To Love Jason Thorn (3 page)

“No need to be. Come and get us if you need
anything, all right? I don’t think we’ll go to sleep for a few hours yet.” A
gentle tug at my hair and he was gone.

I waited a few minutes before I padded back
upstairs.

Just as I was about to go into my room and
run for the phone, Dylan peeked out of his room.

“What are you doing, Olive?”

Damn it! Didn’t he have anything else to do
other than make my life miserable?

“What are
you
doing?” I asked back,
a little peeved and a little nervous.

He cocked his head, his eyebrows knitted.

“Go back to bed, Olive. It’s late.”

“I was doing exactly that before you
stopped me.” I lifted the water bottle in my hand so he could see. “I went
downstairs to get a drink, Dylan. I wasn’t doing anything.”

Neither one of us backed up. Just because
his friend was staying over, I couldn’t leave my room to get a drink?

“Leave her alone, man.” I heard Jason’s
voice coming from behind Dylan.

“Goodnight, Dylan,” I said at last, then
slipped into my room without waiting for an answer. Who knew what was up his
ass…

Jumping into my bed, I searched for the
phone under my covers and had a small freak out when I couldn’t find it. I
relaxed when I realized it was under my pillow.

The silly excitement rushing over me once
again, I checked the messages only to find no new text messages from Jason.

Settling down, I told myself that I would
only send one other text and then maybe try my luck in the morning before
Amanda came to get the phone.

Me: What? No guesses? I’m surprised.

Jason: Sorry, I was busy. Which game were we
playing again?

Seeing my first opening, I couldn’t help
myself and jumped on it. Would he mention me?

Me: Busy? Busy with what? Already found a
new friend, huh? You really are quick.

Jason: You amuse me. I was cornered by
Dylan’s sister. Not exactly in the arms of another girl.

Not knowing my heart was about to get
broken for the very first time, I swallowed the pain the word ‘cornered’ had
caused and forced myself to text him back.

Me: It’s almost 2 AM, and you were with
Dylan’s sister? This sounds good. Do tell me more.

Jason: She is just a little kid. A clingy
one maybe, since she always follows me around, but still a kid. She sometimes
forgets that. I’m much more interested in who you are. I’m ready to play. Are
you ready to be discovered by me?

I read the text a thousand times, or maybe
it was a million. A tear escaped from the corner of my eye, and I drew the
covers over myself and lay back.

Gently, I put the phone down and pushed the
covers off of my face to stare at my dark ceiling. At some point it buzzed with
two new messages, but I ignored them. No, that’s not true, I remember reaching
for the phone and deleting everything before the unexpected words could hurt me
again, but at that point it was all blurry for me. I couldn’t read them even if
I wanted to torture myself.

Clingy?

Cornered?

My heart broken into pieces, suddenly I
couldn’t bear to see Jason in the morning. Couldn’t bear to sleep in the room
across from him again.

Swinging my legs down from the bed, I
didn’t realize I had kicked my own phone into my closet door.

Seconds later, Dylan burst into my room.

“Did you hea—Olive, what happened?”

Wiping at my tears, I looked up at my
brother and more fresh tears slid down my already wet cheeks.

When he sat down on my bed and gently put
his hand on my back, I threw my arms around him and hid my face in his neck.
His arms came around me.

Warm and safe.

I heard footsteps at my door, but I was too
scared to lift my head and come face to face with Jason. I didn’t think I would
ever be able to look him in the eye again.

My breath hitching against Dylan’s neck, I
said, “I’m sorry, just a bad dream.”

“It’s okay, little sis,” Dylan said. He
hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry, too.”

The next few days were pure hell for me, having
Jason sleep right across the room from mine, sitting right next to him at the
dinner table. The worst was when I looked at him and found him smiling at me
but knew it meant nothing at all.

Maybe it never had.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes
was Emily’s worried face hovering over me.

“Good morning,” I said, yawning through the
words. “What time is it? Did we miss breakfast?” Sitting up on the makeshift
bed I’d made use of almost every other day for the last seven years, I rubbed
my eyes and tried to wake up.

