Today's Promises (Promises #2)(38)

I turn the key in the ignition, the resulting click loud as a gunshot in the silence. “I’m starting the car. We can come back another time. This is clearly a bad idea.”

Jaynie grabs my forearm, keeping me from turning the key the additional click that’ll bring our rattle-trap car to life.

“No, Flynn,” she says, softly but firmly. “We’re doing this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She sighs. “But there is something I want us to do before we start searching the barn.”

“What’s that?” I ask, clueless as to what this new development could be.

Hedging, she says, “Let me start by saying this is something I think we need to do, before we do anything else. I’ve thought about this for a long while, even before we ever agreed to come back. And definitely the other day, out in that empty lot.”

“Okay…”

“It’s something I can’t do alone. And I wouldn’t want to. You need to be there with me for this to work.”

I still have no idea what she has in mind, but I tell Jaynie what I will always tell her. “Anything. I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

She slides her hand down my forearm and grasps my hand. “Follow me, then.”

We step out of the car and, with Jaynie in the lead, crawl single file through a large gaping hole in the fence.

Then, with our hands clasped in solidarity, we start up the driveway.

We pass the house, the excavating equipment long gone. The search of the old barn is clearly over.

We continue on till the work barn fades into the distance. We trudge through the fields, the grass beneath our sneakered feet dewy from the heavy evening air.

We hike all the way up to the old barn, where all this time I assumed, for no particular reason, that this is where we’d stop. But no. Right past the old structure we cruise.

Finally, when we reach the tree line, and then step onto a familiar trail in the woods, a trail we’ve traveled many, many times, I have an idea of where we’re heading. Jaynie is leading me to our secret place. We’re going to the one location on this property that we can stomach. It’s a place that has healed us many times before.

“Ah, now I understand,” I murmur.

She smiles over at me. “I knew you would.”

With the reflective silence this journey now seems to require, we walk through the forest side by side. The foliage is sparse, but the trees themselves are huge and looming, the underbrush, a tangled and thick web of brown that requires us to step over or go around every few feet.

Nothing stops us, though. We know the way.

At last, we reach the edge of a soaring cliff. It’s the same cliff Jaynie jumped from on that fateful and final night.

She lets out a shaky breath and squeezes my hand. “This is it, Flynn. This is where we parted.”

Suddenly choked up with emotion, memories race at me as fast and furious as the dark water rushing below. I raggedly confess, “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again after that night.”

Jaynie turns to face me. She takes my other hand in hers. “I wasn’t sure I’d survive that jump, either. The water was so cold.”

She shudders and I lift her hands to rest on my shoulders, my own hands finding purchase at her tiny waist.

“You did it, though, sweetheart,” I say in a hushed tone. “You survived it all, Jaynie. The jump, the water, the journey to Lawrence… And now we have our life together, just like we always planned.”

She peers up at me, shaking her head. When she finally speaks, her voice is nothing short of pained. “I wasn’t supposed to be so broken, Flynn. I never dreamed I’d end up so fully and utterly f*cked-up.”

Tears form in her eyes, turning the depths a placid green. I lose myself there for a minute, until I have to force myself back to the present.

“You’re not f*cked-up,” I adamantly declare. “And you’re not broken. You’re a girl who’s been through a lot. And you’re healing. You are. It doesn’t happen overnight, you know?”

“I know,” she says. “But I haven’t been doing much healing lately, have I? It seems for every step I take forward, I take three or more steps back. The wounds just keep ripping open wider and wider, no matter how much fixing we try to do. And what if we turn up nothing in the barn? Where does that leave me, Flynn?”

Not finding anything worthwhile in the barn is a real possibility, but I’m sick of leaving our future in fate’s hands.

“How do we stop that from happening?” I ask, desperate for answers, desperate to help this girl I love. “Your pain is mine, Jaynie,” I say, feeling myself break further. “I feel when you’re hurting. I feel when you’re sad. I feel you right now, in fact, and I know you’re f*cking dying inside, despite everything we talked about that night”

“I’m trying,” she sobs. “I’m trying so hard, for you. It just isn’t working as fast as I’d like.”

“So how can I help?” I ask. “I want to do something. I’ll do anything I can to make your pain stop.”

Grasping at my shoulders, her fingers digging into my flannel shirt, she hitches the material up.

Tilting her head back, she closes her eyes, and whispers, “Make it stop, Flynn. You have the power. In this place, you could always make me forget anything and everything. That’s why I wanted to come up here before we do anything else. That’s why you had to be with me. I need you to do what you always did to make the pain stop. Make me stronger so I can endure whatever happens, good or bad.”