Being back here with him, kissing me in the dark like this, with only the sound of the rushing falls around us, feels amazing.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
“What for?” I push my fingers into his lovely thick hair.
“For this, bringing me here … for being you.”
“You like?” I check.
“I love. We should come back here once a year. Make it our thing. It is our place after all.”
“Once a year it is.”
He takes my face in his hands. “Just like this, Tru, late at night, just you and me, alone. No one around for miles.”
I nod my agreement. Jake kisses me once more, lightly on the lips, then moves off me, and lies down beside me, flat on his back.
Feeling content, I stare up at the night sky, with its gentle smattering of stars and bright glowing moon.
Jake lets out a light sigh.
Instantly, I know his mind and mood have shifted elsewhere, and I think I know where to.
Maybe bringing him here to Lumb Falls hasn’t been as effective as I had hoped.
I can almost feel his thoughts pouring out of his mind. I want to ask him what’s wrong, but I know with Jake it’s best to wait until he’s ready to talk.
“You called my mom and asked her to come didn’t you?” He turns his head to the side, looking at me.
Truth or denial.
Denial.
I want him to believe she came off her own back.
“No,” I shake my head, blinking.
“Tru…” He gives me the ‘I know you did’ look.
Biting my bottom lip, I release my sigh out through my nose. “How did you know?” I concede. “Did your mum tell you?”
He shakes his head, no. “I just know you.”
“Are you angry with me?” I screw my face up.
“No of course not.” He looks surprised.
“Are you angry with your mum?”
He presses his lips together and shakes his head.
No, he’s not angry, he’s disappointed, and that’s worse. Way worse.
“She didn’t realise how much it was affecting you, Jake. The instant I told her, she came off the phone and booked the next available flight to Manchester.”
Turning away from me, he looks up and the sky. I hear him exhale.
“He tried to rape her that night.” His voice is so quiet in the night air.
I turn on my side, facing him. “Your dad?”
He nods.
“He was drunk and high, he’d been out gambling, fuckin’ around like normal … he’d been gone for weeks.”
“I remember,” I breathe.
“I liked it when he wasn’t there. I always liked it best when he was off on one of his benders.”
“I know.” I put my hand on his chest over his heart.
“And that night he rolled home, broke, wanting money off mom like usual. It was late, but I was still awake. We’d been watching a movie together – I can’t even remember which one now, but she sent me to my room the second she heard his key go in the lock. She told me to lock myself in my bedroom and to not come out no matter what. I mean – what kid has to have a lock on their bedroom door, you know?” He laughs, but there’s no humour there.
“I didn’t want to leave her with him, but I did as I was told. I could hear them fighting downstairs. He wanted money and she didn’t have any to give him. Then he started beating her, like he’d done so many times before, and I could hear it and I just wanted it to stop, Tru. And I just knew this time was worse – I don’t know how, I just knew.” He drags his hands through his hair.
“Then I heard mom running up the stairs, trying to get away from him. He was yelling, and I could hear her screaming out on the landing, and I just couldn’t take it anymore – I just wanted to help her, I wanted him to stop hurting her. So I came out of my bedroom, and he had her there on the floor, and … she was covered in blood – her face was a mess, I barely recognised her and–” He pauses.
My heart is aching as I look at him, seeing him reliving that moment in his mind.
He turns his head and meets my eyes. “I saw the fear in her eyes, Tru. I’ll never forget that look – she was terrified for me and for her. Horrified that I’d seen it – seen what he was trying to do to her. I was only nine, but I knew enough to understand what was happening. Then I just started yelling at him to stop. I tried to grab him and pull him off her. But I was nine, and he was stronger than me. He just grabbed hold of me and tossed me aside like I was a fuckin’ toy – a fuckin’ inconvenience. We were near the top of the stairs, and I went down the full flight.”
I briefly close my eyes, and feel a tear run down the side of my face, soaking into my hair.
“I don’t remember much after that. I just remember hearing my mom screaming for help. Then the next thing I knew your dad was beside me, and I could hear the sirens coming, and your dad just kept saying, over and over, ‘I’m so sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry I didn’t stop this from happening to you.’ ”
Tears are streaming down my face now.
“Afterwards at the hospital they told me I had hit my head hard from the fall. I had a concussion, had broken my arm and my jaw, and had cut my chin open, and I’d had to have stitches.” His hand goes to his chin, touching his scar.
He looks so young in this moment, and I wish I knew how to fix things for him. To somehow take his pain away forever.
Jake puts his palms to his eyes for a moment. I know he’s pushing back whatever emotion is in there.
I wipe my face dry with my hands.
