Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1) (25 page)

She flares her
nostrils and her shoulders stiffen. “I would love to sit here all day and listed to your amusing delusions, but we are ready to eat now. It’s time to put out the begging dog. You have two weeks to come up with the ninety grand it will take to replace my husband’s car. After that, we’ll start taking the money ourselves. I doubt your father’s shack is worth enough to even put a dent in the cost of the car, but we’ll start with that.”

Shit. So maybe I’m not completely out from under them. God damn it.

“
What the hell is wrong with you?” Jessa spits at her, removing her hand from my leg to prop herself over the table. I grab a hold of her before she lunges at Rachel and drag her out of the dining room.

“White trash,” Jackson calls after us.

I manage to get Jessa’s writhing body to the foyer where I set her down. I grab onto her hand and lead her to the back stairway and down to the basement. “I want to get out of here, Paxton,” she tells me and I can hear in her voice that she’s about to flip out.

“Give me a minute,” I tell her, leading her to the dark corner and op
ening my bedroom door. I flip a switch, illuminating the cinderblock, windowless room. I head to the heat register and rip the plate off, digging my hand inside and removing the lock box. I shove it down the back of my pants and head out of this house for the last time.

Jessa looks like s
he’s in shock as we back out of the driveway. I turn up the volume on the stereo so that talking is not an option. The bit of euphoria I felt during my moment of clarity with Rachel has worn off and I’m feeling the effects of being in that house with her again. I’m just trying not to throw up and I don’t want to hear Jessa point out the obvious to me. I don’t want to hear what that life looks like through someone else’s eyes.

It’s not until I pull up to Vi’s apartment that I realize this is the end. I’m leaving and going back to California where I will have to face Gabriel and tell him he’s fucked. That I managed to
, not only take away his bank, but his home too. Even if we pooled every cent we have, including the money I’m gonna get for my Charger, and Gabriel’s vatos threw in too, we wouldn’t even be close to coming up the ninety K it’s gonna take to replace that car. I’m wondering how malicious Rachel actually is. Why she sent me off in that car with the title in the glove box instead of buying me a beater or sending me off on the bus. She knew I would sell it. She knew when the time came I wouldn’t be able to replace it.

I turn down the radio and turn to Jessa who looks about as broke down as I feel.

“What are you going to do, Pax?” she asks, looking lost in her thoughts.

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it.”

“I have a little over twenty thousand in my college savings fund, I can try to find a way to withdraw it…”

“Jess, no. I’ll figure it out.”

“Paxton, stop. You need as much help as you can get dealing with that…
woman
. Everyone here will help you, your family in California will help you. Don’t let her take away your dad’s house because you’re stubborn. Let’s figure this out.”

“I appreciate it
, Jess, but all I can do now is head home and try to figure this shit out.”

Jessa stares
at me and lets out a sigh of defeat. “You look exhausted, Pax. Are you really going to try and drive right now?”

I am
exhausted. All I really want to do is head inside that apartment and bring Jessa back to our bed and sleep.

“Please, Pax.
You need a minute to chill out. Just come up… just for a few minutes, at least eat something before you go.”

I pull the keys from the car and open my door. I follow Jessa into the apartment and it feels like I’m home. I shouldn’t have come back in here.

Violet comes running into the living room. “Oh, thank God, I was so worried about the two of you. What happened last night?”

“I doubt he wants to talk about it right now,” Jessa mutters as she heads into the kitchen.

“Okay,” Vi says, staring at me with sadness in her eyes.

I walk to her and sling my arm around her back, following Jessa to the kitchen. “It was no big deal, don’t look so depressed.”

Jessa lets out a disbelieving laugh, but doesn’t comment.

“You look awful, Pax.”

“Thanks, Vi. I feel pretty awful.”

Jessa sets a sandwich
and a glass of water. I eat it with my two girls staring at me with concern.

When I finish I head to my bedroom to collect the shit that didn’t make it into my duffle. I pause when I step foot back in our room. My
clothes are in a bundle by Jessa’s pillow. The bedside table is littered with tissues and it’s like I can feel the pain. The pain that Jessa felt being here without me. I can’t imagine having to sleep in that bed without her. I can picture how hard it was for her. Because, shit, she loves me.
She’s in love with me
.

Jessa walks in and grabs the trash can, throwing the tissues in it, trying to hide the evidence of what she felt. She looks embarrassed as she gathers my things that she was apparently sleeping
with. I think about how she wouldn’t keep my sweatshirt and I suddenly realize how hard this is. So hard that she can’t keep any piece of me.

All of the sadness and depression that I have been covering up with my anger suddenly takes over my body and I have to sit down – on the bed.

Jessa comes and sits by my side but doesn’t say anything. I know I can’t get up and leave right now. I feel like I’m not physically capable of it. I know this is wrong, not only for me, but for Jessa too, but I lay down in the bed, pulling her along with me. I can’t think of how to make anything better for Gabriel or Jessa or me, all I know is that the only way to get through this moment is to hold her, in our bed, until I can manage to do something else.

