Chapter 15: Holding on and Letting Go

Almost two weeks in the hospital and Jada was on her way home. The thought of going back to the duplex was too much for her to bear. Chris was driving her home, they rode in silence the only sound was the rain beating at the passenger side window where her head lay, and her body curled against the door like an unborn baby in a belly.

She never thought of her other injuries. But seeing her right leg and arm in a cast, reminded her of what hurt on the outside. Each time she took a breath, the pain in her sides retold the story of the day she lost everything. She had a scar on her abdomen that mocked her. The stretch marks also participating in her torment, they were all evidence of a life she was supposed to have but lost. They showed her incapability, her weakness, and how God laughed at her. She was broken now, shattered really, robbed early of the tape and glue necessary to put her soul back together.

Jada winced in pain as the car jerked in a sudden stop. She looked up and saw the red light, then looked at Chris. He was staring at that light, his fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel as the breaths came out of his mouth in short rapid spurts. It was the first time she had seen him so out of control. It stunned her so much she took another look through the windshield, wondering what exactly he was seeing that she wasn’t. When the light finally turned green his whole body relaxed in his chair as he sped forward.

Jada watched the road as they drove on, hoping and praying that they were not heading to the duplex, and as if Chris read her mind, he took a corner down a road that would lead them to a hotel that she was staying at before. She preferred the hotel, knowing that it was a temporary living situation, Jada hadn’t tried to make it home, unlike the duplex. Jada had already decorated her room and had just started plans on the nursery when the two lives were stolen from her. Although she didn’t know that she was carrying girls, she had always ad shades of pink while planning.

Now there was no more planning because she had nothing to show for her pregnancy.

Even though she didn’t want Chris anywhere near her, she had no choice but to accept his help. He lifted her into his arms and carried her into the building, the elevator, and into the penthouse suite. Once he had placed her in the bed, he stood in the middle of the room lingering, as if waiting for her to say something. But Jada had nothing to say to anyone let alone Chris. All the words that she wanted to say were written all over her body in white casts and bandages. Her empty belly said the most and spoke the loudest.

There was honestly nothing more to say.

Jada stared at him as he looked at the floor, the walls, out the window and anywhere that wasn’t her. Chris had lost his children too, it was obvious that he carried the sorrow, guilt, pain, and grief with him. She had never seen him look so torn apart and so worn out. His devil may care grin was now a frown, the light in his eyes gone. The death and frailty of the cups that held passion, the droughts of laughter, and all the life of a man split into dust.

She was sympathetic to him, but what about her. She had done everything to hold it together, and the more she tried the harder it was to stop the pain from ravaging her. Jada’s heart, poorly staples shut was beating hard but without purpose. Her skin stretched across her aching bones and muscles like a worn canvas.

She hurt more; she was the one that deserved the sympathy. How dare he look so broken in front of her? Jada scooted off the bed and hopped towards the bathroom.

“Don’t!” The order came out when Chris attempted to help her.

Jada didn’t dare look at his face, worried that seeing the pain of rejection coupled with the grief in his eyes would make her give in. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t let his anguish come before hers. From the corner of her eye, she saw his hands retreat and she quickly made her way into the bathroom. Shutting the door behind her, she felt relieved. But that short moment of respite was stolen from her when she caught her reflection in the mirror.

Jada screamed.

A sound from deep within that forced its way from the pit of her stomach through her mouth, as if her broken soul had unleashed a tormented demon. Her world was now destroyed, the loss was more than her heart could take. The dark clouds that had been looming above were now completely obscuring the sun. Hope was slowly bleeding away. When the tears came, hot and endless, she knew that she had to face the truth. The time to be alone had come.

***

“Don’t!” Jada’s voice was as frigid as the Arctic winds and as dark as a moonless and starless night. Jada hadn’t even turned to look at him. Chris wanted to reassure her or apologize to her, he wanted to say something that would bring back the sweet Jada he knew. He began to speak but words failed him, caught somewhere between his heart and his throat. Once she closed the door behind her, he knew that there was no point in saying anything at all.

