Sweet Little Memories
Page 34

I didn’t move. How did he find me here? Why did he come looking for me? All these questions ran through my head as I stared at him. He didn’t move, he continued to watch me. I didn’t want him here. I had too much to deal with and Jasper was one added problem. He couldn’t find out about my baby. He couldn’t find out why I had left and I wasn’t telling him anything.
I walked to my car to confront him. I had no choice if I wanted in my car. This would ruin my quiet meal. My mind raced with every different scenario that would have led him here to me. None of it made sense. I hadn’t told a soul where I was going. I hadn’t even known where I was going.
“Surprise,” he said with a small smile tugging at his lips when I reached him. All I could do was stand there staring at him. I didn’t have anything to say to him. The last time I had seen Jasper I had made it clear I never wanted to see him again.
“Say something, Beulah. Glaring at me will get us nowhere.” He sounded amused. I wasn’t amused. Not in the least.
“Why are you here?” I asked. He wanted me to say something so there it was.
“To find you. I would have thought that was obvious.”
I looked around the parking lot and back at him. “I’m in Tallahassee Florida, Jasper. No one knows where I am. I left without a word on purpose. So no, that isn’t obvious. We haven’t spoken since the day after you so cruelly slashed your best friend with information you really didn’t know for sure in hopes of turning me against him. My question is, why are you here? I didn’t ask you to come nor do I want you here.”
He winced. “Ouch. When did you get mean?”
“The truth sometimes hurts. Doesn’t make me mean. Makes me honest,” I shot back at him.
He lifted his left shoulder with a small shrug then nodded. “You’re right. What I did was an asshole thing to do. But loving someone can make you do insane shit when you’ve lost them and can’t find a way to live without them.”
I sighed. He was back to the loving me thing. Although it had only been a few months ago that I fell in love with Jasper for a short brief fairytale romance, it seemed like another lifetime. It was all before I knew him, really. Before I knew the lies, the secrets, and it was before I knew Stone. Stone had been a mystery. After I got to know him, even his smile could make everything that was wrong in my world right. It was before I knew what it meant to truly give your heart completely to someone else.
“Why are you here?” I repeated instead of talking about the past. It needed to say there. Forgotten.
He dropped his hands from the crossed position over his chest. “Because you ran. You’re alone. And I . . . we want you safe.”
We? I frowned. “Who is we?”
His right eyebrow lifted as if I had just asked a stupid question. “You know who.”
I waited a moment for him to clarify then my silly heart sped up as I said his name “Stone?”
Jasper nodded.
“Stone sent you?” I asked finding that hard to believe.
He winced again. “Damn you’re trying to kill me. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the last time we were all together you took his loyalty, friendship and a lifetime of trust and threw it in his face. You turned on him, abandoned him like every other person in his life except Gerry. You were his family and you tossed that away. After all he’d done for you.” My voice gradually got louder as I spoke. I was starting to yell and snapped my mouth closed. I wasn’t going to fight with him in a parking lot. Drawing attention was the last thing I needed.
Jasper didn’t respond right away. He was silent. There was regret looming in his eyes. It was clear that he wished he hadn’t done it. That helped my anger cool. Maybe he wasn’t just like his mother after all. He felt remorse. He saw his faults and wanted to change them. Portia could not.
“I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. I let my insanity when it came to you take over. You don’t love me and you moved on. It was easy for you to forget what we had. But for me, Beulah, it hasn’t gotten easier. Nothing has changed for me. I think about you every damn day. Falling in love with you wasn’t something that disappeared when you did. My biggest fucking fear is I am always going to love you.”
I understood the pain in his eyes as he spoke. Loving someone you can’t be with was life altering. Constant emptiness and sorrow followed you everywhere. Jasper didn’t stop loving me when we found out we were cousins. I’d been so horrified that I’d been able to shut off most of my emotions with him. I missed him and worried about him. I had thought I loved him until I truly fell in love with Stone. Then I knew the difference. If Jasper had loved me the way I loved Stone, we both experienced the same brokenness.
“We’re related, Jasper. We couldn’t be. We never had a chance.”
He nodded. The sadness still there on his face. “I know, Beulah. But my heart doesn’t give a fuck. I wish to God it did.”
Through all of this, everything he’d done, everything I had grown to hate him for, I hadn’t considered how he felt about me. I had never considered he was hurting and unable to move on. My world had become Stone so quickly afterward I didn’t share the same pain Jasper did. Facing Jasper now knowing how hard it was to leave Stone because of the situation, I felt sympathy for Jasper. I guess what we felt was mutual regret. I should have been more sympathetic. I had moved on and thought he should too. My actions had been different but equally as cold as some of his had been to Stone.
“I’m sorry.” The words were inadequate but needed to be said.
“Me too,” he replied. “For a lot of shit and pain I caused. But I’m here now. You need me. I want to be needed. I’m not here to win you over. I know our reality will always make that impossible. But let me help you. If not for my sake let me help you because Stone called me. He trusted me enough to call me. I don’t know why he can’t be here. I don’t know why he was so damn desperate that he called me, but he did. Let me stay with you. Not because I traced your phone and tracked you down, but because he wants me here. He needs to know you’re safe,” he stopped and let out a sigh. “And I need to know your safe.”
There were a lot of things I could say at this moment. I wanted to argue with him about why he needed to leave. I could fight with him and send him back to Manhattan. I knew Stone was facing a fight that involved his son. If Jasper staying here eased his concern for me and he could focus on Wills then I was the cruel one to refuse it.