“I’ll figure something out,” I assured her. “But Ma, you look like you need about a week’s worth of sleep.”
Her laugh was dry when she stepped into the room. “If only, Jagger. If fucking only.”
Chapter 19
Shaw
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just drove you home?” I asked to break the silence as Jagger maneuvered through LA rush-hour traffic.
After everything that had happened in Aunt Emmie’s conference room, I was feeling something I rarely experienced. Shy. Those stupid girls had tried to tempt Jagger with texted nudes for months, and he hadn’t even responded to a single one of them according to that Stacy girl. Knowing he hadn’t been hooking up with any of them despite them obviously being easy lays had given me a moment of power.
He didn’t want any of those girls who were beyond hot and begging him to fuck them.
Jagger Armstrong wanted me, and only me.
Showing them all that they meant nothing to him as we’d devoured each other’s mouths had made me feel like the most beautiful person in the universe. After the hell I’d been going through since Saturday night, it was a heady feeling to have my heart stop hurting nearly as much.
But then I saw Aunt Emmie and was reminded that things were still a total fuckshow. Reminded of what else had happened over the weekend, I’d felt my stomach bottom out, and the need to go home had started to claw at me, demanding I get back as soon as possible.
“I don’t plan on leaving as soon as we get to your place,” he said with a casual shrug as he switched lanes with ease. He glanced at me before quickly turning his gaze back to the heavy traffic surrounding us. “You going to tell me what’s going on? What were you and Ma talking about? Mieke, and even Rachel, seemed to know what’s up, but I’m in the dark here, Dimples.”
A lump filled my throat, and I wrapped my arms around myself as I fought a shiver. I wasn’t cold, but the thought of what I could have lost was still enough to make me shake.
“Shaw?” Jagger’s hand caught one of mine, and he entwined our fingers. “Baby, what has put that haunted look in those beautiful eyes? I don’t like it. Please, just tell me.”
Swallowing with difficulty, I blinked back the sudden sting of tears. “Sunday, Violet told her parents—” I broke off and clenched my eyes closed. “She told them she’s been having suicidal thoughts.”
I felt the car jerk, and my eyes snapped open as Jagger pulled off to the side of the road. His face was tight and pale now. I saw him gulp in a deep breath, and then he was unbuckling his seat belt. After undoing mine, he pulled me into his lap. He was shaking just as hard as I was, and he buried his face in my neck. “Is she okay? Did she try…?”
“No,” I choked out. “She’s okay, she didn’t hurt herself, but it kills me that she’s even having those kinds of thoughts. Violet is my favorite person in the world. She’s my sister. My soul. It hurts to even think about losing her for any reason, but to imagine her taking her own life…” A sob cut me off, and I clung to Jagger as I just let go for the first time since finding out how close I’d nearly come to losing my best friend.
I felt him kiss the top of my head as he held me. His shaking slowly subsided, and eventually my throat started to feel raw. As scared as I was of Violet’s dark thoughts, it was a relief to let go with Jagger. Let everything that had been building up go. It felt different from when I’d broken down with Mom Saturday night. This time, it was more powerful, more gut-wrenching. My entire body ached from the sobs, but he was there to hold me through it, keeping me together in case my body split apart from the agony of thinking about what could have happened.
“She’s going to be okay,” he murmured as he rocked me against him. “We’ll help her through this. Nothing will happen to Vi, baby. We’ll take care of her.”
“We?” I whispered, sniffling against him.
“Yeah, we.” He kissed my temple then used his thumb to lift my head so our gazes locked. “You and me.”
“Jags, I can’t be what you want. Not now.” I looked away, afraid to see the disappointment or anger in his eyes. Just because I needed him to hold me didn’t mean I’d stopped being scared. If anything, I was even more afraid. “Maybe not ever.”
My sweet, strong Violet was thinking about ending her life to get away from the pain of losing her soul mate. If that was what happened when a guy broke a girl so thoroughly, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
He cupped the side of my face and turned me so I was once again looking into his pale blues. “That’s okay, baby. I’ll wait. For as long as you need me to. I’ll be right here beside you. Just don’t push me away. I don’t think I could survive it if you did.”
I didn’t know how to respond to any of that. It made me melt a little more that he was saying he would wait for me. But I didn’t think he really understood just how deep my fear went. It wasn’t just going to fade into nothingness overnight. Maybe not even over a decade. It took a lot to truly scare me, and right then, I was absolutely terrified of letting anyone—especially Jagger—have even a little control over my heart.
Even though I loved him, I couldn’t let him or anyone else have access to something so fucking vulnerable.
Instinct told me to push him as far away as humanly possible. Put a continent between us and try to forget about the sexy rocker who only wanted me. Yet I couldn’t tell him no. Not when I ached to have him close, even as my fear of being hurt made me quake. It was the kind of contradiction people felt that led them headfirst into a mental breakdown.
When I didn’t say anything, Jagger pressed his lips to the center of my forehead and then carefully placed me in the passenger seat. Leaning over me, he pulled my seat belt across my body and fastened it in place before putting his own back on. “Let’s go check on Violet.”
All I could do was nod, and he pulled into traffic. We were both quiet on the drive to my house. My parents weren’t home when we went inside so I could change, but since both their vehicles were in the driveway, I figured they had walked over to the Stevensons’.
I left Jagger in the kitchen with something to drink while I changed out of my school uniform into a pair of jean shorts and a white tank top. Pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I walked downstairs to find Jagger standing exactly where I’d left him. He hadn’t moved, not even to open his bottle of diet soda that I’d given him minutes before.
“I’m ready,” I said as I stopped a few feet from him.