IMPORTANT, MUST READ.
THIS STORY IS COMPLETED AND IS NOW UNDER EDITING. SOME CHAPTERS ARE BEING SHORTENED AND LENGTHENED, SO SOME OF THE NUMBERED CHAPTERS MAY NOT MAKE SENSE.
A/N: Hey readers, first of all thanks for stopping by. I've had this idea since I've probably been able to write, and I hope I get to the end of this and everyone enjoys it. Yes it is a christian romance; of how God can take two lives, and change them, and eventually they fall in love. Please comment your thoughts, I need to know what you think!
By the way the song on the side has nothing to do with the story I just love the song :)
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Prologue:
Is there really any point in living when it doesn’t seem you have anything to live for?
There comes a point in your life when you seek your purpose, your meaning, why you were placed on the earth, who created you, who breathed life into you… But the question that comes up a lot in my world is, “why did I have to go through such hard times? Couldn’t this so called ‘God’ have picked someone else besides me?” Well I’ve often wondered these things for a while, my whole life actually, especially after my wife and daughter was murdered. Throughout my entire life I’ve searched for my reason of birth and existence.
But God showed me…
I was created for a reason, my life does have meaning, and I do have a purpose…
But we should start at the beginning to prove that.
Where it all began:
I didn't look back. Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't, but I didn't look back. Jackson was going to pay, someday, I was going to squash him like a bug; I knew it was either that or...he'd kill me first. Speaking of that, he'd already tried killing me just now, that's why I didn't look back; because, if I would have stayed any longer, one of us would be dead right now.
And actually, I felt as if I was going to kill over anyway.
Hair black as coal, chilled blue eyes, and an expression resembling someone out for blood reflected off the ruffled puddle on the ground...my reflection.
I traveled along the concrete side-walk, struggling because of my pain. My chest felt miles beyond sore and ached as if I was on the bridge to Hell; I knew I had bruises and cuts beneath the cotton plaid shirt I wore, Jackson had come at me with one of his hunting-knives. I thought about going to a hospital, but I wanted to see Harley, my girlfriend. She was my ticket away from it all, she was my way out, she was my beginning to starting a family, a real loving family.
Something I had never experienced.
After climbing the porch steps, taking what little energy I had, I knocked on the front door and leaned on it while waiting for Harley to answer.
"Jack?" She whispered, soft green eyes showing a shade of confusion.
"Parents home?" I asked, still leaning on the door, only because I couldn't hold myself up.
"No, they had a business meeting in Florida. Are-are you alight?"
I nodded no.
I stumbled into the house with her help, she struggled with me up the stairs that led into her room; then, I collapsed onto the bed and groaned with pain aloud that it bounced off the walls.
"Oh God, Jack..." She muttered. "Wh-what happened?" She asked while quietly closing the door.
"Jackson." I moaned. “It…it got ugly.”
I looked over to her bed-side-clock and it read, “1:12”, when I came over here I hadn’t realized how late it was, until now of course. Harley had luscious eyes filled with bear concern…I was worrying her. I could see her shaking under that silky white gown, though concerned, she still looked simply beautiful. I smiled through the pain gazing upon her beauty. Endless strands of beautiful chestnut hair, glowing green eyes, full lips that seemed to always be pink, a perfect thin shape, and a small round nose. She was perfect, nothing less, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin if I were to explain her on the inside.
She crawled on top of me, positioning herself between my legs. “Blood.” She whimpered, pressing fingers to my chest.
“I’ll be okay.” I informed, taking her hand which almost pressed into a wound.
“Jack, what are you hiding under that shirt?” She pried, like a worried mother taking care of her children, gripping onto a piece of my shirt about to unbutton it. “Let me see.”
Carefully, she went down my shirt unbuttoning each one, revealing several bleeding open cuts wounds; the closer she was to the bottom, her fingers would slide over the surface of my chest, which gave me comfort.
