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Chapter Thirty-Five
Three weeks later
Oleander was avoiding him. So he accepted that she was officially done with him. But Jackson wasn’t done with her, or them. He knew what he needed to do to get her back.
But for now, the only thing keeping him sane was work.
Days after Keleigh’s party andthe conversation, Jackson had been given an incredible opportunity at work. With the success of the last pitch and the work he put into it, the higher ups believed he was ready for something more,somethingbigger. And that meant leading an entire team for a new campaign.
Much like the weeks before they broke up, Jackson worked for close to 18 hours every day. But unlike that time, he was glad for the long hours. It kept him busy and focused on the task at hand and not thinking about Oleander every chance he got. He barely even had time to catch up with Milo and Gavin.
The project was important, like almost every other one he worked on. He wanted this promotion; he’d worked his ass off for the last five years to get to this place.
And while getting Oleander back was just as important, he knew she needed the space. She was right, he needed tolearnabout racism and about how it affected the lives of people. Jackson had a privileged upbringing and wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. Even if he lived a simpler life now, he still had everything accessible to him and he’d taken it for granted.
It took him a few days to really gather his strength to do some research. If you typed in ‘racism in America’ into Google, there were not only 100 news articles about how the country was falling apart after the last presidential term, but there were essays and studies done about the same thing. Jackson opened every link he could find, he did more research on books he should read and it wasoverwhelming. While most of the stories were about racism Black people faced, there were still quite a few about racism towards Asians.
It was actually more than plain racism, it washate. It was propaganda.
It was systemic racism.
And Oleander was right—it was ugly.
The weekend before he was sucked into work, Jackson drowned himself in all the learning and reading. He ignored the guys, ignored his phone and soaked it all up. Racism meant different things to different people and that’s where the problem rested with him. He knew Beth was racist—everyoneknew it—but he believed she was joining the masses about people taking their jobs and building the wall. Accepting those as her form of racism was bad in itself, but Jackson hadn’t even thought twice about how deep it ran. Until she was standing there, shouting at his girlfriend, Jackson had been ignorant of her ugliness.
When he replayed the entire conversation he had with Oleander and thought back to whatever he heard Beth say, Jackson realizedwherehe’d gone wrong.
His sister had used Oleander’s heritage and her ancestral culture to make her feel small, to make her feel like she didn’tbelong. Sure, she changed her tune when he showed up. Accusing Oleander of wanting to be with him for his money and his status, but that wasn’t even close to the truth. Until he pulled up in front of his childhood home, Oleander didn’t know Jackson came from money. Beth played on all the things people had poked Oleander about—including her disastrous ex—and Jackson hadn’t realized it. He’d argued with Oleander about how she was misunderstanding Beth’s words or taking it too personally, when the truth was, itwasa personal attack and Jackson had been stupid not to see it.
Losing Oleander had been hard, but realizingwhyhe lost her was worse. Jackson barely got any sleep before his first day of long weeks, because he stayed up till the sun came up reading. And when he wasn’t reading, he was making notes and berating himself for not being anally.
Oleander deserved better than him; but that didn’t mean he was going to let go without a fight.
Jacksonand his team were six days into planning when he got a call from Mindy. She sounded panicky and worried, and instead of asking her what was wrong, Jackson drove to his childhood home. He should have probably talked to her first, because when he pulled up in front of the house, he found every car there—Brandon, his father andLisbeth.
Jackson didn’t want to see his sister.
Just as he was about to reverse and go back to Wildes, the front door opened and Mindy appeared. Jackson knew there was no running away now, so he met her on the front stoop.
“Sorry I tricked you, but it was the only way I could get you all in the same room.”
Jackson gave Mindy a hug and followed her into the house. It was aHuxley Family Meeting. After Mindy joined the family, they had these meetings. It started out weekly, but then everyone got really busy, so it became monthly and now they only happened when there was something important to discuss or a family emergency. And clearly this was an emergency.
He hadn’t told Mindy or his father what had happened, because he didn’t want them to know he’d ruined things with Oleander. When they left early, Mindy had texted to find out what happened once he got home and Jackson made up some excuse about Oleander being unwell. But clearly the truth got to them somehow.
Walking into the kitchen, Jackson avoided meeting Beth’s eyes. Instead, he looked at his father and his brother and saw disappointment reflected at him. He’d run away from a big project for a family meeting, so whatever it was, it needed to be fucking good.
“What’s going on?”
“You’ve been keeping secrets,” Mindy started, pointing at him and then at Beth.
Beth rolled her eyes. “I’mallowedto have secrets.”
“Not when they’re harmful,” his father contributed.
“Can someone please tell me what’s happening, or I’m going to head back.”
“This is an intervention, Jack,” Brandon said and Jackson watched as his brother looked past him to Beth. “To stop our sister from being a complete asshole all the time.”
