I stroked my hand down her back. “Jessie, I know I screwedup. I know you’re mad at me. And you have every right to be. But please let me help you.”
“I can do this on my own, Benjamin,” she said.
“I know you can. But you don’t need to prove it to me. This is something I want to do for you,” I said, catching her hazel eyes. The hurt in them told me it wasn’t just about buying her a car. “Look, I haven’t been doing okay the last week and I should have handled it better than I did.”
She drew a shuddering breath. “You shut me out, Ben. You fucked up by calling it off, and then you fucked up some more by shutting me out.”
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry. I knew how much I was hurting you, but I also couldn’t stop. I wanted to protect you from all the dark stuff. I told myself I wasn’t good enough for you. I feel like I’ve only brought trash into your life.”
“But you didn’t let me be part of that decision.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “There’s no getting around the dark stuff. That’s what makes relationships real. If we only shared the good stuff, we’d never really know each other.”
I chewed my cheek. “Guess I never really thought of it like that.”
She stared off into the storm, then looked at me after another clap of thunder. “She didn’t even scream, you know. She was just... gone.”
“Your best friend?”
She nodded. “We were out for our little sunset-watching getaway. The storm clouds were starting to cover the sunset, but we thought we still had plenty of time to get back to the cabin. The air kinda changed at one point, and our hair stood on end. We even laughed about it, not realizing the danger we were in. By the time we figured out that wasn’t a good thing, it was too late.” Tears streamed down Jess’s cheeks. I stroked her back and let her keep talking. “I threw myself on the ground, and she fell on top of me. She took the brunt of it, and she saved me. But she was justdead. No goodbye. My best friend was gone.”
She was quiet for a minute, but I could tell she wasn’t done. Her lower lip wobbled. “Sometimes I wish I was in her place, Ben.”
“Oh, honey,” I said, kissing her temple. “I’m glad you’re here. And I wish she could be, too. What was her name?”
Jessie cried harder, leaning into my chest. “Madeline. Madeline and Jessalyn.”
“Bet you two were some hell-raisers.”
She got a soft smile. “Yeah. I still think of her a lot. Not just in the nightmares. I miss her. I think I’ll always miss her. Wonder what her life would have been like if we’d gotten more time.”
I held her a little tighter. “Do you want to do something in her memory soon? Have a beach day where we talk about her?”
Jessie’s eyes rounded. “That implies we’re still hanging out.”
“Honey, I think I’ll be around you as long as you’ll have me. If I’m lucky enough for you to take me back, I don’t want to live in a world without you. I don’t want to screw up with you anymore.”
She threw her arms around my neck, and I held her close. “I think you should screw up, but you should screw up and stay.”
I had to laugh because it was so damn confusing. “What do you mean?”
She pulled back and cupped my cheeks. “Because we’re both going to screw up. But you can’t screw up and hide. You have to screw up and stay.”
A bolt of lightning touched the ground not far from the bridge, both of us jumping at the flash of light and instantaneous thunder. Jessie’s body seized up, clutching my wet shirt and balling herself up in my lap.
“I’ve got you, honey. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”
I kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, her back, down her damp, cold arms. I rocked her in my lap, and before I knew it, I was singing our song. The rain slowly let up, and by the time I was done singing, it was down to a drizzle. Jessie was limp and relaxed in my arms.
“I got so scared I actually pissed myself.” Jessie gestured to her soaked pants that indeed were extra soaked in the middle. She looked miserable.
“You know what, hon?”
“What?”
“You look so pretty in your pee pants.”
She laughed, the first time I’d heard her laugh since everything fell apart. She cackled and wheezed, almost falling out of my lap.
“Are these the new fashion?” she asked on a gasp.
