Page 42 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part One

Screw friend, he’s my brother. But just like everyone else, he’ll leave as well. It may not be death, but running his father’s company will pull him away.

There’s always the option to follow, but he will not want me around for the rest of his life. Right now is just a fluke. One thing that rings true is that he isn’t my friend out of pity. He respects me and my feelings, and the weird bastard genuinely likes me.

I’m not sure why, as I said before, I have little to give, but I’d say he loves me like a brother. He is one of the few solid things in my life.

Something I’m not worthy of, just like Gramma. That’s why the universe is taking her from me as well. Soon Jensen will disappear, too. He’ll be off to run his dad’s company, sticking me here to do whatever I have to do to survive for as long as I can.

I’m not saying I’m cold hearted and can’t love anyone. No, I love too hard. My dilemma is that my past creates too many problems. Problems that are hard to let someone in to see. To open up and give all of myself to someone scares the shit out of me. Jensen isn’t aware of how dark it gets. He’s seen some dark shit, but not all of it.

If I let someone in, eventually I’ll tire of fighting it, questioning and doubting their feelings for me because it can’t be possible for someone to love me. To spend their time with me, to get to know me, including the darkness in my soul. I’m broken, my hardened soul impenetrable.Unloveable. Life has stolen hopes and dreams from me.

I’ve caught feelings for girls in the past but could never get out of my head long enough to explore what they meant. Not once did I tell them, just moved on. None of it was easy, but it kept them safe from me.

I find Charley beautiful and I can’t deny that seeing her tears, her genuine discomfort when talking about Sam, tore at my heartstrings. I believe that people can change. Not sure those tears correlated with the devastation that weighed her down when she showed up at the bookstore or not, but I knew that devastation, just like the guilt and darkness I saw in her.

It was like a part of me called to her, desperate to tell her I knew what she was going through, that I could help.

Desire to make her feel better and hatred warred within me. I didn’t want anyone to draw that sort of emotion out of me again, especially someone who had done such heinous things.

Usually I keep that shit locked up tight. Until I fucking smiled at her yesterday. I thought she was going to pass out. A pale pink rushed up her neck, spilling onto her cheeks. Even the tip of her freckled nose turned red.

Freckled nose? What the fuck am I thinking?I don’t need to be referencing the freckles on her face. Undoubtedly one of the cutest things about her, along with her thick raven hair and the way it sways over her ass when she walks, bouncing off of her skirt. But I don’t need to be acknowledging it.

I shake my head. Obviously, the dream has me in my feelings, letting the well of emotions I keep a lock on to leak. I don’t have the love required to give myself to someone. No matter how attractive she is, it’s not in our cards.

I will, however, lay off being an uber-dick to her. She clearly punishes herself and feels guilt over what happened, plus she broke up with Jonas. She’s proven she wants nothing to do with him. She doesn’t deserve for me to continue to punish her.

Not interested in suffering the day away, I make my way to my room and click my phone on, avoiding looking at the date. Two days away from the anniversary of my mother’s death. A day that nearly kills me every year. It’s no wonder my anxiety and PTSD have been running rampant. I question it around this time each year until it dawns on me just exactly what this month signifies.

Since Jensen has been in my life, it’s been a little easier. He comes with me to see my mother’s grave, keeps my mind off it by planning a bunch of nonsense for us to get into and we usually end the day high off our asses buried in pussy. No pussy for me this year. I’m not going to have another Layla mishap, and I have no intention of finding anyone else. I guess it will be me and my hand from now on.

Speaking of, there are four missed calls from my old booty call and seven picture texts I’m sure are explicit and involve tits and ass. Pictures I could appreciate once, but I won’t go there. I’m done with Layla.

I swipe them away and head back to the bathroom to take a shower. It’s still dark outside, mostly. The rising sun’s rays reaching down the hallway make it feel like I’m walking toward the bright light everyone says they see before they die. Wouldn’t that be nice? To walk into the light? Know that I wouldn’t have to wake up tomorrow with the worry of how I would get my next meal once Gramma passed? To not have to worry about seeing her dead.

Death will not be peaceful for me, though. I doubt, if there is a heaven, that’s where I’m going. Last time I heard, Heaven didn’t let murderers in. Sure, I didn’t mean to murder anyone, more like manslaughter, but I never paid for their deaths. At least my mother’s.

My dad deserved that shit fully.

Mom? She deserved a long life free from my father’s grasp. Nothing crazy because I can’t deny that she did nothing to save me from him, but she didn’t deserve to die either. Regardless, a life she didn’t get because I took it from her.

I’m sure there is a special place in Hell waiting for me. As keen as I am with not waking up tomorrow, I’m also a coward and not ready to face that calling. I’m not sure I believe in an afterlife exactly, but on the off chance there is one, and it doesn’t take me before I’m ready, I’ll head that way on my terms.

It’s getting harder to breathe the longer I think about it and a burn is nipping at the backs of my eyes. This is not how I want to spend my day. In two days, I can give in to the crippling guilt, the outpouring of anguish I save especially for that day.

Today, I have no room for that shit. I’m going to get up and put one foot in front of the other, rinse and repeat, just like I do every other day, shoving the guilt into a little box until I’m ready to let it consume me.

For some reason, visions of that dark hair cascading over my chest and sweet cries of ecstasy are filling my mind. I let out a vicious sigh. Looks like it’s going to be a long fucking day, no matter what I do.

CHAPTER19

RIGGS

My mother’sgrave has changed little in the last year. Not surprising, I mean, what am I expecting? For hands to grow or something? The stone is a little dirtier and whoever does maintenance for the cemetery doesn’t do an outstanding job. Shouldn’t they weed-eat around them? Or does the string scratch them up, so they don’t?

Whatever.

The marble still says loving daughter, wife, and mother. Occasionally, I question the latter. I mean, my mother loved me, no doubt, but sometimes, sometimes I wonder how far love reached because she never stopped my father from beating the ever-loving fuck out of me daily.

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