I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,278

can’t. Not here. This house isn’t a place for happiness. I’ll smile when I get her out of here. Only then.

“Can you hold my hand, Jay?” she asks me softly, her eyes flickering to mine and then back down to the floor.

I pull the blanket up tighter around her and slip her small hand into mine, weaving our fingers together and letting her hold me like she wants to. She’s been calling me Jay since the first day. I should have corrected her, but I don’t want her to call me John. I don’t want to be John. I don’t want this life. I only want to be her Jay.

“I’ll always hold your hand,” I tell her.

“Always?” she asks, and I merely laugh it off in a huff and tighten my hand around hers. Always is such a long way away. Too long to promise. I know it can’t last forever and I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.

I’ll be Jay for her though.

I love her for calling me Jay.

For letting me exist again. Even if it’s only for her.

***

The memory is so clear. My head pulses and I try to swallow as I lean against the bathroom counter.

What was I doing here?

Cleaning up the mess you made, a voice, Jay’s voice, says so clearly in my head.

I look up to see who it is when the bathroom door opens, letting in the light from the hallway.

“Jay.” Robin’s voice is quiet, frightened. Jay. My body sways, and a shooting pain in my temple makes me wince. “You need help. I can help you. Please, Jay.”

“That’s not my name!” I scream at her, feeling lightheaded and my lungs refusing to fill. I’m not that sick fuck.

I refuse to believe it. I grip my hair in my hands and try to get the memory out. That never happened to me. I feel sorry for Jay. I can’t separate the two.

I close my eyes, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. My head throbs and I can’t get these visions to go away. It’s because he’s told me his past so many times. I close my eyes trying to remember when he told me, but in my memory, he’s there, sitting on the chair, leaning against the wall, but then nothing. He’s vanished.

“John,” Robin says with her hands up. “You need help, John, and it's okay. You’re okay, I promise you.” She sounds scared and she takes in quick breaths as she speaks, walking toward me slowly.

Like I’m a wounded animal.

Calm for her. I hear Jay’s voice and it only makes me angrier. She shouldn’t fucking be here.

My vision blurs and for a moment it goes black, but I hold on to the counter. I’m lost right now. I can barely grasp what’s real and what’s not.

“It’s fine,” I tell her out of instinct. Because that’s what you do when someone’s worried for you. You lie to them.

“It’s not, John,” she says and shakes her head and her small hands wrap around my arm. “You suppressed memories for a reason.” Her voice quavers and I wrap my arms around her instantly, hating that she’s breaking down. She cries harder and tries to push me away, but I don’t let her. I rock her back and forth.

She’s so innocent in all of this.

“Just forgive me, please?” she asks me with tears in her eyes.

“For what?” I ask her, not understanding why she’s so upset. She hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m the one that’s so fucked up. I’m the one who hurt her. The one who fucking kidnapped her.

My head spins at the thought. It’s all me. Anger boils, but she speaks and I try to calm myself.

“For leaving you behind,” she whispers her choked words.

My blood turns to ice as the memories come back again. They keep coming over and over. I try to shut them out but they make a pulsing pain shoot from the back of my head to the front where it stays and throbs, where it punishes me until I acknowledge the past. Until I face what I’ve done and what I’ve been through. “It had to happen,” I tell her in an even voice, but the anger is there. I can feel it. I hated her for leaving me when I only existed for her. “I was selfish,” I whisper as my hands start to shake with the mix of heated emotions.

A small sob leaves her as she shakes her head. “No, you were only a boy,”