Come Back To Me (35 page)

my shoulder.

I drop my dad home and then drive to Jessa’s house. Cars

are double-parked the whole way up the street, so I leave

the truck around the corner, parking in exactly the same

place I used to drop Jessa after our make-out sessions.

They seem so long ago now – like they happened decades

and not mere weeks ago.

The front door of her house is shut, but through the

window I can see crowds of people gathered in the living

room holding paper plates of food. I take a deep breath,

forcing myself to remember my dad’s words. He’s right. I

can’t walk away. I owe it to Riley. I owe it to Jessa. I owe it

to Riley and Jo’s unborn child to be there for it. I need to

tell Jessa to her face exactly what happened. I need to beg

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her forgiveness. And then maybe, if she can forgive me,

we can find a way through this together.

Before I make it to the door, though, it swings open

and someone walks out. I stop dead in my tracks. Jessa’s

dad is marching towards me, his face stony yet his eyes

blazing. He stops in front of me, barring my way, and the

first thing I think is,
He knows. He’s read the report.

‘Colonel,’ I say, saluting out of habit, and because I

don’t know what else to do or say. The last time we saw

each other I was yelling at him about what a shitty father

he was. Fuck. I start having second thoughts about com-

ing. What was I thinking?

‘I told you the last time you showed your face to get off

my property and not come back.’

‘I’m just here to pay my respects,’ I say quietly, keeping

my eyes on the ground.

‘I need you to leave,’ he says. ‘And to stay the hell

away from my daughter.’

I look up at him sharply.

‘The last thing she needs is you in her life. She’s just

lost her brother.’

I grit my teeth. Isn’t that exactly why she needs me?

‘I read the report,’ he says next. ‘Abandoning your

post?’

I stare at my shoes, trying to breathe calmly, though my

head is starting to whirl and the crackling of flames is

filling my ears. He knows. Of course he knows.

‘I’m writing you up for insubordination and dereliction

of duty,’ he says. ‘I should have done so a long time ago.’

I stay quiet, letting his words hit me square in the face.

It’s nothing less than I deserve.

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‘Because of you, my son is dead,’ he spits. ‘Are you

going to go in there and explain that to Jessa? That the

reason her brother is dead is because of you?’

I don’t answer, but I do look up at him.

He pulls a face, a sneer of disgust lifting his top lip. ‘I

didn’t think so. The best thing you can do right now is

walk away and stay away. For good, this time.’

He glares at me for several more seconds before finally

shaking his head and walking back inside, his shoulders

slumping. I watch him walk inside and shut the door

behind him. Unable to move, I watch him through the

window winding his way through the crowd.

Briefly, just briefly, I catch sight of Jessa standing with

her back to me, her blonde hair a lighthouse beam amid a

sea of black. The sight of her is enough to snatch the last

of my breath away. I clutch my side, forcing myself to

back away, because he’s right. I’m no good for her. I’m no

good for anyone.

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Jessa

Through the window I catch a flash of blue. Someone – a

friend of my father’s – is talking to me, but I walk away

mid-sentence, leaving them standing there, and cross to

the window to get a better look. My heart thumps hard in

my chest as I see that it’s Kit. He’s come! But then, with a

sinking feeling, I see him turning and walking away back

towards the street and all the parked cars.

I push past crowds of people standing in the doorway

talking in hushed whispers and rush into the hallway.

‘Are you OK?’

I spin around. Didi is standing in front of me.

‘What do you need?’ she asks me.

Didi is about the only person other than Kit’s dad who

I’ve been able to cope with being around since Riley died.

She doesn’t beat about the bush or cry in front of me. She

doesn’t pat my hand and speak in meaningless platitudes

about how it will all be OK and that time will heal all.

‘I just saw Kit,’ I tell her breathlessly.

Didi looks around the hallway.

‘No. Outside,’ I clarify.

Didi takes hold of my hands. ‘Go,’ she says. ‘You need

to talk to him.’

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I shake my head. ‘I can’t just go,’ I say, thinking of my

mom who’s currently sitting in the living room out of

her head on Valium surrounded by women offering her

glasses of water, tissues and pigs in blankets.

‘You guys need to talk,’ Didi says. She’s borne the

brunt of my five days of grief compounded with anguish

over Kit’s silence. Her theory is that he’s suffering from

PTSD, not, she claims, that that fully excuses him from

being an asshole.

When she sees me hesitating, she pushes me towards

the door and thrusts some keys into my hand. ‘Go,’ she

says again. ‘Take my car. I’ll cover for you.’

Kit’s truck is parked in his driveway. My heart is beating

so fast it feels as if it might explode out of my chest as I

walk up the path to the front door. When I pull out the

keys I hesitate for a minute, wondering if I’m doing the

right thing. What if he doesn’t want to see me? I mean,

I know already that he doesn’t want to see me. If he did,

he would have answered my calls. He would have hung

around after the funeral. He would have come to the

wake.

Well, screw him, I decide. It isn’t all about him. It isn’t

just about what he wants. I want to talk to him. I
need
to

talk to him.

It’s anger that propels me through the door, fury that

has started to bubble through my veins. I run up the

stairs and storm straight into the bedroom, words already

bursting on my tongue. But he’s not there. His jacket is

hanging over the back of the chair, though, and his gloves

and hat are laid out neatly on the dresser. I contemplate

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the room, the half-folded camping mat on the floor – he’s

not even sleeping in the bed – but before I can make sense

of it a noise makes me jerk around.

