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“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he whispers into my hair.
“You weren’t there because I walked away.” I pull away slightly and look back into his blue eyes. “I’m better now, J.R. I don’t see things the way I used to.”
His hands are on my face. His blue eyes are intense. “You are the most amazing person I have ever known, Rach. The best human in this world. A world without you is a world not worth living in. You know that, right?”
“I do. I know that.” I cry softly. “I know that now.”
J.R. pulls me back into him, and I cry into his shoulder.
We settle back into the swing, still recovering from my confession. I look at him again, my hand in his. “You haven’t told me about your parents yet, J.R.”
J.R. picks up his beer again and takes a sip. “My story is a lot less traumatizing than yours, Rach.”
“Let’s not compare. It’s your darkness.”
“Why are we doing this to ourselves?” he groans.
“Because it’s necessary.”
J.R. sighs. “My parents own a big chunk of land in Tennessee. A farm. Family business, all that crap. It’s what I was supposed to do with my life. Run that damn farm and then pass it down to my kids. It’s been in our family for more than a hundred years, and the future of the farm relies on me. So, imagine my father’s dismay when I told him that I wanted to pursue music instead of the farm. I wanted to do something different with my life.” He takes another sip of beer. “My father told me that I wasn’t anything special and that my loyalty lies with the farm, not the music. He told me that I had to take the farm, whether I wanted to or not. So, I graduated high school, packed my bags, and left the next day. That was fifteen years ago, and I haven’t talked to my parents since.”
“Have you tried calling them? You’ve proven you’re special.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t matter. I hated that place, Rach. I spent my entire childhood learning how to tend the farm. Late nights, early mornings, in the cold of winter and in the muggy heat of summer. I watched my dad come dragging in for dinner every night, destined to be nothing else but a farmer. I wanted to be more. I couldn’t settle. They didn’t care. They didn’t understand. They watched me leave, and they didn’t even try to fight for me. That farm means more to them than I do.”
I curl up next to him, and I rest my head on his shoulder. “You grew up to be an amazing man, J.R.”
“I met you.”
“You had your band first,” I point out.
“And then I met you.” He smiles.
“We won’t be them. Our parents. We’ll be different.”
“Knox can be anything she wants to be. If she wants to move to Tennessee and take over the farm, I wouldn’t care. Nothing she could do would cause me to love her any less.”
“And she’ll always know that she’s worth everything that is good in this world,” I add.
“We’ll make it work this time. You and me,” J.R. says with conviction.
“We will. I don’t want to do life without you again.”
J.R. kisses the side of my head, and we sit there in the quiet of the night, comforted in each other’s presence. Content.
24
February 2006
I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed to wake up alive. I was in a hospital room, and I quickly realized that my arms and legs were strapped to the bed like I was some sort of a felon. I jerked my arms and legs up and down to try and break free from the restraints, but it was no use.
I looked up, noticing that Kelley was sitting across the room. She was glaring at me. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.
“You can’t talk. There’s a tube down your throat,” she says in a cold, flat tone. “Your body needs assistance with breathing.” She stood from her chair and walked over to me. She was angry. “What the fuck, Rachel?” I thought she was going to hit me.
I wouldn’t apologize for trying to kill myself. Whether she realized it or not, I would have been doing her a favor.
“You need help, Rach. And I’ll see to it that you get it. I almost called J.R.”
