I Found You (42 page)

I tilted up her chin with my fingers, kissed her, and then whispered over her lips, “Do you know I fancy having you up against this railing. You could sit on it.”

She gave me a measuring look before laughing. “That isn’t happening. There are a hundred CCTV cameras around here.”

“Ah, damn, and here I was hoping you would be feeling a little reckless.”

“That isn’t funny, and it still wouldn’t be happening.”

My cell rang.

I looked down when I drew it out my pocket, then up at Rachel. “Mom? Hi, what is it?”

“I’ve been talking to your father, Jason, and we both agree you should come home.”

“Come home?” My eyebrows lifted as I passed the message on to Rach.

“Yes, dear. You and Rachel. You can work in the store again, and we can help with the baby. And maybe you can consider your father’s offer and take over the store? We’ll help you find a house here…”

“Take over the store?”

Rachel’s eyebrows lifted.

“Yes, dear. Isn’t that the best option?”

“Possibly. I’ll need to talk it over with Rachel. It was hard for her at Christmas, and with her bipolar, I don’t want her upset.”

“Well, we can ensure people understand, now. We will make everyone aware Rachel had no malice when the two of you started. We’ll tell everyone that we were wrong.”

I said nothing for a moment, just looked at Rachel. She was silent, listening, though she probably couldn’t hear.

“I’ll speak to Rach, and call you back. But thank you for offering. I’ll call you in a bit. Will you be up?”

“We’ll stay up, honey.”

“Okay, I’ll speak to you in a while.”

I ended the call and looked at Rachel. “What do you think? She said if we go back, they’ll help us get our own place, and they’d be there if you need help with the baby, Rach. Plus, if I’m going to just take any job, it may as well be in the store.”

“You want to go, don’t you?”

I nodded. The idea of being home again, in a place I knew, burned inside me suddenly.

Rachel took the cell from my hand.

She looked up at me as she lifted it to her ear, having made the call.

“Hi, Mrs. Macinlay. He says thank you, yes, he’d love to be able to come home and work in the store. It’s his
dream
…” she ended with a bright smile, to mock me.

I laughed.

“But I’ve got one condition. Jason wants to be able to work with his dad in the office at the back of the store. He can learn to manage it, but he wants to have his own computer out there, so he can set up an internet magazine as well. I’ll work in the store if that’s okay, so he’ll get time to do it.”

I loved this girl.

“Rachel, you are crazy.” Jason whispered.

“Not regarding this,” I answered, with his mother still on the end of the cell.

“Regarding, what, dear?” she said, sounding confused.

“He called me, crazy,” I answered. “I’m not. What he really wants is to have the store
and
a magazine.”

“And you, dear, I think
you
come into what he really wants, too, and I believe that’s what we all want; what is best for Jason. So, yes, he shall have his own desk and computer, and you can work in the store, and we will
all
be happy.”

I laughed. “Thank you, Mrs. Macinlay.”

“If you don’t feel comfortable calling me
Mom
at least call me Ester, Rachel dear. You are my daughter-in-law, you can’t keep calling me, Mrs. Macinlay.”

I smiled, as Jason watched me, obviously wondering what his Mom was saying.

“Thank you,
Ester
.” Jason’s eyebrows lifted and he smiled. “I really appreciate you helping us out.”

“Well you are very welcome, dear, and I am very sorry we got you so wrong at Christmas. We shall make amends when you come back. Goodnight dear.”

“Goodnight.”

I felt tears in my eyes again, and Jason took the cell from my hand.

“Hey Mom, what Rach said. I’ll book the flights tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know.” He looked at me his eyes dark and glowing. “She is a great girl, isn’t she? And I
am
lucky to have found her.”

“Night, Mom. Say thanks to Dad too.”

He hung up. We stood, looking at each other.

He took my hand, and I remembered him taking it when I’d sat in the bath, and he was a stranger, and being intensely aware of his gentleness.

We were going to be happy.

Everything was going to be alright.

~

I couldn’t sleep; my mind was spinning with everything going on. I’d have to hand in my notice in the morning, and I was gonna be moving to a town where a ton of people hated me. I looked over at Jason. All I could see was the outline of his head against the white pillow in the dark. I might as well get up. It was either that or I woke him up. I wasn’t gonna get back to sleep.

