Indisputable (27 page)

Tatum

The second the bell rings, I’m out of my seat and
tearing down the hall to the parking lot.  I pass masses of students
coming out of their sixth period classes, but I’m ahead of the herd.  I
don’t have time for obstacles.  I have to get home…to Jacoby’s home. 
He’s there waiting for me.  He has to be.  There’s a valid
explanation why he wasn’t here for calculus. 

I know with everything I am that he wouldn’t leave
without telling me.  He wouldn’t leave me behind.

I drive like a psycho, running stop signs and ignoring
the speed limit.  My mind is a one track train from hell and I’m forcing
myself to stay positive.  We’re okay.  Jacoby is okay. 
Everything is okay.  I’ve fought too hard to have this happiness in my
life; I’m not about to let it be taken away without one last battle. 

I hit the garage door opener as I round the corner of
Jacoby’s street.  My blood roars in my ears as the door lifts painfully
slow.  Just a crack inching open little by little. 

He’s here.

He’s here.

He has to be here.

I jump the curb, cutting over the patch of browning
grass between his house and the next, and blow out a gigantic breath when I see
the dark blue bumper of his car peek out beneath the rising door. 

Thank God.

Pulling in beside him, I cut the engine, hit the opener
again, and race into the house.

“Jacoby?” I yell, my voice echoing throughout the open
spaces.

Silence.

The room smells of Jacoby, the familiar sweet, woodsy
scent and something else uniquely him.  It wraps around me like a shield,
and my mind relinquishes its racing thoughts.  I charge through the empty
living room and into the kitchen.  Empty.  Turning on my heel, I race
down the hall to the spare bedroom and bathroom.  Both empty. 

“Jacoby, where are you?” I shout, my voice shrill to
my own ears.  The panic is rising, cresting, consuming my chest and my
lungs and my heart. 

When I hit the top of the stairs, I throw the bedroom
door open with so much force it cracks against the wall.  I don’t have to
step inside the room to know he isn’t here either.  The space is too
still, too quiet, like the air itself hasn’t been disturbed since we both left
for school this morning. 

“Jacoby, where are you?” I whisper into the
nothingness.  The room doesn’t answer me as I enter the space we shared as
recently as this morning.  The bed we slept in, the shower we made love
in, all of it is as quiet and as clueless as the inanimate objects they
are. 

Tears tickle my eyelids, and I can’t hold them back
any longer.  They rush down my cheeks in a torrent of pain and fear.
 I curl into a ball on my side in the center of the bed, and rest my cheek
against the soft comforter.

Love is a strange thing.  Sometimes it finds you
when you aren’t even looking.  Other times it requires you to fight with
all the energy you have, and then some, to prove yourself worthy. 
Regardless of how it came to be, when it’s gone, it treats us all the
same.  It rips you wide open, leaving a gaping, unfillable hole in its
absence.  Leaving you forever changed. 

I don’t know how long I lie in this bed, watching the
rays of sun sink across the wall until only dark shadows remain.  My only
company is the thoughts swirling around my head.  Thoughts of love and
loss, of mistakes and pain.

Desperation.

The room grows dark and shadows crawl like living
beings across the wall.  My tears eventually dry.  My eyelids droop,
and I feel like sleep could take me away.  But a loud knock coming from
down stairs has me suddenly wide awake.  I bolt from the room and take the
stairs two at a time, rushing towards the sound.  When I hit the living
room, the loud knocking sounds from the door, and I fling it open without checking
the peephole.

“Trey,” I cry out before lunging at the big man
wearing a mask of confusion in the doorway.  I wrap my arms around his
thick neck and burrow my face in his wide chest as a torrent of tears stream
from my eyes.  Trey lifts my body with him as he walks inside the house,
shutting the door and leading me to the couch.  All the while I cry. 

“Shh, honey.  What’s going on?  Where’s
Jacoby?” he asks.  Something about his tone, about the careful way he
delivers the question has my tears immediately calming, and I look up at his
concerned blue gaze.

