Black (26 page)

Both of us drop into the lake. His body slams into mine, pushing me under the water. It hurts to try to swim upward. My chest is still sore from my surgeries.

I reach the top, gasping for air, looking around for Liam. I can’t find him. I swim under the surface, searching for him as best I can, but coming up each time with nothing. My breath starts coming in short bursts as I realize I can never find him in this place. I swim the area of the lake, my chest hurting and pulling with each stroke I take. I don’t think it’s the pain from the surgery, it’s the pain from him. Like a knife stabbing me, again, and again. I circle it three times, finding no trace of him.

My eyes are now covered with tears, the water melding them together. I can barely see as I try to pull myself up. Hoping that Ru is there to give me the same death he just installed on Liam. A hand reaches for me, pulling me from the lake. I thrash at it, hoping to pull it in with me, but it yells at me.

“Stop, Rose!” I realize it’s not Ru. It’s Jake. He picks me up and carries me to his truck. I look outside, my tears blurring my vision as I watch a car go up in flames. Then alone, by itself is Liam’s truck. Just like he is, alone.

I try to tell him. I point, point to the lake. Jake throws his shoes and shirt off, chucks me his phone and runs back to the lake. I hear him scream his name, hear his thrashing around in the water, hoping and praying for the best. I call the police, my voice not being able to get the words out.

I move to the edge where he fell. I look at that spot. That spot that will hold different feelings compared to what they used to. They will now hold my nightmares, of that I am sure. My hands shake as I lean on them, water drops to them, except, it’s not water it’s my tears. They are falling so slowly I don’t even realize it. The pain is consuming me, holding me in its vice grip, strangling the life from me. I don’t know how to handle it. How to work through it. I can’t stop the tears, can’t stop the knife that won’t stop stabbing my heart.

I manage to get up and walk back, to see Jake diving in and out of the water. Searching and looking just the same way I was. I call to him, he stops. He’s been in there so long his hands are wrinkled from the water. He looks to me before he pulls himself out. His hands circle me and we both cry—cry for Liam.

I don’t sleep, I can’t. Jake stays with me, even when I tell him to go. Divers have been in the river for days searching for him. They haven’t found anything and have called off the search. They suggest we have a burial. A burial with no body? I won’t do it, I can’t do it.

“You’re pregnant?” Jake asks, his mouth stitched up. He hasn’t spoken much. He holds my phone in his hand and looks at me open mouthed. I nod my head and he shakes his. He storms from the room, comes back with a plate full of food, sits it in front of me and tells me to eat. He sits there watching until I take my first bite, the first in two days.

I have done nothing but cry. I cry myself to sleep, cry when I shower, cry when I look at my room. I don’t know how I have any tears left, or how they’re still able to produce so much moisture when there’s nothing left in me. Nothing but a shell of a person.

I end up sleeping that night, but the nightmares take over, and I wake not even an hour later screaming. Jake runs into the room, sees me crying and climbs into bed with me. He places a pillow between us and pulls me in, wrapping his hand around my waist. Making me feel safe, and for the first time I sleep for longer than a few hours.

Some days I don’t move. Other days I move to the bathroom floor and lay there all day, with moments where my head is over the toilet bowl. The tears have slowed, the pain never leaving. I tend to cry myself to sleep. Hoping and praying for a miracle. It never comes. Police say they haven’t found Ru, but Jake smirks every time they say that because he told me he took care of it. And I don’t want to know any more than that.

Months start to blur, and before I know it I’m big. My heart and head are still a mess. Jake has become my safe zone, my ‘
I’m okay for now’
zone. He helps with the kids, helps with me. Even though he doesn’t have to. He calms me down when I wake screaming most nights, reminding me that I’m still alive and that I can do this. Even when I feel like I can’t. He has simply become my best friend, and I didn’t even know it.

I found out it’s a boy today, and I told Jake I’m calling him Liam. Jake smiled a sad smile and walked away. I forget that sometimes I’m not the only one hurting, I forget that his love for him was just as strong. He sometimes screams in his sleep, and I wake to a wet pillow as I listen to him. Unable to help him, not knowing how to. I can’t even help myself, let alone someone else.

Today I had Liam, a beautiful, healthy baby boy. Jake cried, his first ever tears, then tears came from everyone else including me. The grief hit me hard in that moment, realizing he’d never meet his father, get to know the great man that saved me on multiple occasions and without a second thought.

