The Long Road Home

By Jamie Nicole White

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Chapter Twelve

            Jake followed her out to the truck. They hadn’t spoken two words to each other since their moment on the dance floor, much less looked at each other. Jake had enough to deal with without having to add Hayden into the equation.

            She refused to look at him as he unlocked the door and opened it. But before she could slide inside, he slammed it shut and turned around to face her. He wanted to talk this out, fix the predicament they were in before it had time to fester. Yet, what could he say?

            He had wanted to kiss her, had wanted to devour her lips until they were red and swollen. He had never known attraction with another woman as he had had with Hayden. And that little incident between them tonight proved that if nothing else still existed from their fallen relationship, they still had the magnetic spark that had drawn them together in the first place.

            This little game was becoming a little too dangerous for his own good. He knew he had to put a stop to it. Infatuation, attraction, lust… that was all that was left. And if he didn’t end it now, he was just going to find himself taking a lot of cold showers until she disappeared out of his life again. Worse, he would find himself back in the same situation he had been in when she had left the first time… completely lost without her.

            “I think we need to talk about what happened in there.” He watched her bite her lip nervously, but pressed on. “We can’t let something like that happen again. It’s not good for either one of us to get caught up in emotions from the past.”

            “I agree.”

            “The simple truth is, you and I should probably get everything out of our systems now. We haven’t really talked about what happened all those years ago. And as much as I don’t really care to hash up old memories, I think we need to get it all out in the open.”

            “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

            “Why?”

            “Because we’re both going to say things that neither one of us want to hear. Let’s just leave the past alone.” She stepped around him and reached for the door but he slammed it shut as she opened it and pushed her out of the way.

            “I can’t do that. I need to know what happened. Why did you leave?”

            “Jake…” she groaned, not really wanting to get into this, ever. But she especially didn’t want to discuss the sordid details of their failed relationship at this particular moment, in this particular place.

            “Did I push you away? Is that why you left?” he treaded on, desperately needing to get everything out in the open.

            She sidestepped him again and took a cautious step back. “I don’t want to have this conversation with you,” Hayden growled between clenched teeth.

            Without thinking, he quickly closed the distance between them. He still towered over her and used that to his advantage as he glowered down at her. “Answer me,” he demanded.

            “I don’t feel the necessity in standing here arguing about something that happened centuries ago. Now do you?” Her voice was eerily calm and almost patronizing. She hadn’t meant for it to sound like that but she couldn’t help it. Talking about what wrong wasn’t going to fix it. It wasn’t going to make things better. The past was better left alone and forgotten.

            He grabbed her arm, a bit harsher than he meant to, and leaned dangerously close to her. “Your games might have been cute ten years ago. Now they’re just annoying.”

            “Jake,” she howled trying to pull away from him. “You’re hurting me.”

            “I asked you a question and I’m not letting go until I get an answer. Do you understand?”

            She yanked her arm out of his grasp and glowered at him as she backed away. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again, Jake Tucker. I refuse to be manhandled by anyone, especially you. Do you understand?”

            “Fine.” He put his hands in the air. “You’re right.”

            “Thank you,” she said softly, rubbing her sore arm.

            “I still want an answer.”

            “I don’t want to talk about this.”

            “Well I don’t really give a shit what you want. We are having this conversation whether you like it or not. I need to know the truth. Why did you leave?”

            “Okay,” she conceded reluctantly. “Did you push me away? Yes. Why did I leave? Because I couldn’t stay here.”

            “That’s it? That’s all I get?” he bellowed.

            “What do you want to know, Jake,” she sighed with frustration.

            “I want to know what went wrong. I want to know why you left and don’t give me some bullshit answer.”

            “Why do you need to know?”

            “So I can finally put ‘us’ to rest.”

            “And you haven’t already?”

            “Not completely, no. Because I want to hate you. I want to blame you for everything that went wrong. And that’s exactly what I’ve done over the last ten years. But lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

            “And what did you come up with?”

            “That maybe it wasn’t all your fault.”

            “Well, Jake Tucker, I think you’ve made a tremendous breakthrough all on your own. So, really, you don’t need me telling you what went wrong.”

            “Actually, I do.”

            “You! You were what went wrong.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Do you really want to do this?”

            “No. But the way I see it, we’ve got no other choice. It’s going to happen eventually. Why not just get it over with?”

            “The moment I told you I was pregnant, you freaked out. You turned into a person I didn’t even know anymore.” She turned away from him, not fully capable of facing this man while so many memories and emotions resurfaced. “I was scared when I found out I was pregnant. And I needed you to be scared right along with me. But you deserted me, Jake. You left me on my own to deal with the fact that my life was about to change drastically. You left me wondering if, despite everything we had been through together and everything I had thought that we meant to one another… you left me wondering if I was going to be on my own, raising a baby by myself.

            “And just when I had accepted my fate, that I was going to be a mother long before I was ready, I lost the baby. And I’ll admit that I was just as relieved as you were. Still, there was this small part of me that mourned for the life that we had created. I found myself wondering what would have happened had she lived.”

            “She?”

            Hayden turned to face him, her eyes filled with tears. “Yeah. It was a girl.”

            He hung his head in shame. “I didn’t know that.”

            “Of course you didn’t. All you needed to hear was that you no longer had to worry about a tiny little nuisance screwing up your life.”

            “That’s not the way it was.”

            “That’s exactly how it was. You know it and I know it.”

            “I wasn’t ready to be a father,” he admitted. “I wasn’t prepared to give up college and my life for…”

            “Me?” she finished for him. “I would have never asked you to give up anything for me or Amanda.”

            “Amanda?” he asked, his face angst-ridden.