“I don’t know.  He’s gone, and I think…I think he
had to leave.  Someone found out about us.” 

Simultaneously, Trey’s body locks tight, and he closes
his eyes.  When he opens them again, his face is carefully blank.

“What makes you say that?”

I sit with Trey while he holds my hand, and I fill him
in on the events of the past day.  The more I talk, the more agitated he
becomes until he jumps up from the couch and begins pacing the room.  His
behavior is frightening, and it gives me a deep feeling of dread in my gut.

“Trey,” I begin cautiously.  “What aren’t you
telling me?”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?” he asks,
and I don’t even have to think about it.  Our routine has been the same ever
since I started staying at his house.  We don’t text back and forth all
day because Jacoby has been adamant that I pay attention in class.  I see
him in the morning, then we both leave for school in our own cars.  We
text a bit during second period, because he knows I have study hall.  Most
days we’d meet up for lunch in his classroom.  Just thinking about what
happened today has a wave of bile rising in my throat.  We were so damn
stupid. 

“I saw him during lunch.  Someone found out about
us and threatened to tell the principal.  I thought we had it
handled.  Jacoby told me he’d see me during sixth period.  It’s his
calculus class.  After that, we usually leave in our separate cars and
come home, but today, he wasn’t in class.  He hasn’t answered any of my
calls or texts.”

Trey looks away from where I’m seated and stares
silently at the wall.  The anxiety building inside of me is becoming
harder to contain with each second that passes.  This is all my fault.

“He sent me a text around 1:30 today.”

Instantly, I’m on high alert.  “Tell me what he
said, Trey.” Dread creeps stealthily through my veins as Trey kneels before me
and grabs my clammy hands from my lap.

“I’m not sure what he meant.  It was short, and
he didn’t respond when I questioned him further.”

“Tell me,” I whisper.  My voice sounds small and
fragile.  A true reflection to how I feel right now.

“He said, ‘I’ll be back, but I have to leave.”

Icy water swims through my veins.  I cup my hands
over my mouth to hold in a sob as my body shudders.  This can’t be
happening.  We were so close.  So close to being free to live our
lives without repercussions, and one mistake is all it takes. 
He left
me.
 

“How could he leave me?” I cry.

“Honey, we don’t know that.  We don’t know where
he went.  Maybe he just needed to clear his head,” Trey soothes while
rubbing circles on the backs of my hands.  But I won’t hear any of
it.  His words aren’t penetrating the fog of despair clouding my mind. 
He left me.  He left me.  It’s all I can think.  It shrouds me
in my own personal hell.

The world around me tilts and swirls as I feel the
loss of control I’ve battled my entire life returning.  The feelings I
worked so hard to silence bubble up to the surface, proving to me I hadn’t
really overcome them.  They were never gone.  They were only biding
their time.  Knowing I was still weak, and waiting for me to break. 

I’m broken, and I’m desperate for relief.

I feel crazed and powerless.  In a move that
shocks us both, I tear my hands out of Trey’s grasp and leap over the back of
the couch with one destination in mind: the kitchen.  If I can get a
knife, I can regain some control.

I’m frantic and needy, and my palms are slick as I
yank open drawers to find something sharp.  Where does he keep all his
knives?

“Honey, what are you doing?”  Trey’s voice sounds
from behind me, quiet and cautious. 

I’m out of time.  I’m out of time. I’m out of
time.

The last drawer I yank open holds my prize.  I
grab the first knife I see, a small fillet knife, and without pause I skate the
sharp edge up my forearm.  Blood immediately bubbles to the surface where
my flesh tears, and I let out a harsh cry.  Instead of the heady rush I’m
accustomed to, all I feel is pain.  And shame.  I drop the knife in
shock and lock eyes with Trey.  A mask of sheer horror is frozen on his
face. 

“No!” He shouts before wrapping his strong arms around
me.  He kicks the knife away and sinks us both to the kitchen floor. 

