Filthy Beast(15)
“Do you have any idea what it was like when you left?” she asks me suddenly.
I frown at her and sigh. “No, I don’t,” I admit.
“You just disappeared. One day we were as close as I’ve ever been with someone, and then you joined the military without even telling me. You never wrote, you never called.”
“I got your letters,” I say softly. “I still have them.”
She hesitates but shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter now. You decided to leave me, Jackson. That wasn’t my choice. And now you’re back and what, you think it can go back to the way it was?”
“No,” I say to her. “I don’t think that. The man I was when I was out there… you didn’t want to know that man, Tara.”
“Maybe but you didn’t give me that choice, did you?”
I watch her quietly for a second and sigh. “Remember that guy, Silas Lerain?”
She hesitates, a little thrown off balance. “Yeah, I remember Silas. Never shut up.”
“Yeah, that was Silas. Always talking shit.” I grin at her. “One day, we were walking to school and he goes, ‘Hey man, why the fuck do you hang around that Tara chick all the time? You could have any girl in the school. So why her?’ And you know what I said?”
She shakes her head. “I have no clue.”
“I said that she’s the only girl worth my time. He fucking made fun of me for saying that for weeks, but it was the truth. Still is the truth.”
She smiles a little bit. “I think I remember that. He used to call you a bitch boy.”
“He was an asshole,” I say, smiling a bit.
“Didn’t you end up punching him?”
“Yeah, well, that was because he called my little brother a faggot and tried to steal his iPod.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot that. Silas really was a piece of shit.”
“Not as bad as Marty, remember that kid?”
“Oh god,” she groans. “I haven’t thought about Stinky Marty in years.”
“That asshole never showered after gym class. Not even once.”
“We all paid for his mistakes.”
We laugh together and for a second, it feels normal between us. The feelings we both have, complicated by time and distance and anger and resentment, seem a little less sharp. The more we talk about them, the more it feels like we’re getting it all out. And maybe that’s what she needs, to get it all out.
She glances down at her phone and sighs. “Look, I have to go. I’ll think about dinner.”
“I appreciate that,” I say. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you will be.” She smiles up at me as I grin at her. I want to kiss her so badly, but I know I can’t. Not yet at least. She’s still angry and still holding on to something, but she’ll let it all go eventually. She just needs to understand that I wasn’t leaving her. I never meant to leave her. I thought it would be better if I cut it off, but god, I was so stupid back then.
“See you tomorrow, movie star.” She grins at me and walks away.
I watch her go, yearning to touch her skin again. Soon, I’ll taste her again, and show her what she’s been missing all these years.
But for now, I’ll try and be patient, although that’s not my strong suit.
8
Tara
Every time I’m ready to write Jackson Hendricks off, he does something that surprises me.
Our little conversation from a couple of days ago keeps playing in my mind. We haven’t had time to really talk since then, but I just keep seeing the way he looked at me, like it was the old Jackson all over again. I haven’t seen him so much as talk to Holly either, which makes me think that I was just being stupid the other day.
Still, I just keep thinking about how I don’t really know him. He’s been through a lot overseas, and it’s made him harder. I don’t remember him having such an edge before he left, but there are scars on his skin and inside of him that I’ll likely never understand.
And yet… that old Jackson is still there. It makes me wonder if the old Tara is still inside of me, too.
I’m sitting home alone after work, tired and a little stressed, going over the script again. We’re in a critical part of the film right now, and we have to make sure we get these action scenes just right. They’re long and grueling on Jackson, I can tell, but he doesn’t complain at all. In fact, he walks around set and keeps everyone’s spirits up. He encourages the stunt guys and basically acts like a high school football quarterback in the locker room or something. Which I guess is basically what he is.