“Oh God…Jack your flesh—its-its sliced!” She cried, closely analyzing each wound, and holding onto each side of my face. Her fingers lightly scratched into my stubble face while her eyes had glazed over in worry. I knew she wanted to play doctor right about then.
And before I knew it, I was being wrapped in bandages.
“Why did he do this to you?” She asked, whipping over one of the many cuts on my chest with alcohol to clean it.
“Because…” I began as she placed a bandage over top the wound. “He found out that…that I never was his real son.”
Harley’s eyes immediately flared in shock.
“Jack—he-he’s not your father?”
“No…my mother never told him or me. I...don’t understand. He’s never loved me and he’s never even liked me, not because I’m not his biological son, he just…hates me.” I explained as the knowledge of someone who I thought was always my father…never loved me, never cared, never even liked me. What did I do wrong? There must be something in the man’s mind that explains why he hates me so bad. To cut me open with a knife, to abuse me my whole life, what did I do? I’ve tried so hard but never has he even attempted to repay the affection.
Soon, I gave up on him, and that’s when it all started getting bad, well, worse.
I didn’t think he even knew how to love, yet, my mother continued to put up with his nonsense, his abuse!
“He’s done this to you before, hasn’t he?”
A lump instantly grew in the middle of my throat. Was I finally going to admit the truth to another being?
“Harley…he’s abused my mother and I all my life, or at least from what I can remember. My mother would leave him but she says she loves him…I-I guess you can’t help you love, even if they’re an abusive monster.”
I raised up a little that I would be level with her, planting hands on each of her shoulders. I gazed into her eyes wishing to lose myself. Falling apart inside, my vision became watery and by then I knew I had to be shedding tears. “Baby, you’re with the wrong guy. Wh-what if I end up like him? I-I drink and I can get pretty wasted at times—what if I turn into him? That-that monster! What if I would…hurt you?”
“No, no, Jack, you aren’t like him. You’re different! You’re above what he is!” Her arms wrapped around my neck tightly as she planted a hard kiss on my lips. My hands went up her gown to hold the top of each lovely thigh that I was laid between. Our lips played each other’s, she was rough, she made me have to fight for dominance, which, I endured every bit of.
“Harley.” I breathed, pulling away from her. “I want to marry you. I know there has to be a…a baby us inside you.”
She turned pale for a second.
“How did you know I was pregnant?”
To be honest, I actually wasn’t expecting that. I mean yeah, we’d fooled around a few times, but, I wasn’t expecting her to tell me right then.
“I...I didn’t know actually. So, uhm…you’re pregnant?!” I shouted happily but confused, hugging her tightly and feeling like a kid who just got his dream to come true.
My dream did come true.
“Yes of course!” She squealed, but then looked a bit worried for some reason. “But that isn’t why you want to marry me, is it? Because I’m pregnant?”
“No. I want to marry you because you’re amazing…” I answered, forming another passionate kiss with her to last.
Our foreheads bumped while we took a moment to catch our breath. Though, she wanted to marry me too, there was still one problem.
Jackson.
He wanted to kill me. What was the point of getting married when someone was hunting you down?
“There’s just one thing though.” I mentioned, massaging her back.
“What?” She whispered.
“Harley, Jackson’s out for blood, he’s already gotten some but now he’s ready to kill.”
She stopped me before I could go further, placing a finger over my lips. “He won’t get in the way of us.” She crawled closer, pushing all her weight down on me, and pressed her lips to mine. Inner chill bumps went flying up my spine and every hormone in my body began to throb for her.
She was offering.
“I love you.” I told her when the night was over; knowing the life ahead could finally be peaceful and full of happiness.
--------------------
I stood in silence, speechless at the sight before me, broken and heart-shattered.
It wasn’t fair. I deserved more time with them, I needed more time with them, they needed to know how much I loved them, they needed to know how much they meant to me. But they can never know, I can never tell them…not now, not ever.
