Where We Left Off

Chapter Fifteen - Where We Confess

            I feel like all the air has been sucked right out of my lungs. My body instantly goes cold and I fear that I might pass out from this dizziness. I can’t believe what he just said; what he is telling me. He’s admitting that the woman that was a second mother to me my life up until I left is dead.

            She’s buried six feet under and nobody ever told me. I was never there for the funeral; never invited. Nobody thought that I would want to know.

            “We found out that she had cancer.” Jacoby’s voice is soft as I sit in the driver’s seat and cry. I take my hands out of his and let them lie limply at my sides. “By the time it was discovered, it was too late.”         

            He doesn’t tell me what kind of cancer and I don’t ask. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that she’s gone and I wasn’t told up until now. I had just been thinking that I never saw his mother because she was busy inside the house or upset that I left without saying goodbye. Not once did I think that she could not be alive.

            “Why didn’t you tell me?” I don’t know if Jacoby can hear me because I’m being so quiet. I’m done my crying, wiping away the last of my tears. “Why did nobody tell me?”

            Jacoby doesn’t say anything for several minutes. I briefly look over at him to see that he’s trapped inside his thoughts, fighting a battle with himself inside of his head.

            “Because the wound is still fresh,” he finally decides on. “Saying it to you…Telling you what happened after all this time trying to heal would make it worse.”

            “Why now?”

            Jacoby looks up to meet my eyes. “Because I know how much you meant to her.”

            Things change. A rose will grow from its bulb over time and bloom into a beautiful flower. But eventually winter comes and the ground grows cold. The rose will die, fall into the dirt and never be thought of again. All of this happens in a short time. Even though I know this and I really do, I still can’t believe how much things have changed over the span of a few years. Maybe I can believe it, but it doesn’t mean I want to.

            “The accident was my fault.” I spit out the words before I can even think of them in my head. “My mom wanted to go get groceries and said I could drive. We were fighting over the radio stations when we came to a four way stop that I didn’t see.” Jacoby reaches out a hand and rubs my shoulder but I act like he isn’t even beside me. All I can see are the memories inside my head. “I ran it and a car came and hit my mom’s side.”

            “And now she can’t remember,” Jacoby finishes for me. I nod and he leans across the center console to wrap his arms around me. He rests his cheek on my shoulder and holds me tightly. “I’m so sorry, Stevie. I can’t even begin to put myself in your shoes. If that happened to me, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

            “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper.