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IN CASE YOU DON'T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST UPDATE....
LAST CHAPTER RECAP: Right before this chapter, Elias and Jersey hadn't spend much time together in the weeks following the official rekindling of their relationship. It's November, and Jersey was secretly planning a Thanksgiving Dinner Celebration with Indigo and Ryker for Elias (because she assumed he had nowhere to go for the holidays). Meanwhile, Elias was planning on asking Jersey to spend Thanksgiving with him and his mom in San Francisco (where she lives).
Elias put together an elaborate plan/scavenger hunt for Jersey to figure out so she could find him waiting for her (romantic set up in toe) ready to ask her to go with him to San Francisco. As expected, Jersey said yes, which both Elias and his mom, Maria, were ecstatic about. Elias's mom hinted on the phone that she hoped that this wouldn't be the last time Jersey would say "Yes"to Elias. Naturally, Elias was mortified, and when Jersey asked him what his mom was referring to, he very bashfully brushed off the question ;).
Now the two of them are headed up to SF, but with such a dark history between Elias and San Francisco, there might be a few storm clouds hanging over their romantic holiday....
San Francisco's covered in shadows when we start to land. Heavy clouds carrying heavier rain stretch out across the slope-hilled city as far as the eye can see. The weather was perfect when we left Los Angeles. Clear skies and sunshine smiling down on the Santa Monica coastline like it always does.
I held on to Jersey all throughout take off, still terrified that somebody's cellphone would bring us back down to the ground like she said it would the first time we flew together. But then all that SoCal beauty sitting under the wings caught my eye, and my panic disappeared a beach side vista at a time.
I felt light. Weightless. Like I was floating just above gravity and right below God, so I said a silent prayer to thank Him for the moment. For the miracle of a second chance to make things right with Jersey, my mom, and all the frayed ends of my life I left in San Francisco.
I was happy when I left LA. Hopeful even. But the further I get from the city that saved me, the faster the feeling fades.
The captain flashes on the seat belt sign and then goes on to calmly announce that we're preparing to land at San Francisco International. Landing's a magical word. Why? Cause landing means that the flying part is pretty much over. Win win situation. I take in the good news, lean back, wait for the Cap to give us an ETA, and prepare myself for nothing but smooth sailing until we're back on earth.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain, we're beginning our decent into San Francisco and should be arriving in the next ten minutes. The weather's a bit rough so you can expect a few bumps along the way. Please keep your seatbelt fastened until the seat belt sign is turned off. Thank you."
The speaker switches off and the wings on the plane start to rattle to the point where the vibrations make their way through my whole body. I grab on to the arm rests hard enough for my skin on my hands to pale as the shaking picks up. I turn over to see Jersey out cold with her face plastered against the window while my blood pressure's starts to skyrocket.
How she can snooze through a mid-air earthquake is beyond me, but I don't wake her up to ask. Instead, I reach down and tug on my seatbelt until everything below my waist starts to go numb.
The plane dips a little and I fight myself to not lift up the arm rest and latch on to Jersey the way I want to. The old me would've woken her up and forced her to figure out a way to calm me down, but this time, I back off the impulse and let her sleep. She needs it. She needs her space and her rest more than I need her to hold my hand through another panic attack.
I shut my eyes and try to keep my breathing steady the way Dan taught me to, but the pressure pushing down on my chest gets worse the longer I try to ignore it. I bend over, reach for my backpack under the seat in front of me, and drag it onto my lap. A blonde stewardess catches me ripping through my zipped up compartments and signals me to stop from the end of the cabin. Normally, I'd listen to her, but normally, I can breathe and right now I can't. So I ignore her and go back to trying to find my pills before I pass out.
"Sir? Sir, please stow your bag underneath your seat during landing. It's airline policy."
I glance up and catch a glimpse of her face but the edges of my vision are too dark for me to focus on anything. I open my mouth to respond to her but the only sound that comes out is labored, raspy whistling from my lungs. My hands keep searching through my bag while the stewardess tries to pry it away from me.
I shake my head and choke out the word "pills" to her but she doesn't understand. Jersey would. But I don't want her to see me like this. Not when I'm supposed to be the one taking care of things instead of having her take care of me.
I want her to be able to look at me and see a man. A whole person. Not a guy who acts like a child whenever he's afraid. Not a boy trying to act like he's stronger than he really is.
I wanna be better for her--someone who's enough to build the kind of future that I know she needs. But right now, I'm none of those things, 'cause as we're descending back down into a city filled with memories of my mistakes, all I see are the walls caving in.
And I'm not strong enough to keep them standing.
I'm still holding my breath when the landing gear touches down on the tarmac. The plane roars to a slow stop, the seatbelt sign switches off, and everybody seems relaxed and ready to venture out into San Francisco.
Except me.
Jersey stirs awake and opens her eyes to let in the light, while I'm forcing mine shut to keep the memories out.
