“I’m sorry, Tank, before I hung up, she demanded I remove any trace of her number, so I did…”
Matron’s words echo in my head as I slam the door behind me, getting everyone’s attention.
“Son?” Dad questions, gently moving Tiffany away from him, making her smile softly at me, while Mama glares at the woman but clearly stayed quiet when the clubwhore leaned against her husband. I ignore him and everyone around me and storm across the common room, and no, I don’t miss Lyndsey and Kate sitting next to my mother, both staring at me with want.
“Tank?” Doc questions next when I don’t answer Dad, but I wave him off and stomp towards the back door, grabbing my pistol from behind my back in the holster while his old lady holds their daughter Bailey, watching with concern.
She’s not long given birth again to a little boy and I know Doc is itching to knock her up again.
Jealousy consumes me as I slam the door open, my gun in hand.
I need a release before I kill someone.
“Fuck,” I hear Trigger mutter, “he’s going to the tree,” but I don’t stop.
I need to get this anger out. She has to know that I’ve been left in charge of the funeral, that I had to go say goodbye to her grandmother, the woman she saw as a mother, so why in the fuck will she not speak to me?
What in the fuck did I do to warrant this kind of fucking heartbreak from her when she promised me forever?
I spot the willow tree all brothers shoot at to get their anger out, and I hold my gun up, eye the distance before shooting, my finger continuously on the trigger, bark flying everywhere the closer I get. My anger builds as I run out of bullets, a roar ready to escape before I destroy the yard but a thud drops at my feet stopping me, and I look down to see several magazines before Doc states, “I’m right here…”
I sniff hard, my emotions wanting to break, my heartache fucking suffocating, and I bend and grab another magazine, and I remove the empty one before starting all over again.
She left me, with no word, she fucking left me, and right now, it feels like I’ve done something wrong, but I just don’t know what.
She was my life, fuck, sheismy life, yet I’m not hers, am I?
Chapter 8
Jasmine – A Week Later
I chew my bottom lip as I eye all the people in the crematorium, many sniffling, some smiling at the photo’s surrounding my grandmother and I choke back a sob as my eyes tear up.
I’m trying my hardest not to look, to not see the several pictures, the memories of me, Logan, Brady, and Granny, memories that feel like a lifetime ago but I keep failing. I keep looking where my grandmother lies, no longer here to help bring me back from the ledge, to put that smile back on my face and I wasted six years without her because of my selfish mother, because of that woman who threatened me to leave her son.
My bottom lip wobbles at all the regrets I have and I look around the room again to hopefully try and distract me before I lock eyes with Logan’s figure sitting front and center causing my heart to flutter and my stomach to tighten, while my family sitsbehind him, tense, their shoulders tight. Bruce sits right next to my mama making me want to vomit.
Does it surprise me that they weren’t welcome in the front row? Not really, they were never there for Granny, but what does surprise me is that Brady is sitting next to Logan.
My eyes go back to Bruce then my mother and I flinch involuntarily as my breathing picks up and the pain I felt when Mama’s heels stomped into my stomach several times to try and get me to lose my child comes back making me want to gasp for air.
Coming back for this is dangerous, not just for me but also for my daughter, who is currently at the motel with a babysitter, both I can’t afford. But I couldn’t not come and say goodbye to my Granny, to plead silently for forgiveness, for not coming back sooner, I couldn’t not say goodbye to her, to silently thank her for being the mother I desperately needed when my own sucked.
I should have come back sooner.
A few tears fall as I finally look at the casket completely, giving my attention to the woman lying inside it, and the priest steps up to the stand and begins the service that Logan organized, proving to me what kind of man I let go in order to protect us all.
“Today, we’re here not to say goodbye but to say, see you again, to Bunny Williams, a soul that was full of kindness and love for her friends and family.” He says clearly, and sniffles echo around me, and I squeeze my hands, hoping to stop the trembling, to stop the gut wrenching sobs that want to leave me before a figure sits next to me.
Citrus and Sage hit my senses and I instantly grab hold of the persons hand while their arm go around my shoulders and I lean into the man I saw as a father.
“You, my darling girl, have been sincerely missed and she would be so happy that you came to say goodbye,” Uncle Charms whispers and my tears fall hard and fast as I put all my weightagainst him and listen as the priest talks about Granny’s life, her achievements in ballet, her mischievousness in the home, the pranks she would pull making everyone chuckle, the memories of her favorite times were with me and Brady and guilt builds.
She never got to know about her great-granddaughter because of me, because of the decisions I made that I constantly question.
“She left everything to you, Jas, her whole fortune, all to you,” my uncle says as the priest continues and I choke back a sob as my heart breaks.
“I don’t want it,” I admit, because I don’t, even though money is tight, even though I’m continuously looking over my shoulder, I don’t want it.
