Emotions clog my throat while tears blur my vision, so I just nod, whispering, “Promise.”
A tingling sensation tugs at my heart, a feeling I never felt before, and when Jessica turns her head to the door with a watery smile, I follow her gaze. Saylor is standing next to the door, a pained expression on his face, and a lone tear is streaming down his cheek.
“Hey, Say,” Jessica whispers.
“Jess.” Saylor smiles sadly at her. “Save a spot for me, will you?”
“There’s always space for you where I am,” she promises. Then she turns to look at me again, a smile on her face. “Watch out for our Jones boys, will you?” She looks around one last time, her gaze lingering on Lio, before she turns and vanishes,leaving behind a room filled with tear-stained faces and aching hearts.
“Mommy’s gone, right?” Lio asks, and I squeeze his hand.
“She’s at peace,” I whisper, once more pushing away tears with the back of my hand. “But she’s your guardian angel now and only a whisper away if you need to talk to her.”
I lean down to push away his blond hair from his forehead before dropping a kiss on it.
My own goodbye.
“Sleep, buddy. You’ll be fine,” I whisper to him, and his eyes get droopy as he nods at me. “I love you.”
My heart breaks again, having to leave him because I have to leavethem.
I let go of his hand and take a deep breath to gather my composure. When I lift my head, I find all four Jones brothers watching me.
Every one of them holding a piece of my heart.
A piece three of them shattered.
Each sob, every whispered word from Jessica, has etched itself into the fabric of my being. I’ve absorbed their pain, their regrets, their unspoken apologies, and their silent screams into the marrow of my bones. It’s a burden I bear willingly, but also the catalyst in a reaction that has broken something fundamental within me.
I’m willing to break my rules,myself,for them. And they couldn’t even listen to me.
I don’t know if it’s more heartbreak or anger that I feel.
The decision to leave isn’t sudden. It’s a realization that comes with a crushing finality. I can’t be the anchor when I’m already drowning, nor the lighthouse when my own light is flickering on the verge of being snuffed out.
I need to stand up for myself if I don’t want to drown in the shallow water.
If they loved me the way I love them, they would have never treated me like that. I’m not saying they needed to just believe, but what they should have done is given me the benefit of the doubt.
But they didn’t. They treated me like dirt and let me know everything I needed to know with their behavior.
They only confirmed what I knew all along.
Nobody wants to deal with my kind of crazy.
And when push comes to shove, I’m on my own.
As I step back from Lio’s bedside, I feel the pieces of my shattered self clinking together, a mosaic of who I was, who I am, and who I need to be now.
Their faces are etched with a raw, naked vulnerability that mirrors my own. We’re all stripped bare by Jessica’s parting, by the stark truths laid out in the open. But where they have each other, I have only myself.
And Saylor.
Who nods at me, giving me the courage to do what I’m about to do.
Tears blur my vision, each one a silent testament to the pain of goodbye, but I don’t let them fall.
There’s a thread of relief too—relief that I can finally let go, that I can finally breathe without the weight of all the secrets, the weight of all the hiding in front of the men I wanted to trust myself with.
