Monk by Ivy Black

Chapter Eleven

Kasey

The first thing I become aware of is the painful sting in my hand. The second thing I notice is the utter stillness and silence in the courtyard around me. It’s as if the world has suddenly decided to hold its breath. And third, the fact that Jacob Tulowisky is standing here, right in front of me, feels like the same slap in the face I have just given him.

The sound of guffawing and chortling behind me draws my attention, and I notice a group of scruffy looking bikers leaning on each other, their faces twisted with laughter. It’s then that I realize that Jacob is dressed just like them… boots, blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and a leather vest studded with patches.

Although he looks different than the last time I saw him—he’s now harder and more rugged—I can recognize those light blue, almost silver, eyes framed by that sandy blonde hair, anywhere. They haven’t lost a single iota of their intensity.

“How dare you,” I hiss.

“Young lady there is no need—”

I round on the priest, my eyes filled with fury. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and try to temper my rage. I’m not religious, but even I know better than to be disrespectful to a priest.

“It’s okay, Father Gilson,” Jacob says. “I deserved that.”

I turn back to him, my eyes narrow, the efforts at controlling my anger failing. Jacob just stares back at me, his gaze blank, his face devoid of any emotion whatsoever. And that complete lack of anything on his face feels like a punch to my stomach. It’s difficult to breathe, and I feel like there’s a fist in my chest, grabbing and squeezing my heart.

“You deserve a whole hell of a lot more than that, you son of a bitch,” I spit.

“Miss, if you cannot control yourself, I fear I’ll have to ask you to leave church grounds,” the priest tells me.

Jacob turns to him, a tight smile on his face. “Father, would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

The priest looks from Jacob to me, then back again. I can tell he doesn’t like the idea of leaving Jacob alone with me—yeah, he’s about a foot taller and has a hundred pounds of pure muscle on me, but I’m the real threat here. But then he nods and walks away, talking to the people who are still standing around staring at us, diverting their attention, and taking their focus off of us.

Behind us, I can still hear the snickers coming from the bikers in the booth. My body is taut, and my emotions are spinning as wildly as my thoughts. There are a million different questions running through my mind, but I’m so flustered that I’m unable to put them into any sort of coherent order. And all the while, Jacob simply stands there, still and silent as a statue, with those silver-blue eyes of his focused on me.

“What in the hell are you doing back here?” I ask, simply because it’s the only thing I can think of to say.

“I live here. Came home a little while ago.”

I stare at him, expecting him to go on, to offer some sort of fucking explanation for him ghosting me all those years ago. But it becomes clear quickly that’s all I’m going to get out of him.

“That’s it? You came home? That’s all I get?”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure what you want.”

“How about you fucking tell me where you’ve been? How about you tell me why you abandoned me without a single word? No calls? No letters. I just woke up one day and you’d disappeared. Gone like you never even existed in the first place. How about you explain that to me?”

He cuts an uneasy glance to his biker buddies in the booth behind me but doesn’t say a word. This whole thing is surreal and running into the man who shattered my heart—no, my life—is most definitely not on my bingo card for when I got up this morning. As I think about what I did this morning while thinking of him, it makes my cheeks flare with the warmth of embarrassment. Thankfully, since I’m already pissed off, my cheeks are already flushed, so my shame is camouflaged.

Maybe this is my punishment for having such lewd and illicit thoughts this morning. Maybe this is my karma for the fact that he’s remained a fixture in my mind whenever I’m getting myself off all these years. God knows Spencer never satisfied me the way Jacob did. Hell, he didn’t even satisfy me the way I satisfy myself… and I need something to fixate on. But maybe this is fate’s retribution for it.

If looks could kill, Jacob would be dead ten times over. “Nothing? After what you did to me… you have nothing to say?”

“It was a long time ago,” he finally replies.

If it were physically possible, my jaw would have literally hit the ground. I stare at him in disbelief, unable to comprehend what he’s just said. My anger cuts through the maelstrom of emotions inside me. I hold fast to it, needing to focus on only that right now.

“Are you kidding me? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Kasey.”

This is pointless. Talking to him is like talking to a brick wall. I know I have to walk away and not even indulge in this screwed up trip down memory lane. It’s been more than ten years, and I have to just let it go. But there’s some sick, twisted, masochistic part of my mind that needs answers. Some piece of me that thinks I won’t ever truly be able to cut ties and move forward until I get them.

I mean, I have moved forward with my life. But Jacob has always haunted me. His memory has always floated around in the back of my mind simply because I never knew where he went when he left. Or why he even went.

“How about you start with where you went when you disappeared?” I press.

“I enlisted. Did my training at Fort Benning in Georgia. After that, I spent some years in Afghanistan.”

He falls silent after that, looking at me like he’s the goddamn Sphinx, or one of those statues on Easter Island… totally inscrutable and completely mysterious, giving away nothing at all. I’m not a violent person, but it makes me want to hit him. Punch him. Kick him. Wrap my hands around his throat and choke the answers, if not the life, out of him.

My mind is telling me to just walk away. To forget this—and to forget him—and just walk the hell away. But my heart is telling me something else entirely. It’s longed for answers for so long, and frankly, I’ve never thought I’ll come face to face with him again. I’ve never even expected to have the opportunity to ask him any of my questions or say anything I’ve always wanted to say to him. And I want to kick my own butt because now that I’m here, now that I have the chance, I can’t get everything I want to say out of my mouth.

“And you just decided to vanish? Not so much as a phone call? Nothing?”

He sighs and looks down at the grass beneath his boots that are scuffed and look well lived in. There are a myriad of emotions scrolling across his face that I can’t interpret, and before I can, he smooths out his features again. He looks at me with that same blank, dead-eyed stare he had before.

“So that’s it? Not going to explain yourself? Not going to give me any sort of a reason you blew up my life?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But you know what I was dealing with back then. It wasn’t an easy time for me, and I just needed to get away.”

“So, you ran away and joined the military.”

He pauses for a moment, then nods. “Yeah. I did.”

I stand there, scowling at him for a long moment and he just looks back at me with all the expression of a stone. It’s so hard for me to believe that once upon a time, when I looked into those eyes, I saw nothing but the love he felt for me. A genuinely deep and abiding love. And now, all I see is nothingness.

But I guess that was then, and this is now. It was so long ago, and it shouldn’t bother me. I’d be lying if I said now that the shock of seeing him has worn off, but all I feel is hurt. I’m surprised to find that wound is still open and so raw.

“Well… it was great seeing you again,” I snap. “It was really nice catching up with you.”

I turn on my heel and walk away without waiting for him to respond. Not that I think he will. He seems to have mastered the art of saying nothing since the last time I saw him. Walking out to the parking lot, I climb into my car and drive away quickly, nearly running over half a dozen people before I get myself under control.

And when I get onto the road, it’s not long before the tears start to fall. This is not what I’ve planned on today. Not even close to it.