The sane thing for me to do would have been to run in the opposite direction and flee for my life the second that I saw his bright blue eyes and bad boy smile. But I'd never been considered completely sane. So I stayed. I fell. I loved. And I broke.
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Chapter Fifteen:
The flight back to Georgia was just under four hours, and I was grateful for that because I was cramped next to a man on the larger side, who smelt of body odour and snored in my ear like he hadn't slept in days.
But the look on mama's face when she opened the front door to find me standing on the porch made the flight seem like nothing, and the pain of the previous months melt away.
"What's goin' on, honey?" Mama pulled out a pitcher of homemade sweet tea and put it on the small kitchen table. "I know that look, somethin' is goin' on in that beautiful brain of yours. Is it Jackson?"
Her blonde hair bounced around her shoulders when she sat down at the chair next to mine and put her hand on my knee, offering me comfort for a situation that she didn't even know the half of.
When Jax and I had first started dating, he'd been a regular topic in our almost-nightly phone calls. But, when we'd broken up, I'd told her in a two-line text message and she'd never spoken of his name again.
"Mama." I bit my lip and looked down at the table. "Is heartbreak meant to hurt this much?"
She ran her hand through my hair and smiled. "Darlin', that's why they call it heartbreak. It ain't ever fun, and it ain't ever pretty, but it's survivable."
"Then why do I feel like I'm goin' to die?" I asked through tears.
She stroked my hair again. "Because your heart hasn't come back to you yet, darlin', he still owns it."
Mama held me while I sobbed into her chest, waited for my breathing to normal out again and then looked over her shoulder.
I watched with confusion as she stood up and rummaged around in one of the cupboards, then pulled out a bottle of whiskey and ignored my surprised gasp. "Just don't tell your daddy."
"Mama!" Laughter poured from my lips as she found two shot glasses and brought them out. "Since when do you drink?"
In my twenty-three years, I'd never seen her so much as touch a glass of wine, and it turned out that she had hard liquor and shot glasses stashed in our house?
"Since my only daughter decided to move across the country and leave me." She gave me a teasing wink after she threw back the shot. She didn't even wince.
We did a few shots each before she sat back in her chair and gave me a pointed look. "Now, I know that your heart ain't breakin' just because you decided to call it quits with a boy you only knew for a few months. Tell me what's really goin' on, baby."
So I did.
I told her about my relationship with Jax.
I told her about the club, about Gemma, about the life that we'd been on the verge of building together.
I told her about Abel and his friendship with Larry.
I told her about Tara.
And, through it all, mama just kept pouring shots of whiskey and humming in places that didn't need a worded response, just a reminder that she was there and listening to me spill my heart out on our dining table.
"Sounds like you've got a real pickle on your hands, darlin'." She pursed her lips. "Your daddy cheated on me, once, you know?"
I thought of my parent's solid relationship and how they'd never so much as had a fight in front of me. Their touches were always soft and sweet, and they told each other that they loved each other every time they were in the same room.
The fact that my daddy had stepped out on her and been unfaithful was almost as confusing as if she'd told me that she no longer had faith or went to church on Sundays. "What?"
"It wasn't long before I found out I was pregnant." Her brown eyes looked sad. "We were goin' through a rough patch, and he found someone to take away that pain. They had an affair for a few months before we found out that I had you growin' in my belly, that his guilt got the better of him and he came clean."
I was stumped and told her so. "But y'all are- You're so happy? I don't understand."
"Because I chose to forgive him, darlin'." She sighed. "I'll never forget what he did and he knows that. But I made a conscious decision to rise above it. I love your daddy, I know that he's the one for me, and I know he feels guilty about what he did. He just about tore his heart from his chest, beat himself up over it for months after I'd found out. But I rose above. I prayed, I cried to Jesus, and then I decided that I didn't want to live without him, so I didn't."
"It was that easy?"
She shook her head. "No, it wasn't easy, and some days I still get mad and think about beatin' his head in with an iron about it. But then I think of all the good times that we've shared, and how he still brings me roses just because he was passin' by a store and he thought they'd make me happy."
When I didn't say anything, she laid her hand on my wrist. "Baby, everybody makes mistakes, it's part of bein' human. You've just got to decide whether or not bein' with him is what you want, and whether or not you can move past the mess he's made. Your heart is breakin' because you still love him. Now it's up to you to decide whether or not he's worth givin' a second chance to."
"What if I do and he does it again?" I whispered.
Mama gave me another shot of whiskey and took one of her own. "Than I'll fly to Charmin' and I'll beat him to death with a damned iron."