I still cry myself to sleep almost every night. Especially as I watch Liam grow, watch his green eyes penetrate mine with love. He has the eyes of his father, just without the hardness.

I hear Jake and Hayden tell Liam stories at night, and watch as Isabelle listens to them too. I stand behind like I can’t hear them as they say great things about him. I usually cry then too. I’ve never cried so much in all my life, it feels like my soul is forever weeping, wanting that something back that’s missing. But it knows it can’t, so it breaks and breaks a little more each and every day.

One day I think I will be okay, one day I don’t think I will cry. One day I will meet him again, and that day is the day I hope for most. Even if it’s a long time away.

I wake in sweats most nights, that night never leaving me. Always dread in me, pulling me back. That night was one of nightmares, one that I can’t help but relive, over and over again. Even when I look at my son, who has Liam’s green eyes, I think back to those haunted green eyes, and how they were always so closed off from the rest of the world. How no one wanted anything to do with him. He’s bad, they would say. He is evil, he can’t love. They were all wrong. None of them knew him, none of them cared for him like I did.

He was just a nightmare they told their kids about, except he’s my nightmare every night as I watch him fall. Fall into that blackness. Knowing that there was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could have done to stop that night. Somehow press rewind, to make it so we never went there, to make it so we were safe.

Jake walks into my house with Hayden attached firmly to him. Jake has become the father figure to Liam, which my Liam couldn’t be. There’s nothing with me and Jake. Actually, I’ve never moved on from Liam. I can’t, he has that major piece of my soul. And the thought of another man just causes me agony, extreme agony.

“You didn’t teach him any bad habits did you?” I say to the boys. Hayden walks over and kisses my cheek.

“No, Mom. Uncle Jake was just teaching me how to shoot.” I grab the knife I’m using and point it at Jake. He holds his hands up and starts shaking his head.

“Told ya I’d get you back,” Hayden yells as he walks away. I drop the knife from his face and go back to cutting the veggies.

“Why did he get you back?” I ask. These two are terrible. I am gonna hate to see when Liam is older.

“I told the girl he likes that he wants to bone her.”

“You what?” He smiles like he’s proud.

“Jake…” I warn him, and he shrugs his shoulders, knowing he’s wrong. Jake is now the Pres of the Coffin Soldiers MC. He has changed it significantly and it’s nothing like it used to be. Hell, it’s an entirely different chapter. They do children runs, where they ride to donate money for sick and foster kids for Christmas. They have family days now at the clubhouse, which is now Liam’s old house. It took me years to be able to go to that house, to even think about that house. It holds him in it, in the walls, in his room. Though Jake refuses to change that room and I still haven’t stepped in there.

His mouth never healed properly, it’s still scarred deeply. I’m sure there’s more, but he just won’t talk about it and I don’t pry. He has his own demons and I have mine.

“Where’s my princess?” He coos to Isabelle sitting on the couch watching television. She hears him and turns, smiling brightly. She’s taken to him better than anyone since Liam’s been gone.

We don’t see Roger much, he finally got his payment from his inheritance and has left the country. He’ll ring once a year on her birthday, send a present, and that’s about his extent of him being a father goes. It doesn’t bother me, I think she’s better off without that man. But a girl needs a father, and that’s where I’m thankful for Jake. He does those things for her, takes her to her father-daughter dances, talks to her about boys even though his words are harsh.

“You thinking of dating a boy, you bring him to me.” She knows what he’s like, how protective he is. She says that’s not something she will ever do. Then he went into a description of what he would say and do to
‘said’
boy for when she wants to date. Which, I hope, is years and years from now.

Casey and Sax are on their third child. Casey is a stay at home mother now and is driving Sax crazy. She wants more kids, but he’s had enough. He told me about that night, about how he helped Jake, but didn’t give me many details because the details he mentioned were harsh enough.

I see Robbie occasionally, and he’s now married. He actually met Narina at my work, and they have been together for two years. And I thank God for him as well, with all the help he’s given me as well as my family. I don’t want to know where I would be without any of them.

Jake suggested for Liam’s birthday today I go to the lake. I shook my head at him when he suggested it, but it will help me. It’s a place I can talk to him. I’ve never had that place before. Nothing but memories and ghosts.