A puddle of blood poured out beneath my precious mother and father. They lied there motionless, pale, staring up into the celling like it was their gateway into Heaven. I just told them goodbye, but maybe I was just about to tell them hello? I thought—knew I was about to experience the same fate as they did.
“Why me?” I wondered becoming angry.
A sleek black gun was aimed straight in my direction, it struck terror over me, and my heart seemed to be inside my stomach right about then.
But the man holding the gun was what was heartbreaking— Jackson Perry, who I recently found out has only been my stepfather all this time…my whole life.
He never loved me, even when he didn’t know I wasn’t really his son, he never loved me.
Suddenly, memories began to hit me like a flood…
...
A young man, barely a day over seventeen, rocked his beaten and abused mother to sleep. He wiped her face clean of the tears that poured down her face and laid her gently onto the bed. “Goodnight, mother,” he whispered in her ear before pecking the woman’s bruised cheek. He quietly slipped away and went up into his room to get himself some sleep too.
His name was Jack Perry, the abused child since birth and bullied high school nerd; known for his silence, short temper, and low self-esteem. The boy and his mother have lived through Hell, brought by the stay-at-bar-drinker, Jackson Perry, husband of Martha Perry, Jack’s mother. But now, he was no longer Jack Perry, he was Jack Melcom, the son of Gregory Melcom.
There was no escape for the two from abusive Jackson Perry…
Why, you ask?
Well, you can’t help who you love, no matter the things they’ve put you through.
Jack quietly crawled into bed and prayed continuously for the beatings and abuse to end.
Why hasn’t he left?
Because he too loves the man that’s brought only pain to him and his mother.
...
I remember that as if it were yesterday, maybe it was? All my days are blended together, and nothing seemed to make much sense.
Because you know, I’ve rocked my mother to sleep countless times.
At lease now she…she can finally be at peace, and me too for that matter.
Then suddenly, the thought of death didn’t seem so bad but, then I remembered something, something so, so important.
My soon-to-be wife! How could I forget? I was so wrapped up in my parents’ death that I forgot. I knew this was going to happen, I knew Jackson was going to kill me sooner or later. What was Harley going to do without me? She needed me to be her husband! But most of all, my brand new child! In only eight months I was going be a father! What was she and my child going to do without me? If only I had more time, I could tell her all the things I’ve dreamed of saying since we met…especially the words,
”I do.”
But there was no escape from this fate…
There was no turning back the clocks…
BANG!
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Chapter one:
Present
“The view from up here is…amazing.”
Was Jack going to do it? Was he finally going to give into his dark desire…self-murderess suicide? Was he going to jump off the cliff and drop to his harsh and brutal death?
"Why not, right? I have nothing to live for anyway.” He said as a tear rolled down his face and fell off the cliff he stood on. “What if I died and started to live?” Suddenly a breeze flew by him, filling him with comfort and satisfaction.
“Would I live another terrible life?” He asked himself, then looked completely down the flat slope of rock he stood on and noticed that there were sharp deadly rocks below…something that was enough to kill him. “No looking back now…I don’t ever have to worry again.”
Jack wasn’t scared of death, not a bit, how could it be any worse than the horrible life he’s lived? Jack backed up a few feet, sucked in a large breath, and sprinted toward the edge of the cliff and jumped off.
He didn’t scream, he didn’t flinch, and he didn’t regret it, he was relieved.
With his eyes shut tight he knew it was time, time to let go. But suddenly, as he plunged to his death, everything became white, snow white. “Am I dead?” He wondered happily but confused. A death without pain suited his desire better than anything he ever wanted.
But he soon learned it wasn’t death he was facing.
A loud familiar buzz noise filled his surroundings and rung through his ears, giving Jack an enormous headache.
“Am I dead?” He asked again. Then he felt a lumpy pillow below him.
“No you’re not dead! You’re gonna wish you were if you don’t get up!”
Just a dream, a marvelous dream he wish were true.