“I’m sorry.”  The only words that feel
appropriate enough for what I just did.  What I just ruined.  I broke
a promise to myself, to Jacoby.  I’ve only had one counseling session so
far, and I broke a promise to my counselor, too. 

I hardly notice as Trey grabs a towel from the drawer
behind us and wraps my arm tight, holding pressure with one hand while he holds
onto me with the other.  I don’t have any words to offer him that will
express my shame, so I just keep repeating “I’m sorry,” over and over
again.  My head rests on his muscled chest, and he strokes my hair until
my words become whispered and the sky becomes dark.  Eventually, I drift
off to a restless sleep.

I wake up the next morning to harsh bright light from
the rising sun, and the loud blaring sound of Jacoby’s alarm on his
phone. 

Jacoby’s phone!

I frantically hop out of bed, trying to untangle
myself from the blankets and wincing in pain when my arm gets wrapped and
pulled in the sheet.  I don’t remember going to bed last night, which
means Trey probably brought me up here sometime after I drifted to sleep.

Or maybe Jacoby came home and brought me to bed. 
Why else would his phone be here.  But then, why isn’t he in bed with me?

Circling the bed, I drop to my knees and find his
phone underneath the night table.  That’s an odd place for his
phone.  He must have dropped it at some point.  My hope sinks. 
If his phone was here all this time, it would explain why he isn’t answering
any attempts to contact him. 

What was so important he left without his phone? 
Is this his way of cutting off all communication with me? 

I silence the alarm and sit back on my heels.  My
hands shake as I skim through his inbox, seeing several texts from myself and
Trey, but that’s it.  Doesn’t he have any other friends here?  My heart
breaks a little when I think of how kind and generous he’s been to me. 
God, if I can get him back, I’ll repay the favor tenfold.  I’ll make him
so happy.  He has Trey, and now he has me.  I just need to find him
first.

I open his call list as Trey knocks on the bedroom
door, cracking it open as he does.  “What was that sound?” he asks when he
sees I’m awake. 

“I found Jacoby’s phone.” I show him the device as I
move to sit on the bed.  Trey sits down beside me.  Just like his
inbox, the call list is short.  However, one name stands out as an
incoming call around noon yesterday.  “Who’s Brent?”

Trey studies me.  “Did you two ever talk about
your pasts?”

“We did,” I confirm.  “I know about how he grew
up, and I know about Harper.  What does this have to do with his past?”

“Brent is Harper’s brother.”

I’m stunned before confusion sets in.  “What does
this mean?  Do you think he didn’t leave because of me?”

Trey grabs my hand and holds it between both of his
palms.  “I think it’s extremely likely.  The call was incoming, which
means Jacoby didn’t call Brent as a means of escape.  My gut says
something happened back home, and Jacoby left in a hurry.” 

Hope stitches its way into my heart with his
words. 
Please let everything be okay,
I pray.  Not only for
whatever made him leave in such a rush but also for us.  Maybe our secret
hasn’t been discovered after all. 

***

Trey watches me like a hawk.  He forces me to get
up and go to school, even though I know Jacoby won’t be there.  He says
it’s because he doesn’t want me to get into trouble, but I know what it
is.  He’s trying to keep up with normalcy.  He’s trying to keep me
from breaking, and he thinks if I’m at school, I can’t hurt myself.  He is
right. 

But I don’t want to hurt myself.  Last night was
a moment of weakness.  Of desperation and pain.  It was the first
time since the morning after Jacoby and I first slept together that I had
something trigger me.  I knew I’d have slip ups.  I knew it wouldn’t
be easy.  I’m just ashamed that Trey was here to witness it.

As I trudge up to the building, everything seems
wrong.  The air is too cold, the clouds look like snow, and the students
are too loud.  When I enter the building, I’m hit with a blast of dry,
recycled air, and it smells funny.  The building looks old, as if I can
see every crack in the paint, every chip in the floor.  Everything is the
same, but yet, it’s also not.