“What the hell is he doing here?” I barked giving spark to Brea's ferocious laughter. I am glad one of us is amused.
“Honey...” She paused. “There is no mountain Brandon Coy Hicks would not climb and no sea he would not swim to get to her if she needed him. Let me tell you right now, he loves her to death and she loves him just as much. So if you are thinking you are going to come sweep her off her feet and he will just go away you have another thing coming. If that is the case you’d best go now. Jemma doesn’t work like that, once she lets you in, it is for life.”
She cleared her throat waiting for my response. When I didn’t move she continued.
“Look, I am not sure when they will be back. But I will ask her to call you when they get home. OK?”
No, not OK, I was not going anywhere because I had to know what was wrong with my girl. It hurt enough knowing that I was not someone she could turn to when life got to be too much but I knew that was something we would have to work up to.
“I cannot leave without knowing what is wrong with her Brea. I won’t be able to think straight if I do.”
“I can’t share that with you. I will just say that sometimes, when she doesn’t take care of herself she loses control and before she knows it she feels completely worthless and helpless. And she is sensitive to things most of us aren’t so she ends up misreading everything and everybody. Did you know that for years she thought she was hideous? You can thank Brandon for finally bringing her to her senses. I would give anything to have just one man look at me like he looks at her and here she has two! I love her to death but she can be a little clueless sometimes.”
I shook my head back and forth and buried my face into my hands completely ignoring the tension in Brea’s statement.
“I’ve lost her haven’t I?” I whispered then raised my head to Brea who was shaking her head.
“Did she just sleep with me because she has issues? Is that why she fucked Axel?”
Brea looked at me with what I can only describe as the eyes of a demon. I was almost certain that she was going to open up her rabid jaws and take a chunk out of me. I could not say I would blame her considering the way the words came out of my mouth. I had not intended on wording things quite so ‘eloquently’.
“I am going to ignore that asshole statement you just made and chalk it up to you being hurt. As far as her reasoning for Axel, yeah, she was just trying to fill a void or something. I cannot and will not speak for her, besides, I don’t even get it, and she does things for various reasons Ford. She says she goes numb, her entire body, she feels dead all over and there are certain things she can do to make herself feel less like a zombie and more like a human being. Shit, I don’t know why I am telling you any of this, it isn’t my place to tell you any of it but I can see you care about her.”
I silently pleaded with Brea to keep talking. I wanted to know why me? I needed Brea, as Jemma’s best friend, to tell me that our connection was not born out of some sick desire to feel something. I do not want to know that in the end I mean nothing to her.
“No, I can tell you right now that she didn’t sleep with you for that reason. As far as I know this time with Axel was the first time she had ever completely given into the urge. The first time she actually had sex with penetration so to speak. It probably has something to do with the fact that she knows him so well but even with him she lost it. Not only did she not freak out with you but she spent the night with you. When she suffers an episode with some random guy she never mentions him past the initial meltdown, though she ends up a total mess for weeks after. I know for a fact that you and Brandon are the only men she has ever been with in any way that mattered.”
Me and Brandon. There his name was again. Was I going to have to fight for this girl? I had never been willing to fight for a woman before. Not a single person had ever been worth fighting for but Jemma was not just some girl. She was my fairy princess, the keeper of souls, an artist, a healer of headless Barbie dolls, she was a Skipper and Skippers were always happy. If I was in for a fight at least I was armed with ammunition not a single soul other than me could fire off.
“For what it’s worth Ford, I see something different in her when she talks about you. I have seen it even more the few times I have seen her look at you. It’s a strange comfortable familiarity, a natural calm that I never saw in her the entire time she was with Brandon. He was always the person she would lean on when she couldn’t stand, still is and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. But that look in her eyes, the one she gets when it is all about you, she has never even had that with me. I don’t want that gleam to go away. Do what you can to get it back and keep it there.”