Chris had spent the entire hospital stay on the floor of Jada’s hospital room. He didn't sit on the chair or the sofa bed, he stayed at the foot of her bed, making sure that if she was to see him it was out of her own effort. He wished he could be invisible in front of her, being able to see her but not to be seen. The only reason he stuck around was that he felt like Jada needed him, more than she needed Jessica or Katherine. And he needed her, to save him from the demons that hunted him in the deep of the night.

Chris had been her poison, but Jada was her cure.

The night before they left the hospital, Chris sat on the floor at the foot of her bed as usual. The night was quiet, with gentle rain drumming a rhythmical lullaby that lulled Jada to sleep before the darkness completely took over. He took out his phone from his pocket when it buzzed and looked at it.

How’s your karma? – Meredith.

Chris swallowed hard at the bile that burned its way up his throat. A reel played in his head, Meredith, Nina, Danny, Kit, and Jada were his co-stars in that movie. He had wronged them, every single one of them-except Nina. It befuddled him that his past would ricochet like this, taking out the one person who was faultless in the story. Chris refused to give word or heed to the reality happening around him. As he stared on, a stillness settled within him like fractured pieces of time.

Chris looked up when a stream of light cut through the darkroom. Leaving the door ajar, Kat quietly walked over to him and sat down beside him. She peeked at the phone he still held in his hand.

“That bitch!” Kat said in a hushed tone.

Chris shook his head and gave her a wry smile, “Can you honestly say that she’s wrong?” Kat responded with a shrug, and Chris couldn’t help but chuckle. “You said the same thing to me, in more words than she did.”

“I didn’t mean-,” Kat started but abandoned her thought.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people in my life, but Jada, she was the one person I wanted to protect,” he said in earnest.

“By sleeping with her sister?” Kat shot back.

“By keeping her as far away from me as I could,” Chris ignored how the brusqueness in Kat’s voice cut into him.

“Interesting way of doing that.”

“She sleeps a lot,” Chris said distractedly as he stared at the frame of her bed. Every time night fell a sense of foreboding slithered around his spine. Needless of tension prickled up and down his back as he struggled against his anxiety. Goosebumps covered every inch of his skin and his gut hollowed out. “I keep waiting for something to happen. I know it’s coming, and I am subconsciously preparing myself for it, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Speaking from experience, losing a child, especially if it was preventable will haunt you. That emptiness in your body and your heart won’t just go away because she wants it to. She will struggle, but Jada is strong enough to make it out of this tunnel.”

A faraway look settled on Kat’s features, and Chris remembered how he was too busy trying to discredit Kit when Kat had her miscarriage. “I’m a shit brother.”

“At least you are aware of it now,” she chuckled. “Now you make amends.”

Amends, how was he supposed to that when he staring at the bathroom door. Jada didn’t want him around her, and he would respect that.

Just as he was about to leave her room a soul-crushing, chilling scream came from the bathroom. It was a sound he had never heard before, one that rocked him to the core and told him that he was in over his head. He forced the bathroom door open and rushed in, he didn’t see her at first. But the muffled sobs told him where she was. He looked behind the door and found her curled in a fetal position both her arms around her middle, even the broken one. After her scream, she trapped the sound of her grief in her throat.

The dark swirling thoughts burst through the barriers of his control. Confusion and anger swept through him. Even as his fists balled, at the realization of his part in this, ice came to his rescue flowing through his veins and numbing everything else. This was his fault.

Jada was forcing herself to mourn in silence when her voice had a million reasons to shout.

Chris closed the door and walked to the other side of the bathroom. He slid down the wall as strength left his body. He sat across from her watching her battle her grief, unwilling to let the darkness consume her, a greater show of strength than he had, one he probably could never master. Chris quickly realized that he was in over his head, he couldn’t help her or himself. They both needed rescuing. He dug his phone out of his pocket and quickly called his brother.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the line was like a soothing salve on a burn wound.

“Kit,” Chris cried. “I can’t do this anymore. Help me, please.”

