I Do

Chapter 19 - Heartbreaker

Beth's Point of View 

July 26th, 2013

9:50 P.M.

The uncontrollable shaking is not stopping as I continue staring out the window. With all these thoughts swirling through my head, the impending doom literally waiting to crush me, I find that I can only think about one thing. 

Him. 

Is this what Lauren has been going through for the last year? Jesus, no wonder she's gone crazy. 

I wipe my hand across my eyes, sniffling again as the memories wash over me. That night continues on in my mind like a broken record. 

I sit with my legs on his lap, dragging my fingers through his slightly overgrown hair. It softly slips in my fingers and I smile, glancing as his enticing green eyes watching mine. Once again they glow in the firelight, and I ignore the voice in the back of my mind, telling me to get a clue and get out of his apartment. I lock the door in her face and become present in our conversation. 

"My dad...yeah, my dad isn't a good guy." he says, tickling the sole of my foot. The only thing covering me is an afghan, if I shift just a little we are going to have a problem. Jim's eyes pour right into mine as I nod, a grimace on my mouth. 

"I suspected as much."

"Why?" he laughs. 

"Because you turned out so...independent. And when you said before, about your dad's drin-" I cut off my sentence the way he earlier did his. Smirking, I dare to look up. His eyes are alight with humor, but his face stays neutral, waiting for me to continue. "I don't know if I like my dad much."

His eyes widen. "Really? He seems nice."

I roll mine. "He doesn't even know me. He doesn't know that I like peppermint in my coffee, not sugar. Or that I don't spend two hours getting ready in the morning. I'm writing. Or that in sixth grade, when I told him I was at science camp, I was really with the family of the cop who found my mother. I needed to know what happened."

"He never told you?"

"No. He wouldn't tell any of us what happened to her, except Lauren. I knew she knew. But she was too fragile to break down for answers." I say. I feel the weight accompanied with truth when I managed to overhear a conversation between Officer Robinson and his wife, pity clear in their voices while they discussed letting me stay there for a night. When his wife asked why I would need a place to stay, her husband responded with, "The girl clearly needs some comfort, a mother figure. Her own is long gone, she crashed back a few years. Her car was totaled.'" By that point I backed away from the kitchen door and retreated to the bathroom, where they thought I was in the first place. 

"He was probably trying to protect you."

"Maybe," I answer. "But there's a difference between protecting and keeping secrets. Protecting is when you do what you think is best for the other person, keeping secrets is what is best for you."

Jim stays quiet.

"He doesn't even know I was accepted into Berkeley."

"You were? That's great. What do you want to study?"

"Literature." I answer with a smile. Part of me almost feels the need to stay close to home now, because of my...brother-in-law. A shudder runs through me. We haven't been acting like brother and sister. 

"I almost majored in that." he smirks, and though his tone is light, there is an underlying seriousness when he looks at me. 

Fluttering fills my belly as I slip out of the dream world, interrupted by a knock on the door. Wiping the remainder of the tears on my face away, I clear my throat. "Come in." I croak.