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The thought had crossed my mind. “No one had talked to her outside of the staff that week and I checked her phone records. Everything is clean and nothing makes sense. I feel like I’m goddamn dying.”
It’s silent for a moment. The blue hues of the neon laced room looked exactly how I felt, fucking sad. “I need to give her time. I know I do, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’ll move on and I never will. I don’t want anyone else.Ever.”
My friend grabbed my forearm, squeezing reassuringly. “You’ll do the right thing, you always have. It’s what makes us such a complimentary pair. My Hell mends with your Heaven. Look, give her space without letting go. Wait her out. If it takes months it takes months. Hell, if it takes years, you wait. Dixie is it for you, so don’t give up on her. I’ll look into her communications from this last year and let you know if I find anything suspicious. We’ll keep in touch and go from there. You don’t want to be the bad guy, not for her. Fuck, maybe a part of her wishes you’d come and wisk her away. But if there is even a chance that she wouldn’t want that, you can’t and I know you won't.”
The advice wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to make me go get my girl. But it was the advice that I needed. I couldn’t risk even a chance of hurting her and losing her forever. I’d give her years if that’s what it took.
I would wait.
She would be mine again. Time be damned.
Becausefucktime. It can’t murder her memory. Not my Dixie.
Chapter 4: A Lie’s Opposition
“A flower earns its honor in the dirt.”
? Matshona Dhliwayo
Dixie
Present
“I don’t know how to say it all, Jas,” I tell him quietly, rubbing my temples to soothe the headache that crying earned me. “I know you’re going to besomad and I just can’t make it seem justified unless you listen to it all. You can’t interrupt me or it will seem worse. Can you do that for me?”
Really I’m not sure that even the whole story will make him less angry, but I’m hoping that he’ll understand me. He was always the person I could count on to comprehend my feelings.
He sucks in a breath. “Tell me everything. I won’t interrupt.”
The desire to fling myself out of the car into oncoming traffic is alarmingly potent. Saying the words I haven’t allowed myself to divulge to anyone in three years is almost too overwhelming. So, I avoid looking at him as I finally push down the coward inside of me to let the words escape my lips.
“That day, the day that you came home, and I told you that I didn’t love you, I was lying. That much you know is true, or at least, Ireallyhope you do. I’ve always loved you, Jasper. I loved you before my birthday when I came on to you. I loved you before you and I had an actual conversation. I just– you were always mine. But…” I sniffle, trying to find the words.
“My mother wasn’t ever going to let us be happy. She was relentless in her verbal attacks which we both handled. We knew she wouldn’t understand. But even when we’d thought we cut off contact with her, it was incessant. One day, she found my old journal. Basically, I wrote about you in it,beforeI was eighteen. Just silly stuff about how much I wanted you. I thought it was innocent, really, but I shouldn’t have done it.”
I glance at him quickly. Jasper’s hands have tightened around the steering wheel. He continues to hold it tightly as he switches lanes. Shifting my sight back to my fingers, I pick up where I left off.
“She made copies of it, and had these stalker–like photos of me smiling at you as if I were a love sick idiot since the day we met. She said she would release everything to the public and try to have you arrested for grooming a minor. She swore even if the charges didn’t stick, your reputation and business would be ruined. The worst part wasn’t that someone might believe her, it was how she made me feel about being in love with you. Like it was fake and wrong even though I knew it wasn’t. I thought maybe you would feel like I seduced you for some game or something. I don’t know…”
She didn’t stop there, though.“She said no man would ever give up his Public imagine to fuck some useless teenager when they could have any young woman they wanted. She said… she told me that I should tell you I never loved you, that it was a stupid crush and I realized I wanted someone my own age. She grabbed me and got in my face to promise me that a man like Jasper Aroselyn would never settle down without his own kids. I couldn't give them to you, so I was hurting you by being with you.”
He grunts under his breath like he’s angry, but still doesn’t interject.
“I swear I thought about telling you. I promise I considered letting you handle it, and I know now that you probably could have. I know that now, but what she said about me being infertile, it hurtsobad. I was trying to protect you but also save you from a life without a family. I was so selfish, I know. I should have given you a choice in the matter.”
And I should have, because even if he didn’t choose me, he wouldn’t have been left with so many questions and so little closure.
“Still, I thought I was being more selfish holding on to you. I stopped planting flowers and gave up on the stupid shop dream of mine because I couldn’t allow myself joy. I studied fuckingjournalismat a University I didn’t care about, stalked you like a maniac on drugs and cried daily thinking about answering your calls. Then, you stopped calling. You stopped sending flowers to me and Iknewyou must have moved on. I moved apartments, took a job with Claire and planned to live like the shell I am. Until she told me it was you I’d be interviewing. The engagement and the baby… I just can't believe I’m even telling you the truth now. You’re better off hating me and being with her. It’s easier–”
“Stop talking,” Jasper spits, pulling off the side of the road into a random abandoned parking lot.
“Jasper, we shouldn’t–”
His hands grip around my cheeks tightly and he pulls my line of sight into his.
“Fuckthat. You think I’m better off without you? Have you learned nothing from the year we spent together, Dixie? I’m yours. Always yours. For God's sake, marrying Lilian is an arranged thing for publicity and business. Yes, I slept with her, and yes she says the baby is mine but I don’t think it is. I wore a condom and it was one stupid depressed fuck that I can barely remember because I needed to be trashed to even look at another woman naked. You should have told me everything, dollface. I could have handled your mother so quickly. You really have no idea how far my reach goes, do you?”
“But–” I frown. “She would have ruined us. She would have made it shameful. I didn’t want you to go through that, even for me.”