***

Chris paced the length of Duke’s office, back and forth, not understanding why his brothers did not agree with his decision. This was the only way he knew to fix the injustice done to Jada, the only way he thought Jada would be able to start healing and move forward. He couldn’t take it anymore, the screams that tore through the darkness in the dead of the night. He startled awake even when Jada didn’t scream every nerve in his body alive and muscles tensed up in grim anticipation. Having Nina and Helena arrested for pushing Jada down the stairs injuring her and causing her to miscarry their twins, was the only way he knew to fix it.

“What’s that going to achieve?” Kit asked stepping into Chris’s way.

“Can you stop that, you’re making us dizzy!” Duke said. “Listen, I called DJ and he doesn’t advise pressing charges.”

“DJ is a co-operate lawyer, he does mergers and taxes,” Chris huffed, “What does he know about criminal law?”

“Enough to give us some sound advice,” Kit said. “Not just as a lawyer but as our family.”

“I called you guys so that you can help me, not talk me out of anything,” Chris yelled.

“And then what?” Kit asked. “What happens after you press charges? Jada is the victim; she is the only one who can testify to what happened.”

“Jessica was there. She could-,”

“Jessica was downstairs,” Duke cut Chris off. “The most she could say was that she saw Jada come down the stairs. She can’t say someone pushed her.”

Chris dropped into a chair and stared out the window. He was at his wits ends, and this was it. This was the solution that he had to help Jada. She hadn’t spoken to him or even looked at him since they left the hospital almost a week prior. Jada locked herself in her room and cried on her own. She wouldn’t allow him to mourn with her, so the only other way to show that he was on her side was by punishing the people who caused her pain.

“Going after Helena and Nina won’t fix Jada or you,” Kit placed a reassuring hand on Chris’s shoulder. “You need to grieve and get someone to help you through this. Someone with qualifications. I’m sure AJ and Kat can recommend someone.”

“I’m not the type to talk about my feelings,” Chris groaned in protest.

“What about Jada? You need to do everything you can to help her,” Kit said.

“Everything except revenge. Anger won’t make what the two of you are going through any better,” Duke added.

Chris looked at his brothers, unable to tell them that he hadn’t seen Jada for a while. That the only communication between them was done by Jessica on her daily visits. If it wasn’t for Jessica, he wouldn’t even know if Jada was eating or healing right. When Jessica wasn’t there the hotel room was shrouded with silence. The only thing that cut through the quiet was Jada’s screams. With her door locked, the only thing Chris could do was sit on the other side of the door and listen to heart-wrenching cries, as he found not to crumble beneath the weight of her grief.

***

Her mind was like a lost man at sea, desperate and starving for some reason to live. Desperate for a memory, good, warm, welcoming, one she could smile too. It was difficult to remember her smile, soft but contagious, it had stained her lips like blood, the same blood she could taste as she bit her tongue hard to keep from screaming. Trying to hold her emotions in was more exhausting then letting them out. 

But Jada was afraid of riding that wave, of completely letting go. Dark thoughts swirled in her head. And as if her thoughts didn’t torment her enough, she had had to listen to Katherine’s miscarriage story and Catalella’s suicide attempt. Both meant to show her that at the end of the very dark tunnel she was currently walking through there was a light, there was hope, healing, and a future without pain. Jada wanted that, even though she couldn’t fathom it ever happening for her, she wanted to have hope, to know that one day she could take a breath.

Jessica was the only one left behind once Katherine and Catalella left. They were going back to their husbands and children. What if she had that life?

Jada closed her eyes for a moment, her heart picking up a few extra beats as she conjured up the image. Christmas with Chris and their two little girls. She could almost hear their laughter, the girls’ softs and chirpy, and Chris deep and rich. But even as she imagined the perfect family, Jada couldn’t place herself in that scene. Happiness had never been meant for her. Life reserved pain and grief to Jada and she had resigned herself to it.

Would her life have been better if her father was still alive?

“Hey, where did you go?” Jessica waved her hand in front of Jada’s face. 

“I was thinking about my dad,” Jada said.

