Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(52)
“No!” He places a hand on my uninjured cheek. “Because I want you here; the house is weird since I got back from the States. Empty.”
“Heard it before, Jem. This time you don’t get the kiss.” I twist my head so he’s no longer touching my cheek. “You’re screwing around with my feelings and I can’t do it! I have enough shit to deal with; I haven’t got time for yours.”
He closes the door and rests against it, looking straight into my eyes, something he normally avoids. “I dream about Liv.”
“That’s supposed to endear me to you, is it?”
Jem continues to hold my gaze and I can’t look away. This is the other Jem; the one I’m beginning to suspect only I see. “I have nightmares; the scene is on repeat in my head. Trying to wake Liv up and the gut-wrenching realisation, she was dead. It consumes me, Ruby. She’s with me all the time. Everything reminds me of her, that’s why you do too!”
“I’m not her!” I say through clenched teeth.
“Can you begin to understand what her dying did to me?” he shouts, and then lowers his voice as I stumble back. “Everyone thought Jem Jones didn’t give a f-uck, but I was terrified. Guilty. They cleared my name, but I did it, Ruby. I hurt her and she took the drugs. It wasn’t an accident.”
“How could you know that? They said it was just a straightforward accidental overdose. Nothing else was found to indicate differently, I remember reading about it.”
“She left a note blaming me. Nobody else knows about it. I took the letter and destroyed it before anyone else could see; but I’ll never forget the words on the page.”
“That doesn’t make it your fault. She was on the edge before you met her.”
Jem’s paled; hands shaking and I take one. “Jem, why have you never told anyone?”
“How can I? I’m not being judged anymore!”
“Look at the mess you’re in over it. The guilt is eating you. People who know you and care won’t judge you. What the hell does it matter what strangers think?”
Like the rest of the world, I thought I knew Jem Jones. Then I met Jem and saw who he is, parts of him I doubt anybody else does. Yet, there’s so much buried beneath the broken pieces nobody sees, not even me. His eyes are vacant and Jem’s somewhere else, the space he shouldn’t go to. I place a hand on his cheek and he blinks back to me.
“You’re not responsible for another person’s mental health; you weren’t responsible for her death.”
“If I’d got there sooner…”
“But you didn’t. Okay, you had a fight, but that’s not the only reason Liv chose to do what she did. It’s a shit situation and it’s hurt a lot of people, but it wasn’t your fault.”
“It f-ucking hurts.” He grips my hand. “Everywhere hurts, and then I’m with you and the ache goes away. But that terrifies me because even though I’m happier when you’re here, there’s also need, jealousy and fear filling the space the hurt once did. How are they any better?”
“They’re not.”
“So that’s why I want to be numb. Feeling nothing is better than feeling that shit.”
“You’re not thinking about…”
Jem drops my hand and shoves his hands into his pockets. “No! I’m done with drugs. I need to learn to control the thoughts myself. I can’t give in to my emotions.”
This is the core of who he is and who he needs to fight. This man was emotionally dead; how long for, I don’t know. Then something triggered negative reactions, and by shutting down to avoid the hurt, he can’t let himself feel the good too. My chest tightens because I know I’m the same and his words hit that home.
“You can’t stop yourself feeling, Jem. Even if you shut the world out, there’s another in your head and that place is harsher than the world you avoid.”
He steps forward, back into my space, our space, the one between us we refuse to cross. “I don’t want to replace one hurt with another, Ruby. I don’t want to go down the same route. You overwhelm me because I’m a different person around you. You see the real me and understand, never judge. I’m happy with you. But if I let you in and you leave, it would f-ucking kill me…”
My heart pushes against my chest, as if wanting Jem to take hold of it the way I know he already has. His words reach my ears, but I can’t take them in. Nobody has told me I mean something; that I make them happy. How can this mess of a girl in front of him be that?
Jem winds a hand into my hair and rests his forehead on mine. I flinch at his skin touching the graze on my forehead. “I want you. I want you so f-ucking much. You’re me. I thought you were the f*cked up, broken me, but you’re not. You’re the talented, strong, and determined person I once was. So much about us is the same – not just the bad.” He inhales a shaky breath. “You’re not Liv. You just kicked that truth into my dumb head.”
Hesitantly, Jem kisses the uninjured edge of my mouth, then presses his lips against my cheek, holding the back of my head gently as his mouth remains there, as close as he can get without causing pain. I want to cry because I want Jem to hold and kiss me, and I ignore the urge to push him away because he could hurt physically and emotionally if he closes me out again. Jem wraps his arms around me, carefully as if I might snap if he hugs too tight, and strokes my hair. Unable to hold back anymore, I rest against Jem’s lean body, my face against his neck, my senses closed off from anything but the safety in his arms that he pulled me to last night.