“Jason. Honey.” I heard Emily’s struggle
with those simple words and became alert at once.

Then my gaze fell on Dylan, who was sitting
on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. I looked up and saw his father,
Logan Taylor—a fireman, a man I respected more than my old man—standing in the
doorway. His eyes were as hard as steel.

“What’s going on?” I asked no one in
particular as something ugly started to find its way into me.

Emily, the woman I loved quite possibly
more than my own mom, sat down next to me and gripped my hand in her small,
delicate one. She had burn marks on that arm, almost up to her shoulder, but
they never bothered me like they surprisingly bothered a lot of people, young
and
old.

“Jason, I don’t know how to say this.”

Another burst of silence.

“Can someone please say
something
?
Dylan? What’s going on, man?” Still no sound. “Okay, you guys are starting to
scare me.”

“Logan,” Emily murmured next to me, her
eyes desperately focused on her husband.

Dylan’s father shook his head, dropped his
arms, and stepped into the room to sit next to Dylan, right across from me.

When my best friend lifted his head, I saw
his bloodshot eyes.

My gaze went back to his father’s steely
ones. They were easier to look at. Anger was always easier to handle than
emotion; I had learned that from my own family.

“I’m ready,” I said, keeping my eyes on
Logan. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

I didn’t know it, but I was not actually ready
for the words he would give me. Nowhere near ready.

“Son,” he started, because that’s what I
was to him. “You can handle this.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

“Your mother overdosed on her sleeping
pills last night. She is gone.”

I blinked, once.

I nodded.

My voice thick and rough, I asked, “Who
found her?”

“Apparently your father came back from his
trip this morning. He called an ambulance, but Lorelai was already gone.”

“I understand. Where is my father?”

“He is at the hospital. I talked to him a
few minutes ago.”

Helpless, I nodded again. What else could I
do? What else was I supposed to do?

“Thank you,” I said, giving Emily’s hand a
quick squeeze. “Thank you for being the ones to tell me.”

Every single person in the room I was
sitting in had been more of a family to me than my own could ever be. I
appreciated the fact that I could see the concern in their eyes, their concern
for me. I never saw anything even close to it in my own mother’s eyes. Her
alcohol meant more to her than her own son.

I slowly got up. “I should get back…home, I
guess.”

But I had never had a home, had I? This was
a home. The house across the street? Not so much.

Dylan and Logan got up with me, but I
looked down at Mrs. Taylor. Her eyes were full of tears. She had the same shade
of green eyes as her daughter, just as striking as Olive’s. It was soothing to
look at.

I leaned down and, surprising myself,
brushed a small kiss on her cheek.

“Please don’t cry, Emily. It’s okay. It’ll
be okay.”

It sounded more like a question to my ears.

She slowly got up and brushed a tear away,
my tear. I wasn’t even aware that I was crying. Her warm hand cupped my cheek
and she stared right into my eyes. “Of course it will be okay, Jason. You have
us.”

I nodded.

Unexpectedly, I found myself in Dylan’s
arms next. “I’m so sorry, man,” he said, holding on to me. I felt Emily’s hand
at my back, a soothing caress. Logan was standing next to us, watching over his
family.

I was family to them.

I’d earned that place among them.

***

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here
and finish school with Dylan? I can talk to your dad again,” offered Logan.

The Taylor family was out on their front
lawn. Even little Olive had come out to say goodbye with tear-filled eyes. I
smiled at her. I could see sparkles in her eyes, sad sparkles maybe, but
sparkles nonetheless. She was so full of life and had the most beautiful,
captivating green eyes. So rich and alive. The kind that you looked at and let
yourself happily drown in. I knew some idiot was bound to break her heart very
soon, but I wouldn’t be there to protect her heart right alongside her brother.
I wouldn’t be with the people I considered my family.

Instead, I would be in Los Angeles living
in an unfamiliar house with a stranger I called Dad who I had never had the
chance to get to know. For a quick second I wondered if he was blaming himself
for her death. He certainly hadn’t been there when his presence could’ve made a
difference. Maybe the ending wouldn’t have changed, maybe a few years down we
would’ve still ended up in the same situation, but we would never know. It was
too late for everything.

