Page 47 of End Of Never

She moves to me next, grabbing my hand and leading us to the kitchen. “Come chat while I finish dinner.”

I sit at the island. “What can I help you with?” She pulls off the towel and opens the oven.

“Sweetie, I said, come talk, not help. You’re a guest; you don’t need to help with anything. I just love having you both here.” She smiles and pulls out a chocolate cake.

“I can’t believe I never knew Jace was your son. All the times I’ve spoken with you at the clinic, and been here. I am so sorry, I didn’t realize.” My hand slides nervously across the marble countertop.

“You couldn’t have known, I… we didn’t talk about him much in public, and you never walked through the house to get Teddy, you waited outside. It wasn’t that we didn’t want people to know about him, or what his situation was… It just broke my heart to speak of him when he wasn’t here. When we decided to send him away, we were lost. We had tried everything from grounding to taking things away, but he was eighteen, and we could only do so much. We planned on telling him when he came home that night, but he came home past curfew, and he didn’t have time to prepare or tell his friends, but that was his fault.” Her voice trails off. My fault, it was my fault he was late. Layla takes the lid of the crockpot and continues as she stirs, “Every time I thought or spoke of my son, it broke my heart. As a mother, you try to do everything you can to protect and guide your children. I tried my best; looking back, I could have tried harder, but at the time, I did all I could, and I failed. Every time someone would ask about Jace, we would say he went away for school, when really, we had to send him away to be raised by people who could do it better than us.” My heart breaks at her words. She places the lid back on the crockpot and turns around, wiping down the already clean island.

I reach out, placing my hand on hers, “You did not fail your son. I come from a home where parents were non-existent. To love him the way you love him, to care for him, is everything. You did not fail him, Layla. You saved him. Putting his needs before your own… You needed him here with you, yet you sent him away for him, because you are a remarkable mother.” Her eyes gleam off the overhead lights, as wetness starts to pool. I rub her hand, and she whispers, thank you. I admire her strength and her love. To love her son so much that she let him go, with all the hope that he would return to her, having healed the deepest parts of himself.

As I watched her speak about her thoughts, I couldn’t help but think of my own parents and wonder who I would be if they had loved me. Your parents are supposed to mold you into the brightest and best version of yourself. They are supposed to love you more than anyone in the world, but mine loved money more. For Layla to think that she and John failed their son broke my heart. Failure would have been to let him continue down the darkest path, to keep him here because it’s what they wanted, and not what he needed. Failure is stepping down when you need to step up; it is being passive instead of aggressive. It is okay to be aggressive when a situation demands it, and the road Jace was on demanded extra help; he just had to want it.

A moment later, we hear someone walk into the kitchen. Jace stands with tears in his eyes. He goes to his mom and simply hugs her, no words. Just a hug and it heals my heart, and I witness it heal his mother's soul. “Mom.” His voice is soft, smothered by the lump he holds back as he swallows hard, and his Adam's apple bobs. “You did not fail me. I know without a doubt that if you didn’t love me enough to send me away, I wouldn’t be here. You saved your son, Ma, when I was too stubborn to want to save myself. So thank you for being selfless with me, and loving me endlessly, because of you, I can sit here and tell you, one day when I have kids, I promise to love them as you have loved me.” His mother tightens her arms around her son, drawing him into her, and his light-blue shirt turns a dark hue where her eyes rest, catching the falling tears.

Layla leans back, grabbing his forearms, looking up at him. She smiles, “I love you, let's eat, sweetie.” She pats his cheek and turns to me, giving me a sweet smile.

He kisses the top of her head and walks over to me, wrapping his arms around my neck, hugging me from behind.

Dinner is delicious. We all sit around the table, talking about the future of the clinic and life with Jace and me. His parents look at him so proud of who he is, who he has become, and I can’t help but sit back and do the same.

After dinner and helping his parents clean up, we say our goodbyes and head home.

On the drive, I try to quiet my thoughts, to keep them to myself, but the harder I try, the louder they become. “Jace.” My voice falls. He reaches his hand over the console and grabs my knee. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry you had to take me home that night; if you didn’t, you would have made your curfew, and you could have told everyone you were leaving, you could have told–” He quickly pulls to the side of the road, putting the truck in park.

He turns to me. “Lilla, look at me.” My eyes look out the window because I can’t look at him. I need to control my feelings before my eyes meet him, and the cascade I am so desperately holding back becomes a downpour. “Lilla Lane, eyes on me now.” His voice is demanding but laced with nothing but sweet emotion. Slowly, I turn towards him, swallowing down the unshed tears. “Baby, you saved me. I had plans after that party… Kyle and I were supposed to go to a deal; I bought some cocaine from a guy. The plan was to get the coke and go to his house. I had no intention of going home that night.” It’s like his words are slicing his heart as he relives the memory, “ I took you home because I wanted to, because I would have given anything to be near you. I didn’t have to be shipped off; I was eighteen, an adult. I went because the look in my mother's eyes told me it was time, I went because holding you was all I wanted, and I knew I couldn’t have both. When I got into your bed, wrapped you in my arms, I realized that you being in my arms was better than any high from any drug. If I wanted to be addicted to anything, I wanted to be addicted to you.”

