I'm sprawled out on the floor, Haley beside me as she kicks her legs in the air, lowering and raising them with muscle control that's enviable. She drops her head, finding my eyes on her and offering a bright smile that cracks the chilled edges of my heart. A child's ignorance can be such a blessing. If she knew the turmoil rolling around in my chest, it'd only achieve in making us both miserable.
A knocking on the door has me standing and placing Haley in her playpen before checking to see who's here. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I slide my tongue across my teeth and pull the door open. My eyes are anything but prepared to find Mike on my doorstep, his left cheek bone red with pockets of yellow and green pooling along the ridge.
"Mike," I gasp, hand reaching for my chest as I take in the disheveled sight of him. "What happ—"
"So, what?" he bites out, taking a step back as his fists shake beside him. "You got your boyfriend to come beat me up? That's how you deal with people now? I make a mistake and you send your bodyguard to take care of me?"
"What are you—" I cut myself off, my mind drifting back to last night with Andy. I'd asked if he'd beaten up Jessie, but never once did I imagine he'd gone after Mike instead.
"Maybe I overstepped," Mike continues, his voice catching as his emotions war between rage and anguish. "I honestly just want what's best for you. Why can't you see that?"
"I didn't send Andy after you," I defend, stepping outside and forcing Mike to back away as I shut the door behind me, "How immature do you think I am? My goodness, Mike. Grow up!" I shake my head, rubbing a thumb along my bottom lip. " But for the record, I don't think Andy's action were unsolicited. You've been a complete jerk to me since I told you about Haley. That was my fault. I should have mentioned her sooner and I'm sorry that Jessie was the one who ended up spilling the beans first, but you can't stand there and honestly tell me that you side with him in all this."
Mike squints his eyes at me, confusion weighing down his brows. My eyes catch on the scar behind his ear when he drops his head to look at the ground. There's so much beauty woven into this mess of a person. He's like a sloppy piece of art that's both disturbing and enticing all at once. I just wish there was someone in his life who could interpret him properly. He needs that. He needs someone who understands the broken parts of himself that even he doesn't seem to be able to explain.
"Jessie told me how in love with you he was," Mike starts to say, his voice cautious and warm—almost regretful—as he speaks. "He still is. Knowing that Haley is his child is the only reason I've been trying to push for this to happen. She needs her father. I was the very cause of breaking a family apart—probably multiple families apart—during war. I killed parents. I made children orphans. I just—"
I hear the slight tremble of his words and my face softens, understanding swelling in my chest. The guilt is eating him from the inside out. If I could take a look at all the pain twisting inside of Mike, I wonder how ugly it'd be. The thought starts to awaken that side of me that's always wanted to protect him. The side of me that's nearly desperate to fix him—to support him. I want to be there to help him stand when his world crumbles. But I can't be that person for him.
It's too late.
Mike's crumbling right before my very eyes and there's nothing I can do to save him. Instead, I walk up behind him, a hand to his back as I coax him to the porch steps and take a seat. We're both silent and I train my eyes away from him as he struggles to compose himself.
"I get it," I tell him when he grows still beside me, his eyes staring straight ahead at the cars passing by. "I get what you're trying to do and it means the world to me that you care that much."
Maybe that's Mike's flaw: he cares too much. There's only one solution in all this and it requires that Mike let me go too. The very thought causes my throat to tighten and my eyes to sting but I clear my throat and push past the realization.
"But Mike," I say, turning my head and waiting until his eyes meet mine. "You have to stop. Whatever Jessie told you, it's a lie. He's a guilty man who regrets what he did and is now stooping to the lowest of lows of desperation trying to make things right. He's just going about it in the wrong way."
"How so?"
I bite my lip and turn my head to stare at a yellowing patch of grass near the mailbox. "His goal is to get me and Haley back, and that's not going to happen. He's always remorseful for what he did to me, but I've yet to see any regret for how he treated Haley."
"What are you talking about?" Mike questions, his tone borderline hard as frustration taints his words. "According to Jessie, he never even knew about Haley, much less met her. How could he have possibly done something to wrong a person he didn't know existed?"
"Like I said," I start to explain. "Jessie has done nothing but lie to you. If you knew the real truth, you would have never schemed to get the two of us back together. That's my hope anyway."
"Okay." Mike nods, his shoulder curling inward as he drops his head and stares at the ground between his legs.
I watch his fingers play with a piece of grass, wondering what thoughts might be drifting through his head. All this time, I've been trying to explain that Mike's been misinformed about Jessie's true self, but never once has he asked what my side of the story is... until now.
"What really happened then?"
