What?”
“They know,” he said calmly. “I tried to explain it, but they don’t understand. They just—they don’t get it. We ended the conversation with Mom saying they would more or less disown me if I did this to Declan.”
I stumbled back until I hit the wall, and used it to help keep me upright. “What?”
“I’ve been driving around for the last hour thinking about what they said, and thinking about Dec. As much as I love them, that threat wouldn’t keep me from you, because they are my family, and I know they’ll always be there no matter what my mom said today. But I can still keep me from you.”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t understand.”
“As much as it kills me—and it fucking kills me, Aurora,” he said through gritted teeth, “I know this is what’s best for you. Declan can give you what you need. A life with a guy like me isn’t what you deserve.”
“Why?” I asked, sounding just as crushed as I felt. “You talk about yourself in this way that—Jentry, I don’t understand. Help me understand you.” I pushed from the wall and walked shakily toward him. “From that first night you told me that you shouldn’t be allowed to stain my good. Do you know how many hours I have turned those words over in my mind, trying to figure out what you could have meant by them? And then to find I never even understood the depth of them until you came back into my life. But every time you say something about yourself, it destroys something inside me. You are breaking my heart! Why do you view yourself this way?”
As he had so many times before, his face morphed into a mask of practiced indifference.
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“Why won’t you drop it?” he asked quietly, and his eyes met mine before darting away.
“Because I am missing something crucial, and I know if I know this then I will finally understand so much about you that has confused me for so long. I need to understand, Jentry!”
“You know all you need to,” he said. “Guys like me—”
“No, don’t start that again! The worst part of all of it is that you believe what you’re saying. What could have happened in your life to make you think that you don’t deserve something good? What could have happened in your life to make you push me away like this when I can feel how much you need me?”
Jentry’s eyes were looking past me, but I knew he wasn’t seeing anything in that room. Whatever he was seeing haunted him.
“Because I see you, too, Jentry. I see what you refuse to,” I continued, “and if I can’t understand what you are trying to force me to see, then I can never show you how wrong you are. I can never begin to show you that your soul is—it’s just—it’s beautiful,” I said exasperated, unable to find a better word.
He huffed through his nose, but didn’t respond otherwise, and his body slowly stilled until he looked like he had been carved from stone, then finally murmured, “Jessica . . . I told you I didn’t grow up with her.”
I nodded, prompting him to continue.
“My biological father was abusive. There wasn’t a time in my childhood that I remember the abuse starting; it had just always happened. My mother, Jess, me . . .” He trailed off. “He was uncontrollable when he was mad. Nothing stopped him until he felt like he’d had enough. My mother did drugs, and they made her crazy and paranoid. One day when Jessica and I were eight, we came home from school and our mother told Jessica that it was time; that they were finally leaving. I thought that meant me, too.”
I covered my mouth when it fell open, already knowing what he was about to say. “Jentry,” I mumbled into my hand.
His chest pitched from the force of his nearly silent, mocking laugh. “My mother screamed when I started following them. Just screamed as if I was hurting her. When she stopped, she asked why I thought she would try to save me when I would only turn into my father. ‘It’s inside you,’ she’d said. ‘You can’t escape that evil. Any good you touch will be tarnished; you’re just like him.’”
My mind raced and chest ached. I couldn’t believe a mother could leave her child, let alone in a home with a man like that, and I couldn’t believe that her words had stayed with Jentry all this time. “Jentry, she was on drugs; she didn’t know what—”
“I’d already had anger problems, I believed her,” he explained. “Kids made fun of Jess and me because we had bruises or the same clothes for a week at a time, and I would go off on them the way our father went off on us. I was the disturbed underprivileged kid. Hopeless. That’s what one of my teachers called me. The night my mother and Jess left was—” Jentry stopped abruptly and shook his head. “I started locking myself in my bedroom at night. Shoving the dresser and everything I could in front of the door. When that didn’t change things, I started hiding out in the library at school and sleeping in there just so I wouldn’t have to face him. Declan found out a couple of weeks later what I’d been doing. Mom marched into the library that same afternoon with Dec trailing behind her, and drag
ged me out of there by my ear, demanding to know why I hadn’t told someone.” His mouth curved up into a fond smile, and I found mine doing the same. “She went to the police department that day after I was settled in at their house, and officially adopted me later that year. I still have his last name, but the Veils are my family.”
I understood then—not Jentry or why he thought of himself in such a horrible way—but why he had been so surprised by my feud with Linda. She had saved Jentry, and she loved her family fiercely, just as they loved her. “And your biological parents?”
Jentry’s eyes hardened again, and he shrugged. “Father might be out of jail by now, I don’t know. According to Jessica, my mother is still alive somehow. Still on drugs. That’s why Jessica is so psychotic; she grew up with only our mother and took on her personality. There’s nothing wrong with Jess, but she’s . . . Well, when my attempts to help her went bad time after time, I just learned that it was better to stay away from her. She’s too unpredictable and toxic. She knows I want to help her; she knows she can come to me when she wants it, but she never wants it. She just wants money.”
I nodded absentmindedly and placed my hand on his shaking arm. “Your life started off bad—extremely bad—but why would that determine what you do or do not deserve now, Jentry?” I asked hesitantly.
“My biological mother was—is . . . is crazy. What she said back then, it was just her paranoia. But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t scare me then, that it didn’t make me vow to live a certain way. It also doesn’t mean that I haven’t learned that she was right.”
I exhaled heavily. “She wasn’t!”
“I told you I had anger problems before. Because of what she said, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t turn into my father, that I wouldn’t be a violent person. But it’s there, deep down, always burning and building, just waiting to snap.”
“Because you’re afraid of it!”
“Ask Declan,” he said uneasily, and his dark eyes met mine for a moment. “Ask him what it’s like to watch me snap, because he is one of two people who have been on the wrong end of it.”