That’s the first time Jake has ever spoken to me properly about what happened that night. I knew bits and pieces, but I didn’t know Paul had tried to rape Susie. That part was kept from me by my folks for obvious reasons.
Paul went to prison for what he did to Jake and Susie. Eight years he got. Eight measly years. I know, ridiculous huh? Throw your kid down a flight of stairs and nearly kill him, beat and almost rape your wife, and here you go, we’ll give you eight years in HMS’s finest with the chance of early parole.
“What did Paul die of?” I ask quietly.
I hadn’t plucked up the courage to ask Jake what Paul died of in these last few days. He’s been so closed off and I didn’t want to push things for him.
Whatever it was he did die of, I hope he somehow suffered after what he did to Jake and Susie.
“A heart-attack,” Jake answers quietly. “He’d been dead for five days before anyone found him. It was a neighbour who alerted the police when they hadn’t seen him for a while.”
“Had you heard anything from him over the years?”
Sighing, he takes my hand in his and brings it to his mouth, kissing my knuckles.
“After he went to jail, he was clean for a while, and he was writing me asking me to forgive him, but I never replied. Then we moved to the States with Dale, and I didn’t hear anything until I was twenty-two and the band was flying high. He got in touch with me through Stuart. I don’t how he got hold of his number but he did. It took me a week before I called him back. I had all these things ready that I was going to say to him. I was going to tear him a shred – and you know what?” he snorts. “The second I heard his voice, I felt like that nine year old kid again. I felt so fuckin’ weak in that moment, and I fuckin’ blew it.”
I rest up on my elbow. Looking down into his eyes, I brush his hair off his forehead. “It doesn’t make you weak, baby, it makes you human.”
He shakes his head. “I was weak, Tru. I didn’t say a goddamn thing to him about what he’d done to me and mom. And the worst thing was, he hadn’t got in touch because he wanted to apologise for what he’d done, or to even see me – he called because he needed money.”
In this moment, I hate Paul. I can feel the anger bubbling under my skin.
“Did you give him it?” I ask, chewing on the inside of my mouth.
I already know the answer, because I know Jake.
He sighs. “My lawyer sent him a non-disclosure saying that he could never talk about me or my past and what had happened. That he could never make claim to be my dad in the press, or to anyone ever. If he signed he could have the money.”
“Did he sign?”
He looks at me. “There was a two hundred thousand dollar check sitting at the bottom of it, so yeah, he signed.”
“You gave him two hundred thousand dollars?” I gasp.
“It’s nothing to me, Tru. And if it meant keeping him and that part of my life away from me, then it was more than worth it. I knew the money wouldn’t last him long though. He always could burn through money quick. He liked drugs … just like I do. I guess it’s true what they say – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He rolls his eyes in on himself.
I grab his face, turning him to look me. “You are nothing like him, Jake – nothing. And you never could be.”
He doesn’t look so sure.
“I am, Tru. I know you won’t want to see it – I know you want to see the good in me, and I love you for that, more than you could ever know … but I am like him – a lot like him. I would never hurt you – I could never hurt you.” He touches my face. “But the drugs and the booze … and the women,” he sighs. “I’m exactly like him. My mom knows it too.”
“She said that?” I gasp.
He shakes his head, no. “She doesn’t have to. I can see it in her eyes every time she looks at me – the disappointment, just how much I remind her of him.”
“No, I don’t believe that. Susie loves you. Yes, you’ve struggled in your past, understandably so because of what he did to you. But you’re not that person anymore, you took control and you’re stronger now.”
His gaze softens on me. He brushes his knuckles across my cheekbone. “Because I have you back in my life.”
I take hold of his hand, kissing it.
“Did you ever hear from him again?” I ask, lying back down beside him, keeping hold of his hand.
“Just before Jonny died. He’d gone through the money, like I knew he would. So I sent him four hundred grand. Thought it might keep him away for double the length of time. Then the next time I hear anything it’s from the authorities. I was listed as his next of kin. He had no one else. So it was left to me to bury him.”
“Well, he’s gone now, so we can leave all of that in the past where it belongs, and move forward – start our life together properly.”
“In LA.”
“In LA,” I smile. “Do you want a beer?” I ask, sitting up, letting go of his hand.
“Thought you’d never ask,” he jibes, and I feel a little of my Jake returning to me.
I grab a couple of beers out of the cooler, pop the caps off and hand him his, as he sits up facing me.
“To Lumb Falls, hot summers, and missing bikini tops,” I grin lifting my bottle and chink it against his.
“And more missing bikini tops to come,” he grins back at me, naughty Jake in his eyes, before taking a swig of his beer.