The question brings a warm smile to my lips. I should be furious with him for waiting so long to ask. I should send him on his way, making him promise to never show his face around me again. Honestly, Mike's hurt me more than I'm willing to admit to anyone—even myself. He chose to trust in the very source of my deepest pain. He chose to take sides with the enemy... so to speak. Maybe that's an exaggeration. Jessie's not the most dangerous or evil person in the world... far from it, really. He's just scared and weak and gutless. All qualities I find horribly unattractive in a man. But that's not why I was so quick to write him off.
"I thought Jessie was the one," I start to explain. "He treated me well. Was always respectful and gentlemanly."
I see Mike's face soften, my descriptions of his friend causing some of the tension to ease from his shoulders. Turning to face me, he leans back to rest his elbows on the step above us, his attention riveted to my words.
"But?" he prods, his expression dropping slightly in mild concern for my next words.
"But he's not the person you think he is," I say and watch as Mike mentally disregards my accusations. Such a stubborn man. "Would you just listen to me before you choose to ignore what I have to say. Seriously, Mike, you're making me crazy." I slap my palms against my thighs in frustration. "Honestly, I'm half tempted to add some color to that other cheek of yours. If you wouldn't mind just shutting up and stop being Jessie's friend for two seconds while I explain my side of things, that would be so appreciated."
"Fine," he says, forcing a masked grin from his lips, finding humor in my outburst. I send him a look, daring him to laugh and the amusement instantly falls from his lips. "Sorry, please continue."
"Thank you." I take a deep breath before forging on. "I feel like I've got limited time to explain myself before you take Jessie's side again, so I'm just gonna plow ahead. Don't interrupt me."
Mike nods once, his face serious when he realizes that I'm not getting an ounce of gratification from this conversation.
"Jessie is a compulsive liar," I tell Mike, joining my hands together and dropping them into my lap. "It's an actual diagnosis. He even told me he's getting help now for it, but it's the honest truth. He literally cannot keep himself from lying. That's only one of the reasons I could never be with him. I can't trust him."
"What's the other reason?"
"Shut up, Mike, or I swear..."
He lifts his hands in surrender and silently waves for me to continue.
"Anyway," I say, aggravation making the word slip from my lips with humorless sarcasm. "He lies about everything, meaning, whatever he's told you and whatever he's told me... there's no telling which is the actual truth. I honestly don't even know if Jessie can distinguish his own lies from reality anymore. He's woven this tangle of fabrications and sometimes I wonder if he's fallen for his own deceit. He's lost, Mike. So, so lost."
"But the Lindsey I remember wouldn't just throw someone like that to the curb," Mike says, brows dipped in question. "You told me he was the closest thing to Satan that you knew. Why is that?"
"There are a few reasons," I tell him, stretching my back and pushing my hair behind my ears. "But first, I'd like to explain what happened before things got really ugly."
"Okay."
"So," I begin. "Jessie and I had talked about marriage. It was assumed that we'd end up together. We were..." I hesitate. "We were in love and happy—this was all prior to me realizing he had a lying issue, by the way," I mutter as a side note. "Anyway, then I got pregnant and Jessie was fully supportive at first. Excited even. He drove me to my appointments; listened to her little, rapid heartbeat on the ultrasound; stared at the little blob of cells that made up her little body on the monitor. He was the perfect image of the doting, loving boyfriend."
I pause to look sideways at Mike.
"That's until our second ultrasound when the doctor informed of us Haley's abnormality." My face tightens at the memory. "Everything changed in that very moment. Jessie grew distant, making excuses as to why he couldn't accompany me to other doctor's visits. When I confronted him about it, he confessed to being unfaithful. He even went so far as to admit he only started cheating after he found out about Haley because he was scared—though, he changed his story later and said he'd been cheating before I ever got pregnant. He said he didn't think he'd make a good father and told me that he cheated in hopes that I'd end things with him. Turns out he was just a coward who was too ashamed to parent a Down Syndrome child."
Mike is silent, his eyes trained on the sidewalk in front of us. I can see his thoughts swirling around in his head, like he's trying to piece everything together and come up with some kind of explanation for Jessie, but he's got nothing.
"I get that your time in the war—the families you ruined—has made you want to fix things," I say carefully. "You want to reunite families in hopes of covering up your past mistakes, but that can't happen. Not with Jessie. I mean, I think I've been able to forgive him, but I could never be with him."
"Lindsey," Mike says softly. "I get it. I get that Jessie hurt you and if the lying thing is true—which I'm sure it is—then I get why you can't be with him. But what about friendship? Or even giving him a chance to be a part of Haley's life in even the smallest way?"
"Because, Mike," I say, crossing my arms and leaning forward over my lap, "If I'd listened to Jessie and his solution for our 'problem'—AKA. Haley—... then she'd be dead."
---
:'(
Thoughts on Jessie?
Gosh, is every single person in this book messed up, or what?!?! Hahahaha! (that's part of the fun though, right?)