Letters to Nowhere(82)

“They’re in a better place…I hate when people say that,” Jordan mumbled, catching on to my question. “See, that’s the thing, I don’t think I’ve been able to figure out where to put them. And I am functioning, but I can’t sleep without nightmares either. I know I made it sound like I only used to get them, but you had so much to deal with already, I didn’t want to dump all my crap on you.”

“You have nightmares, too?”

He nodded. “I have them when I’m asleep and sometimes when I’m awake, visions that I can’t shake. And there have been so many times I’ve wanted to throw dozens of objects into a garage door and watch them shatter. And times when I’ve wanted to hop on a plane to London and look for some of them, even in pieces on the streets or somewhere.”

I turned my head, staring at his cheek in the dark. A pain the size of Texas sat on my chest. “So it’s just like me—you’ve put yourself somewhere, you haven’t put them anywhere?”

He shook his head. “When you first moved in here, I knew you were doing the same thing as me, seeing the same things I saw. And I wanted to get to know you because I thought maybe if we couldn’t get the job done ourselves…maybe you could put my people somewhere for me and I could sort yours out.” He released a breath he must have been holding for a while. “I haven’t done a very good job helping you, though, have I?”

A tear ran down the side of his face. I brushed it away with my fingertips, and then kissed his cheek. “I’d give you a perfect ten for effort.”

He rolled on his side, facing me. “This changes everything, doesn’t it? What you found out today?”

The ache in my chest grew from Texas–sized to Canada–sized. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to know right now. Take some time to process.” Jordan gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “I should go to my own room before my dad sees me. Will you be okay?”

“I don’t know” was the most honest answer I could give.

He kissed my forehead and pulled himself up off the floor. “Wake me up if you need me, okay?”

“Okay.”

I returned to lying beside a snoring Blair for a little while. Then my stomach growled and I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day. After sliding off the bed and walking quietly into the hall, I headed downstairs. I didn’t make it to the kitchen, though. I got distracted after hearing the sound of glass moving across the garage floor. I took a deep breath before opening the door.

Bentley was pushing a giant broom, piles of glass and metal moving along with it. He wore flannel pants, gym shoes, but no shirt. My eyes zoomed right in on the scar on his bicep from surgery years ago. An injury that surely included Anna sitting by his side and holding his hand, and now there was no one. How could I be angry with him for not wanting me to hurt more than I already was?

His back was turned to me now, and I could see black ink on his lower back. A tattoo. It looked like several lines of writing, but I couldn’t make out the words. And I was beginning to feel extremely embarrassed about my tantrum earlier and debated sneaking back into the house.

No such luck. He turned around right then and the broom froze.

“I’m sorry about the garage.” My face heated up as I slid on my flip–flops by the door and walked all the way inside.

“It’s okay,” Bentley said with a shrug.

I glanced around, spinning in a circle, taking everything in and feeling none of the heavy emotions I’d felt in here earlier. “It’s kind of like turning on the lights in a haunted house and realizing it’s just a bunch of…stuff,” I said.

Bentley found a bucket, and after setting his broom down, he flipped it over and nodded for me to sit down. I stared at it, thinking of that day in laundry room with Jordan when he had made me say it out loud…my parents are dead. Why couldn’t they just be dead? Why did I have to put them somewhere?

I sat down and Bentley pulled over a stool to sit on. “It was never my intention to keep the real details from you forever, even if your grandmother would have preferred that. I just didn’t think you were ready to hear it yet.”

I stared at my hands. “I don’t think anyone is ever ready to hear that.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“I don’t know how to stop hating them.” My voice shook more with every word and when the tears tumbled out, I didn’t try to hide them like I normally would with my coach. “I feel like I’m going to be angry forever. All these months I’ve just thought of their accident as a really bad thing that happened and something I had to work through, but I’ve never felt like a victim. Until now. I’m the victim of them being idiots. I’m the thing that’s left in the aftermath. Aren’t people wired to think about these things when they become parents? Shouldn’t they have said, ‘You know what? We might kill ourselves driving drunk and then Karen would be an orphan. Maybe we shouldn’t drive?’”

“You’re right. They shouldn’t have been driving,” Bentley said. “And you have every right to be angry, and no one should tell you otherwise, and no one can tell you how long it should take for that anger to fade.”

I looked down at a broken trophy near my feet. “It felt good to throw stuff, though.”