As I walked around the mattress to get out of the room, I grabbed up a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt from a pile of clean washing he hadn’t put away. I’d play on his Xbox or something. It would distract my head.

I looked back at Jason as I quietly opened the door. I could hear his breathing, but he was fast asleep. I slipped out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me.

My hands were shaking when I turned on the water. I reached for a glass and filled it. I could feel the turbulence of energy inside me. Just a couple of days more and I’d find out about my meds, but I knew it was gonna be complex now I was pregnant, yet there was a fear growing inside me that something would tip off balance within me and I’d lose control completely. I didn’t want it to happen around Jason. My breathing was getting odd again, I felt like I couldn’t get the air into my lungs.

I sipped the water trying to keep calm, and then I forced myself to breathe out fully, a long breath, like I was blowing into a paperback, that meant I drew a long breath back in.

I tipped the rest of the water down the sink and left the glass on the side, then walked over to the TV to set up a game. But as I did, I glanced out the long window. There was a car in the street below. It was parked up with its lights on, on the opposite side of the street. I watched it; it didn’t move, and the lights didn’t go off.

My heart pulsed harder, as the nearest rear door opened.

Shit.

Jason’s apartment was five floors up, I couldn’t really see… I didn’t know… But… I did know. I knew exactly who it was. I had known probably from the first moment I’d spotted the car.
What the fuck was Declan doing here?

Without stopping to consider it, I turned to go downstairs. I never even put shoes on. I just pulled the door open and walked out. It banged shut behind me. I sped up, and started almost running downstairs. I couldn’t take the elevator. I needed to burn energy. I ran down all five flights, my feet chilled by the concrete steps and my palm running over the metal rail. The scar on my hand felt really sensitive as it skimmed over the cold metal.

Still hurrying, I pulled the glass door at the front open, and as soon as I came out I saw
him.
He was about to press the buzzer, he didn’t when he saw me. But then immediately, I realized what I’d done wrong. The other doors of the car opened.

Shit
.

“Hey,” two of the guys called from across the road.

“Suitably dressed…” Declan spoke.

Oh my God.
He was high, he’d taken cocaine. I knew the look in his eyes. He was off his head, they all were…

The others were crossing the road as Declan reached out for me, trying to grip my arm, but I stepped back, sliding on the ice, only now feeling how cold it was on the soles of my feet.

I lifted my hand crying out, “Stay away!” when he tried to grab me.

My hand pressed against the wall to stop me falling.

“You came down.” Declan laughed. “You must want it…”

Tears tangled with a scream getting caught in my throat, blocking my airway, as I faced the person I used to be. No!

“Don’t you want to party?” One of the others said. They were all dressed in dark suits. They’d come from a club, and I knew which one. I recognized the guy. I recognized them all.

“Come on.” The guy who’d got out of the passenger seat of the car, beckoned with his fingers. “Declan told us he found you. We fancy a bit of auld lang syne.”

I shook my head, stepping back. But by looking at them, I hadn’t been looking at Declan. He’d got closer. By the time I noticed, and tried to turn and get behind the door, he was too close. He caught hold of my arm before I could move.

Leave me alone!
My fear snapped to anger, like he’d clicked it from one to the other, and I swung out. I didn’t know what I’d done until the moment the blow hit. I slapped his face, and the sound rang back from the apartment blocks lining the street. Stupid, stupid… I’d forgotten this life.

“Just like old times,” he hissed, the second before he struck me back. It was a hard weight that came into the side of my head, deafening me for a moment and knocking my head to the side. Bile rose in my throat but I swallowed it back.

That was the instant that Jason came through the door. Like some sort of battering ram, he charged past me and drove into Declan, knocking him to the floor and falling onto him. My heart pounded as I watched, terrified again. But Jason was fitter, younger and faster, and he rose quickly, kneeling astride Declan to thrust a sharp punch into his jaw and then a second into his ribs. I saw the impact jolt Declan’s body; even his legs jerked.

Jason rose, straightening up and stepping back, giving Declan no time to respond. He stood in front of me, shielding me, like he’d done in a much less aggressive way so many times.