“In what way?” Jessica cleared her throat as she examined Jada suspiciously.

Jada suspected what she was thinking, why else would Jessica have invited Catalella to talk to her. Jessica was worried that the pain would overtake Jada and steal her will power. It was a valid concern because it was a fear that Jada carried with her every day.

“I used to wonder why and I couldn’t understand until now. I saw how my father struggled but I always thought that if he fought harder, he would still be here. But I just got it, he wasn’t giving up, it wasn’t that he didn’t love me enough, it was because he was exhausted and all he wanted was to rest.”

“If you want to rest, take a vacation,” Jessica said a little too forcefully. “Get out of New York, the states even. Come with me to Britain. Clear your head a little bit then come back.”

Jada’s pulse raced and nameless feelings swamped her mind. Jada wanted freedom from her hurt.

Come with me to Britain.

She not only wanted freedom from her grief but from Chris as well.

Come with me to Britain.

She wanted to be free of the feelings she had for him. 

Come with me to Britain.

Freedom from wrestling the hate that wanted to push him away, and the love and empathy that made her want to hold him in her arms and comfort him. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep the doors locked.

Come with me to Britain.

She wanted the freedom to figure out who Jada was and to just be Jada.

Come with me to Britain.

“Okay,” Jada said.

“Okay, what?” Jessica asked confused.

“Okay, I’ll come with you to Britain.”

***

Chris dreaded going back to the hotel to stare at Jada’s bedroom door for hours on end. When he entered the hotel suite, he started for his room when the sound of Jada’s voice calling for him startled him.

“Chris?” The voice was unexpected. It was low, with an agreeable trace of huskiness and with a hint of more power than the frail body would suggest.

“Jada?” he gasped. He searched her eyes and realized that they were still blank. He had spoken to Kat, and she had told him of how heartbroken Jada looked. Jada's eyes held emotion for others, just not for him.

“Jada, are you okay?” Chris didn’t dare move towards her because he knew what would follow, a cold hand telling him he wasn’t needed.

“I’ve decided that I’d rather see things for what they are,” her deceptively soft voice had a core of steel. “I hate you and I realized that that’s okay. It’s okay for me to hate you because I love you so much.”

“Jada, I love you too,” Chris said honestly hoping that the words that had come too late, would someone help them heal. This was what he felt, this was the first time he was saying those words to anyone, and he hoped she felt his sincerity.

Instead of a warm reception to his confession, Jada shook her head and spoke through a gleaming rack of clenched teeth. “No, I don’t need you to love me back, not now anyway.”

He looked into her eyes and all he could see as nothing. But he could tell that she had made up her mind about something. But what?

“I can’t be here. I can’t keep being this person,” Jada’s eyes glistened with tears. “You are not the person that I need in my life right now.

White noise was all he heard. His brain was shutting down, protecting him from the words that she was about to say, from the fresh wave of pain that those words would cause him. Chris wanted to pull her into his arms and hold onto her so tightly that she would stay. Chris wanted her heart to beat against his so that she could understand what he felt, and that they were meant for each other. His heartbreak was like concrete drying in his chest. Not giving him any options. These were her terms, they were living her life, and he had no say in anything.

Chris wanted to fight for her, he wanted to show her that he was committed to their relationship. But he saw the weariness she wore.

Chris realized he had not seen life in her eyes, not since that night at the beach. When even though she was sad and troubled she still had a presence. The girl that danced on the beach wasn’t there anymore, not since she had come to New York. Not since death had touched her, its grip hot and menacing, her mind soaking in the grief and newfound pain. Relishing every moment, it could fill her own desire that could only be done by trespassing and taking what wasn't hers. Nina’s greed and Chris’s selfishness had robbed Jada of three lives causing great destruction one that would take a miracle to repair.

Chris realized that he could not give her back the light he had stolen from her eyes.

Finally, a flash of pain shadowed soulful dark eyes, as she said, “I’m leaving.”

How did that song go?

I had all of you, most of you, some of you and now none of you. Take me back to the night we met.