The tears I so forcefully fought back came flooding out, and I no longer had the desire to stop them. I want to share all my emotions with him; he makes me feel that no emotion is too small to feel. “Be addicted to me, Jace, forever.” He leans over, placing his hands on my wet cheeks, wiping the tears that fall with his thumb, staring into my eyes, speaking to me without words, promising me forever.

He steals my trembling lips with his, breathing me like his final breath, drinking me in like his last sip of water; he kisses me like he’s never going to kiss me again. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I pull myself into him, kissing him as if without him I would suffocate, gripping his neck and hair like without the hold I would fall. Because the truth is, he is my muse, my lifeline, the man I hope is my forever.

He breaks the kiss, keeping his lips touching mine, as he whispers, “I’ll be addicted to you in this life, and every one that comes after. My love for you is eternal.”

Chapter 38

Jace

On the way to work, I can’t help but think about dinner at my mom's and the drive. It was like being hit with two bombs at once. The first bomb, my mom thinking she failed me, that is the craziest thing I have ever heard. Never. Never has my mom failed me; she saved me. Then, bomb number two was Lilla, and her gracious heart, thinking she was the reason I got sent away. No one knew the extent of my problem, shit, neither did I. It was shower beers, and empty bottles under my bed. It was sock drugs and an empty wallet. Now, it doesn’t cross my mind, I don’t crave a drink, or anything that alters my state of mind. I like to feel everything now, soak it all in. I spent too much time numbing the feelings and getting lost in time.

Walking into the station, the crew is loading the rig and inspecting fire hoses. Hayden nods, and the Chief grabs Cody and me. “We have a busy day, we have a high school demonstration this morning. Johnson is going to stay back and track the spreading forest fire; the weather is against us today. Low humidity, strong winds pushing toward us, and high temperatures will accelerate this fire. Half of you are going to the demonstration. At that demonstration, you are going to give them the best one, but if the fire crosses into our county, you'll hustle to the scene. Station 12 is there now, creating a fire line. The other half of you are heading to the site now to assist.” He breaks us up in half, and I get the drunk driving demo.

Arriving at the school, the high schoolers are already outside, standing in a large circle around a wrecked car. We select two random teenagers from the group and place them in the car, while giving the students a good, detailed story about the party they were just at, living up their lives, enjoying the flow of stout drinks and loud music. We discuss the choice to get behind the wheel while under the influence. “Every time you get behind the wheel, getting in drunk is a choice. The best choice you can make for you, your friends, and your family is one phone call. We are going to show you how one decision not only changes your life, but everyone else around you.” Captain Miller reviews the statistics and speaks of the crash our teenagers are about to endure. The students were all attuned to the demonstration.

“In the blink of an eye, you could no longer be here. One decision has a domino effect; you are about to see that now. When Sam and Kyle decided to drive in an altered state, the scenarios could go on forever. What if they hit someone else and kill them? Prison time. What if they kill themselves? What if one lives and the other dies? One choice affects the rest of your life.” Captain Miller goes over the crash in detail. He nods to me when he says a call has come in, stepping back to let me take over.

I rush over to the scene, where the two teenagers pretend to be unresponsive. Talking out loud, I go over every step, as the firefighters show the audience the jaws of life and how it works. We place Sam on the stretcher, where I pull him to the ambulance, and get him lifted in while pretending to perform CPR and shouting everything that is happening. Trying my best to make it look and feel as real as possible. “HE’S CRASHING!” Loading him into the ambulance, Miller goes over what happens now, identifying the bodies, calling the families, and the harsh reality of their choices.

Finally, Sam and I step out of the ambulance as Nick slides out from the wrecked car. I give both the kids a pat on the back for being troopers in the demo. “You always have the intention of making it home, but it doesn’t always happen. Don’t test it. It’s one call and the rest of your life. Your choice, is your life worth one phone call?” The teens all nod as they watch Nick climb out of the destroyed car.

“The accident doesn’t end here.” Captain Miller walks around the circle. “Once we call the family, they have to identify your body, they have to call your relatives, your friends, your school, they have to bury you, but it doesn’t end there. Grief is never-ending; they will miss you with a broken heart for the rest of their lives. They will have questions that never get answered, they will wonder why you didn’t call, why you made the choices you made, and they will be angry, they will be sad, and they will be broken, all because of one choice, one moment in time that changed everything. Don’t be a statistic, don’t let one moment end your life, and change everyone else's.”

As we answer questions regarding the demo, our pagers go off, “Load up!” We all run to our rigs while Cap calls the class duty and reminds them to call as they run to his truck.

Cody and I follow the fire truck to the site and watch the smoke begin to choke out the blue sky. The pine trees canvasing the sides of the mountain are kissing the thick haze. “Damn.” A whisper gasp falls from Cody as he moves down the rocky road.

Pulling behind the rigs, we spot the Chief pulling the team in for a debrief now that we are all together. “Hustle!” His voice is coarse and scared as we watch the yellow and orange haze begin to blow off the smoke. “There are 100 acres engulfed, the speed is rapidly spreading, a water drop is on the way—”

The radio attached to the Chief's coat interrupts him, "Battalion Chief 43, come in.”