I flicker out of the present and see myself sitting on this same flight a little over a year ago. Alone. Hollow. Staring out the window with nothing but hate, resentment, and sadness rotting me from the inside out.
I sat there in silence while my plane pulled into the gate, craving anything I could get my hands on to make me numb. And in that tiny space of time, I switched from wanting to see Jersey more than I wanted to breathe, to wanting my demons to erase my memories of her.
So I called out to my old "friends" and eventually they found their way home to me. They led me to a liquor store and took control to the point where I don't even remember how I ended up on my mom's doorstep.
But my demons do. They remember everything. Always waiting in the shadows for me to slip up. To give in.
I just hope to God they don't find their way back to me today.
The soft pressure of Jersey's hands against my shoulders snaps me back to the present. My eyes flutter open and I find her staring at me terrified. I don't even have to ask her what happened because my body's already telling half the story. My t-shirt's soaked in sweat and my chest's heaving like I just sprinted six miles. I force my lips into something like a smirk but she doesn't buy it.
"Smile, Jersey. We're on vacation, remember?" I say.
She totally ignores me and wipes the sweat off my face with one hand and pulls out my pill bottle with the other.
"Smile? I wake up to you looking like this and you want me to smile? Why didn't you wake me up, Elias? Why didn't you tell me that you were--"
"Because I didn't want to--"
You sound like him, E.
"--I'm not a kid, Jersey--"
Yes, you are. So was Dad. He never grew up and neither will you.
"--I don't need you--"
Oh, but you do. You're nothing without her, remember?
"--to try to fix me every time something goes wrong."
"Then what do you want me to do, Elias? Leave you here? Pretend that this isn't happening? Because we're way past that and you know it."
Jersey's words come out soft and stern and silences the voice in my head that keeps threatening to tear the two of us into pieces. Regret spills into my blood to the point where I'm drowning in it so I stare down at my hands instead of at her.
"I know. I'm sorry. This place is just--messing with my head and I--"
She lifts a finger to my lips to stop me.
"Don't worry about it. That was the anxiety talking, not you."
A semi-confident smile dances on her lips but disappears somewhere in my silence.
"You don't know that, Jersey. There's a lot of things you don't know."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. I don't even know what I'm saying right now. I just need to take my pills so all of this can stop," I say.
I reach over and try taking my meds from her but she locks her fingers around the bottle and pulls it away from me.
"The pills can wait. What don't I know, Elias?"
More than I'm ready to tell you.
"Forget it. Forget I said anything, okay? We can talk later. Right now, I just wanna get our stuff and go. Can we do that? Please."
She nods at me--but nodding and agreeing are two different things. She doesn't look at me. She doesn't say anything. She just sits there, silently taking all the poison that just came out of my mouth, all the color draining out of her face.
My stomach bottoms out at the sight of it. I sound like my dad. I'm acting like my dad. I'm treating her like my dad would. And I hate myself for it. I hate myself for not being able to stop. Jersey aimlessly hands me my meds and stands up out of her seat to leave. She doesn't look at me once as she passes. So I reach up to stop her before she slips out of my fingers again.
"Jersey, hold on. Please, I--"
"I'll be outside."
She jerks her hand away from me and the tips of her fingers knock the prescription bottle out of my hand and onto the floor. The sound gets everyone's attention. I grab it off the floor as fast as I can, hoping to heaven nobody notices.
But everyone notices.
A couple in the row across from us turns over and eyes me for a few seconds too long. Jersey shoots Ken and Barbie a tight-lipped smile and tells them that everything's okay, even though it's not. They get up to leave but the guy turns back to face me a few more times before he disappears down the aisle.
I know that stare.
It's the one Tanner used to give my dad every time he had to keep him from getting physical with my mom. My blood boils over with a new kind of shame I don't ever want to feel again. I shift my focus back to Jersey, take her by the corner of her t-shirt, and stop her a second time. I stand up, pull her close, and lean forward until my forehead is pressed against hers and her eyes are locked on mine.
"Please wait. I'm sorry. I just--"
I take a second to swallow the embarrassment rising in my throat before I answer her.
"--I need to get out of here."
"I think we both do."
She steps past me, picks my prescription off the floor, pops off the top, and hands me two little blue pills before she starts down the aisle ahead of me. I stare at my meds for a couple seconds and try to block out old thoughts of the last time I swallowed down a handful, but they don't stop.
A picture of my white walled room at rehab flickers across my mind. My always made bed. The sickly sterile smell in the air. The open ocean outside the window. The hopelessness. I shake off the memories before they swallow me, throw back my meds, and force myself out of my chair to follow Jersey.
I muscle my way through three or four people just to catch up with her right as she steps off the plane. The second we're back on solid ground I usher her to the side of the gate and wait until the rest of the passengers walk by before letting myself go.
