Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(84)
“Why?” he repeats.
“Because I can’t switch off how I feel about you. I can’t stop caring about the man who’s a mirror of me. If I can help you, then I know I can survive shit too when it’s my turn.”
“I f*cked up.”
Jem’s not in a place to talk, like a child he’s seeking reassurance; but I doubt anything I can say will help. He needs what he always did; quiet understanding from somebody who cares. Jem can’t be alone with options that would set him careering into the past again.
“I’ll stay if you promise you’ll talk to someone tomorrow. Your counsellor or one of your friends, somebody you trust to help you through this. If I stay tonight, you don’t get to push this into the ‘not dealing’ part of your mind because it’ll never stay there.” I climb onto the sofa next to him.
“You, I can talk to you,” he says quietly.
“No, I can’t help with this. I’m in the middle of that screwed-up mess of hurt in your head. I’ll be a friend to you until you decide if you want more.”
Who am I kidding? I love this man. Why else would I be here? I’m risking so much and possibly for so little.
I take Jem’s hand; and for a few minutes, we sit side by side, but the waves of suffering coming from him are palpable. Giving in, I wrap my arms around Jem, and pull him close. Jem responds by gripping my hair, mouth crashing onto mine. He told the truth; he doesn’t taste of alcohol, but of a kiss that wraps around my soul and drags mine into his.
I recognise this urgency of Jem’s mouth, the sheer force of the desire rolling from him. With the kiss, comes Jem’s frantic need to fill the empty spaces inside, as if I’m the only one who can. But this is the man who emptied me and pushed me aside, and I don’t have the ability to give him what he’s crying out for now. One day, I will if that’s what he wants, and when he’s dealt with whatever is happening here. For now, I’ll lose myself too, in the illusion that the man with me now is my Jem.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ruby
Jem doesn’t sleep. He calmed after we kissed, pulled away, and held me tightly as if I’d change my mind and leave. How could I? Jem can’t be alone right now. I doze on the sofa as Jem repeatedly gets up and wanders around. When the sun filters through the curtains, I wake to find him attempting to straighten out some of the mess in the lounge.
“Do you have work today?” he asks, holding a broken lamp in his hand. The wild confusion held in his eyes last night has softened but the stress hasn’t left his face.
“Yeah. This afternoon.” I rub my bleary eyes. “I’ll go home when somebody else gets here. Have you called anyone yet?”
Jem says nothing, walking to the kitchen instead. Great… I follow. “Jem?”
The room still smells of alcohol but the glass has gone. “Not yet. It’s early.”
“It’s an excuse.” I drag my phone from my pocket. “Who do you want me to call? Bryn? Dylan?”
“Dylan.” He sinks against the bench. “I need coffee. You want some?”
“I’ll get it. Sit down.”
Jem nods and leaves. He’s compliant, definitely not back with us yet. I chat to Dylan briefly as I make coffee, tell him the minimum about last night, and ask him to come. He sounds surprised to hear from me. Yeah, I’m not entirely sure why I’m here either. I return to the lounge where Jem sits, chewing a nail, the way he does when he wants the nicotine his body misses. For the first time in months, I crave a smoke too. We worked on kicking our nicotine habit soon after we got together, which worked more easily than expected. Someone told me it was the endorphins from being in love that helped us break the addiction. You can imagine mine and Jem’s reaction to that.
Five months ago, I saw Jem Jones in a bar and I fought between the desire for his attention and the excitement he’d come to see the band. I was in a bad place; a f*cked-up place that he gently eased me out of. Our lives entwined because of Ruby Riot and then because of the place inside we live. There’s a piece of Jem in his music that he shares with the world when the rest of the time he hides. I’m unsure if everybody sees this or whether he realises how much this pulls people to him. When Blue Phoenix’s music spoke to me as a teen, Jem was speaking to me too.
Did fate bring us together when we needed? Two broken people recognising each other’s demons and understanding how to begin to exorcise them? The man on the sofa, lost in the place he’d begun to drag himself out of, still has his demons. Jem can’t shake his as easily as I’m able. His have lived with him longer and he feeds them. Jem needs to sever them and live his own life again, not one full of pain from being strangled by a past that needs putting back where it should be.
“Dylan’s on his way. I’ll need to leave when he gets here.”
Jem looks up and his eyes tell me so much. Jem knows I’m here for him too; the suspicion I saw in his face the first time I tried to help him that night amongst the broken glass in the kitchen has gone. Nobody has looked at me in this way before. He sees through everything I have built around, looking straight into my heart.
The one he shattered.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jem