My body is reeling with emotions, but I can’t really put thoughts together. It was awful, watching the way his family treated him. Why do they do that and how long have they been doing it for? Is that how he grew up? Is that what his life was? I hope not, but from the things he said to her about Gabriel, I’m guessing that it was.

This
goodbye keeps getting prolonged and I know that the longer I hold onto him, the worse the pain will be when he finally goes, but I don’t care about that. I’m just grateful he’s not in that car driving out of my life at the moment.

The room is dark and quiet and I
know Paxton needs to rest, but I need to understand what I just witnessed. I search for the right words to say to him. “I’m sorry that that woman is your mother,” I whisper.

He
doesn’t say anything and I’m guessing this is one of those things he doesn’t talk about. That he’s never talked about- with anyone. Out of all the things that have been hinted at by the people in Paxton’s life, his shitty family was never one of them. Obviously, since his mom was paying him to stay out of Chicago, I knew his family life wasn’t ideal. But the way those people treat him is crueler than I could have imagined.

I want to know. I want to know what happened to him in that house.
“Is that how your life was? Is that how she treats you?” He’s still quiet. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he doesn’t have to, but I need to get this shit out in the open. “Why would she do that? How could she do that? Treat you like shit and treat those pretentious assholes like they are God’s gifts to stepchildren? And you had to live with them? You had to grow up in a house with those two? And why the hell was your bedroom down in that dank basement? Did you choose that, or did she do that to you? I mean, would she really treat her own child that way, just because your dad didn’t love her?” He’s still silent, but now I want answers. I want to understand this guy that I care about more than anyone in this world who is still keeping himself locked in a cage. I sit up then straddle my legs over his stomach and lean into his face until I can make his eyes out in the dark room. “Tell me, Paxton. Tell me something, anything, because I need to understand. I want to understand. How the hell could someone treat their kid that way?”

“I don’t know, beso
,” he finally mutters.

“Answe
r my questions, Paxton. Just one. Give me something.”

His hands move out from behind his head and I feel a finger stroking
my cheek softly. He holds onto my waist and picks me off of him, laying me on the bed, facing away from him. His body forms to mine and his hand rests on my stomach. “Yeah. That’s how I grew up. I don’t know that it was that bad at first. I don’t remember a lot about my first few years in that house.”

His melancholy voice make my whole body ache. “What do you remember, Pax?”

“I remember my room. I used to live upstairs with them and that room is about all I remember. I remember being alone, looking out the window, playing with my toys, eating meals at a table that was in the corner. I remember her in there with me sometimes - playing on the floor with me and reading books to me, laying with me in my bed. I remember a song she used to sing to me. I remember loving her.”

I hold tight to Paxton’s hands as the tears flow f
reely from my eyes. The thought of him as a little boy loving that woman is too much.

“I think as the years went on things just got worse.
Maybe in the beginning she cared about me, but I think eventually I really was just the pawn she was using in a game she thought Gabriel was playing with her. Maybe me being
her
child was not getting to Gabriel how she wanted it to so her focus shifted to Jackson and Julia and I just wasn’t a player in her game anymore.  Maybe she thought if he knew she had replaced me with another man’s children, it would affect him somehow. I don’t know… I’m just starting to figure all this shit out myself. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to think about. I’ve never been forced to try and figure it out until now. It was just my life.”

I
suck in a hard breath, desperately trying not to become the blubbering baby I don’t deserve to be right now – this is his hell… his past. And he’s not crying. I can’t lose it right now. But that hell was
just his life.
He didn’t even know any better. And, Jesus, knowing he felt that is painful.

“
After a while she just stopped coming to that room, stopped bringing me meals. I remember having to go to the kitchen, being scared of what they would say to me. Or what they wouldn’t say to me. Eventually I just chose to stay in that room.

“
Every day was the same. I got up in the morning, took care of my shit, waited at the corner for my bus to bring me to public, while Rachel drove past me in her car on her way to bring Julia and Jackson to their private school. I floated through my days trying not to be noticed, came back home and retreated to my room until the next day when I had to do it all over again.”

My heart is pounding against my chest and I can feel the blood pumping through my veins.
“Pax,” I mutter through my tears.

“
It’s okay, beso, because in the summer, for three months, I got to be free. I got to go to Venice and be with Gabriel and live outside in the sun. I never wasted a minute in Venice. I got up with the sun, spent my days on my board with my boys - on the boardwalk, surfing in the ocean, hanging out at my uncle’s tattoo shop. I felt like I owned that town. Like it was built for me. I didn’t even have a bedroom in Gabriel’s house. I slept on the couch, and I loved it. I hated walls. I hated looking out windows into the world.

“
Life there was insane. I was always an
hombre
. I was never a kid. Beer and weed were part of my diet since I was nine. I had sex for the first time the summer before I turned fourteen. I never slept; there was no such thing as bed time with Gabriel. I thought it was perfect. When I was twelve my uncle gave me my Gringo guitar tattoo and I loved that thing. It was a piece of Venice that was part of me, that Rachel couldn’t take away. But she punished me for it. That’s when I got moved to the basement and if she bothered to talk to me it was to rail on me about being a dirty Mexican loser, a waste of an egg and my fathers fucked up son.