            “That was her name, Jake,” she sobbed.

            “You named her Amanda? How come I never knew that?”

            Hayden swallowed hard. “You would have known had you stopped wallowing in your own joy for more than five seconds to actually talk to me. But you didn’t care. You didn’t care about me and you sure as hell didn’t care about her.”

            Jake glared at her for a long moment. Learning the truth stabbed him in the heart like a dagger. Yet, she had it all wrong. He wasn’t overwrought with joy. He had mourned for the loss of their unborn child just as much as she had, just in a different way. “That’s not true,” he growled angrily.

            “You could have fooled me.”

            “I’m not made like you, Hayden. I don’t wear every emotion I have on my sleeve. Just because I didn’t cry, didn’t mean I wasn’t sad about losing the baby.”

            “Amanda,” she shouted, feeling like her world was about to cave in around her. She didn’t want to do this. This conversation was about to be over. It was long overdue and much too late. “It doesn’t matter now.”

            “You are something else!” he shouted. “It does matter!” Realizing that the conversation was getting too out of hand, he inhaled deeply and tried to speak a little more calmly. “I’ll admit that I was scared shitless when you told me you were pregnant. All I could think about was how was I going to support a baby. Was I going to have to marry you and get a full time job to support us as opposed to going to college? I’m only human.”

            “First off, you would never have had to marry me,” she bit out angrily.

            “I didn’t mean it like that,” he protested, but realized that he was losing his side of the discussion. Deciding it was best to move on, Jake asked, “Why did you leave?”

            “I told you. Because I couldn’t stay.”

            “That’s bullshit!” he snapped.

            “Okay. Because I knew that you and I were falling apart, that there was no possible way to fix what was broken, and I couldn’t stay here and look at the man I loved more than life itself without feeling bile rise in my throat,” she bit out angrily, her temper bordering on lack of control.

            That was it! She had taken the first punch and now he was more than prepared to dish it right back to her. “Let’s tell the truth, Hayden. You left because you couldn’t stand having to face anything. You left because you were scared that you might actually have to deal with something. You left because you are a self centered bitch who thinks of no one but yourself.”

            “Oh?” Name calling was where she drew the line. How dare he call her self centered. “Do you want to know what you are?”

            “What?” he asked with disinterest.

            “You are a spineless wimp, a coward. You’re too busy being pissed off at me because I ran out on you. And that’s fine. But I don’t see you taking any responsibility for what happened. You, Jake Tucker, are as guilty as I am. You pushed me away long before I walked away.”

            “You know what, Hayden?” Jake walked towards her, causing her to take a few steps back. “Letting you go was probably the best thing that could have ever happened in my life. I can’t remember being any happier than the day you left.”

            “Oh really?” she taunted.

            “Yeah,” he shouted. “You were the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” It sounded childish but he didn’t care. He was hurt by her words and just mad.

            Her expression crumbled. “You think that what we shared was a mistake?” she asked in a pained voice.

            Jake couldn’t tell her the truth. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to make her run back to New York and never come back because her return had already stirred up more than he could have ever bargained for. And even though that look on her face almost made him back down, he refused to. She needed to go home and he needed to stop feeling anything for her once and for all. “I know it was,” he replied callously.

            She sniffled as she felt the burn of tears sting her throat. “Fine. If that makes you sleep better at night, you keep believing whatever you want.”

            Hayden turned to walk away, but halted abruptly. She turned around and faced him head on, her eyes filled with rage and hurt. “I think you are the worst liar I’ve ever known. You think you can stand there and tell me that what we had together meant nothing to you at all, that it was a mistake? What we had may have ended badly… But don’t you dare stand there and tell me that what we shared together was a mistake. Because it wasn’t. What we had was beautiful and special…” Her voice became broken as her heart swelled with un-chartered emotions. “And it kills me to admit it. But I know in my heart that I will never find another relationship with anyone like I had with you. I will never love another the way that I loved you.”

            “That’s ironic. I was thinking about how completely replaceable you were,” he said dryly. “And how quickly I replaced you after you left.”

            “Really? How long?” she asked defensively.

            “The next day,” he answered with wicked vindictiveness, noticing her flinch at the bitterness of his words.

            The statement was meant to hurt her. Yet, he wasn’t prepared to see the expression on her face. But it was too late. He couldn’t take it back.

            “Dana?” she inquired as if she already knew the answer.

            He simply nodded. Why not lay all of his cards out on the table? Perhaps if she hated him, she would stay away. She would get the hell out of town as quick as possible.

            Hayden shook her head and fought back the urge to cry. Jake Tucker wasn’t worth shedding one tear over. “Thank you for reminding me of what I’ve been missing out on all of these years.”

            “You’re the one that walked away first, baby.”

            “Yes I did,” she replied matter-of-factly. “And the funny thing is, I have regretted doing so all these years. I honestly felt bad for what I had done to you, for not talking to you first and maybe trying to work out our problems instead of running. It’s ironic how one night can change all of that.” Without another word, she turned from him and began to walk away.

            “Where are you going?” he yelled after her.

            “None of your goddamn business,” she screamed back.

            “What are you doing? You going to walk all the way back to my parents’?”

            When she didn’t acknowledge him, Jake became even more hell bent on wreaking havoc on her emotions. “Why don’t you walk yourself on back home to New York. You don’t belong here anymore, Hayden,” he shouted after her.

            The impact of his words weren’t visible when all he saw was the back of her head as she retreated. However, Jake was certain he had successfully hit his mark. Hurting Hayden was not something he was proud of. But her being here had caused emotions to resurface that he had thought he had put to rest years ago. And he was only able to deal with one emotional breakdown at a time. His father dying was all he could handle.

Continued