Page 106 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
I wanted to run downstairs and smack them both across the face. How could they treat Jackson that way? He was their son!
“On our fifteenth birthday, our parents threw us a party. Linc got all the attention, of course, and by then I was used to staying out of the way, so I went to the pool house and hid. I guess Linc decided I was embarrassing the family by hiding, because he c
ame to look for me. We argued. It got heated. He called me names, I called him names. He took a swing at me but missed. I stepped out of the way too quickly. He stumbled and fell, cracked his head against the cement coping, and rolled into the pool.”
Now Jackson was talking fast, the words pouring out in a cascade. His body movements were jerky, angry, and he was sweating, his hair sticking to his forehead in dark clumps. His eyes were bright and wild.
“I couldn’t swim. I was terrified of the water because the one time I’d tried to learn, Linc held me under when no one was looking and I almost drowned. So I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t get to him, I couldn’t—I didn’t know what to do.”
He broke off with a sob. I stood, helpless and horrified, already knowing where this was going.
“I ran to get my parents, but by the time they got there it was too late. They found him on the bottom of the pool. Later the doctors said he’d been unconscious when he went in, there was the mark on his face where he’d fallen, and they all thought . . . they thought I . . .”
I pressed a hand over my heart to try to stop its frantic pounding. “They thought you hit him and pushed him in the pool,” I whispered.
He propped his hands on his hips and swallowed convulsively, looking at the floor, his face red and pinched. He was trying not to cry.
“No one ever said that directly, of course. But they never looked at me the same. People started avoiding me. Dozens of kids and their parents were at the party, and from that time on I was shunned. The word got out. You can’t be alone with Jackson. Stay away from Jackson. He’s capable of anything. Then my parents sent me away to boarding school. From there I went directly to college. Which is where I met Christian, by the way, the only real friend I’ve ever had. By the time I came home from college, my parents and I were basically strangers.”
“Oh, Jackson,” I said, my voice wavering. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”
He laughed. It was dark and ugly, one of the most disturbing sounds I’d ever heard.
“It gets better,” he said, and poured himself another drink.
THIRTY
BIANCA
A few minutes passed before Jackson spoke again, minutes in which my heart ached and I fought back tears, thinking how it must have been for him all those years growing up, and ever since. How lonely he must’ve been. I thought now I understood why he was the way he was, so surly and standoffish, but I hadn’t heard the rest of his story.
“Her name was Cricket.”
That’s all he got out before he had to take another swallow of booze. He sank onto the sofa and stared blankly at the coffee table, his face white, his hands trembling, like a man suffering from shell shock.
“Cricket Montgomery. The most beautiful girl in Kentucky, by anyone’s standards. We were in grade school together before I went away, so I’d known her for years. Known of her, I should say. Like everyone else, she adored my brother but never paid much attention to me, but a few years after I came back I ran into her at the public library in Louisville. I used to go there all the time to read and escape all the accusing eyes in this house. One day she was browsing for a book in the aisle near the chair I always sat in, and she recognized me and came over and said hello, even though I was trying to hide behind my book. She was really nice to me.”
His voice gained an angry edge. “So fucking nice.”
He finished his drink and looked over at me, his eyes glittering. “I should’ve known right then. But I was so starved for attention, for anyone to notice me or look at me like I wasn’t a murdering freak, that I was completely fucking blind.”
I didn’t know what to do with my hands. They were fluttering around in my lap like frightened birds, so I sat on them and kept listening.
“We started dating. I couldn’t believe my good luck. Here was this beautiful, popular girl, choosing me. I was so happy I was delirious. My parents were over the moon. My father started talking about having me take over the business. It was like a dream, everything I ever wanted falling into place. After a year, I proposed. And she said yes.”
Nostrils flaring, he slowly inhaled. His voice shook with fury. “That evil, scheming, lying, soulless bitch said yes.”
Now I was the one who needed a drink. I abandoned the bed, sat across from Jackson, and poured myself a stiff one.
He set his glass on the table and dragged his hands through his hair. Staring at the floor, his elbows propped on his knees, he continued to talk.
“It took another year to plan the wedding. Six hundred people were invited, including the governor. It was a zoo. All my parents’ friends and business associates, all her friends and family, politicians, leaders in the liquor industry, a bunch of other people I didn’t even know. We had it here at Moonstar Ranch, of course. Great location for a wedding. The church was too small for that many guests, so the event coordinator designed this whole fantasy fairy tale theme that ended up costing more than a million dollars.”
He sighed. “I found out later the coordinator was one of Cricket’s college friends. Cricket got a cut of her fee.” He glanced up at me. He looked wrecked. He said quietly, “Because of course that’s what it was about all along. Money.”
I started to feel sick. Finishing my bourbon in one gulp didn’t help.
Jackson stood and started pacing again, like it hurt to sit still. But there was a hitch in his walk now, a slight, unsteady weaving. Everything he’d had to drink was starting to catch up to him.