Kit is standing in the doorway. He’s yanking off his tie,

and when he sees me he freezes like that, his arm caught

halfway, so it looks as though he’s trying to strangle

himself. His arm drops slowly to his side.

The first thing I notice is that he has dark shadows

under his eyes and hollows beneath his cheekbones. The

word ‘shell-shocked’ comes to mind, those stories of First

World War soldiers who came back from the trenches

with their nerves shot to pieces. The second thing I notice

are that his hands are bloodied, the knuckles bruised and

swollen as if he just tried to punch his way out of a steel

cage. My stomach heaves at the sight. I have to stop my

legs from moving towards him, because seeing him,

being this close to him, seeing him hurt and in pain, is

making all the defences I’ve put up crumple to dust.

It takes Kit a few seconds to recover from the surprise

of seeing me standing in his room. He falters, letting his

guard down for just a moment, and in that moment I see

something flare across his face – a look of total devasta-

tion – and it instantly dissolves my anger and makes me

stumble towards him.

He turns his back on me before I reach him and crosses

to the dresser. I stop short and stare at his back, my throat

closing shut.

‘Kit,’ I say, putting my hands on his arms, ‘please, talk

to me, tell me what’s going on.’

His back muscles lock and his head remains bowed. I

turn him slowly around to face me.

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‘Kit,’ I say, taking his face in my hands, trying to make

him look at me.

He won’t. He stays resolutely staring at the ground.

But I feel the subtle shift in his body. I can read him. He’s

too familiar to me. His breathing has become shallow and

the pulse beats rapidly in his neck; his shoulders slump.

I stroke Kit’s cheek and he closes his eyes, a look of

anguish passing across his face that I want to wipe away.

I want to make it better. I reach up on tiptoe and kiss him.

He’s unresponsive at first, but I press myself against

him and after a few seconds I feel his resistance start to

fade. Slowly he starts to kiss me back, and I wrap my

arms around his neck to stop him from pulling away. His

arms finally come around my waist and he draws me

tight, pulling me close, and a sob catches in my throat

because finally I don’t feel like I’m free-falling into a

bottomless abyss any more. I feel like I’ve been caught.

I open my mouth and our kiss suddenly becomes fran-

tic, desperate. The familiar taste of him, the intoxicating

smell of him, the burning heat of his lips – I can’t get

enough – and as he laces his fingers through my hair and

forces his tongue into my mouth, I realize that we’re both

trying to claw our way back into the light, trying to find

some kind of redemption, or some way of overcoming the

pain.

Kit’s hands start ripping at my dress and my own fin-

gers start tearing at his shirt, and all I can hear is the rasp

of our breathing, the frantic beating of my pulse like a

drum in my ears. All the pain fades, all the memories dis-

appear, the world becomes a faint blur at the edges of my

consciousness. All there is is the here and now and Kit

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and the fire in my body. It’s a feeling I don’t ever want to

stop, that I focus on with all my might, because on the

other side is only grief and darkness.

We fumble with each other’s clothes. I forget the shirt

and tear at his belt and he gives up trying to undo my

dress and instead just lifts the skirt and pulls my under-

wear roughly aside. Without a word exchanged, both of

us breathing hard, Kit lifts me onto the dresser, shoving

all the things on top of it to the side. I wrap my legs

around his waist, desperate to draw him inside me, my

hands tugging at him, and in the next moment he pushes

into me.

I let out a cry that’s half anguish and half ecstasy. Kit

drives into me with a grunt and I grip his shoulders and

throw my head back. He kisses my neck, bites me, sucks

hard enough that I cry out again. He pulls me to him, his

hands gripping my thighs, holding me in place, forcing a

pace that’s taking me quickly to the edge. I’m happily

free-falling again, tumbling down into an abyss, but one

that feels like oblivion, one where pain doesn’t exist.

I open my eyes and see Kit has his eyes screwed shut.

I whisper his name and they flash open and we stare

at each other, both of us panting, sweating, trembling,

and I see, even through the desire dulling his eyes, how

haunted he looks beneath it, how he’s not fully with me

but someplace else, and with a jolt I’m brought right back

to the moment as the memories start to flood in. I

close my eyes and turn my head away from him, not will-

ing to be drawn back there just yet, wanting to hold onto

the feeling of Kit inside me, wanting to recapture the pos-

sibility of oblivion, wanting, above all, to forget.

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Kit

She turns her head away, squeezing her eyes shut, and

the action jars me. She can’t even look at me. Driven by

something I don’t have words for, I lift her off the dresser,

turn her around so she has her back to me, and then push

inside her again. This way she doesn’t have to see my

face.

She gasps loudly, a sound I know well, bending for-

wards and bracing herself against the top of the dresser. It

spurs me on and so I put my hands on her back and drive

into her harder – harder than I’ve ever done before – not

wanting to hurt her but because I can’t stop myself, and

because she seems to need it like this as much as I do, and

I’m lost in her, totally fucking lost in her, can’t get enough

of the feel of being inside her after so long. For the first

time in five days my brain empties; the screams and cries

stop echoing, my muscles stop trembling, the pain eases.

Jessa lets out another cry. Her muscles contract tight