Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(83)

“Don’t call anyone.” Jem’s low voice comes from the doorway behind.

“Have you been drinking?” I demand.

“No!”

“So where’d the bottle come from?”

“I didn’t drink anything, but I was f-ucking close!”

Hesitantly, I move closer but there’s no alcohol smell on his breath. The curls hang into his reddened eyes; and in them, I see a suffering my heart can’t handle; something has really hurt Jem. I reach out and touch his hand, attempting to take Jem’s fingers in mine. When he snatches his hand away and tucks both beneath his arms, backing away, the rejection hurts as much as the day he told me to leave.

“So you want me here to babysit?” I say harshly. “Wasn’t Bryn available?”

“I didn’t try Bryn. I wanted to see you,” he says in a flat voice.

“Why?”

“Because you won’t judge. You won’t push. You’ll just be.”

“I’m not staying if you don’t tell me what’s going on. You can’t randomly contact me three weeks after breaking my heart, and then expect me to be okay with it.”

Jem rubs his temples. “Breaking your heart?”

“Of course, you f-ucking did!” His eyes widen. “Jem, just tell me what’s going on.”

He mumbles something in the direction of his feet and I huff and step closer. “What?”

“I saw my mum,” he tells his feet.

His simple words smack understanding into the situation around us. “When? What did she do?”

He ignores my response. “And she died yesterday.”

Jem’s despair washes over me, sweeping away the wall, and dragging my heart back to him on the tide. I’m on the verge of breaking down with Jem because this is something that would kill me too. Jem faces a resurrection of the past, heart ripped open for one last time by the person who failed him. My mum left once and forever. Jem’s did it multiple times, mending the wound then tearing it further open each time she did it again. I had Quinn. Jem was alone.

Jem’s alone now, struggling to swim against the tide of the memories he’d fought to keep away. In front of me, the devastation drowns him, he’s fighting his pull to relapsing; but he reached out – for me.

I have no words. I grab Jem’s stiff figure and bury my face into his chest, holding as tightly as I can. I want to give Jem some of my strength, help him cope.

Jem remains stiff. “Yeah. So that.”

“I didn’t know she’d been in touch with you.”

“No. Only Dylan knows.” He disentangles himself and rests against the wall, arms tightly crossed as if he never wants to let anybody in again. A bolt of realisation hits.

“Is she Marie? Was that who I was accusing you of cheating on me with?”

“Yeah.”

“Jem. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Couldn’t.”

“Why? I’d have helped, been there for you. I care about you more than you realise. I can’t stand to think you were going through that alone.”

He peers up at me from beneath his fringe. “It hurt. I didn’t want to go back there.”

“Back where?”

“To the guy who let someone in, and then got f*cked over again.”

Every word he says adds more sense to the last few weeks but this isn’t the time to dig into there. “If you’ve finished destroying your house, will you sit and talk to me?” I ask gently.

For a moment, I think he’s going to tell me to leave again; that he’s closed down. “Jem, you asked me to come. There must be a reason.”

He nods and heads to the sofa, picking up the leather cushion and pushing it back onto the seat so he can sit. I turn the coffee table the right way up and perch on the edge.

In stilted terms, Jem gives me a bare minimum explanation about his mum’s illness, his decision to see her. Anxiety joins the words, his breath short, as he continues. I place a hand on his. “Don’t say more if you don’t want to talk. I understand now.”

“Do you? I don’t.”

“I understand that you’re stronger than you think. The broken bottle in the kitchen tells me that.”

His eyes darken. “Yeah. That was you.”

“It was broken when I got here, Jem.”

In a shift in mood that takes me by surprise, Jem grabs the side of my face, digging his fingers into my hair. “You stopped me. I had a choice - lose myself in that shit or lose myself to you. That’s why I called. I remember now.”

His grip hurts and I extricate his fingers. “That was a big ask after how you treated me.”

“But you came. I hurt you and you came. Why?”

“I honestly don’t know. Because I pictured this - you needing help and reaching out.”

Jem stares ahead. “I f-uck everything up.”

“No, you don’t, only the things you choose to.”

“I f*cked us up. I didn’t want the pain.” He grips my hand. “That didn’t f-ucking work because the pain came anyway; and now when I need the good to deal with the bad, it’s not here. You’re not here.”

I shouldn’t be here. This goes against everything I promised myself; but the distress on this man’s face, the destroyed look I see in his eyes, is why. “I am.”