Jack unwillingly opened his eyes to find his lonely cold prison cell…his home. “You’ve got an early visit from mister Simons.” The guard spoke in a rough tone, making Jack glare coldly at him. Jack stood up while quietly sliding his hand through his thick dark hair with a heavy sigh. Then he and the guard exited the cell. “I didn’t wake you up did I, Melcom?” The guard gave teased.
The guards have always tried to find a way to make Jack angry or something just make him talk, but he barely ever says a word, Jack’s one of the quietest inmates in the prison. He’s been speechless ever since the day he was charged with the murders of his daughter and wife; who wouldn’t be? Everyone believes Jack killed them, his own wife and daughter. But one person knows he didn’t; his best, his oldest and only friend: “Eddie Simons”.
“Make it quick.” The guard ordered leading Jack to the visitor center. He slowly sat down in the chair seeing his best friend sitting across from him through the plexiglass window. Eddie reached for the phone, staring closely at his troubled friend with sympathy. Eddie waited patiently for him to pick up his phone also, but sometimes Jack just didn’t feel like talking.
“C’mon, Jack…I want to speak to you.” Eddie said raising his voice so it would travel through the thick glass that kept them apart. “I need to know how you’re doing, bud.” He said even though he visited him only a week or two ago, but all Jack would do was stare at him. “I know it’s early and I should have waited a little bit before coming to visit you.” Stated Eddie, becoming slightly concerned for stubborn Jack.
Jack’s eyes dropped to the small white table that sat in front of him. He let out a heavy sigh and finally picked up the phone.
“I’m fine, Eddie.” Jack hissed exposing irritation in his tone, making him squirm in his chair a bit.
“Why are you acting like I’m a complete stranger? Is everything alright, Jack? Just say something.” Eddie said becoming more concerned; Jack simply returned a nod and took a moment to come up with some words.
“I…” He began, his eyes roaming the room for a second. “I had an incredible dream.” He trailed off with a small smile, flashbacks of the dream from early this morning filling his thoughts. “I was at the highest point on this mountain…standing on this cliff. And suddenly I jump off of it—full of life and excitement! Yet I was plummeting to my death! I felt so alive.” Eddie didn’t know what to think of Jack’s dream, his suicidal dream. To Eddie it was no dream, it was a nightmare. He looked at Jack with a bit of disgust, but mostly sympathy.
“…Jack, suicide isn’t going to help anything that’s going on in your life.” Eddie explained with tears bulging in his eyes. “God is the one thing in this world that can help you through this…you have to give Him a chance first though.”
“Thanks, Eddie…I’ll talk to you later.” Jack thanked, ignoring his friend’s advice, before hanging up the phone; he didn’t want to hear the lecture or sermon Eddie was going to preach to him. Jack hated it when Eddie brought up God and what He could do for him, but he didn’t really know why.
Maybe it was because he thought he didn’t deserve God’s love or forgiveness. The reason he thought those things about God and himself was because he has sinned a lot in his life such as: cursing, drinking, drugs, sex—everything you can think of.
But everyone makes mistakes that God can and will forgive, Jack just hasn’t realized what a forgiving God the Lord is yet.
Jack’s point of view:
After hanging up with Eddie, I found my guard so he could lead me back to my cell, but another guard stopped us on our way there.
“The warden wants a meeting with you ASAP, Melcom.”
I sighed looking toward my escort, “Can it wait?” I asked; only because I’d like to go back to sleep, and hopefully never wake up.
“He said it was urgent, something about having you released.” Having me released?! I’ve got another sixty to a hundred years to go, there’s no way I can be released! Unless they’ve finally found evidence proving I didn’t murder my daughter Brittany and wife Sarah. Then all of a sudden the guard’s radio began making a muffled buzz noise, followed by the warden’s voice picked up through it.
“I need to see Melcom now!” He yelled through the radio making the guard jump.
“Right away, sir.” The guard replied before leading me down another dull hall surrounded by cells.
“Did you mention I could be releasing him?!” It’s true? I really could be released? Could it really be?
I didn’t think so…