As for what I thought…I blamed life, and
him. He was the one who’d chosen to leave us behind when he could’ve been a
lawyer in San Francisco just as easily. He was the one who’d chosen to ignore
my mother’s quickly deteriorating mental health, or depression, whatever you
wanted to call it. And then he’d been the one who’d ignored me when I said his
wife was becoming an alcoholic.

In the end, the choices they had made were
changing my life.

“He isn’t changing his mind. Believe me, I
tried,” I said finally.

I shrugged. Everything had changed except
my dad’s decision: we were leaving. Or, more accurately, he was
forcing
me to leave everything behind.

Kicking at the grass under my foot, I
stopped in front of Emily, the kindest, most caring human being. A mother who
could never be truly mine.

“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted,
words burning in my chest as my eyes continued to look down at my sneakers.

“Jason?”

Warm, gentle hands cupped my face and
looked into my eyes.

“Do you remember what I said to you the
first time we met?” She smiled, her eyes shining just like her daughter’s.
“You’re always welcome here. That will never change. Los Angeles isn’t that far
away; I’m expecting you to come back whenever you want to or need to. Do you
hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I don’t know how to thank
you for everything you’ve done for me, for everything you’ve been for me.”

“I don’t need a thank you, Jason. Just make
sure you come back to us.” She hesitated, only for half a second, then pulled
me down and kissed my cheeks. “Make sure you take care of yourself.” One last
look in my eyes, and she let me go.

I wished she wouldn’t.

“Son,” Logan said as he gave me a quick,
unexpected hug. “You heard what Emily said, this is your home too. And you
always come back to your home. Don’t forget that. We will miss you.”

It seemed like I wasn’t capable of doing
anything other than nod that day.

I glanced at Olive and despite my
situation, my lips tipped up.

“Cat got your tongue, too, huh?” She just
stared at me with those sad, sad eyes. Olive Taylor always had something to say—always.
“You’ve got nothing to say, little one?” I asked, chuckling, the sound
completely wrong and rough.

“I’m really sorry about your mom, but I
hope you’ll be happy in LA.”

The cold tone and what I was seeing in her
eyes didn’t match, but before I could say anything, Dylan got up from the steps
he was sitting on and Olive hugged her dad’s waist, shutting me out.

Even so, I reached out and gently touched
her soft hair, tugging it gently before letting it go for the last time.

“I hope so too. And thank you, little one,
I will never forget you.”

A tear slid down from her eye, and before I
knew what I was doing, I reached out to capture it with my fingertip.

She closed her eyes and hugged her dad
tighter when I touched her, but didn’t say anything.

I looked at the teardrop that rested on my
fingertip for a long time and felt a tug on my heartstrings.

“Man,” Dylan said, saving me from my
confusing thoughts.

I released a big breath and dropped my
finger.

“This sucks,” he said.

I chuckled. “You’re tellin me.”

“I want you to come back the first chance
you get, and you are keeping in touch.”

I snapped a sharp salute, causing his mouth
to twitch.

Hitting my chin with his knuckles, he
groaned. “Oh, man. I can’t believe I’m gonna miss seeing your shitty face every
day.”

“Dylan!” Emily admonished.

“Sorry, Mom.” Rubbing the back of his neck,
Dylan looked at me sheepishly. “We’ll talk?”

“We’ll talk,” I promised.

“Jason,” my father called out from the car
waiting across the street.

“I better go,” I said, taking a few steps
back.

Giving Dylan a quick hug and a slap on his
back, I said, “Take care of your family, man.”

“You make sure you take care of yourself,
too.”

My chest heavy, I looked at all of them one
last time and walked away. I wasn’t strong enough to stride away from them
without turning back. In the time it took me to cross the street, I looked back
three times.

Did it make me a bad person to be happy to
see them sad? Happy because I felt loved? Loved and welcome as I’d never been
before?

How they stood together as a family was burned
into my mind as a happy memory, and then I got into the car and disappeared
from their life.