“It
wasn’t ‘til Gabriel went to lock up that she disowned me completely. That’s when I finally found a life here, but you get the vague idea how all that ended.”

My eyes are closed tight and my body is shaking with pain and anger. I can’t believe that was Paxton’
s life. With that childhood, I can’t believe he isn’t completely dead inside. How is he even capable of love after being raised like that? How could I have not seen that? How could I have intentionally tried to not love him? How could I have hurt him?

“
I’m sorry Pax. I’m sorry that she hurt you like that. I’m sorry that you were ever hurt… that I hurt you. You don’t deserve it. I wish you could have shared that part of yourself with me, Pax. I would have done things differently. I would have loved you better. I wouldn’t have tried so hard to convince myself that I couldn’t have you. You didn’t deserve that shit from me and it sucks, Pax, that we never really had a chance. I didn’t even really know you,” I tell him, squeezing tight to his hands, feeling pissed off and angry… at his family, at him, mostly at myself. What the hell is wrong with me? How could I have fucked up what we could have had?

“
I don’t know who I am, Jessa. I never have. The closest I’ve come to feeling like myself, like a person not defined by my life, is with you. I get that it’s not much, but you had more of me than anyone ever has.”

He’s quiet then and I am so overcome with emotion that I can’t speak either. I can’t start telling myself that
, with me, is where Paxton belongs. That if the closest he’s come to feeling like himself is with me, then he should stay here – with me. I can’t start believing that. “Are you going to be happy in California, Pax? Are you going to be able to go home and finally be rid of all this shit and just be happy? Because I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I need you to be happy.”

“I always thought that was possible. I always considered that place my home, where the real me lived. I always thought if I could have that, if I could hold onto it
and not have to leave it, that I would figure out who I am and I could start living. But that didn’t happen, Jess. When I left River Bluff and went there, to stay, that didn’t happen. Because, beso, my home isn’t there. It’s not where I belong. My home is with you, it’s wherever you are. Even if it’s this horrific town.”

I listen to his words and I think I understand what
he’s saying, and I don’t know if I deserve it, but I want to be his home. I want to be the place where he can find himself and I want to help him do that. I want to make him happy. I turn around in his arms and look into his eyes. “Pax… what are you saying?”

“I think I need you,” he whispers.

“I’m pretty sure I need you too, Pax. I need all of you. Not just the pretty wrapping on the box.”

“The pretty wrapping on the box?” he laughs.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “You- this beautiful cover; your eyes and your mouth and your skull and your tattooed hands. I want inside, Paxton.”

“That can happen if you let it, beso. I’m no longer okay with part of you. I don’t want you if it’s conditional. If there are rules I can’t break and words I
can’t say. I don’t want the fraction of yourself that you’ve given to the guys that came before me. I need the real you and I need all of you. If you can’t give me that then I can’t do this with you again. I can’t live through this again.”

“I don’t think I really have a choice, Pax. I don’t
know how to keep you at arm’s length anymore. Every stupid argument I used to protect myself, to stop myself from caring too much, all that shit was demolished. Nothing has ever hurt as bad as losing you.”

“I fucked you up, huh beso?”

“Love… it totally sucks,” I tell him, trying to reign in my emotional ass.

Paxton laughs then tells me, “I agree. But I’m gonna love you anyway.”

“We don’t really have a choice, right? That’s why it sucks so bad. Falling in love is the ultimate loss of control.”

Paxton’s fingers trail over my cheek and land on my lips and with that simple touch I feel my sarcastic defense falter.
I have his touch back.
The hands that I thought would never touch me again are on me.  “Are we really doing this, beso? Are we handing ourselves over to each other? ‘Cause I’m in. I’m willing to do that.”

“It’s going to be scary, Pax, but I’m going to let you love me and I’m going to love you back. I’m going to give you all of me because the only thing I will ever want is all of you.”

“Okay,” he whispers, “let’s do this.”

As I stare into Paxton’s eyes
, knowing that for the first time, he is really mine and I am really his, I don’t feel any fear. The two of us… we are going to okay. Rachel can go to hell. I’m going to love Paxton enough to make up for every minute he had to spend with that bitch.

“
You realize what this means, kid?”

“What does it mean, Pax?”

“You’re in a committed relationship. One that you can’t just leave. You got yourself another boyfriend.”

All those words don’t scare me anymore like he thinks the
y do. They sound pretty fantastic, actually. “That night in the restaurant, when you proposed to me, thinking that if I just faced my fears I would be able to get over myself….?”

“
Yeah?”

“That was stupid, Pax. Really fucking stupid
. But the minute I accepted that I had fallen in love with you, all that shit went away. So, I hate to tell you, but none of your words scare me anymore. You’re going to have to come up with a new tactic to make me squirm.”

“
Shit
. Is that supposed to be a challenge? Because you and I both know that if there is one thing I know how to do, it’s make you squirm,” he tells me before holding my arms down and climbing on top of me. He looks at me with hunger in his eyes and then his mouth comes crashing down on me and, god damn it, I’m squirming already.