AllFreeNovel
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Apparently, I don’t do a good job. “It’s not because I don’t want to share with you, Jax. I just don’t want to ruin the few minutes I have with you every day with the heavy stuff.”
“I get it, Zo. I just – I want to be there for you.”
“You are, Jax. You have been the whole time, even when I wouldn’t let you. Dr. Thompson says I need to continue therapy and counseling once I'm home. She says you and Zane should go too.”
“She thinks I need therapy?” I say a little roughly.
“No. At least I don’t think so. She just thinks it will be good for me if you two come along once in a while.”
“Zoey, you know I’ll do whatever you need.” I hope she realizes how much I mean that.
“I miss you, Jay,” she says softly. “I’ve missed you so much. I just want you to know that I never stopped loving you or missing you or wanting you. I just didn’t know how to be with you – or anybody really. I was – still am – miserable and hurting and I’m so worried about bring all this home to you.”
I sigh in relief because it’s the most real thing she’s shared with me since I left her in the hospital. “Zoey, as long as you’re home, and with me, I don’t care if you bring home the plague. I’m here for you and with you. Let me carry some of that weight, baby.”
“But you already carry enough of your own from all of this. How can you hold mine and yours too?”
“Because I love you, Zo. I can carry it all.” I mean every damn word. I will incinerate the world if it will stop her pain.
“Time’s up,” she says softly. I can hear the tears in her voice. “How the hell did I spend so much time away from you when I can’t even stand a couple of weeks?”
“Because you let your pain consume you and then you used whatever you could to make you forget everything,” I tell her the truth because I always try to be honest with her.
She laughs a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that’s part of it, but you want to know something, Jay?”
“What’s that, beautiful?”
“Missing you was like an extra punishment. You want me to share, well how about this. I ran away to punish myself for letting you down. I was punishing myself for being attacked and losing our baby. The worst kind of punishment for me was not being with you. I haven’t admitted that to anyone else. Not even myself, until just now.”
The breath whooshes out of me at her admission. Totally floors me. “Zoey, I know you’ve heard it before but none of this was your fault. Stop punishing yourself for something you didn’t do. I love you, and you deserve every ounce of it.”
“I love you too, Jay,” she whispers. “I’ve got to go.”
“Talk tomorrow, Angel,” I whisper back before she hangs up.
I stand in the corner of the bar I found for a minute thinking about what she said before heading back to the table. My face must show the overwhelming emotions I’m feeling because Zane pops an eyebrow at me.
“She okay?” he asks causing everyone to stop talking and look at me.
“Not really, Zee,” I tell him. The other men at the table suddenly start looking at their mugs of beer like they don’t want to intrude. All but Fet.
“I thought this shit was supposed to be helping?” he grumbles as if we’re the only two at the table. “Why the fuck did we let her stay there?”
“Because we didn’t have a choice. And I think it is helping, but two weeks can only accomplish so much.”
“What’d she say, Jay?”
“That she left to punish herself,” I answer suddenly not caring that the table is full of people who don’t know the story. I want them to know the story. I’m not worried about the others in the bar. No one else can hear us in this quiet area over the tv and their own voices.
“Punish herself?” he questions with his brows furrowing deeply. “What the fuck for?”
“She blames herself. You know that. She said the worst kind of punishment she could think of was to not have me. That she deserved to be punished for the attack and losing the baby.”
I see the other men looking at us suddenly with questions in their eyes. I need to talk to someone. I need to talk to all of them. A few years ago, this would have been Austin or Kyle with us. Hell, I really need to talk to them, and I know Zane does too. But tonight, we only have our new friends. New friends that are concerned. New friends that I trust.
Blowing out a breath, I tell the others what I told Fet. I tell them about why Zoey is in the hospital and what brought her there. I can see in their eyes that they also had assumption about what happen as the guilt and shame of assumption take over their gazes.
Zane and I spend the rest of the night talking about what she went through. What we went through. Our guilt for not staying to find her. My guilt for fucking around – and for Haley because Haley is the worst of the guilt.