As soon as we're alone, I drop my head down to her shoulder and hold onto her as hard as I can. I hold her to say I'm sorry. I hold her to tell her I need her. I hold her to convince myself that she's real--and that I'm not here alone this time.
Too many triggers.
Too many bad memories.
Too much of so much of the same feeling that pulled me under last summer.
She runs her hands along my back and cradles my body against hers until I feel how strong she is despite me. She's anchoring me to this moment and rooting me to her even though she shouldn't be. Even though I lost my temper out of shame and fear. She's still holding me up, and right now I don't even have the right words to thank her.
So I take her by the hand, take her out of the airport, and flag down a taxi to drive her to the one place where I can make her understand just how grateful I am.
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Hope Ministries Church hasn't changed much since the last time I saw it. Aside from a couple more pews and a few more people scattered around the church, everything's peacefully familiar. Quiet calm washes over me the second I lead Jersey in through the arched doors. I haven't told her why we're here, or why I basically begged the taxi driver to take a detour on the way to my mom's, but it'll make sense to her soon enough.
"Is your mom meeting us here? I thought we were heading to her place," Jersey says, as her eyes dart up towards the old wooden rafters.
I take her by the hand, pull her into one of the pews, and sit her down next to me.
"No, I wanted to make a quick pit stop before we headed her direction. This place is kind of a second home to me, a sanctuary if you will, and I wanted you to see it."
"It's beautiful."
Jersey looks out over the rows of dusty pews and up towards the podium at the front of the church. The layout's simple. No big fancy crosses, no gold flashy altars, or stained-glass windows, just a simple building with enough space and quiet to let God in and keep the world out.
"It is. I spent more time here after rehab then I did at my mom's."
"How come?"
"Because I couldn't be honest with anybody at home, but I could always be honest in this place. That's why I wanted to bring you here."
I offer my hand to her and she takes it, confused.
"What do you need to be honest about? You're not hiding some deep dark secret from me are you? Cause you've been totally weird since we landed. Not to say that you're not weird normally, but you're being weirder than usual."
I lace my fingers in between hers and slowly trace the ridges of her knuckles with my thumb. Her hands are always soft, always comfortable. But I have to learn how to hold onto her without worrying about if or when she'll let go. I've gotta learn how to love her without all this desperation. Cause I'm barely keeping myself above water these days.
"Yeah, I know. Now that I think about it, I probably should've told you why I wanted to bring you here before we actually showed up, but I didn't wanna freak you out."
"You're not an axe murderer are you? Or in a cult? I don't do cults," she says.
I let out a breathy laugh despite the fact that my heart's doing gymnastics in my chest.
"No. Actually, I--I brought you here so I could tell you why I've been off since we landed."
"You don't like flying. No secrets there. You didn't have to take me to a church to tell me that."
She doesn't get it.
"I didn't panic just because of the plane, I panicked because of the place. This city. I still have a lot I need to tell you about last year--without my mom around."
Cold sweat breaks out on the inside of my palms but I keep her hand steady in mine.
"What about last year? Cause if this is about what happened that summer than we don't have to rehash old wounds because--"
"I nearly ended things after I left, Jersey."
She shifts in her seat to face me but I can hardly look at her without wanting to back out of what I came here to do. But I owe her the truth. About everything. And half of me feels like I'm ready to tell her, but the other half is terrified of how things'll probably change once I do. Her eyes flit up to mine but I look away from her so I don't have to see what's probably written on her face.
Shock, pity, disappointment.
Nothing I haven't seen before.
Pretty much every nurse who treated me after my "attempt" had this quiet judgement about them every time they'd walk into my hospital room. They'd check my vitals and small talk their way past the awkwardness in the air, but I always saw through it. None of them knew how to deal with a guy who's demons nearly got away with murder. They didn't know how to talk to me or look at me without making me feel broken--even though that's exactly what I was. The psych ward gave me a bunch of fun new life labels like post-suicidal, depressed, anxious, co-dependent, self-destructive.
If people tell you you're beyond fixing enough times, you start to believe it. And I did. I saw myself as a loser back then. And Jersey probably sees the same thing now--
--A nobody. Not her Nobody. Just someone hollow.
"What do you mean ended things? Between us? Because I totally got that with the whole you not returning my texts or my calls or--"
"--My life, Jersey. A couple months after Belmar, I nearly ended my life."
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(To be continued....ON SUNDAY!! Thank you guys so much for waiting so long for this update! We literally can't wait to post the next chapter! We hope you enjoyed reading/listening! SPECIAL thank you to all of our AUDIOBOOK listeners, we love that you guys turn in and we also enjoy reading your feedback! kaelking12 puts in loads of work so we hope you are enjoying her performances). Next update will be on Sunday! We're working on a new Vlog for you, and a shiny new update schedule so stay tuned! Can't wait to share the next chapter!)
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