I stand in front of the door, trying to catch my breath. Behind this door is Jay. If he's even home. And if he's not, I'll sit here and wait for him. However long it takes.
My hand is shaking as I raise it and knock three times.
Nothing happens.
I knock again, louder this time.
I hear movement inside. Footsteps. The sound of someone walking toward the door.
The door opens.
And, oh my fucking god…there he is.
Chapter 14: Jay
Three days after the arrest and my face still looks like a horror show, like something out of a nightmare. The swelling around my eye has gone down enough that I can see out of it now, which is an improvement. But the bruising has spread across half my face, turned that ugly yellow-green color that means it's healing but somehow looks worse than when it was fresh.
My lip is scabbed over. My ribs ache every time I breathe too deep, every time I move wrong. I've been showing up to work anyway, because Mick bailed me out of jail and I'm not going to repay that kindness by leaving him shorthanded, by being one more person who lets him down.
I'm sitting on the edge of my bed at the Vista Inn, two whiskeys in, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. The dog's head stares back, silent and patient and judging, the only witness to the slow collapse of my life.
I should probably eat something but the thought of food makes my stomach turn. I haven't had much appetite since the arrest. Haven't had much of anything except the bottle and the pills and the constant background noise of self-loathing.
There's a knock at the door.
I don't move at first. Nobody knocks on my door. Maybe it's the guy from down the hall, the one who sells pills. Maybe he heard I got beat up, saw my face, and thinks I need something stronger than usual to deal with the pain.
The knock comes again. Harder this time and insistent. Whoever it is, isn't going away.
I push myself up from the bed with a grunt, wincing at the sharp pull in my ribs. I walk to the door slowly, every step sending small shocks of pain through my body.
I don't bother checking the peephole because I don't care who it is. I don't care about much of anything right now. It hasn't mattered who's at the door for years.
I open the door.
There's a man standing in the hallway. Young, maybe late teens or early twenties. Taller than me by a few inches. Light brown hair, almost golden. He's solid, built like someone who works with his hands. He's wearing jeans and a work jacket.
I don't recognize him at first. He's a stranger, just another face in a world full of faces that don't mean anything to me, that never stay long enough to matter.
But then I see his eyes.
Blue. Pale blue, the color of a winter sky just before snow, the color of ice reflecting sunlight.
Fuck, I know those eyes.
I've dreamed about those eyes for seven years, seen them every night in my sleep. I've searched for those eyes in every crowd, on every street, in every stranger's face.
No. It can't be. It's not possible. I'm drunk. I'm hallucinating. I hit my head harder than I thought in the fight and now I'm seeing things that aren't there, conjuring up ghosts from my past because I'm too broken to deal with reality anymore.
Shit, I bet I have a fucking concussion.
"Ivan?" The name comes out like a question, like something I'm afraid to say out loud because saying it might make it disappear, might make this vision shatter and leave me alone again.
He doesn't answer right away. He just looks at me, those impossible blue eyes traveling slowly over my wrecked face, taking in every bruise, every cut, every sign of damage. I can see the pain that flashes across his face when he sees what I've become. I want to turn away, want to hide from that look, but I can't move. I'm frozen in place, trapped between hope and fear.
And then he speaks, and his voice is different, deeper than I remember, rougher, more mature. But it's still him. It's still the voice I thought I'd never hear again outside my own memory.
"Jason Michael Morrow," he says. "Birthday March fifteenth. Born in Macon, Georgia. Mother is Rebecca Morrow, maiden name Thorne."
