Southern Storms (Compass 1)

“Amanda?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “What the hell does Amanda have to do with anything? What did she say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is she was right. You deserve someone who isn’t as broken as me.”

“You’re talking crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “You just had a panic attack—it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yes, it is. Don’t you see, Jax? I’m broken. I’m damaged goods, and you’ve already fixed yourself. You don’t deserve to have to deal with my broken pieces after you’ve been through so much on your own.”

“Tell me your truths, and I’ll stay,” he swore. “Whatever they are, Kennedy, I’m not afraid. I’m here.”

I lowered my head and wiped the tears that stubbornly kept falling. “Some days, I can hardly look at myself in the mirror without feeling the heaviness of my past mistakes.”

He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and narrowed his eyes as he studied every inch of me. “I know how that feels.”

“But you’re better off in your healing. You did the work to get better. I feel like I take one step forward and five backward.”

“There’s no straight path, Kennedy. Healing isn’t linear. Healing comes with curves, bumps in the road, and potholes. I still have days when I think about my mother and want to stay in bed forever. I still have weeks when my body aches from the memories of the past, but I know those days are part of healing. Eddie once told me that we can’t heal if we are too afraid to honor our shadows, too. Even the sun gets covered by clouds some days. That doesn’t take away from the light it gives off.”

My lips parted, and I didn’t know what to say. My chest was still so tight, and my hands were shaky.

“Let me hold you,” he said, nodding my way. “Please?”

I nodded.

We headed into the house, and I changed out of my wet clothes. I gave Jax a pair of my oversized sweatpants, and he slipped into them, remaining shirtless.

We crawled into bed, and he wrapped his arms tightly around me as I allowed myself to break. He didn’t tell me to hurry. He didn’t say there was a time limit on suffering. He just allowed me to feel everything, all at once, and I realized how necessary that was for me. I needed to fall apart, and he was there to catch my broken pieces.

* * *

“I have this fear,” I confessed, staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom. I’d spent a good amount of time crying against Jax’s chest and was finally coming back down to Earth with my emotions. “That I’m too hard for anyone to love. That my brokenness is a turn-off to the world. That my trauma broke me into too many unlovable pieces.”

Jax was quiet for a moment. It was as if he was trying to form the words in the perfect way to make me understand his thoughts. When he spoke, I was listening with every ounce of my being.

“I’ve never been in love,” he said. “I’ve never been in love, have never known how it works, but I’m trying to understand it more. I’m trying to learn all I can about it. What I’ve learned so far is when I think about love, I think about you.”

My lips parted as chills raced over my body. “Jax…”

“I love your broken pieces, because it shows that you’ve lived. It shows that you are brave enough to give yourself to the world, no matter how hard it can be at times.” He looked into my eyes. “I love you, Kennedy. I love you in a way that’s bigger than love. I love your sun rays and your moon shadows, and I am going to keep loving you and your broken pieces until you feel my love so strongly you forget your heart has any damaged cracks. Then, I’m going to love you more.”

His words healed parts of me I hadn’t even known were broken. My lips danced across his, and I kissed him ever so lightly. “I love you, too.”

“One day, you’re going to get past this, Kennedy. One day, you’re going to be able to walk outside and dance in the rain like you did when you were younger, and I’ll be dancing right there with you. But you don’t have to rush it, okay? You are allowed to go slow. There’s no timeline to healing. You walk at the pace that works for you, and I’ll carry you when your legs get tired. You don’t have to walk this path alone.”

That night, the storm outside raged on, but for the first time in a long time, because I was in Jax’s arms, I was able to fall asleep.

* * *

When I woke up the next day, the sun was streaming through the windows. I rolled over in bed to see that Jax was gone. Sitting up quickly, I reached for my phone, and it was already past eleven in the morning. I had crashed a lot harder than I had thought.