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She looked up at me, fear in her wet eyes.
Such pretty eyes. Such sad eyes. I rubbed my thumb across her full bottom lip. Fuck, such a pretty mouth.
“Already lost someone important to me who hurt themselves, baby. And I was right; I can’t hack it. Can’t go through it again.” I shook my head dolefully.
“I won’t make you go through it again, Jesse.” Her chin trembled. “I won’t take myself away from you. I… I won’t. I’m so sorry about your dad.”
“Don’t fuckin’ do that to me. Please don’t,” I pled brokenly. “I couldn’t fuckin’ bear it again. Lookin’ into a coffin at someone, all those fuckin’ people talkin’, goin’ on about how he looks so peaceful when you know he didn’t die peaceful. He died with pain that was so enormous he didn’t have it in him to try to get past it for the people who loved him.” I took a big breath. “Needed him. Felt so fuckin’ empty without him.”
She stared at my face with her shroud gone. With tears rolling down her cheeks. With pain etched so far into her features, she looked like she might crumple.
“He was in that much pain he couldn’t muster one more day for his family. Not a trip to a doctor. Nope. Not for his fuckin’ wife and his son who loved him more than anything, who tortured themselves wondering how they coulda stopped it.”
She choked and reached for my face with both hands.
“Please don’t do that to me, Gianna-baby. Don’t hurt yourself no more.”
She shook her head decisively.
I wasn’t done. “I couldn’t fuckin’ imagine what it’d do to me if you went too far. If I had to go through it again. If you’re fallin’ for me…”
“I already did. I fell for you the day the bear tried to eat you.”
I smiled. “The bear didn’t try to eat me.”
She shook her head. “Or maybe when you were my heating pad the night before, holding my tummy all night long for me. Yeah, I think it was then. And I’d never go that far, Jesse. Never. I’d never do that to you. I’d never do that to myself. Life is precious. It’s beautiful and I would never throw it away. No matter how hard it gets, I’d never do that. Even if there was no one behind that’d miss me, I still wouldn’t do it.”
I scoffed. “Jimmy probably felt the same at some point. But his brother said he had depression his whole life. Ups and downs all the time. Lots of downs. Wouldn’t get counseling. Wouldn’t even think about taking meds. Ma tried with him when she’d see him spiraling. Just fuckin’ struggled with the weight of his pain until I guess he couldn’t take it anymore. Spent all his time on the road, probably in his head a lot. He was mostly only home on weekends, probably trying to hide it. Like you try to hide it.”
She grimaced.
“He didn’t leave us a note. I kept searchin’ the house in case there was one hidden but never found one. Fuckin’ searched so many times. ‘Till we had to leave because the bank foreclosed. No indication whatsoever that he even considered how we’d feel. Pretty wife, kid that worshipped him. To him, his life must’ve sucked so bad that he didn’t wanna live it.” I shrugged. “Ma and her best friend took me and her friend’s kids on a surprise road trip to a zoo outta town. Rented a motel near a water park. Trip for doin’ good on our report cards. So much fun. Had a blast and came home to a dead dad. He was supposed to be on the road driving to Texas. But he came home that weekend we were gone after tellin’ her he couldn’t meet up with us, that he had to work. And that’s when he did it. Found dead in that old car he had in the garage. We worked on that car together on the weekends. We were gonna paint it next, he got it runnin’. Told me I was a big help. Mostly passed him tools and fetched him beers. But he gave me credit too. He’s why I like to build shit. Take it apart. You know?”
“Yeah?”
“But he turned the key, drank a bottle of booze, and went to sleep with that car runnin.’ The car we were workin’ on together. Ma found him when we got back three fuckin’ days later. Haunted by it. We don’t even talk about him. Don’t say his name out loud because it brings back all the pain he left us with. Heard her on the phone tellin’ someone when she was drunk that her last memory of the man she loved is the way he smelled. How he fuckin’ smelled rotting in the garage for three days in the summer heat.”