He was wearing his jeans, but at least unlike me he’d shoved his feet into sneakers, though the laces trailed. He was breathing hard, and his breath misted in the air.

Declan groaned, moving.

Jason’s hands lifted palm outward as the other guys looked up from Declan to him. “I’ve got no argument with you, if you go… Just go.”

Declan sat up in the street, touching his bloody lip. He started laughing. Of course, he didn’t feel the pain, the ton of cocaine he’d taken probably blocked it out. It would hurt like hell in the morning. The other guys looked down at him again then at Jason and started laughing too.

Jason had a naked torso, it was four on one, and I’d lay odds one or more of these guys were carrying knives or even guns. I should know; I’d had numerous blades and guns pulled on me in the last year when Declan and his friends were drunk or drugged up. Image after image was replaying in my head, reminding me. One night, one of them had held the flat blade of a knife against my cheek the whole time…

“Jason,” I whispered. Recalling everything I’d let these guys do to me.

He glanced back. “Just go inside.” Then he looked back at them and said, “You ought to know, I called the cops.”

My heart was pounding. I couldn’t leave him. They could kill him before the cops got here. “Jason.” I whispered, trying to warn him, the painful memories of the past year filling my head … 

This is where it had begun with Declan, in the club they’d come from. I wasn’t suffering with hypomania, I don’t think I’d ever suffered with that, but I was pretty manic when I met him. I’d had girlfriends at the time. I’d met them working in a store. I’d been so full of myself then. I was elated ‘cause I’d managed to bribe my way into the V.I.P. area at this one club, by sleeping with the security guy. I’d done it night after night, after that.

This one night I took the girls from work, to show them how cool I was. They weren’t impressed with me taking the security guy into the bathroom, and when Declan and his friends had come over, offering us a line or two of cocaine and a good time, I tried to pressure them to say
yes
and do it with me, both the drugs and the sex.

That was the point they’d left. I hadn’t cared. I’d told Declan I could take them all on myself. They’d taken me at my word.

I didn’t know anything about anything after that for what seemed weeks. I’d totally lost it.

It was only when my mood brought me down, and I came around sitting on a floor in the corner, naked and shaking and feeling like using one of the guns they’d used on me to blow my brains out, or their brains out, that I realized what I’d got involved in. But I didn’t get out. He’d just given me stuff to convince me to stay, and a credit card so I could spend whatever I liked. I remembered the first day, deciding I wanted a bracelet, and then buying fifty once I’d picked out the trays, ‘cause I could and I couldn’t chose just one. His anger after that had provoked me into doing similar things again and again.

Then there had been more and more sex, and always the sex had pulled me out of, or into, moods, like it charged me with energy or knocked it out of me––until the last night, when after the others had left he’d begun again, and I’d had enough.

“Rach…” Jason said sharply, like he’d said it before, pulling me out of my memories. “Go in.” His voice was getting more insistent, but I could be stubborn too. I wasn’t gonna leave him out here. He wouldn’t leave me in trouble, and this was my mess, not his. I shook my head.

“You don’t want to be with this piece of nothing…” Declan laughed, as the other guys got closer.

Jason wasn’t nothing, Jason was
everything
, he was worth a dozen of the fortunes Declan had. “I’m only going in if you come too, Jason.” My tears sounded in my voice.

Why had I ever let these people touch me? Lord, maybe the child wasn’t even Declan’s, most of the time the others had used condoms, but when I’d been high…

“Jason, come with me.” He was standing like an iron statue in my defense while the guys had him half-ringed, one on every side. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving… “Jason?” I couldn’t leave him. I stepped forward and slipped my fingers into his hand.

I’d been cold and empty the night he’d found me on the bridge. I was full now, filled with him. I’d have a family, and a home. I wasn’t gonna leave him, I wasn’t gonna let him go. I wanted to be happy.

“Go away,” I said in a shaky voice. They all looked at me, like I was a piece of meat and they were hungry. But that was what drugs did to you, they made you base. Sadly that was what bipolar could do to you too. I gripped Jason’s hand tighter. His was holding mine with a grip of warm steel, braced and ready to pull me out of the way if he had to. I gathered courage and my voice grew in volume. “
Go away
. I’m not interested. Just go away.” My words broke at the end, but it told them I was serious.